“I’ll go and look for them,” he said, and left the room. He returned presently wrapped in a Highland plaid, with a shepherd’s crook in his hand, much taller than himself, and that is saying a good deal, for this Scottish laird stood six feet two in his boots, and was well made in proportion.
He bent down and kissed his wife.
“Don’t fret, I’ll soon find them,” he said. “They have gone botanising, I suppose, and have lost themselves, and are doubtless in Widow McGregor’s cottage, or in the cleerach’s hut.”
Out he went. Rob Roy McGregor himself never had a more manly stride.
He went to the stable gallery first, or rather to the foot of the stair.
“John!” he cried, – “John! John!”
“Yes, yes, sir,” was the reply, and a stream of light shot out into the darkness as John threw open the door.
“Miss Campbell and Master Harry are lost somewhere in the forest. Bring a bull’s-eye lantern, and let us look for them. Bring the rhinoceros-hide whip, too; we may come across some poachers.”
In five minutes more master and man had started.
John was nearly as tall as his master. This was partly the reason why the laird had engaged him. Coachmen do not often have great brown beards and moustaches, but John had; coachmen do not often wear the Highland dress, but John did, and a fine-looking fellow he was when so arrayed. But every horse and every cart about this farmer-laird’s place was big. The dog-cart had been specially built for him, and there was not another such in the country.
Away they went then.
It was half-past eleven when they started, and twelve by watch when they found themselves in the forest.
“It is always hereabout they do be,” said John. “Just hereabouts, sir.”
Then they shouted, singly.
Then they shouted again – together this time; shouted and listened, but there was no answering call.
There was a rushing sound among the tall spruces, and a flap-flap-flapping of wings, as startled wild pigeons fled from their nests away out into the dreary depths of the forest.
There was the too-whit, to-who-oo-oo of an owl in the distance, but no other sound responded to their shouting.
“We’ll go straight on to the widow’s,” said the laird.
“Right, laird.”
So on they went again, often pausing to wave the bull’s-eye, to shout, and to listen.
All in vain.
When they reached Widow McGregor’s cottage all was darkness and silence within.
They knocked nevertheless, knocked again and again, and at last had the satisfaction of hearing a match lighted, then a light shone through the door seams, and a voice – a somewhat timorous and quavering one – demanded:
“Wha’s there at this untimeous hoor o’ nicht?”
“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 Illustrated 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 butter.
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 shine, 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 assistance will come. But the sun shoots up, and help appears as far away as ever.
“Towsie, Towsie,” mutters the boy in his sleep, and smiles.
A whole hour passes, and hope itself begins to die in the poor girl’s breast, when oh! joy, from far away in the forest comes a shout.
“Coo-ee-ee!”
Then a shrill whistle. Then silence. She knows that assistance is not far off, if she can only make them hear. She knows that the silence which succeeds the shouting means that they are listening for a response.
She tries to answer, but no sound much louder than a whisper can she emit. The cold dews have rendered her almost voiceless.
Now she shakes and tries to arouse Harry.
“Harry, Harry,