Her knitting was by her side; and if she had been going through any accustomed calculation or consideration she would have had it busily clinking in her fingers.

But she had something quite beyond common to think about, and, perhaps, to speak about; and for the minute she was not equal to knitting.
'Sylvie,' she began at length, 'did I e'er tell thee on Nancy Hartley as I knew when I were a child?
I'm thinking a deal on her to-night; may-be it's because I've been dreaming on yon old times.
She was a bonny lass as ever were seen, I've heerd folk say; but that were afore I knew her.

When I knew her she were crazy, poor wench; wi' her black hair a-streaming down her back, and her eyes, as were a'most as black, allays crying out for pity, though never a word she spoke but "He once was here." Just that o'er and o'er again, whether she were cold or hot, full or hungry, "He once was here," were all her speech.

She had been farm-servant to my mother's brother--James Hepburn, thy great-uncle as was; she were a poor, friendless wench, a parish 'prentice, but honest and gaum-like, till a lad, as nobody knowed, come o'er the hills one sheep-shearing fra' Whitehaven; he had summat to do wi' th' sea, though not rightly to be called a sailor: and he made a deal on Nancy Hartley, just to beguile the time like; and he went away and ne'er sent a thought after her more.

It's the way as lads have; and there's no holding 'em when they're fellows as nobody knows--neither where they come fro', nor what they've been doing a' their lives, till they come athwart some poor wench like Nancy Hartley.