The Waverley novels, by Sir Walter Scott, complete in 12 vol., printed from the latest English ed., embracing the author's last corrections, prefaces & notes.

500 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
titude, and all made way for that person of awful authority. His first
address was to Madge.
"What's brought thee back again, thou silly donnot, to plague this
parish? EHast thou brought any more bastards wi' thee to lay to honest
men's doors? or does thou think to burden us with this goose, that's
as gare-brained as thysell, as if rates were no up enow? Away wi' thee to
thy thief of a mother; she's fast in the stocks at Barkston town-end-Away
wi' ye out o' the parish, or I'se be at ye with the rattan."
Madge stood sulky for a minute; but she had been too often taught submission to the beadle's authority by ungentle means, to feel courage enough
to dispute it.
"And my mother - my puir auld mother, is in the stocks at Barkston t
-This is a' your wyte, Miss Jeanie Deans; but I'll be upsides wi' you, as
sure as my name's Madge Wildfire-I mean Murdockson - God help me,
I forget my very name in this confused waste."
So saying, she turned upon her heel, and went off, followed by all the
mischievous imps of the village, some crying, " Madge, canst thou tell thy
name yet?" some pulling the skirts of her dress, and all to the best of their
strength and ingenuity, exercising some new device or other to exasperate
her into frenzy.
Jeanie saw her departure with infinite delight, though she wished, that,
in some way or other, she could have requited the service Madge had conferred upon her.
In the meantime, she applied to the beadle to know, whether " there was
any house in the village, where she could be civilly entertained for her
money, and whether she could be permitted to speak to the clergyman?"
" Ay, ay, we'se ha' reverend care on thee; and I think," answered the
man of constituted authority, "that, unless thou answer the Rector all the
better, we'se spare thy money, and gie thee lodging at the parish charge,
young woman."' Where am I to go then?" said Jeanie, in some alarm.
" Why, I aml to take thee to his Reverence, in the first place, to gie an
account o' thysell, and to see thou comna to be a burden upon the parish."
"I do not wish to burden any one," replied Jeanie; " I have enough for
my own wants, and only wish to get on my journey safely."
" Why that's another matter," replied the beadle, " and if it be true -
and I think thou dost not look so polrumptious as thy playfellow yonder -
Thou wouldst be a mettle lass enow, an thou wert snog and snod a bit better.
Come thou away, then -the Rector is a good man."
"Is that the minister," said Jeanie, " who preached "
" The minister? Lord help thee! What' kind o''presbyterian art thou?
-WVhy,'tis the Rector - the Rector's sell, woman, and there isna the like
o' him in the county, nor the four next to it. Come away -- away with thee
-we maunna bide here."
"I am sure I am very willing to go to see the minister," said Jeanie; "for
though he read his discourse, and wore that surplice, as they call it here, I
canna but think he must be a very worthy God-fearing man, to preach the
root of the matter in the way he did."
The disappointed rabble, finding that there was like to be no farther sport,
had by this time dispersed, and Jeanie, with her usual patience, followed
her consequential and surly, but not brutal, conductor towards the rectory.
This clerical mansion was large and commodious, for the living was an
excellent one, and the advowson belonged to a very wealthy family in the
neighbourhood, who had usually bred up a son or nephew to the church,
for the sake of inducting him, as opportunity offered, into this very comfortable provision. In this manner the rectory of Willingham had always
been considered as a direct and immediate appanage of Willingham-hall;
and as the rich baronets to whom the latter belonged had usually a son, or