ld not, I sat me down on a
heather bush and cried out to her that it was a silly game to play, and
that we should begin something else. So she stopped and came back slowly
over the heather. What I liked at all times about Maisie Lennox was that
she never taunted back, but only took her own way when she wanted
it--and she mostly did--silently and as if there were no other way in
the world. For in all things she had an excellent humour of silence,
which, though I knew it not then, is rarer and worthier than diamonds.
Also she knew, what it seems to me that a woman but rarely knows, when
it is worth while making a stand to gain her will.

CHAPTER II.

GAY GARLAND CARRIES DOUBLE.

So after that we played yet another game, hiding together in the hags
and crawling from bent bush to rush clump with mighty caution and
discernment, making believe that the troopers sought us both. For this
was the favourite bairns' play everywhere in the West and South.

Once when we came near to the house Gay Garland followed us, having been
turned out on the Duchrae home park. He ran to me, as he ever did, for
farings, and I fed him with crumblings out of my jacket
pocket--"moolings" Maisie Lennox called them--which he ate out of my
hand, a pretty thing to see in so noble a beast. Then he followed us
about in our hidings, begging and sorning upon us for more. This made
him not a little troublesome, till we would gladly have sent him back.
But Gay Garland was a beast not easily turned.

After a while we came to the little wood of Mount Pleasant, where I saw
some red rags fluttering on a bush. I was for going aside to see what
they might be, but Maisie Lennox cried at me to turn back.

"There are people hereabouts that are not very chancy. My father saw the
Marshalls go by this morning!"

Often and often I had heard of the tribe before, and they had a singular
name for their ill-done deeds. Indeed the whole land was so overrun with
beggars of the Strong Hand, and the times so unsettled, that nothing
could be done to put a stop to their spoilings. For the King and his men
were too busy riding down poor folk that carried Bibles and went to
field-preachings, to pay attention to such as merely invaded homesteads
and lifted gear.

As we set breast to the brae and came to the top of the little hill, I
stumbled over something white and soft lying behind a heather bush. It
was a sheep--dead, and with much of it rent and carried away. The