ither o' mine.
Mony is the time I telled ye what it wad be, afore Yon had dune wi' ye."

Small wonder that it chilled our blood to hear the twisted being cry out
thus upon the mother that bore him. He seemed even no little pleased
that what he had foretold had come to pass. So we stood, Wat and I, in
silent amaze before him, as the storm continued to blare till the whole
heaven above us appeared but the single mouth of a black trumpet.

Sometimes we seemed to be in a large place, ribbed and rafted with
roaring sound, upholstered with lightning flashes of pale violet and
blue. Then again the next moment we were shut within a tent of velvet
blackness like a pall, with only the echoes of the warring midnight
rolling away back among the hills. There seemed no God of Pity abroad
that night to look after puir muir-wandered folk, but only mocking
devils riding rough-shod on the horses of the pit.

"Come away hame, Gibbie," said I, "ye can do her little good. I fear
she's by wi' it!"

"By wi' it!" quoth the natural, fleeringly. "Na, only beginning wi' it.
D'ye no ken, hill-man-wi'-the-hirpling-leg, that Yon has gotten her. I
can see her stannin' afore Yon, wi' her face like red fire, a black lie
in her mouth and ill-intent in her heart. For as the tree falls, so doth
it lie."

The imp seemed to have gotten the words at some field-preaching.

"Think ye I didna warn her?" he went on. "My braw chiels, ye hae gotten
your warnin' this nicht! Meddle na wi' Yon, neither dare Him to His face
lest He be angry. For juist like Gibbie killin' a speckly taed, Yon can
set His heel on ye!"

He stroked the hair off the dead woman's brow with a hand like a hairy
claw.

"Aye, an' ye were na sic an ill mither to me, though ye selled yoursel'
to Ye-Ken-Wha! Whatna steer there is up there aboot the soul o' ae puir
auld body. Hear till it----"

And he waved his hands to the four airts of heaven, and called us to
hearken to the hills shaking themselves to pieces. "Siccan a steer aboot
a puir feckless auld woman gaun to her ain ill place! I wonder Yon is
no' shamed o' himsel'!"

And the twisted man-thing put his hands to his brow and pressed the
palms upon his eyes, as if to shut out the unceasing pulsing of the
lightning and the roar of the anger of God breaking like sea upon the
mountains.

"Sae muckle squandered for sae little--an' after a' but little pleasure
in the thing! I dinna see what there is in the Black Man's service to
mak'