st in
the hettest o' the collieshangie, wha suld come up (for his sins) but
the new minister.

"Women," said he (and he had a grand voice), "I charge you in the Lord's
name to let her go."

Janet ran to him--she was fair wud wi' terror--an' clang to him, an'
prayed him, for Christ's sake, save her frae the cummers; an' they, for
their pairt, tauld him a' that was kent, and maybe mair.

"Woman," says he to Janet, "is this true?"

"As the Lord sees me," says she, "as the Lord made me, no a word o' 't.
Forby the bairn," says she, "I've been a decent woman a' my days."

"Will you," says Mr. Soulis, "in the name of God, and before me, His
unworthy minister, renounce the devil and his works?"

Weel, it wad appear that, when he askit that, she gave a girn that
fairly frichtit them that saw her, an' they could hear her teeth play
dirl thegether in her chafts; but there was naething for it but the ae
way or the ither; an' Janet lifted up her hand and renounced the deil
before them a'.

"And now," says Mr. Soulis to the guidwives, "home with ye, one and all,
and pray to God for His forgiveness."

And he gied Janet his arm, though she had little on her but a sark, and
took her up the clachan to her ain door like a leddy of the land, an'
her scrieghin' and laughin' as was a scandal to be heard.

There were mony grave folk lang ower their prayers that nicht; but when
the morn cam' there was sic a fear fell upon a' Ba'weary that the bairns
hid theirsel's, and even the men folk stood and keekit frae their doors.
For there was Janet comin' doun the clachan,--her or her likeness, nane
could tell,--wi' her neck thrawn, and her heid on ae side, like a body
that has been hangit, and a girn on her face like an unstreakit corp.
By-an'-by they got used wi' it, and even speered at her to ken what
was wrang; but frae that day forth she couldnae speak like a Christian
woman, but slavered and played click wi' her teeth like a pair o'
shears; and frae that day forth the name o' God cam' never on her lips.
Whiles she wad try to say it, but it michtnae be. Them that kenned best
said least; but they never gied that Thing the name o' Janet M'Clour;
for the auld Janet, by their way o' 't, was in muckle hell that day. But
the minister was neither to haud nor to bind; he preached about naething
but the folk's cruelty that had gien her a stroke of the palsy; he
skelpt the bairns that meddled her; and he had her up to the manse that
same nicht,