"Umph," muttered David. "Is that the way o't. Then, I fancy, I'm juist oot o' the fryin-pan into the fire."
The serving-man, not perceiving the applicability of the remark, although somewhat surprised at it, made no reply, but again pressed the posset on the suffering martyr.
"Weel, weel, let's see't then," said David, raising himself up in the bed. "There can be nae great harm in that, I fancy. It'll no mak things muckle waur than they are. Is't onything tasty?"
His attendant assured him that he would find it very pleasant, being made by her ladyship's own hands, who long enjoyed a high reputation for manufacturing possets and comfits of all sorts.
Having raised the lid of the posset dish, and flavoured it contents, David pronounced it "savoury;" when, taking spoon in hand, he cleared out the vessel in a twinkling.
"A gusty mouthfu' that," said mine host of "The Ship," throwing himself luxuriously back on his pillow, "although I think it wadna been the waur o' a wee hair mair brandy in't."
The serving-man having done his errand, now left the room, retiring with the same careful step and respectful manner with which he had entered, and left David once more to his own reflections.
In these, however, he was permitted but a very short indulgence. His attendant had not been gone five minutes, when the door of the apartment was again gently opened, and an elderly lady, of tall and majestic form, arrayed in a close fitting dress of black velvet, with a gold chain round her neck, from which was suspended a large diamond cross, entered the sick man's chamber. It was Lady Wisherton herself. Approaching, with stately step, but with a look of tender concern, the bed on which her patient lay--
"It rejoices me much, holy father," she said, "to learn, from our good and faithful servitor, William Binkie, that your reverence begins to feel some symptoms of amendment."
"Ou, thank ye, mem, thank ye," replied David, with no small trepidation; for the dignified and stately appearance of his visiter had sadly appalled him. "I fin' mysel a hauntle better, thanks to your leddyship's kindness--takin' ye to be Leddy Wisherton hersel', as I hae nae doot ye are."
"You are right in your conjecture, good father," replied Lady Wisherton, rather taken aback by the very peculiar style of his reverence's language, which she did not recollect ever to have met with in any other person in holy orders before. The circumstance, however, only puzzled her; it did not, in the smallest degree, excite in her any suspicion of the real facts of the case. "You are right in your conjecture, good father," she said, "I am Lady Wisherton."