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When will it be most convenient for my Chamberlain to send me his resignation after 'twelve years of painstaking and intelligent service to the Estate, as we might be saying, on the customary silver salver?" Simon cursed within but outwardly never quailed. "I know nothing about a ballant," said he coolly, "but as for the rest of it, I thank God I can be taking a hint as ready as the quickest.
There is a sang about ane o' them marrying a daughter of the King of Man; it begins Blythe Bertram's ta'en him ower the faem, To wed a wife, and bring her hame I daur say Mr. Skreigh can sing us the ballant.
With Marie Louise there were M. Dubois, the Duchess of Montebello, the Countess of Lucay, Mesdames Durand and Ballant, ladies-in-waiting, ladies of the bedchamber, etc., and Madame Blaise. The Emperor, his mother and sisters, and two physicians, Drs. Corvisart and Bourdier, were in the next room. Napoleon kept going in and out of his wife's chamber, encouraging her with kind and cheery words.
It was the first of those heart-wrung fancies that went to the making of the volume that lies before me as I write the familiar lament for the lost "Maid of the Moor" that shepherds still are singing on his native hills. "A ballant!" said he, wondering, and with some contempt. "That's just what it is," said his brother. "There was never the like broke out in this family before, I'm glad to say."
Noo I maun confess 'at the ballant o' Kemp Owen was rinnin' i' the worm-heid o' me, an' I cudna help thinkin' what, notwithstan'in' the cheenge o' han's i' the story, lay still to the pairt o' the knicht; but hoo was ony man, no to say a mere ugsome serpent, to mint at sic a thing till a leddy, whether she was in steel beets an' spurs or in lang train an' silver slippers? An' haith!
I'm wrong; that was my first yin; I had no bairns by her; yours is the second, Mary Murray, Born 1819, Died 1850: that's her a fine, plain, decent sort of a creature, tak' her athegether. Alexander Loudon, Born Seventeen Ninety-Twa, Died and then a hole in the ballant: that's me. Alexander's my name. They ca'd me Ecky when I was a boy. Eh, Ecky! ye're an awfu' auld man!"
First one gangrel would sing a verse or two of a Lowland ballant, not very much put out in its sentiment by the presence of the random ladies; then another would pluck a tune upon the Jew's-trump, a chorus would rise like a sudden gust of wind, a jig would shake upon the fiddle.
I'm wrong; that was my first yin; I had no bairns by her; yours is the second, Mary Murray, Born 1819, Died 1850; that's her a fine, plain, decent sort of a creature, tak' her a'thegether. Alexander Loudon, Born Seventeen Ninety-Twa, Died and then a hole in the ballant: that's me. Alexander's my name. They ca'd me Ecky when I was a boy. Eh, Ecky! ye're an awfu' auld man!"
It's there! a wee darker, but the same jist whaur I could ha' laid the pint o' my finger upo't i' the mirk! Noo lat the worms eat it," she concluded, as she folded down the linen of shroud and sheet "an' no mortal ken o' 't but mysel' an' him 'at bude till hae seen 't, gien he was a hair better nor Glenkindie's man i' the auld ballant!"
Onybody nicht hae h'ard him sayin' them ower and ower til himsel', as gien he cudna weary o' them, but naebody but mysel' seemed to hae ta'en ony notice o' the same. I used whiles to won'er whether he fully un'erstude what he was sayin' but troth! hoo cud there be ony sense in sic havers?" "Was there ony mair o' the ballant?" asked Cosmo. "Gien there was mair; I h'ard na't," replied Grannie.
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