th other than himself; how Mr. Linning wrestled with
the other malcontents, and especially how he himself was of so great
honour and consideration among them, that they had put off even so grave
a matter as a General Meeting that he might have time to come from
Edinburgh to attend it. And in what manner, at the peril of his life, he
did it.

One night, while he was in the midst of his recital, the mighty voice of
him sounding out upon the night brought the sentry from his corner--who
listened, but could not understand whence came the sounds. Presently the
soldier called his comrade, and the pair of them stole to the door of
the well-house, where I had lain so long in safety. Sandy was in the
heat of his discourse, and I sitting against the chamber wall in my
knee-breeches, and with a plaid about me, listening at my ease. For long
immunity had made us both careless.

"At Darmead, that well-kenned place, we had it," Sandy was saying, his
long limbs extended half-way across the floor as he lay on the bare
boards, and told his story; "it was a day of glorious witnessing and
contesting. No two of us thought the same thing. Each had his own
say-away and his own reasons, and never a minister to override us.
Indeed, since Ritchie lay down at length on Ayrsmoss to rest him, there
is no minister that could. But I hear of a young man, Renwick, that is
now with Mr. Brackel of Leeuwarden, that will scare some of the
ill-conditioned when he comes across the water----"

Even as he spoke thus, and blattered with the broad of his hand on his
knee, the trap-door in the floor slowly lifted up. And through the
aperture came the head of a soldier--even that of the sentry of the
night, with whose footfalls I had grown so familiar, that I minded them
no more than the ticking of the watch in your pocket or the beating of
your heart in the daytime.

The man seemed even more surprised than we, and for a long moment he
abode still, looking at Sandy reclining on the floor. And Sandy looked
back at him with his jaw dropped and his mouth open. I could have
laughed at another time, for they were both great red men with beards of
that colour, and their faces were very near one another, like those of
the yokels that grin at each other emulously out of the horse collars on
the turbulent day of the Clachan Fair--which is on the eve of St. John,
in the time of midsummer.

Then suddenly Sandy snatched an unlighted lantern, and brought it down
on the