thanky. Now,
Gurdon, look alive; we're wasting time."

"Hold your tongue, will you, with names," growled Gurdon. "Now then,
mind the chairs along this passage. No lights, mind--not even a match."

"Here, stay a moment," whispered the other. "This she-wolf will be
loose. Drat you--be quiet, will you!"

In effect, with a terrible effort, Jane had freed one of her hands, and
was struggling to tear the gag from her mouth, when, as her guard struck
at her savagely, there came a dull, heavy crash, and he rolled over upon
his side.

Book 1, Chapter XXIV.

RESCUE.

"Ye maraudin' villin, take that! And there's for ye too, ye deevil!"
exclaimed a low, deep voice, and then another heavy, flapping blow was
struck; there was a crash, a scuffle, another blow or two, and then came
the sound of a heavy fall, succeeded by another, and the crackle of
breaking twigs.

"Heaven save us!" ejaculated the newcomer. "There goes half the pots
off the stand, and, by all that's good, one of them's gone right amongst
the azaleas!"

Then there was a perfect stillness, unbroken even by the night wind,
which had lulled once more, when, after listening at the door for a few
moments, Alexander McCray, smiling at his opportune arrival and
successful exploit, closed the portal, and slipped one of the bolts.
Then, taking a box of matches from his pocket, he lit one, and then
applied it to a candle in a sconce over the side-table.

"Why, my puir, daft bairn!" he said, tenderly, as he drew the gag from
Jane's teeth, and cut the rope which bound her feet. "It's cruel
treatment of such a flower. I'd have been here sooner, only I had to go
to the tool-shed for a weepun; and it's lucky I did," he said, showing
the spade with which he had dealt his blows.

"Oh, McCray!" sobbed Jane, "I'm ruined for ever, and undone!"

"Not you, my wee blossom," cried McCray, stoutly. "You know now what a
villin he is, so I won't be ragging his character, seeing that he's done
for for ever. An' I won't blame ye a bit, not a wee bit, my sweet
lassie," he continued, as he tenderly chafed her swollen wrists. "Ye
made a mistake, and trusted a rascal, and not the first poor daft chiel
that did, to her cost. But he won't forget the spade of Alexander
McCray, of Galashiels, in a hurry, my lassie; and it's all a gude act of
Providence that I--"

Sandy stopped short, for he remembered the rabbit.

"It's all gude luck," he continued, "that I happened to hear y