adopted perhaps for the purpose of adding to the effect of her spells and predictions, or perhaps from some traditional notions respecting the dress of her ancestors.  On this occasion she had a large piece of red cotton cloth rolled about her head in the form of a turban, from beneath which her dark eyes flashed with uncommon lustre.  Her long and tangled black hair fell in elf-locks from the folds of this singular head-gear.  Her attitude was that of a sibyl in frenzy, and she stretched out in her right hand a sapling bough which seemed just pulled.

‘I’ll be d—­d,’ said the groom, ’if she has not been cutting the young ashes in the dukit park!’ The Laird made no answer, but continued to look at the figure which was thus perched above his path.

‘Ride your ways,’ said the gipsy, ’ride your ways, Laird of Ellangowan; ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram!  This day have ye quenched seven smoking hearths; see if the fire in your ain parlour burn the blyther for that.  Ye have riven the thack off seven cottar houses; look if your ain roof-tree stand the faster.  Ye may stable your stirks in the shealings at Derncleugh; see that the hare does not couch on the hearthstane at Ellangowan.  Ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram; what do ye glower after our folk for?  There’s thirty hearts there that wad hae wanted bread ere ye had wanted sunkets, and spent their life-blood ere ye had scratched your finger.  Yes; there’s thirty yonder, from the auld wife of an hundred to the babe that was born last week, that ye have turned out o’ their bits o’ bields, to sleep with the tod and the blackcock in the muirs!  Ride your ways, Ellangowan.  Our bairns are hinging at our weary backs; look that your braw cradle at hame be the fairer spread up; not that I am wishing ill to little Harry, or to the babe that’s yet to be born—­God forbid—­and make them kind to the poor, and better folk than their father!  And now, ride e’en your ways; for these are the last words ye’ll ever hear Meg Merrilies speak, and this is the last reise that I’ll ever cut in the bonny woods of Ellangowan.’

So saying, she broke the sapling she held in her hand, and flung it into the road.  Margaret of Anjou, bestowing on her triumphant foes her keen-edged malediction, could not have turned from them with a gesture more proudly contemptuous.  The Laird was clearing his voice to speak, and thrusting his hand in his pocket to find a half-crown; the gipsy waited neither for his reply nor his donation, but strode down the hill to overtake the caravan.

Ellangowan rode pensively home; and it was remarkable that he did not mention this interview to any of his family.  The groom was not so reserved; he told the story at great length to a full audience in the kitchen, and concluded by swearing, that ’if ever the devil spoke by the mouth of a woman, he had spoken by that of Meg Merrilies that blessed day.’

CHAPTER IX