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But the great difficulty was to get access to Marion Ruet's bower, for so, from that day, was Mrs Kilspinnie called again by her sister; and, after no little communing, it was proposed by Lucky Kilfauns, that Elspa should go with her to the house of a certain Widow Dingwall, and there for a time take up her abode, and that my grandfather, after putting on the Prior's livery, should look about him for the gilly, his former guide, and, through him, make a tryst, to meet the dissolute madam at the widow's house.
That this new proof of the progress she was making in guilt and sin might be the more tenderly broken to her chaste and gentle sister, Lucky Kilfauns herself undertook to tell Elspa what had been covenanted to prepare her for the meeting.
The stripling, so fee'd, was right glad, and made himself so familiar towards my grandfather, that Lucky Kilfauns observing it, the better to conceal their plot, feigned to be most obstreperous, flyting at him with all her pith and bir, and chiding my grandfather, as being as scant o' grace as a gaberlunzie, or a novice of the Dominicans.
To these words, which were spoken as with the vehemence of prophecy, the miserable woman made no answer, but plucked her hand sharply from her sister's earnest pressure, and quitted the room with a flash of anger. My grandfather then conveyed the mournful Elspa back to the house of Lucky Kilfauns, and returned to the priory.
But, saving this marvelling and preparation, nothing farther of a public nature took place that night; so that, a short time before the hour appointed, my grandfather went to the house of Widow Dingwall, where he found Elspa Ruet sitting very disconsolate in a chamber by herself, weeping bitterly at the woful account which Lucky Kilfauns had brought of her sister's loose life, and fearing greatly that all her kind endeavours and humble prayers would be but as water spilt on the ground.
The paction between all parties being thus covenanted, and Lucky Kilfauns gone to prepare the fortitude of Elspa Ruet for the trial it was to undergo, my grandfather walked out alone to pass the time till the trysted hour. It was then late in the afternoon, and as he sauntered along he could not but observe that something was busy with the minds and imaginations of the people.
There Elspa alighted, and being commended to the care of Lucky Kilfauns, who, though of a free outspoken nature, was a most creditable matron, my grandfather left her, and rode up the gait to the priory yett, where, on his arrival, he made himself known to the porter, and was admitted to the Lord Prior, as the Lord James was there papistically called.
Accordingly he determined to ride with Elspa Ruet to the house of the vintner in the Shoegate, of which I have already spoken, and to leave her under the care of Lucky Kilfauns, as the hostess was called, until he had done so.
When my grandfather had returned to the vintner's, he found that Elspa had conferred with Lucky Kilfauns concerning the afflicting end and intent of her journey to St Andrews; and that decent woman sympathising with her sorrow, telling her of many woful things of the same sort she had herself known, and how a cousin of her mother's, by the father's side, had been wiled away from her home by the abbot of Melrose, and never heard tell of for many a day, till she was discovered, in the condition of a disconsolate nun, in a convent, far away in Nithsdale.
Accordingly the matter was so settled, and while Lucky Kilfauns, in a most motherly and pitiful manner, carried Elspa Ruet to the house of the Widow Dingwall, my grandfather went back to the priory to get the cloak and arms of the Lord James' livery.
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