e grass-plot in front of it. There was no light in its
eyes. Its mouth was closed. It was silent as one of the ricks. Above
it shone the speechless stars. Nothing was alive. Nothing would
speak. I went up the few rough-hewn granite steps that led to the
door. I laid my hand on the handle, and gently turned it. Joy of joys!
the door opened. I entered the hall. Ah! it was more silent than the
night. No footsteps echoed; no voices were there. I closed the door
behind me, and, almost sick with the misery of a being where no other
being was to comfort it, I groped my way to my father's room. When I
once had my hand on his door, the warm tide of courage began again to
flow from my heart. I opened this door too very quietly, for was not
the dragon asleep down below?

"Papa! papa!" I cried, in an eager whisper. "Are you awake, papa?"

No voice came in reply, and the place was yet more silent than the
night or the hall. He must be asleep. I was afraid to call louder. I
crept nearer to the bed. I stretched out my hands to feel for him. He
must be at the farther side. I climbed up on the bed. I felt all
across it. Utter desertion seized my soul--my father was not there!
Was it a horrible dream? Should I ever awake? My heart sank totally
within me. I could bear no more. I fell down on the bed weeping
bitterly, and wept myself asleep.

Years after, when I was a young man, I read Jean Paul's terrible dream
that there was no God, and the desolation of this night was my key to
that dream.

Once more I awoke to a sense of misery, and stretched out my arms,
crying, "Papa! papa!" The same moment I found my father's arms around
me; he folded me close to him, and said--

"Hush, Ranald, my boy! Here I am! You are quite safe."

I nestled as close to him as I could go, and wept for blessedness.

"Oh, papa!" I sobbed, "I thought I had lost you."

"And I thought I had lost you, my boy. Tell me all about it."

Between my narrative and my replies to his questionings he had soon
gathered the whole story, and I in my turn learned the dismay of the
household when I did not appear. Kirsty told what she knew. They
searched everywhere, but could not find me; and great as my misery had
been, my father's had been greater than mine. While I stood forsaken
and desolate in the field, they had been searching along the banks of
the river. But the herd had had an idea, and although they had already
searched the barn and every place they could think of