"
"Gie's your loof, {9} hinny," says she, "and let me spae your weird
to ye."
"No, mother," said I, "I see far enough the way I am. It's an unco
thing to see too far in front."
"I read it in your bree," she said. "There's a bonnie lassie that
has bricht een, and there's a wee man in a braw coat, and a big man
in a pouthered wig, and there's the shadow of the wuddy, {10} joe,
that lies braid across your path. Gie's your loof, hinny, and let
Auld Merren spae it to ye bonny."
The two chance shots that seemed to point at Alan and the daughter
of James More struck me hard; and I fled from the eldritch
creature, casting her a baubee, which she continued to sit and play
with under the moving shadows of the hanged.
My way down the causeway of Leith Walk would have been more
pleasant to me but for this encounter. The old rampart ran among
fields, the like of them I had never seen for artfulness of
agriculture; I was pleased, besides, to be so far in the still
countryside; but the shackles of the gibbet clattered in my head;
and the mope and mows of the old witch, and the thought of the dead
men, hag-rode my spirits.
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