The vision was so clear and distinct that he felt almost as if he were acting the scene over again, and he rubbed his eyes to get rid of it, feeling that, if he had to die to-morrow, it was time that he turned his thoughts to better things.
But as he did so the door of his cell flew noiselessly open, and there, on the threshold, stood the self-same little lad, looking not a day older, with his finger on his lip, and a mysterious smile upon his face.
"Laird o' Co',
Rise and go!"
he whispered, beckoning to him to follow him. Needless to say, the Laird did so, too much amazed to think of asking questions.
Through the long passages of the prison the little lad went, the Laird close at his heels; and whenever he came to a locked door, he had but to touch it, and it opened before them, so that in no long time they were safe outside the walls.
The overjoyed Laird would have overwhelmed his little deliverer with words of thanks had not the boy held up his hand to stop him. "Get on my back," he said shortly, "for thou are not safe till thou art out of this country."
The Laird did as he was bid, and, marvellous as it seems, the boy was quite able to bear his weight. As soon as he was comfortably seated the pair set off, over sea and land, and never stopped till, in almost less time than it takes to tell it, the boy set him down, in the early dawn, on the daisy-spangled green in front of his Castle, just where he had spoken first to him so many years before.
Then he turned, and laid his little hand on the Laird's big one:
"Ae gude turn deserves anither,
Tak' ye that for being sae kind to my auld mither,"
he said, and vanished.