ient Wark of the Cassillis folk. In ten minutes, before even the
cavalcade was entirely mounted, the flames were bursting through the
humped roof in a fiery fountain of gold sparks and ruddy jags of flame,
while the pillar of smoke rose many hundreds of feet into the still
morning air.

At the English Gate, by which they rode out, they encountered a company
of dragoons, weary from a long march, their horses footsore and the men
reeling in their saddles with sleep.

"You have come too late," cried Godfrey McCulloch to the leader, waving
his hand in the direction of the fiery beacon, now loudly crackling, and
sprouting to the heavens.

But the officer answered not a word. His eyes were on Patsy Ferris
riding by the side of Stair Garland, talking to him as one who had won a
great prize, or has found her heart's desire.

So the captain of dragoons gave no order, for at the sight his heart was
turned to stone within him.

His name was Louis Raincy, and he had quite forgotten pretty Mrs.
Arlington.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE PICT'S WAY IS THE WOMAN'S WAY

The deed being done, the doers soon dispersed. A strong body-guard
composed of Back Shore men and the lads from the Stewartry seaboard rode
with Patsy and Stair to the small unfrequented landing-place of Port
Luce, where a boat was waiting for them. Patsy dismounted from Honeypot
and bade Stair Garland get on board.

"I am in command still, Stair," she cried, smiling at his bewilderment.
"Besides, I am running off with you, as Uncle Ju says the Pictish women
always did!"

And Stair humbly obeyed, for the thing he heard was too marvellous for
him to believe. Though his heart beat hard, he kept his head, and did
not allow his imagination to run away with him. He scented one of
Patsy's jests. That she should come from London in the _Good Intent_,
that she should raise the country, that she should head the
prison-breakers--these things he could understand. Still he remembered
what she had said when she had been run away with by the Duke of
Lyonesse.

"I was in no danger: when it is my fate to love a man, it is I, Patsy
Ferris, who shall run away with him!"

But he was a wise lad and had lived too long among the Will-o'-the-Wisps
on the Wild of Blairmore to be easily led astray by them. So he took
Patsy's speech as merely her way and thought no more about it--at least
not more than he could help.

It was already high day, brisk and clean-blowing, when they reach