"Proud, pitiless fool," resumed Elspeth, more bitterly than before, "repress your scorn. Whom, think ye, ye treat wi' contempt? Ken ye not that the humble adder which ye tread upon can destroy ye--that the very wasp can sting ye, and there is poison in its sting? Ye laugh, but for your want of humanity this night, sorrow shall turn your head grey, lang before age sit down upon your brow." "Off! off! ye wretches!" added the laird; "vent your threats on the wind, if it will hear ye, for I regard them as little as it will. But keep out o' my way for the future, as ye would escape the honours o' a hempen cravat, and the hereditary exaltation o' your race." Willie Faa made a sign to his followers, and without speaking they instantly rose and departed; but, as he himself reached the door, he turned round, and significantly striking the hilt of his dagger, exclaimed-- "Clennel! ye shall rue it!" And the hoarse voice of Elspeth without, as the sound was borne away on the storm, was heard crying--"He shall rue it!" and repeating her imprecations. Until now, poor Andrew Smith had lain groaning upon the floor more dead than alive, though not exactly "stone dead" as he expressed it; and ever, as he heard his master's angry voice, he groaned the more, until in his agony he doubted his existence. When, therefore, on the departure of the Faas, the laird dragged him to his feet, and feeling some pity for his terror, spoke to him more mildly, Andrew gazed vacantly around him, his teeth chattering together, and he first placed his hands upon his sides, to feel whether he was still indeed the identical flesh, blood, and bones of Andrew Smith, or his disembodied spirit; and being assured that he was still a man, he put down his hand to feel for his chronometer, and again he groaned bitterly--and although he now knew he was not dead, he almost wished he were so. The other servants thought also of their money and their trinkets, which, as well as poor Andrew's chronometer, Elspeth, in the hurry in which she was rudely driven from the house, had, by a slip of memory, neglected to return to their lawful owners.