him. He was breathing, though he was
very cold and stiff, and she did not rouse him. Oh, Joanna was very
thankful! But what should she do next? Life must be very faint, and
frozen in the muscular, active young man. He had loitered at his sport
till the dusk; he had been bewildered on the moor--strange to him as to
a foreigner; he had wandered here and there impatient and weary; but
still more angry with himself than alarmed. He had sat down in the
intense chill and dim darkness to recover himself; no way forewarned,
"simply because he was on Corncockle Moor, so near home," on a September
night. He had sunk down further and further, until the stealthy foe
sprang upon him and held him fast--the sleep from which there is so
tardy an awakening.

Joanna dared not leave the faint, vital spark to smoulder down or leap
out. The moor was very unfrequented at this hour; at certain periods of
the day, portions of it, intersected by meandering tracks, were crossed
by men labouring in the adjacent fields or quarry; but till then it was
only the circumstance of alarm being excited on Harry's account, or her
protracted absence giving rise to surmise and search, that could bring
them companions.

As a forlorn hope Joanna raised her voice and cried for assistance; fear
and distress choked the sound, and the freezing air caused it to fall on
the silence with a ringing quaver. She persevered, however, every now
and then varying the appeal, "Papa, Lilias, Sandy, do some of you come
to me; I want you here, for God's sake! here."

She took his big hands and chafed them between her own little ones; she
lifted his head on her lap, her fingers getting entangled in his curly
hair, she prayed for him that he might be restored to them.

He continued to breathe dully and heavily; his eyes never unclosed; she
felt tempted to raise the lashes, as she would lift up and peep under
the lids of a child. Ah! but she feared to see the balls sightless and
glazing over fast. The marked, lively face was placid as if it were set
in death, and the slight contraction between the brows, which she had
remarked the first night she saw him, was almost effaced. How dreadful
it would be if he died on her knees there, in the solitude of the moor!
The son at the daughter's feet, as his father at her father's. How would
his mother bear it? Her father would never survive this mournful
re-writing of the old letters traced in blood. It should be she rather
who should d