11.  The crowd quietly dispersed, and horse and foot began to scour the country.  Some took the highroads, others all the bypaths, and many the trackless hills.  Now that they were in some measure relieved from the horrible belief that the child was dead, the worst other calamity seemed nothing, for hope brought her back to their arms.

12.  Agnes had been able to walk home to Bracken-Braes, and Michael and Isabel sat by her bedside.  All her strength was gone, and she lay at the mercy of the rustle of a leaf, or a shadow across the window.  Thus hour after hour passed, till it was again twilight.  “I hear footsteps coming up the brae,” said Agnes, who had for some time appeared to be slumbering; and in a few moments the voice of Jacob Mayne was heard at the outer door.

13.  Jacob wore a solemn expression of countenance, and he seemed, from his looks, to bring no comfort.  Michael stood up between him and his wife, and looked into his heart.  Something there seemed to be in his face that was not miserable.  “If he has heard nothing of my child,” thought Michael, “this man must care little for his own fireside.”  “Oh, speak, speak,” said Agnes; “yet why need you speak?  All this has been but a vain belief, and Lucy is in heaven.”

14.  “Something like a trace of her has been discovered; a woman, with a child that did not look like a child of hers, was last night at Clovenford, and left it at the dawning.”  “Do you hear that, my beloved Agnes?” said Isabel; “she will have tramped away with Lucy up into Ettrick or Yarrow; but hundreds of eyes will have been upon her; for these are quiet but not solitary glens; and the hunt will be over long before she has crossed down upon Hawick.  I knew that country in my young days, What say you, Mr. Mayne?  There is the light of hope in your face.”  “There is no reason to doubt, ma’am, that it was Lucy.  Everybody is sure of it.  If it was my own Rachel, I should have no fear as to seeing her this blessed night.”

15.  Jacob Mayne now took a chair, and sat down, with even a smile upon his countenance.  “I may tell you now, that Watty Oliver knows it was your child, for he saw her limping along after the gypsy at Galla-Brigg; but, having no suspicion, he did not take a second look at her,—­but one look is sufficient, and he swears it was bonny Lucy Forester.”

16.  Aunt Isabel, by this time, had bread and cheese and a bottle of her own elder-flower wine on the table.  “You have been a long and hard journey, wherever you have been, Mr. Mayne; take some refreshment;” and Michael asked a blessing.

17.  Jacob saw that he might now venture to reveal the whole truth.  “No, no, Mrs. Irving, I am over happy to eat or to drink.  You are all prepared for the blessing that awaits you.  Your child is not far off; and I myself, for it is I myself that found her, will bring her by the hand, and restore her to her parents.”

18.  Agnes had raised herself up in her bed at these words, but she sank gently back on her pillow; aunt Isabel was rooted to her chair; and Michael, as he rose up, felt as if the ground were sinking under his feet.  There was a dead silence all around the house for a short space, and then the sound of many voices, which again by degrees subsided.  The eyes of all then looked, and yet feared to look, toward the door.