tears once more tumbled over his
brown cheeks.

"She cannot recognise you just now, dear Willie," said Flora, deeply
touched by the sorrow of the lad; "and, even if she could, I fear it
would do her harm by exciting her too much. Come, my poor fellow,"
(leading him softly to the door), "I am just going up to visit a kind
English family, where they will be only too glad to put you up until it
is safe to let her know that you have returned."

"But she may die, and never know that I have returned," said Willie,
almost passionately, as he hung back.

"She is in God's loving hands, Willie."

"Can I not stay and help you to nurse her?" asked the boy, in pitiful
tones.

Flora shook her head, and Willie meekly suffered himself to be led out
of the hut.

This, then, was the home-coming that he had longed for so intensely;
that he had dreamed of so often when far away upon the sea! No sooner
was he in the open air than he burst away from Flora without a word, and
ran off at full speed in the direction of the pass. At first he simply
sought to obtain relief to his feelings by means of violent muscular
exercise. The burning brain and throbbing heart were unbearable. He
would have given the world for the tears that flowed so easily a short
time before; but they would not now come. Running, leaping, bounding
madly over the rough hill-side--_that_ gave him some relief; so he held
on, through bush and brake, over heathery knoll and peat swamp, until
the hut was far behind him.

Suddenly his encounter with the gypsy occurred to him. The thought that
he was the original cause of all this misery roused a torrent of
indignation within him, and he resolved that the man should not escape.
His wild race was no longer without purpose now. He no longer sprang
into the air and bounded from rock to rock like a wild goat, but,
coursing down the bed of a mountain-torrent, came out upon the road, and
did not halt until he was in front of the constabulary station.

"Hallo! laddie, what's wrang?" inquired a blue-coated official, whose
language betokened him a Lowland Scot.

"I've seen him; come with me--quick! I'll take you to his whereabouts,"
gasped Willie.

"Seen whae?" inquired the man, with slow deliberation.

"The gypsy, Growler, who stole me, and would have murdered me this
morning if he could have caught me; but quick, please! He'll get off if
you don't look alive!"

The earnestness and fervour of the lad had the eff