But if Mrs Catanach was bent on an exploration, she was for the time prevented from prosecuting it by the approach of the first of the worshippers, whose voices they now plainly heard. She retreated towards the middle of the cave, and sat down in a dark corner, closing her lantern and hiding it with the skirt of her long cloak. Presently a good many entered at once, some carrying lanterns, and most of them tallow candles, which they quickly lighted and disposed about the walls. The rest of the congregation, with its leaders, came trooping in so fast, that in ten minutes or so the service began. As soon as the singing commenced, Malcolm whispered to Lady Florimel,-- “Was ’t a man’s face or a lassie’s ye saw, my leddy?” “A man’s face--the same we saw in the storm,” she answered, and Malcolm felt her shudder as she spoke. “It’s naething but the mad laird,” he said. “He’s better nor hairmless. Dinna say a word to yer father my leddy. I dinna like to say that, but I’ll tell ye a’ what for efterhin’.” But Florimel, knowing that her father had a horror of lunatics, was willing enough to be silent. No sooner was her terror thus assuaged, than the oddities of the singing laid hold upon her, stirring up a most tyrannous impulse to laughter. The prayer that followed made it worse. In itself the prayer was perfectly reverent, and yet, for dread of irreverence, I must not attempt a representation of the forms of its embodiment, or the manner of its utterance. So uncontrollable did her inclination to merriment become, that she found at last the only way to keep from bursting into loud laughter was to slacken the curb, and go off at a canter--I mean, to laugh freely but gently. This so infected her father, that he straightway accompanied her, but with more noise. Malcolm sat in misery, from the fear not so much of discovery, though that would be awkward enough, as of the loss to the laird of his best refuge. But when he reflected, he doubted much whether it was even now a safe one; and, anyhow, knew it would be as vain to remonstrate as to try to stop the noise of a brook by casting pebbles into it.