sorry to be saved that trudge of a mile in the face of those bitter
blasts of sleet; and he was greatly obliged to Sir Keith Macleod for
stopping his pony, and getting out his pencil with his benumbed fingers,
and putting his initials to the sheet. And then, again, when he had got
into Glen Finichen, he was talking to the pony and saying,--"Well, Jack,
I don't wonder you want to stop, for the way this sleet gets down one's
throat is rather choking. Or are you afraid of the sheep loosening the
rocks away up there, and sending two or three hundred-weight on our
head?"

Then he happened to look up the steep sides of the great ravine, and
there, quite brown against the snow, he saw a sheep that had toppled
over some rock, and was now lying with her legs in the air. He jumped
off his pony, and left Jack standing in the middle of the road. It was a
stiff climb up that steep precipice, with the loose stones slippery with
the sleet and snow; but at last he got a good grip of the sheep by the
back of her neck, and hauled her out of the hole into which she had
fallen, and put her, somewhat dazed but apparently unhurt, on her legs
again. Then he half slid and half ran down the slope again, and got into
the saddle.

But what was this now? The sky in the east had grown quite black; and
suddenly this blackness began to fall as if torn down by invisible
hands. It came nearer and nearer, until it resembled the dishevelled
hair of a woman. And then there was a rattle and roar of wind and snow
and hail combined; so that the pony was nearly thrown from its feet, and
Macleod was so blinded that at first he knew not what to do. Then he saw
some rocks ahead, and he urged the bewildered and staggering beast
forward through the darkness of the storm. Night seemed to have
returned. There was a flash of lightning overhead, and a crackle of
thunder rolled down the valley, heard louder than all the howling of the
hurricane across the mountain sides. And then, when they had reached
this place of shelter, Macleod dismounted, and crept as close as he
could into the lea of the rocks.

He was startled by a voice; it was only that of old John MacIntyre,
the postman, who was glad enough to get into this place of refuge too.

"It's a bad day for you to be out this day, Sir Keith," said he, in the
Gaelic, "and you have no cause to be out; and why will you not go back
to Castle Dare?"

"Have you any letter for me, John?" said he, eagerly.

Oh yes,