"Try, Madge," said Jeanie,--"try to settle your mind and make your breast
clean, and you'll find your heart easier.--Just resist the devil, and he
will flee from you--and mind that, as my worthy father tells me, there is
nae devil sae deceitfu' as our ain wandering thoughts."

"And that's true too, lass," said Madge, starting up; "and I'll gang a
gate where the devil daurna follow me; and it's a gate that you will like
dearly to gang--but I'll keep a fast haud o' your arm, for fear Apollyon
should stride across the path, as he did in the Pilgrim's Progress."

Accordingly she got up, and, taking Jeanie by the arm, began to walk
forward at a great pace; and soon, to her companion's no small joy, came
into a marked path, with the meanders of which she seemed perfectly
acquainted. Jeanie endeavoured to bring her back to the confessional, but
the fancy was gone by. In fact, the mind of this deranged being resembled
nothing so much as a quantity of dry leaves, which may for a few minutes
remain still, but are instantly discomposed and put in motion by the
first casual breath of air. She had now got John Bunyan's parable into
her head, to the exclusion of everything else, and on she went with great
volubility.

"Did ye never read the Pilgrim's Progress? And you shall be the woman,
Christiana, and I will be the maiden, Mercy--for ye ken Mercy was of the
fairer countenance, and the more alluring than her companion--and if I
had my little messan dog here, it would be Great-heart, their guide, ye
ken, for he was e'en as bauld, that he wad bark at ony thing twenty times
his size; and that was e'en the death of him, for he bit Corporal
MacAlpine's heels ae morning when they were hauling me to the
guard-house, and Corporal MacAlpine killed the bit faithfu' thing wi' his
Lochaber axe--deil pike the Highland banes o' him."