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 dressed himself
in an instant, and strode through every room in the house,
opening the windows as he went, and scrutinizing every bed and
every corner.
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