``Canny, ye silly tawpie! think ye ae auld wife's less canny than anither? unless it be Alison Breck--I really couldna in conscience swear for her; I have kent the boxes she set fill'd wi' partans, when''--``Whisht, whisht, Maggie,'' whispered Jenny--``your gudemither's gaun to speak again.''
``Wasna there some ane o' ye said,'' asked the old sibyl, ``or did I dream, or was it revealed to me, that Joscelind, Lady Glenallan, is dead, an' buried this night?''
``Yes, gudemither,'' screamed the daughter-in-law, ``it's e'en sae.''
``And e'en sae let it be,'' said old Elspeth; ``she's made mony a sair heart in her day--ay, e'en her ain son's--is he living yet?''
``Ay, he's living yet; but how lang he'll live--however, dinna ye mind his coming and asking after you in the spring, and leaving siller?''
``It may be sae, Magge--I dinna mind it--but a handsome gentleman he was, and his father before him.Eh! if his father had lived, they might hae been happy folk! But he was gane, and the lady carried it in--ower and out-ower wi' her son, and garr'd him trow the thing he never suld hae trowed, and do the thing he has repented a' his life, and will repent still, were his life as lang as this lang and wearisome ane o' mine.''
``O what was it, grannie?''--and ``What was it, gudemither?''
--and ``What was it, Luckie Elspeth?'' asked the children, the mother, and the visitor, in one breath.
``Never ask what it was,'' answered the old sibyl, ``but pray to God that ye arena left to the pride and wilfu'ness o' your ain hearts: they may be as powerful in a cabin as in a castle--I can bear a sad witness to that.O that weary and fearfu' night!
will it never gang out o' my auld head!--Eh! to see her lying on the floor wi' her lang hair dreeping wi' the salt water!--Heaven will avenge on a' that had to do wi't.Sirs! is my son out wi' the coble this windy e'en?''
``Na, na, mither--nae coble can keep the sea this wind; he's sleeping in his bed out-ower yonder ahint the hallan.''
``Is Steenie out at sea then?''
``Na, grannie--Steenie's awa out wi' auld Edie Ochiltree, the gaberlunzie; maybe they'll be gaun to see the burial.''
``That canna be,'' said the mother of the family; ``we kent naething o't till Jock Rand cam in, and tauld us the Aikwoods had warning to attend--they keep thae things unco private--and they were to bring the corpse a' the way frae the Castle, ten miles off, under cloud o' night.She has lain in state this ten days at Glenallan House, in a grand chamber a' hung wi'
black, and lighted wi' wax cannle.''
``God assoilzie her!'' ejaculated old Elspeth, her head apparently still occupied by the event of the Countess's death;``she was a hard-hearted woman, but she's gaen to account for it a', and His mercy is infinite--God grant she may find it sae!'' And she relapsed into silence, which she did not break again during the rest of the evening.
``I wonder what that auld daft beggar carle and our son Steenie can be doing out in sic a nicht as this,'' said Maggie Mucklebackit; and her expression of surprise was echoed by her visitor.``Gang awa, ane o' ye, hinnies, up to the heugh head, and gie them a cry in case they're within hearing; the car-cakes will be burnt to a cinder.''
The little emissary departed, but in a few minutes came running back with the loud exclamation, ``Eh, Minnie! eh, grannie! there's a white bogle chasing twa black anes down the heugh.''