"Peace, Elsie! and remember that there lie the bones of the Napiers for ten generations. Lay the bible on the table when we go," said Lady Grizel, with solemnity, "and place a four-leaved clover and rowan-tree sprig over the fireplace, and, dost hear me, Elshender, lay the poker and shovel crosswise above the gathering peat—"
"Crosswise?" muttered Elsie; "doth not that pertain to the auld papistical leaven o' idolatry?"
"It doth, I own, but the sign of the cross is a right good charm against the machinations of the evil one. You must have found that one made with red chalk on the bed-head, keepeth away both cramp and nightmare. My honoured mother used these marks, and by advice of Quentin, the abbot of Crossregal. O, Elshender, that is a long, long time ago, yet I mind it as yesterday."
"Cocksnails!" muttered Hab; "a jovial stoup of Barbadoes kill-devil were a far better charm, and I douot not the abbot would have thought so too, eh, Master Fenton?"
"Dear nurse," said Lilian, "surely one so harmless and so pious as thee need fear nothing."
"Had ye heard the bummel o' the fairy boy's drum amang the lang grass in the loan and the stocks o' the hairst fields, brave though your bluid be, Lilian, it would turn, even as water. But if Lady Grizel requireth service of Hab and Meinie, it beseems no' the wife o' auld John Elshender to grudge it. Mony a year I have dwelt here, lang before the mirk Monanday, and ne'er saw aught that was unco, but I canna get owre my fears, though there is a horseshoe on the door where my puir gudeman nailed it forty years ago; there is a sprig o' rowan-tree owre the lintel, and the heart o' an elfshotten nowte, birselled wi' wax, and stuck fu' o' pins under the door step."
"A grand charm, Elsie," said Lady Grizel gravely; "no evil thing can enter or prevail against it."
"And so with these notable allies, gudewife, you think you will face out the terrors of one night alone?" said Walter impatiently, for soldiering had rubbed off much of that superstition which still exists in Scotland.
"I have courage to do whatever my lady requires o' me as her bounden vassal," replied Elsie sharply; "courage! my certie! young sir, mony a lang year before you saw the light, I learned to look without blenching on steel flashing in my ain kailyard, and battle-smoke rowing owre holm and hollow. A Scottish wife, maun, needs hae courage in thae fearfu' times, when never a day passes without a son, a gudeman, or a brother having to buckle on steel cap and corslet whenever the laird cries, 'Mount and ride!' How mony a time and oft has the bale fire at Libberton-peel, and the cry o' 'Horse and spear!' made my douce gudeman crawl out frae his cosy nest in that bein boxbed, wi' a heavy curse on the English, the nonconformists, or malignants (or whaever kept the countryside astir for the time), then donning morion, jack and spear, he rode awa, de'il kens where, at Sir Archibald's bidding, for they were aye together in drumming and dirdum, trooping and travelling, hunting and hosting, sic as may we never see again! But alake! there is a whisper gaing owre the land, that waur is yet to come than the wildest persecutor could think o'."
"Beard o' Mahoun!" said Hab impatiently, "you are at your weary auld-world stories again. Let all bygones be forgotten, mother, and as for the trooping and tramping of those days, when my faither rode by laird's bridle, God send we may soon have the same again! But if our Lady means to return to the old place to-night, the sooner she sets out the better."