er ready, and I've sat waiting for you these
two nights, I knew rightly that it was here you'd come first."

"Where is my father?"

"He's gone, Master Neal. The sojers came and took him, but he bid me
tell you not to be afeard or taking on about him. He was thinking they'd
send him across the sea, maybe to Scotland, he said, but they wouldna
hurt him. So eat your bit and take your sup, my bairn. You must be sore
troubled with the hunger. How ever did ye thole?"

"I have your bed ready for you," she said as Neal ate, "and it's in it
you ought to be by right. I'm thinking it's more than yin night since ye
hae lain atween the sheets, judging by the looks of ye."

"It's five, Hannah, and it will be twice five more before I sleep in a
bed again. I dare not stay here."

"Thon's what Miss Una said. But, faith, if it's the yeomen you're afeard
of, I'll no let them near you."

"I daren't, Hannah; I daren't do it. I must away to-night and lie in the
Pigeon Cave. I'll be safe there, and you must manage somehow to get food
to me."

"Is it me that you look to be climbing down them sliddery rocks and
swimming intil the cold sea among your caves and hiding holes? I'm too
old for the like, but there's a lassie with bonny brown eyes that'll do
that and more for ye. Don't you be afeard, Master Neal. She'd climb
the Causey chimney pots and take the silver sixpence off the top if
she thought you were wanting it. Ay, or swim intil them caves, that God
Almighty never meant for man nor maid to enter, and if were waiting for
her at the hinder end of one of them. She's been here an odd time or twa
since ever she got the letter that the groom lad fetched. I've seen the
glint in her eyes at the sound o' your name, and the red go out of her
cheek at word of them dratted yeos, bad scran to them! I'm no so old
yet, but I mind weel how a young lassie feels for the lad she's after.
Ay, my bairn, it's all yin, gentle or simple, lord's daughter or
beggar's wench, when the love of a lad has got the grip o' them. And
there was yin with her--the foreign lady with the lang name. For all
that she mocks and fleers as if there was nothing in the wide world but
play-actin' and gagin' about. Faith, she's an artist, but she might be
more help than Miss Una herself if it came to a pinch. She's a cunning
one, that. I'm thinking that she's no unlike the serpent that's more
subtle than any beast of the field. She has a way of glowerin' a body
and giving a bit