rse, my brave men. We ride to
Ardrochan!" And he turned his pony.

[Illustration: "To-night reflect on your misdeeds. To-morrow we will
treat of your ransom."]

The money-lender broke into threats and abuse; then, as the pony drew
further away, he passed to entreaties. Tinker never turned his head;
he rode on, brimming with joyous triumph; he had a real prisoner.

Mr. Lambert shouted after him till he was hoarse, he shouted after him
till his voice was a wheezy croak. Tinker passed out of sight without
a glance back, and, for a while, that iron-hearted, inexorable man of
many loans, sobbed like a child with mingled rage and fear. Then he
scrambled down the ladder, and tried the door. There was no chance of
his bursting it open; that was a feat far beyond his strength; and
though he might have worked the rusted bars out of the window, he could
never have forced his rotundity through it. Then he bethought himself
of passers-by, and hurried to the top of the tower. There was no one
in sight. He shouted and shouted till he lost his voice again; the
echoes died away among the empty hills. He leaned upon the parapet
waiting, with the faintest hope that the diabolical boy would tire of
his joke, return, and set him free. Again and again he asked himself
who was this boy who had recognised him in this Scotch desert.

The dusk gathered till he could not see a hundred yards from the tower.
Then he came down, struck a match, and examined the bottom room; it was
being borne in upon him that he was destined to spend the night in it.
It was some twelve feet square, and the stone floor was clean. In one
corner was a pile of heather; but there was no way of stopping up the
window, and the night was setting in chill.

He went back to the top of the tower; it was dark now. He shouted
again. The conviction of the hopelessness of his plight was taking a
strong hold upon him, and he was growing hungry. He stamped wearily
round the top of the tower to warm his chilling body, pondering a
hundred futile plans of escape, breaking off to consign to perdition
the deceptive angel child, and meditating many different revenges. At
the end of an hour he went down the ladder, and flung himself on the
pile of heather in a paroxysm of despair.

Till nearly ten o'clock he went now and again to the top of the tower,
and shouted. He was beginning to grow very hungry. At ten o'clock he
buried himself in the heather, and slept for an