Sea-fog breezes yellowish (let this be marked), but the mist of the fresh water moors is white with iridescent circles where the low winter sun is trying to peep through. Little sounds carry far. You can hear wild fowl calling far up in the brumous smother which hides the lift. They are voyaging from lands of summer, and are already sorry they came. For here the winter still holds grim, black and yet somehow raw, which was the fault of the yellow sea-fog. Stair had been up that morning long before the tardy January dawn, Whitefoot had been sent from the farm the night before with the news that Jean would meet him in the bed of the Mays Water opposite Peden's Stone. There was now more freedom of moving about, for the freezing of the snow enabled both man and beast to pass over it without leaving a footmark. He found Jean standing there in the dim orange-coloured dawn. She was shivering dislike of the morning, which was at once clammy and freezing hard, so that every stone and even the banks were covered with the frozen fog. Jean had a great red shawl that had come from Holland about her head and neck, and so kept herself as comfortable as might be while she waited for her brother. Stair had had to watch the signs of the countryside before he dared risk letting himself down into the dark of the Glen. For the sea was always open, and a landing party from the _Britomart_ might have lain unseen in any of the fir copses or hidden behind the knolls. Black and narrow ran the Mays, that at other times flowed so wide and brown and free. The frost had bound it tightly, all save a trickle in the centre, black as ink, and everywhere about clung the icicles, some thick as a man's arm. "Oh, Stair, here are letters--one for Mr. Julian and one for you," Jean gasped, the sea-fog in her throat, "thankful I am to see you! I thought you would never come. Here, too, are the provisions--be canny with the eggs. They are on the top in a box by themselves, packed in sawdust, but do not be throwing them down wi' a brainge to get at your letters. And there in a big bag are the linen and clothes--cleaner and sweeter could not be, though I say it that washed and laundried them." "Is Patsy well?" queried Stair, for he knew that Jean must have a letter of her own which she had read already. "Famous," said Jean--"of course she is well. Are they not going to marry her to a prince--?" "Not Lyonesse?" The voice of Stair grew suddenly hoarse and threatening. He looked capable of setting off to London with his musket over his shoulder, to finish the job he had begun. "Goose," quoth his sister, "no--of course not. Somebody she likes--a young and handsome prince from Germany, or maybe Austria, and a great friend and near neighbour of the Princess, when she is at home." "You are mocking me," said Stair, regaining some of his composure. "It is sheer nonsense that you are talking."