"O dear, Miss Edith, it's young Milnwood himsell!" "Young Milnwood!" exclaimed Edith, aghast in her turn; "it is impossible--totally impossible!--His uncle attends the clergyman indulged by law, and has no connexion whatever with the refractory people; and he himself has never interfered in this unhappy dissension; he must be totally innocent, unless he has been standing up for some invaded right." "O, my dear Miss Edith," said her attendant, "these are not days to ask what's right or what's wrang; if he were as innocent as the new-born infant, they would find some way of making him guilty, if they liked; but Tam Halliday says it will touch his life, for he has been resetting ane o' the Fife gentlemen that killed that auld carle of an Archbishop." "His life!" exclaimed Edith, starting hastily up, and speaking with a hurried and tremulous accent,--"they cannot--they shall not--I will speak for him--they shall not hurt him!" "O, my dear young leddy, think on your grandmother; think on the danger and the difficulty," added Jenny; "for he's kept under close confinement till Claverhouse comes up in the morning, and if he doesna gie him full satisfaction, Tam Halliday says there will be brief wark wi' him--Kneel down--mak ready--present--fire--just as they did wi' auld deaf John Macbriar, that never understood a single question they pat till him, and sae lost his life for lack o' hearing." "Jenny," said the young lady, "if he should die, I will die with him; there is no time to talk of danger or difficulty--I will put on a plaid, and slip down with you to the place where they have kept him--I will throw myself at the feet of the sentinel, and entreat him, as he has a soul to be saved"-- "Eh, guide us!" interrupted the maid, "our young leddy at the feet o' Trooper Tam, and speaking to him about his soul, when the puir chield hardly kens whether he has ane or no, unless that he whiles swears by it--that will never do; but what maun be maun be, and I'll never desert a true-love cause--And sae, if ye maun see young Milnwood, though I ken nae gude it will do, but to make baith your hearts the sairer, I'll e'en tak the risk o't, and try to manage Tam Halliday; but ye maun let me hae my ain gate and no speak ae word--he's keeping guard o'er Milnwood in the easter round of the tower." "Go, go, fetch me a plaid," said Edith.

"Let me but see him, and I will find some remedy for his danger--Haste ye, Jenny, as ever ye hope to have good at my hands." Jenny hastened, and soon returned with a plaid, in which Edith muffled herself so as completely to screen her face, and in part to disguise her person.

This was a mode of arranging the plaid very common among the ladies of that century, and the earlier part of the succeeding one; so much so, indeed, that the venerable sages of the Kirk, conceiving that the mode gave tempting facilities for intrigue, directed more than one act of Assembly against this use of the mantle.

But fashion, as usual, proved too strong for authority, and while plaids continued to be worn, women of all ranks occasionally employed them as a sort of muffler or veil.

[Note: Concealment of an individual, while in public or promiscuous society, was then very common.