height in the cot, there came a sound to
Mistress Comline's ear that garred her kind heart loup within her. It
was like the whimpering of a bairn that is ill used and dares not cry
out loud. And with that she for gat her fear of the strange fool, Daft
Jeremy, and with her naked hands she shook the door of the cothouse of
Breckonside till the iron stinchel clattered in its ring.

"'The magistrates o' Dumfries shall ken o' this or I am a day aulder!'
she cried in to them. 'Gie me the lassie or the preventive men shall
hear of the barrels ye hae hidden in the yard. Supervisor Imrie shall
be here and search every inch high and low if ye lay as much as a
finger on the innocent bairn!'

"And even as she cried out threatenings and shook the stout oaken door
so that the leaves almost fell asunder, Margaret Comline heard a noise
behind her, and whipped about quickly with her heart in her mouth, for
she thought it was Daft Jeremy come out to slay her.

"But instead it was the wee lass herself that had escaped by a kind of
a miracle through the window of the 'aumry' or pantry closet. For
Laird Stennis had it closed with a board, grudging the expense of
glass. The lass was greeting and laughing at the same time, feared to
the marrow of her bits of bones, but yet crouse withal. Mistress
Comline marvelled to see her.

"'I hae left the stead of my teeth in his hand, I wot!' she said, as
Mistress Comline helped her into the light cart at the roadside.

"'And see what I brought with me,' she added as they drove away. It
was a shagreen leather pocketbook like those which well-to-do farmers
carry, or rich English drovers that come to the cattle trysts to buy
for the English market. And Mistress Comline, struck with fear lest
she should be taken for a thief, would have turned back, but that at
that very moment, out of the door of the cot, there burst a terrifying
figure--even Daft Jeremy himself, a great flesher's knife uplifted in
his hand. He was scraiching out words without meaning, and looked so
fleysome that the decent woman e'en slipped the shagreen purse into her
reticule basket and laid whiplash to Donald till that pampered beast
must have thought that the punishment of all his sins had overtaken him
at once.

"The 'mounster' pursued after them with these and such like affrighting
outcries to the very entering in of Longtown. And never had Margaret
Comline, decent woman, been so glad to recognize Her Majesty's
au