‘Ay,’ said she, ‘but you havenae heard me out. For if you are not too fine a gentleman to travel with a pair of drovers, I believe I have found the very thing, and the Lord forgive me for a treasonable old wife! There are a couple stopping up by with the shepherd-man at the farm; to-morrow they will take the road for England, probably by skriegh of day—and in my opinion you had best be travelling with the stots,’ said she. ‘For Heaven’s sake do not suppose me to be so effeminate a character!’ I cried. ‘An old soldier of Napoleon is certainly beyond suspicion. But, dear lady, to what end? and how is the society of these excellent gentlemen supposed to help me?’ ‘My dear sir,’ said she, ‘you do not at all understand your own predicament, and must just leave your matters in the hands of those who do. I dare say you have never even heard tell of the drove-roads or the drovers; and I am certainly not going to sit up all night to explain it to you. Suffice it, that it is me who is arranging this affair—the more shame to me!—and that is the way ye have to go. Ronald,’ she continued, ‘away up-by to the shepherds; rowst them out of their beds, and make it perfectly distinct that Sim is not to leave till he has seen me.’ Ronald was nothing loath to escape from his aunt’s neighbourhood, and left the room and the cottage with a silent expedition that was more like flight than mere obedience. Meanwhile the old lady turned to her niece. ‘And I would like to know what we are to do with him the night!’ she cried. ‘Ronald and I meant to put him in the hen-house,’ said the encrimsoned Flora. ‘And I can tell you he is to go to no such a place,’ replied the aunt. ‘Hen-house, indeed! If a guest he is to be, he shall sleep in no mortal hen-house. Your room is the most fit, I think, if he will consent to occupy it on so great a suddenty. And as for you, Flora, you shall sleep with me.’