——'without a' the little helps of art
Thy native sweets might gain a prince's heart,
Yet now, lest in our station we offend,
We must learn modes to innocence unken'd.'
The scene closes with Peggy's vows of fidelity. In this scene Ramsay touched the high-water mark of his genius, and for the elements of simplicity, strength, and propriety of the sentiments expressed by each character with the root-idea of that character, it is rivalled by very few scenes of its kind in the literature of our land.
The first scene of the last Act opens with Bauldy's fright. He had gone to fulfil his engagement to meet Mause, the pretended witch, who was to turn Peggy's heart to him. But as he had insulted Madge, Peggy's aunt, in the fore part of the day, the latter, to punish him by taking advantage of his dread of ghosts, meets him at the dead hour of the night when he is repairing to Mause's cottage. She is draped in a white sheet, and utters ghastly groans. Bauldy, having sunk terror-stricken to the ground, is soundly cuffed and trounced by the two women. As soon, therefore, as daylight breaks, he seeks an interview with Sir William to entreat redress. The latter, who had been passing the night in Symon's house, enters fully into the spirit of the joke, and orders Mause to be brought before him.
The second scene exhibits Glaud's 'onstead' again, and the family preparing to go down to Symon's to take their leave of Patie. Peggy is very sad,—so much so that her sharp-tongued aunt cannot refrain from jeering at it—
'Poor Meg!—Look, Jenny, was the like e'er seen?
How bleared and red wi' greetin' look her een!
This day her brankan wooer taks his horse
To strut a gentle spark at Edinburgh Cross.
But Meg, poor Meg! maun wi' the shepherds stay,
And tak what God will send in hodden gray.'
To this ill-timed speech Peggy makes a pathetic reply, that must have caused a pang of remorse to her aunt. But when Glaud ventures to warn her against being too free with Patie, seeing he could not marry her now, she replies with gentle reproach—
'Sir William's virtuous, and of gentle blood;
And may not Patrick too, like him, be good?'
Glaud's answer exhibits the simple faith of the rural inhabitants of the district in a striking light—
'That's true and mony gentry mae than he,
As they are wiser, better are than we;
But thinner sawn: they're sae pufft up wi' pride,
There's mony o' them mocks ilk haly guide
That shows the gate to heav'n. I've heard mysel
Some of them laugh at doomsday, sin, and hell.'
The last scene of the pastoral contains the dénouement. With great artistic skill, so as to avoid wearying the reader, Ramsay only represents the delivering of the verdict upon Bauldy's appeal against Mause, the result being that the former was informed he only got what he deserved. At this moment, however, Madge, Peggy, and Jenny enter the room where Sir William was sitting. On Peggy Sir Williams gazes with interest, but presently starts with surprise. Her features are those of his long-dead sister. Eagerly he inquires from Glaud if she be his daughter. Glaud, after some hesitation, declares her to be a foundling. At this juncture, however, old Mause steps forward and unravels the tangled skein. She first calls on Sir William to say if he does not recall her features as his own old nurse. Sir William joyfully recognises her, and then she relates how she had brought Peggy as a babe thither, to save its life from those who had usurped its rights after his sister's death. She declares that Peggy is indeed his own niece, and Patie's full cousin.