"The first fuff o' a haggis is aye the hottest, but I'll not bide a second. Tak' that, ye accursed witch, until you are tarbarrelled!" he exclaimed, and fired his long horse pistol full in her face. Poor Elsie fell forward motionless, while Juden, without daring once to look behind him, dashed at full gallop after his lord, who had already crossed Halkerston's Crofts, and was nearing the village of St. Ninian. CHAPTER XVIII. THE GROWTH OF LOVE AND HOPE. The lady of my love resides Within a garden's bound; There springs the rose, the lily there And hollyhock are found. An instant on her form I gazed, So delicately white; Mild as a tender lamb was she, And as the red rose bright. LAYS OF THE MINNESINGERS. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to inform the reader that, thanks to the delay caused by Juden's cunning or superstition, Lord Clermistonlee's intended seizure of Lilian Napier had been attempted an hour too late. This was indeed fortunate. Had it been made earlier, blood and blows and loss of life must have undoubtedly ensued. Exactly one hour before the unexpected visit which ended in the destruction of Elsie's cottage, and nearly terrifying the poor woman out of her senses, her late guests had all departed in one of those vast and solemn hackney equipages (before described) which crawled away over the Burgh muir like the mighty catafalco of a deceased hero, past the end of the still and waveless Burghloch, and up the dark and gloomy avenue of Bruntisfield, after being nearly an hour in traversing, a space which any modern cab will carry one over in three minutes. Like a true gallant of the day, Walter Fenton stood on the footboard behind, while Hab with his matchlock slung, shared the driver's ample hammer-cloth, so that the ladies and their attendant Meinie (whose delight and wonder at being in such a vehicle must be duly commemorated) were pretty safe from those bold lads of the post who prowled about after nightfall with sword and pistol, making every unarmed citizen who chanced to pass that way, stand and deliver cloak and purse with so cavalier an air, that it was almost impossible to refuse. With as much formality as if she was entering a conquered city, Lady Grizel received the keys of the barbican gate from her ground-baillie Syme, of the Greenhill, who, bareheaded, with three stout sons, bearing torches, and several of the old servants who had found shelter in Syme's onsteading, and whose clamorous joy burst forth in loud pæans of triumph, as she was led by the baillie into the old baronial chamber of dais, the canopy of which, to the simple "tenant bodies" of those days, was fraught with more terrors than the chair of the Lord President Lockhart. "A thousand welcomes to your Ladyship," said Symon, bowing profoundly for the twentieth time.