days, remind man of the fate that sooner or later awaits him; and, it might be, some five or six weeks from the date of puir Jeanie’s marriage, that ae gloaming, as she was sitting at the far end o’ the garden behind the house, under the burtree-bush, thinking, maybe mournfully o’ the days that were gone, a man dressed in a Sailors jacket burst suddenly thro’ the hedge, and stood before her!
They gazed on each other for some time without speaking. His een were rivetted upon her, and pierced thro’ Jeanie's soul; yet she couldna turn her head away. What, oh heaven and earth! maun she have felt, when she saw wha stood before her—when she saw her ain Jamie Gray looking into her heart—when she thocht of what had passed atween them, and when she thocht on what she now was—his father’s wife!
He spoke not a word; but, with a smile of deevilish contempt, slowly rising up his finger opposite her face, he gave a long hiss of the bitterest scorn, turned on his heel, and departed.
Jeanie was carried to bed in a raging fever; and the laird, who had heard of his son’s arrival, imputed it at ance, in the jaundie of his jealousy, to the right cause. With the wild fury of a madmen, he taxed her with having broken thro the vow she had sae lately sworn to afore the minister. All the wicked passions of his wicked heart were roused up like serpents frae their dens. He stampit and swore about his son in the whirlwind of his unnatural hatred: he shook his head oure the deeing Jeanie, telling her that she, like the rest, was but born to deceive
