“Ay, troth, I wat weel, worthy sir, and wi’ the burial–service too.—My master and mistress are strong king’s folk.” “So you are not the mistress of this house?” “A bonny like mistress I wad be, forsooth—Na, na, my mistress is sittin be hersel ben the house there.” With that, Nanny fell a working and singing full loud— “Little wats she wha’s coming, Little wats she wha’s coming, Strath and Correy’s ta’en the bent, An’ Ferriden an’ a’s coming; Knock and Craigen Sha’s coming, Keppoch an’ Macraw’s coming, Clan–Mackinnon’s ower the Kyle, An’ Donald Gun an’ a’s coming.” Anxious now to explore the rest of the house, they left Nanny singing her song, and entered the little parlour hastily, where, finding no one, and dreading that some escape might be effected, Clavers and Livingston burst into the Old Room, and Bruce and Copland into the other. In the Old Room they found the beautiful witch Katharine, with the train of her snow–white joup drawn over her head, who looked as if taken in some evil act by surprise, and greatly confounded when she saw two gentlemen enter her sanctuary in splendid uniforms. As they approached, she made a slight curtsey, to which they deigned no return; but going straight up to her, Clavers seized her by both wrists. “And is it, indeed, true,” said he, “my beautiful shepherdess, that we have caught you at your prayers so early this morning?” “And what if you have, sir?” returned she. “Why, nothing at all, save that I earnestly desire, and long exceedingly to join with you in your devotional exercises,” laying hold of her in the rudest manner. Katharine screamed so loud that in an instant old Nanny was at their side, with revenge gleaming from her half–shaded eyes, and heaving over her shoulder a large green–kale gully, with which she would doubtless have silenced the renowned Dundee for ever, had not Livingston sprung forward with the utmost celerity, and caught her arm just as the stroke was descending. But Nanny did not spare her voice; she lifted it up with shouts on high, and never suffered one yell to lose hearing of another.