But she turned away down the path. I followed after, and at the parting of the ways to house and stable she turned on me again like a lioness. “Oh, go, I tell you! Go!” she cried. “Do your precious duty. But from this day forth never, never dare to utter word to Mary Gordon again!”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE DEMONIAC IN THE GARRET.
As all may understand, it was with bowed head and crushed heart that I bent my steps towards the grey tower, sitting so stilly among the leafage of the wood above the water.
Duty is doubtless noble, and virtue its own reward. But when there is a lass in the case—why, it is somewhat harder to go against her will than to counter all the law and the prophets.
I went up the bank towards the tower of Earlstoun, and as I came near methought there was a strange and impressive silence over everything—like a Sabbath-day that was yet no common or canny Sabbath.
At the angle of the outer wall one Hugh Halliday, an old servant of the Gordons, came running toward me.
“Minister, minister,” he cried, “ye mauna come here. The maister has gotten the possession by evil spirits. He swears that if ever a minister come near him he will brain him, and he has taken his sword and pistols up into the garret under the roof, and he cries out constantly that if any man stirs him, he shall surely die the death.”
“But,” I answered, “he will not kill me, who have had no hand in the matter—me who have also been persecuted by the Presbytery and by them deposed.”
“Ah, laddie,” said the old man, shaking his palsied hand warningly at me, “ye little ken the laird, if ye think that when the power o’ evil comes ower him, he bides to think. He lets drive richt and left, and a’ that remains to be done is but to sinder the dead frae the leevin’, or to gather up the fragments that remain in baskets and corn-bags and sic-like.
“For instance, in the auld persecutin’ days there was Gleg Toshie, the carrier, that was counted a great man o’ his hands, and at the Carlin’s Cairn Sandy—the laird I mean—cam’ on Toshie spyin’ on him, or so he thocht. And oor Maister near ended him when he laid hand on him.