this frequent pretence of theirs to be searching for wild
flowers which brought the suspicion of witchcraft upon them among the
population of Givens. The story of the woman's youth was remembered
against her, if obscurely. Folks knew that she had once been afflicted or
possessed by an evil spirit, and from this 'twas a short step to accuse
her of gathering herbs at nightfall for the instruction of Kirstie in the
black art. In the end the rumour drove them from Givens, and in this
manner.

Though the widow so seldom showed herself abroad, in her care for
Kirstie's cheerfulness she persuaded the girl to take a short walk every
morning through the village. In truth Kirstie hated it. More and more as
her mistress clung to her she grew to cling to her mistress; it seemed as
if they two were in partnership against the world, and the part of
protector which she played so watchfully and courageously for her years
took its revenge upon her. For what makes a child so engaging as his
trust in the fellow-creatures he meets and his willingness to expect the
best of them? To Kirstie, yet but a little way past childhood, all men
and women were possible enemies, to be suspected and shunned. She took
her walk dutifully because Mrs. Johnstone commanded it, and because shops
must be visited and groceries purchased; but it was penance to her, and
she would walk a mile about to avoid a knot of gossips or to wile the time
away until a shop emptied.

But one day in the long main street she was fairly caught by a mob of boys
hunting and hooting after a negro man. They paid no heed to Kirstie, who
shrank into a doorway as he passed down the causeway--a seaman, belike,
trudging to Irvine or Saltcoats. He seemed by his gait to be more than
half drunk, and by the way he shook his stick back at the boys and cursed
them; but they would not be shaken off, and in the end he took refuge in
the "Leaping Fish," where his tormentors gathered about the doorway and
continued their booing until the landlord came forth and dispersed them.

By this time Kirstie had bolted from the doorway and run home.
She said nothing of her adventure to Mrs. Johnstone; but in the dusk of
the evening a riot began in the street a little way below the cottage.
The black seaman had been drinking all day, and on leaving the
"Leaping Fish," had fallen into a savage quarrel with a drover.
Two or three decent fellows stopped the fight and pulled him off; but they
had don