o'mine: just two o' my old joes, my hinny dear."

"What did they suffer for?" I asked.

"Ou, just for the guid cause," said she. "Aften I spaed to them

the way that it would end. Twa shillin' Scots: no pickle mair;

and there are twa bonny callants hingin' for 't! They took it frae

a wean {8} belanged to Brouchton."

"Ay!" said I to myself, and not to the daft limmer, "and did they

come to such a figure for so poor a business? This is to lose all

indeed."

"Gie's your loof, {9} hinny," says she, "and let me spae your weird

to ye."

"No, mother," said I, "I see far enough the way I am. It's an unco

thing to see too far in front."

"I read it in your bree," she said. "There's a bonnie lassie that

has bricht een, and there's a wee man in a braw coat, and a big man

in a pouthered wig, and there's the shadow of the wuddy, {10} joe,

that lies braid across your path. Gie's your loof, hinny, and let

Auld Merren spae it to ye bonny."

The two chance shots that seemed to point at Alan and the daughter

of James More struck me hard; and I fled from the eldritch

creature, casting her a baubee, which she continued to sit and play

with under the moving shadows of the hanged.

My way down the causeway of Leith Walk would have been more

pleasant to me but for this encounter. The old rampart ran among

fields, the like of them I had never seen for artfulness of

agriculture; I was pleased, besides, to be so far in the still

countryside; but the shackles of the gibbet clattered in my head;

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