Peggy gave a piteous, plaintive cry, like that of a wounded hare--the most helpless, timid creature in its misery; but she did not sink down or faint away, and the next moment she was beginning to make nervous preparations to set forth for the scene of the disaster. She would not listen to her startled mother, imploring, in the mingled terror and weakness of age, for the explanations and reassurances there was nobody to afford. The informant had driven off after launching his thunderbolt, and the occupants of the neighbouring cottages were still about in the potatoe fields. ‘I maun gang to him at aince,’ Peggy kept muttering as she groped instinctively in the waning light for a shawl to fling over her head--not so much as a shelter from the bitter blast which had been scouring along the floor and causing her to spin by the warm hearth-side, as with a lingering sense of what was womanly and fitting, because it would not be wiselike in a lass to go abroad at such a season without a screen from inquisitive eyes. ‘He wouldna forbid me ony mair. He’s my man. Oh! Jamie, Jamie, if you’re felled outricht, and there is nocht left for me to do for you, but to streek you and dress you in your dead-claes, it is for your puir lassie’s--your wife’s hand, to steek your een and kame your hair for the last time. I dinna mind your leddy-mither now; I’m nearer to you than she is, and I’ll daur her to do her worst the nicht--as if the worst were not come already, gin my Jamie be felled dead! Wae’s me! wae’s me! And it was but this mornin’, and no a terrible lifetime syne, that he clasped and kissed me at parting.’ Peggy did not even notice to lift off the gridle on which cakes were toasting. She who had been reared in the most frugal habits was abandoning the good oaten bread which must ‘scouther’ unheeded. The room was full of the sharp, searching smell of scorched oatmeal, at which every mouse in the farthest recesses of its hole in the clay biggin’ was snuffing with relish as at the potent odour of toasted cheese. Luckie was feebly protesting and whimpering over the waste, when Peggy unheeding stepped across the threshold and ran right against Balcairnie in the act of entering. ‘Balcairnie, is the tale true? Is he living or dead? For the love o’ Heaven, speak,’ gasped Peggy, clasping the friendly arm and making as if she would fall on her knees at the yeoman’s feet, treating him like the arbiter of fate. ‘Oh! Balcairnie, sir, will you stop her--she winna mind me--frae goin’ on a fule’s errand?’ implored Luckie from her bed, wiping her bleared eyes with a blue checked linen handkerchief; ‘and gin you will forgie me for the liberty, will you turn the cakes and tak’ them aff, or do something to hinder sic a wicket throwing awa’ o’ gude victuals and me no able to steer a finger.’