night went on. As for the fire, it must sink in about three hours or
more, and only cast uncertain shadows friendly to my purpose. And then
the outlaws must cower round it, as the cold increased on them, helping
the weight of the liquor; and in their jollity any noise would be
cheered as a false alarm. Most of all, and which decided once for all my
action,--when these wild and reckless villains should be hot with ardent
spirits, what was door, or wall, to stand betwixt them and my Lorna?

This thought quickened me so much that I touched my darling reverently,
and told her in a few short words how I hoped to manage it.

'Sweetest, in two hours' time, I shall be again with you. Keep the bar
up, and have Gwenny ready to answer any one. You are safe while they are
dining, dear, and drinking healths, and all that stuff; and before they
have done with that, I shall be again with you. Have everything you care
to take in a very little compass, and Gwenny must have no baggage. I
shall knock loud, and then wait a little; and then knock twice, very
softly.'

With this I folded her in my arms; and she looked frightened at me; not
having perceived her danger; and then I told Gwenny over again what I
had told her mistress: but she only nodded her head and said, 'Young
man, go and teach thy grandmother.'

CHAPTER XLIV

BROUGHT HOME AT LAST

To my great delight I found that the weather, not often friendly to
lovers, and lately seeming so hostile, had in the most important matter
done me a signal service. For when I had promised to take my love from
the power of those wretches, the only way of escape apparent lay
through the main Doone-gate. For though I might climb the cliffs myself,
especially with the snow to aid me, I durst not try to fetch Lorna up
them, even if she were not half-starved, as well as partly frozen;
and as for Gwenny's door, as we called it (that is to say, the little
entrance from the wooded hollow), it was snowed up long ago to the level
of the hills around. Therefore I was at my wit's end how to get them
out; the passage by the Doone-gate being long, and dark, and difficult,
and leading to such a weary circuit among the snowy moors and hills.

But now, being homeward-bound by the shortest possible track, I slipped
along between the bonfire and the boundary cliffs, where I found a caved
way of snow behind a sort of avalanche: so that if the Doones had been
keeping watch (which they were not doing, but re