Chapter 2 - Page 2

with the easy seat of a skilled horsewoman. She was trimly clad in a green riding-coat, and over the lace collar of it her hair fell in dark, clustering curls. Her face was grave, like a determined child's; but the winds of the morning had whipped it to a rosy colour, so that into that clan of tatterdemalions she rode like Proserpine descending among the gloomy Shades. In her hand she carried a light riding-whip.

A scream from the women brought Muckle John out of his rhapsodies. He stared blankly at the slim girl who confronted him with hand on hip.

"What seekest thou here, thou shameless woman?" he roared.

"I am come," said she, "for my tirewoman, Janet Somerville, who left me three days back without a reason. Word was brought me that she had joined a mad company called the Sweet-Singers, that lay at the Cauldstaneslap. Janet's a silly body, but she means no ill, and her mother is demented at the loss of her. So I have come for Janet."

Her cool eyes ran over the assembly till they lighted on the one I had already noted as more decent-like than the rest. At the sight of the girl the woman bobbed a curtsy.

"Come out of it, silly Janet," said she on the horse; "you'll never make a Sweet-Singer, for there's not a notion of a tune in your head."

"It's not singing that I seek, my leddy," said the woman, blushing. "I follow the call o' the Lord by the mouth o' His servant, John Gib."

"You'll follow the call of your mother by the mouth of me, Elspeth Blair. Forget these havers, Janet, and come back like a good Christian soul. Mount and be quick. There's room behind me on Bess."

The words were spoken in a kindly, wheedling tone, and the girl's face broke into the prettiest of smiles. Perhaps Janet would have obeyed, but Muckle John, swift to prevent defection, took up the parable.

"Begone, ye daughter of Heth!" he bellowed, "ye that are like the devils that pluck souls from the way of salvation. Begone, or it is strongly borne in upon me that ye will dree the fate of the women of Midian, of whom it is written that they were slaughtered and spared not."

The girl did not look his way. She had her coaxing eyes on her halting maid. "Come, Janet, woman," she said again. "It's no job for a decent lass to be wandering at the tail of a crazy warlock."

The word roused Muckle John to fury. He sprang forward, caught the sorrel's bridle, and swung it round. The girl did not move, but looked him square in the face, the young eyes fronting his demoniac glower. Then very swiftly her arm rose, and she laid the lash of her whip roundly over his shoulders.

The man snarled like a beast, leaped back and plucked from his seaman's belt a great horse-pistol. I heard the click of it cocking, and the next I knew it was levelled at