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The old woman was a-drowse on the porch of the rickety little log-cabin beneath the gourd vines, the paralytic grandfather came hirpling unsteadily through the doorway on his supporting crutch, his pipe shaking in his shaking hand, while he muttered and mumbled to himself who knows what? whether of terror of the future, or regret for the past, or doubt and despair of to-day.
Still the lift gloomed, and the wind roared, and it was as doleful a sight as ever was seen in any town afflicted with calamity, to see the sailors' wives, with their red cloaks about their heads, followed by their hirpling and disconsolate bairns, going one after another to the kirkyard, to look at the vessels where their helpless breadwinners were battling with the tempest.
It was early, and the streets were empty, except where in the distance the bent figure of an old man was seen hirpling off to his work, first twisting round stiffly to cock his eye right and left at the sky, to forecast the weather for the day. From the chimneys the fair white spirlies of reek were rising in the pure air.
Cold, bitter and tempestuous and terrible as was the day, amidst rain, wind, sleet, and hail, there might be seen, in a thoroughfare about the centre of the town, a cripple, apparently paralytic from the middle down, seated upon the naked street, his legs stretched out before him, hirpling onward; by alternately twisting his miserable body from right to left; while, as if the softer sex were not to be surpassed in feats of hardihood or heroism, a tattered creature, in the shape of woman, without cap, shoe, or stocking, accompanied by two naked and shivering children, whose artificial lamentations were now lost in those of nature, proceeded up the street, in the very teeth of the beating tempest, attempting to sing some dismal ditty, with a voice which resembled the imagined shriekings of a ghoul, more than the accents of a human being.
Malcolm's groan and murmur of 'Never! made James almost laugh at the evidence that on one side at least the touch-wood was ready. 'Oh, Sir, he sighed, 'why put the thought before me, to make me wretched! Even were she for the world, she would never be for me. I doited hirpling 'Peace, silly lad; all that is past and gone.
All the weans of the clachan were gathered at the kirkyard yett to see him pass, and they gave him three great shouts as he was going by; and everybody was at their doors, and said something encouraging to him; but there was a great laugh when auld Mizy Spaewell came hirpling with her bauchle in her hand, and flung it after him for good-luck.
The twins would stagger around for a whole day tied together at the ankles, and Tim now displayed this family peculiarity by hirpling along, one foot up on the smooth, hard roadway, the other plunging far into the deep snow. "Very well, thank you," said Mr. Scott. "Where are you going?" "Down to see John." His tone revealed his pride in the daring confession.
But let me proceed to rehearse the trials I was required to undergo before the accomplishment of that high predestination. Weary, as I have said, very cold and disconsolate, we walked hirpling together for some time; at last we heard the rumbling of wheels before us, and my son running forward came back and told me it was a carrier.
My Lords Elchies and Kilkerran walked on either side of him Kilkerran with the lack-lustre eye of the passionate mathematician, the studious moralist devoted to midnight oil, a ruddy, tall, sturdy man, well filling the crimson and white silk gown; Elchies, a shrivelled atomy with a hirpling walk, leaning heavily upon a rattan, both with the sinister black tri-corne hats in their hands, and flanked by a company of musketeers.
The look with which Robin looked at Swaby, as he said this, dismayed the gallant cavalier, who cried, gazing back at Mysie, who was hirpling homeward "The devil! is she one of that sort?" "I'll no say what she is, nor what others say o' her," replied Robin with solemnity; "but ye'll no fare the waur that ye stand weel in her liking."
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