"But if you will not eat, off with you at once; you will
be back the sooner, for you go on a fool's errand. Off with you,
Mr. David," she continued, opening the door.
"He has lowpen on his bonny grey,
He rade the richt gate and the ready
I trow he would neither stint nor stay,
For he was seeking his bonny leddy."
I did not wait to be twice bidden, and did justice to Miss Grant's
citation on the way to Dean.
Old Lady Allardyce walked there alone in the garden, in her hat and
mutch, and having a silver-mounted staff of some black wood to lean
upon. As I alighted from my horse, and drew near to her with
CONGEES, I could see the blood come in her face, and her head fling
into the air like what I had conceived of empresses.
"What brings you to my poor door?" she cried, speaking high through
her nose. "I cannot bar it. The males of my house are dead and
buried; I have neither son nor husband to stand in the gate for me;
any beggar can pluck me by the baird {18}--and a baird there is,
and that's the worst of it yet?" she added partly to herself.
I was extremely put out at this reception, and the last remark,
which seemed like a daft wife's, left me near hand speechless.
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