came for me to leave the road and take the short-cut
over the moors; but in the deluge, where the eyes could see no more
than a yard or two into a grey wall of rain, I began to misdoubt my
knowledge of the way. On the left I saw a stone dovecot and a cluster
of trees about a gateway; so, knowing how few and remote were the
dwellings on the moorland, I judged it wiser to seek guidance before I
strayed too far.

The place was grown up with grass and sore neglected. Weeds made a
carpet on the avenue, and the dykes were broke by cattle at a dozen
places. Suddenly through the falling water there stood up the gaunt end
of a house. It was no cot or farm, but a proud mansion, though badly
needing repair. A low stone wall bordered a pleasance, but the garden
had fallen out of order, and a dial-stone lay flat on the earth.

My first thought was that the place was tenantless, till I caught sight
of a thin spire of smoke struggling against the downpour. I hoped to
come on some gardener or groom from whom I could seek direction, so I
skirted the pleasance to find the kitchen door. A glow of fire in one
of the rooms cried welcome to my shivering bones, and on the far side
of the house I found signs of better care. The rank grasses had been
mown to make a walk, and in a corner flourished a little group of
pot-herbs. But there was no man to be seen, and I was about to retreat
and try the farm-town, when out of the doorway stepped a girl.

She was maybe sixteen years old, tall and well-grown, but of her face I
could see little, since she was all muffled in a great horseman's
cloak. The hood of it covered her hair, and the wide flaps were folded
over her bosom. She sniffed the chill wind, and held her head up to the
rain, and all the while, in a clear childish voice, she was singing.

It was a song I had heard, one made by the great Montrose, who had
suffered shameful death in Edinburgh thirty years before. It was a
man's song, full of pride and daring, and not for the lips of a young
maid. But that hooded girl in the wild weather sang it with a challenge
and a fire that no cavalier could have bettered.

"My dear and only love, I pray
That little world of thee
Be governed by no other sway
Than purest monarchy."

"For if confusion have a part,
Which virtuous souls abhor,
And hold a synod in thy heart,
I'll never love thee more."

So she sang, like youth daring fortune to give it aug