ye gied Kirsty six weeks syne."

But when the first keg was on the table, and the men, each with his
pint-stoup before him, had seated themselves round, there came a
knocking at the door--loud, insistent, imperious. Each man ran his hand
down his side to the loaded whip or jockteleg (the smuggler's
sheath-knife) which he carried with him.

But no man was in haste to open the door. The red coats of King George's
troopers might be on the other side. For no mere gauger or preventive
man would have the assurance to come chapping on Portmark's door in that
fashion.

"Open the door in the name of Most High God!" cried a loud, solemn voice
they all knew. The seventeen men and an elder quaked through all their
inches; but none moved. Writs from the authority mentioned did not run
in the parish of Dour.

The fourteen adherents fled underneath the table like chickens in a
storm.

"Then will I open it in my own name!" Whereon followed a crash, and the
two halves of the kitchen door sprang asunder with great and sudden
noise. Abraham Ligartwood came in.

The men sat awed, each man wishful to creep behind his neighbour.

The minister's breadth of shoulder filled up the doorway completely, so
that there was not room for a child to pass. He carried a mighty staff
in his hand, and his dark hair shone through the powder which was upon