when he was in this
country first, and I ken what's brought him back again. Up an' to the
gate! ye're ower lang here; follow me.'

Sampson followed the sibyl accordingly, who guided him about a quarter of
a mile through the woods, by a shorter cut than he could have found for
himself; then they entered upon the common, Meg still marching before him
at a great pace, until she gained the top of a small hillock which
overhung the road.

'Here,' she said, 'stand still here. Look how the setting sun breaks
through yon cloud that's been darkening the lift a' day. See where the
first stream o' light fa's: it's upon Donagild's round tower, the auldest
tower in the Castle o' Ellangowan; that's no for naething! See as it's
glooming to seaward abune yon sloop in the bay; that's no for naething
neither. Here I stood on this very spot,' said she, drawing herself up so
as not to lose one hair-breadth of her uncommon height, and stretching
out her long sinewy arm and clenched hand--'here I stood when I tauld the
last Laird o' Ellangowan what was coming on his house; and did that fa'
to the ground? na, it hit even ower sair! And here, where I brake the
wand of peace ower him, here I stand again, to bid God bless and prosper
the just heir of Ellangowan that will sune be brought to his ain; and the
best laird he shall be that Ellangowan has seen for three hundred years.
I'll no live to see it, maybe; but there will be mony a blythe ee see it
though mine be closed. And now, Abel Sampson, as ever ye lo'ed the house
of Ellangowan, away wi' my message to the English Colonel, as if life and
death were upon your haste!'

So saying, she turned suddenly from the amazed Dominie and regained with
swift and long strides the shelter of the wood from which she had issued
at the point where it most encroached upon the common. Sampson gazed
after her for a moment in utter astonishment, and then obeyed her
directions, hurrying to Woodbourne at a pace very unusual for him,
exclaiming three times, 'Prodigious! prodigious! pro-di-gi-ous!'

CHAPTER XVIII
It is not madness
That I have utter'd, bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word, which madness
Would gambol from.

Hamlet.

As Mr. Sampson crossed the hall with a bewildered look, Mrs. Allan, the
good housekeeper, who, with the reverent attention which is usually
rendered to the clergy in Scotland, was on the watch for his return,
sallied forth