Gray, Lawford, and Moncada, retired to the parlour
accordingly, where they waited in silence, each busied
with his own reflections, till, within the space of
half an hour, they received information that the lady
was ready to depart.
“It is well,” replied Moncada; “I
am glad she has yet sense enough left to submit to
that which needs must be.”
So saying, he ascended the stair, and returned leading
down his daughter, now again masked and veiled.
As she passed Gray, she uttered the words—“My
child, my child!” in a tone of unutterable anguish;
then entered the carriage, which was drawn up as close
to the door of the doctor’s house as the little
enclosure would permit. The messenger, mounted
on a led horse, and accompanied by a servant and assistant,
followed the carriage, which drove rapidly off, taking
the road which leads to Edinburgh. All who had
witnessed this strange scene, now departed to make
their conjectures, and some to count their gains; for
money had been distributed among the females who had
attended on the lady, with so much liberality, as
considerably to reconcile them to the breach of the
rights of womanhood inflicted by the precipitate removal
of the patient.
The last cloud of dust which the wheels of the carriage
had raised was dissipated, when dinner, which claims
a share of human thoughts even in the midst of the
most marvellous and affecting incidents, recurred to
those of Mrs. Gray.
“Indeed, Doctor, you will stand glowering out
of the window till some other patient calls for you,
and then have to set off without your dinner;—and
I hope Mr. Lawford will take pot-luck with us, for
it is just his own hour; and indeed we had something
rather better than ordinary for this poor lady—lamb
and spinage, and a veal Florentine.”
The surgeon started as from a dream, and joined in
his wife’s hospitable request, to which Lawford
willingly assented.
We will suppose the meal finished, a bottle of old
and generous Antigua upon the table, and a modest
little punch-bowl, judiciously replenished for the
accommodation of the Doctor and his guest. Their
conversation naturally turned on the strange scene
which they had witnessed, and the Townclerk took considerable
merit for his presence of mind.
“I am thinking, Doctor,” said he, “you
might have brewed a bitter browst to yourself if I
had not come in as I did.”
“Troth, and it might very well so be,”
answered Gray; “for, to tell you the truth,
when I saw yonder fellow vapouring with his pistols
among the woman-folk in my own house, the old Cameronian
spirit began to rise in me, and little thing would
have made me cleek to the poker.”
“Hoot, hoot! that would never have done.
Na, na,” said the man of law, “this was
a case where a little prudence was worth all the pistols
and pokers in the world.”
“And that was just what I thought when I sent
to you, Clerk Lawford,” said the Doctor.
