d hae been halfw'y to Port Gordon or noo," said Peter.

"But noo ye'll no gang to Port Gordon," said Malcolm. "Ye'll jist gang
to the Salmon for a feow days till we see hoo things'll gang."

"I'll du onything ye like, Ma'colm," said Peter, and went into the house
to fetch his bonnet.

In the street arose the cry of a woman, and into the close rushed one of
the fisher-wives, followed by the factor. He had found a place on the
eastern side of the village, whither he had slipped unobserved, where,
jumping a low earth-wall, he got into a little back yard. He was
trampling over its few stocks of kail and its one dusty miller and
double daisy when the woman to whose cottage it belonged caught sight of
him through her window, and running out fell to abusing him, doubtless
in no measured language. He rode at her in his rage, and she fled
shrieking into Peter's close and behind the cart, never ceasing her
vituperation, but calling him every choice name in her vocabulary.
Beside himself with the rage of murdered dignity, he struck at her over
the corner of the cart. Thereupon from the top of it Annie Mair ventured
to expostulate: "Hoot, sir! It's no mainners to lat at a wuman like
that."

He turned upon her, and gave her a cut on the arm and hand so stinging
that she cried out, and nearly fell from the cart. Out rushed Peter and
flew at the factor, who from his seat of vantage began to ply his whip
about his head. But Malcolm, who, when the factor appeared, had moved
aside to keep Kelpie out of mischief, and saw only the second of the two
assaults, came forward with a scramble and a bound. "Haud awa', Peter!"
he cried: "this belangs to me. I gae 'im back 's whup, an' sae I'm
accoontable.--Mr. Crathie"--and as he spoke he edged his mare up to the
panting factor--"the man who strikes a woman must be taught that he is a
scoundrel, and that office I take. I would do the same if you were the
lord of Lossie instead of his factor."

Mr. Crathie, knowing himself now in the wrong, was a little frightened
at the set speech, and began to bluster and stammer, but the swift
descent of Malcolm's heavy riding-whip on his shoulders and back made
him voluble in curses. Then began a battle that could not last long with
such odds on the side of justice. It was gazed at from the mouth of the
close by many spectators, but none dared enter because of the capering
and plunging and kicking of the horses. In less than a minute the
factor turned to f