ty, if you should talk as loosely as an amatory
poet.'

'Aweel, if your honour thinks I am safe--the story is just this. Ye see,
about a year ago, or no just sae lang, my leddy was advised to go to
Gilsland for a while, for her spirits were distressing her sair.
Ellangowan's troubles began to be spoken o' publicly, and sair vexed she
was; for she was proud o' her family. For Ellangowan himsell and her,
they sometimes 'greed and some times no; but at last they didna 'gree at
a' for twa or three year, for he was aye wanting to borrow siller, and
that was what she couldna bide at no hand, and she was aye wanting it
paid back again, and that the Laird he liked as little. So at last they
were clean aff thegither. And then some of the company at Gilsland tells
her that the estate was to be sell'd; and ye wad hae thought she had taen
an ill will at Miss Lucy Bertram frae that moment, for mony a time she
cried to me, "O Becky, O Becky, if that useless peenging thing o' a
lassie there at Ellangowan, that canna keep her ne'er-do-weel father
within bounds--if she had been but a lad-bairn they couldna hae sell'd
the auld inheritance for that fool-body's debts"; and she would rin on
that way till I was just wearied and sick to hear her ban the puir
lassie, as if she wadna hae been a lad-bairn and keepit the land if it
had been in her will to change her sect. And ae day at the spaw-well
below the craig at Gilsland she was seeing a very bonny family o'
bairns--they belanged to ane Mac-Crosky--and she broke out--"Is not it an
odd like thing that ilka waf carle in the country has a son and heir, and
that the house of Ellangowan is without male succession?" There was a
gipsy wife stood ahint and heard her, a muckle sture fearsome-looking
wife she was as ever I set een on. "Wha is it," says she, "that dare say
the house of Ellangowan will perish without male succession?" My mistress
just turned on her; she was a high-spirited woman, and aye ready wi' an
answer to a' body. "It's me that says it," says she, "that may say it
with a sad heart." Wi' that the gipsy wife gripped till her hand--"I ken
you weel eneugh," says she, "though ye kenna me. But as sure as that
sun's in heaven, and as sure as that water's rinning to the sea, and as
sure as there's an ee that sees and an ear that hears us baith, Harry
Bertram, that was thought to perish at Warroch Point, never did die
there. He was to have a weary weird o't till his ane-and-twentieth year,