Page:Guy Mannering Vol 3.djvu/141

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GUY MANNERING.
131

a dozen of people at least. "So ye hae eat naething a' day?" said Meg, heaving a large portion of this mess into a brown dish, and strewing it savourily with salt and pepper.

"Nothing," answered the Dominie—scelestissima!—that is—gudewife."

"Hae then," said she, placing the dish before him, "there's what will warm your heart."

"I do not hunger—malefica—that is to say—Mrs. Merrilies," for he said unto himself, 'the savour is sweet, but it hath been cooked by a Canidia or an Ericthoe.'

"If ye dinna eat instantly, and put some saul in ye, by the bread and the salt, I'll put it doun your throat wi' the cutty spoon, scauding as it is, and whether ye will or no. Gape, sinner, and swallow!"

Sampson, afraid of eye of newt, and toe of frog, tigers' chaudrons, and so forth, had determined not to venture; but the smell of the stew was fast melting his obstinacy, which flowed from his chops as