ones of the
doomed man when he spoke of his blighted prospects. Rather than leave
him to die in absolute solitude she would sacrifice everything, and, in
spite of infection and disfigurement, and the horrible nature of a
disease which eats away the features before it kills, she would soothe
his dying hours. Besides this, it must be remembered that our
ancestors' notions of propriety were somewhat different from ours, and--
well, it was about eight hundred years BuC!

Whether love was a factor in her resolve we cannot say, but we are
firmly convinced that, if it were, she was ignorant of the fact.

It is, however, one thing to resolve--quite another thing to carry
resolution into effect. Branwen had, in an incidental way, obtained
from her protector, Beniah, information as to the direction in which the
hunter of the Hot Swamp lived, and the distance to his dwelling; but
when she actually found herself in the forest, with nothing to guide her
save the position of the sun--and, on cloudy days not even that--she
began to realise somewhat of the difficulties that attended her
enterprise, and when, on the first night, she crouched among the forked
branches of an old oak, and heard the cries of wolves and other wild
creatures, and even saw them prowling about by the light of the moon as
it flickered through the foliage, she began to appreciate the dangers.

She had not, indeed, been so foolish as to set out on her expedition
without a certain amount of forethought--what she deemed careful and
wise consideration. She knew that by noting the position of the sun
when at its highest point in the sky she could follow pretty closely the
direction which Beniah had pointed out to her. She was quite aware that
food was absolutely necessary to life, and had packed up a large bundle
of dried meat, and also provided herself with one of her host's bows and
a sheaf of arrows. Besides this, she knew, like every girl of the
period, how to snare rabbits, and was even expert in throwing stones, so
that, if it should come to the worst, she could manage to subsist on
little birds. As to sleeping at night, she had been accustomed, as a
little girl, to climb trees, which faculty had not yet departed from
her, and she knew well that among the branches of many kinds of trees
there were cosy resting-places where neither man nor beast would be
likely to discover her. She had also some idea of what it is to follow
a trail, for she had often he