er look for Ann."

After short but vigorous search little Ann was found--in the car,
instinct having told her of a forward movement in which it was her duty
to take part. And soon they had started, Ann between them in that
peculiar state of silence to which she became liable when really
interested.

From the Monkland estate, flowered, lawned, and timbered, to the open
moor, was like passing to another world; for no sooner was the last lodge
of the Western drive left behind, than there came into sudden view the
most pagan bit of landscape in all England. In this wild
parliament-house, clouds, rocks, sun, and winds met and consulted. The
'old' men, too, had left their spirits among the great stones, which lay
couched like lions on the hill-tops, under the white clouds, and their
brethren, the hunting buzzard hawks. Here the very rocks were restless,
changing form, and sense, and colour from day to day, as though
worshipping the unexpected, and refusing themselves to law. The winds
too in their passage revolted against their courses, and came tearing
down wherever there were combes or crannies, so that men in their
shelters might still learn the power of the wild gods.

The wonders of this prospect were entirely lost on little Ann, and
somewhat so on Courtier, deeply engaged in reconciling those two alien
principles, courtesy, and the love of looking at a pretty face. He was
wondering too what this girl of twenty, who had the self-possession of a
woman of forty, might be thinking. It was little Ann who broke the
silence.

"Auntie Babs, it wasn't a very strong house, was it?"

Courtier looked in the direction of her small finger. There was the
wreck of a little house, which stood close to a stone man who had
obviously possessed that hill before there were men of flesh. Over one
corner of the sorry ruin, a single patch of roof still clung, but the
rest was open.

"He was a silly man to build it, wasn't he, Ann? That's why they call it
Ashman's Folly."

"Is he alive?"

"Not quite--it's just a hundred years ago."

"What made him build it here?"

"He hated women, and--the roof fell in on him."

"Why did he hate women?"

"He was a crank."

"What is a crank?"

"Ask Mr. Courtier."

Under this girl's calm quizzical glance, Courtier endeavoured to find an
answer to that question.

"A crank," he said slowly, "is a man like me."

He heard a little laugh, and became acutely conscious of Ann's
dispassion