country, for the auld harlot, as
honest Mr. Blattergowl ca's her, has few that drink o' her cup o' enchantments
in this corner o' our chosen lands. - But what can ail them to bury the auld
carlin (a rudas wife she was) in the night-time? - I dare say our gudemither
will ken.«
    Here she exalted her voice, and exclaimed twice or thrice, »Gudemither!
gudemither!« but, lost in the apathy of age and deafness, the aged sibyl she
addressed continued plying her spindle without understanding the appeal made to
her.
    »Speak to your grandmither, Jenny - Od, I wad rather hail the coble half a
mile aff, and the nor-wast wind whistling again in my teeth.«
    »Grannie,« said the little mermaid, in a voice to which the old woman was
better accustomed, »minnie wants to ken what for the Glenallan folk aye bury by
candle-light in the ruins of St. Ruth?«
    The old woman paused in the act of twirling the spindle, turned round to the
rest of the party, lifted her withered, trembling, and clay-coloured hand,
raised up her ashen-hued and wrinkled face, which the quick motion of two
light-blue eyes chiefly distinguished from the visage of a corpse, and, as if
catching at any touch of association with the living world, answered, »What gars
the Glenallan family inter their dead by torchlight, said the lassie? - Is there
a Glenallan dead e'en now?«
    »We might be a' dead and buried too,« said Maggie, »for onything ye wad ken
about it;« - and then, raising her voice to the stretch of her mother-in-law's
comprehension, she added, »It's the auld Countess, gudemither.«
    »And is she ca'd hame then at last?« said the old woman, in a voice that
seemed to be agitated with much more feeling than belonged to her extreme old
age, and the general indifference and apathy of her manner - »is she then called
to her last account after her lang race o' pride and power? - O God, forgie
her!«
    »But minnie was asking ye,« resumed the lesser querist, »what for the
Glenallan family aye bury their dead by torch-light?«
    »They hae aye dune sae,« said the grandmother, »since the time the Great
Earl fell in the sair battle o' the Harlaw, when they say