While that gentleman had been jogging along homewards he had been fostering uncomfortable sentiments of spite respecting the “laal hussy” who had betrayed him.  He had been mentally rehearsing the withering reproaches and yet more withering glances which he meant to launch forth upon her when next it should be her misfortune to cross his path.  Such disloyalty, such an underhand way of playing double, seemed to Mr. Garth deserving of any punishment short of that physical one which it would be most enjoyable to inflict, but which it might not, with that Robbie in the way, be quite so pleasant to stand responsible for.  Perhaps it was due to an illogical instinct of the blacksmith’s sex that his conscience did not trouble him when he was concocting these pains and penalties for duplicity.  Certainly, when the two persons in question came face to face at the turning of the pack-horse road towards the city, logic played an infinitesimal part in their animated intercourse.

Mr. Garth meant to direct a scorching sneer as silent preamble to his discourse; but owing to the fact that Robbie’s blow had fallen about the blacksmith’s eyes, and that those organs had since become sensibly eclipsed by a prodigious and discolored swelling, what was meant for a withering glance looked more like a meaningless grin.  At this apparent levity under her many distresses, Liza’s wrath rose to boiling point, and she burst out upon Mr. Joseph with more of the home-spun of the country-side than ever fell from her lips in calmer moments.

“Thoo dummel-head, thoo,” she said, “thoo’rt as daft as a besom.  Thoo hes made a botch on’t, thoo blatherskite.  Stick that in thy gizzern, and don’t thoo go bumman aboot like a bee in a bottle—­thoo Judas, thoo.”

Mr. Garth was undoubtedly taken by surprise this time.  To be attacked in such a way by the very person he meant to attack, to be accounted the injurer by the very person who, he thought, had injured him, sufficed to stagger the blacksmith’s dull brains.

“Nay, nay,” he said, when he had recovered his breath; “who’s the Judas?—­that’s a ’batable point, I reckon.”

“Giss!” cried Liza, without waiting to comprehend the significance of the insinuation, and—­like a true woman—­not dreaming that a charge of disloyalty could be advanced against her,—­“giss! giss!”—­the call to swine—­“thoo’rt thy mother’s awn son—­the witch.”

Utterly deprived of speech by this maidenly outburst of vituperation, Mr. Garth lost all that self-control which his quieter judgment had recognized as probably necessary to the safety of his own person.  White with anger, he raised his hand to strike Liza, who thereupon drew up, and, giving him a vigorous slap on each cheek, said, “Keep thy neb oot of that, thoo bummeller, and go fratch with Robbie Anderson—­I hear he dinged thee ower, thoo sow-faced ’un.”

The mention of this name served as a timely reminder to Mr. Garth, who dropped his arm and rode away, muttering savagely under his breath.