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The farther one lay horizontally, on its upright "through stanes," some distance above the earth. The supports of the other had fallen, and the table lay on their thickness within six inches of the ground. Mr. Traill and the caretaker sat upon this slab, which testified to the piety and worth of one Mistress Jean Grant, who had died "lang syne."
It was the hearse they had brought to the door instead of a carriage. "We got awa' in a carriage in the tail-end, and the stanes hitting it was all the good luck flung after me. It had just one horse, and I mind how I cried to Esther Auld, wha had been the first to throw, that when I came back it would be in a carriage and pair. "Ay, I had pride!
There was much of sadness in that letter, and much of Belle the gipsy lass, and of many wanderings from France to the Low Countries, "Hamish, man, I'm minding the very stanes in the hill dykes and the track o' the sheep on the hillside." Why he had been kind to the Egyptian he told me.
Then I saw' here she stepped to the head of the bed and drew apart the curtains, which opened in the middle 'I saw the curtain was open, and naething but blackness ahint it. Ye see, my Lord, ahint the bed-heid is the entrance o' the auld secret passage. The stanes hae lang syne fallen in, and closed it, but my Lord never would have the hole wa'ed up.
"Ay!" said Janet, in a low voice, "the live stanes maun come to the live rock to bigg the hoose 'at'll stan." "What think ye, Maister Fergus, you 'at's gauin' to be a minister?" said Robert, referring to his wife's words, as the young man looked in at the door of the kitchen. "Lat him be," interposed his father, blowing his nose with unnecessary violence; "setna him preachin' afore's time.
"But, sir," answered Ratcliffe, "I am sure I couldna undertake to guide you to Muschat's Cairn in the night-time; I ken the place as mony does, in fair day-light, but how to find it by moonshine, amang sae mony crags and stanes, as like to each other as the collier to the deil, is mair than I can tell. I might as soon seek moonshine in water."
Are ye to eat your meat by the cheeks of a red fire, and think upon this poor sick lad of mine, biting his finger ends on a blae muir for cauld and hunger? Sick or sound, he must aye be moving; with the death grapple at his throat he must aye be trailing in the rain on the lang roads; and when he gants his last on a rickle of cauld stanes, there will be nae friends near him but only me and God."
Ye see it was just a queer clump o' a roun'-about heathen, waghlin' may be twa tons or thereby. It wasna like ony o' the stanes in our countra, an' it was as roun' as a fit-ba'; I'm sure it wad ding Professor Couplan himsel' to tell what way it cam' there.
The folk thinks it's a woman that's getting in his way, but dinna tell me that about sic a scholar; I tell you he would gang ower a toon o' women like a loaded cart ower new-laid stanes." Wearyworld hobbled after me up the Roods one day, pelting me with remarks, though I was doing my best to get away from him.
"But jist consider hoo auld the place is, my lord! as auld as the time o' the sea rovin' Danes, they say. Maybe it's aulder nor King Alfred! Ye maun regaird it only as a foondation; there's stanes eneuch lyin' aboot to shaw 'at there maun hae been a gran' supperstructur on 't ance. I some think it has been ance disconneckit frae the lan', an' jined on by a drawbrig.