and also that used
by her mother and herself, she found the bustle of serving to be at its
height below, as it always was at this hour. The young woman shrank from
having anything to do with the ground-floor serving, and crept silently
about observing the scene--so new to her, fresh from the seclusion of
a seaside cottage. In the general sitting-room, which was large, she
remarked the two or three dozen strong-backed chairs that stood round
against the wall, each fitted with its genial occupant; the sanded
floor; the black settle which, projecting endwise from the wall within
the door, permitted Elizabeth to be a spectator of all that went on
without herself being particularly seen.

The young Scotchman had just joined the guests. These, in addition to
the respectable master-tradesmen occupying the seats of privileges in
the bow-window and its neighbourhood, included an inferior set at the
unlighted end, whose seats were mere benches against the wall, and who
drank from cups instead of from glasses. Among the latter she noticed
some of those personages who had stood outside the windows of the King's
Arms.

Behind their backs was a small window, with a wheel ventilator in one
of the panes, which would suddenly start off spinning with a jingling
sound, as suddenly stop, and as suddenly start again.

While thus furtively making her survey the opening words of a song
greeted her ears from the front of the settle, in a melody and accent
of peculiar charm. There had been some singing before she came down; and
now the Scotchman had made himself so soon at home that, at the request
of some of the master-tradesmen, he, too, was favouring the room with a
ditty.

Elizabeth-Jane was fond of music; she could not help pausing to listen;
and the longer she listened the more she was enraptured. She had never
heard any singing like this and it was evident that the majority of the
audience had not heard such frequently, for they were attentive to a
much greater degree than usual. They neither whispered, nor drank, nor
dipped their pipe-stems in their ale to moisten them, nor pushed the mug
to their neighbours. The singer himself grew emotional, till she could
imagine a tear in his eye as the words went on:--

"It's hame, and it's hame, hame fain would I be,
O hame, hame, hame to my ain countree!
There's an eye that ever weeps, and a fair face will be fain,
As I pass through Annan Water with my bonnie bands again