ith which such a person must necessarily be
cursed.

The Deil's Den had earned its name in earlier centuries from the bloody
deeds of its first owners. No gillie would go within a mile of it,
even in bright sunshine. Tinker's carelessness of its ghosts, a
headless woman and a redheaded man with his throat cut, had won him the
deepest respect of the village, or rather hamlet, of Ardrochan. Twice
he had constrained himself to wait in the tower till dusk, in the hope
that his fearful, but inquiring, spirit would be gratified by the sight
of one or other of these psychic curiosities.

It was a two-storied building, and its stone seemed likely to last as
long as the hills from which it had been quarried. In some thought
that it might be used as a watch-tower by his keepers, Lord Crosland
had repaired its inside, and fitted it with a stout door and two
ladders, one running to the second story and another to the roof. From
here the keen eyes of Hildebrand Anne, Baron of Ardrochan, scanned
often the countryside, looking for travelling merchants or wandering
knights; while his gallant steed Black Rudolph, whose coat was drab and
dingy, waited saddled and bridled below, and Blazer the bloodhound
sniffed about the burn hard by. Blazer had a weakness for rats quite
uncommon in bloodhounds.

Tinker cherished but a faint hope that Fortune would ever send him a
prisoner, even a braw, shock-headed lad, or sonsie, savage lassie of
the country. But he did not do justice to that goddess's love of
mischief. It was she who inspired into Mr. Robert Lambert the desire
to shine in the Great World; and it was she who gave him the idea of
taking for the season Lord Hardacre's house and forest of Tullispaith,
in lieu of the cash which he would never get. Thither he invited
certain spirited young clients, who had practically only the choice of
being Mr. Lambert's guests at Tullispaith or King Edward's at Holloway.
Thither he came, a week beforehand, to make ready for them.

At once he set about becoming an accomplished deer-stalker. For three
days he rode, or tramped, about the forest of Tullispaith, in search of
red deer which, in quite foolish estimate of their peril, insisted
always on putting a hill between themselves and his rifle. On the
fourth day he rested, for though his spirit was willing, his legs were
weak. This inactivity irked him, for he knew the tireless energy of
the English sportsman; and at noon Fortune inspired