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Archibald," answered the Captain of Knockdunder, "wad ye hae them ring the bell before I am ready to gang to kirk? I wad gar the bedral eat the bell-rope, if he took ony sic freedom. But if ye want to hear the bell, I will just show mysell on the knowe-head, and it will begin jowing forthwith."
Archibald," answered the Captain of Knockdunder, "wad ye hae them ring the bell before I am ready to gang to kirk? I wad gar the bedral eat the bell-rope, if he took ony sic freedom. But if ye want to hear the bell, I will just show mysell on the knowe-head, and it will begin jowing forthwith."
"It's travell'd earth that," said Edie, "it howks gae eithly I ken it weel, for ance I wrought a simmer wi' auld Will Winnet, the bedral, and howkit mair graves than ane in my day; but I left him in winter, for it was unco cald wark; and then it cam a green Yule, and the folk died thick and fast for ye ken a green Yule makes a fat kirkyard; and I never dowed to bide a hard turn o' wark in my life sae aff I gaed, and left Will to delve his last dwellings by himsell for Edie."
"It's travell'd earth that," said Edie, "it howks gae eithly I ken it weel, for ance I wrought a simmer wi' auld Will Winnet, the bedral, and howkit mair graves than ane in my day; but I left him in winter, for it was unco cald wark; and then it cam a green Yule, and the folk died thick and fast for ye ken a green Yule makes a fat kirkyard; and I never dowed to bide a hard turn o' wark in my life sae aff I gaed, and left Will to delve his last dwellings by himsell for Edie."
"Maybe you are right," said the old woman, with a ghastly laugh; "carles and carlines agree weel with funeral vaults and charnel-houses, and when an auld bedral dwells near the dead, he is living, ye ken, among his customers Halloo! Powheid! Lazarus Powheid! there is a gentleman would speak with you;" and she added, with some sort of emphasis, "an.
"I take ye a' to witness, gude people," said Morheuch, "that she threatens me wi' mischief, and forespeaks me. If ony thing but gude happens to me or my fiddle this night, I'll make it the blackest night's job she ever stirred in. I'll hae her before presbytery and synod: I'm half a minister mysell, now that I'm a bedral in an inhabited parish."
His tongue clave to the roof of his mouth; his lips moved, but shaped no sound; a deathly dew bathed his forehead; his knees shook; and he sank at last to the bottom of the chamber of his torture, whence, while his mother wept below, and his father clenched hands of despair beneath the tails of his Sunday coat, he was half led, half dragged down the steps by the bedral, shrunken together like one caught in a shameful deed, and with the ghastly look of him who has but just revived from the faint supervening on the agonies of the rack.
"Hout, lad," said Edie, getting down in his room "let me try my hand for an auld bedral; ye're gude seekers, but ill finders." So soon as he got into the grave, he struck his pike-staff forcibly down; it encountered resistance in its descent, and the beggar exclaimed, like a Scotch schoolboy when he finds anything, "Nae halvers and quarters hale o' mine ain and 'nane o' my neighbour's."
"Hout, lad," said Edie, getting down in his room "let me try my hand for an auld bedral; ye're gude seekers, but ill finders." So soon as he got into the grave, he struck his pike-staff forcibly down; it encountered resistance in its descent, and the beggar exclaimed, like a Scotch schoolboy when he finds anything, "Nae halvers and quarters hale o' mine ain and 'nane o' my neighbour's."
"And very reasonable," said Ravenswood; "you were his servant and vassal." "Servitor, say ye?" replied the sexton, "and so I was; but it was to blaw folk to their warm dinner, or at the warst to a decent kirkyard, and no to skirl them awa' to a bluidy braeside, where there was deil a bedral but the hooded craw.
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