we saw a wondrous sight. There sat
Gash Gibbie, the mis-shaped idiot, crouched squat like a toad, at the
head of a woman who lay with her arms straight at her sides, as though
stretched for burial.

As we stood illumined against the murky blackness of the pass, the
monstrous thing caught sight of us, and waved his hands, dancing
meantime (as it seemed) upon spindles of legs. How he had come so far
and so swiftly on such a night I cannot tell. But without doubt, there
he was on the highest rock of the pass, with the dead woman stretched at
his feet, and the fitful blue gleam of the lightning playing about him.
And I warrant you it was not a comely or a canny sight.

"Come ye here," cried the idiot lad, wavering above us as though he were
dancing in the reek of the nether pit, "an' see what Yon has done to my
mither. I aye telled her how it wad be. It doesna do to strive wi' Yon.
For Yon can gie ye your paiks so brave and easy. But my mither, she wad
never hear reason, and so there she lies, dead streeked in the 'Nick o'
the Deid Wife.' YON has riven the life frae my mither!"

We were close at his side by this time, and we saw an irksome sight,
that shook our nerves more than the thunder. A woman of desperately evil
countenance lay looking past us, her eyes fixed with an expression of
bitter wrath and scorn upon the black heavens. Her face and hands were
stained of a deep crimson colour, either by the visitation of God or
made to seem so by the flickering flame of wild-fire that played about
us.

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE VENGEANCE OF "YON."

Gash Gibbie surveyed the sight with a kind of twisted satisfaction. He
went hirpling about the body round and round. He squatted with crossed
legs at its head.

"What think ye o' that?" he asked, "that's my mither. She's near as
bonny as me, think ye no? Yon micht hae made her bonnier to look at, gin
He was to be so ill to her."

And the monster crouched still lower, and took the terrible
scarlet-stained face and neck on his knees.

"Mither! mither!" he wailed, "I aye telled ye it wad come to
this--mockin' Yon disna do. A wee while, maybe, He lets ye gang on; but
no for lang! Yon can bide His time, and juist when ye are crawin'
croose, and thinkin' on how blythe and canty ye are--blaff! like a
flaught o' fire--Yon comes upon ye, and where are ye?"

He took a long and apparently well-satisfied look at his mother.

"Aye, there ye lie, an' by my faith, ye are no bonny, m