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big Duffle is on you!-tell me now where Miss Alison is-where is she?—tell me now, or the Duffle, the Duffle will hef your head off!"

Again and again the captive strove to cast off this terrible unknown thing that had seized him; but the weakly, white-faced, ill-made probationer was no match for this heavy-shouldered demon of a lad, whose hands were as hard as iron with rowing. To save himself from actual strangulation, the black-coated youth gasped out,

"She-she's in Portobello."

"What place is that?" Johnny cried, with ferocious determination. "Tell me again now, or the Duffle will hef your head off!-the Duffle, the Duffle hass you!-tell me again—what place is it ?"

"Port-Portobello !" the probationer managed to ejaculate, as well as Johnny's iron fingers would allow him-and the next moment he found himself free.

But long before the bewildered and stupefied minister could pull himself together, Master Johnny was flying down the road towards Kirk o' Shields, shrieking with eldritch laughter, and calling aloud from time to time the talismanic word in his wild deliglit.

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Portobello !-aw, it's Portobello, uss it; and a fine name too! Aw, a fine name that! And what will Macdonell say now? Cosh, that fellow's aweh hom; and he's thinking the big Duffle wass on his back; but Macdonell will be giffing me something for this night's work. Portobello!-aw, Cosh, it's a fine place, Portobello, if I will be getting any money for it! Go aweh hom, you black-cotted fellow, and tell them what the Duffle wass doing to you in the middle of the rod! Hurrah, now, and another hurrah!-there wass no one could find it out but myself; and the Duffle was a good friend to me this night!"

CHAPTER XXII.

A BATTLE ROYAL.

LUDOVICK MACDONELL had of course heard of Portobello, but he had never been there, nor had Hugh; and both of them, imagining it to be merely an ordinary small sea-side village, thought they would have no difficulty in finding Alison and carrying her off from her temporary jailer. So, when they went through to Edinburgh, they did not think of going to see Mr. Balwhinnan; they were in too great a hurry; they left their things at the hotel. where Macdonell was known; they hired an open fly that happened to be coming along Prince's Street at the moment; and by-and-by they found themselves rattling through the rather melancholy eastern suburbs of the city, and out into the pallid semblance of the country that was all vague and dismal under the haze of a north-east wind.

But when they drew near to Portobello, and when they had got through the smoke of its outlying potteries and gas-works, and entered the old-fashioned, Scotch-looking town, and still more when they left the fly behind them, and walked down to the seafront, and found the long extent of brown sand literally swarming with holiday-makers, mostly women and children, they perceived that this was a far bigger place than they had bargained for, and that their task was not to be so extremely simple. Macdonell had looked with intensest interest as they passed at each of those little villas, with its front of black-gray stone and small garden; for any one of them might hold the prisoner he was come to liberate; and it was strange to think that perhaps this or that door was the only thing that intervened between him and Alison. But when they got down to the beach, the sight of the big modern houses and the swarming population rather chilled. his eager hopes; and when they walked out the pier-which seemed a kind of fashionable promenade-he grew familiar with disappointment, as stranger after stranger came nearer, and passed by unheeded. Nor was the day one to exhilarate the spirits and

cheer him with fond anticipations. The bleak north-easter had brought mist with it, so that Inchkeith rock was just visible and no more; but the wind was not strong enough to raise anything of a sea, and the wide waste of desolate gray water lapped languidly into the shore, where it took a tinge of muddy brown from the sand. The flashing blue waves, the silver-gleaming clouds, the wild rain of the west had no place here; everything was gray and cold and dull; it seemed impossible to him that Alison should be anywhere in this nebulous, fluctuating, uninteresting throng.

"Oh, don't be so hopeless all at once!" Hugh said to him. "That is only a first impression. It won't be so difficult; we must find her, now that we know where she is. Johnny," he said, turning to the lad, who was but a step behind them, "you don't suppose the stickit minister was playing a trick on you when he said Portobello?"

"Uss it a trick?" said Johnny, brightening up at once. "Cosh, there wass no trick in his head when he thought the Duffle wass on his shoulders! Ay, and he's thinking that now, I'm sure, and it will be a fine thing for him to tell them from the pulpit-that he wass fighting with the Duffle in the middle of the rod !"

Hugh turned to his companion.

