Guy Mannering.

114 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
upon to enter the Place of Ellangowan after her nephew
had been given up to the pressgang, did not apparently
extend her resentment to the child. On the contrary,
she often contrived to waylay him in his walks, sing him
a gipsy song, give him a ride upon her jackass, and thrust
into his pocket a piece of gingerbread or a red-cheeked
apple. This woman's ancient attachment to the family,
repelled and checked in every other direction, seemed to
rejoice in having some object on which it could yet repose
and expand itself. She prophesied a hundred times, " that
young Mr. Harry would be the pride o' the family, and
there hadna been sic a sprout frae the auld aik since the
death of Arthur 3Mac-Dingawaie, that was killed in the
battle o' the Bloody Bay; as for the present stick, it was
good for naething but firewood." On one occasion, when
the child was ill, she lay all night below the window,
chanting a rhyme which she believed sovereign as a febrifuge, and could neither be prevailed upon to enter the
house, nor to leave the station she had chosen, till she was
informed that the crisis was over.
The affection of this woman became matter of suspicion,
not indeed to the Laird, who was never hasty in suspecting evil, but to his wife, who had indifferent health and
poor spirits. She was now far advanced in a second
pregnancy, and, as she could not walk abroad herself,
and the woman who attended upon Harry was young and
thoughtless, she prayed Dominie Sampson to undertake
the task of watching the boy in his rambles, when he
should not be otherwise accompanied. The Dominie
loved his young charge, and was enraptured with his own
success, in having already brought him so far in his
learning as to spell words of three syllables. The idea
of this early prodigy of erudition being carried off by the