“Did ye never hear the auld saw, sir—
Whaur’s neither sun nor mune,
Laich things come abune—?”
“I ’maist think I have, Grizzie,” answered the laird. “But what gars ye come ower ’t noo?”
“I canna but think, sir,” returned Grizzie, “as I lie i’ the mirk, o’ the heap o’ things ’at gang to nae kirk, oot an’ aboot as sharp as a gled, whan the yoong laird is no in his bed—oot wi’ ’s algibbry an’ astronomy, an’ a’ that kin’ o’ thing! ’Deed, sir, it wadna be canny gien they cam to ken o’ ’t.”
“Wha come to ken o’ what, Grizzie?” asked the laird with a twinkle in his eye, and a glance at Cosmo, who sat gazing curiously at the old woman.
“Them ’at the saw speyks o’, sir,” said Grizzie, answering the first part of the double question, as she placed two boiled eggs before her master.
The laird smiled: he was too kind to laugh. Not a few laughed at old Grizzie, but never the laird.
“Did ye never hear the auld saw, Grizzie,” he said:
“Throu’ the heather an’ how gaed the creepin’ thing,
But abune was the waught o’ an angel’s wing—?”
“Ay, I hae h’ard it—naegait ’cep’ here i’ this hoose,” answered Grizzie: she would disparage the authority of the saying by a doubt as to its genuineness. “But, sir, ye sud never temp’ providence. Wha kens what may be oot i’ the nicht?”