gae wa', lass! — ca' the head o' the house slaves? little ye ken about it, lass. Show me a word my Saunders daur speak, or a turn he daur do about the house, without it be just to tak his meat, and his drink, and his diversion, like ony o' the weans. He has mair sense than to ca' anything about the bigging his ain, frae the rooftree down to a crackit trencher on the bink. He kens weel eneugh wha feeds him, and cleeds him, and keeps a' tight, thack and rape, when his coble is jowing awa in the Firth, puir fallow. Na, na, lass! — them that sell the goods guide the purse — them that guide the purse rule the house. Show me ane o' yer bits o' farmer-bodies that wad let their wife drive the stock to the market, and ca' in the debts. Na, na."
"Aweel, aweel, Maggie, ilka land has its ain lauch — But where's Steenie the night, when a's come and gane? And where's the gudeman?"3
"I hae putten the gudeman to his bed, for he was e'en sair forfain; and Steenie's awa out about some barns-breaking wi' the auld gaberlunzie, Edie Ochiltree: they'll be in sune, and ye can sit doun."
"Troth, gudewife" (taking a seat), "I haena that muckle time to stop — but I maun tell ye about the news. Yell hae heard o' the muckle kist o' gowd that Sir Arthur has fund down by at St. Ruth? — He'll be grander than ever now — he'll no can haud down his head to sneeze, for fear o' seeing his shoon."
"Ou ay — a' the country's heard o' that; but auld Edie says that they ca' it ten times mair than ever was o't, and he saw them howk it up. Od, it would be lang or a puir body that needed it got sic a windfa'."
"Na, that's sure eneugh. — And yell hae heard o' the Countess o' Glenallan being dead and lying in state, and how she's to be buried at St. Ruth's as this night fa's, wi' torch-light; and a' the popist servants, and Ringan Aikwood, that's a papist too, are to be there, and it will be the grandest show ever was seen."
"Troth, hinny," answered the Nereid, "if they let naebody but papists come there, it'll no be muckle o' a show in this country, for the auld harlot, as honest Mr. Blattergowl ca's her, has few that drink o' her cup o' enchantments in this corner o' our chosen lands. — But what can ail them to bury the auld carlin (a rudas wife she was) in the night-time? — I dare say our gudemither will ken."
Here she exalted her voice, and exclaimed twice or thrice, "Gudemither! gudemither!" but, lost in the apathy of age and deafness, the aged sibyl she addressed continued plying her spindle without understanding the appeal made to her.
"Speak to your grandmither, Jenny — Od, I wad rather hail the coble half a mile aff, and the nor-wast wind whistling again in my teeth."
"Grannie," said the little mermaid, in a voice to which the old woman was better accustomed, "minnie wants to ken what for the Glenallan folk aye bury by candle-light in the ruing of St. Ruth!"
The old woman paused in the act of twirling the spindle, turned round to the rest of the party, lifted her withered, trembling, and clay-coloured hand, raised up her ashen-hued and wrinkled face, which the quick motion of two light-blue eyes chiefly distinguished from the visage of a corpse, and, as if catching at any touch of association with the living world, answered, "What gars the Glenallan family inter their dead by torchlight, said the lassie? — Is there a Glenallan dead e'en now?"
"We might be a' dead and buried too," said Maggie, "for onything ye wad ken about it;" — and then, raising her voice to the stretch of her mother-in-law's comprehension, she added,
"It's the auld Countess, gudemither."
"And is she ca'd hame then at last?" said the old woman, in a voice that seemed to be agitated with much more feeling than belonged to her extreme old age, and the general indifference and apathy of her manner — "is she then called to her last account after her lang race o' pride and power? — O God, forgie her!"
"But minnie was asking ye," resumed the lesser querist, "what for the Glenallan family aye bury their dead by torch-light?"
"They hae aye dune sae," said the grandmother, "since the time the Great Earl fell in the sair battle o' the Harlaw, when they say the coronach was cried in ae day from the mouth of the Tay to the Buck of the Cabrach, that ye wad hae heard nae other sound but that of lamentation for the great folks that had fa'en fighting against Donald of the Isles. But the Great Earl's mither was living — they were a doughty and a dour race, the women o' the house o' Glenallan — and she wad hae nae coronach cried for her son, but had him laid in the silence o' midnight in his place o' rest, without either drinking the dirge, or crying the lament. She said he had killed enow that day he died, for the widows and daughters o' the Highlanders he had slain to cry the coronach for them they had lost, and for her son too; and sae she laid him in his gave wi' dry eyes, and without a groan or a wail. And it was thought a proud word o' the family, and they aye stickit by it — and the mair in the latter times, because in the night-time they had mair freedom to perform their popish ceremonies by darkness and in secrecy than in the daylight — at least that was the case in my time; they wad hae been disturbed in the day-time baith by the law and the commons of Fairport — they may be owerlooked now, as I have heard: the warlds changed — I whiles hardly ken whether I am standing or sitting, or dead or living."
And looking round the fire, as if in a state of unconscious uncertainty of which she complained, old Elspeth relapsed into her habitual and mechanical occupation of twirling the spindle.
"Eh, sirs!" said Jenny Rintherout, under her breath to her gossip, "it's awsome to hear your gudemither break out in that gait — it's like the dead speaking to the living."
"Ye're no that far wrang, lass; she minds naething o' what passes the day — but set her on auld tales, and she can speak like a prent buke. She kens mair about the Glenallan family than maist folk — the gudeman's father was their fisher mony a day. Ye maun ken the papists make a great point o' eating fish — it's nae bad part o' their religion that, whatever the rest is — I could aye sell the best o' fish at the best o' prices for the Countess's ain table, grace be wi' her! especially on a Friday — But see as our gudemither's hands and lips are ganging — now it's working in her head like barm — she'll speak eneugh the night. Whiles she'll no speak a word in a week, unless it be to the bits o' bairns."
"Hegh, Mrs. Mucklebackit, she's an awsome wife!" said Jenny in reply. "D'ye think she's a'thegither right? Folk say she downa gang to the kirk, or speak to the minister, and that she was ance a papist but since her gudeman's been dead, naebody kens what she is. D'ye think yoursell that she's no uncanny?"
"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