ver
there!

CHAPTER XXXV -- A DAMNATORY DOCUMENT

Mungo took the coat into the castle kitchen, the true arcanum of Doom,
where he and Annapla solved the domestic problems that in later
years had not been permitted to disturb the mind of the master or his
daughter. An enormous fireplace, arched like a bridge, and poorly enough
fed nowadays compared with its gluttony in those happier years of his
continual bemoaning, when plenty kept the spit perpetually at work, if
it were only for the good of the beggars who blackened the road from
the Lowlands, had a handful of peat in its centre to make the yawning
orifice the more pathetic to eyes that had seen the flames leap there.
Everywhere the evidence of the old abundant days--the rusting spit
itself, the idle battery of cuisine, long rows of shining covers.
Annapla, who was assumed to be true tutelary genius of these things, but
in fact was beholden to the martial mannikin of Fife for inspiration and
aid with the simplest of ragouts, though he would have died sooner than
be suspected of the unsoldierly art of cookery,--Annapla was in one of
her trances. Her head was swathed mountainously in shawls; her wild,
black, lambent eyes had the look of distant contemplation.

"Lord keep 's!" said Mungo, entering, "what are ye doverin' on noo?
Wauken up, ye auld bitch, and gie this coat a dight. D'ye ken wha's ocht
it? It belangs to a gentleman that's no' like noo to get but this same,
and the back-o'-my-haun'-to-ye oot o' Doom Castle."

She took the coat and brushed it in a lethargy, with odd, unintelligible
chanting.

"Nane o' your warlock canticles!" cried Mungo. "Ye gied the lassie to
the man that cam' withouten boots--sorrow be on the bargain! And if it's
cast-in' a spell on the coat ye are, I'll raither clean't mysel'."

With that he seized the garment from her and lustily applied himself.

"A bonny-like hostler-wife ye'll mak'," said he. "And few'll come to
Mungo Byde's hostelry if his wife's to be eternally in a deevilish
dwaam, concocting Hielan' spells when she should be stirring at the
broth. No' that I can blame ye muckle for a want o' the up-tak in what
pertains to culinairy airts; for what hae ye seen here since ye cam' awa
frae the rest o' the drove in Arroquhar but lang kail, and oaten brose,
and mashlum bannocks? Oh! sirs, sirs!--I've seen the day!"

Annapla emerged from her trance, and ogled him with an amusing
admiration.

"And noo it's a' by wi't; it