The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

A Strange Revenge. 657
rumour regarding his friend's habits had reached his ears ;
here was irrefutable proof of it ; and at this early hour of
the morning !
" Sorry, friend Cameron, to find you in such circumstances.
The Presbytery must hear of this—how can you
justify yourself? "
Mr Cameron opened his eyes and gazed round the
smithy in profound surprise.
" They were all here a i^'fi minutes ago," he said, simply.
"Yes ;
blue devils, no doubt," said the Presbytery clerk,
with a savage laugh.
Mr Cameron gazed after him quite unable to realise what
had happened.
CHAPTER XII.
ELSPETH THE WITCH IS TROUBLED.
The country gossip had it that the Witch had become so
" uncanny " of late, that few of the women folks had the
courage to consult her on matters of futurity.
The first notes of the death-bell caught Elspeth, flint
and fuse in hand, crouching over the little beginnings of
a peat fire. She started, and listened ; the flame she had
been fostering flickered for a moment and died out. Ding !
How long and prolonged it sounded in her ears ; it seemed
to her as if every tree was focusing the reverberations upon
that miserable abode ; that her sense of hearing had
become preternaturally sensitive to what had been familiar
to her from childhood. Ding ! How melancholy ! She
covered her ears, but the note was echoed and re-echoed by
overy nerve centre of her brain, until each limb quivered
and the pulse throbbed.
Ding !
Death
! !
She began to rock herself to and fro, backwards and
her eyes dilated
forwards, from one side to the other ; and
42