coquettes, as she stood playing pretty with
it in her hand, and ushered his guest into the family parlour, or rather
hall; for the place having been a house of defence in former times, the
sitting apartment was a vaulted and paved room, damp and dismal enough
compared with the lodgings of the yeomanry of our days, but which, when
well lighted up with a large sparkling fire of turf and bog-wood, seemed
to Earnscliff a most comfortable exchange for the darkness and bleak
blast of the hill. Kindly and repeatedly was he welcomed by the
venerable old dame, the mistress of the family, who, dressed in her
coif and pinners, her close and decent gown of homespun wool, but with a
large gold necklace and ear-rings, looked, what she really was, the lady
as well as the farmer's wife, while, seated in her chair of wicker, by
the corner of the great chimney, she directed the evening occupations
of the young women, and of two or three stout serving wenches, who sate
plying their distaffs behind the backs of their young mistresses.

As soon as Earnscliff had been duly welcomed, and hasty orders issued
for some addition to the evening meal, his grand-dame and sisters opened
their battery upon Hobbie Elliot for his lack of success against the
deer.

"Jenny needna have kept up her kitchen-fire for a' that Hobbie has
brought hame," said one sister.

"Troth no, lass," said another; "the gathering peat, if it was weel
blawn, wad dress a' our Hobbie's venison." [The gathering peat is the
piece of turf left to treasure up the secret seeds of fire, without any
generous consumption of fuel; in a word, to keep the fire alive.]

"Ay, or the low of the candle, if the wind wad let it hide steady," said
a third; "if I were him, I would bring hame a black craw, rather than
come back three times without a buck's horn to blaw on."

Hobbie turned from the one to the other, regarding them alternately
with a frown on his brow, the augury of which was confuted by the
good-humoured laugh on the lower part of his countenance. He then strove
to propitiate them, by mentioning the intended present of his companion.

"In my young days," said the old lady, "a man wad hae been ashamed
to come back frae the hill without a buck hanging on each side o' his
horse, like a cadger carrying calves."

"I wish they had left some for us then, grannie," retorted Hobbie;
"they've cleared the country o' them, thae auld friends o' yours, I'm
thinking."

"We see other folk