Part 5 (1/2)

”It's me, Mrs McGregor; me, Laird Milvaine. Don't be alarmed.”

The bolt flew back, and master and man entered.

Of course the lost ones were not there, and the widow shook and trembled with fear when she heard the story.

She had only to say that the cleerach, who was a kind of forest ranger or keeper, had seen both the lost ones that afternoon gathering wild flowers.

”We'll go to his house at once.”

It was only two miles farther on.

They bade the widow good-night, and started. She told them, last thing, that she would go to her bed and pray for them.

But they had not gone quite one mile and a half, when a brawny figure sprang from behind a tree, and a stentorian voice shouted:

”You thieving scoundrels, I have you now! Stop, and hold up your arms, or by the powers above us I'll blow the legs of you off!”

The flash of John's lantern revealed a stalwart keeper with double-barrelled gun presented full towards them.

”It's me and my man John,” said the farmer, quietly. [The author is not to blame for the honest laird's bad grammar.]

”Heaven have a care of me, sir,” cried the cleerach. ”If I'd fired I'd ne'er have been forgiving mysel'. Sure it was after the poachers I was.

But bless me, laird, what brings you into the forest at such an hour?”

The story was soon told, and together they marched to the cleerach's cottage. A one-roomed wooden hut it was, built in a clearing, and almost like that of a backwoodsman. The only portion not wood was the hearth and the chimney.

All the information the cleerach could give them was hardly worth having, only he had seen Miss Campbell and young Harry, and they were then taking the path through the forest that led away to the river and past the field where the bull was.

”Then goodness help us,” exclaimed the farmer. ”I fear something has happened to them.”

Nothing could be done till daylight. So the three sat by the fire, on which the cleerach heaped more logs; for, summer though it was, the night was chill, and a dew was falling. It was quite a keeper's cottage, no pictures on the walls except a Christmas gift-plate or two from the London Ill.u.s.trated Weeklies, and some Christmas cards. But stuffed heads and animals stood here and there in the corners, and skins of wild creatures were nailed up everywhere. Skins of whitterit or weasel, of foumart or pole-cat, of the wild cat itself, of great unsightly rats, of moles and of voles, and hawks and owls galore.

Scotchmen do not easily let down their hearts, so these men--and men they were in every sense of the word--sat there by the fire telling each other wild, weird forest tales and stories of folk-lore until at length the daylight streamed in at the window--cold and comfortless-looking-- and almost put out the fire. ”Will you have breakfast, laird, before you start?” The laird said, ”Yes.”

The fire was replenished, and soon the keeper's great kettle was boiling. Then in less than five minutes three huge dishes of oatmeal brose was made, and--that was the breakfast, with milk and b.u.t.ter.

Towsie Jock never moved from under the tree all the night long. Poor Miss Campbell was weary, tired, and cramped, but she dared not sleep.

Once or twice she caught herself half-dreaming, and started up again in fright, and thanked Heaven she had not gone quite to sleep.

How long, long the stars seemed to s.h.i.+ne, she thought! Would they never fade? Would morning never, never come?

But see, through the green leafy veil a glimmer of dawn at last, and she lifts up her thoughts in prayer to Him who has preserved them.

How soundly Harry sleeps in her arms! How beautiful the boy looks, too, in his sleep! The young image of his stalwart father.

The light in the east spreads up and up, and the stars pale before it, and disappear. Then the few clouds there are, begin to light up, and finally to glow in dazzling crimson and yellow.

She is wondering when a.s.sistance will come. But the sun shoots up, and help appears as far away as ever.