d it was drawn up in the court-yard to
the door. He was looking through the darkness at some object in the
distance, and when Paul came up he was not at first conscious of his
master's presence.

"What were you looking at, Natt?" said Paul, pulling on his gloves.

"I war wond'rin' whether lang Dick o' the Syke had kindled a fire
to-night, or whether yon lowe on the side of the Causey were frae the
new smelting-house."

Paul glanced over the horse's head. A deep glow stood out against the
fell. All around was darkness.

"The smelting-house, I should say," said Paul, and jumped to his seat
beside Natt.

By one of the lamps that the trap carried, he looked at his watch.

"A quarter past seven. It will be smart driving, but you can give the
mare her own time coming back."

Then he took the reins, and in another moment they were gone.

CHAPTER V.

At eight o'clock that night the sky was brilliantly lighted up, and the
sound of many voices was borne on the night wind. The red flare came
from the Syke; the mill was afire. Showers of sparks and sheets of flame
were leaping and streaming into the sky. Men and women were hurrying to
and fro, and the women's shrill cries mingled with the men's shouts. At
intervals the brightness of the glare faded, and then a column of
choking smoke poured out and was borne away on the wind. Dick, the
miller, was there, with the scorching heat reddening his wrathful face.
John Proudfoot had raised a ladder against the mill, and, hatchet in
hand, was going to cut away the cross-trees; but the heat drove him
back. The sharp snap of the flames told of timbers being ripped away.

"No use--it's gone," said the blacksmith, dragging the ladder behind
him.

"I telt them afore what their damned smelting-house would do for me!"
said the miller, striding about in his impotent rage.

Parson Christian was standing by the gate on the windward side of the
mill-yard, with Laird Fisher beside him, looking on in silence at the
leaping flames.

"The wind is from the south," he said, "and a spark of the hot refuse
shot down the bank has been blown into the mill."

The mill was a wooden structure, and the fire held it like a serpent in
its grip. People were coming and going from the darkness into the red
glare, and out of the glare into the darkness. Among them was one
stalwart figure that none noticed in the general confusion.

"Have you a tarpaulin?" said this man, addressing those about h