an' renounced the de'il before
them a'.

"And now," says Mr. Soulis to the guidwives, "home with ye, one and all,
and pray to God for His forgiveness."

An' he gied Janet his arm, though she had little on her but a sark, an'
took her up the clachan to her ain door like a leddy o' the land; an'
her screighin' and laughin' as was a scandal to be heard.

There were mony grave folk lang ower their prayers that nicht; but when
the morn cam' there was sic a fear fell upon a' Ba'weary that the bairns
hid theirsels, an' even the men-folk stood an' keekit frae their doors.
For there was Janet comin' doun the clachan--her or her likeness, nane
could tell--wi' her neck thrawn, an' her heid on ae side, like a body
that has been hangit, an' a girn on her face like an unstreakit corp. By
an' by they got used wi' it, an' even speered at her to ken what was
wrang; but frae that day forth she couldna speak like a Christian woman,
but slavered an' played click wi' her teeth like a pair o' shears; an'
frae that day forth the name o' God cam' never on her lips. Whiles she
wad try to say it, but it michtna be. Them that kenned best said least;
but they never gied that Thing the name o' Janet M'Clour; for the auld
Janet, by their way o't, was in muckle hell that day. But the minister
was neither to haud nor to bind; he preached about naething but the
folk's cruelty that had gi'en her a stroke of the palsy; he skelpit the
bairns that meddled her; an' he had her up to the manse that same nicht,
an' dwalled there a' his lane wi' her under the Hangin' Shaw.

Weel, time gaed by: an' the idler sort commenced to think mair lichtly
o' that black business. The minister was weel thocht o'; he was aye late
at the writing, folk wad see his can'le doon by the Dule water after
twal' at e'en; an' he seemed pleased wi' himsel' an' upsitten as at
first, though a' body could see that he was dwining. As for Janet she
cam' an' she gaed; if she didna speak muckle afore, it was reason she
should speak less then; she meddled naebody; but she was an eldritch
thing to see, an' nane wad hae mistrysted wi' her for Ba'weary glebe.

About the end o' July there cam' a spell o' weather, the like o't never
was in that countryside; it was lown an' het an' heartless; the herds
couldna win up the Black Hill, the bairns were ower weariet to play; an'
yet it was gousty too, wi' claps o' het wund that rumm'led in the glens,
and bits o' shouers that slockened naething. We ay