"The herring loves the merry moonlight,
The mackerel loves the wind,
But the oyster loves the dredging sang,
For they come of a gentle kind."
A diligent collector of these legendary scraps of ancient poetry, his foot refused to cross the threshold when his ear was thus arrested, and his hand instinctively took pencil and memorandum-book. From time to time the old woman spoke as if to the children—"Oh ay, hinnies, whisht! whisht! and I'll begin a bonnier ane than that—
"Now haud your tongue, baith wife and carle,
And listen, great and sma',
And I will sing of Glenallan's Earl
That fought on the red Harlaw.
"The cronach's cried on Bennachie,
And doun the Don and a',
And hieland and lawland may mournfu' be
For the sair field of Harlaw.—
I dinna mind the neist verse weel—my memory's failed, and theres unco thoughts come ower me—God keep us frae temptation!"
Here her voice sunk in indistinct muttering.
"It's a historical ballad," said Oldbuck, eagerly, "a genuine and undoubted fragment of minstrelsy! Percy would admire its simplicity— Ritson could not impugn its authenticity."
"Ay, but it's a sad thing," said Ochiltree, "to see human nature sae far owertaen as to be skirling at auld sangs on the back of a loss like hers."
"Hush! hush!" said the Antiquary—"she has gotten the thread of the story again. "—And as he spoke, she sung—
"They saddled a hundred milk-white steeds,
They hae bridled a hundred black,
With a chafron of steel on each horse's head,
And a good knight upon his back. "—
"Chafron!" exclaimed the Antiquary,—"equivalent, perhaps, to cheveron;—the word's worth a dollar,"—and down it went in his red book.