Jean, however, was on the shady side of fifty, more
likely to have already yielded than to be liable to
a first assault of corruption; and little did Miss
Horn think how useless was her warning, or where Barbara
Catanach was at that very moment Trusting to Jean’s
cunning, as well she might; she was in the dead chamber,
and standing over the dead. She had folded back
the sheet—not from the face, but from the
feet—and raised the night dress of fine
linen in which the love of her cousin had robed the
dead for the repose of the tomb.
“It wad hae been tellin’ her,” she
muttered, “to hae spoken Bawby fair! I’m
no used to be fa’en foul o’ that gait.
I ’s be even wi’ her yet, I’m thinkin’—the
auld speldin’! Losh! and Praise be thankit!
there it’s! It’s there!—a
wee darker, but the same —jist whaur I
could ha’ laid the pint o’ my finger upo’t
i’ the mirk!—Noo lat the worms eat
it,” she concluded, as she folded down the linen
of shroud and sheet—“an’ no
mortal ken o’ ’t but mysel’ an’
him ’at bude till hae seen ’t, gien he
was a hair better nor Glenkindie’s man i’
the auld ballant!”
The instant she had rearranged the garments of the
dead, she turned and made for the door with a softness
of step that strangely contrasted with the ponderousness
of her figure, and indicated great muscular strength,
opened it with noiseless circumspection to the width
of an inch, peeped out from the crack, and seeing the
opposite door still shut, stepped out with a swift,
noiseless swing of person and door simultaneously,
closed the door behind her, stole down the stairs,
and left the house. Not a board creaked, not a
latch clicked as she went. She stepped into the
street as sedately as if she had come from paying
to the dead the last offices of her composite calling,
the projected front of her person appearing itself
aware of its dignity as the visible sign and symbol
of a good conscience and kindly heart.
CHAPTER III: THE MAD LAIRD
When Mistress Catanach arrived at the opening of a
street which was just opposite her own door, and led
steep toward the sea town, she stood, and shading
her eyes with her hooded hand, although the sun was
far behind her, looked out to sea. It was the
forenoon of a day of early summer. The larks
were many and loud in the skies above her—for,
although she stood in a street, she was only a few
yards from the green fields—but she could
hardly have heard them, for their music was not for
her. To the northward, whither her gaze—if
gaze it could be called—was directed, all
but cloudless blue heavens stretched over an all but
shadowless blue sea; two bold, jagged promontories,
one on each side of her, formed a wide bay; between
that on the west and the sea town at her feet, lay
a great curve of yellow sand, upon which the long breakers,
born of last night’s wind, were still roaring
from the northeast, although the gale had now sunk
to a breeze—cold and of doubtful influence.
