“Oh aye!” said Jenny.  “He’s a villain, and I wad gie him all that he gave of villainy!”

“That is right,” said Alexander, “to look at it simply!” He felt that those were his friends who felt in this as did he.

On the moor, riding homeward, he saw before him Jarvis Barrow.  Dismounting, he met the old man beside a cairn, placed there so long ago that there was only an elfin story for the deeds it commemorated.

“Gude day, Glenfernie!  So that Hieland traitor did not slay ye?”

“No.”

Jarvis Barrow, white-headed, strong-featured, far yet, it seemed, from incapacitating old age, took his seat upon a great stone loosened from the mass.  He leaned upon his staff; his collie lay at his feet.  “Many wad say a lang time, with the healing in it of lang time, since a fause lover sang in the ear of my granddaughter, in the glen there!”

“Aye, many would say it.”

“I say ‘a fause lover.’  But the ane to whom she truly listened is an aulder serpent than he ... wae to her!”

“No, no!”

“But I say ‘aye!’ I am na weak!  She that worked evil and looseness, harlotry, strife, and shame, shall she na have her hire?  As, Sunday by Sunday, I wad ha’ set her in kirk, before the congregation, for the stern rebuking of her sin, so, mak no doubt, the Lord pursues her now!  Aye, He shakes His wrath before her eyes!  Wherever she turns she sees ‘Fornicatress’ writ in flames!”

“No!”

“But aye!”

“Where she was mistaken—­where, maybe, she was wilfully blind—­she must learn.  Not the learning better, but the old mistake until it is lost in knowledge, will clothe itself in suffering!  But that is but a part of her!  If there is error within, there is also Michael within to make it of naught!  She releases herself.  It is horrible to me to see you angered against her, for you do not discriminate—­and you are your Michael, but not hers!”

“Adam is speaking—­still the woman’s lover!  I’m not for contending with you.  She tore my heart working folly in my house, and an ill example, and for herself condemnation!”

“Leave her alone!  She has had great unhappiness!” He moved the small stones of the cairn with his fingers.  “I am going away from Glenfernie.”

“Aye.  It was in mind that ye would!  You and he were great friends.”

“The greater foes now.”

“I gie ye full understanding there!”

“With my father, those he hated were beyond his touch.  So he walked among shadows only.  But to me this world is a not unknown wood where roves, alive and insolent, my utter enemy!  I can touch him and I will touch him!”

“Not you, but the Lord Wha abides not evil!...  How sune will ye be gaeing, Glenfernie?”

“As soon as I can ride far.  As soon as everything is in order here.  I know that I am going, but I do not know if I am returning.”

“I haud na with dueling.  It’s un-Christian.  But mony’s the ancient gude man that Jehovah used for sword!  Aye, and approved the sword that he used—­calling him faithful servant and man after His heart!  I am na judging.”