"Gee—ee—up, then!"
And away they went.
For the first half mile Frank was far ahead. So confident of victory was he that he took off his bonnet and waved it back at the doctor.
But before he was aware a streak of lightning seemed to be coming up behind, and Frank had to fly. Hand over hand the doctor came on; it was soon neck and neck; and after this poor Frank was nowhere in the running.
But Eppie was an herbalist; no witch, however. She did not gather her simples at midnight on the moor under the light of the moon, nor utter incantations over them. No; she used to walk out in broad daylight knitting her stocking, with Toddie and Tip coming up behind her, each carrying a basket.
As she passed through the village on her return she would call at many a little cot, and she had a welcome wherever she went. The old women would get up and dust a chair for her, and the toddling bairnies would run laughing to meet her. And honest Eppie never came away without getting a blessing, and leaving one too. She would leave something else as well for the sick; namely, a bunch of roots or fresh green leaves, with instructions how to brew a decoction therefrom.
"These reets [roots] are, may be, no vera bonnie," Eppie would say, "but they're the best things for the bluid you ever saw or heard tell o'."
Eppie was as good as an elder among some of the sick people, and she had a way with her of administering spiritual advice that never gave offence. How prettily she could tell a Bible story, or describe in, simple language the plan of salvation, those who heard her speak in her own broad East of Scotland Scotch—for she was not a native of this wild west village—may remember to this day.
Eean never visited; he was naturally shy but he conducted service in his cave every Sunday evening all the year round.
On calm summer evenings boats containing stranger tourists would sometimes stop beneath the cliffs, and greatly would these holiday-keepers marvel to hear the sweet sad strains of "Martyrdom" or "London New," coming whence they could not tell, for no one was visible on the cliff or about it, and the ports of the cave were not easy to distinguish.