"Well! old dame, and what recks it thee?" asked the Lord, impatiently. "Art alone—of course—eh?"
"Alone!" reiterated the woman, bitterly—"when am I ever otherwise? Alone—and why! Because I am old and hideous now. Yet there was a time when it was otherwise. Yea—I am ever alone, save when the knave and the fool (on whose scanty bounty I am too often dependant), prompted by the devil, come hither to visit me."
"Dependant? have I not given thee a fee of four hundred pounds Scots per year, and what the devil more?"
"Between your own necessities and your butler's villany, not a plack of it have I seen since Lammas-tide."
"This shall be seen to. Come, come, Beatrix, my merry old lass, thou art as petulant as when I led you into this chamber twenty years ago. You want gold, I know; but, faith! I have devilish little of that." He spread a few French crowns on the table.
"'Tis but white money," said the hag, her eyes sparkling as, with clutching hands, she swept the coins into her lap.
"Greedy Gled! if thou art faithful, the gold will come in bushels anon."
"On what ill errand come ye now? Is there any one to be poisoned—hah! any poor flower to be torn from its stem, and trod under foot when its perfume is gone?"
"Harkee! Lucky Gilruth," said the Lord, striking his clenched hand on the table; "thou knowest me well, I think."
"O would to Heaven I had never, never known thee!" said Beatrix, with a tearless sob. "I know little of thee that is good."