“Do you see the top of yon black trees to the eastward there, on the braehead?”
“I think I do,” was my reply. “But how far, think ye, are we from home now?”
“About a mile and a half,” said Tammie.—“Weel, as to the trees, I’ll tell ye something about them.
“There was an auld widow-leddy lived langsyne about the town-end of Dalkeith. A sour, cankered, curious body—she’s dead and rotten lang ago. But what I was gaun to say, she had a bonny bit fair-haired, blue-ee’d lassie of a servant-maid that lodged in the house wi’ her, just by all the world like a lamb wi’ an wolf; a bonnier quean, I’ve heard tell, never steppit in leather shoon; so all the young lads in the gate-end were wooing at her, and fain to have her; but she wad only have ae joe for a’ that. He was a journeyman wright, a trades-lad, and they had come, three or four year before, frae the same place thegither—maybe having had a liking for ane anither since they were bairns; so they were gaun to be married the week after Da’keith Fair, and a’ was settled. But what, think ye, happened? He got a drap drink, and a recruiting party
listed him in the king’s name, wi’ pitting a white shilling in his loof.
“When the poor lassie heard what had come to pass, and how her sweetheart had ta’en the bounty, she was like to gang distrackit, and took to her bed. The doctor never took up her trouble; and some said it was a fever. At last she was roused out o’t, but naebody ever saw her laugh after; and frae ane that was as cantie as a lintie, she became as douce as a Quaker, though she aye gaed cannily about her wark, as if amaist naething had happened. If she was ony way light-headed before, to be sure she wasna that noo; but just what a decent quean should be, sitting for hours by the kitchen fire her lane, reading the Bible, and thinking, wha kens, of what wad become o’ the wicked after they died; and so ye see”—
“What light is yon?” said I, interrupting him, wishing him like to break off.
“Ou, it’s just the light on some of the coal-hills. The puir blackened creatures will be gaun down to their wark. It’s an unyearthly kind of trade, turning night intil day, and working like moudiewarts in the dark, when decent folks are in their beds sleeping.—And so, as I was saying, ye see, it happened ae Sunday night that a chap cam to the back door; and the mistress too heard it. She was sitting in the foreroom wi’ her specs on, reading some sermon book; but it was the maid that answered.
“In a while thereafter, she rang her bell, being a curious body, and aye anxious to ken a’ thing of her ain affairs, let alane her neighbours; so, after waiting a wee, she rang again,—and better rang; then lifting up her stick, for she was stiff with the rheumaticks and decay of nature, she hirpled into the kitchen,—but feint a hait saw she there, save the open Bible lying on the table, the cat streekit out before the fire, and the candle burning—the candle—na, I daur say I am wrang there, I believe it was a lamp, for she was a near ane. As for her maiden, there was no trace of her.”
“What do ye think came owre her then?” said I to him, liking to be at my wits’ end. “Naething uncanny, I daur say?”