. Angus saw the first action, heard the
second, and a hideous dismay clutched his very heart: the savage
fool was about to take his revenge in pinches with the red hot
tongs! He looked for no mercy--perhaps felt that he deserved none.
Manhood held him silent until he saw him take the implement of
torture from the fire, glowing, not red but white hot, when he
uttered such a terrific yell, that Gibbie dropped the tongs--happily
not the hot ends--on his own bare foot, but caught them up again
instantly, and made a great hop to Angus: if Janet had heard that
yell and came in, all would be spoilt. But the faithless keeper
began to struggle so fiercely, writhing with every contortion, and
kicking with every inch, left possible to him, that Gibbie hardly
dared attempt anything for dread of burning him, while he sent yell
after yell "as fast as mill-wheels strike." With a sudden thought
Gibbie sprang to the door and locked it, so that Janet should not
get in, and Angus, hearing the bolt, was the more convinced that his
purpose was cruel, and struggled and yelled, with his eyes fixed on
the glowing tongs, now fast cooling in Gibbie's hand. If instead of
glowering at the tongs, he had but lent one steadfast regard to the
face of the boy whom he took for a demoniacal idiot, he would have
seen his supposed devil smile the sweetest of human, troubled,
pitiful smiles. Even then, I suspect, however, his eye being evil,
he would have beheld in the smile only the joy of malice in the near
prospect of a glut of revenge.

In the mean time Janet, in her perplexity, had, quite forgetful of
the poor cow's necessities, abandoned Crummie, and wandered down the
path as far as the shoulder her husband must cross ascending from
the other side: thither, a great rock intervening, so little of
Angus's cries reached, that she heard nothing through the deafness
of her absorbing appeal for direction to her shepherd, the master of
men.

Gibbie thrust the tongs again into the fire, and while blowing it,
bethought him that it might give Angus confidence if he removed the
chain from his neck. He laid down the bellows, and did so. But to
Angus the action seemed only preparatory to taking him by the throat
with the horrible implement. In his agony and wild endeavour to
frustrate the supposed intent, he struggled harder than ever. But
now Gibbie was undoing the rope fastened round the chest. This
Angus did not perceive, and when it came sudde