"That's Latin!" said Elspeth, rousing herself as if she attended to the lines, which the Antiquary recited with great pomp of diction—"that's Latin!" and she cast a wild glance around her—"Has there a priest fund me out at last?" "You see, nephew, her comprehension is almost equal to your own of that fine passage." "I hope you think, sir, that I knew it to be Latin as well as she did?" "Why, as to that—But stay, she is about to speak." "I will have no priest—none," said the beldam, with impotent vehemence; "as I have lived I will die—none shall say that I betrayed my mistress, though it were to save my soul!" "That bespoke a foul conscience," said the mendicant;—"I wuss she wad mak a clean breast, an it were but for her sake;" and he again assailed her. "Weel, gudewife, I did your errand to the Yerl." "To what Earl? I ken nae Earl;—I ken'd a Countess ance—I wish to Heaven I had never ken'd her! for by that acquaintance, neighbour, their cam,"— and she counted her withered fingers as she spoke "first Pride, then Malice, then Revenge, then False Witness; and Murder tirl'd at the door-pin, if he camna ben. And werena thae pleasant guests, think ye, to take up their quarters in ae woman's heart? I trow there was routh o' company." "But, cummer," continued the beggar, "it wasna the Countess of Glenallan I meant, but her son, him that was Lord Geraldin." "I mind it now," she said; "I saw him no that langsyne, and we had a heavy speech thegither. Eh, sirs! the comely young lord is turned as auld and frail as I am: it's muckle that sorrow and heartbreak, and crossing of true love, will do wi' young blood. But suldna his mither hae lookit to that hersell?—we were but to do her bidding, ye ken. I am sure there's naebody can blame me—he wasna my son, and she was my mistress. Ye ken how the rhyme says—I hae maist forgotten how to sing, or else the tune's left my auld head— "He turn'd him right and round again, Said, Scorn na at my mither; Light loves I may get mony a ane, But minnie neer anither. Then he was but of the half blude, ye ken, and her's was the right Glenallan after a'. Na, na, I maun never maen doing and suffering for the Countess Joscelin—never will I maen for that." Then drawing her flax from the distaff, with the dogged air of one who is resolved to confess nothing, she resumed her interrupted occupation. "I hae heard," said the mendicant, taking his cue from what Oldbuck had told him of the family history—"I hae heard, cummer, that some ill tongue suld hae come between the Earl, that's Lord Geraldin, and his young bride." "Ill tongue?" she said in hasty alarm; "and what had she to fear frae an ill tongue?—she was gude and fair eneugh—at least a' body said sae. But had she keepit her ain tongue aff ither folk, she might hae been living like a leddy for a' that's come and gane yet."