f the period, and she was left
bereaved, desolate, and without a comforter. Many said that affliction
had turned her brain; but even before she was acquainted with days of
sorrow or with nights of lamentation, there was often a burning wildness
in her words, and her manners were not as those of other women. There
was a tinge of extravagance, and a character of vehemence, in all her
actions. Some of her neighbours sympathised with her, because of the
affliction that rendered her hearth desolate; but the greater part
beheld her with reverential respect, or looked upon her with fear and
trembling, believing her to be leagued with the inhabitants of the
invisible world, and familiar with the moon and stars, reading in their
courses the destinies of nations and of individuals as in a book. The
character of a being who could read the decrees of fate, and even in
some instances control the purposes of men, was certainly that which she
seemed most pleased to assume; and its wildness soothed her troubled
thoughts, or directed them into other channels.

In her youth, and before her father had been compelled to bow his head
to the authority of the wardens of the marches, she had resided in a
castellated building, of greater strength than magnitude, one of the
minor strongholds on the Border, and which might have been termed towers
for the protection of stolen cattle. But, when the two nations came
beneath the sovereignty of one monarch, and the spear of war was
transformed into a pruning-hook, there went forth a decree that the
strongholds, great and small, along the Borders should be destroyed; and
amongst those that were rendered defenceless and uninhabitable was the
turret which, for many generations, had been occupied by the ancestors
of Barbara Moor. During the life-time of her husband, she had resided in
a comfortable-looking farm-house, the appearance of which indicated that
its inhabitants were of a more peaceful character than were those who, a
few years before, had occupied the prison-like houses of strength. She
now resided in a small mud-built and turf-covered hovel, which in winter
afforded but a sorry shelter from the "pelting of the pitiless storm."

But Barbara was used to bear the scorching sun of summer and the cold
and storms of winter. She walked in the midst of the tempest, and bowed
not her head; and she held converse with the wild lightning and the
fierce hail, speaking of them as the ministers of her will.