ught it was over, when I looked, and saw, about a hundred yards off,
a tall man in grey crossing a belt of open ground. He put his hand to
his mouth, gave a wild shout, and disappeared!"

"Thank you," said the Doctor. "I think you mentioned that your wife's
confinement was somewhat sudden?"

"Yes, rather," replied the man.

"Pray, had you been relating any of the charming little tales to her
lately--just, we will suppose, to while away the time of the evening?"

"Well, I may have done so," said Macdonald, "but I don't exactly mind."

"Ah, so I thought. The next time your good lady happens to be in a
similar situation, I think I would refrain from ghost stories. I should
not like to commit myself to a decided opinion, but I should be
inclined to say that the tales you have been telling me were rather
horrible. Is that the light of your hut?"

Two noble colley dogs bounded to welcome them, and a beautiful
bare-legged girl, about sixteen, ran forth to tell her father, in
Gaelic, that the trouble was over, and that a boy was born.

On going in, they found the mother asleep, while her gossip held the
baby on her knee; so the Doctor saw that he was not needed, and sat
down, to wait until the woman should wake, having first, however,
produced from his saddle two bottles of port wine, a present from Alice.

The woman soon woke, and the Doctor, having felt her pulse, and left
some medicine, started to ride home again, carrying with him an incense
of good wishes from the warm-hearted Highlanders.

Instead of looking carefully for the road, the good Doctor was soon
nine fathoms deep into the reasons why the mountaineers and coast folk
of all northern countries should be more blindly superstitious than the
dwellers in plains and in towns; and so it happened that, coming to a
fork in the track, he disregarded the advice of his horse, and, instead
of taking the right hand, as he should have done, he held straight on,
and, about two o'clock in the morning, found that not only had he lost
his road, but that the track had died out altogether, and that he was
completely abroad in the bush.

He was in a very disagreeable predicament. The fog was thicker than
ever, without a breath of air; and he knew that it was as likely as not
that it might last for a day or two. He was in a very wild part of the
mountain, quite on the borders of all the country used by white men.

After some reflection, he determined to follow the fall of th