This epistle being duly sealed and delivered to Jenny, that faithful confidant hastened to put the same in the charge of Goose Gibbie, whom she found in readiness to start from the castle. She then gave him various instructions touching the road, which she apprehended he was likely to mistake, not having travelled it above five or six times, and possessing only the same slender proportion of memory as of judgment. Lastly, she smuggled him out of the garrison through the pantry window into the branchy yew-tree which grew close beside it, and had the satisfaction to see him reach the bottom in safety, and take the right turn at the commencement of his journey. She then returned to persuade her young mistress to go to bed, and to lull her to rest, if possible, with assurances of Gibbie’s success in his embassy, only qualified by a passing regret that the trusty Cuddie, with whom the commission might have been more safely reposed, was no longer within reach of serving her. More fortunate as a messenger than as a cavalier, it was Gibbie’s good hap rather than his good management, which, after he had gone astray not oftener than nine times, and given his garments a taste of the variation of each bog, brook, and slough, between Tillietudlem and Charnwood, placed him about daybreak before the gate of Major Bellenden’s mansion, having completed a walk of ten miles (for the bittock, as usual, amounted to four) in little more than the same number of hours. CHAPTER XI. At last comes the troop, by the word of command Drawn up in our court, where the Captain cries, Stand! Swift Major Bellenden’s ancient valet, Gideon Pike as he adjusted his master’s clothes by his bedside, preparatory to the worthy veteran’s toilet, acquainted him, as an apology for disturbing him an hour earlier than his usual time of rising, that there was an express from Tillietudlem. “From Tillietudlem?” said the old gentleman, rising hastily in his bed, and sitting bolt upright,--“Open the shutters, Pike--I hope my sister-in-law is well--furl up the bed-curtain.--What have we all here?” (glancing at Edith’s note.) “The gout? why, she knows I have not had a fit since Candlemas.--The wappen-schaw? I told her a month since I was not to be there.--Paduasoy and hanging sleeves? why, hang the gipsy herself!--Grand Cyrus and Philipdastus?--Philip Devil!--is the wench gone crazy all at once? was it worth while to send an express and wake me at five in the morning for all this trash?--But what says her postscriptum?--Mercy on us!” he exclaimed on perusing it,--“Pike, saddle old Kilsythe instantly, and another horse for yourself.” “I hope nae ill news frae the Tower, sir?” said Pike, astonished at his master’s sudden emotion.