Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/226

222 blue smoke, which, curling away among the straight stems of the trees, escaped into the free air through the upper boughs of the grove. Between the tower and the river lay many webs of fine linen, bleaching on the grass; while from the ruin itself came the uninterrupted merriment of some country maidens—a singular medley of open laughter, fragments of song, and taunts about courtship and sarcasms on the lack of lovers.

"Lads!" said a shrill voice, "I never saw such soulless coofs! Ane would think we had ne'er a tooth in our heads, or a pair o' lips for the kissing."

"Kissing, indeed!" said another; "ane would think our lips were made for nought save supping curds or croudy, and that we were suspected of witchcraft. Here we have been daidling in this den of woe and dool from blessed sunrise, and deil a creature with hair on its lip has mistaken its road and come near us. I think ancient spunk and glee be dead and gone from merry Annanwater."

"Ah, my bonnie lasses," interrupted an old woman, half-choked with a churchyard cough, "I mind weel in the blessed year fifteen, we had a bonnie bleaching in this very place. There was Jeany Bell, and Kate Bell, her cousin, who had a misfortune at forty, and was made an honest woman at fifty-eight; and there was Bell Irving and me. Lads! we had the choice of the parish; ye might have heard the caressing o' our lips as far as the Wyliehole; and what would ye think—Pate Irving, now a douce man and a godly, was the wantonest of all. Ah, my bonnie kimmers, that was a night."

This description of departed joys seemed to infuse its spirit into the younger branches of the establishment; for while I pondered how I might introduce myself to these water-nymphs with discretion and humility, I observed a young rosy face, ornamented with a profusion of glistering nut-brown locks, projected past the porch, and reconnoitring me very steadfastly. A forehead with dark eyes and raven hair instantly assisted in the scrutiny, and presently the head of the ancient dame herself appeared, obtruded beyond them both—like Care looking out between Mirth and Joy, in a modern allegory. A tartan nightcap endeavoured in vain to restrain her matted and withered air, which the comb had not for a long while sought to shed or the scissors to abridge; her cheeks were channeled, and a pair of