crowned the causeway of seaworn rock and plunged to the armpits into the
tall heather of the Wild of Blairmore.

Then Diarmid lost sight of the girl for a minute, but when he saw her
again she was far out on the perilous goat-track which led down to the
bothy itself. Diarmid scanned the distance with his eye--he knew the
length of time it would have taken a hillsman to go from point to point.

"That girl is a miracle," he muttered to himself, "she can run through
deep heather as fast as on the sand of the seashore."

He was wrong, however. She was only a Pictess, with some thousand years
of the heather instinct in her blood. Her body was lithe and supple, her
foot light, and her eye sure. Besides, she could hear what was hidden
and unheard at the stile on which Diarmid stood, the _rock-rock_ of the
short, steady navy stroke, which was pulling the landing-party from His
Majesty's ship _Britomart_ nearer and nearer to the Bothy of Blairmore.

Then she passed quite out of sight. She had a long descent before her,
sheltered seaward, so that she did not need to consider the danger of
being seen by the enemy. The leather of her sandals pattered like rain
on dry leaves on the narrow, twisted sheep-tracks, then mounted
springily over the bulls'-fell of the knolls of stunted heather, and as
it were in the clapping of a pair of hands, she appeared at the door of
the Bothy of Blairmore, scarce heated, quite unbreathed, but with grave
face and anxious eyes.

"Scatter!" she commanded, clapping her hands. "Off with you, lads! Take
to the hills. The press-gang is landing at this moment at the Abbey
Burnfoot to cut you off. Eben McClure is with them. He has heard of your
cargo-running and he wants to send you all to the wars."

"And what will _you_ do?" said Stair, who was always the boldest in
speech as he was the most reckless in action.

"I--oh, pray don't give yourself the least trouble about me, Stair
Garland. I shall stay here and wash the dishes."

The lads were declaring that under no circumstances should she remain
where she was, but Patsy had made up her mind. She must see what a
press-gang was like. She would see and speak with the officers who were
at the head of it. Perhaps they had their side to it also, which would
be worth the finding out. And the spy--she had never seen a spy, a
marker-down of men--so she resolved to see this Eben McClure, the most
hated man in all Wigtonshire. She would stay, and it was with a