“Would I go with you? Is it that you are asking me?” cried Donald; “and what for do you ask me? Why didn’t you tell us to go? Didn’t my poor brother go with your father? ay, and die by his side. Yes, Donald will go with you to the end of the world if you’ll want him. Wait till I get my crook; to be surely I’ll go.”
Donald disappeared as he spoke, but after about a minute he joined our friends, and they journeyed on together.
“It will be an awful night, to be surely,” said Donald, “and troth, it is more than likely the two English bodies are dead, or drowned, or frozen by this time. An’ och! it’s a blessing they are only English bodies.”
Such a speech as this did not tend to reassure young Allan. In very truth it almost quenched the hopes that were beginning to rise in his heart.
Donald was now their guide, and they were not surprised to observe that before very long he deserted the main road entirely, for a steep and craggy path that led downwards towards the distant lake. Along this narrow footway Donald bounded along with almost the speed of a red deer. Nor were Allan and his trusty companions slow to follow, for all felt how precious were the few minutes of daylight that were left to them.
And now the shepherd stops, removes his cap, and, passing his fingers through his hair in a puzzled kind of manner, stares around him in some surprise.
“Yes, yes,” he says at last; “this is the place, to be surely, but I don’t see a sign of the English bodies whatsomever.”
But if he does not, Allan McGregor, quicker of eye, does. He springs lightly forward, and picks something up that lies half-buried among the snow.
“It is Rory’s sketch-book,” he says, “Alas! poor Rory.”
But what is that mournful wail that now rises up towards them, apparently from the very bosom of the dark lake itself?