At the sound of her voice seeking to soothe the girl, Malcolm shuddered; but the next moment, from one of those freaks of suggestion which defy analysis, he burst into laughter: he had a glimpse of a she-dog, in Mrs Catanach’s Sunday bonnet, bringing up the rear of the preacher’s canine company, and his horror of the woman found relief in an involuntary outbreak that did not spring altogether from merriment. It attracted no attention. The cries increased; for the preacher continued to play on the harp-nerves of his hearers, in the firm belief that the Spirit was being poured out upon them. The marquis, looking very pale, for he could never endure the cry of a woman even in a play, rose, and taking Florimel by the arm, turned to leave the place. Malcolm hurried to the front to make way for them. But the preacher caught sight of the movement, and, filled with a fury which seemed to him sacred, rushed to the rescue of souls. “Stop!” he shouted. “Go not hence, I charge you. On your lives I charge you! Turn ye, turn ye: why will ye die? There is no fleeing from Satan. You must resist the devil. He that flies is lost. If you turn your backs upon Apollyon, he will never slacken pace until he has driven you into the troop of his dogs, to go howling about the walls of the city. Stop them, friends of the cross, ere they step beyond the sound of mercy; for, alas! the voice of him who is sent cannot reach beyond the particle of time wherein he speaks: now, this one solitary moment, gleaming out of the eternity before us only to be lost in the eternity behind us--this _now_ is the accepted time; _this_ NOW and no other is the moment of salvation!” Most of the men recognized the marquis; some near the entrance saw only Malcolm clearing the way: marquis or fisher, it was all the same when souls were at stake: they crowded with one consent to oppose their exit: yet another chance they must have, whether they would or not. These men were in the mood to give--not their own --but those other men’s bodies to be burnt on the poorest chance of saving their souls from the everlasting burnings. Malcolm would have been ready enough for a fight, had he and the marquis been alone, but the presence of Lady Florimel put it out of the question. Looking round, he sought the eye of his master. Had Lord Lossie been wise, he would at once have yielded, and sat down to endure to the end. But he jumped on the form next him, and appealed to the common sense of the assembly. “Don’t you see the man is mad?” he said, pointing to the preacher. “He is foaming at the mouth. For God’s sake look after your women: he will have them all in hysterics in another five minutes. I wonder any man of sense would countenance such things!” As to _hysterics_, the fisher-folk had never heard of them; and though the words of the preacher were not those of soberness, they yet believed them the words of truth, and himself a far saner man than the marquis.