miserable as it was with the mire-mixed snow, and almost as cold as one supposes the grave. And she did revive, and under the half open lids the dim blue appeared to be not yet life-deserted. It was yet but the afternoon,-night-like though it was,and he thought, as he breathed upon her lips, that a faint red returned, and that they felt the kisses he dropped on them to drive death away. 27. "Oh! father, go seek for Ronald, for I dreamt to-night that he was perishing in the snow." "Flora, fear not,-God is with us." "Wild swans, they say, are come to Loch Phoil. Let us go, Ronald, and see them; but no rifle for why kill creatures said to be so beautiful?" Over them where they lay bended down the pine-branch roof, as if it would give way beneath the increasing weight; but there it still hung, though the drift came over their feet, and up to their knees, and seemed stealing upwards to be their shroud. "Oh! I am overcome with drowsiness, and fain would be allowed to sleep. Who is disturbing me-and what noise is this in our house?" "Fear not, fear not, Flora-God is with us." "Mother! am I lying in your arms? My father surely is not in the storm. Oh, I have had a most dreadful dream!" and with such mutterings as these Flora relapsed again into that perilous sleep, which soon becomes that of death. 28. Night itself came, but Flora and Ronald knew it not; and both lay motionless in one snow-shroud. Many passions, though earth-born, heavenly all-pity, and grief, and love, and hope, and at last despair, had prostrated the strength they had so long supported; and the brave boy-who had been for some time feeble as a very child after a fever, with a mind confused and wandering, and in its perplexities sore afraid of some nameless ill-had submitted to lay down his head beside his Flora's, and had soon become, like her, insensible to the night and all its storms. A HIGHLAND SNOW STORM (6). 29. BRIGHT was the peat fire in the hut of Flora's parents in Glencoe,-and they were among the happiest of the humble happy, blessing this the birthday of their blameless child. They thought of her, singing her sweet songs by the fireside of the hut in Glencreran, and tender thoughts of her cousin Ronald were with them in their prayers. No warning came to their ears in the sugh or the howl; for fear it is that creates its own ghosts, and all its own ghostlike visitings; and they had seen their Flora, in the meekness1 of the morning, setting forth on her way over the quiet mountains, like a fawn to play. Sometimes, too, Love, who starts at shadows as if they were of the grave, is strangely insensible to realities that might well inspire dismay. So was it now with the dwellers in the hut at the head of Glencreran. 30. Their Ronald had left them in the morning,night had come, and he and Flora were not there,— but the day had been almost like a summer day, and, in their infatuation, they never doubted that the happy creatures had changed their minds, and that Flora had returned with him to Glencoe. Ronald had laughingly said, that haply he might surprise the people in that glen by bringing back to them Flora on her birthday, and-strange though it afterwards seemed to her to be-that belief prevented one single fear from touching his mother's heart, and she and her husband that night lay down in untroubled sleep. 31. And what could have been done for them had they been told by some good or evil spirit that their children were in the clutches of such a night? As well seek for a single bark in the middle of the misty main! But the inland storm had been seen brewing among the mountains round King's-House, and hut had communicated with hut, though far apart in regions where the traveller sees no symptoms of human life. 32. Down through the long cliff-pass of Mealanumy, between Buchael-Etive and the Black Mount, towards the lone House of Dalness, that lies in everlasting shadows, went a band of shepherds, trampling their way across a hundred frozen streams. Dalness joined its strength, and then away over the drift-bridged chasms toiled that gathering, with their sheep-dogs scouring the loose snows in the van,2 Fingal the Red Reaver, with his head aloft on the look-out for deer, grimly eyeing the corrie where last he tasted blood. All "plaided in their tartan array," these shepherds laughed at the storm,—and hark, you hear the bagpipe play-the music the Highlanders love both in war and in peace. "They think then of the owrie* cattle, and though they ken 'twill be a moonless night, for the snow-storm will sweep her out of heaven,-up the mountain and down the glen they go, marking where flock and herd have betaken themselves. 33. And now, at midfall, unafraid of that blind hollow, they descend into the depth where once stood the old grove of pines. A HIGHLAND SNOW STORM (7). 34. FOLLOWING their dogs, who know their duties in their instinct, the band, without seeing it, are now close to that ruined hut. Why bark the sheep-dogs so-and why howls Fingal, as if some spirit passed athwart the night? 35. He scents the dead body of the boy who so often had shouted him on in the forest when the antlers went by! Not dead-nor dead she who is on his bosom. Yet life in both is frozen-and will the red blood in their veins ever again be thawed? Almost pitch dark is the roofless ruin; and the frightened sheep know not what is that terrible shape that is howling there. But a man enters, and lifts up one of the bodies giving it into the arms of those at the doorway, and then lifts up the other; and by the flash of a rifle, they see that it is Ronald Cameron and Flora Macdonald, seemingly both frozen to death. 36. Some of those reeds that the shepherds burn in their huts are kindled, and, in that small light, they are assured that such are the corpses. But that noble dog knows that death is not there, and licks the face of Ronald, as if he would restore life to his eyes. Two of the shepherds know well how to fold the dying in their plaids, how gentlest to carry them along; for they had learnt it on the field of victorious battle, when, without stumbling over the dead and wounded, they bore away the shattered body, yet living, of the youthful warrior, who had shown that of such a clan he was worthy to be the chief. 37. The storm was with them all the way down the glen; nor could they have heard 'each others' voices had they spoken; but mutely they shifted the burden from strong hand to hand, thinking of the hut in Glencoe, and of what would be felt there on their arrival with the dying or the dead. Blind people walk through what to them is the night of crowded daystreets, unpausing turn round corners, unhesitating plunge down deep stairs, wind their way fearlessly through whirlwinds of life, and reach in their serenity, each one unharmed, his own obscure house. For God is with the blind. So is He with all who walk on walks of mercy. 38. This saving band had no fear, therefore there was no danger, on the edge of the pitfall or the cliff. They knew the countenances of the mountains, shown momentarily by ghastly gleamings through the fitful night, and the hollow sound of each particular stream beneath the snow, at places where in other weather there was a pool or a water-fall. The dip of the hills, in spite of the drifts, familiar to their feet, did not deceive them now; and then the dogs, in their instinct, were guides that erred not: and as well as the |