And there were houses too, and if they
were not biggit with stane and lime, and lofted
like the houses at Croftangry, yet they served the
purpose of them that lived there; and mony a braw
bonnet, and mony a silk snood, and comely white
curch, would come out to gang to kirk or chapel
on the Lord's day, and little bairns toddling after;
and now,---Och, Och, Ohellany, Ohonari! the
glen is desolate, and the braw snoods and bonnets
are gane, and the Saxon's house stands dull and
lonely, like the single bare-breasted rock that the
falcon builds on---the falcon that drives the heathbird
frae the glen.''
Janet, like many Highlanders, was full of imagination;
and, when melancholy themes came upon
her, expressed herself almost poetically, owing to
the genius of the Celtic language in which she
thought, and in which, doubtless, she would have
spoken, had I understood Gaelic. In two minutes
the shade of gloom and regret had passed from her
good-humoured features, and she was again the
little busy, prating, important old woman, undisputed
owner of one flat of a small tenement in the
Abbey-yard, and about to be promoted to be housekeeper
to an elderly bachelor gentleman, Chrystal
Croftangry, Esq.
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