The men retired round the church, and with joy Richard heard next minute the rattling of the keys as they were taken from the sexton’s closet. In another minute he heard the door of his dungeon tried; it opened readily; and with a start, as if they thought it best at once to rush upon their danger, his two deliverers, whom he recognised to be of his native village, advanced a little into the aisle, the foremost bearing the light, which he held forward and aloft, looking below it into the interior, to be aware for what sort of captive they had opened. No sooner did Sinclair stand disclosed to them, naked as he was to the shirt—for he had not yet got on his clothes—than the sternmost man, with something between a yell and a groan, bended on his knees, whilst his hair bristled in the extremity of his terror, and catching hold of his companion’s limbs, he looked through betwixt them upon the naked spirit of the aisle. The foremost man lowered the light by inches, and cried aloud,—
“Fear-fa’ me! take haud o’ me, Geordie Heart! It’s the yellow dead rising from their graves. Eh! there’s the lightning! and is yon no an auld crooked man i’ the corner?”
“Will Balmer! Will Balmer! whaur are ye?” cried the other, from between Will’s very knees, which, knocking upon the prostrate man’s cheeks, made him chatter and quiver in his wild outcry.
“Oh! there’s the lightning again! Gin we could but meet wife and bairns ance mair!” ejaculated the foremost man.
“Lord have mercy on my widow and sma’ family!” echoed the sternmost.
“Tout! it’s but the laird’s drucken mulatto after a’!” said the former, gathering a little confidence.
“Oh, if it were! or but a man wi’ the jaundice, our days might be lengthened,” cried the latter.
Richard advanced to explain; but at that moment the dull firmament in the east, which had been lightning from time to time (as often happens previously to very rainy weather), opened with another sheeted blaze of white fire, the reflection of which on Richard’s yellow face, as he came forward, seemed to the terrified rustics a peculiar attribute of his nature. With a groan, he in the van tried a backward retreat; but being straitened in the legs, he tumbled over his squatted companion. Leaving his neighbour, however, to sit still upon his knees, he that was the foremost man gathered himself up so well, that he crept away on his hands and feet, till, getting right below the bell-rope at the end of the church, he ventured to rise and begin to jow it, making the bell toll at an unusual rate. The inmates of the manse were immediately alarmed; and first came the minister’s man, who demanded the meaning of such ill-timed, ringing.
“Oh! Tam Jaffray! Tam Jaffray! sic a night’s in this kirkyard! If sae be it’s ordeened that I may ring an’ live, I’ll haud to the tow. Oh! Tam Jaffray! Tam Jaffray! what’s become o’ puir Geordie Heart? If the Wandering Jew o’ Jerusalem, or the Yellow Fever frae Jamaica, is no dancing mother-naked in the aisle, then it behoves to be the dead rising frae their graves. I trust we’ll a’ be found prepared! Rin for a lantern, Tam.—Eh! look to that lightning!”
A light was soon brought from the manse; and a number of people from the village having joined the original alarmists, a considerable muster advanced to the aisle door just as Sinclair was stepping from it. Taking the light from one of the countrymen, he returned to the relief of the poor villager, who was still upon his knees, and who, with great difficulty, was brought to comprehend an explanation of the whole affair. The crowd made way as Sinclair proceeded to leave the graveyard; but whether it was that they were indignant because the neighbourhood had been so much disturbed, or whether they considered that proper game was afoot for sportive insolence, they began to follow and shout after him—