e deil's aye kind to his ain.
Haste ye back, Mem, and be sure I'll tak' guid care o' your leddy
cousin."

The proper way to the Mains of Garple was either by the station and the
Ayr road, or by the Auchenlochan highway, branching off half a mile
beyond the Garple bridge. But Dickson, who had been studying the map
and fancied himself as a pathfinder, chose the direct route across the
Long Muir as being at once shorter and more sequestered. With the dawn
the wind had risen again, but it had shifted towards the north-west and
was many degrees colder. The mist was furling on the hills like sails,
the rain had ceased, and out at sea the eye covered a mile or two of
wild water. The moor was drenching wet, and the peat bogs were
brimming with inky pools, so that soon the travellers were soaked to
the knees. Dickson had no fear of pursuit, for he calculated that
Dobson and his friends, even if they had got out, would be busy looking
for the truants in the vicinity of the House and would presently be
engaged with the old Tower. But he realized, too, that speed on his
errand was vital, for at any moment the Unknown might arrive from the
sea.

So he kept up a good pace, half-running, half-striding, till they had
passed the railway, and he found himself gasping with a stitch in his
side, and compelled to rest in the lee of what had once been a
sheepfold. Saskia amazed him. She moved over the rough heather like a
deer, and it was her hand that helped him across the deeper hags.
Before such youth and vigour he felt clumsy and old. She stood looking
down at him as he recovered his breath, cool, unruffled, alert as
Diana. His mind fled to Heritage, and it occurred to him suddenly that
the Poet had set his affections very high. Loyalty drove him to speak
for his friend.

"I've got the easy job," he said. "Mr. Heritage will have the whole
pack on him in that old Tower, and him with such a sore clout on his
head. I've left him my pistol. He's a terrible brave man!"

She smiled.

"Ay, and he's a poet too."

"So?" she said. "I did not know. He is very young."

"He's a man of very high ideels."

She puzzled at the word, and then smiled. "He is like many of our
young men in Russia, the students--his mind is in a ferment and he does
not know what he wants. But he is brave."

This seemed to Dickson's loyal soul but a chilly tribute.

"I think he is in love with me," she continued.

He looked up startled, and saw i