“Good Heaven!” said Evandale, as he paced the room, half mad himself with surprise and vexation, “her fine understanding must be totally overthrown, and that by the effort which she has made to comply with my ill-timed, though well-meant, request. Without rest and attention her health is ruined for ever.”
At this moment the door opened, and Halliday, who had been Lord Evandale’s principal personal attendant since they both left the Guards on the Revolution, stumbled into the room with a countenance as pale and ghastly as terror could paint it.
“What is the matter next, Halliday?” cried his master, starting up. “Any discovery of the—”
He had just recollection sufficient to stop short in the midst of the dangerous sentence.
“No, sir,” said Halliday, “it is not that, nor anything like that; but I have seen a ghost!”
“A ghost, you eternal idiot!” said Lord Evandale, forced altogether out of his patience. “Has all mankind sworn to go mad in order to drive me so? What ghost, you simpleton?”
“The ghost of Henry Morton, the Whig captain at Bothwell Bridge,” replied Halliday. “He passed by me like a fire-flaught when I was in the garden!”
“This is midsummer madness,” said Lord Evandale, “or there is some strange villainy afloat. Jenny, attend your lady to her chamber, while I endeavour to find a clue to all this.”
But Lord Evandale’s inquiries were in vain. Jenny, who might have given (had she chosen) a very satisfactory explanation, had an interest to leave the matter in darkness; and interest was a matter which now weighed principally with Jenny, since the possession of an active and affectionate husband in her own proper right had altogether allayed her spirit of coquetry. She had made the best use of the first moments of confusion hastily to remove all traces of any one having slept in the apartment adjoining to the parlour, and even to erase the mark of footsteps beneath the window, through which she conjectured Morton’s face had been seen, while attempting, ere he left the garden, to gain one look at her whom he had so long loved, and was now on the point of losing for ever. That he had passed Halliday in the garden was equally clear; and she learned from her elder boy, whom she had employed to have the stranger’s horse saddled and ready for his departure, that he had rushed into the stable, thrown the child a broad gold piece, and, mounting his horse, had ridden with fearful rapidity down towards the Clyde. The secret was, therefore, in their own family, and Jenny was resolved it should remain so.
“For, to be sure,” she said, “although her lady and Halliday kend Mr. Morton by broad daylight, that was nae reason I suld own to kenning him in the gloaming and by candlelight, and him keeping his face frae Cuddie and me a’ the time.”