"'Frae the Grave!' says he. He hadna muckle to say, but his e'en war like fiery gimblets in his head.
"'What mak's your e'en bones sae white an' deep?'
"'The Grave!' says he. He hadna muckle to say, but he spak' aye mair dour and wearisome than ever.
"'What mak's ye lauch sae wide at puir Gibbie?'
"'The Grave!' says he. He hadna muckle to say, but syne he steppit nearer nearer to the bedside.
"'What made that great muckle hole in your side?'
"'You made it!' cried the ghaist, loupin' at Gibbie's throat; an' puir Gib kenned nae mair."
And even as the monster shouted out the last words—the words of the spectre of his cannibal vision—Gash Gibbie seemed to us to dilate and lean forward to spring upon us. The wild-fire reeled about as though the very elements were drunken, and Wat and I fairly turned and fled, shouting insanely with terror as we ran—leaving the silent stricken witch with the face of blood, and the misshapen elf, her hell's brood progeny, raving and shouting on the hillside—these two alone at midnight in the "Nick of the Deid Wife."
"Aye, rin, rin," we heard him call after us. "Rin fast, and Yon will maybe no' catch ye—till it is your hour!"
And truly Wat and I did run in earnest, stumbling and crying out in our terror—now falling and now getting up, then falling to the running again without a single reasonable word. But as we came hot-foot over the Rig of Lochricaur, we seemed to run into the sheeted rain. For where we had been hitherto, only the blue dry fire had ringed us, but here we ran into a downpour as though the fountains of the deep of heaven had broken up and were falling in a white spate upon the world.