"Ay, you have now your hand on the cocked egg," replied she, with a look
of mystery. "The other was a wind ane, and you've just to sit a little
and you'll see the chick."
The writer settled himself into attention, and the good dame thought it
proper, like some preachers who pause two or three minutes (the best
part of their discourse) after they have given out the text, to raise a
wonder how long they intend to hold their tongue, and thereby produce
attention, to retain her speech until she had attained the due
solemnity.
"It is now," she began, in a low mysterious voice, "just sixteen years
come June,--and if ye want the day, it will be the 15th,--and if ye want
the hour, we may say eleven o'clock at night, when I was making ready
for my bed,--I heard a knock at my door, and the words of a woman, 'Oh,
Mrs. Hislop, Mrs. Hislop!' So I ran and opened the door; and wha think
ye I saw but Jean Graham, Mr. Napier's cook, with een like twa candles,
and her mouth as wide as if she had been to swallow the biggest sup of
porridge that ever crossed ploughman's craig?"
"'What's ado, woman?' said I, for I thought something fearful had
happened.
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