ood to have learned both names and faces.
They were of the Wildairs crew, and one man's face enlightened him as
to whose estate he trespassed upon, the owner of the countenance being
a certain Sir Christopher Crowell, a jolly drunken dog whose land he
had heard was somewhere in the neighbourhood. The other two men were a
Lord Eldershawe and Sir Jeoffry Wildairs himself, while the tall
stripling with them 'twas easy to give a name to, though she strode
over the heather with her gun on her shoulder and as full a game-bag as
if she had been a man--it being Mistress Clorinda, in corduroy and with
her looped hair threatening to break loose and hanging in disorder
about her glowing face. They were plainly in gay humour, though
wearied, and talked and laughed noisily as they came.

"We have tramped enough," cried Sir Jeoffry, "and bagged birds enough
for one morning. 'Tis time we rested our bones and put meat and drink
in our bellies."

He flung himself down upon the heather and the other men followed his
example. Mistress Clo, however, remaining standing, at first leaning
upon her gun.

My lord Marquess gazed down at her from his ledge and shut his teeth in
anger at the mounting of the blood to his cheek and its unseemly
burning there.

"I will stay where I am and look at her, at least," he said. "To be
looked at does no woman harm, and to look at one can harm no man--if he
be going to Flanders."

That which disturbed him most was his realising that he always thought
of her as a woman--and also that she _was_ a woman and no child. 'Twas
almost impossible to believe she was no older than was said, when one
beheld her height and youthful splendour of body and bearing. He knew
no woman of twenty as tall as she and shaped with such strength and
fineness. Her head was set so on her long throat and her eyes so looked
out from under her thick jet lashes, that in merely standing erect she
seemed to command and somewhat disdain; but when she laughed, her red
lips curling, her little strong teeth gleaming, and her eyes opening
and flashing mirth, she was the archest, most boldly joyous creature a
man had ever beheld. Her morning's work on the moors had made her look
like young Nature's self, her cheek was burnt rich-brown and crimson,
her disordered hair twined in big rough rings about her forehead, her
movements were as light, alert, and perfect as if she had been a deer
or any wild thing of the woods or fields. There was that a