she-saids."

She was sitting close by my side the while, now stilling her sobs that
she might tell it exactly, and anon weeping freely upon my shoulder that
her heart might have ease.

"When they had brought us by force to the face of rock and copse where,
as you know, the cave is," Maisie went on, "they asked us again and
again to take them to the Whigs' hiding-place. When we refused they
uttered the most horrid threatenings, swearing what things should befall
us. But they were not able at all to shake us, though we were but two
maids and at their cruel will. And of themselves they were not able to
find the mouth of the cave in that mile of tangled gairy face.

"So the cruellest and fiercest of all, the stark, black-a-vised man whom
they called Mardrochat, the same that stopped us by the ford when first
we fled from Balmaghie----"

"O cursed Mardrochat," I cried, striking my hands together, "wait till I
come to a settlement with you!"

"Nay," said Maisie, solemnly, "all is settled and paid already with
Mardrochat. So they threatened till they were weary, and the night was
coming on. Then Mardrochat turned about to his gallows thieves:

"'Must we go back empty-handed? Let me try my way with the lassies,' he
cried. 'They shall be complaisant to tell where the old fox lies, or
else suffer that which shall serve us as well.'

"With that he came near and put his hand upon me in the way to hurt me.
Notwithstanding, with all the might that was in me, I strove to keep
from crying out, lest my father should hear, which was what they counted
on. But as God is my witness, I could not. Then, the fear being upon me
and the pain of a woman, I cried out in my agony, as I had never before
done in this world."

"O thrice accursed Mardrochat, die not till I meet thee," I cried again,
beating and bruising my naked hand upon a rock in the impotence of hate.

Maisie went quietly and evenly on with her tale, without heeding my
anger.

"But when I cried the third time in my extremity, even like a lion out
of the thicket came my father forth, springing upon them suddenly with
his bright sword in the gloaming. Never was there such striking since
the world began. He struck and struck, panting and resting not, roaring
in fierce anger, till they fairly fled from before the face of him. And
the first he struck was Mardrochat--he that then held me, and the blood
spurted over me. Thus it was," she went on calmly, as though she had
been t