urned the Faa, "when he burned our
dwellings about the ears o' the aged and infirm, and o' my helpless
bairns! Ye shall find in me the mercy o' the fasting wolf, o' the tiger
when it laps blood!"

Andrew perceived that to rescue the child was now impossible, and with a
heavy heart he returned to his master's house, in which there was no
sound save that of lamentation.

For many weeks, yea months, the laird of Clennel, his friends and his
servants, sought anxiously throughout every part of the country to
obtain tidings of his child, but their search was vain. It was long ere
his lady was expected to recover the shock, and the affliction sat heavy
on his soul, while in his misery he vowed revenge upon all of the gipsy
race. But neither Willie Faa nor any of his tribe were again seen upon
his estates, or heard of in their neighbourhood.

Four years were passed from the time that their son was stolen from
them, and an infant daughter smiled upon the knee of Lady Clennel; and
oft as it smiled in her face, and stretched its little hands towards
her, she would burst into tears, as the smile and the infantine fondness
of her little daughter reminded her of her lost Henry. They had had
other children, but they had died while but a few weeks old.

For two years there had been a maiden in the household named Susan, and
to her care, when the child was not in her own arms, Lady Clennel
intrusted her infant daughter; for every one loved Susan, because of her
affectionate nature and docile manners--she was, moreover, an orphan,
and they pitied while they loved her. But one evening, when Lady Clennel
desired that her daughter might be brought her in order that she might
present her to a company who had come to visit them (an excusable,
though not always a pleasant vanity in mothers), neither Susan nor the
child were to be found. Wild fears seized the bosom of the already
bereaved mother, and her husband felt his heart throb within him. They
sought the woods, the hills, the cottages around; they wandered by the
sides of the rivers and the mountain burns, but no one had seen, no
trace could be discovered of either the girl or the child.

I will not, because I cannot, describe the overwhelming misery of the
afflicted parents. Lady Clennel spent her days in tears and her nights
in dreams of her children, and her husband sank into a settled
melancholy, while his hatred of the Faa race became more implacable, and
he burst into frequent