"No, no," answered Gowrie; "but I came this way, that, in case of any inquiries, we might puzzle the pursuers. The stags teach us, Beatrice, to cheat the hounds; and so we get lessons from even the beasts we hunt. But the difference is very small; and we shall arrive in good time to-morrow. I like your plan well, dear sister, if you know the way to Rhynd in the dark." "That do I well, Gowrie," she answered. "I believe my head was intended for a geographer's, and got fixed on my shoulders by mistake. I will send it back if ever I can find the right owner." "Ask Hume's leave first," said Gowrie. "I should think he would not like to part with it." And on they rode through the darkness, Beatrice fully justifying the account she had given of her own geographical talents. Not a step of the way did she mistake, but even led her brother straight to the best passage of the little river which joins the Tay near Rhynd, but the name of which I forget, and thence up to the door of the minister's manse. Her reception and that of her brother was as joyous and hospitable as she had anticipated. The old man had known them both well as children, and had seen Beatrice often since. But I must not pause to give any detail of how the evening or the night passed; of how the minister brought out his choicest stores for the earl, and sought his assistance in translating a difficult passage of Hebrew; of how he lodged Beatrice in a chamber all covered over with pieces of quaint embroidery, worked by the hands of a defunct sister; or how he gave up his own room to the earl, and laid strong injunctions on his maid-servant to redd it up--otherwise make it tidy--which, to say truth, it needed not a little.