She threw off the black veil which half concealed her strange coiffure of green toadstool-coloured hair.

She placed her choicest morsels before the young captain of the Douglas guard.
"'Tis hard," she said, touching him confidentially on the shoulder, "hard to dwell here in this country wherein so many deeds of blood are wrought, alone with a poor imbecile like my husband.

None cares to help me with aught, all being too busy with their own affairs.

It falls on me to till the fields, which, scanty as they are, are more than my feeble strength can compass unaided.

Alone I must prune and water the vines, bring in the firewood, and go out and in by night and day to earn a scanty living for this afflicted one and myself.