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May those you love if any such there be may they be torn from you and slain before your eyes. Worse than brute that you are, meaner than the meanest worm that creeps, curse you, curse you!" Then as Aasta drew yet farther back her hand was caught by another hand which drew her gently aside, and from behind the rock appeared the gaunt figure of old Elspeth Blackfell.
He got them out of the house, and then he and she had a long talk, not about them, but about men and women in general, from which she gathered once again that there was nobody like Tommy. When they bade each other good-night, she would say to him: "I think you are the one perfect gentleman in the world." Or he might say: "You expect so much of men, Elspeth."
He knows that you are a stranger and a woman, but I don't suppose he has the most glimmering idea of what you are really like!" "Oh yes, he has. I was sitting in the kitchen this morning, and he came and spoke to me under the impression that I was Elspeth! The impression lasted until he got quite near. I was wearing an apron, but still, I wasn't pleased!
"Wasna there some ane o' ye said," asked the old sibyl, "or did I dream, or was it revealed to me, that Joscelind, Lady Glenallan, is dead, an' buried this night?" "Yes, gudemither," screamed the daughter-in-law, "it's e'en sae." "And e'en sae let it be," said old Elspeth; "she's made mony a sair heart in her day ay, e'en her ain son's is he living yet?"
"She believes I meant that," he cried hoarsely. "Grizel believes that of me! I have behaved since then as if that was what I meant, have I? I meant only that it would be hard on me if Elspeth learned of our love at the very moment when this man is treating her basely. I look as if I had meant something worse, do I? I know myself at last! Grizel has shown me what I am."
Accordingly, he took his leave of Dame Elspeth, who was confounded by the rapidity of his utterance, and the doctrine he gave forth, and by no means easy on the subject of the book, which her conscience told her she should not have communicated to any one, without the knowledge of its owner.
"Our dishes and trenchers are not so clean as they could be wished, holy father," said Elspeth, but half understanding what he said, and beginning with her apron to wipe the dust from the plates, of which she supposed him to complain.
It was Elspeth Barrow he knew her now, though he had not seen her for a long time. She sat still, her brown eyes raised to building birds in the thorn-tree. Then she began herself to sing, clear and sweet. "A lad and a lass met ower the brae; They blushed rose-red, but they said nae word The woodbine fair and the milk-white slae: And frae one to the other gaed a silver bird, A silver bird.
As he drew near he saw the dim light within, shining through the narrow windows of coloured glass, and he heard the solemn murmur of prayer. He was about to enter when a hand was suddenly laid upon his shoulder. "'Tis you, my lord?" said the voice of Elspeth Blackfell. "Then it must surely be that you have fought and vanquished. God be thanked!
"Then, my lord," said Oldbuck, "our first business must be to put the information of the old woman, Elspeth, into a regular and authenticated form." "That," said Lord Glenallan, "will be at present, I fear, impossible. She is exhausted herself, and surrounded by her distressed family.
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