'Roon the en' o' that kist there.I s' luik into the press.'
As Betty rose from her search behind the chest and turned towards her mistress, her eyes crossed the cavernous opening of the bed.
There, to her horror, she beheld a face like that of a galvanised corpse staring at her from the darkness.Shargar was in a sitting posture, paralysed with terror, waiting, like a fascinated bird, till Mrs.Falconer and Betty should make the final spring upon him, and do whatever was equivalent to devouring him upon the spot.He had sat up to listen to the noise of their ascending footsteps, and fear had so overmastered him, that he either could not, or forgot that he could lie down and cover his head with some of the many garments scattered around him.
'I didna say whusky, did I?' he kept repeating to himself, in utter imbecility of fear.
'The Lord preserve 's!' exclaimed Betty, the moment she could speak;for during the first few seconds, having caught the infection of Shargar's expression, she stood equally paralysed.'The Lord preserve 's!' she repeated.
'Ance is eneuch,' said Mrs.Falconer, sharply, turning round to see what the cause of Betty's ejaculation might be.
I have said that she was dim-sighted.The candle they had was little better than a penny dip.The bed was darker than the rest of the room.Shargar's face had none of the more distinctive characteristics of manhood upon it.
'Gude preserve 's!' exclaimed Mrs.Falconer in her turn: 'it's a wumman.'
Poor deluded Shargar, thinking himself safer under any form than that which he actually bore, attempted no protest against the mistake.But, indeed, he was incapable of speech.The two women flew upon him to drag him out of bed.Then first recovering his powers of motion, he sprung up in an agony of terror, and darted out between them, overturning Betty in his course.
'Ye rouch limmer!' cried Betty, from the floor.'Ye lang-leggit jaud!' she added, as she rose--and at the same moment Shargar banged the street-door behind him in his terror--'I wat ye dinna carry yer coats ower syde (too long)!'
For Shargar, having discovered that the way to get the most warmth from Robert's great-grandfather's kilt was to wear it in the manner for which it had been fabricated, was in the habit of fastening it round his waist before he got into bed; and the eye of Betty, as she fell, had caught the swing of this portion of his attire.
But poor Mrs.Falconer, with sunken head, walked out of the garret in the silence of despair.She went slowly down the steep stair, supporting herself against the wall, her round-toed shoes creaking solemnly as she went, took refuge in the ga'le-room, and burst into a violent fit of weeping.For such depravity she was not prepared.
What a terrible curse hung over her family! Surely they were all reprobate from the womb, not one elected for salvation from the guilt of Adam's fall, and therefore abandoned to Satan as his natural prey, to be led captive of him at his will.She threw herself on her knees at the side of the bed, and prayed heart-brokenly.Betty heard her as she limped past the door on her way back to her kitchen.
Meantime Shargar had rushed across the next street on his bare feet into the Crookit Wynd, terrifying poor old Kirstan Peerie, the divisions betwixt the compartments of whose memory had broken down, into the exclamation to her next neighbour, Tam Rhin, with whom she was trying to gossip:
'Eh, Tammas! that'll be ane o' the slauchtert at Culloden.'
He never stopped till he reached his mother's deserted abode--strange instinct! There he ran to earth like a hunted fox.
Rushing at the door, forgetful of everything but refuge, he found it unlocked, and closing it behind him, stood panting like the hart that has found the water-brooks.The owner had looked in one day to see whether the place was worth repairing, for it was a mere outhouse, and had forgotten to turn the key when he left it.Poor Shargar! Was it more or less of a refuge that the mother that bore him was not there either to curse or welcome his return? Less--if we may judge from a remark he once made in my hearing many long years after:
'For, ye see,' he said, 'a mither's a mither, be she the verra de'il.'
Searching about in the dark, he found the one article unsold by the landlord, a stool, with but two of its natural three legs.On this he balanced himself and waited--simply for what Robert would do; for his faith in Robert was unbounded, and he had no other hope on earth.But Shargar was not miserable.In that wretched hovel, his bare feet clasping the clay floor in constant search of a wavering equilibrium, with pitch darkness around him, and incapable of the ******st philosophical or religious reflection, he yet found life good.For it had interest.Nay, more, it had hope.I doubt, however, whether there is any interest at all without hope.
While he sat there, Robert, thinking him snug in the garret, was walking quietly home from the shoemaker's; and his first impulse on entering was to run up and recount the particulars of his interview with Alexander.Arrived in the dark garret, he called Shargar, as usual, in a whisper--received no reply--thought he was asleep--called louder (for he had had a penny from his grandmother that day for bringing home two pails of water for Betty, and had just spent it upon a loaf for him)--but no Shargar replied.
Thereupon he went to the bed to lay hold of him and shake him.But his searching hands found no Shargar.Becoming alarmed, he ran down-stairs to beg a light from Betty.