"What we have to do is this," said he, "we must take rooms in that small hotel we passed, and have our things sent down from Edinburgh. You know now all that you want to know; Alison is here; and she is ready to go with you whenever you ask her to do that. Of course we must see her sooner or later walking about, or coming out of a house, or going into one: and we must have a fly waiting in readiness at the hotel, so that she may be taken away with as little fuss as possible. There will be a fuss, no doubt, if Mrs. Cowan is with her at the time-there will be a mighty row, in fact; for although she can't prevent your taking Alison away, she can make a scene, and give you a bit of her mind. You'll get the worst of that, Ludovick," he continued, with rather a grim smile. "You'll decidedly get the worst of that; if I were you, I wouldn't say a word. By George, I'd give something to have Aunt Gilchrist here just at that moment; then you'd see the fur fly! I'd back the Highland bantam to make a poor thing of the Southerner-unless, indeed, Mrs. Cowan went on the other tack, and began to whine. She won't whine with

you, Ludovick, you may be sure you will have it served up hot and hot."

"I am not likely to mind that much," Ludovick said, indifferently, "if once I had got hold of Alison. But the worst of it is that we haven't the slightest idea what this woman Cowan is like; we might meet her half a dozen times without knowing it; our only chance is to find Alison herself."

"And of course we shall find her," Hugh said, instantly (for he was always afraid of Macdonell returning to his project of appealing to the law, and compelling the old Minister to speak, or else to go to jail). "This isn't like an ordinary town; they are sure to come out for a walk, and they are sure to stroll along the sca-front, or out this pier. Now let us have a distinct understanding; if you can get clear away with Alison, you put her in the cab, and drive off with her to Edinburgh; if there's any row, leave Johnny and me to see it out. Once you've put Alison under Mrs. Balwhinnan's care that's the proposal, isn't it?— there will be no chance of further trouble; you won't catch Mrs. Cowan hammering at an advocate's door and screaming for the police. She must know well enough that you have the law on your side; I don't believe she's half the ignorant person you seem to think her. And here is Johnny all impatience to begin a search of the town; you're determined to win that gun, aren't you, Johnny?"

"I wass thinking that if Miss Alison uss in this place, I will be finding her before long," observed Johnny, who was rather giving himself airs now since his exploit on the highway.

"If you do," Ludovick said to this heavy, lumbering, shrewdeyed lad, "I'll not only give you the gun, but you may come out from time to time to Oyre, and if you find any hoodie-crows along the rocks, I'll give you a shilling for every one you kill." "A shullin?" said John, quickly.

"Yes."

"And mebbe you'll be for giffing me a few cartridges," said John, insidiously.

"Oh yes, I'll give you a few cartridges, now and again, but not to be fired away in the air, or at marks. You'll have to stalk the hoodie-crows, for they're precious cunning, and when you get at one of the brutes, you shoot him sitting, mind that, or anyhow you can manage it."

"Well, he may be cunning," said John, reflectively, "but mebbe there's other folk chist as cunning as him. I've catched a snail by the horns before now-though I could not throw the little duffle over my shoulder."

And, indeed, as it turned out, it was Johnny's proud privilege to secure that precious gun, and that in a far more simple way than any one of them had hoped for. Ludovick and Hugh were walking back through the town towards the hotel which has been mentioned, when Johnny, who was lingering behind them somewhat, suddenly saw a face present itself at the window of one of the small villas they were passing, and then there was a quick rapping on the framework, and also, as he thought, a half-stifled cry. Instantly he called to the two in front of him.

Here!-here!-Mr. Hugh!"

They wheeled round. But Johnny could say nothing; he was frightened; he was staring at the window, which was now quite empty. And then-it all seemed to happen in one brief bewildering second-the door of the house was thrown open, and there stood Alison, rose-red and smiling, and yet with anxious and pleading eyes. Ludovick was up the steps and by her side in a moment, and holding her by both hands.

"Have you come for me, Ludovick?—are you going to take me away with you?" she said; but the proud and glad light that shone in her eyes showed that she knew what his answer would be.

"Indeed, I have come for you," said he, and he drew her a little way into the passage. It seemed a wonderful thing to see Alison's face upturned to his again, and her soft eyes all radiant, and her lips smiling: this was not the tear-worn Alison he had been thinking of; this was rather the happy bride, rose-red and shy, and yet blithe of look, who had come sailing away with him. on board the steamer. "And I'm going to take you away with me, you may be sure of that-now, this very minute. But what are you doing in this place, Alison? What brought you here? When you left your father's house, why didn't you come straight through to the Highlands ?"

"Ludovick," said she, with her eyes cast down, "how could I do that-unasked?"

"Then why didn't you write to me?"

"Wouldn't that have been just about the same thing?" she

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