hort-gown, and my mother's auld mutch, and my red rokelay--and he gied
me a croun and a kiss for the use o' them, blessing on his bonny
face--though it's been a dear ane to me."

"And where did he change his clothes again, hinnie?" said Sharpitlaw, in
his most conciliatory manner.

"The procurator's spoiled a'," observed Ratcliffe, drily. And it was even
so; for the question, put in so direct a shape, immediately awakened
Madge to the propriety of being reserved upon those very topics on which
Ratcliffe had indirectly seduced her to become communicative.

"What was't ye were speering at us, sir?" she resumed, with an appearance
of stolidity so speedily assumed, as showed there was a good deal of
knavery mixed with her folly.

"I asked you," said the procurator, "at what hour, and to what place,
Robertson brought back your clothes."

"Robertson?--Lord hand a care o' us! what Robertson?"

"Why, the fellow we were speaking of, Gentle Geordie, as you call him."

"Geordie Gentle!" answered Madge, with well-feigned amazement--"I dinna
ken naebody they ca' Geordie Gentle."

"Come, my jo," said Sharpitlaw, "this will not do; you must tell us what
you did with these clothes of yours."

Madge Wildfire made no answer, unless the question may seem connected
with the snatch of a song with which she indulged the embarrassed
investigator:--

"What did ye wi' the bridal ring--bridal ring--bridal ring?
What did ye wi' your wedding ring, ye little cutty quean, O?
I gied it till a sodger, a sodger, a sodger,
I gied it till a sodger, an auld true love o' mine, O."

Of all the madwomen who have sung and said, since the days of Hamlet the
Dane, if Ophelia be the most affecting, Madge Wildfire was the most
provoking.

The procurator-fiscal was in despair. "I'll take some measures with this
d--d Bess of Bedlam," said he, "that shall make her find her tongue."

"Wi' your favour, sir," said Ratcliffe, "better let her mind settle a
little--Ye have aye made out something."

"True," said the official person; "a brown short-gown, mutch, red
rokelay--that agrees with your Madge Wildfire, Mr. Butler?" Butler agreed
that it did so. "Yes, there was a sufficient motive for taking this crazy
creature's dress and name, while he was about such a job."

"And I am free to say _now,_" said Ratcliffe

"When you see it has come out without you," interrupted Sharpitlaw.

"Just sae, sir," reiterated Ratcliffe. "