rners and thieves," as he called the Derncleugh gipsies.

But as Godfrey was riding back to Ellangowan with a single servant,
right in the middle of the King's highway, he met the whole congregation
of the exiles, evicted from their ruined houses, and sullenly taking
their way in search of a new shelter against the storms of the oncoming
winter. His servant rode forward to command every man to stand to his
beast's head while the Laird was passing.

"He shall have his half of the road," growled one of the tall thin
gipsies, his features half-buried in a slouch hat, "but he shall have no
more. The highway is as free to our cuddies as to his horse."

Never before had the Laird of Ellangowan received such a discourteous
reception. Anxious at the last to leave a good impression, he stammered
out as he passed one of the older men, "And your son, Gabriel Baillie,
is he well?" (He meant the young man who had been sent by means of the
press-gang to foreign parts.) With a deep scowl the old man replied, "If
I had heard otherwise, _you_ would have heard it too!"

At last Godfrey Bertram thought that he had escaped. He had passed the
last laden donkey of the expelled tribe. He was urging his beast toward
Ellangowan with a saddened spirit, when suddenly at a place where the
road was sunk between two high banks, Meg Merrilies appeared above him,
a freshly cut sapling in her hand, her dark eyes flashing anger, and her
elf-locks straying in wilder confusion than ever.

"Ride your ways, Laird of Ellangowan," she cried, "ride your ways,
Godfrey Bertram! This day ye have quenched seven smoking hearths--see if
the fire in your own parlour burns the brighter for that? Ye have riven
the thatch off seven cottars' houses--look if your roof-tree stands the
faster. There are thirty yonder that would have shed their lifeblood for
you--thirty, from the child of a week to the auld wife of a hundred,
that you have made homeless, that you have sent out to sleep with the
fox and the blackcock. Our bairns are hanging on our weary backs--look
to it that your braw cradle at hame is the fairer spread! Now ride your
ways, Godfrey Bertram. These are the last words ye shall ever hear from
Meg Merrilies, and this the last staff that I shall ever cut in the
bonny woods of Ellangowan!"

[Illustration: "MEG MERRILIES appeared above him, a freshly cut sapling
in her hand, her dark eyes flashing anger, and her elf-locks straying
in wilder confusion than ever.