the sympathy of her betters, and the habitual love of traffic and of gain, chasing each other through her thoughts. "And now that we are before the door of their hut," said Ochiltree, "I wad fain ken, Monkbarns, what has gar'd ye plague yoursell wi' me a' this length? I tell ye sincerely I hae nae pleasure in ganging in there. I downa bide to think how the young hae fa'en on a' sides o' me, and left me an useless auld stump wi' hardly a green leaf on't." "This old woman," said Oldbuck, "sent you on a message to the Earl of Glenallan, did she not?" "Ay!" said the surprised mendicant; "how ken ye that sae weel ?" 66 "Lord Glenallan told me himself," answered the Antiquary; so there is no delation-no breach of trust on your part; and as he wishes me to take her evidence down on some important family matters, I chose to bring you with me, because in her situation, hovering between dotage and consciousness, it is possible that your voice and appearance may awaken trains of recollection which I should otherwise have no means of exciting. The human mind- -what are you about, Hector ?". "I was only whistling for the dog, sir,” replied the Captain; "she always roves too wide--I knew I should be troublesome to you." "Not at all, not at all," said Oldbuck, resuming the subject of his disquisition-" the human mind is to be treated like a skein of ravelled silk, where you must cautiously secure one free end before you can make any progress in disentangling it.” “I ken naething about that," said the gaberlunzie; “but an my auld acquaintance be hersell, or onything like hersell, she may come to wind us a pirn. It's fearsome baith to see and hear her when she wampishes about her arms, and gets to her English, and speaks as if she were a prent book, let a-be an auld fisher's wife. But, indeed, she had a grand education, and was muckle taen out afore she married an unco bit beneath hersell. She's aulder than me by half a score years—but I mind weel eneugh they made as muckle wark about her making a half-merk marriage wi' Simon Mucklebackit, this Saunders's father, as if she had been ane o' the gentry. But she got into favour again, and then she lost it again, as I hae heard her son say, when he was a muckle chield; and then they got muckle siller, and left the Countess's land, and settled here. But things never throve wi' them. Howsomever, she's a weel-educate woman, and an she win to her English, as I hae heard her do at an orra time, she may come to fickle us a'." CHAPTER FORTIETH. Life ebbs from such old age, unmarked and silent, OLD PLAY. As the Antiquary lifted the latch of the hut, he was surprised to hear the shrill tremulous voice of Elspeth chanting forth an old ballad in a wild and doleful recitative. "The herring loves the merry moonlight, The mackerel loves the wind, But the oyster loves the dredging sang, A diligent collector of these legendary scraps of ancient poetry, his foot refused to cross the threshold when his ear was thus arrested, and his hand instinctively took pencil and memorandum-book. From time to time the old woman spoke as if to the children—"Oh ay, hinnies, whisht! whisht! and I'll begin a bonnier ane than that "Now haud your tongue, baith wife and carle, I dinna mind the neist verse weel-my memory's failed, and there's unco thoughts come ower me- -God keep us frae temptation !" Here her voice sunk in indistinct muttering. "It's a historical ballad," said Oldbuck, eagerly, "a genuine and undoubted fragment of minstrelsy! Percy would admire its simplicity-Ritson could not impugn its authenticity." "Ay, but it's a sad thing," said Ochiltree, "to see human nature sae far owertaen as to be skirling at auld sangs on the back of a loss like hers." "Hush! hush!" said the Antiquary-" she has gotten the thread of the story again."-And as he spoke, she sung "They saddled a hundred milk-white steeds, With a chafron of steel on each horse's head, "Chafron !" exclaimed the Antiquary, 66 equivalent, perhaps, to cheveron ;—the word's worth a dollar,”—and down it went in his red book. 66 They hadna ridden a mile, a mile, Wi' twenty thousand men. "Their tartans they were waving Their glaives were glancing Their pibrochs rung frae side to Would deafen ye to hear. "The great Earl in his stirrups stood That Highland host to see : Now here a knight that's stout and good May prove a jeopardie: "What wouldst thou do, my squire so gay, That rides beside my reyne, Were ye Glenallan's Earl the day, And I were