m sure the situation, as the
Counsellor says at the beginning of a speech, the situation, to say the
least, is serious enough for anything. Come, Gwenny, imitate him.'

Gwenny was famed for her imitation of the Counsellor making a speech;
and she began to shake her hair, and mount upon a footstool; but I
really could not have this, though even Lorna ordered it. The truth
was that my darling maiden was in such wild spirits, at seeing me so
unexpected, and at the prospect of release, and of what she had never
known, quiet life and happiness, that like all warm and loving natures,
she could scarce control herself.

'Come to this frozen window, John, and see them light the stack-fire.
They will little know who looks at them. Now be very good, John. You
stay in that corner, dear, and I will stand on this side; and try to
breathe yourself a peep-hole through the lovely spears and banners. Oh,
you don't know how to do it. I must do it for you. Breathe three times,
like that, and that; and then you rub it with your fingers, before it
has time to freeze again.'

All this she did so beautifully, with her lips put up like cherries, and
her fingers bent half back, as only girls can bend them, and her little
waist thrown out against the white of the snowed-up window, that I made
her do it three times over; and I stopped her every time and let it
freeze again, that so she might be the longer. Now I knew that all her
love was mine, every bit as much as mine was hers; yet I must have her
to show it, dwelling upon every proof, lengthening out all certainty.
Perhaps the jealous heart is loath to own a life worth twice its own. Be
that as it may, I know that we thawed the window nicely.

And then I saw, far down the stream (or rather down the bed of it, for
there was no stream visible), a little form of fire arising, red, and
dark, and flickering. Presently it caught on something, and went upward
boldly; and then it struck into many forks, and then it fell, and rose
again.

'Do you know what all that is, John?' asked Lorna, smiling cleverly at
the manner of my staring.

'How on earth should I know? Papists burn Protestants in the flesh; and
Protestants burn Papists in effigy, as we mock them. Lorna, are they
going to burn any one to-night?'

'No, you dear. I must rid you of these things. I see that you are
bigoted. The Doones are firing Dunkery beacon, to celebrate their new
captain.'

'But how could they bring it here through t