to protect them. Kate McGhie
clasped her hands and stood as one that is gripped with fear, yet can
master it. But Maisie Lennox, who was nearest to me, looked over to
where her father stood at the corner of his company. Then, because she
was distressed for him and knew not what she did, she drew a
half-knitted stocking out of the pocket that swung beneath her kirtle,
calmly set the stitches in order, and went on knitting as is the
Galloway custom among the hill-folk when they wait for anything.

There was a great silence--a stillness in which one heard his neighbour
breathing. Through it the voice of Peden rose.

"Lord," he prayed, "it is Thine enemies' day. Hour and power are allowed
to them. They may not be idle. But hast Thou no other work for them to
do in their master's service? Send them after those to whom Thou hast
given strength to flee, for our strength's gone, and there are many weak
women among us this day. Twine them about the hill, O Lord, and cast the
lap of Thy cloak over puir Sandy and thir puir things, and save us this
one time."

So saying he went to the top of a little hill near by, from which there
is a wide prospect. It is called Mount Pleasant. From thence he looked
all round and waved his hands three times. And in a minute there befel a
wonderful thing. For even as his hands beckoned, from behind the ridges
of the Duchrae and Drumglass, arose the level tops of a great sea of
mist. It came upon the land suddenly as the "haar" that in the autumn
drives up the eastern valleys from the sea. Like a river that rises
behind a dam, it rose, till of a sudden it overflowed and came towards
us over the moorland, moving with a sound like running water very far
away.

Then Peden the Prophet came hastening back to us.

"Move not one of you out of your places!" he cried, "for the Lord is
about to send upon us His pillar of cloud." Then the mist came, and made
by little and little a very thick darkness, and Peden said:

"Lads, the bitterest of the blast is over. We shall no more be troubled
with them this day." And through the darkness I felt a hand placed in
mine--whose I could not tell, but I hoped plainly that it might be
Maisie Lennox's hand, for, as I have said, she was my gossip and my
friend. At least I heard no more the click of the knitting-needles.

The mist came yet thicker, and through it there shone, now and then, the
flickering leme of pale lightning, that flashed about us all. Then quite
s