The Earl turned hastily away, and paced the room twice or thrice, as if to recover the effects of his mistake, and then, coming close up to the mendicant, he demanded, in a stern and commanding tone, what he meant by intruding himself on his privacy, and from whence he had got the ring which he had thought proper to send him. Edie, a man of much spirit, was less daunted at this mode of interrogation than he had been confused by the tone of confidence in which the Earl had opened their conversation. To the reiterated question from whom he had obtained the ring, he answered composedly, “From one who was better known to the Earl than to him.”
“Better known to me, fellow?” said Lord Glenallan: “what is your meaning?—explain yourself instantly, or you shall experience the consequence of breaking in upon the hours of family distress.”
“It was auld Elspeth Mucklebackit that sent me here,” said the beggar, “in order to say”—
“You dote, old man!” said the Earl; “I never heard the name—but this dreadful token reminds me”—
“I mind now, my lord,” said Ochiltree, “she tauld me your lordship would be mair familiar wi’ her, if I ca’d her Elspeth o’ the Craigburnfoot—she had that name when she lived on your honour’s land, that is, your honour’s worshipful mother’s that was then—Grace be wi’ her!”
“Ay,” said the appalled nobleman, as his countenance sunk, and his cheek assumed a hue yet more cadaverous; “that name is indeed written in the most tragic page of a deplorable history. But what can she desire of me? Is she dead or living?”
“Living, my lord; and entreats to see your lordship before she dies, for she has something to communicate that hangs upon her very soul, and she says she canna flit in peace until she sees you.”
“Not until she sees me!—what can that mean? But she is doting with age and infirmity. I tell thee, friend, I called at her cottage myself, not a twelvemonth since, from a report that she was in distress, and she did not even know my face or voice.”
“If your honour wad permit me,” said Edie, to whom the length of the conference restored a part of his professional audacity and native talkativeness—“if your honour wad but permit me, I wad say, under correction of your lordship’s better judgment, that auld Elspeth’s like some of the ancient ruined strengths and castles that ane sees amang the hills. There are mony parts of her mind that appear, as I may say, laid waste and decayed, but then there’s parts that look the steever, and the stronger, and the grander, because they are rising just like to fragments amaong the ruins o’ the rest. She’s an awful woman.”
“She always was so,” said the Earl, almost unconsciously echoing the observation of the mendicant; “she always was different from other women—likest perhaps to her who is now no more, in her temper and turn of mind.—She wishes to see me, then?”