n, the bold deeds of the smugglers, and the fights of the Free
Bands against the press-gangs. But always, by all roads and bypaths, she
would bring her back to the Bothy of the Wild of Blairmore. Was she sure
that there was the possibility of any decent comfort in such a place at
such a season?

Patsy shut her eyes, visualized the Wild as she had often seen it when
she made a short cut from her Uncle Julian's to the sheltered valley of
the Mays Water. More than once when the lads were in hiding after some
offence against the revenue laws, which had brought troops into the
district, Jean and she had been guided by Stair to the fastness, where
they had been royally entertained, before being convoyed each to her
home by the genial outlaws.

She spoke of the wild white moor, cut with deep hags, the arms of the
"scroggie" thorns blown away from the sea and clawing at the ground like
spectral hands, black beneath, but every gnarled knuckle and digit
outlined in purest white above. Sometimes the clean tablecloth of white
which covered a little loch, was cut by a round black "well-eye" through
which a spring oozed oilily, refusing to freeze.

These must be known and avoided, for the ice was always thin thereabouts
and a heedless night-wanderer might very easily vanish, never to be
heard of more.

Then there was the Bothy. Little could be seen of that. Gone the summer
creepers which had made it a bower. It crouched low, almost level with
the snowladen tops of the heather bushes, which grew high about, hidden
and banked behind immense masses of sods, all now covered with the
uniform mantle of the snow. Great wreaths formed in the first swirl of
the storms had piled themselves up so as to overhang the low chimney.
You might pass it a score of times, and if you missed the faint blue
reek stealing up along the side of the precipitous Knock Hill, you would
see nothing of it, nor so much as suspect that there was a habitation of
living men within miles.

As Patsy talked, the Princess had gradually been leaning further and
further forward, her lips parted, and shuddering a little as the wind
lashed the snow against the great windows of Hanover Lodge.

"Oh," she said at length, as if to herself, "to think of him there in
that terrible place and of us here. It makes me hate all this comfort.
Are you not ashamed, Patsy?"

Patsy the frank had some difficulty in repressing the ungrateful speech
which came to her lips but did not pas