The dogs selected rose at once and followed Andrew with right good-will.  Mysie watched them a moment; but the great clouds of mist rolling down from the mountains soon hid the stalwart figure in its bonnet and plaid from view, and gave to the dogs’ fitful barks a distant, muffled sound.  So she went in and sat down upon the settle, folding her hands listlessly on her lap, and letting the smile fall from her face as a mask might fall.  Oh, what a sad face it was then!

She sat thus in a very trance of sorrow until the tears dropped heavily and slowly down, and her lips began to move in broken supplications.  Evidently these brought her the comfort she sought, for erelong she rose, saying softly to herself, “The lost bit o’ siller was found, and the strayed sheep was come up wi’, and the prodigal won hame again, and dootless, dootless, my ain dear lad will no be lost sight o’.”

By this time the storm had broken, but Mysie was not uneasy.  Andrew knew the hills like his own ingle, and she could tell to within five minutes how long it would take him to go to the fauld and back.  But when it was ten minutes past his time Mysie stood anxiously in the open door and listened.  Her ears, trained to almost supernatural quickness, soon detected above the winds and rain a sound of footsteps.  She called a wise old sheep-dog and bid him listen.  The creature held his head a moment to the ground, looked at her affirmatively, and at her command went to seek his master.

In a few moments she heard Andrew’s peculiar “hallo!” and the joyful barking of the dog, and knew that all was right.  Yet she could not go in; she felt that something unusual had happened, and stood waiting for whatever was coming.  It was a poor, little, half-drowned baby.  Andrew took it from under his plaid, and laid it in her arms, saying,

“I maun go now and look after the mither.  I’ll need to yoke the cart for her; she’s past walking, and I’m sair feared she’s past living; but you’ll save the bit bairn, Mysie, nae doot; for God disna smite aften wi’ baith hands.”

“Where is she, Andrew?”

“‘Mang the Druids’ stanes, Mysie, and that’s an ill place for a Christian woman to die.  God forbid it!” he muttered, as he lit a lantern and went rapidly to the stable; “an evil place! under the vera altar-stane o’ Satan.  God stay the parting soul till it can hear a word o’ his great mercy!”

With such a motive to prompt him, Andrew was not long in reaching the ruins of the old Druidical temple.  Under a raised flat stone, which made a kind of shelter, a woman was lying.  She was now insensible, and Andrew lifted her carefully into the cart.  Perhaps it was some satisfaction to him that she did not actually die within such unhallowed precincts; but the poor creature herself was beyond such care.  When she had seen her child in Mysie’s arms, and comprehended Mysie’s assurance that she would care for it, all anxiety slipped away from her.  Andrew strove hard to make her understand the awful situation in which she was; but the girl lay smiling, with upturned eyes, as if she was glad to be relieved of the burden of living.