"Come ye here," cried the idiot lad, wavering above us as though he were dancing in the reek of the nether pit, "an' see what Yon has done to my mither. I aye telled her how it wad be. It doesna do to strive wi' Yon. For Yon can gie ye your paiks so brave and easy. But my mither, she wad never hear reason, and so there she lies, dead streeked in the 'Nick o' the Deid Wife.' YON has riven the life frae my mither!"
We were close at his side by this time, and we saw an irksome sight, that shook our nerves more than the thunder. A woman of desperately evil countenance lay looking past us, her eyes fixed with an expression of bitter wrath and scorn upon the black heavens. Her face and hands were stained of a deep crimson colour, either by the visitation of God or made to seem so by the flickering flame of wild-fire that played about us.
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE VENGEANCE OF "YON."
Gash Gibbie surveyed the sight with a kind of twisted satisfaction. He went hirpling about the body round and round. He squatted with crossed legs at its head.
"What think ye o' that?" he asked, "that's my mither. She's near as bonny as me, think ye no? Yon micht hae made her bonnier to look at, gin He was to be so ill to her."
And the monster crouched still lower, and took the terrible scarlet-stained face and neck on his knees.
"Mither! mither!" he wailed, "I aye telled ye it wad come to this—mockin' Yon disna do. A wee while, maybe, He lets ye gang on; but no for lang! Yon can bide His time, and juist when ye are crawin' croose, and thinkin' on how blythe and canty ye are—blaff! like a flaught o' fire—Yon comes upon ye, and where are ye?"
He took a long and apparently well-satisfied look at his mother.