Various Bodies Converging a7

“ Good night, Mr. McKenzie,” I said. “ Good
night, Lord Rintoul.”

I had addressed him by his real name. Never
a turnip fell from a bumping, laden cart,-and the
driver more unconscious of it, than I that I had
dropped that word. I reéntered the house, but
had not reached my chair when McKenzie’s hand
fell roughly on me, and I was swung round.

“Mr. Ogilvy,” he said, the more savagely I
‘doubt not because his passions had been chained
so long, “ you know more than you would have
as think. Beware, sir, of recognising that gypsy
should you ever see her again in different attire.
I advise you to have forgotten this night when
you waken to-morrow morning.”

With a menacing gesture he left me, and I
sank into a chair, glad to lose sight of the glower-
ing eyes with which he had pinned me to the
wall. I did not hear the trap cross the ford and
renew its journey. When I looked out next, the
night had fallen very dark, and the glen was so
deathly in its drowsiness that I thought not even
the cry of murder could tear its eyes open.

The earl and McKenzie would be some dis-
tance still from the hill when the office-bearers
had scoured it in vain for their minister. The
gypsies, now dancing round their fires to music
that, on ordinary occasions, Lang Tammas would
have stopped by using his fists to the glory of
God, had seen no minister, they said, and disbe-
lieved in the existence of the mysterious Egyptian.

“Liars they are to trade,’ Spens declared to
his companions, “ but now and again they speak
truth, like a standing clock, and I’m beginning to