him; and cursed the day that ever gave birth to such a unfortunate miserable wretch as himsell.
An awful night of tempestuous horror frowned over, and next morning Jeanie was out o’ mind and delerious. She muttered and raved constantly about Jamie, asking why he had been sae lang, lang o’ coming! What place of the West Indies they had buried him in!—and to take away the man in the sailor’s clase that was ay standing afore her. Force was at last used to confine her to her bed; and auld sand-blind Nancy, standing wi’ her hands in her sides in the middle of the floor, casting a leer first on the bed where lay the distracted and dying bride, and then on the laird, that was pacing up and down the room, wi’ his hands behind his back, mumbled wi’ hellish rejoicing, between her teeth, “What think ye now, maister o’ yer bonny bit wife?”
Her strength at last totally exhausted, Jeanie fell asleep late in the afternoon; and the laird bidding somebody leave the room, darkened the windows, and sat doun to doze in the leather elbow chair by the bedside, where the sick-nurse had been sitting. Scarcely had he closed his een when he fand something desperately squeezing him. He started forrit, and lookit up. It was Jeanie’s hand that held a grup of his coat sleeve, so forcibly that he felt her finger nails piercing the flesh o’ his withered arm.—Scarcely could the hand be drawn away, tho’ the spark of life had fled for ever!
Jamie was never seen in Fife after, Some say that he
