lobby, and the minister, sitting in the pulpit all the while, looked solemnly down upon the fair flock--the shepherd of their souls! It was Sabbath, but Margaret Burnside was not in the kirk. The congregation had risen to join in prayer, when the great door was thrown open, and a woman, apparelled as for the house of worship, but wild and ghastly in her face and eyes as a maniac hunted by evil spirits, burst in upon the service, and, with uplifted hands, beseeched the man of God to forgive her irreverent entrance, for that the foulest and most unnatural murder had been done, and that her own eyes had seen the corpse of Margaret Burnside lying on the moor in a pool of blood! The congregation gave one groan, and then an outcry as if the roof of the kirk had been toppling over their heads. All cheeks waxed white, women fainted, and the firmest heart quaked with terror and pity, as once and again the affrighted witness, in the same words, described the horrid spectacle, and then rushed out into the open air, followed by hundreds, who for some minutes had been palsy-stricken; and now the kirkyard was all in a tumult round the body of her who lay in a swoon. In the midst of that dreadful ferment, there were voices crying aloud that the poor woman was mad, and that such horror could not be beneath the sun; for such a perpetration on the Sabbath-day, and first heard of just as the prayers of His people were about to ascend to the Father of all mercies, shocked belief, and doubt struggled with despair as in the helpless shudderings of some dream of blood. The crowd were at last prevailed on by their pastor to disperse, and sit down on the tombstones, and water being sprinkled over the face of her who still lay in that mortal swoon, and the air suffered to circulate freely round her, she again opened her glassy eyes, and raising herself on her elbow, stared on the multitude, all gathered there so wan and silent, and shrieked out, "The Day of Judgment!--the Day of Judgment!" The aged minister raised her on her feet, and led her to a grave, on which she sat down, and hid her face on his knees. "O that I should have lived to see the day--but dreadful are the decrees of the Most High--and she whom we all loved has been cruelly murdered! Carry me with you, people, and I will show you where lies her corpse."