"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." "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, quae nec Nomina, servorum, nec vultus agnoscit amici, Cum queis preterita coenavit nocte, nec illos Quos genuit, quos eduxit." "That's Latin!" said Elspeth, rousing herself as if she attended to the lines, which the Antiquary recited with great pomp of diction--"that's Latin!" and she cast a wild glance around her--"Has there a priest fund me out at last ?" "You see, nephew, her comprehension is almost equal to your own of that fine passage." "I hope you think, sir, that I knew it to be Latin as well as she did ?" "Why, as to that--But stay, she is about to speak." "I will have no priest--none," said the beldam, with impotent vehemence; "as I have lived I will die--none shall say that I betrayed my mistress, though it were to save my soul!" "That bespoke a foul conscience," said the mendicant;--"I wuss she wad mak a clean breast, an it were but for her sake;" and he again assailed her.
"Weel, gudewife, I did your errand to the Yerl." "To what Earl?
I ken nae Earl;--I ken'd a Countess ance--I wish to Heaven I had never ken'd her! for by that acquaintance, neighbour, their cam,"-- and she counted her withered fingers as she spoke "first Pride, then Malice, then Revenge, then False Witness; and Murder tirl'd at the door-pin, if he camna ben.

And werena thae pleasant guests, think ye, to take up their quarters in ae woman's heart?
I trow there was routh o' company." "But, cummer," continued the beggar, "it wasna the Countess of Glenallan I meant, but her son, him that was Lord Geraldin." "I mind it now," she said; "I saw him no that langsyne, and we had a heavy speech thegither.

Eh, sirs! the comely young lord is turned as auld and frail as I am: it's muckle that sorrow and heartbreak, and crossing of true love, will do wi' young blood.

But suldna his mither hae lookit to that hersell ?--we were but to do her bidding, ye ken.