In his own estimation Maurice Malherb had long since mastered the mysteries of Dartmoor, and was now familiar with its difficulties and dangers by night or day. But heavy snow presented new problems; progress toward Prince Town proved very difficult; many detours had to be made, and a chill gloaming, lighted by the purity of the earth, already sank upon the travellers before Siward\'s Cross was reached.

As they approached Lovey\'s cottage, Malherb called up his groom and bade him ride ahead. Until the present John had kept behind, for his master objected to take advice or profit by the lad\'s local experience.

"Get you forward to your grandmother and order a brew of hot drink, John Lee. A draught of milk with something from my spirit-flask will not be amiss."

John cantered forward and Stark, as many a man had done before him, admired the rider\'s perfect skill.

"How magnificently that fellow sits his horse," he said.

"Well enough; but it was not I who taught him—a natural gift," confessed Mr. Malherb.

When they reached Mrs. Lee\'s hut, both dismounted and entered the squalid den, to find a pan of milk already steaming upon a great peat fire. Malherb showed by no word or sign the nature of his last meeting with Lovey Lee, and the American was similarly cautious. As for the miser, she treated them both with equal indifference.

Cecil Stark gazed round him to see the salvation he had fought to find in the storm. With better knowledge of the Moor, his amazement grew at his own recent escape; and yet a thing not less remarkable had fallen out on the same tremendous night.

When Lovey Lee handed a cup to the prisoner, Malherb proposed to add spirits from his flask, but the old woman objected.

"Put nothing in, young sir. There\'s a drop of cordial there already. Think you I don\'t know what cold men need to warm their vitals?"

Stark laughed but read the look in her eyes and took the cup quickly. Then he saw that a hollow hazel-nut floated in the milk and, familiar with Lovey\'s expedients, drank at once. The nut he kept within his cheek and presently transferred to his pocket.

Anon they went their way refreshed, and, commenting upon the grim and starved object who had ministered to them, Stark listened to new sentiments from Maurice Malherb, and saw a little deeper into the gulf that separated their convictions.

"The peasant\'s mind has ever been my close study, and I have endeavoured to supply his requirements all my life," declared the older man. "His path is narrow, but well marked. To attempt to draw him from it would be madness. Poverty is no hardship in itself, and to teach a peasant to be other than poor is no part of a wise man\'s work."

"But education——"

"Endangers the tranquillity of the community at large. It unsettles their minds, loosens the bonds that holds them to their native soil, provokes all manner of outrage. Think of the Tories, the Peep-o\'-Day Boys, the Hearts of Steel and other ruffianly hordes of banditti that disturbed Ireland before the rebellion."

"But education is the watchword of civilisation," exclaimed Stark.

"You think so; but like every half-truth, the idea is abominably dangerous. What do you do? Under the name of Liberty, you invite to your naked shores the German, the Frenchman, or any other needy and worthless adventurer who goes a-wandering. You announce that the feudal services required by the great from the humble in Europe are banished from your country. You tell the new-come immigrants that lie—you, who keep your heel upon the black and fill your pockets with the proceeds of his misery! A race of slave-dealers to trumpet Liberty!"

Stark flushed and felt the hit.

"I grant some truth there. Please God, we\'ll live to see that plague-spot healed. But our constitution is sound; we shall throw our ailments off. To deny knowledge to your own people—that is a worse disease. Consider the epidemic you will breed!"

"You are ignorant of history, Mr. Cecil Stark. We have centuries of experience on which to base our judgment. What think you fostered the naval rebellion of fifteen years agone? As a sailor that will interest you. Why, the pen-and-ink gentry aboard His Majesty\'s ships of war! ............