t throw your life
away."

The anger died out of Neal's heart. This last appeal left him with no
feeling but tenderness. He thought of his father, a lone man, waiting
for news of him, of Donald, of the battle, and the cause. He thought of
Una St. Clair and the ever-new marvel of the love that she had confessed
to him. Still he hesitated. Brought up in the stern faith of the
Puritans, he believed that because a thing offered a prospect of great
delight it must somehow be wrong. The longing to see Una again came
on him, sweeping over all other thought and emotion as the flowing
spring-tide in late September sweeps over the broad sands of the
northern coast. To see her, to hear her, to touch her, perhaps to kiss
her again, was the one thing supremely desirable in life. Therefore, he
felt instinctively that it must be a tempter's voice which showed him
the way to the fulfilment of such desire.

"Are you sure," he asked, "that you are not, out of love for me,
advising me to do wrong?"

"I am sure," said Hope.

Afterwards they talked of how Neal might best accomplish his journey to
Dunseveric. It was clear to Hope, as it had been to Maurice St. Clair,
that the main roads must be avoided, and that all travelling must be
done by night; but it was not very easy to go through an unknown country
by night, and until Neal got as far as Ballymoney he could not be sure
of being able to find his way.

"I might manage it," he said, "if I could keep to the main road. I have
travelled it once and I think I should not miss it even at night, but
how am I to get along lanes and across fields which I have never seen
without losing myself?"

"Ah," said Hope, "that is a difficulty, and yet there is a way out of
it. Phelim, the blind piper, is with us here. God knows how he got safe
from the battle yesterday, and found his way to us. He will be no use to
us any more, only a hindrance. We shall not march to battle again with
our pipes playing and our colours flying. I think I shall be able to
persuade him to act as your guide. The blind leading the ignorant, eh,
Neal? But Phelim knows every lane and path in the country. How he does
I don't know. Perhaps some new sense is developed in the blind.
Anyway, night and day are alike to him. If he takes you as far as the
neighbourhood of Ballymoney you'll be able to find the rest of the way
afterwards yourself."

That night, while M'Cracken marched the remnant of his army to
Slievemis, Neal and