been at a' this pains, the auld doited body Johnny Drottle turned up his nose, and wadna hae aught to say to me! But it's little I care for him, for I have led a merry life ever since, and ne'er a braw gentleman looks at me but ye wad think he was gaun to drop off his horse for mere love of me. I have kenn'd some o' them put their hand in their pocket, and gie me as muckle as sixpence at a time, just for my weel-faur'd face."

This speech gave Jeanie a dark insight into Madge's history. She had been courted by a wealthy suitor, whose addresses her mother had favoured, notwithstanding the objection of old age and deformity. She had been seduced by some profligate, and to conceal her shame and promote the advantageous match she had planned, her mother had not hesitated to destroy the offspring of their intrigue. That the consequence should be the total derangement of a mind which was constitutionally unsettled by giddiness and vanity, was extremely natural; and such was, in fact, the history of Madge Wildfire's insanity.

CHAPTER VI.

So free from danger, free from fear,

They crossed the court-right glad they were.

CHRISTABEL.

PURSUING the path which Madge had chosen, Jeanie Deans observed, to her no small delight, that marks of more cultivation appeared, and the thatched roofs of houses, with their blue smoke rising in little columns, were seen embosomed in a tuft of trees at some distance. The track led in that direction, and Jeanie, therefore, resolved, while Madge continued to pursue it, that she would ask her no questions; having had the penetration to observe, that by doing so she ran the risk of irritating her guide, or awakening suspicions, to the impressions of which persons in Madge's unsettled state of mind are particularly liable.

Madge, therefore, uninterrupted, went on with the wild disjointed chat which her rambling imagination suggested; a mood in which she was much more communicative respecting her own history, and that of others, than when there was any attempt made, by direct queries, or cross examinations, to extract information on these subjects.

"It's a queer thing," she said, "but whiles I can speak about the bit bairn and the rest of it, just as if it had been another body's, and no my ain; and whiles I am like to break my heart about it-Had you ever a bairn, Jeanie?"

Jeanie replied in the negative.

"Ay; but your sister had though--and I ken what came o't too."

"In the name of heavenly mercy," said Jeanie, forgetting the line of conduct which she had hitherto adopted,

"tell me but what became of that unfortunate babe, and".

Madge stopped, looked at her gravely, and fixedly, and then broke into a great fit of laughing-" Aha, lass,catch me if ye can-I think it's easy to gar you trow ony thing. How suld I ken ony thing o' your sister's wean? Lasses suld hae naething to do wi' weans till they are married—and then a' the gossips and cummers come in and feast as if it were the blithest day in the warld.-They say maidens' bairns are weel guided. I wot that wasna true of your tittie's and mine; but these are sad tales to tell -I maun just sing a bit to keep up my heart-It's a sang that Gentle George made on me lang syne, when I went with him to Lockington wake, to see him act upon a stage, in fine clothes, with the player folks. He might have dune waur than married me that night as he promised-better wed o'er the mixin* as over the moor, as they say in Yorkshire-he may gang farther and fare waur -But that's a' ane to the sang,

'I'm Madge of the country, I'm Madge of the town,
And I am Madge of the lad I am blithest to own-

The Lady of Beever in diamonds may shine,
But has not a heart half so lightsome as mine.

I am Queen of the Wake, and I'm Lady of May,
And I lead the blithe ring round the May-pole to-day :
The wild-fire that flashes so fair and so free

Was never so bright, or so bonnie as me.'

"I like that the best o' a' my sangs," continued the maniac," because he made it. I am often singing it, and that's maybe the reason folks ca' me Madge Wildfire. I aye answer to the name, though it's no my ain, for what's the use of making a fash?"

"But ye shouldna sing upon the Sahath at least," said Jeanie, who, amid all her distress and anxiety, could not help being scandalized at the deportmeut of her compa

A homely proverb, signifying, better wed a neighbour t one fetched from a distance.-Mixen, signifies dunghill.

nion, especially as they now approached near to the little village or hamlet.

"Ay! is this Sunday?" said Madge. "My mother leads sic a life, wi' turning night into day, that ane loses a' count o' the days o' the week, and disna ken Sunday frae Saturday. Besides, it's a' your whiggery-in England, folks sing when they like-And then, ye ken, you are Christiana, and I am Mercy-and, ye ken, as they went on their way they sang."-And she immediately raised one of John Bunyan's ditties:

"He that is down need fear no fall,

He that is low no pride;

He that is humble ever shall

Have God to be his guide.

Fulness to such a burthen is
That go on pilgrimage;
Here little, and hereafter bliss,
Is best from age to age.

"And do ye ken, Jeanie, I think there's much truth in that book the Pilgrim's Progress. The boy that sings that song was feeding his father's sheep in the valley of humiliation, and Mr Great Heart says, that he lived a merrier life, and had more of the herb called hearts-ease in his bosom, than they that wear silk and velvet like me, and are as bonny as I am."

Jeanie Deans had never read the fanciful and delightful parable to which Madge alluded. Bunyan was, indeed, a rigid Calvinist, but then he was also a member of a Baptist congregation, so that his works had no place on David Deans's shelf of divinity. Madge, however, at some time of her life, had been well acquainted, as it appeared, with the most popular of his performances, which, indeed, rarely fails to make a deep impression upon children and people of the lower rank.

"I am sure," she continued, "I may weel say I am come out of the city of Destruction, for my mother is Mrs Bat'seyes, that dwells at Deadman's corner; and Frank Levitt, and Tyburn Tam, they may be likened to

Mistrust and Guilt, that came galloping up and struck the poor pilgrim to the ground with a great club, and stole a bag of silver, which was most of his spending money, and so have they done to many, and will do to more. But now we will gang to the Interpreter's house, for I ken a man that will play the Interpreter right weel; for he has eyes lifted up to Heaven, the best of books in his hand, the law of truth written on his lips, and he stands as if he pleaded wi' men--O if I had minded what he had said to me, I had never been the cast-away creature that I am!—But it is all over now. But we'll knock at the gate, and then the keeper will admit Christiana--but Mercy will be left out--and then I'll stand at the door trembling and crying, and then Christiana-that's you, Jeanie,-will intercede for me; and then Mercy, that's me, ye ken,—will faint; and then the Interpreter-yes, the Interpreter, that's Mr Staunton himself, will come out and take me-that's poor, lost, demented me-by the hand, and give me a pomegranate, and a piece of honeycomb, and a small bottle of spirits, to stay my fainting-and then the good times will come back again, and we'll be the happiest folk you

In the midst of the confused assemblage of ideas indicated in this speech, Jeanie thought she saw a serious purpose, on the part of Madge, to endeavour to obtain the pardon and countenance of some one whom she had offended; an attempt the most likely of all others to bring them once more into contact with law and legal protection. She, therefore, resolved to be guided by her while she was in so hopeful a disposition, and act for her own safety according to circumstances.

They were now close by the village, one of those beautiful scenes which are so often found in merry England, where the cottages, instead of being built in two direct lines on each side of a dusty high-road, stand in detached groupes, interspersed not only with large oaks and elms, but with fruit-trees, so many of which were at this time in flourish, that the grove seemed enamelled with their crimson and white blossoms. In the centre of the hamlet