"'Come in with you both,' said Jean Bain in a fierce voice, as if daring contradiction. 'Donald, aff wi' your surplice and on wi' your coat. You must meet them, and hold them in parley. It shall not be said that a bridegroom was slaughtered like an ox upon our doorstep within an hour of his wedding.'
"With that she bustled us upstairs to her own room. Truly enough, there was but one broad pallet of heather covered with rushes spread on the floor, and no other furniture whatever.
"Near the bed-head there was the low door of a little closet or deep cupboard. Into this she bade us enter, and told us that she would hang her clothing over it upon the wooden pegs which were there for the purpose. Since no better might be we entered, for my head was running round with my loss of blood and the pain in my wounded arm. I was glad to lie down anywhere.
"Then through the buzzing bees' byke in my skull I could hear Jean Bain giving her last orders to the curate.
"'Hear ye, Donald, lee to them weel. Ye hae seen nocht—ken nocht; and if they offer to bide, tell them that it is the hour when ye engage in family worship. That will flit them if nocht else will!'
"And though I could hear the raucous voice of that gomeril brother-in-law of mine at the bottom of the stairs, I could not help laying my head on Rachel's shoulder, and whispering in her ear the words, 'Little wife!' To which she responded with no more than 'Hush!' So there we abode, crouching and cowering in that dark cupboard while a score of raging demons turned the curate's house upside down, crying for jugs of brandy and tasses of aquavity, while Jean Bain shrilly declared that no brandy could they expect in such a poverty-stricken land, but good home-brewed ale—and even that they should not have unless they behaved themselves more seemly.
"But ever as I lay the darkness seemed to stretch far above me, the walls to mount and then swiftly come together again; now I was upheaved on delicious billows of caller air, and anon I fell earthward again through the illimitable vault of heaven. Yet every now and then I would awake for a moment to find my head on a sweeter than Abraham's bosom, and so fall to contemning my folly. But ere I had time to realise my happiness I was off again ranging the universe, or at converse with hundreds and hundreds of mocking spirits that mopped and mowed about my path. For I was just falling into a fever, and my dear lass had to put her skirt about my mouth to keep the man-hunters from hearing me moan and struggle in my phantasy.
"By nine of the clock they had drunken all that was in the curate's house, and poor Donald Bain had gone to convoy them on their way. They were going (so they swore) to the Black Craig o' Dee to rout me out of my den. And this made Rachel very sore afraid, for she knew well that if we were to go back to the damp cave in the linn I would never rise from my bed alive. And now, as she thought, the way was shut to our only port of refuge. Also she feared for John, my brother—not being acquaint with John, and conceiving tnat they might do him a mischief, together with the innocent plough lads and herds in the house. But this need not have troubled her, for indeed no one about the Black Craig o' Dee desired anything better than that Roaring Raif and his crew should come near at hand to receive the welcome prepared for him.
"But in the very hour of the storm-breaking there appeared a bieldy dyke-back to shelter two poor lost wandering lambs. For no sooner was Donald Bain out of the house with all the ungodly crew than Jean, his sister, flew upstairs to us, with her gown all pulled awry as she had escaped from the hands of the roysterers.
"'Come your ways out, you puir young things,' she cried; 'they are gane, and the foul fiend ride ahint them. May they never come this road again, that kenned neither how to behave themselves seemly in a manse nor how to conduct them before a decent lass. Faith, they little jalloused how near they were to gettin' a durk between the ribs!'