Chapter 6 - Page 2

the husband, nor the sister for the brother.--But is she e'en ca'd to
the lang account?"

"As sure," answered Edie, "as we maun a' abide it."

"Then I'll unlade my mind, come o't what will."

This she spoke with more alacrity than usually attended her expressions,
and accompanied her words with an attitude of the hand, as if throwing
something from her. She then raised up her form, once tall, and still
retaining the appearance of having been so, though bent with age and
rheumatism, and stood before the beggar like a mummy animated by some
wandering spirit into a temporary resurrection. Her light-blue eyes
wandered to and fro, as if she occasionally forgot and again remembered
the purpose for which her long and withered hand was searching among the
miscellaneous contents of an ample old-fashioned pocket. At length she
pulled out a small chip-box, and opening it, took out a handsome ring, in
which was set a braid of hair, composed of two different colours, black
and light brown, twined together, encircled with brilliants of
considerable value.

"Gudeman," she said to Ochiltree, "as ye wad e'er deserve mercy, ye maun
gang my errand to the house of Glenallan, and ask for the Earl."

"The Earl of Glenallan, cummer! ou, he winna see ony o' the gentles o'
the country, and what likelihood is there that he wad see the like o' an
auld gaberlunzie?"

"Gang your ways and try;--and tell him that Elspeth o' the Craigburnfoot
--he'll mind me best by that name--maun see him or she be relieved frae
her lang pilgrimage, and that she sends him that ring in token of the
business she wad speak o'."

Ochiltree looked on the ring with some admiration of its apparent value,
and then carefully replacing it in the box, and wrapping it in an old
ragged handkerchief, he deposited the token in his bosom.

"Weel, gudewife," he said, "I'se do your bidding, or it's no be my fault.
But surely there was never sic a braw propine as this sent to a yerl by
an auld fishwife, and through the hands of a gaberlunzie beggar."

With this reflection, Edie took up his pike-staff, put on his
broad-brimmed bonnet, and set forth upon his pilgrimage. The old woman
remained for some time standing in a fixed posture, her eyes directed to
the door through which her ambassador had departed. The appearance of
excitation, which the conversation had occasioned, gradually left her
features; she sank down upon her accustomed seat, and resumed her
mechanical labour of the distaff and spindle, with her wonted air of
apathy.

Edie Ochiltree meanwhile advanced on his journey. The distance to
Glenallan was ten miles, a march which the