Print
Word
PDF“Let me alane!—let me alane!” said the poor young woman, as her paroxysm of sorrow began to abate. “Let me alane; it does me good to weep. I canna shed tears but maybe anes or twice a-year, and I aye come to wet this turf with them, that the flowers may grow fair, and the grass may be green.”
“But what is the matter with you?”
said Jeanie. “Why do you weep so
bitterly?”
“There’s matter enow,” replied the lunatic; “mair than ae puir mind can bear, I trow. Stay a bit, and I’ll tell you a’ about it; for I like ye, Jeanie Deans; a’body spoke weel about ye when we lived in the Pleasaunts. And I mind aye the drink o’ milk ye gae me yon day, when I had been on Arthur’s Seat for four-and-twenty hours, looking for the ship that somebody was sailing in.”
Ed.
* * * * *
VARIANTS ON THE TEXT
[Variant 1:
1836.
... thorny ... 1798.]
[Variant 2:
1836.
... it is overgrown. 1798.]
[Variant 3:
1836.
... were ... 1798.]
[Variant 4:
1836.
... had ... 1798.]
[Variant 5:
1820.
I’ve measured it from
side to side:
’Tis three feet long
[i] and two feet wide. 1798.]
[Variant 6:
1827.
That’s like ... 1798.]
[Variant 7:
1827.
But if you’d ... 1798.]
[Variant 8:
1827.
The heap that’s like ... 1798.]
[Variant 9: In the editions 1798 to 1815.
Nay
rack your brain—’tis all in vain,
I’ll
tell you every thing I know;
But
to the thorn, and to the pond
Which
is a little step beyond,
I
wish that you would go:
Perhaps
when you are at the place
You
something of her tale may trace.
XI I’ll give you the best help I
can:
Before
you up the mountain go,
Up
to the dreary mountain-top,
I’ll
tell you all I know.]
[Variant 10:
1845.
’Tis now some two and twenty years, 1798.
’Tis known, that twenty years are passed 1820.]
[Variant 11:
1820.
And she was happy, happy still
Whene’er she thought
of Stephen Hill. 1798.]
[Variant 12:
1815.
... on that woful day A cruel, cruel fire, they say, Into her bones was sent: It dried her body like a cinder, And almost turn’d her brain to tinder. 1798.]
[Variant 13:
