The smoke of the gun curled slowly and reluctantly out of the narrow windows, and through the garret opening I heard a hurried rush of feet beneath me on the stairs, light and quick—a woman’s footsteps when she is young. My head span round, and had it not been for Mary Gordon, whose arm caught and steadied me, I should doubtless have fallen from top to bottom.

“Quintin, Quintin,” she cried, passionately, “are you hurt? Oh, my father has slain him. Wherefore did I let him go?”

I held by the wall and steadied myself on her shoulder, scarce knowing what I did.

Suddenly she cried aloud, a little frightened cry, and, drawing her kerchief from her bosom, she reached up and wiped my brow, down which red drops were trickling.{318}

“You are hurt! You are sort hurt!” she cried. “And it is all my fault!”

Then I said, “Nay, Mary, I am not hurt. It was but a faintish turn that came and passed.”

“Oh, come away,” she cried; “he will surely slay you if you bide here, and your blood will be upon my hands.”

“Nay, Mary,” I answered; “the demon, and not your father, did this thing, and such can do nothing without permission. I will yet meet and expel the devil in the name of the Lord!”

She put her netted fingers about my arm to draw me away; nevertheless, even then, I withstood her.

“Alexander Gordon,” I cried aloud, “the evil spirit hath done its worst. He will now depart from you. I am coming up the ladder.”

I drew my arm free and mounted. As my head rose through the trap-door I own that my heart quaked, but there had come with the danger and the excitement a sort of angry exaltation which, more than aught else, carried me onward. Also I knew within me that if, as I judged, God had other work yet for me to{319} do in Scotland, He would clothe me in secret armour of proof against all assault.

Also the eyes of Mary Gordon were upon me. I had passed my word to her; I could not go back.

As I looked about the garret between the cobwebs, the strings of onions, and the bunches of dried herbs, I could see Sandy Gordon crouching at the far end, all drawn together like a tailor sitting cross-legged on his bench. He had his musket between his knees, and his great sword was cocked threateningly over his shoulder.

“What, Corbie! Are ye there again?” cried he, fleeringly. “Then ye are neither dead nor feared.”

“No,” said I; “the devil that possesses you has been restrained from doing me serious hurt. I will call on the Lord to expel what He hath already rendered powerless.”

“Man, Quintin,” he cried, “ye should have fetched Telfair and the Presbytery with you. Ye are not fit for the job by yourself. Mind you, this is no hotchin’ wee de’il, sitting cross-legged on the hearth in the gloaming like Andrew Mackie’s in Ringcroft. It takes the black Father of Spirits himself, ripe from hell, to grip{320} the Bull of Earlstoun, and set him to roaring like this in the blank middle of the day.”

“But,” said I, “there is One stronger than any devil or devilkin—your father’s and your mother’s God! You are but a great bairn, Sandy. Do ye mind where ye first learned the Lord’s Prayer and the Twenty-third Psalm?”

At my words the great mountain of a man threw his head back and dropped his sword.

“Aye, I mind,” he said, sullenly.

“Where was it?” said I.

“It was at my mother’s knee in the turret chamber that looks to the woods, if ye want to ken.”

“What did your mother when ye had ended the lesson?”

“What is that to you, Quintin MacClellan?” he thundered, fiercely. “I tell you, torment me not!”

He snarled this out at me suddenly like the roar of a beast in a cage, thrusting forth his hea............