" And she looked
on him with a face of entreaty, so earnest, yet so humble, that she
fairly shook the steadfast purpose of his mind.
"You shall see your sister," he began, "if you'll tell me,"--then
interrupting himself, he added, in a more hurried tone,--"no, d--n it,
you shall see your sister whether you tell me anything or no." So saying,
he rose up and left the apartment.
When he had rejoined Ratcliffe, he observed, "You are right, Ratton;
there's no making much of that lassie. But ae thing I have cleared--that
is, that Robertson has been the father of the bairn, and so I will wager
a boddle it will be he that's to meet wi' Jeanie Deans this night at
Muschat's Cairn, and there we'll nail him, Rat, or my name is not Gideon
Sharpitlaw."
"But," said Ratcliffe, perhaps because he was in no hurry to see anything
which was like to be connected with the discovery and apprehension of
Robertson, "an that were the case, Mr. Butler wad hae kend the man in the
King's Park to be the same person wi' him in Madge Wildfire's claise,
that headed the mob."
"That makes nae difference, man," replied Sharpitlaw--"the dress, the
light, the confusion, and maybe a touch o' a blackit cork, or a slake o'
paint-hout, Ratton, I have seen ye dress your ainsell, that the deevil ye
belang to durstna hae made oath t'ye.
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