the midst to wave the half-filled glass
about his head, and complete his chant. Sometimes it went like this--

"His mother from the window looked,
With all the longing of a mother;
His little sister, weeping walked
The greenwood path to meet her brother.

"They sought him east, they sought him west,
They sought him a' the forest thorough;
They only saw the cloud o' nicht,
They only heard the roar of Yarrow!"

Then, as the night went past, Elsie prayed for the time to go faster.
She saw the candles blink and dwindle; she saw the windows stand out
more blankly. In her brain there grew up a fear of the dark, after the
light should be extinguished, when she should find herself alone with
that wild being who had murdered her grandfather. Her hope was in the
morning light. If she could only dance till then!

Well it was for her that, as a child, she had danced, as a gnat over a
pool, as a butterfly among the flowers of the garden. Light of foot,
and ready, she had learned all as by nature. And now, with the candles
going out one by one, and the bitterness of death rising like a tide in
her heart--barred in, the door locked, utterly forsaken--she had yet to
smile and dance--dance and dance--to the lilt and stress of Mad
Jeremy's noisy instrument.

The jangle of bells thrilled her as he struck with a clash as of steel
weapons into "Roy's Wife of Aldevaloch," or an irony of fiendish
laughter as he shouted the refrain of "Duncan Grey," lifting a hand
fleeringly from the German-silver keys, with a glance of terrible
import.

"Ha, ha, the wooin' o't!"

It was, indeed, a memorable wooing, but Elsie smiled and danced
tirelessly, her young body lithe and swift to the turn, her feet nimble
and dainty. The last tune pleased the madman. With a "Hooch" of
triumph, he sprang to his feet, marching up and down the room, playing
all the time with desperate energy.

"This beats fiddlin'!" he cried. "The Herodias quean was leaden-footed
to you, lassie! And noo Jeremy will play ye something o' his ain; and
you, wee Elsie, shall dance to the movin' o' the speerit! Wave your
airms and smile, Elsie, for I am the laird, and ye are the leddy!"

With one spring, he landed featly on the tall mantelpiece, where,
mopping and mowing, swinging his instrument now high over his head, and
now lower than his knees, Mad Jeremy seemed more like the sculptured
gargoyle of some devil come alive than anything of hu