“Is there no one of you,” said Sharpitlaw, impatiently, “that knows the way to this accursed place—this Nichol Muschat’s Cairn—excepting this mad clavering idiot?”
“Deil ane o’ them kens it except mysell,” exclaimed Madge; “how suld they, the puir fule cowards! But I hae sat on the grave frae batfleeing time till cook-crow, and had mony a fine crack wi’ Muschat and Ailie Muschat, that are lying sleeping below.”
“The devil take your crazy brain,” said Sharpitlaw; “will you not allow the men to answer a question?”
The officers obtaining a moment’s audience while Ratcliffe diverted Madge’s attention, declared that, though they had a general knowledge of the spot, they could not undertake to guide the party to it by the uncertain light of the moon, with such accuracy as to insure success to their expedition.
“What shall we do, Ratcliffe?” said Sharpitlaw, “if he sees us before we see him,—and that’s what he is certain to do, if we go strolling about, without keeping the straight road,—we may bid gude day to the job, and I would rather lose one hundred pounds, baith for the credit of the police, and because the provost says somebody maun be hanged for this job o’ Porteous, come o’t what likes.”
“I think,” said Ratcliffe, “we maun just try Madge; and I’ll see if I can get her keepit in ony better order. And at ony rate, if he suld hear her skirting her auld ends o’ sangs, he’s no to ken for that that there’s onybody wi’ her.”
“That’s true,” said Sharpitlaw; “and if he thinks her alone, he’s as like to come towards her as to rin frae her. So set forward—we hae lost ower muckle time already—see to get her to keep the right road.”
“And what sort o’ house does Nichol Muschat and his wife keep now?” said Ratcliffe to the mad woman, by way of humouring her vein of folly; “they were but thrawn folk lang syne, an a’ tales be true.”
“Ou, ay, ay, ay—but a’s forgotten now,” replied Madge, in the confidential tone of a gossip giving the history of her next-door neighbour—“Ye see, I spoke to them mysell, and tauld them byganes suld be byganes—her throat’s sair misguggled and mashackered though; she wears her corpse-sheet drawn weel up to hide it, but that canna hinder the bluid seiping through, ye ken. I wussed her to wash it in St. Anthony’s Well, and that will cleanse if onything can—But they say bluid never bleaches out o’ linen claith—Deacon Sanders’s new cleansing draps winna do’t—I tried them mysell on a bit rag we hae at hame that was mailed wi’ the bluid of a bit skirting wean that was hurt some gate, but out it winna come—Weel, yell say that’s queer; but I will bring it out to St. Anthony’s blessed Well some braw night just like this, and I’ll cry up Ailie Muschat, and she and I will hae a grand bouking-washing, and bleach our claes in the beams of the bonny Lady Moon, that’s far pleasanter to me than the sun—the sun’s ower het, and ken ye, cummers, my brains are het eneugh already. But the moon, and the dew, and the night-wind, they are just like a caller kail-blade laid on my brow; and whiles I think the moon just shines on purpose to pleasure me, when naebody sees her but mysell.”
This raving discourse she continued with prodigious volubility, walking on at a great pace, and dragging Ratcliffe along with her, while he endeavoured, in appearance at least, if not in reality, to induce her to moderate her voice.