Ravenswood readily agreed to depart, only tarrying to recommend
to them due attention to the body, and to receive information where
he was to find the sexton, or beadle, who had in charge the deserted
churchyard of the Armitage, in order to prepare matters for the
reception of Old Alice in the place of repose which she had selected for
herself.
"Ye'll no be pinched to find out Johnie Mortsheugh," said the elder
sibyl, and still her withered cheek bore a grisly smile; "he dwells near
the Tod's Hole, an house of entertainment where there has been mony a
blythe birling, for death and drink-draining are near neighbours to ane
anither."
"Ay! and that's e'en true, cummer," said the lame hag, propping herself
with a crutch which supported the shortness of her left leg, "for I mind
when the father of this Master of Ravenswood that is now standing before
us sticked young Blackhall with his whinger, for a wrang word said ower
their wine, or brandy, or what not: he gaed in as light as a lark, and
he came out wi' his feet foremost. I was at the winding of the corpse;
and when the bluid was washed off, he was a bonny bouk of man's body.
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