Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIII by Various
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page 15 of 246 (06%)
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my house, Meggat's Land, Canongate, to the burying-ground at St.
Cuthberts, on Friday the 19th of this month June, at one o'clock;' and the name at this letter," continued Mr. Dallas, "is that of 'John Napier of Eastleys.' Will that satisfy you?" And the "doer" for Mr. Charles Napier, conceiving that he had at last effectually "done" his client's opponent, seemed well pleased to sit and witness the further effect of his evidence on the bewildered woman; but we are to remember that a second stroke sometimes only takes away the pain of the former, and a repetition of blows will quicken the reaction which slumbered under the first. Whether this was so or not in our present instance, or whether Mrs. Hislop had recovered her wits by a process far shorter than that followed by the foresaid Astolpho, we know not; but certain it is, that she recovered the powers of both her eyes and her tongue in much less time than the writer expected, and in a manner, too, very different from that for which he was probably prepared. "Weel," replied she, smiling, "it would just seem that even the haggis has not pleased you, Mr. Dallas;" and, putting her hand into a big side-pocket, that might have served a gaberlunzie for a wallet, she extracted a small piece of paper. She continued: "But ye see a guid, honest Scotchwoman's no to be suspected of being shabby at her own table; so read ye that, which you may take for the bread-pudding." And the writer, having taken the paper, and held it before his face for so long a time that it might have suggested the suspicion that the words therein written stuck in his eyes, and would not submit to that strange process whereby, unknown to ourselves, we transfer written vocables to the ear before we can understand them, turned a look upon the woman of |
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