is weights in vain, unable to shake even
moneyed children off their stools, and when at last he told his beast to
go home they took with them all the stir of the town. Family exercise
came on early in many houses, and as the gude wife handed her man the
Bible she said entreatingly, "A short ane." After that one might have
said that no earthly knock could bring them to their doors, yet within
an hour the town was in a ferment.

When Tommy and Elspeth reached the Den the mist lay so thick that they
had to feel their way through it to the _Ailie_, where they found
Gavinia alone and scared. "Was you peeping in, trying to fleg me twa
three minutes syne?" she asked, eagerly, and when they shook their
heads, she looked cold with fear.

"As sure as death," she said, "there was some living thing standing
there; I couldna see it for the rime, but I heard it breathing hard."

Tommy felt Elspeth's hand begin to tremble, and he said "McLean!"
hastily, though he knew that McLean had not yet left the Quharity Arms.
Next moment Corp arrived with another story as unnerving.

"Has Grizel no come yet?" he asked, in a troubled voice. "Tommy, hearken
to this, a light has been burning in Double Dykes and the door swinging
open a' day! I saw it mysel', and so did Willum Dods."

"Did you go close?"

"Na faags! Willum was hol'ing and I was lifting, so we hadna time in the
daylight, and wha would venture near the Painted Lady's house on sic a
night?"

Even Tommy felt uneasy, but when Gavinia cried, "There's something
uncanny in being out the night; tell us what was in Mr. McLean's bottle,
Tommy, and syne we'll run hame," he became Commander Sandys again, and
replied, blankly, "What bottle?"

"The ane I warned you he was to fling into the water; dinna dare tell me
you hinna got it."

"I know not what thou art speaking about," said Tommy; "but it's a queer
thing, it's a queer thing, Gavinia"--here he fixed her with his
terrifying eye--"I happen to have found a--another bottle," and still
glaring at her he explained that he had found his bottle floating on
the horizon. It contained a letter to him, which he now read aloud. It
was signed "The Villain Stroke, his mark," and announced that the
writer, "tired of this relentless persecution," had determined to reform
rather than be killed. "Meet me at the Cuttle Well, on Saturday, when
the eight-o'clock bell is ringing," he wrote, "and I shall there make
you an offer for my freedom."

The c