"
"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.
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