“Hand your tongue, ye moon-raised b——! what is your business with ——, or with heaven or hell either?”
“Troth, mither, no muckle wi’ heaven, I doubt, considering wha I carry ahint me—and as for hell, it will fight its ain battle at its ain time, I’se be bound.—Come, naggie, trot awa, man, an as thou wert a broomstick, for a witch rides thee—
With my curtch on my foot, and my shoe on my hand,
I glance like the wildfire through brugh and through land.”
The tramp of the horse, and the increasing distance, drowned the rest of her song, but Jeanie heard for some time the inarticulate sounds ring along the waste.
Our pilgrim remained stupified with undefined apprehensions. The being named by her name in so wild a manner, and in a strange country, without farther explanation or communing, by a person who thus strangely flitted forward and disappeared before her, came near to the supernatural sounds in Comus:—
The airy tongues, which syllable men’s names
On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.
And although widely different in features, deportment, and rank, from the Lady of that enchanting masque, the continuation of the passage may be happily applied to Jeanie Deans upon this singular alarm:—
These thoughts may startle well, but not astound
The virtuous mind, that ever walks attended
By a strong siding champion—Conscience.
In fact, it was, with the recollection of the affectionate and dutiful errand on which she was engaged, her right, if such a word could be applicable, to expect protection in a task so meritorious. She had not advanced much farther, with a mind calmed by these reflections, when she was disturbed by a new and more instant subject of terror. Two men, who had been lurking among some copse, started up as she advanced, and met her on the road in a menacing manner. “Stand and deliver,” said one of them, a short stout fellow, in a smock-frock, such as are worn by waggoners.
“The woman,” said the other, a tall thin figure, “does not understand the words of action.—Your money, my precious, or your life.”