"The English, I'll warrant you. If hunger hae clear een, fear has unco lang lugs. What was it that Sandie heard?"
"I heard a kind o' rubbing and thristing, as a fox or a foumart had been drawing himsel through a hole aneath the ground. Hilloa! What guard?"
"Howpasley and Gemelscleugh."
"Watch weel. There's something stirring."
"Not a mouse."
"So say the sleeping foresters; but I can tell you, men o' Gemelscleuch and Howpasley, an there be nought stirring aboon the ground, the moudies are very busy aneath it the night. Clap close, and keep an ee on the withergloom. I had a heavy dream at nightfa', and I'm resolved no to close an ee. Come, neighbour, tell a tale, or say a rhame to keep us wauking."
"Have ye heard the new ballant made by the rhiming dominie o' Selchrit, the queerest thing ever was heard? It begins this gate:
The Devil he sat in Dornock tower,
And out at a slip-hole keekit he,
And he saw three craws come yont the lift,
And they winged their flight to the Eildon tree.
O whow, O whow, quo the muckle deil,
But yon's a sight that glads my ee,
For I'll lay the steel-brander o' hell
There's a storm a-brewing in the west countrye."
* * * * * *