Two hours or so earlier, David, perceiving some Assuagement¹ in the storm, and his host having offered to go at once to the doctor and the schoolmaster, had taken his mare³, and mounted to go home. He met with no impediment now except the depth of the snow, which made it so hard for the mare to get along that, full of anxiety about his children, he found the distance a weary one to traverse.

 

When at length he reached the Knowe, no one was there to welcome him. He saw, however, by the fire and the food, that Marion was not long gone. He put up the gray, clothed her and fed her, drank some milk, caught up a quarter of cakes, and started for the hill.

 

The snow was not falling so thickly now, but it had already almost obliterated⁴ the footprints of his wife. Still he could distinguish them in places, and with some difficulty succeeded in following their track until it was clear which route she had taken. They indicated the easier, though longer way—not that by the earth-house, and the father and daughter passed without seeing each other. When Kirsty got to the farm, her father was following her mother up the hill.

 

When David reached the Hillfauld, the name he always gave Steenie’s house, he found the door open, and walked in. His wife did not hear him, for his iron-shod shoes were balled with snow. She was standing⁶ over the body of Phemy, looking down on the white sleep with a solemn, motherly, tearless face. She turned as he drew near, and the pair, like the lovers they were, fell each in the other’s arms. Marion was the first to speak.

 

‘Eh Dauvid! God be praised I hae yersel!’

 

‘Is the puir thing gane?’ asked her husband in an awe-hushed tone, looking down on the maid that was not dead but sleeping.

 

‘I doobt there’s no doobt aboot that,’ answered Marion. ‘Steenie, I was jist thinkin, wud be sair disappintit to learn ’at there was. Eh, the faith o’ that laddie! H’aven to him’s sic a rale place, and sic a hantle better nor this warl’, ’at he wad not only fain be there himsel, but wad hae Phemy there—ay, gien it war ever sae lang afore himsel! Ye see he

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