well-sounding chords, and sang, as she played, with a very droll expression and broad accent—
Isnae this the tune that ye whustled?"
"You see," she says, "I can do the poetry too, only it won't rhyme. And then again:
You, I believe, are Dauvit Balfour."
I told her how much astonished I was by her genius.
"And what do you call the name of it?" she asked.
"I do not know the real name," said I. "I just call it Alan's air."
She looked at me directly in the face. "I shall call it David's air," said she; "though if it's the least like what your namesake of Israel played to Saul I would never wonder that the king got little good by it, for it's but melancholy music. Your other name I do not like; so if you was ever wishing to hear your tune again you are to ask for it by mine."
This was said with a significance that gave my heart a jog. "Why that, Miss Grant?" I asked.
"Why," says she, "if ever you should come to get hanged, I will set your last dying speech and confession to that tune and sing it."
This put it beyond a doubt that she was partly informed of my story and peril. How, or just how much, it was more difficult to guess. It was plain she knew there was something of danger in the name
