Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/280

276 of dissonance equal to the croak of the raven—"east, west, north, and south; not a cloud—not a breath of wind—a burning heat, and a scorching drouth—the grasshopper cannot sing for want of her evening dew." He paused, and reversed the straw, and, holding it up before him, renewed his dancing and his chant. "North, south, west, and east, the morning sun cannot ascend for the concourse of clouds—the little streams sing among their pebbles, for their banks will soon be overflowed; and the little flowers, bless their bonnie faces, hold up their parched heads, rejoicing in the descending shower. The rains fall, the winds blow, the rivulets swell and the thunders roll, and rock the green hills. The wide and winding water—even the links of my bright and stately Orr—flows like a wild and a raging sea. I see it, I see it, I see it; man may not ride it; and the saddled steed neighs across the flood, which it trembles to take. Ah! I would not go to be buried in the old kirkyard, beyond that roaring river, though ye were to make me a bed three ell deep, and lay the greenest turf in Galloway aboon me."

"Gawain, Gawain," said Bessie Lamond, in her sweetest tone, and with a smile of sympathy and kindness on her lips; "Gawain—hinnie, have ye forgotten how many bowls of curds and cream, and pieces of bread and cheese, I have stolen from our penurious board to feed ye in the glen? Turn and speak to me, my bonnie man, and spae nae mair about uncannie things, and see nae mair unsonsie sights."

But Gawain was possessed beyond the influence of the tongue and charms of the fair niece of the penurious laird, and continued to elevate and dandle the straw with an increasing wildness of look and gesture. "But who are those who ride mourning on their coal-black steeds, two and two, and bear a coffined corse before them? I see some whom I shall not see long, and the owner of this house is among them; stretched full gay in his burial linen, and a velvet pall aboon him—the siller it costs would be a sore sight; it is well for him that his senses are shut, else the expense of the burial wine would break his heart. There is a deep grave dug, and the bedral leans on his spade, and looks to the burial train about to pass the river. Aha! Johnnie Feastheworm, ye're cheated, lad, ye're cheated," shouted Gawain, changing the wild seriousness of his tone to that of laughter and merriment. "Fill your kirkyard