one I had ever seen; but when we played together she seemed like any
other child. She was the first I ever knew."

I told him about the misty day on the moor, and about the pale troopers
and the big, lean leader who carried Elspeth before him on his saddle. I
had never talked to any one about it before, not even to Jean Braidfute.
But he seemed to be so interested, as if the little story quite
fascinated him. It was only an episode, but it brought in the weirdness
of the moor and my childish fancies about the things hiding in the white
mist, and the castle frowning on its rock, and my baby face pressed
against the nursery window in the tower, and Angus and the library, and
Jean and her goodness and wise ways. It was dreadful to talk so much
about oneself. But he listened so. His eyes never left my face--they
watched and held me as if he were enthralled. Sometimes he asked a
question.

"I wonder who they were--the horsemen?" he pondered. "Did you ever ask
Wee Elspeth?"

"We were both too little to care. We only played," I answered him. "And
they came and went so quickly that they were only a sort of dream."

"They seem to have been a strange lot. Wasn't Angus curious about them?"
he suggested.

"Angus never was curious about anything," I said. "Perhaps he knew
something about them and would not tell me. When I was a little thing
I always knew he and Jean had secrets I was too young to hear. They hid
sad and ugly things from me, or things that might frighten a child. They
were very good."