The sound of some one coming down the hill, wading among the great bushes of the ling, and over the withered bracken scarcely aroused her; for what did it matter to Kirsteen who came that way? She was still sitting on the rock when a man appeared round the turning of the path; she paid no attention to him till he was quite near. Then her heart suddenly leapt up to her throat; she started, rising from her seat. He on his side recognized her too. He stopped with a low whistle of dismay, then took off his Highland bonnet, less with an air of courtesy than with that of not daring to omit the forms of respect. “So it is you, Miss Kirsteen?” he said. “It is me--at my father’s door. It’s more wonderful to see that it’s you, my Lord John.” “Not so very wonderful either,” he said, “for I may say I am at my father’s door too.” “You are on the lands of Drumcarro--the Douglas lands, that never belonged to one of your name.” “You don’t expect me to enter into old feuds,” he said with a laugh; “would you like to have me seized by your men-at-arms, Miss Kirsteen, and plunged into the dungeon below the castle moat?” He paused and looked down at the grey, penurious house standing bare in the wilds. “Unhappily there is neither moat nor castle,” he said again with a laugh. “There’s more,” said Kirsteen proudly, “for there’s honour and peace, and he that disturbs either will not pass without his reward. Lord John, I would like to know what you are wanting here?” “You have always treated me in a very lordly way, Miss Kirsteen,” he said. “What if I were to doubt your right to make any such inquiry. I am wanting, as you say, to pay my respects to my kinswoman of Glendochart, and ask for the family, who I hear have been in trouble.” Kirsteen paused with a look at him to which he answered with a smile and bow. What could she say? To let him know that he was a danger to Jeanie was but to stimulate him in his pursuit, and she could not herself believe it even now. “Lord John,” she said, “I met you once upon another hillside; you had done me a great service but you did not know who I was--a gentlewoman as good as yourself. But when I bid you as a gentleman to stand by and let me pass, ye did so. You could not stand against me when I said that. I ask you now again, but I ask more. As ye are a gentleman, Lord John, go away from here.” He shook his head. “The argument served its turn once,” he said; “you must not scorn my intellect so much as to try it again.” “Go,” she said, putting herself in his way, “those that are dwelling down there are too high for one thing and not high enough for another. Go away, Lord John, if you’re what a gentleman should be. If ye do not, I’ll promise you this that you will repent it all your days.”