"Friend!" cried the cavalier, "stop. I must have some talk with you about the old—"
"Whisht!" exclaimed Robin, "she's deevilish gleg o' the hearing. I would na for twenty merks she jealoused that I had telt you to take tent o' her cantrips."
"Do you mean to say that she's a witch?" said Swaby in a low and apprehensive voice.
"I would na say sic a thing o' her for the world," replied Robin very seriously; "I would ne'er expek to hae a prosperous hour in this world were I to ca' honest Mysie Gilmour onything sae uncanny. She's a pious wife, sir,—deed is she. Me ca' her a witch! She would deserve to be hang'd if she was a witch,—an' it could be proven upon her."
But these assurances gave no heartening to the gallant cavalier; on the contrary, he looked like one that was perplexed, and said, "Devil take her, I wish I had had nothing to do with her."
"Do," cried Robin; "sir, she's an auld withered hag, would spean a foal. Surely she did na sae beglamour your senses as to appear like a winsome young lass? But I hae heard o' sic morphosings. I'll no say, howsever, that honest Mysie ever tried her art sae far;—and what I hae heard tell of was done in the cruelty of jealously. But it's no possible, captain, that ye were making up to auld Mysie. For the love o' peace, an ye were sae deluded, say nothing about it; for either the parish will say that ye hae an unco taste, or that Mysie has cast her cantrips o'er your judgment,—the whilk would either make you a laughing-stock, or, gin ye could prove that she kithed afore you like a blooming damsel, bring her to the wuddy. So I redde ye, captain, to let this story gang nae farther. But mind what I hae been saying, keep weel wi' her, as ye respek yoursel."
In saying these words Robin turned hastily into the wynd that led to the clachan, laughing in his sleeve, leaving the brave cavalier in a sore state o' dread and wonderment.
CHAPTER L
It seems that shortly after Robin Finnie had departed from the gallant cavalier, a lad, called Sandy Macgill, who was colleagued with him in the plot, came towards the captain with looks cast to the earth, and so full of thought, that he seemingly noticed nothing. Going forward in this locked-up state of the outward sense, he came close upon Swaby, when, affecting to be startled out of his meditations, he stopped suddenly short, and looked in the lieutenant's broad face, with all the alarm he could put into his own features, till he saw he was frightened out of his judgment, when he said,—