Little accustomed to be listened to, they love the attention which a tragic tale ensures to the bearer, and enjoy, perhaps, the temporary equality to which misfortune reduces those who are ordinarily accounted their superiors.

Dorothy had no sooner possessed herself of a slight packet of the rumours which were flying abroad than she bounced into her master's bedroom, who had taken the privilege of age and the holytide to sleep longer than usual.
"There he lies, honest man," said Dorothy, half in a screeching and half in a wailing tone of sympathy--"there he lies; his best friend slain, and he knowing as little about it as the babe new born, that kens not life from death." "How now!" said the glover, starting up out of his bed.

"What is the matter, old woman?
Is my daughter well ?" "Old woman!" said Dorothy, who, having her fish hooked, chose to let him play a little.

"I am not so old," said she, flouncing out of the room, "as to bide in the place till a man rises from his naked bed--" And presently she was heard at a distance in the parlour beneath, melodiously singing to the scrubbing of her own broom.
"Dorothy--screech owl--devil--say but my daughter is well!" "I am well, my father," answered the Fair Maid of Perth, speaking from her bedroom, "perfectly well, but what, for Our Lady's sake, is the matter?
The bells ring backward, and there is shrieking and crying in the streets." "I will presently know the cause.

Here, Conachar, come speedily and tie my points.