nversation with
her. "I'm fain to see ye looking sae weel, cummer; the mair, that the
black ox has tramped on ye since I was aneath your roof-tree."

"Ay," said Elspeth; but rather from a general idea of misfortune, than
any exact recollection of what had happened,--"there has been distress
amang us of late--I wonder how younger folk bide it--I bide it ill. I
canna hear the wind whistle, and the sea roar, but I think I see the
coble whombled keel up, and some o' them struggling in the waves!--Eh,
sirs; sic weary dreams as folk hae between sleeping and waking, before
they win to the lang sleep and the sound! I could amaist think whiles my
son, or else Steenie, my oe, was dead, and that I had seen the burial.
Isna that a queer dream for a daft auld carline? What for should ony o'
them dee before me?--it's out o' the course o' nature, ye ken."

"I think you'll make very little of this stupid old woman," said
Hector,--who still nourished, perhaps, some feelings of the dislike
excited by the disparaging mention of his countrymen in her lay--"I think
you'll make but little of her, sir; and it's wasting our time to sit
here and listen to her dotage."

"Hector," said the Antiquary, indignantly, "if you do not respect her
misfortunes, respect at least her old age and grey hairs: this is the
last stage of existence, so finely treated by the Latin poet--

--Omni
Membrorum damno major dementia, quae nec
Nomina, servorum, nec vultus agnoscit amici,
Cum queis preterita coenavit nocte, nec illos
Quos genuit, quos eduxit."

"That's Latin!" said Elspeth, rousing herself as if she attended to the
lines, which the Antiquary recited with great pomp of diction--"that's
Latin!" and she cast a wild glance around her--"Has there a priest fund
me out at last?"

"You see, nephew, her comprehension is almost equal to your own of that
fine passage."

"I hope you think, sir, that I knew it to be Latin as well as she did?"

"Why, as to that--But stay, she is about to speak."

"I will have no priest--none," said the beldam, with impotent vehemence;
"as I have lived I will die--none shall say that I betrayed my mistress,
though it were to save my soul!"

"That bespoke a foul conscience," said the mendicant;--"I wuss she wad
mak a clean breast, an it were but for her sake;" and he again assailed
her.

"Weel, gudewife, I did your errand