Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/173

Rh house; start, else I shall write the notes of thy ain tune on thy face, seven crotchets to the bar.'

O mother,' said the submissive daughter, 'turn not the poor lad out on such a night as this: the thunder and fire, the flash and the din, will kill him; for he shakes at every clap like the leaf o' the linn.'

Na, worse than all,' shouted the dame, in a tone where scorn was blended with anger; 'na, worse than all. To be but a fool is no such a failing—there's Captain what's his name, whose whole wit lies in feeding capons, and who is hardly fit for watching the worms from the kale, yet he's made a justice o' the peace—but what can one do with a coward? I'm wasting words; I'm whistling a reel tune to a mile-stone: out of my house, I say—I will not defile both window and door with thee, so leap and vanish.' And holding up the casement, I leaped gladly out, happy at escaping from the wicked wagging of her tongue into the more endurable evil of wind and rain and fire.

"This unlucky repulse, with many a mischievous embellishment, flew over the parish; but I was not to be daunted. On the third evening after this mixed adventure of good and evil, I made an excursion beyond the limits of my parish, and entered upon the wild moorlands, where the dwellings are few and far between. A young man finds ready access among marriageable maidens, so I soon found myself seated at a sheep farmer's fire, in company of the good man's only daughter, a maid both ripe and rosy, with her father and mother, and some fifteen sheep dogs, as auditors of our conversation. At first, our talk was of that kind which newspapers call desultory; the weather, with all its variations; the fruits in their season, and the cattle after their kind; and, contracting the circle of our scrutiny as we proceeded, we at last settled upon the cares of a pasture farm. We talked of sheep after their sorts, the Cheviot breed, the auld stock of Tinwald, the lang sheep and the short mug ewes, gimmers, crocks, and dinmans; nor did we fail to discuss the diseases which preyed on this patriarchal wealth—mawks and moorill, rot and leaping-illness; and so extensive was my knowledge in all this, and also on the more mysterious mischief of evil e'en, elf-arrows, and witchcraft, that the old dame grew astonished, and whispered to her husband: 'This lad's words are worth drops of gold; speak him cannilie, Sandie, speak him cannilie.' Her