rovers, travellers seen on the moss and then
vanishing in some hollow, like the shadow of a cloud, to be seen no
more, weighed heavy upon them.

Then some fool cried out that Hobby Stennis had been often seen of late
with his son Robin's daughter--meaning Elsie--and who knew?

Now, no one can ever tell what will seem reasonable to a crowd of such
rustics as those about us. And, indeed, if it had not been for my
mother--who strode out, and, even in her grief, raged upon
them--asserting that Elsie was a good girl and should not be meddled
with, I do believe that Nance Edgar's house would have been routed out
from garret to hallan, to seek for the captors or assassins of my
father.

The sound of many feet, the hoarse murmur of voices in angry
discussion, and perhaps, also, the reflected light of many lanterns
awoke both Nance Edgar and Elsie. But it was Elsie who was first down.
"What is it?" she asked, standing in the doorway with a plaid about her
shoulders, and her feet thrust into Nance Edgar's big, wooden-soled,
winter clogs. "What has brought you out?"

I told her that my father had not returned from Longtown, but that some
one had brought Dapple home, unlocked the door of the yard, and let in
the mare--then relocked it and gone his way. I had quite
forgotten--shame be to me--that of all this my mother had yet been told
nothing. She stumbled where she stood a little before them all. A
kind of hoarse cry escaped her lips, and it was into Elsie's arms that
she fell. Perhaps it was as well. For in the rough and tumble of that
dark, wintry campaign there was no place for women.

In a while Nance Edgar came out also, and she and Elsie soon got my
poor mother into a comfortable bed. I had a word or two with Elsie.
She would fain have come, making no doubt but that it was in the
neighbourhood of that accursed house of the Moat Grange that my father,
if, indeed, he were dead, had come by his end.

But I reminded her, first, that she was Hobby Stennis's own
granddaughter. Also, she was a teacher in the local school, and,
accordingly, leaving all else to one side, that she and I must not run
the hills and woods as we had been in the habit of doing ever since she
had come from Mrs. Comline's as a little toddling maid. Last of all,
my mother would stay behind more contentedly if so be Elsie were with
her.

Now it was a black frost, clean and durable. There had, of course,
been considerable traffic over the m