he dean of guild, coming sedately, and with
very great solemnity in their countenances, down the crown of the
causey, heavily laden with magisterial fears. He stopped to look at
them, and he remarked that they said little to one another, but what
they did say seemed to be words of weight; and when any of their friends
and acquaintances happened to pass, they gave them a nod that betokened
much sadness of heart.

The cause of all this anxiety was not, in its effects and influence,
meted only to the men and magistrates: the women partook of them even to
a greater degree. They were seen passing from house to house, out at one
door and into the next, and their faces were full of strange matters.
One in particular, whom my grandfather noticed coming along, was often
addressed with brief questions, and her responses were seemingly as
awful as an oracle's. She was an aged carlin, who, in her day, had been
a midwife, but having in course of time waxed old, and being then
somewhat slackened in the joints of the right side by a paralytic, she
eked out the weakly remainder of her thread of life in visitations among
the families that, in her abler years, she had assisted to increase and
multiply. She was then returning home after spending the day, as my
grandfather afterwards heard from the Widow Dingwall, with the provost's
daughter, at whose birth she had been the howdy, and who, being married
some months, had sent to consult her anent a might-be occasion.

As she came toddling along, with pitty-patty steps, in a rose satin
mantle that she got as a blithemeat gift when she helped the young
master of Elcho into the world, drawn close over her head, and leaning
on a staff with her right hand, while in her left she carried a Flanders
pig of strong ale, with a clout o'er the mouth to keep it from jawping,
scarcely a door or entry mouth was she allowed to pass, but she was
obligated to stop and speak, and what she said appeared to be tidings of
no comfort.

All these things bred wonder and curiosity in the breast of my
grandfather, who, not being acquaint with any body that he saw, did not
like for some time to inquire; but at last his diffidence and modesty
were overcome by the appearance of a strong party of the Archbishop's
armed retainers, followed by a mob of bairns and striplings, yelling,
and scoffing at them with bitter taunts and many titles of derision; and
on inquiring at a laddie what had caused the consternation in the