oak.  I had to wait long for a shot, but when at last he rose I planted a bullet fairly behind his shoulder, and he dropped within ten paces.  His size amazed me, for he was as big as a cart-horse in body, and carried a spread of branching antlers like a forest tree.  To me, accustomed to the little deer of the Tidewater, this great creature seemed a portent, and I guessed that he was that elk which I had heard of from the Border hunters.  Anyhow he gave me wealth of food.  I hid some in a cool place, and took the rest with me, packed in bark, in a great bundle on my shoulders.

The road back was easier than I had feared, for I had the slope of the hill to guide me; but I was mortally weary of my load before I plumped it down inside the stockade.  Presently Bertrand and Donaldson returned.  They brought only a few rabbits, but they had set many traps, and in a hill burn they had caught some fine golden-bellied trout.  Soon venison steaks and fish were grilling in the embers, and Elspeth set to baking cakes on a griddle.  Those left behind had worked well, and the palisade was as perfect as could be contrived.  A runlet of water had been led through a hollow trunk into a trough—­also hewn from a log—­close by Elspeth’s bower, where she could make her toilet unperplexed by other eyes.  Also they had led a stream into the horses’ enclosure, so that they could be watered with ease.

The weather cleared in the evening, as it often does in a hill country.  From the stockade we had no prospect save the reddening western sky, but I liked to think that in a little walk I could see old Studd’s Promised Land.  That was a joy I reserved for myself on the morrow, I look back on that late afternoon with delight as a curious interlude of peace.  We had forgotten that we were fugitives in a treacherous land, I for one had forgotten the grim purpose of our quest, and we cooked supper as if we were a band of careless folk taking our pleasure in the wilds.  Wood-smoke is always for me an intoxication like strong drink.  It seems the incense of nature’s altar, calling up the shades of the old forest gods, smacking of rest and comfort in the heart of solitude.  And what odour can vie for hungry folk with that of roasting meat in the clear hush of twilight?  The sight of that little camp is still in my memory.  Elspeth flitted about busied with her cookery, the glow of the sunset lighting up her dark hair.  Bertrand did the roasting, crouched like a gnome by the edge of the fire.  Grey fetched and carried for the cooks, a docile and cheerful servant, with nothing in his look to recall the proud gentleman of the Tidewater.  Donaldson sat on a log, contentedly smoking his pipe, while Ringan, whistling a strathspey, attended to the horses.  Only Shalah stood aloof, his eyes fixed vacantly on the western sky, and his ear intent on the multitudinous voices of the twilit woods.