“Eh, guide us!” interrupted the maid, “our young leddy at the feet o’ Trooper Tam, and speaking to him about his soul, when the puir chield hardly kens whether he has ane or no, unless that he whiles swears by it--that will never do; but what maun be maun be, and I’ll never desert a true-love cause--And sae, if ye maun see young Milnwood, though I ken nae gude it will do, but to make baith your hearts the sairer, I’ll e’en tak the risk o’t, and try to manage Tam Halliday; but ye maun let me hae my ain gate and no speak ae word--he’s keeping guard o’er Milnwood in the easter round of the tower.” “Go, go, fetch me a plaid,” said Edith. “Let me but see him, and I will find some remedy for his danger--Haste ye, Jenny, as ever ye hope to have good at my hands.” Jenny hastened, and soon returned with a plaid, in which Edith muffled herself so as completely to screen her face, and in part to disguise her person. This was a mode of arranging the plaid very common among the ladies of that century, and the earlier part of the succeeding one; so much so, indeed, that the venerable sages of the Kirk, conceiving that the mode gave tempting facilities for intrigue, directed more than one act of Assembly against this use of the mantle. But fashion, as usual, proved too strong for authority, and while plaids continued to be worn, women of all ranks occasionally employed them as a sort of muffler or veil. [Note: Concealment of an individual, while in public or promiscuous society, was then very common. In England, where no plaids were worn, the ladies used vizard masks for the same purpose, and the gallants drew the skirts of their cloaks over the right shoulder, so as to cover part of the face. This is repeatedly alluded to in Pepys’s Diary.] Her face and figure thus concealed, Edith, holding by her attendant’s arm, hastened with trembling steps to the place of Morton’s confinement. This was a small study or closet, in one of the turrets, opening upon a gallery in which the sentinel was pacing to and fro; for Sergeant Bothwell, scrupulous in observing his word, and perhaps touched with some compassion for the prisoner’s youth and genteel demeanour, had waved the indignity of putting his guard into the same apartment with him. Halliday, therefore, with his carabine on his arm, walked up and down the gallery, occasionally solacing himself with a draught of ale, a huge flagon of which stood upoon the table at one end of the apartment, and at other times humming the lively Scottish air, “Between Saint Johnstone and Bonny Dundee, I’ll gar ye be fain to follow me.” Jenny Dennison cautioned her mistress once more to let her take her own way. “I can manage the trooper weel eneugh,” she said, “for as rough as he is--I ken their nature weel; but ye maunna say a single word.” She accordingly opened the door of the gallery just as the sentinel had turned his back from it, and taking up the tune which he hummed, she sung in a coquettish tone of rustic raillery,