CHAPTER XVIII--THE PORTRAIT
'When day was gone and night was come,
And all men fast asleep,
There came the spirit of fair Marg'ret
And stood at William's feet.'
Scotch Ballad.
When I emerged from my room the next morning the phaeton was at the
door to take the two clergymen to reconnoitre their abode before
going to church. Miss Fordyce went with them, and my father was for
once about to leave his parish church to give them his sympathy, and
join in their thanksgiving that neither life nor limb had been
injured. He afterwards said that nothing could have been more
touching than old Mr. Fordyce's manner of mentioning this special
cause for gratitude before the General Thanksgiving; and Frank
Fordyce, having had all his sermons burnt, gave a short address
extempore (a very rare and almost shocking thing at that date),
reducing half the congregation to tears, for they really loved 'the
fam'ly,' though they had not spirit enough to defend it; and their
passiveness always remained a subject of pride and pleasure to the
Fordyces. It was against the will of these good people that Petty,
the ratcatcher, was arrested, but he had been engaged in other
outrages, though this was the only one in which a dwelling-house had
suffered. And Chapman observed that 'there was nothing to be done
with such chaps but to string 'em up out of the way.
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