Young as they were, they felt the importance of keeping up the fire to warn the steamer off the rocks, and again they set to work gathering fuel. The men had said but little about the fire, because they knew it was close on morning when they departed, and now—yes, the morning had come, but without the daylight.
Old roots and broken branches drifted in to shore were strewing the beach. But as the boys were soon obliged to take a wider circle to collect them, Edwin was so much afraid of losing his little brother he dare not let go his hand. Then he found a piece of rope in the pocket of "father's coat," and tied their arms together. So they went about like dogs in leash, as he told Cuthbert. If dogs did their hunting in couples, why should not they?
Meanwhile Audrey, whose heart was in the hills, was watching landwards from the little window at the back of the hut. Edwin's pyramid of fire shot fitful gleams above the roof and beyond the black shadow of the shanty wall. Beauty, who had never known the luxury of a stable until he came into the hands of his new masters, was well used to looking out for himself. He had made his way round to the back of the hut, and now stood cowering under the broad eaves, seeking shelter from the raging blast.
Where the firelight fell Audrey could faintly distinguish a line of road, probably the one leading to the mansion. To the left, the wavering shadows cast upon the ground told her of the near neighbourhood of a grassy embankment, surmounted by a swinging fence of wire, the favourite defence of the sheep-run, so constructed that if the half-wild animals rush against it the wire swings in their faces and drives them back. She heard the mournful howling of a dog at no great distance. Suddenly it changed to a clamorous bark, and Audrey detected a faint but far-away echo, like the trampling of approaching horsemen.
She pushed the window to its widest and listened. Her long fair hair, which had been loosely braided for the night, was soon shaken free by the raging-winds, and streamed about her shoulders as she leaned out as far as she could in the fond hope that some one was coming.
The knitted shawl she had snatched up and drawn over her head when she jumped into her father's arms was now rolled up as a pillow for Effie. She shivered in the wintry blast, yet courted it, as it blew back from her the heated clouds of whirling ashes. Faint moving shadows, as of trees or men, began to fleck the pathway, and then a band of horsemen, galloping their hardest, dashed across the open.
Audrey's pale face and streaming hair, framed in the blackness of the shadowing roof, could not fail to be seen by the riders. With one accord they shook the spades they carried in the air to tell their errand, and a score of manly voices rang out the old-world ballad,—
"What lads e'er did our lads will do;
Were I a lad I'd follow him too.
He's owre the hills that I lo'e weel."
Audrey waved her "God-speed" in reply. With their heads still turned towards her, without a moment's pause, they vanished in the darkness. Only the roll of the chorus thrown back to cheer her, as they tore the ground beneath their horses' hoofs, rose and fell with the rage of the storm—
"He's owre the hills we daurna name,
He's owre the hills ayont Dumblane,
Wha soon will get his welcome hame.
My father's gone to fecht for him,
My brithers winna bide at hame,
My mither greets and prays for them,
And 'deed she thinks they're no to blame.
He's owre the hills," etc.