Page:Guy Mannering Vol 3.djvu/102

92 for which she was to receive payment. At length, however, she departed, grumbling between her teeth, that "she wad rather lock up a hail ward than be fiking about thae niff-naffy gentles that gae sae muckle fash wi' their fancies."

When she was gone, Bertram found himself reduced to the alternative of pacing his little apartment for exercise, or gazing out upon the sea in such proportions as could be seen from the narrow panes of his window, obscured by dirt and by close iron-bars, or reading over the records of brutal wit and blackguardism which despair had scrawled upon the half-whitened walls. The sounds were as uncomfortable as the objects of sight. The sullen dash of the tide, which was now retreating, and the occasional opening and shutting of a door, with all its accompaniments of jarring bolts and creaking hinges, mingled occasionally with the dull monotony of the retiring sound. Sometimes, too, he could hear the hoarse growl of the