‘Or turned these men back out of the hills,’ I argued.

‘Will it do that?’ she asked eagerly. ‘And we can go home soon?’

I stared gloomily at the fire. I was without hope. She swayed with weariness as she stooped over the fire.

‘Take off your clothes, one thing at a time,’ I bade her. ‘We can’t lie down to sleep in sodden rags.’

I set a long branch across two stones near the fire to make a rack for our garments. We dried them one by one and put them on as they dried. The heat of the fire drove us back into an angle between two rocks where we were sheltered from the rising storm. I hurried out to gather brackens for our couch before the snow hid them and wetted them. The snow came down in huge deliberate flakes. The noise of the wind in the trees grew deeper and we heard the loch beating on its shore, far under us in the thick darkness. When I returned with my arms full of brackens to the light of the fire I was white with snow.

‘Is it going to be a bad storm?’ Terry inquired anxiously as I shook the flakes from my head and shoulders.

‘It’s early yet—’ I answered dubiously; ‘but in this country you never know. We’re more than two thousand feet above sea-level here, Terry, anything can happen. It’s a wild night. Throw on these roots, lassie, heap up the fire to last until morning. We don’t want to waken and find ourselves frozen stiff.’ I made an effort to laugh.

‘Them all?’ she asked. ‘Won’t the fire be too big—and show us—’

‘Anyone abroad to-night will have more thought of shelter than chasing us,’ I assured her. ‘If we lie here, in the shadow, we can’t be seen, however big the blaze. But you couldn’t see a town burning through the blanket of this night.’

Our hearts revived with the warmth of the fire. We ate sparingly; we crept into our pile of bracken and slept soon. The cold wakened me; I slipped out of our bed to put fuel on the fire. It had sunk to a heap of grey ashes, but when I gathered in the butts of sticks which had dropped away from the centre of the fire they commenced to smoke and glow in a very short time. I could not tell how much of the night was past. The world was bright for the snow had ceased falling and a large moon, nearly full, illumined the country out of a cold clear sky. I heard Terry stirring uneasily. She peered from amongst the brackens. Her face was flushed and confused with sleep.

‘Hugh!’ she whispered, ‘where are you, Hugh?’

‘Here,’ I replied.

‘I slept,’ she said.

‘Lie still and sleep more,’ I bade her.