Roland Cheyne ? "To turn the rein were sin and shame, To fight were wondrous peril, What would ye do now, Roland Cheyne, Ye maun ken, hinnies, that this Roland Cheyne, for as poor and auld as I sit in the chimney-neuk, was my forbear, and an awfu' man he was that day in the fight, but specially after the Earl had fa'en, for he blamed himsell for the counsel he gave, to fight before Mar came up wi' Mearns, and Aberdeen, and Angus." Her voice rose and became more animated as she recited the warlike counsel of her ancestor "Were I Glenallan's Earl this tide, "If they hae twenty thousand blades, 666 Yet they hae but their tartan plaids, My horse shall ride through ranks sae rude, As through the moorland fern, Then ne'er let the gentle Norman blude "Do you hear that, nephew?" said Oldbuck ;-" you observe Your Gaelic ancestors were not held in high repute formerly by the Lowland warriors." "I hear," said Hector, song. 66 I a silly old woman sing a silly old I am surprised, sir, that you, who will not listen to Ossian's songs of Selma, can be pleased with such trash. I have not seen or heard a worse halfpenny ballad; I don't believe you could match it in any pedlar's pack in the country. I should be ashamed to think that the honour of the Highlands be affected by such doggrel.”—And, tossing up his head, he snuffed the air indignantly. Vow, could "Come in, sirs, come in— the sound of their voices; Ceasing her song, she called out, good-will never halted at the door-stane." for, entered, and found to their surprise Elspeth alone, sitting on the hearth," like the personification of Old Age in They ghastly the Hunter's song of the Owl,* "wrinkled, tattered, vile, dimeyed, discoloured, torpid." 'They're a' out," she said, as they entered; "but an ye will sit a blink, somebody will be in. or my If ye hae business wi' my I never speak on business mysell. Bairns, gie them seats-the bairns are a' I trow,"-looking around her ;-"I was crooning to gane out, keep them some gate. quiet a wee while since; but they hae cruppen out Sit down, sirs, they'll be in belyve;" and she and soon seemed exclusively occupied in regulating its motion, as her spindle from her hand to twirl upon the floor,& Grant on the Highland Superstitions, vol. ii. p. 260, for this dismissed unconscious of the presence of the strangers as she appeared indifferent to their rank or business there. "I wish," said Oldbuck, "she would resume that canticle, or legendary fragment. I always suspected there was a skirmish of cavalry before the main battle of the Harlaw."* "If your honour pleases," said Edie, "had ye not better proceed to the business that brought us a' here? I'se engage to get ye the sang ony time.” "I believe you are right, Edie—Do manus- -I submit. But how shall we manage? She sits there, the very image of dotage. Speak to her, Edie-try if you can make her recollect having sent you to Glenallan House." Edie rose accordingly, and, crossing the floor, placed himself in the same position which he had occupied during his former conversation with her. "I'm fain to see ye looking sae weel, cummer; the mair, that the black ox has tramped on ye since I was aneath your roof-tree." "Ay," said Elspeth; but rather from a general idea of misfortune, than any exact recollection of what had happened, -"there has been distress amang us of late-I wonder how younger folk bide it-I bide it ill. I canna hear the wind whistle, and the sea roar, but I think I see the coble whombled keel up, and some o' them struggling in the waves !-Eh, sirs; sic weary dreams as folk hae between sleeping and waking, before they win to the lang sleep and the sound! I could amaist think whiles my son, or else Steenie, my oe, was dead, and that I had seen the burial. Isna that a queer dream for a daft auld carline? What for should ony o' them dee before me?—it's out o' the course o' nature, ye ken." "I think you'll make very little of this stupid old woman," said Hector, who still nourished, perhaps, some feelings of the dislike excited by the disparaging mention of his countrymen in her lay-"I think you'll make but little of her, sir; and it's wasting our time to sit here and listen to her dotage." 66 'Hector," said the Antiquary, indignantly, "if you do not respect her misfortunes, respect at least her old age and grey hairs: this is the last stage of existence, so finely treated by the Latin poet Omni Membrorum damno major dementia, quæ nec *Note H. Battle of Harlaw. VOL. III. 2 B |