Page:Walter Scott - The Monastery (Henry Frowde, 1912).djvu/100

RV 32 (Rh) auld wives couldna do that wi' rock and wheel, and as little the monks wi' bell and book.'

'And sae weel as the lances and broadswords hae kept them back, I trow! I was mair beholden to ae Southron, and that was Stawarth Bolton, than to a' the Borderriders ever wore Saint Andrew's cross. I reckon their skelping back and forward, and lifting honest men's gear, has been a main cause of a' the breach between us and England, and I am sure that cost me a kind goodman. They spoke about the wedding of the Prince and our Queen, but it's as like to be the driving of the Cumberland folk's stocking that brought them down on us like dragons.' Tibb would not have failed in other circumstances to answer what she thought reflections disparaging to her country folk; but she recollected that Dame Elspeth was mistress of the family, curbed her own zealous patriotism, and hastened to change the subject.

'And is it not strange,' she said, 'that «the heiress of Avenel should have seen her father this blessed night?'

'And ye think it was her father, then? ' said Elspeth Glendinning.

'What else can I think?' said Tibb.

'It may hae been something waur, in his likeness,' said Dame Glendinning.

'I ken naething about that,' said Tibb; 'but his likeness it was, that I will be sworn to, just as he used to ride out a-hawking; for having enemies in the country, he seldom laid off the breastplate; and for my part,' added Tibb, 'I dinna think a man looks like a man unless he has steel on his breast, and by his side too.'

'I have no skill of your harness on breast or side either,' said Dame Glendinning; 'but I ken there is little luck in Hallowe'en sights, for I have had ane my sell.'

'Indeed, Dame Elspeth?' said old Tibb, edging her stool closer to the huge elbow-chair occupied by her friend, 'I should like to hear about that.'

'Ye maun ken, then, Tibb,' said Dame Glendinning, 'that when I was a hempie of nineteen or twenty, it wasna my fault if I wasna at a' the merry-makings time about.'

'That was very natural,' said Tibb; 'but ye hae sobered since that, or ye wadna baud our braw gallants sae lightly.'