 was wrung round ahint him?«
    »Ye needna care wha did it, or how it was done,« said Ailsie Gourlay; »but
I'll uphaud it for nae stickit30 job, and that the lairds and leddies ken weel
this day.«
    »And was it true,« said Annie Winnie, »sin ye ken sae muckle about it, that
the picture of auld Sir Malise Ravenswood came down on the ha' floor and led out
the brawl before them a'?«
    »Na,« said Ailsie; »but into the ha' came the picture - and I ken weel how
it came there - to gie them a warning that pride would get a fa'. But there's as
queer a ploy, cummers, as ony o' thae, that's gaun on even now in the burial
vault yonder - ye saw twall mourners, wi' crape and cloak, gang down the steps
pair and pair?«
    »What should ail us to see them?« said the one old woman.
    »I counted them,« said the other, with the eagerness of a person to whom the
spectacle had afforded too much interest to be viewed with indifference.
    »But ye did not see,« said Ailsie, exulting in her superior observation,
»that there's a thirteenth amang them that they ken naething about; and, if auld
freits say true, there's ane o' that company that'll no be lang for this warld.
But come awa, cummers; if we bide here, I'se warrant we get the wyte o' whatever
ill comes of it, and that gude will come of it nane o' them need ever think to
see.«
    And thus, croaking like the ravens when they anticipate pestilence, the
ill-boding sibyls withdrew from the churchyard.
    In fact, the mourners, when the service of interment was ended, discovered
that there was among them one more than the invited number, and the remark was
communicated in whispers to each other. The suspicion fell upon a figure, which,
muffled in the same deep mourning with the others, was reclined, almost in a
state of insensibility, against one of the pillars of the sepulchral vault. The
relatives of the Ashton family were expressing in whispers their surprise and
displeasure at the intrusion, when they were interrupted by Colonel Ashton, who,
in his father's absence, acted as principal mourner. »I know,« he said, in a
whisper, »who this person is; he has, or shall soon have,
