“That’s why-y he looked so worried that day in the sun-parlor, when Una had a story about hearing something strange, unearthly, in the wood; she reminded him of his stepsister.” Pemrose’s lips were uncontrollably twitching.
“Well!” Treff was bracing himself for an ordeal, “I guess old Andrew hasn’t let much grass grow under that car—has got here as fast as God and gasolene would let him!”
“Andrew!” It was a new cry from the girl’s lips. “Oh! Andrew would go through fire and water for her; she makes him think of his own daughter that he lost away back in Scotland. And he was brought up among mountains—wild mountains!
“He knows these hills, too—has fished among them—sent father and me the trout, last year.” Pem’s hands were clasped against her lips, as she watched the climbing figures. “Oh: Andrew! he can hear so far, see so far ... it’s as if he saw into things, too.”
“He’s a canny chauffeur, anyway,” said Treff.
But it was no chauffeur who stood among them now, while Treff’s story was repeated to Una’s stricken father; it was a Church Elder and a passionate Highlander to boot—released from all ceremony and convention.
“Gosh! I wouldn’t give much for Margot’s chances—wretched kidnapper—if he tracks her among the mountains and finds that she has injured Una, directly or indirectly; he’d wring her neck, as he’d wring a hen’s,” said Treff, half-aloud, watching the ex-chauffeur’s grim face.
But the latter was thinking of rescue, not revenge now; of the girl who in her sweet democratic way had called him her “fuffle-daddy”, the girl who was eye-sweet, the girl whom his wife and he had taken to their hearts as a symbol of their own daughter.
He clasped his hands. He flung his long arms to heaven—towering among the reassembling search party.
But the prayer which he prayed was the same which had sprung to his lips when, a shepherd-boy among his native hills, he had missed a tender one from his flock: