His disjointed meditations were interrupted quite by the entrance
of the man to whom alone of all men he could at the time have given
a hearty welcome. The schoolmaster seated himself by his bedside,
and they had a long talk. I had set down this talk, but came to the
conclusion I had better not print it: ranging both high and wide,
and touching on points of vital importance, it was yet so odd, that
it would have been to too many of my readers but a Chimera tumbling
in a vacuum--as they will readily allow when I tell them that it
started from the question--which had arisen in Malcolm's mind so
long ago, but which he had not hitherto propounded to his friend
--as to the consequences of a man's marrying a mermaid; and that
Malcolm, reversing its relations, proposed next, the consequences
of a man's being in love with a ghost or an angel.
"I'm dreidfu' tired o' lyin' here i' my bed," said Malcolm at length
when, neither desiring to carry the conversation further, a pause
had intervened. "I dinna ken what I want. Whiles I think its the
sun, whiles the win', and whiles the watter. But I canna rist. Haena
ye a bit ballant ye could say till me Mr Graham? There's naething
wad quaiet me like a ballant."
The schoolmaster thought for a few minutes, and then said, "I'll
give you one of my own, if you like, Malcolm. I made it some twenty
or thirty years ago."
"That wad be a trate, sir," returned Malcolm; and the master,
with perfect rhythm, and a modulation amounting almost to melody,
repeated the following verses:
The water ran doon fine the heich hope heid, (head of the valley)
Wi' a Rin, burnie, rin;
It wimpled, an' waggled, an' sang a screed
O' nonsense, an' wadna blin, (cease)
Wi' its Rin, burnie, rin.
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