followed his guide in confidence and silence.  They crossed the small brook at the same place where it previously had been passed by those who had gone before.  The footmarks then proceeded through the ruined village, and from thence down the glen, which again narrowed to a ravine, after the small opening in which they were situated.  But the gipsy no longer followed the same track; she turned aside, and led the way by a very rugged and uneven path up the bank which overhung the village.  Although the snow in many places hid the pathway, and rendered the footing uncertain and unsafe, Meg proceeded with a firm and determined step, which indicated an intimate knowledge of the ground she traversed.  At length they gained the top of the bank, though by a passage so steep and intricate that Brown, though convinced it was the same by which he had descended on the night before, was not a little surprised how he had accomplished the task without breaking his neck.  Above, the country opened wide and uninclosed for about a mile or two on the one hand, and on the other were thick plantations of considerable extent.

Meg, however, still led the way along the bank of the ravine out of which they had ascended, until she heard beneath the murmur of voices.  She then pointed to a deep plantation of trees at some distance.  ‘The road to Kippletringan,’ she said, ’is on the other side of these inclosures.  Make the speed ye can; there’s mair rests on your life than other folk’s.  But you have lost all—­ stay.’  She fumbled in an immense pocket, from which she produced a greasy purse—­’Many’s the awmous your house has gi’en Meg and hers; and she has lived to pay it back in a small degree;’ and she placed the purse in his hand.

‘The woman is insane,’ thought Brown; but it was no time to debate the point, for the sounds he heard in the ravine below probably proceeded from the banditti.  ‘How shall I repay this money,’ he said, ‘or how acknowledge the kindness you have done me?’

‘I hae twa boons to crave,’ answered the sibyl, speaking low and hastily:  ’one, that you will never speak of what you have seen this night; the other, that you will not leave this country till you see me again, and that you leave word at the Gordon Arms where you are to be heard of, and when I next call for you, be it in church or market, at wedding or at burial, Sunday or Saturday, mealtime or fasting, that ye leave everything else and come with me.’

‘Why, that will do you little good, mother.’

’But ‘twill do yoursell muckle, and that’s what I’m thinking o’.  I am not mad, although I have had eneugh to make me sae; I am not mad, nor doating, nor drunken.  I know what I am asking, and I know it has been the will of God to preserve you in strange dangers, and that I shall be the instrument to set you in your father’s seat again.  Sae give me your promise, and mind that you owe your life to me this blessed night.’

‘There’s wildness in her manner, certainly,’ thought Brown, ’and yet it is more like the wildness of energy than of madness.’—­ ’Well, mother, since you do ask so useless and trifling a favour, you have my promise.  It will at least give me an opportunity to repay your money with additions.  You are an uncommon kind of creditor, no doubt, but—­’