"
"Will it be his lot to die on the battle-ground then, Ailsie Gourlay?
Will he die by the sword or the ball, as his forbears had dune before
him, mony ane o' them?" "Ask nae mair questions about it--he'll no be
graced sae far," replied the sage.
"I ken ye are wiser than ither folk, Aislie Gourlay. But wha tell'd ye
this?" "Fashna your thumb about that, Annie Winnie," answered the sibyl,
"I hae it frae a hand sure eneugh."
"But ye said ye never saw the foul thief," reiterated her inquisitive
companion.
"I hae it frae as sure a hand," said Ailsie, "and frae them that spaed
his fortune before the sark gaed ower his head."
"Hark! I hear his horse's feet riding aff," said the other; "they dinna
sound as if good luck was wi' them."
"Mak haste, sirs," cried the paralytic hag from the cottage, "and let
us do what is needfu', and say what is fitting; for, if the dead corpse
binna straughted, it will girn and thraw, and that will fear the best o'
us."
Ravenswood was now out of hearing. He despised most of the ordinary
prejudices about witchcraft, omens, and vaticination, to which his age
and country still gave such implicit credit that to express a doubt of
them was accounted a crime equal to the unbelief of Jews or Saracens; he
knew also that the prevailing belief, concerning witches, operating
upon the hypochondriac habits of those whom age, infirmity, and poverty
rendered liable to suspicion, and enforced by the fear of death and the
pangs of the most cruel tortures, often extorted those confessions which
encumber and disgrace the criminal records of Scotland during the 17th
century.
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