"Here rests ane," she said, "he'll maybe hae neibors sune."She then moved up the brook until she came to the ruined hamlet, where, pausing with a look of peculiar and softened interest before one of the gables which was still standing, she said in a tone less abrupt, though as solemn as before, "Do you see that blackit and broken end of a shealing? [*Hut]--there my kettle boiled for forty years--there I bore twelve buirdly sons and daughters--where are they now?--where are the leaves that were on that auld ash-tree at Martinmas!--the west wind has made it bare--and I'm stripped too.--Do you see that saugh-tree?--it's but a blackened rotten stump now--I've sat under it mony a bonnie summer afternoon, when it hung its gay garlands ower the poppling water.--I've sat there, and," elevating her voice, "I've held you on my knee, Henry Bertram, and sung ye sangs of the auld barons and their bloody wars--it will ne'er be green again, and Meg Merrilies will never sing sangs mair, be they blithe or sad. But ye'll no forget her, and ye'll gar big up [*Cause to be built up.] the auld wa's for her sake?--and let somebody live there that's, ower gude to fear them of another warld--For if ever the dead came back amang the living. I'll be seen in this glen mony a night after these crazed banes are in the mould."The mixture of insanity and wild pathos with which she spoke these last words, with her right arm, bare and extended, her left bent and shrouded beneath the dark red drapery of her mantle, might have been a study worthy of our Siddons herself. "And now," she said, resuming at once the short, stern, and hasty tone which was most ordinary to her--"let us to the wark--let us to the wark."She then led the way to the promontory on which the Kaim of Derncleugh was situated, produced a large key from her pocket, and unlocked the door. The interior of this place was in better order than formerly. "Ihave made things decent," she said; "I may be streekit, [*Stretched out] here or night.--There will be few, few at Meg's lykewake, [*Watching over a corpse by night.] for mony of our folk will blame what I hae done, and am to do!"She then pointed to a table, upon which was some cold meat, arranged with more attention to neatness than could have been expected from Meg's habits. "Eat," she said, "eat; ye'll need it this night yet."Bertram, in complaisance, ate a morsel or two and Dinmont, whose appetite was unabated either by wonder, apprehension, or the meal of the morning, made his usual figure as a trencherman. She then offered each a single glass of spirits, which Bertram drank diluted, and his companion plain.
"Will ye taste naething yourself, Luckie?" said Dinmont.
"I shall not need it," replied their mysterious hostess. "And now,"she said, "ye maun hae arms--ye maunna gang on dry-handed--but use them not rashly--take captive, but save life--let the law hae its ain--he maun speak ere he die.""Who is to be taken?--who is to speak?" said Bertram in astonishment, receiving a pair of pistols which she offered him, and which, upon examining, he found loaded and locked.
"The flints are gude," she said, "and the powder dry--I ken this wark weel."Then, without answering his questions, she armed Dinmont also with a large pistol, and desired them to choose sticks for themselves out of a parcel of very suspicious-looking bludgeons, which she brought from a corner. Bertram took a stout sapling, and Dandie selected a club which might have served Hercules himself. They then left the hut together, and, in doing so, Bertram took an opportunity to whisper to Dinmont, "There's something inexplicable in all this--But we need not use these arms unless we see necessity and lawful occasion--take care to do as you see me do."Dinmont gave a sagacious nod; and they continued to follow, over wet and over dry, through bog and through fallow, the footsteps of their conductress. She guided them to the wood of Warroch by the same track which the late Ellangowan had used when riding to Derncleugh in quest of his child, on the miserable evening of Kennedy's murder.
