d turning round ordered our man Bob--Bob
Kingsman, to saddle the mare. Then he called out to mother to put up
something for him, for he had to ride to Longtown, and might be away
all day.

"But, father----" she began.

He waved his hand impatiently.

"It is a money payment," he said, "long outstanding, and if I do not
get the man to-day at Longtown Tryst I may say good-bye to my chance of
it."

He scarcely stayed to get the breakfast my mother had prepared. He did
not answer when she pressed upon him this or that as "an extry."
However, along with sundry sandwiches, she slid a small "neat" flask
into the side pocket of his riding-coat--"in case" as she said. For
this was no habit of my father's.

After that he called me into the yard to receive instructions as to
various details about the sending out of the vans, and he gave Bob
Kingsman "what for," because he had been so long saddling Dapple.

I can see him now as he rode away. Though a heavy man he rode well,
and in fact never looked so well as when on horseback. I can remember,
too, that my mother was at an upper window, my bedroom, in fact,
whither she had gone to "put things in some sort of order."

My father waved his hand to her, with a more gracious gesture than I
had ever before seen him use. I answered with my cap. For my mother,
as I think, was so taken aback that she withdrew into the house, with
something of the instinctive shyness of a girl who peeps at her
sweetheart from behind the curtain.

Perhaps it was as well. She kept the little love token to herself. It
was hers, to get out of it what dreary comfort she could, in the terror
and suspense of the days that followed.

* * * * *

Longtown, to the Tryst or Fair of which my father set out, was about
fourteen miles over the moors--quite, indeed, on the other side of the
Cheviots. It had thriven because it formed a convenient meeting place
for Scotch drovers and cattle rearers with the buyers from the big
Midland towns, and even from London. Little more than a village in
itself, it contained large auction marts for lamb sales, horse markets,
and the general traffic of an agricultural district. The country folk
went there of a Wednesday, which was its market day. My father's road
lay plainly enough marked across the Common, then by Brom Moor and the
Drovers' Slap, a pass through the high, green Cheviots, with a little
brook running over slaty stones at the