"
It may be easily believed that this ill-timed anecdote hastened the
Master's purpose of quitting a company so evil-omened and so odious.
Yet, while walking to the tree to which his horse was tied, and busying
himself with adjusting the girths of the saddle, he could not avoid
hearing, through the hedge of the little garden, a conversation
respecting himself, betwixt the lame woman and the octogenarian sibyl.
The pair had hobbled into the garden to gather rosemary, southernwood,
rue, and other plants proper to be strewed upon the body, and burned by
way of fumigation in the chimney of the cottage. The paralytic wretch,
almost exhausted by the journey, was left guard upon the corpse, lest
witches or fiends might play their sport with it.
The following law, croaking dialogue was necessarily overheard by the
Master of Ravenswood:
"That's a fresh and full-grown hemlock, Annie Winnie; mony a cummer lang
syne wad hae sought nae better horse to flee over hill and how, through
mist and moonlight, and light down in the the King of France's cellar."
"Ay, cummer! but the very deil has turned as hard-hearted now as the
Lord Keeper and the grit folk, that hae breasts like whinstane.
Pages:
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452