cried out, suddenly. "He has brought Jeremy a present
wi' his ain hand--ay, wi' his ain hand he gied it him!"

And, lifting his finger, he drew it along three red weals on his brow
and cheek, one after the other, ending at the corner of the jaw beneath
the ear, from which a drop of blood trickled. And he laughed--all the
time he laughed.

"A bonnie present," he repeated, "think ye not so, bonnie birdie? Ye
never gat the like, and him your ain grandfather. Ah, but he's kind to
Jeremy! And Jeremy will never forget it. Na--Jeremy followed him,
like pussy cat after a plate of cream, to the March dyke, to the very
door o' Bailiff Ball's house. Jeremy wadna let ony ill befall his
maister this day. If a _wulf_, or a lion, or a bear had leaped upon
Hobby Stennis, Jeremy wad hae strangled them like this--_chirt_--wi'
his hands, as easy as ony thing. Ay, he wad that! For the kind kind
present he fetched his faithfu' servant, naebody shall lay a hand on
Hobby Stennis this day--except, maybe, Jeremy himsel'--ay, maybe, juist
Jeremy himsel'. Ow, ay, but a' in the way o' kindness! the same as
Hobby himsel'!"

And with that he picked up his Jew's-harp and breathed a fierce anger
and scorn into the familiar words that was positively shocking to
listen to--

Be it ever so humble,
There's no place like ho-o-o-me.

And he stopped to laugh between the lines. Elsie says that it fairly
turned her cold to hear him. Though at that time she had, as she
remembers, no fear for herself--which, when you come to think of it,
was a very curious circumstance indeed. But then her turn was yet to
come.

In Jeremy's absence, Elsie tried to tell my father all about it. But
the coming and going of the madman that day were so uncertain, and his
moods so dangerous, that she could not get matters half explained; nor
yet any advice from my father, except not to cross the maniac, save in
the last extremity. He offered to pass her back the knife, but Elsie,
hearing that one end of the bar was already severed, and the other well
through, refused, like the little brick she was, to take it.

Now, this part which follows can only be known imperfectly, because it
concerns what happened when Hobby Stennis went back to his own house of
the Moat Grange. There were two other sources of information--Jeremy's
wild talk afterwards to Elsie, and certain signs and marks not easy of
interpretation, which, however, tend to confirm in most points