or in the cheeks, and the face bore signs of
suffering and care, possibly even of hunger; but for all that there was
youth there, eternal and triumphant! Not youth such as he had known
it, but youth with all history behind it, youth with centuries of
command in its blood and the world's treasures of beauty and pride in
its ancestry. Strange, he thought, that a thing so fine should be so
masterful. He felt abashed in every inch of him.

As the eyes rested on him their sorrowfulness seemed to be shot with
humour. A ghost of a smile lurked there, to which Dickson promptly
responded. He grinned and bowed.

"Very pleased to meet you, Mem. I'm Mr. McCunn from Glasgow."

"You don't even know my name," she said.

"We don't," said Heritage.

"They call me Saskia. This," nodding to the chair, "is my cousin
Eugenie.... We are in very great trouble. But why should I tell you? I
do not know you. You cannot help me."

"We can try," said Heritage. "Part of your trouble we know already
through that boy. You are imprisoned in this place by scoundrels. We
are here to help you to get out. We want to ask no questions--only to
do what you bid us."

"You are not strong enough," she said sadly. "A young man--an old
man--and a little boy. There are many against us, and any moment there
may be more."

It was Dougal's turn to break in, "There's Lean and Spittal and Dobson
and four tinklers in the Dean--that's seven; but there's us three and
five more Gorbals Die-hards--that's eight."

There was something in the boy's truculent courage that cheered her.

"I wonder," she said, and her eyes fell on each in turn.

Dickson felt impelled to intervene.

"I think this is a perfectly simple business. Here's a lady shut up in
this house against her will by a wheen blagyirds. This is a free
country and the law doesn't permit that. My advice is for one of us to
inform the police at Auchenlochan and get Dobson and his friends took
up and the lady set free to do what she likes. That is, if these folks
are really molesting her, which is not yet quite clear to my mind."

"Alas! It is not so simple as that," she said. "I dare not invoke your
English law, for perhaps in the eyes of that law I am a thief."

"Deary me, that's a bad business," said the startled Dickson.

The two women talked together in some strange tongue, and the elder
appeared to be pleading and the younger objecting. Then Saskia seemed
to come to a decision