in the huge splay foot which his former posture had extended,
placed it perpendicularly, and stretched the other limb over it
instead, puffing out between whiles huge volumes of tobacco smoke.
'What needs ye groan, Dominie? I am sure Meg's sangs do nae ill.'

'Nor good neither,' answered Dominie Sampson, in a voice whose
untuneable harshness corresponded with the awkwardness of his
figure. They were the first words which Mannering had heard him
speak; and as he had been watching with some curiosity when this
eating, drinking, moving, and smoking automaton would perform the
part of speaking, he was a good deal diverted with the harsh
timber tones which issued from him. But at this moment the door
opened, and Meg Merrilies entered.

Her appearance made Mannering start. She was full six feet high,
wore a man's great-coat over the rest of her dress, had in her
hand a goodly sloethorn cudgel, and in all points of equipment,
except her petticoats, seemed rather masculine than feminine. Her
dark elf-locks shot out like the snakes of the gorgon between an
old-fashioned bonnet called a bongrace, heightening the singular
effect of her strong and weather-beaten features, which they
partly shadowed, while her eye had a wild roll that indicated
something like real or affected insanity.

'Aweel, Ellangowan,' she said, 'wad it no hae been a bonnie thing,
an the leddy had been brought to bed, and me at the fair o'
Drumshourloch, no kenning, nor dreaming a word about it? Wha was
to hae keepit awa the worriecows, I trow? Ay, and the elves and
gyre-carlings frae the bonnie bairn, grace be wi' it? Ay, or said
Saint Colme's charm for its sake, the dear?' And without waiting