out her as one that sees a stealthy enemy approach. Her
hand trembled as she laid it on my arm.

"What avails good swordsmanship, when one comes behind and one before,
as in my dream I saw them do upon my Walter, out of the house of my Lord
Wellwood. They came upon him and left him lying on the snow.--Ah, go,
dear cousin William!" she said, breaking into a sharp cry of entreaty
lest I should fail her. "It is you that can save him. But let him not
see you follow, or it will make him more bitter against me. For if you
cannot play with the sword, you can shoot with the pistol; so I have
heard, and they tell me that no one can shoot so truly as thou. They
would not let thee shoot at Kirkcudbright for the Siller Gun though thou
art a burgess, because it were no fair game. Is it not true?"

And so she stroked and cuitled me with flattery till I declare I purred
like our Gib cat. I had begun there and then to tell her of my prowess,
but that she interrupted me.

"He goes toward the High Street. Hasten up the South Wynd, and you will
overtake him yet ere he comes out upon the open road."

She thrust two pistols into my belt, which I laid aside again, having
mine own more carefully primed with me, to the firing of which my hand
was more accustomed--and that to a marksman is more than half the
battle.

When I reached the street the wildness of the night justified my
prophecy. The snow was falling athwart the town in broad wet flakes,
driving flat against the face with a splash, before a gusty westerly
wind that roared among the tall lums of the steep-gabled houses--a most
uncomfortable night to run the risk of getting a dirk in one's ribs.

I saw my cousin before me, linking on carelessly through the snow with
his cloak about his ears and his black-scabbard rapier swinging at his
heels.

But I had to slink behind backs like a Holyrood _dyvour_--a bankrupt
going to the Sanctuary, jooking and cowering craftily in the lee-side
shadow of the houses. For though so wild a night, it was not very dark.
There was a moon up there somewhere among the smother, though she could
not get so much as her nose through the wrack of banked snow-cloud which
was driving up from the west. Yet Wat could have seen me very black on
the narrow strip of snow, had he ever once thought of looking over his
shoulder.

But Wat the Wullcat of Lochinvar was not the one to look behind him when
he strode on to keep tryst. I minded his bitter reckless words