trained to sturdy marching and climbing even from my babyhood.  Because I so loved the moor, we nearly always rambled there.  Often we set out early in the morning, and some simple food was carried, so that we need not return to the castle until we chose.  I would ride Sheltie and walk by turns until we found a place I liked; then Jean and Angus would sit down among the heather, Sheltie would be secured, and I would wander about and play in my own way.  I do not think it was in a strange way.  I think I must have played as almost any lonely little girl might have played.  I used to find a corner among the bushes and pretend it was my house and that I had little friends who came to play with me.  I only remember one thing which was not like the ordinary playing of children.  It was a habit I had of sitting quite still a long time and listening.  That was what I called it—­“listening.”  I was listening to hear if the life on the moor made any sound I could understand.  I felt as if it might, if I were very still and listened long enough.

Angus and Jean and I were not afraid of rain and mist and change of weather.  If we had been we could have had little outdoor life.  We always carried plaids enough to keep us warm and dry.  So on this day I speak of we did not turn back when we found ourselves in the midst of a sudden mist.  We sat down in a sheltered place and waited, knowing it would lift in time.  The sun had been shining when we set out.

Angus and Jean were content to sit and guard me while I amused myself.  They knew I would keep near them and run into no danger.  I was not an adventurous child.  I was, in fact, in a more than usually quiet mood that morning.  The quiet had come upon me when the mist had begun to creep about and inclose us.  I liked it.  I liked the sense of being shut in by the soft whiteness I had so often watched from my nursery window in the castle.

“People might be walking about,” I said to Angus when he lifted me from Sheltie’s back.

“We couldn’t see them.  They might be walking.”

“Nothing that would hurt ye, bairnie,” he answered.

“No, they wouldn’t hurt me,” I said.  I had never been afraid that anything on the moor would hurt me.

I played very little that day.  The quiet and the mist held me still.  Soon I sat down and began to “listen.”  After a while I knew that Jean and Angus were watching me, but it did not disturb me.  They often watched me when they thought I did not know they were doing it.

I had sat listening for nearly half an hour when I heard the first muffled, slow trampling of horses’ hoofs.  I knew what it was even before it drew near enough for me to be conscious of the other sounds—­the jingling of arms and chains and the creaking of leather one notices as troopers pass by.  Armed and mounted men were coming toward me.  That was what the sounds meant; but they seemed faint and distant, though I knew they were really quite near.  Jean and Angus did not appear to hear them.  I knew that I only heard them because I had been listening.