of Annaple, in her red cloak and black hood, he could not help exclaiming to himself, “What ill luck can hae brought the auld nurse sae far frae hame, her that never stirs a gun-shot frae the door-stane for ordinar?—­Hout, it will just be to get crane-berries, or whortle-berries, or some such stuff, out of the moss, to make the pies and tarts for the feast on Monday.—­I cannot get the words of that cankered auld cripple deil’s-buckie out o’ my head—­the least thing makes me dread some ill news.—­O, Killbuck, man! were there nae deer and goats in the country besides, but ye behoved to gang and worry his creature, by a’ other folk’s?”

By this time Annaple, with a brow like a tragic volume, had hobbled towards him, and caught his horse by the bridle.  The despair in her look was so evident as to deprive even him of the power of asking the cause.  “O my bairn!” she cried, “gang na forward—­gang na forward—­it’s a sight to kill onybody, let alane thee.”

“In God’s name, what’s the matter?” said the astonished horseman, endeavouring to extricate his bridle from the grasp of the old woman; “for Heaven’s sake, let me go and see what’s the matter.”

“Ohon! that I should have lived to see the day!—­The steading’s a’ in a low, and the bonny stack-yard lying in the red ashes, and the gear a’ driven away.  But gang na forward; it wad break your young heart, hinny, to see what my auld een hae seen this morning.”

“And who has dared to do this? let go my bridle, Annaple—­where is my grandmother—­my sisters?—­Where is Grace Armstrong?—­God!—­the words of the warlock are knelling in my ears!”

He sprang from his horse to rid himself of Annaple’s interruption, and, ascending the hill with great speed, soon came in view of the spectacle with which she had threatened him.  It was indeed a heart-breaking sight.  The habitation which he had left in its seclusion, beside the mountain-stream, surrounded with every evidence of rustic plenty, was now a wasted and blackened ruin.  From amongst the shattered and sable walls the smoke continued to rise.  The turf-stack, the barn-yard, the offices stocked with cattle, all the wealth of an upland cultivator of the period, of which poor Elliot possessed no common share, had been laid waste or carried off in a single night.  He stood a moment motionless, and then exclaimed, “I am ruined—­ruined to the ground!—­But curse on the warld’s gear—­Had it not been the week before the bridal—­But I am nae babe, to sit down and greet about it.  If I can but find Grace, and my grandmother, and my sisters weel, I can go to the wars in Flanders, as my gude-sire did, under the Bellenden banner, wi’ auld Buccleuch.  At ony rate, I will keep up a heart, or they will lose theirs a’thegither.”