rying,
"I must have Janet," and faced the crowd with her whip. That was well
enough, but I saw Muckle John staggering to his feet, and I feared
desperately for his next move. The girl was either mad or
extraordinarily brave.

"Get back, you pitiful knaves," she cried. "Lay a hand on me, and I
will cut you to ribbons. Make haste, Janet, and quit this folly."

It was gallant talk, but there was no sense in it. Muckle John was on
his feet, half the clan had gone round to our rear, and in a second or
two she would have been torn from the saddle. A headstrong girl was
beyond my management, and my words of entreaty were lost in the babel
of cries.

But just then there came another sound. From the four quarters of the
moor there closed in upon us horsemen. They came silently and were
about us before I had a hint of their presence. It was a troop of
dragoons in the king's buff and scarlet, and they rode us down as if we
had been hares in a field. The next I knew of it I was sprawling on the
ground with a dizzy head, and horses trampling around me, I had a
glimpse of Muckle John with a pistol at his nose, and the sorrel
curveting and plunging in a panic. Then I bethought myself of saving my
bones, and crawled out of the mellay behind the sheepfold.

Presently I realized that this was the salvation I had been seeking.
Gib was being pinioned, and two of the riders were speaking with the
girl. The women hung together like hens in a storm, while the dragoons
laid about them with the flat of their swords. There was one poor
creature came running my way, and after her followed on foot a long
fellow, who made clutches at her hair. He caught her with ease, and
proceeded to bind her hands with great brutality.

"Ye beldame," he said, with many oaths, "I'll pare your talons for ye."

Now I, who a minute before had been in danger from this very crew, was
smitten with a sudden compunction. Except for Muckle John, they were so
pitifully feeble, a pack of humble, elderly folk, worn out with fasting
and marching and ill weather. I had been sickened by their crazy
devotions, but I was more sickened by this man's barbarity. It was the
woman, too, who had given me food the night before.

So I stepped out, and bade the man release her.

He was a huge, sunburned ruffian, and for answer aimed a clour at my
head. "Take that, my mannie," he said. "I'll learn ye to follow the
petticoats."

His scorn put me into a fury, in which anger at his