to our
company by His own good way. What seek ye? I say again, and yea, a
third time."

"I go to finish my colleging," I said.

He laughed a harsh, croaking laugh. "Little ye ken, young man. We
travel to watch the surprising judgment which is about to overtake the
wicked city of Edinburgh. An angel hath revealed it to me in a dream.
Fire and brimstone will descend upon it as on Sodom and Gomorrah, and
it will be consumed and wither away, with its cruel Ahabs and its
painted Jezebels, its subtle Doegs and its lying Balaams, its priests
and its judges, and its proud men of blood, its Bible-idolaters and its
false prophets, its purple and damask, its gold and its fine linen, and
it shall be as Tyre and Sidon, so that none shall know the site
thereof. But we who follow the Lord and have cleansed His word from
human abominations, shall leap as he-goats upon the mountains, and
enter upon the heritage of the righteous from Beth-peor even unto the
crossings of Jordan."

In reply to this rigmarole I asked for food, since my head was
beginning to swim from my long fast. This, to my terror, put him into a
great rage.

"Ye are carnally minded, like the rest of them. Ye will get no fleshly
provender here; but if ye be not besotted in your sins ye shall drink
of the Water of Life that floweth freely and eat of the honey and manna
of forgiveness."

And then he appeared to forget my very existence. He fell into a sort
of trance, with his eyes fixed on vacancy. There was a dead hush in the
place, nothing but the crackle of the fire and the steady drip of the
rain. I endured it as well as I might, for though my legs were sorely
cramped, I did not dare to move an inch.

After nigh half an hour he seemed to awake. "Peace be with you," he
said to his followers. "It is the hour for sleep and prayer. I, John
Gib, will wrestle all night for your sake, as Jacob strove with the
angel." With that he entered the tent.

No one spoke to me, but the ragged company sought each their
sleeping-place. A woman with a kindly face jogged me on the elbow, and
from the neuk of her plaid gave me a bit of oatcake and a piece of
roasted moorfowl. This made my supper, with a long drink from a
neighbouring burn. None hindered my movements, so, liking little the
smell of wet, uncleanly garments which clung around the fire, I made my
bed in a heather bush in the lee of a boulder, and from utter weariness
fell presently asleep.

CHAPTER II.

OF A