It was a toilsome road they had to trace though, for the untrodden snow lay a good foot deep on the path, and, albeit they cast many a longing look ahead, they had but little time and little heart to look around to admire the scenery. And the snow was dry and treacherous. It lay lightly on the brae-sides, and on the bending heather stems, apparently awaiting only the breath of the storm to raise it into clouds of whirling drift, and drive it into deep and impassable wreaths.
For more than an hour they trudged onwards without catching sight or hearing sound of life, whether of man, or bird, or beast. The wind, too, was beginning to rise, a few flakes of snow had begun to fall, and night and darkness were already settling down in the hollows and glens, and only on the hilltops did daylight remain.
At last they came to a shepherd’s hut, and McBain knocked loudly at the door.
“Are you in, Donald? Are you in?” he cried.
“To be surely I’m in,” said a tall, plaided Highlander, opening the little door; “to be surely I’m in, Mr McBain, and where else is it I’d be, I wonder, in such a night as it soon will be?”
“Have you been abroad to-day, Donald?” asked Allan.
“Abroad? Yes, looking after the sheepies, to be surely.”
“Have you seen or met any one?”
“Yes, yes; two English bodies, to be surely. One would be sitting on a stone, making a picture, and the other would be looking over his shoulder, as it were. Och! Yes, to be surely.”
“Would you go with us, Donald?” asked Allan, “and show us the spot where you saw them.”