Foes

of Paris, for he had been there, and of Rome, for he had be

!" ejaculated

s of elves, pixies, fays, men of peace and all! Elspeth let the milk-pans be and sat beside them on the long bench, and, with hands folded in her lap, looked with brown eyes many a league away. Neither Elspeth nor Gilian was without book learni

wings. This was his friend. There was nothing finer than

dy came by who was

de us! Th

worked in them. Snow was on the ground outside and poor folk were freezing

"She'll sit yet in the cauld

the king, and the courtiers behi

girls set for the two cold meat and bannocks and ale. And still at ta

" said Alexa

enny. "But, oh, h

eaten. It was t

xander. "We're for the Kelpie's Pool,

"Why will you go to the Kelpi

it to him. He'

Elspeth. "A drear

orth, down the bank and into the path that ran to the glen. Looking back, the youths saw them there-Elspe

nny lasses!

They'r

ld see Miss Delafield o

e so b

tiful and high-born and an heiress

to be a colon

nking that you were this and that in

-men. It's only wha

ifted me on their shields and called me king,

d. And, oh, man, you ta

narrow, dark-gold eyes. "They

d in his stride. "Hu

shadow; in the sunlight, fine, green-gold, and alive. The fallen leaves, moved by foot or by breeze, made a light, dry, talking sound. The white birch stems clustered and leaned; patches of bright-green moss ran between the drifts of l

tic others acted himself a fantastic part. Sometimes with a blind turning within he looked for himself. He had his own thoughts of God here, of God and the Kirk and the devil. Often, too, he neither read, dreamed, nor thought. He might lie an hour, still, passive, receptive. The trees and the clouds, crag life, bird life, and flower life, life of water, earth, and air, came inside. He was so used to his own silence in the glen that when he walked through it with others he kept it still. Slightly taciturn everywhere, he was actively so here. The path narrowing, he and Ian must go in single file. Leading, Alexander traveled in silence, and Ian, behind, not familiar with t

was better. Three-fourths of the way through they came to an opening

table cavern. "Come in-sit down! The Kelpie's Pool is out of

the dropped curtain they saw the world brokenly; the light in the ca

ace for robbers, w

here the last time I came." Dragging them into the middle of the rock chamber, he swept up with them the dead leaves, then took from a great pou

f long ago, cavemen who had dispossessed bear or wolf, who might presently with a sharpened bone and some red pigment draw bison and deer in procession upon the cave wall.-They were skin-clad hillmen, shag-haired, with strange, rude weapons, in hiding here after hard fighting with a disciplined, conquering foe who had swords and shining breastplates and crested helmets.-They were fellow-soldiers of that conquering tide, Romans of a band that kept the Wall, proud, with talk o

ommon and must arrange it for their next coming. Going outside, they gathered dead and fallen wood, broke it into right lengths, and, carrying it within, heaped it in the corner. With a bough of pine they swept the floor, then, leaving the trea

ane, then I'

he store

t. Their path had been a mounting one; they were now on higher earth, near the plateau or watershed that marked the

comes up between trees? Th

's s

ife. She's a scryer.

on, sat fishing in the stream. Mother Binning had been working in the garden, but when she saw the figures o

how are the lair

very well

e to Edinburgh? Wha

Rullock, of

gaeing to Edinburgh? Wi

we w

ed them again with a gesture. "Dinna mak sic haste! There's time enough behind us, and time enough before u

ite Farm and in the cave,

Mother. We're bound f

hat's a drear, wanrestfu' p

it yet. I want t

"Eh, then, if ye maun gae, gae!... We're

ander. He spoke in a wheedling, kindly voice,

l o' coffee by me. I'll mak twa cups, fo

moving form. The bare sunshine took on a remote, a cool and foreign, aspect. The small singing of the wind in whin and heather came from a thin, eery world. Down below them they saw the dark

ow I like it as well or better than I do the

e best. This is

lenfernie without any knowi

ld do that, too, if there was

mean the

es

that time I wanted to see how

ell of the sky above. He, too, had love of beauty-a more sensuous love than Al

air was clear and the night dark and grand. I looked

upon the moorside above the Kelpie's Pool. The water was

ie-did you ev

w anything like that but once. I never told any one about it. It may hav

o

me over my foot. It was like something holding my ankles.... And then I saw her-if it was not the willow. She was like a fair woman with dark hair unsnooded. She looked at me as though she would mock me, and I thought she laughed-and then the mist rolled down and over

Ian. There was that in Ian that did not like this, that was jealous of being surpassed. And there was that in Ian that would not directly display this feeling, that would

is d

ess, you would think

go swi

and it's growing cold. H

t, he could be determined and ardent. "What's a little mirk and cold

h plunging down to the icy Eurotas. The earth around lay as stripped as they; the naked, ineffable blue ether held them as it did all things; the wandering air broke against them in invisible surf. They ran down the long slope of the moor, parted the reeds, and dived to meet their own reflections. The water was most t

tle distance, might even a tall woman. It put out two broken, shortened branches like arms.... He lost himself in the study of possibilities, balanced among the reeds that sighed around. He could not decide, so at last he shook himself from that consideration, and, pushing into shallow water, stepped from the pool. He had taken

an

ank a

unted and across the strip of weeds, and in again to the steel-dark water. "

bringing with haste the clothes from the stone above, knelt besi

xand

or. "I'm here. Eh, lad, b

up. "I'm-I'm all right now. L

blood came slowly back into the latter'

oor and across, and then down to the trees, the stream, and the glen. "There's the smoke from her chimney! You may ha

wn to the f

d so he turned in Alexander's arm, put his own arm around the other'

e," said Alexander

to me; one day I'l

know that we like each other, a

nd so they came to Mother Binning