r guns at full
cock. No harm, however, was done, save that a bevy of bats, disturbed
in their winter's repose, dashed wildly for the door, striking their
faces before swooping out into the night.

Then the kneeling women rose--the three mad sisters, and one who
stepped in front of them, their elder and protector, Aphra Orrin.

It may seem strange, yet in a moment there came upon me a sense of
shame. All was so decent and in order, as for some private Divine
service in an oratory. A Bible was open at the lesson for the day, a
"marker," with a gold cross hanging between the leaves. The altar
nicely laid with a white cloth, and against the black pall, which hid
the end of the barn, hung a great gilt crucifix.

"What seek ye here?" said Miss Orrin, standing up very tall, and
speaking with a certain chill and surprising dignity which overawed
many of my followers.

"I seek my father!" I answered, since nobody else could. "He has been
lost, and it is here that we have come to look for him."

And though the villagers murmured, "Ay--ay, rightly said, Master
Joseph!" I could not but feel at that moment that my reasoning was but
weak. If I had had to speak with a man it would have been different.

"This," said Miss Orrin, "is the house of Mr. Stennis, and to him you
shall answer. Meantime, I am in charge, and shall defend to the
last----"

But a score of voices interrupted her. "Where is your brother? Where
is Mad Jeremy? Where is Mr. Stennis?"

"I know not where my brother may be," she answered. "In his bed, most
likely. You are at liberty to go and look. But as for my master, to
whom you shall answer, he is in the City of Edinburgh in connection
with some law business. If you seek him there I warrant he will be
easy enough found."

But I remembered the flitting shadow I had seen, and crying out,
"Search the house, boys! I will take the blame!" I launched myself
behind the black hangings which fell behind me like the curtain in a
theatre. A door opened to my hand, and I fell down a flight of steps,
the shrill shrieks of the mad women behind me resounding keen and
batlike to my ears.

CHAPTER XIX

I HOOK MY FISH

I had not fallen far. As is the wont of boys and cats, I was on my
feet again in a moment. Something like a tall Lochaber axe--with the
hook but without the axe part--had fallen on me, and the steel fetched
me a sound clip over the bridge of the nose. Did you ever get a proper
cl