"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 table.--Why do you
tremble? But you have too good cause.--Let it stand--I need it not."
Jeanie, however reluctant, approached him with the cup into which she had
poured the draught, and could not forbear saying, "There is a cordial for
the mind, sir, if the wicked will turn from their transgressions, and
seek to the Physician of souls."
"Silence!" he said sternly--"and yet I thank you. But tell me, and lose
no time in doing so, what you are doing in this country? Remember, though
I have been your sister's worst enemy, yet I will serve her with the best
of my blood, and I will serve you for her sake; and no one can serve you
to such purpose, for no one can know the circumstances so well--so speak
without fear.
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