Guy Mannering [101]
She accompanied this dismal sound with a slow rocking motion of her body to and fro, as if to keep time with her song. The words ran nearly thus--
Wasted, weary, wherefore stay, Wrestling thus with earth and clay? From the body pass away;-- Hark! the mass is singing,
From thee doff thy mortal weed, Mary Mother be thy speed, Saints to help thee at thy need;-- Hark! the knell is ringing.
Fear not snow-drift driving fast Sleet, or hail, or levin blast; Soon the shroud shall lap thee fast, And the sleep be on thee cast
That shall ne'er know waking.
Haste thee, haste thee, to be gone, Earth flits fast, and time draws on,-- Gasp thy gasp, and groan thy groan, Day is near the breaking.
The songstress paused, and was answered by one or two deep and hollow groans, that seemed to proceed from the very agony of the mortal strife. "It will not be," she muttered to herself--"He cannot pass away with that on his mind--it tethers him here--
"Heaven cannot abide it, Earth refuses to hide it." [*See Note V. Gipsy Superstitions.]
I must open the door;" and, rising, she faced towards the door of the apartment, observing heedfully not to turn back her head, and, withdrawing a bolt or two (for, notwithstanding the miserable appearance of the place, the door was cautiously secured), she lifted the latch, saying,
"Open lock end strife, Come death, and pass life." Brown, who had by this time moved from his post, stood before her as she opened the door. She stepped back a pace, and he entered, instantly recognising, but with no comfortable sensation, the same gipsy woman whom he had met in Bewcastle. She also knew him at once, and her attitude, figure, and the anxiety of her countenance assumed the appearance of the well-disposed ogress of a fairy tale, warning a stranger not to enter the dangerous castle of her husband. The first words she spoke (holding up her hands in a reproving manner) were, "Said I not to ye, Make not, meddle not?--Beware of the redding straik! [*The redding straik, namely, a blow received by a peacemaker who interfere betwixt two combatants, to red or separate them, is proverbially said to be the most dangerous blow a man can receive.] you are come to no house o' fairstrae [*Natural] death." So saying, she raised the lamp, and turned its light on the dying man, whose rude and harsh features were now convulsed with the last agony. A roll of linen about his head was stained with blood, which had soaked also through the blankets and the straw. It was, indeed, under no natural disease that the wretch was suffering. Brown started back from this horrible object, and, turning to the gipsy, exclaimed, "Wretched woman, who has done this?"
"They that were permitted," answered Meg Merrilies, while she scanned with a close and keen glance the features of the expiring man.--"He has had a sair struggle--but it's passing--I kenn'd he would pass when you came in.--That was the death-ruckle--he's dead."
Sounds were now heard at a distance, as of voices. "They are coming," said she to Brown; "you are a dead man if ye had as mony lives as hairs." Brown eagerly looked round for some weapon of defence. There was none near. He then rushed to the door, with the intention of plunging among the trees, and making his escape by flight, from what he now esteemed a den of murderers, but Merrilies held him with a masculine grasp. "Here," she said, "here be still and you are safe--stir not, whatever you see or hear, and nothing shall befall you."
Brown, in these desperate circumstances, remembered this woman's intimation formerly, and thought he had no chance of safety but in obeying her. She caused him to couch down among a parcel of straw on the opposite side of the apartment from the corpse, covered him carefully, and flung over him two or three old sacks which lay about the place. Anxious to observe what was to happen, Brown arranged, as softly as he could, the means of peeping from under the coverings by which he was hidden, and awaited with a throbbing heart the issue of
Wasted, weary, wherefore stay, Wrestling thus with earth and clay? From the body pass away;-- Hark! the mass is singing,
From thee doff thy mortal weed, Mary Mother be thy speed, Saints to help thee at thy need;-- Hark! the knell is ringing.
Fear not snow-drift driving fast Sleet, or hail, or levin blast; Soon the shroud shall lap thee fast, And the sleep be on thee cast
That shall ne'er know waking.
Haste thee, haste thee, to be gone, Earth flits fast, and time draws on,-- Gasp thy gasp, and groan thy groan, Day is near the breaking.
The songstress paused, and was answered by one or two deep and hollow groans, that seemed to proceed from the very agony of the mortal strife. "It will not be," she muttered to herself--"He cannot pass away with that on his mind--it tethers him here--
"Heaven cannot abide it, Earth refuses to hide it." [*See Note V. Gipsy Superstitions.]
I must open the door;" and, rising, she faced towards the door of the apartment, observing heedfully not to turn back her head, and, withdrawing a bolt or two (for, notwithstanding the miserable appearance of the place, the door was cautiously secured), she lifted the latch, saying,
"Open lock end strife, Come death, and pass life." Brown, who had by this time moved from his post, stood before her as she opened the door. She stepped back a pace, and he entered, instantly recognising, but with no comfortable sensation, the same gipsy woman whom he had met in Bewcastle. She also knew him at once, and her attitude, figure, and the anxiety of her countenance assumed the appearance of the well-disposed ogress of a fairy tale, warning a stranger not to enter the dangerous castle of her husband. The first words she spoke (holding up her hands in a reproving manner) were, "Said I not to ye, Make not, meddle not?--Beware of the redding straik! [*The redding straik, namely, a blow received by a peacemaker who interfere betwixt two combatants, to red or separate them, is proverbially said to be the most dangerous blow a man can receive.] you are come to no house o' fairstrae [*Natural] death." So saying, she raised the lamp, and turned its light on the dying man, whose rude and harsh features were now convulsed with the last agony. A roll of linen about his head was stained with blood, which had soaked also through the blankets and the straw. It was, indeed, under no natural disease that the wretch was suffering. Brown started back from this horrible object, and, turning to the gipsy, exclaimed, "Wretched woman, who has done this?"
"They that were permitted," answered Meg Merrilies, while she scanned with a close and keen glance the features of the expiring man.--"He has had a sair struggle--but it's passing--I kenn'd he would pass when you came in.--That was the death-ruckle--he's dead."
Sounds were now heard at a distance, as of voices. "They are coming," said she to Brown; "you are a dead man if ye had as mony lives as hairs." Brown eagerly looked round for some weapon of defence. There was none near. He then rushed to the door, with the intention of plunging among the trees, and making his escape by flight, from what he now esteemed a den of murderers, but Merrilies held him with a masculine grasp. "Here," she said, "here be still and you are safe--stir not, whatever you see or hear, and nothing shall befall you."
Brown, in these desperate circumstances, remembered this woman's intimation formerly, and thought he had no chance of safety but in obeying her. She caused him to couch down among a parcel of straw on the opposite side of the apartment from the corpse, covered him carefully, and flung over him two or three old sacks which lay about the place. Anxious to observe what was to happen, Brown arranged, as softly as he could, the means of peeping from under the coverings by which he was hidden, and awaited with a throbbing heart the issue of