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a' your wyte, Miss Jeanie Deans; but I'll be upsides wi' you, as sure as my name's Madge Wildfire--I mean Murdockson--God help me, I forget my very name in this confused waste!" So saying, she turned upon her heel, and went off, followed by all the mischievous imps of the village, some crying, "Madge, canst thou tell thy name yet?" some pulling the skirts of her dress, and all, to the best of their strength and ingenuity, exercising some new device or other to exasperate her into frenzy. Jeanie saw her departure with infinite delight, though she wished that, in some way or other, she could have requited the service Madge had conferred upon her. In the meantime, she applied to the beadle to know whether "there was any house in the village where she could be civilly entertained for her money, and whether she could be permitted to speak to the clergyman?" "Ay, ay, we'se ha' reverend care on thee; and I think," answered the man of constituted authority, "that, unless thou answer the Rector all the better, we'se spare thy money, and gie thee lodging at the parish charge, young woman." "Where am I to go then?" said Jeanie, in some alarm. "Why, I am to take thee to his Reverence, in the first place, to gie an account o' thysell, and to see thou comena to be a burden upon the parish." "I do not wish to burden anyone," replied Jeanie; "I have enough for my own wants, and only wish to get on my journey safely." "Why, that's another matter," replied the beadle, "and if it be true--and I think thou dost not look so polrumptious as thy playfellow yonder--Thou wouldst be a mettle lass enow, an thou wert snog and snod a bid better. Come thou away, then--the Rector is a good man." "Is that the minister," said Jeanie, "who preached" "The minister? Lord help thee! What kind o' Presbyterian art thou?--Why, 'tis the Rector--the Rector's sell, woman, and there isna the like o' him in the county, nor the four next to it. Come away--away with thee--we maunna bide here." "I am sure I am very willing to go to see the minister," said Jeanie; "for though he read his discourse, and wore that surplice, as they call it here, I canna but think he must be a very worthy God-fearing man, to preach the root of the matter in the way he did." The disappointed rabble, finding that there was like to be no farther sport, had by this time dispersed, and Jeanie, with her usual patience, followed her consequential and surly, but not br
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