terest, whatever it was, that determined her in his favour arose not
from the impulse of compassion, but from some internal, and probably
capricious, association of feelings, to which he had no clue. It rested,
perhaps, on a fancied likeness, such as Lady Macbeth found to her father
in the sleeping monarch. Such were the reflections that passed in rapid
succession through Brown's mind as he gazed from his hiding-place upon
this extraordinary personage. Meantime the gang did not yet approach, and
he was almost prompted to resume his original intention of attempting an
escape from the hut, and cursed internally his own irresolution, which
had consented to his being cooped up where he had neither room for
resistance nor flight.

Meg Merrilies seemed equally on the watch. She bent her ear to every
sound that whistled round the old walls. Then she turned again to the
dead body, and found something new to arrange or alter in its position.
'He's a bonny corpse,' she muttered to herself, 'and weel worth the
streaking.' And in this dismal occupation she appeared to feel a sort of
professional pleasure, entering slowly into all the minutiae, as if with
the skill and feelings of a connoisseur. A long, dark-coloured sea-cloak,
which she dragged out of a corner, was disposed for a pall. The face she
left bare, after closing the mouth and eyes, and arranged the capes of
the cloak so as to hide the bloody bandages, and give the body, as she
muttered, 'a mair decent appearance.'

At once three or four men, equally ruffians in appearance and dress,
rushed into the hut. 'Meg, ye limb of Satan, how dare you leave the door
open?' was the first salutation of the party.

'And wha ever heard of a door being barred when a man was in the
dead-thraw? how d'ye think the spirit was to get awa through bolts and
bars like thae?'

'Is he dead, then?' said one who went to the side of the couch to look at
the body.

'Ay, ay, dead enough,' said another; 'but here's what shall give him a
rousing lykewake.' So saying, he fetched a keg of spirits from a corner,
while Meg hastened to display pipes and tobacco. From the activity with
which she undertook the task, Brown conceived good hope of her fidelity
towards her guest. It was obvious that she wished to engage the ruffians
in their debauch, to prevent the discovery which might take place if by
accident any of them should approach too nearly the place of Brown's
concealment.

CHAPTER XXVI