“Stroke!” he said.

“Stroke!” said Gav.

“Stroke!” said Corp.

They then filled their cups and holding them over the well, so that they clinked, they said: 

“To the king ower the water!”

“To the king ower the water!”

“To the king ower the water!”

When they had drunk Tommy broke his cup against a rock, for he was determined that it should never be used to honor a meaner toast, and the others followed his example, Corp briskly, though the act puzzled him, and Gav with a gloomy look because he knew that the cups would be missed to-morrow.

“Is that a’ now?” whispered Corp, wiping his forehead with his sleeve.

“All!” cried Tommy.  “Man, we’ve just begood.”

As secretly as they had entered it, they left the Den, and anon three figures were standing in a dark trance, cynically watching the revellers in the square.

“If they just kent!” muttered the smallest, who was wearing his jacket outside in to escape observation.

“But they little ken!” said Gav Dishart.

“They hinna a notion!” said Corp, contemptuously, but still he was a little puzzled, and presently he asked softly:  “Lads, what just is it that they dinna ken?”

Had Gav been ready with an answer he could not have uttered it, for just then a terrible little man in black, who had been searching for him in likely places, seized him by the cuff of the neck, and, turning his face in an easterly direction, ran him to family worship.  But there was still work to do for the other two.  Walking home alone that night from Mr. Patullo’s party, Mr. Cathro had an uncomfortable feeling that he was being dogged.  When he stopped to listen, all was at once still, but the moment he moved onward he again heard stealthy steps behind.  He retired to rest as soon as he reached his house, to be wakened presently by a slight noise at the window, whence the flag-post protruded.  It had been but a gust of wind, he decided, and turned round to go to sleep again, when crash! the post was plucked from its place and cast to the ground.  The dominie sprang out of bed, and while feeling for a light, thought he heard scurrying feet, but when he looked out at the window no one was to be seen; Vivat Regina lay ignobly in the gutters.  That it could have been the object of an intended theft was not probable, but the open window might have tempted thieves, and there was a possible though risky way up by the spout.  The affair was a good deal talked about at the time, but it remained shrouded in a mystery which even we have been unable to penetrate.