Chapter 19 - Page 2

side,
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,
Were ye Glenallan's Earl?'

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
dayin 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,
And ye were Roland Cheyne,
The spur should be in my horse's side,
And the bridle upon his mane.

"If they hae twenty thousand blades,
And we twice ten times ten,
Yet they hae but their tartan plaids,
And we are mail-clad men.

"My horse shall ride through ranks sae rude,
As through the moorland fern,
Then neer let the gentle Norman blude
Grow cauld for Highland kerne.'"

"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, "a silly old woman sing a silly old song. I am
surprised, sir, that you, who will not listen to Ossian's songs of Selma,
can be pleased with such trash. I vow, 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 could be affected by such doggrel. "--And, tossing up his head,
he snuffed the air indignantly.

Apparently the old woman heard the sound of their voices; for, ceasing
her song, she called out, "Come in, sirs, come in--good-will never halted
at the door-stane."

They entered, and found to their surprise Elspeth alone, sitting "ghastly
on the hearth," like the personification of Old Age in the Hunter's song
of the Owl,* "wrinkled, tattered, vile, dim-eyed, discoloured, torpid."

* See Mrs. Grant on the Highland Superstitions, vol. ii. p. 260, for this
fine translation from the Gaelic.

"They're a' out," she said, as they entered; "but an ye will sit a blink,
somebody will be in. If ye hae business wi' my gude-daughter, or my son,
they'll be in