but if
you refuse to hear me, I tell you, that you may be a ghastly livid
corpse before the morning."

"Rebecca, Rebecca!" cried the old man, "Rebecca, I say, speak to her,"
and his voice faltered, the accents becoming puling.

"Hear her not," said the dame, "she is a deceiver, she is come to get
money out of you."

"And heaven knows," cried Mr. Salmon, "that she is then coming to gather
fruit from a barren tree. Money, indeed! and where am I to find money,
even for her,--though she come in such a guise, as would wring the last
drop of the heart's blood?"

"Tush!" said Rebecca, "you are rambling and dreaming again;" but the old
man heard her not, he had left the lattice, and in a few seconds he
appeared within the passage. During this interval, Rebecca had not been
quiet, for she had seized the arm of Tamar, and the young girl had
shaken her off with some difficulty, and not without saying, "Your
unwillingness to permit me to speak to your master, old woman, goes
against you, but it shall not avail you, speak to him I will," and the
contest between Tamar and the old woman was still proceeding, when
Salmon appeared in the passage.

Tamar instantly sprang to meet him, and seeing that his step was feeble
and tottering, she supported him to a chair, in a small parlour which
opened into the passage, and there, standing in the midst of the floor
between him and Rebecca, she told her errand; nor was she interrupted
until she had told all, the old man looking as if her recital had turned
him into stone, and the old woman expressing a degree of terror, which
at least cleared her in Tamar's mind, of the guilt of being connected
with the thieves of the secret passage.

As soon as the young girl had finished, the old miser broke out in the
most bitter and helpless lamentations. "My jewels!--my silver!--my
moneys!" he exclaimed, "Oh my moneys!--my moneys! Tell me, tell me
damsel, what I can do? Call Jacob. Where is Jacob? Oh, my
moneys!--my jewels!"

"Peace, good sir! peace!" said Tamar, "we will befriend you, we will
assist you, we will protect you; the Laird is an honourable man, he will
protect you. I have known him long, long,--since I was a baby; and he
would perish before he would wrong any one, or see another wronged."

"The Laird did you say," asked Salmon, "your father; he is your father
damsel is he not?"

"I have no other," replied Tamar, "I never knew another. Why do you ask
me?"

"Because," said Rebecca, "