y Tummas, the footman
said nothing till he got into the passage, when he muttered, "There are
moe masters than one in this house, and I think we shall have a mistress
too, an Dame Dalton carries it thus."

Tummas led the way through a more intricate range of passages than Jeanie
had yet threaded, and ushered her into an apartment which was darkened by
the closing of most of the window-shutters, and in which was a bed with
the curtains partly drawn.

"Here is the young woman, sir," said Tummas.

"Very well," said a voice from the bed, but not that of his Reverence;
"be ready to answer the bell, and leave the room."

"There is some mistake," said Jeanie, confounded at finding herself in
the apartment of an invalid; "the servant told me that the minister"

"Don't trouble yourself," said the invalid, "there is no mistake. I know
more of your affairs than my father, and I can manage them better.--Leave
the room, Tom." The servant obeyed.--"We must not," said the invalid,
"lose time, when we have little to lose. Open the shutters of that
window."

She did so, and as he drew aside the curtain of his bed, the light fell
on his pale countenance, as, turban'd with bandages, and dressed in a
night-gown, he lay, seemingly exhausted, upon the bed.

"Look at me," he said, "Jeanie Deans; can you not recollect me?"

"No, sir," said she, full of surprise. "I was never in this country
before."

"But I may have been in yours. Think--recollect. I should faint did I
name the name you are most dearly bound to loathe and to detest.
Think--remember!"

A terrible recollection flashed on Jeanie, which every tone of the
speaker confirmed, and which his next words rendered certainty.

"Be composed--remember Muschat's Cairn, and the moonlight night!"

Jeanie sunk down on a chair with clasped hands, and gasped in agony.

"Yes, here I lie," he said, "like a crushed snake, writhing with
impatience at my incapacity of motion--here I lie, when I ought to have
been in Edinburgh, trying every means to save a life that is dearer to me
than my own.--How is your sister?--how fares it with her?--condemned to
death, I know it, by this time! O, the horse that carried me safely on a
thousand errands of folly and wickedness, that he should have broke down
with me on the only good mission I have undertaken for years! But I must
rein in my passion--my frame cannot endure it, and I have much to say.
Give me some of the cordial which stands on that tab