Therefore she did not hasten. Jean would arrive before long with the garments in which she had left home, and which she had shed, as it were providentially, to be able to run the better across the sands of Killantringan and the heathery fastnesses of the Wild of Blairmore. Hardly had Patsy gotten the bothy to her liking--or something like it--when Jean arrived, full of wonder and joy. She carried a parcel under her arm, done up carefully in her neckerchief. "It is a pity to change," she said, "you will never look so pretty again!" And she detailed with the admiration of generous youth the beauty of the black locks, waved tightly about the small head, the pale blue linen gown girt with the sash of scarlet silk, and the cross-gartered sandals, showing Patsy's brown skin and pretty ankles half-way to the knee. "It is a great shame," she repeated, "that you can't go about like that all the time." "I shall think it over," said Patsy; "but if I went to the kirk on Sabbath dressed as you would have me, I believe Mr. MacCanny would have me turned out." "Yes," said the loyal Jean, "because nobody would be able to attend to his sermon for looking at you!" "But what are the lads going to do?" "Oh," said Jean, "they have two or three places handy for lying up in. They are snug by this time. At least Fergus and Agnew are. Stair I met on my way here. He was lurking in a moss-hag with his gun ready for the first red-coat or blue-jacket who should lift a hand to you." "Send him off to join the rest," said Patsy more seriously. "I never was in the least danger, and there is no doubt but that the man McClure has left some of his rascals to watch the bothy." "Then High Heaven help them if they come across Stair and his blunderbuss. He will bring them down like so many partridges. Not even father can manage Stair. He will take orders from no one, except in matters of the farm. He is a good boy, and has great influence among the young fellows, for he will stick at nothing. But he is easily angered, proud, and often both reckless and desperate. You may be sure that he will not leave you till he sees you safe in your own valley and among your own people." Patsy heard this with outward impatience, but, like every girl, with something also of inward pride. She smiled at what Louis Raincy would have to say to this constant watchfulness, and how she herself would like it when next Louis and she climbed up to their "Nest" for one of their long talks. Would Louis be in danger from the bullets of the arrogant Stair? She wondered if what Uncle Julian said could indeed be true--that though the men's secret of the heather ale had been lost, the women of the Picts would keep theirs and whistle men to heel, as sheep-dogs follow their masters. Uncle Julian said that she had in her the blood of Boadicca, who once on a day was a queen of the Picts far to the south.