s as sensitive as the apple o'
his e'e; and I think we would show a want o' natural sympathy and
respect for our worthy neighbour, if we didna every one get his foot
into the stirrup without loss o' time, and assist him in his search.
For, in my rough, country way o' thinking, it must be something
particularly out o' the common that would tempt Thomas to be amissing.
Indeed, I needna say _tempt_, for there could be no inclination in the
way. And our hills," he concluded, in a lower tone, "are not ower chancy
in other respects, besides the breaking up o' the storm."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Elliot, wringing her hands, "I have had the coming o'
this about me for days and days. My head was growing dizzy with
happiness, but thoughts came stealing upon me like ghosts, and I felt a
lonely soughing about my heart, without being able to tell the cause;
but the cause is come at last! And my dear Thomas--the very pride and
staff o' my life--is lost!--lost to me for ever!"

"I ken, Mrs. Elliot," replied the Northumbrian, "it is an easy matter to
say compose yourself, for them that dinna ken what it is to feel. But,
at the same time, in our plain, country way o' thinking, we are always
ready to believe the worst. I've often heard my father say, and I've as
often remarked it myself, that, before anything happens to a body, there
is _a something_ comes ower them, like a cloud before the face o' the
sun; a sort o' dumb whispering about the breast from the other world.
And though I trust there is naething o' the kind in your case, yet, as
you observe, when I find myself growing dizzy, as it were, with
happiness, it makes good a saying o' my mother's, poor body! 'Bairns,
bairns,' she used to say, 'there is ower muckle singing in your heads
to-night; we will have a shower before bedtime.' And I never, in my born
days, saw it fail."

At any other period, Mr. Bell's dissertation on presentiments would have
been found a fitting text on which to hang all the dreams, wraiths,
warnings, and marvellous circumstances, that had been handed down to the
company from the days of their grandfathers; but, in the present
instance, they were too much occupied in consultation regarding the
different routes to be taken in their search.

Twelve horsemen, and some half-dozen pedestrians, were seen hurrying in
divers directions from Marchlaw, as the last faint lights of a
melancholy day were yielding to the heavy darkness which appeared
pressing in solid masses