‘Canny, canny,’ remonstrated the doubly-assailed Balcairnie. ‘Yes, Peggy, he’s livin’ and life-like in spite of this mischanter, thank his Maker and yours and mine--no me. Oo, ay, gudewife, I’ll see to the cakes. Mony a time I had a hand--not always a helping hand--in your bakings--do you mind? When you were my puir mither’s douce lass and I was a mischievious deil o’ a laddie birslin’ peas among your bannocks.--Peggy, have I given you time to draw breath? If so, you maun come wi’ me this minute. I’m sent to fetch you: no by Drumsheugh alone, by his mither the Leddy: “Go and bring Peggy Hedderwick here,” were her words, and you maun haste ye to do her bidding.’ But Peggy hung back. The reaction had come. She was relieved from her depth of despair and extremity of fear for Drumsheugh’s life. Her old childish dread of the Lady and reluctance to encounter her reproaches and scorn revived in full force. ‘Oh, Balcairnie, I canna gang,’ she protested incoherently, twisting her fingers. ‘Does he want me? What has she sent for me to do to me?’ ‘To gie you your paiks (whips),’ Balcairnie, who was somewhat of a humourist in his way, could not resist saying dryly, taking off the abject fright of poor Peggy. But the kind fellow relented the next moment. ‘If so, Drumsheugh and me had need to come in for muckle heavier skelps, as the Leddy is a just woman, who has a name for uprightness, and has ta’en pride in the fact all her days. Na, Peggy, dinna be a cawf,’ he admonished her with great friendliness though little ceremony. ‘You maunna stand in your ain licht. You must tak’ the wind when it blaws in your barn door. Forbye you maun obey your gude mither and your man, like a gude bairn. Drumsheugh cried for you as soon as he cam’ to himself, and vowed he but to see you richted, or it’s like his mither the Leddy micht not have minded your existence or mentioned your name. And he does want you, lass, for his breast has gotten a bit stave in from that ugly brute’s cloot; he’s lying groaning and peching yonder, though the doctor promises to put him richt in a wheen weeks or months.’ Thus urged and alarmed anew, Peggy prepared to go home to Drumsheugh a weeping, downcast bride with a troubled home-coming--altogether different from the happy woman making the triumphant, if late, entrance on her honours which she and her laird had confidently pictured to themselves. Balcairnie would not suffer Peggy to tarry for any change of dress. He had spoken the truth and he was fain to hope the best, but he was by no means so sure as he tried to pretend of the laird’s ultimate recovery, or even of his long surviving the bad injury he had received. And when Peggy detected some gleam of this dire uncertainty in the mind of his friend where her husband’s fate was in question, she had no more heart to put on her best clothes and seek humbly to make as favourable an impression as could be hoped for, on the mind of the Lady.