"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 the coronach was cried in ae day from the mouth of the Tay to the Buck of the Cabrach, that ye wad hae heard nae other sound but that of lamentation for the great folks that had fa'en fighting against Donald of the Isles. But the Great Earl's mither was living—they were a doughty and a dour race, the women o' the house o' Glenallan—and she wad hae nae coronach cried for her son, but had him laid in the silence o' midnight in his place o' rest, without either drinking the dirge, or crying the lament. She said he had killed enow that day he died, for the widows and daughters o' the Highlanders he had slain to cry the coronach for them they had lost, and for her son too; and sae she laid him in his gave wi' dry eyes, and without a groan or a wail. And it was thought a proud word o' the family, and they aye stickit by it—and the mair in the latter times, because in the night-time they had mair freedom to perform their popish ceremonies by darkness and in secrecy than in the daylight—at least that was the case in my time; they wad hae been disturbed in the day-time baith by the law and the commons of Fairport—they may be owerlooked now, as I have heard: the warlds changed—I whiles hardly ken whether I am standing or sitting, or dead or living." And looking round the fire, as if in a state of unconscious uncertainty of which she complained, old Elspeth relapsed into her habitual and mechanical occupation of twirling the spindle. "Eh, sirs!" said Jenny Rintherout, under her breath to her gossip, "it's awsome to hear your gudemither break out in that gait—it's like the dead speaking to the living." "Ye're no that far wrang, lass; she minds naething o' what passes the day—but set her on auld tales, and she can speak like a prent buke. She kens mair about the Glenallan family than maist folk—the gudeman's father was their fisher mony a day. Ye maun ken the papists make a great point o' eating fish—it's nae bad part o' their religion that, whatever the rest is—I could aye sell the best o' fish at the best o' prices for the Countess's ain table, grace be wi' her! especially on a Friday—But see as our gudemither's hands and lips are ganging—now it's working in her head like barm—she'll speak eneugh the night. Whiles she'll no speak a word in a week, unless it be to the bits o' bairns."