down from the
heights of Craig Ronald, and the wind moaned mysteriously over the
ridges which separated the valley of the Cree Water from the remote
fastnesses of Loch Grannoch. The minister gathered his scanty family at
the "buik," and his prayer was full of a fine reverence and feeling
pity. He was pleading in the midst of a wilderness of silence, for the
deaf woman heard not a word.

Yet it will do us no harm to hearken to the prayer of yearning and
wrestling.

"O my God, who wast the God of my forefathers, keep Thou my two bairns.
They are gone from under my roof, but they are under Thine. Through the
storm and the darkness be Thou about them. Let Thy light be in their
hearts. Though here we meet no more, may we meet an unbroken family
around Thy heavenly hearth. And have mercy on us who here await Thy
hand, on this good ministering woman, and on me, alas! Thine unworthy
servant, for I am but a sinful man, O Lord!"

Then Meysie made down her box-bed in the kitchen, and the minister
retired to his own little chamber. He took his leather case out of his
breast-pocket, and clasped it in his hand as he began his own protracted
private devotions. He knelt on a place where his knees had long since
worn a hole in the waxcloth. So, kneeling on the bare stone, he prayed
long, even till the candle flickered itself out, smelling rankly in the
room.

At the deepest time of the night, while the snow winds were raging about
the half-buried cot, the dark figure of a young man opened the
never-locked door and stepped quickly into the small lobby in which the
minister's hat and worn overcoat were hanging. He paused to listen
before he came into the kitchen, but nothing was to be heard except the
steady breathing of the deaf woman. He came in and stepped across the
floor. The red glow from the peats on the hearth revealed the figure of
Clement Symington. He shook the snow from his coat and blew on his
fingers. Then he went to the door of his father's room and listened.
Hearing no sound, he slowly opened it. His father had fallen asleep on
his knees, with his forehead on his open Bible. The red glow of the
dying peat-fire lighted the little room. "I wonder where he keeps his
cash," he murmured to himself; "the sooner it's over the better." His
eye caught something like a purse in his father's hand. As he took it,
something broad and light fell out. He held it up to the moonbeam which
came through the narrow upper panes. It was hi