of bygone days, the revulsion of feeling was so great that she now felt as certain that her son and her friend's husband would be rescued, as she had just before felt despairingly convinced of the contrary. Her newly-risen hope would have been short-lived had she been able to exercise the second sight that her countrymen believed in. CHAPTER XXVIII. IVIE MCCALL BEFORE THE JUDGES. HAVE just here, at my hand, an advertisement respecting Dunblane - one of the present day, you know. It praises the climate, and, amongst other matters, informs us that it is a good central place from which to visit the Trossachs, and all the finest mountain and lake scenery in Scotland. More strangely interesting still to Charles the Second and Ivie McCall, could they have foreseen it, would have been the further information that "the railway junction is twelve hours from London, and one and a half from Edinburgh." It took Mistress McCall and Mary Blair more than the twelve hours to get to their own metropolis from Dunblane, let alone all thoughts of getting to London, as to which, it may be said that it would have been a really impossible journey to them altogether. It was difficult enough for them to reach Edinburgh, although they had the burning zeal of an anxious love to help in carrying them there. Their eager haste led them to lengthen the distance they had to traverse by some few miles, for they shot past the district in which Elspeth Spence's hovel was situated, before Kate remembered the injunction given, four years since, that she should consult the old woman as to the probable use of the token she carried with her, and how it was to be made of any avail. Thus more precious time was spent, and still more in waiting upon the slow pace of Elspeth, who refused to give any information meanwhile, either to her sister or the lady. "It wad be na gude if I did," she steadily declared. "For ye say yoursel' that ye ken na the face o' him that gaed it ye; and if ye did, let me tell ye, ye might risk his neck by pleading to him to save William and the bairn, but ye wad do them na guid.” "And why can you do it more safely, then?" questioned Mary impatiently. Her step-sister looked at her from head to foot with supreme disdain for her stupidity-"Gar-r-r," she ejaculated. "Am I a leddy like yon, or a dainty, pawky bit body like yoursel? Auld witch Elspeth speaks to ilka ane she meets, gentle an' simple, an' nane speir what she says. If she were to hould the very bit bottle itsel' in the faces o' all the folk in Edinbro', nane wad think anything but that it held. maybe toads or snakes; an' they wad ask na questions, but slip by in haste to get no a spell, maybe, cast ower them." Whether Mary was convinced by these arguments or no, Mistress McCall saw sufficient in them to be even thankful that the old woman should be their companion to the city, where they arrived about noon of the dark December day, footsore and pale, but for the crimson spots of excitement that glowed upon the cheeks of the two younger members of the party. There was one in the crowd thronging the road to the Council Chamber, a small misshapen creature, who was quick to note these signs, and with especial malignity he wriggled his way through the groups till he reached their side, and could hiss up into the lady's ear words that made her cower back, and press her hand upon her heart. Birsy nodded maliciously. "Hurry to the Justice Hall then, lady, and bid him put by his obstinacy, and open his lips, while there is yet time to avoid that I tell you of." Even the base informer did not know that there was not yet time for that. The worst that could happen to any one, so far as the body was concerned, with the exception of death itself, or rather, what was worse than death, was already being endured by a sufferer in that shameful judgment hall, where men calmly gazed upon the agonies of their fellow-men, and felt no more pity than they showed. Having secured William Blair and Ivie, somewhat more quickly than they had hoped to do, the party who had taken the McCalls' cottage for their share of the enterprise at once hastened after the detachment dismissed, according to the informer's instructions, to |