THE HAUNTED ALE-HOUSE
'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,' so Donald Macgregor muttered to himself as he strode cautiously down the water of Coquet, halting at the many crooks of that wayward water to spy out the land as he went forward.
He had already good suspicions of where his quarry was harboured, for he had seen and interviewed drovers who had returned from the great Stagshawbank Fair, and had gleaned certain information of his foster-brother Alastair.
But more than this he had to direct his feet; there was in his ears the echo of Alastair's pibroch—the piobaireachd—which he was to hear whenever the Laird would be in trouble or wanting him.
Onward the piobaireachd led him—down the water of amber-coloured Coquet—and now round the last crook he had just turned he saw a building of dark grey stone upon the edge of the haugh below him.
He halted at once, retraced his steps, and hid himself in the bracken, for he knew from the descriptions given him that the Slyme ale-house lay there below him—the last place on the English border at which Alastair had been seen or heard of. The Slyme ale-house had an ill repute, and was said to be haunted moreover; none would lie there the night who had anything to lose—'twas the haunt of kites and 'corbie craws.' As he watched and waited there stole down from the fells above him 'oncome' of mist or 'haar' from the eastward, which soon drew a plaid of hodden grey above the shoulder of Shillmoor. On the lower level a ray of white light still showed like the gleam of a malevolent eye behind a mask.
Meantime a cold mist came stealing up the valley. The eerie lonely aspect of all about him made Donald shiver and earnestly debate his intention.
Spying about, he saw an outcrop of rock some two hundred yards further along the fell side. Thither he crawled like a rogue collie, and watched therefrom, keen-eyed as a kestrel, the ale-house below.