Confessions of A Justified Sinner | Page 5

him out.
"It strikes me, my dear, that religious devotion would be somewhat out
of place to-night," said he. "Allowing that it is ever so beautiful, and
ever so beneficial, were we to ride on the rigging of it at all times,
would we not be constantly making a farce of it: It would be like
reading the Bible and the jestbook, verse about, and would render the
life of man a medley of absurdity and confusion."
But, against the cant of the bigot or the hypocrite, no reasoning can
aught avail. If you would argue until the end of life, the infallible
creature must alone be right. So it proved with the laird. One Scripture
text followed another, not in the least connected, and one sentence of
the profound Mr. Wringhim's sermons after another, proving the duty
of family worship, till the laird lost patience, and tossing himself into
bed, said carelessly that he would leave that duty upon her shoulders
for one night.
The meek mind of Lady Dalcastle was somewhat disarranged by this
sudden evolution. She felt that she was left rather in an awkward
situation. However, to show her unconscionable spouse that she was
resolved to hold fast her integrity, she kneeled down and prayed in
terms so potent that she deemed she was sure of making an impression
on him. She did so; for in a short time the laird began to utter a
response so fervent that she was utterly astounded, and fairly driven
from the chain of her orisons. He began, in truth, to sound a nasal bugle
of no ordinary calibre--the notes being little inferior to those of a
military trumpet. The lady tried to proceed, but every returning note
from the bed burst on her ear with a louder twang, and a longer peal, till
the concord of sweet sounds became so truly pathetic that the meek
spirit of the dame was quite overcome; and, after shedding a flood of
tears, she arose from her knees, and retired to the chimney-corner with
her Bible in her lap, there to spend the hours in holy meditation till
such time as the inebriated trumpeter should awaken to a sense of
propriety.
The laird did not awake in any reasonable time; for, he being overcome
with fatigue and wassail, his sleep became sounder, and his Morphean
measures more intense. These varied a little in their structure; but the

general run of the bars sounded something in this way:
"Hic-hoc-wheew!" It was most profoundly ludicrous; and could not
have missed exciting risibility in anyone save a pious, a disappointed,
and humbled bride.
The good dame wept bitterly. She could not for her life go and awaken
the monster, and request him to make room for her: but she retired
somewhere, for the laird, on awaking next morning, found that he was
still lying alone. His sleep had been of the deepest and most genuine
sort; and, all the time that it lasted, he had never once thought of either
wives, children, or sweethearts, save in the way of dreaming about
them; but, as his spirit began again by slow degrees to verge towards
the boundaries of reason, it became lighter and more buoyant from the
effects of deep repose, and his dreams partook of that buoyancy, yea, to
a degree hardly expressible. He dreamed of the reel, the jig, the
strathspey, and the corant; and the elasticity of his frame was such that
he was bounding over the heads of maidens, and making his feet
skimmer against the ceiling, enjoying, the while, the most ecstatic
emotions. These grew too fervent for the shackles of the drowsy god to
restrain. The nasal bugle ceased its prolonged sounds in one moment,
and a sort of hectic laugh took its place. "Keep it going--play up, you
devils!" cried the laird, without changing his position on the pillow. But
this exertion to hold the fiddlers at their work fairly awakened the
delighted dreamer, and, though he could not refrain from continuing,
his laugh, beat length, by tracing out a regular chain of facts, came to
be sensible of his real situation. "Rabina, where are you? What's
become of you, my dear?" cried the laird. But there was no voice nor
anyone that answered or regarded. He flung open the curtains, thinking
to find her still on her knees, as he had seen her, but she was not there,
either sleeping or waking. "Rabina! Mrs. Colwan!" shouted he, as loud
as he could call, and then added in the same breath, "God save the
king--I have lost my wife!"
He sprung up and opened the casement: the day-light was beginning to
streak the east, for it was spring, and the nights were short, and the
mornings very long. The laird half