Guy Mannering.

86 WAVERLEY NOVELS.
had also been formerly closed by a range of buildings;
but owing, it was said, to its having been battered by the
ships of the Parliament under Deane, during the long
civil war, this part of the castle was much more ruinous
than the rest, and exhibited a great chasm, through which
Mannering could observe the sea, and the little vessel
(an armed lugger) which retained her station in the
centre of the bay.* While Mannering was gazing round
the ruins, he heard from the interior of an apartment on
the left hand the voice of the gipsy he had seen on the
preceding evening. He soon found an aperture through
which he could observe her without being himself visible;
and could not help feeling that her figure, her employment, and her situation, conveyed the exact impression
of an ancient sibyl.
She sate upon a broken corner-stone in the angle of a
paved apartment, part of which she had swept clean to
afford a smooth space for the evolutions of her spindle.
A strong sunbeam, through a lofty and narrow window,
fell upon her wild dress and features, and afforded her
light for her occupation; the rest of the apartment was
very gloomy. Equipt in a habit which mingled the
national dress of the Scottish common people with something of an Eastern costume, she spun a thread, drawn
from wool of three different colours-black, white, and
grey-by assistance of those ancient implements of
housewifery, now almost banished from the land, the
distaff and spindle. As she spun, she sung what seemed
to be a charm. Mannering, after in vain attempting to: The outline of the above description, as far as the supposed ruins
are concerned, will be found somewhat to resemble the noble remains
of Carlaverock-castle, six or seven miles from Dumfries, and near to
Lochar-moss.