“Out, ye mad devil!” said Tom, whom she had disturbed in the middle of a draught of some liquor with which he had found means of accommodating himself; “betwixt your Bess of Bedlam pranks, and your dam’s frenzies, a man might live quieter in the devil’s ken than here.”—And he again resumed the broken jug out of which he had been drinking.
“And wha’s this o’t?” said the mad woman, dancing up to Jeanie Deans, who, although in great terror, yet watched the scene with a resolution to let nothing pass unnoticed which might be serviceable in assisting her to escape, or informing her as to the true nature of her situation, and the danger attending it,—“Wha’s this o’t?” again exclaimed Madge Wildfire.
“Douce Davie Deans, the auld doited whig body’s daughter, in a gipsy’s barn, and the night setting in? This is a sight for sair een!—Eh, sirs, the falling off o’ the godly!—and the t’other sister’s in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh; I am very sorry for her, for my share—it’s my mother wusses ill to her, and no me—though maybe I hae as muckle cause.”
“Hark ye, Madge,” said the taller ruffian, “you have not such a touch of the devil’s blood as the hag your mother, who may be his dam for what I know—take this young woman to your kennel, and do not let the devil enter, though he should ask in God’s name.”
“Ou ay; that I will, Frank,” said Madge, taking hold of Jeanie by the arm, and pulling her along; “for it’s no for decent Christian young leddies, like her and me, to be keeping the like o’ you and Tyburn Tam company at this time o’ night. Sae gude-e’en t’ye, sirs, and mony o’ them; and may ye a’ sleep till the hangman wauken ye, and then it will be weel for the country.”
She then, as her wild fancy seemed suddenly to prompt her, walked demurely towards her mother, who, seated by the charcoal fire, with the reflection of the red light on her withered and distorted features marked by every evil passion, seemed the very picture of Hecate at her infernal rites; and, suddenly dropping on her knees, said, with the manner of a six years’ old child, “Mammie, hear me say my prayers before I go to bed, and say God bless my bonny face, as ye used to do lang syne.”
“The deil flay the hide o’ it to sole his brogues wi’!” said the old lady, aiming a buffet at the supplicant, in answer to her duteous request.
The blow missed Madge, who, being probably acquainted by experience with the mode in which her mother was wont to confer her maternal benedictions, slipt out of arm’s length with great dexterity and quickness. The hag then started up, and, seizing a pair of old fire-tongs, would have amended her motion, by beating out the brains either of her daughter or Jeanie (she did not seem greatly to care which), when her hand was once more arrested by the man whom they called Frank Levitt, who, seizing her by the shoulder, flung her from him with great violence, exclaiming, “What, Mother Damnable—again, and in my sovereign presence!—Hark ye, Madge of Bedlam! get to your hole with your playfellow, or we shall have the devil to pay here, and nothing to pay him with.”
Madge took Levitt’s advice, retreating as fast as she could, and dragging Jeanie along with her into a sort of recess, partitioned off from the rest of the barn, and filled with straw, from which it appeared that it was intended for the purpose of slumber. The moonlight shone, through an open hole, upon a pillion, a pack-saddle, and one or two wallets, the travelling furniture of Madge and her amiable mother.—“Now, saw ye e’er in your life,” said Madge, “sae dainty a chamber of deas? see as the moon shines down sae caller on the fresh strae! There’s no a pleasanter cell in Bedlam, for as braw a place as it is on the outside.—Were ye ever in Bedlam?”
“No,” answered Jeanie faintly, appalled by the question, and the way in which it was put, yet willing to soothe her insane companion, being in circumstances so unhappily precarious, that even the society of this gibbering madwoman seemed a species of protection.