Having accordingly got, unobserved from above, into the back-door--the more by reason that he waited till the window-sash came down with all prudential softness of sound--Andrew made his way up-stairs to the room where Mr Plenderleith was regaling himself, and probably thinking of the scornful Ailsie, who would not accord to his matrimonial wishes. “There’s a young man gone in this minute at Miss Ailsie’s bed-room window,” said he, in a mysterious way, to his master; whereupon Mr Plenderleith started up in a great rage, and rushing to a closet brought forth a long rapier of formidable sharpness. “I will slay him on the spot,” said he, “for it is hamesucken and a deuced deal more, and I have law on my side. Come with me, Andrew Crabbin.” But Andrew’s intermediate views did not accord with the slaughter of Ailsie’s lover. “Wait,” says he, “till I listen;” and hastening to Miss Plenderleith’s room, he tirled at the door, so that it might be heard inside, but not by his enraged master, whose spirit was more in his fiery eye than his ear; and coming back more slowly than comported with his master’s fury--“Now’s your time,” said he, “for I heard him inside.” Nor was there now any time lost, for the infuriated father rushed along the lobby to his daughter’s chamber door, which, to his surprise, he found unfastened; and, having entered, he found Ailsie all very much at her ease, nor was there anything to rouse his suspicions at all except the condition of the blind, which was drawn up. No more was needed--that was enough; the angry father accused his daughter with having had a man in her bed-room. Ailsie denied the charge, but it was of no avail. Orders were upon the instant issued to get the carriage ready, and in the course of an hour afterwards Mr Plenderleith and his daughter, with Andrew and the two female servants in a hired carriage, were on their way to his house at Threemarks. The house in Hyndford’s Close was shut up. Mr Plenderleith had in so short a period made up his mind, and executed a purpose which he considered necessary to his own honour and his daughter’s preservation.