IGarsykes was stirred to grim and crafty mirth during the next weeks. November had brought its little spell of summer between fall of the leaves and winter’s onset. Primroses bloomed here and there in favoured nooks. The sun was constant, from dawn till nightfall, in a blue and happy sky, and birds began to think of courtship.
So did Will o’ Wisp. In all his careless, vagabond life he had found none like Nita; and she smiled at him whenever they met by stream or coppice.
“Our men are rough and savage,” she would say. “They frighten me.”
Then Will o’ Wisp would yield to the slender helplessness of this girl who showed him open favour. And all Garsykes laughed, to watch the stranger going the way of many men before him.
“She has him in her lap,” growled Long Murgatroyd, sitting in the in
