have
a braw burial. There shall never be sic a Baalfire as Jeremy will
licht for her--and weel she is deservin' o't. For she danced blithe
and brawly, even unto the breakin' o' the day!"

And he went on tiptoe to the door of the weaving room, unlocked it, and
looked in, holding his flambeau high above his head. The light fell on
the dead man, bent forward with his face half hidden in the web.

He held his head first to one side and then to the other, as an artist
may, with pleasure and self-complaisance, admire a completed
masterpiece.

Then he went out. Elsie still lay where she had fallen. The madman
glanced once at her.

"It will e'en be the quicker. I will let her lie. She will never
wauken. Leave the door open, Jeremy. It will mak' a graund draught.
Fare ye weel, bairn! Ye danced bonnie, and kind Jeremy is giein' ye
your wages this nicht! The best o' a'--an easy way o' goin'!"

He took the candle in his left hand, and with the melodeon still in his
right he went down to the chamber beneath. Here he filled his pockets
with bank-notes in rolls, little sacks of gold, and clinking bags from
a great safe which stood wide open--the bundle of keys which had
belonged to its dead owner still in the lock. The Golden Farmer was
plundered of his store.

Then, flinging all the inflammable stuff, furniture, and hangings in a
heap in the centre, he drenched the pile with kerosene from a can he
brought from the storehouse, throwing on shavings from his master's
workshop, kindling-wood from the kitchen, and, indeed, all combustibles
he could lay hands upon.

Bending, he struck a match on the smooth of his corduroy trousers, and
in a moment the flame mounted with a roar. Jeremy stood in the doorway
chuckling, long enough to make sure that it had taken.

"Ay, ay, a bonnie funeral pyre! That they will hae, baith the twa!" he
said. "The last o' the Stennises! A bonnie lass she was--but Jeremy
couldna be fashed wi' women folk--na, na, Aphra and her wad never
agree."

The draught drew upward through the silent house. It increased to a
wind, sucking toward the flames. He could hear the crackling. With a
return of his mad humour he began to dance.

He waved his melodeon, making the bells leap and jangle. And in the
pale gleam of the still half-smothered flames he flickered down the
stairs in the direction of the hall of Deep Moat Grange.

Mad Jeremy had made an end of the House of Stennis.

CHAPTE