there with his favourite collie,
searching for a stray lamb among the knolls, was Lawrie Logan, who
hailed us with a laughing voice, and then asked us, "Where is Wee
Willie?--hae ye flung him like another Joseph into the pit?" The
consternation of our faces could not be misunderstood--whether we told
him or not what had happened we do not know--but he staggered, as if he
would have fallen down--and then ran off with amazing speed--not towards
Logan Braes--but the village. We continued helplessly to wander about
back and forwards along the near edge of a wood, when we beheld a
multitude of people rapidly advancing, and in a few minutes they
surrounded the mouth of the pit. It was about the very end of the
hay-harvest--and many ropes that had been employed that very day in the
leading of the hay of the Landlord of the Inn, who was also an extensive
farmer, were tied together to the length of at least twenty fathom. Hope
was quite dead--but her work is often done by Despair. For a while there
was confusion all round the pit-mouth, but with a white fixed face and
glaring eyes, Lawrie Logan advanced to the very brink, with the rope
bound in many firm folds around him, and immediately behind him stood
his grey-headed father, unbonneted, just as he had risen from a prayer.
"Is't my ain father that's gaun to help me to gang doun to bring up
Willie's body? O! merciful God, what a judgment is this!
Father--father--Oh! lie doun at some distance awa frae the sicht o' this
place. Robin Alison, and Gabriel Strang, and John Borland 'ill haud the
ropes firm and safe. O, father--father--lie doun, a bit apart frae the
crowd; and have mercy upon him--O thou, great God, have mercy upon him!"
But the old man kept his place; and the only one son who now survived to
him disappeared within the jaws of the same murderous pit, and was
lowered slowly down, nearer and nearer to his little brother's corpse.
They had spoken to him of foul air, of which to breathe is death, but he
had taken his resolution, and not another word had been said to shake
it. And now, for a short time, there was no weight at the line, except
that of its own length. It was plain that he had reached the bottom of
the pit. Silent was all that congregation, as if assembled in divine
worship. Again, there was a weight at the rope, and in a minute or two,
a voice was heard far down the pit that spread a sort of wild
hope--else, why should it have spoken at all--and lo! the child-