heaven or in hell!"

Levitt had by this time lighted a pipe, and was listening with great
composure to the frantic and vindictive ravings of the old hag. He was
too much, hardened by his course of life to be shocked with them--too
indifferent, and probably too stupid, to catch any part of their
animation or energy. "But, mother," he said, after a pause, "still I say,
that if revenge is your wish, you should take it on the young fellow
himself."

"I wish I could," she said, drawing in her breath, with the eagerness of
a thirsty person while mimicking the action of drinking--"I wish I
could--but no--I cannot--I cannot."

"And why not?--You would think little of peaching and hanging him for
this Scotch affair.--Rat me, one might have milled the Bank of England,
and less noise about it."

"I have nursed him at this withered breast," answered the old woman,
folding her hands on her bosom, as if pressing an infant to it, "and,
though he has proved an adder to me--though he has been the destruction
of me and mine--though he has made me company for the devil, if there be
a devil, and food for hell, if there be such a place, yet I cannot take
his life.--No, I cannot," she continued, with an appearance of rage
against herself; "I have thought of it--I have tried it--but, Francis
Levitt, I canna gang through wi't--Na, na--he was the first bairn I ever
nurst--ill I had been--and man can never ken what woman feels for the
bairn she has held first to her bosom!"

"To be sure," said Levitt, "we have no experience; but, mother, they say
you ha'n't been so kind to other bairns, as you call them, that have come
in your way.--Nay, d--n me, never lay your hand on the whittle, for I am
captain and leader here, and I will have no rebellion."

The hag, whose first motion had been, upon hearing the question, to grasp
the haft of a large knife, now unclosed her hand, stole it away from the
weapon, and suffered it to fall by her side, while she proceeded with a
sort of smile--"Bairns! ye are joking, lad--wha wad touch bairns? Madge,
puir thing, had a misfortune wi' ane--and the t'other"--Here her voice
sunk so much, that Jeanie, though anxiously upon the watch, could not
catch a word she said, until she raised her tone at the conclusion of the
sentence--"So Madge, in her daffin', threw it into the Nor'-lock, I
trow."

Madge, whose slumbers, like those of most who labour under mental malady,
had been short, and were easily broken, now ma