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In my great grandmother's time, which 'ill be a thousand years and mair syne, there came a people from the south with bright brass things on their heads and breasts and terrible swords at their thighs. And with them were some lang gowned men who kenned the stars and would come out o' nights to talk to the deer and the corbies in their ain tongue.
We drove to the Hotel d'Angleterre, it was full, and ditto to four or five others, and in the last effort our refractory wheel came off again, and we all got out into the street. About a dozen lean, ragged "corbies," who are called porters and who are always lying in wait for travelers, pounced upon us.
As he did so, having once more forgot my presence, he took back to his singing; and now I could hear the words, which were those from the old song of the TWA CORBIES endlessly repeated: "And over his banes when they are bare The wind sall blaw for evermair!" I have said there was no music in the man.
"Well, cousin," said the other, "ye'll wear black at my burial." "Deil a black cloak will be there, Robin, but the corbies and the hoodie-craws, I'se gie ye my hand on that. But whar's the gude thousand pund Scots that I lent ye, man, and when am I to see it again?"
However, he surveyed the spot without ascending further, and then retreated muttering something about corbies and ravens, and, almost instantly, she heard the door of the hut close. Cautiously she crept down from her hiding-place; and, crawling along the ground with stealth and silence, knelt before the little window, so as to observe, through the broken shutter, the occupation of the inmates.
I saw no bird of prey, no ill-omened fowl, on my way to the carnival of death, or at the place where it had been held. The vulture of story, the crow of Talavera, the "twa corbies" of the ghastly ballad, are all from Nature, doubtless; but no black wing was spread over these animal ruins, and no call to the banquet pierced through the heavy-laden and sickening air.
The priests and the Irish officers, and thae papist cattle that hae been sodgering abroad, because they durstna bide at hame, are a' fleeing thick in Northumberland e'enow; and thae corbies dinna gather without they smell carrion.
I trust the house wunna coup the crane for a' that's come and gane yet; and if it does, I'll never bear sae base a mind as thae corbies in the Gallowgate an I am to lose by ye, I'se ne'er deny I hae won by ye mony a fair pund sterling Sae, an it come to the warst, I'se een lay the head o' the sow to the tail o' the grice."* * Anglice, the head of the sow to the tail of the pig.
The vulture of story, the crow of Talavera, the "twa corbies" of the ghastly ballad, are all from Nature, doubtless; but no black wing was spread over these animal ruins, and no call to the banquet pierced through the heavy-laden and sickening air.
Something of this I told to Dan as we gathered in the sheep from the far hills on the day before the big storm. I mind it fine, the grey heavy sky, the bursts of wind that rose ever and anon in the hills, and died away with an eerie cry, and made me think that all the winds had word to gather somewhere, and were hastening to the feast like corbies to a dying ewe.
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