riders' return from their patrol, and then slept soundly after such
painful agitation.

CHAPTER XXII.

The darksome cave they enter, where they found
The accursed man low sitting on the ground,
Musing full sadly in his sullen mind.
SPENSER.

As the morning began to appear on the mountains, a gentle knock was heard
at the door of the humble apartment in which Morton slept, and a girlish
treble voice asked him, from without, "If he wad please gang to the Linn
or the folk raise?"

He arose upon the invitation, and, dressing himself hastily, went forth
and joined his little guide. The mountain maid tript lightly before him,
through the grey haze, over hill and moor. It was a wild and varied walk,
unmarked by any regular or distinguishable track, and keeping, upon the
whole, the direction of the ascent of the brook, though without tracing
its windings. The landscape, as they advanced, became waster and more
wild, until nothing but heath and rock encumbered the side of the valley.

"Is the place still distant?" said Morton. "Nearly a mile off," answered
the girl. "We'll be there belive."

"And do you often go this wild journey, my little maid?"

"When grannie sends me wi' milk and meal to the Linn," answered the
child.

"And are you not afraid to travel so wild a road alone?"

"Hout na, sir," replied the guide; "nae living creature wad touch sic a
bit thing as I am, and grannie says we need never fear onything else when
we are doing a gude turn."

"Strong in innocence as in triple mail!" said Morton to himself, and
followed her steps in silence.

They soon came to a decayed thicket, where brambles and thorns supplied
the room of the oak and birches of which it had once consisted. Here the
guide turned short off the open heath, and, by a sheep-track, conducted
Morton to the brook. A hoarse and sullen roar had in part prepared him
for the scene which presented itself, yet it was not to be viewed without
surprise and even terror. When he emerged from the devious path which
conducted him through the thicket, he found himself placed on a ledge of
flat rock projecting over one side of a chasm not less than a hundred
feet deep, where the dark mountain-stream made a decided and rapid shoot
over the precipice, and was swallowed up by a deep, black, yawning gulf.
The eye in vain strove to see the bottom of the fall; it could catch