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He told them all he had undergone since first he was carried away, not forgetting the two spirits, Batty and Maudge, that had tormented him so cruelly during the period of his enchantment.
Thankful for his deliverance, he fell on his knees, and poured out a long prayer of gratitude for being thus freed from his enemies, Batty and Maudge. The distance he had travelled must have taken him far away from the regions of their influence the most grateful of all the thoughts that now rose in his wondering mind.
"Maudge, ye jaud!" cried another voice, from the door of a poor woman's cottage.
Truly, I do intend to weed thy pretty arbours, Maudge; and, peradventure, I may even essay to sing a bass to thy sweet ballad of "Lustye May, with Flora Queen;" and such a domesticated creature shall I be that, like Hercules, you may see me, ere long, ply the distaff a pretty sight for Adam Scott's warlike eye."
Come, now, Parys, was not that sweet dream dearer to ye than the fever of the strife of Border foray?" "Ay, Maudge," responded he, "I confess that you have taught me that there is more in man's heart than he himself dreams of.
Then, the shuffling old step that he heard so frequently, the thin voice calling, "Hey! Maudge," followed always by the mewing of a cat what could that be but some old hag, given over to evil deeds, talking to her familiar?
"Ha ha!" cried Cockburn, laughing, and glad to get rid of the original topic. "Don't you know, Maudge, that my grandsire was a dabbler in prophetic visions; and, think ye, he would have been fool enough to plant and water, as he is said to have done, his descendant's wuddy? But I have a good mind to cut down the tree, and make Lailoken's prophecy a physical impossibility."
Such is thy training, that our young Hector will lose Henderland before the sods have grown together over his father's grave, in that small burying ground around our chapel. And you have unmanned me too, Maudge. You have much to answer for to the manes of the old Cockburns, who lie sleeping in their quiet beds there, after a jolly life of sturdy stouthrieving from Yarrow to the Esk.
What would the laird of Gilnockie say if he heard that Cockburn's bairns were taught to read ay, and to play on harpsichords, and teylins, and dulcimers. By my faith, Maudge, but he would laugh a good laugh." "And yet," answered she, "I have seen the clear drop shining in her father's eye as Helen touched the strings to the soft melodies of Auld Scotland.
While, ben the house, he could hear a slow, shuffling step, and a thin old voice quavering: "Hey, Maudge!" to a mewing cat. "What was yon cry oot on the hill? Oh, jist oor Ailick cryin' on his dowg, Bauty, to weer the sheep," said the grey-haired, brown-faced old woman to whom they had owed their shelter for the night. "Veesitors?" she continued, in reply to further questions. "Na.
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