At all events, what he did whenever wild glances from both girls told him that he had got to say something or other, was to repeat over and over again a phrase that sounded like "She's champing, she's champing." Evarne felt really angry at his stupidity in describing her as if she had been a fretful mare instead of a dying maiden. Finally, it dawned on her perception that this imbecile doctor was holding out hope to the weeping friends around her couch--assuring them that the patient was "champion"!--Scotch for "in excellent health." What a monstrous lack of resource on Mont's part, when he knew right well that the curtain descended on the touching demise of this damsel whom he persisted in describing as "champion"! As to poor "Highland Mary" herself, she was utterly tricked and sold. Where were all the graceful gestures to the perfecting of which so much practice had been devoted? Where those truly dramatic attempts to spring from the bed with outstretched arms, as beauteous visions assailed her dying eyes? Where the pathetic leaning over to one side to gently stroke the bent head of the weeping "Bess"? Where all those sweet and realistic little touches which were to have brought tears to the eyes of even a bored and irate audience? All impossible! Out of the question! Had investigation been made, the luckless "Mary" would have been found to be breathing out her last sigh upon a couple of chairs laid over on their sides, with two tin bonnet-boxes between them to render this makeshift couch sufficiently long. As it was, her toes projected over the end of the lowest chair, while she suffered such anguish from knobs and spikes that it composed a mild form of torture. Yet whenever she dared to so much as wriggle, the tin-boxes creaked loudly, while had she attempted to gain genuine relief by actually shifting from her first position--had she not lain absolutely motionless, propped up on one elbow, which soon ached to distraction--tragedy would have been turned to comedy with a vengeance. Those rickety chairs would assuredly have over-tipped, and the audience would have beheld "Mary" and her improvised couch rolling pell-mell together down to the footlights. Mr. Heathmore started by explaining to the audience that his part had been sent to him too late to be possibly learnt; then he undisguisedly proceeded to read it. In the "glen scene" Evarne found it truly disconcerting to have to stand throughout these endless love-speeches, her waist tenderly encircled by "Burns's" arm sure enough, but with his head all the time turned right away from her in order to gaze on the script that he held in his other hand. As to the rest of the drama, she never had been able to learn properly who was whom, or what they were all up to, and even the first public performance threw no light on the puzzle.