Guy Mannering.

120 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
blither 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 blackeock 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'm 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 Mleg 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
* Delicacies.