and empty, but she could fill the
space in fancy with sturdy archer, man-at-arms, and corsleted rider,
for that the present venerable edifice had been built into an older one
the stump of a square tower remained to testify.

Thomas Savine pounded on the oaken door at one end of the courtyard
until it was opened by a bent-shouldered man with frosted hair and
wrinkled visage.

"We are unfortunate strangers with a guide who has lost his way, and it
would be a favor if you could take us in to-night out of the storm," he
said. The older man glanced at the party suspiciously.

"If you ride straight on across the moor you'll find a road, and a
brand new hotel in twelve miles, where you'll get whatever you have
been used to," he said. "I once took some London folks in, and after
the thanks they gave me I never will again."

"We're not Londoners, only forlorn Canadians," explained Thomas Savine.
"Never mind, Matilda; he'll find out that you're an American in due
time. We have all learned to rough it in our own country, and would
trouble you very little."

"What part of Canada?" asked the forbidding figure in the doorway, and
when Savine answered, "British Columbia," called "Margery!" A little
weazened woman, with cheeks still ruddy from much lashing of the wind,
appeared in the portal.

"Strangers from British Columbia! Perhaps they know the master," said
the man, and there was a whispering until the woman vanished, saying,
"I'll ask Miss Gracie."

She returned promptly, and, with a reserved courtesy, bade the party
enter. Then she sent her husband and the guide to stable the ponies,
and fifteen minutes later the travelers reassembled beside the
deep-seated window of a great stone-flagged room, darkly wainscoted,
which apparently once had been the hall, and was now kitchen. There
were a spotless cloth and neat cutlery on the table by the window;
trout and bacon, hacked from the sides hanging beneath the
smoke-blackened beams, frizzled upon a peat fire; and, though she found
neither wine nor potatoes, Mrs. Savine said that she had not enjoyed
such a meal since she left Vancouver.

"We can't give you a sitting-room to yourselves," apologized the
withered dame as the removed the cloth. "What furniture there is above
is covered up, and it will be ill finding you sleeping quarters even.
Nobody lives here beside ourselves, except when Mr. Forsyth comes down
for a few weeks' shooting. His wife was a Thurston, and he