wife. I might maybe force my way through, but I
canna leave the horses," said John.

Lady Arthur was fully more concerned for her horses than herself: she
said, "Take out the horses and go to Cockhoolet: leave them to rest
and feed, and tell Mr. Ormiston to send for us. We'll sit here very
comfortably till you come back: it won't take you long. Thomas will go
too, but give us in the luncheon-basket first."

The men, being refreshed from the basket, set off with the horses,
leaving the ladies getting rapidly snowed up in the carriage. As the
wind rose almost to a gale, Lady Arthur remarked "that it was at least
better to be stuck firm among the snow than to be blown away."

It is a grand thing to suffer in a great cause, but if you suffer
merely because you have done a "daftlike" thing, the satisfaction is
not the same.

The snow sifted into the carriage at the minutest crevice like fine
dust, and, melting, became cold, clammy and uncomfortable. To be set
down in a glass case on a moor without shelter in the height of a
snowstorm has only one recommendation: it is an uncommon situation,
a novel experience. The ladies--at least Lady Arthur--must, one would
think, have felt foolish, but it is a chief qualification in a leader
that he never acknowledges that he is in the wrong: if he once does
that, his prestige is gone.

The first hour of isolation wore away pretty well, owing to the
novelty of the the position; the second also, being devoted to
luncheon; the third dragged a good deal; but when it came to the
fourth; with light beginning to fail and no word of rescue, matters
looked serious. The cold was becoming intense--a chill, damp cold that
struck every living thing through and through. What could be keeping
the men? Had they lost their way, or what could possibly have
happened?

"This is something like an adventure," said Lady Arthur cheerily.

"It might pass for one," said Miss Adamson, "if we could see our way
out of it. I wonder if we shall have to sit here all night?"

"If we do," said Lady Arthur, "we can have no hope of wild beasts
scenting us out or of being attacked by banditti."

"Nor of any enamored gentleman coming to the rescue," said Miss
Adamson: "it will end tamely enough. I remember reading a story of
travel among savages, in which at the close of the monthly instalment
the travelers were left buried alive except their heads, which were
above ground, but set on fire. That was a very strikin