"Ay, master, just as it has gane ill wi' mony a better man," answered the gaberlunzie, with a dry smile and a shrug of his shoulders. "I was born and bred in a peasant's cot in the Lothians, and mony a year I spent in the service o' my faither's Laird. But service, you ken, is nae inheritance: and I ne'er rase aboon the lot o' a simple hind, trauchling frae morning till nicht. I saw a' my kith and kin laid aneath the yird. Sae I flung the gaberlunzie-wallet ower my shouther, and here I am."
"And is the trade better to your liking and your profit?"
"Muckle better," replied the wanderer. "I stravaig the country at my ain will, and the calling thrives wi' me. I use my e'en and lugs, and aften see and hear what ithers dinna dream o'. A Border mosstrooper is aye richt glad to pay for my tidings, whilk may shew him how to mak' a stroke o' gude luck, or to save his neck frae the gallows. The same wi' a Border knicht or baron, wha may be threatened wi' the onfa o' an enemy. Again, if a fair dame, shut up in her faither's bower, has a love message to send to the lad o' her heart, wha sae able to carry it, whether by word o' mouth or in a sealed billet, as Willie Harthill, the gaberlunzie? I pass free frae the clay-bigging to the lordly ha', and am aye welcome. Sae, master, the trade thrives weel, and if the times were mair troubled, it micht thrive better--wha kens?"
The wayfarer soon came within sight of the hamlet of Greenholm, which lay nestled in a hollow among grassy hills, whose sides were dotted with sheep, which shepherds and their dogs were collecting to fold for the night.
Eustace was asking some question when Willie stopped him with--"Hush! master. We are coming to haunted ground. Do you see thae bourochs--thae bonnie green knowes, that are freshened by the sweetest dew and blessed by the silveriest moonshine at midnicht hours?"
"Haunted ground!" muttered Eustace, not without a faint feeling of awe. He saw on one side of the path several gentle knolls, covered with verdure, and environed by broom bushes like a hedge; and coming nearer he perceived on the knolls some of those gracefully-formed grassy circles which so long perplexed the ignorance, and confirmed the superstition, of bygone ages. Tracing those mystic rounds, the Fairies were believed to dance their gay galliards in the moonlight. Our travellers paused a moment to contemplate the scene of Elfin revelry.