There comes a lad at the turn o' nicht,"It's hereabouts that he said he'd be—There's a ship at sea with a golden licht,But no Muckle John 'neath the Gibbet Tree."
Swing—swing in the hail and snow,Dead banes clinkin' frae dawn to nicht,Creak—creak to the hoodie crowFrom rising sun to grey moonlicht.
It was above them up in the air or they were going mad.
Suddenly the song ceased and with a great rattle of chains the gibbet's burden dropped with a clatter, and at that Mrs. Fraser came dangerously near to swooning for the first and last time in her life.
WITH A GREAT RATTLE OF CHAINS THE GIBBET'S BURDEN DROPPED WITH A CLATTER.WITH A GREAT RATTLE OF CHAINS THE GIBBET'S BURDENDROPPED WITH A CLATTER.
IT WAS MUCKLE JOHN!
"Good evening to you," he cried, "and rare luck to the bride and bridegroom. Well, Rob, so it's fine to be a free man and a good ending to a brave cause."
"But you, Muckle John—what of you? Do you go to sea to-night?"
He shook his head.
"Not yet," he said, and held Rob by the hand for a moment saying nothing. Then taking his whistle from his pocket he broke into a jig, and in the yellow light of the lantern he started dancing under the empty gibbet tree.
It took doucer people than the Frasers to stand still when that kind of thing was afoot. Once again Rob and his aunt tripped it finely, and Castleleathers, that mountain of flesh and brawn, was not backward.
It was a strange sight that, with the forlorn place, and the crying from the sea, and the blinking weird light and the black figures skipping like ghosts beneath a starlit sky.
They danced till all the breath was clean gone out of them, and they stopped just because the music was no longer there. For unseen to any Muckle John had stolen softly away playing as he went, passing like a shadow, or a dream, or a memory, into the vast darkness.
They stood for a space catching the lingering notes of it, and then it was gathered into the night, and became part of the sea, and the wind, and the soft song of the rustling heath, and so was gone.
And that was the last of Muckle John.
PRINTED BYBALLANTYNE & COMPANY LTD.LONDON