Huge masses of rock, canopied with a thick umbrage of firs, beech, and weeping-birch, closed over the glen and almost excluded the light of day. But more anxious, as he calculated by the increased rapidity of the stream he must now be approaching the great fall near his master's concealment, Halbert redoubled his speed. But an unlooked-for obstacle baffled his progress. A growing gloom he had not observed in the sky excluded valley, having entirely overspread the heavens, at this moment suddenly discharged itself, amidst peals of thunder, in heavy floods of rain upon his head.
Fearful of being overwhelmed by the streams, which now on all sides crossed his path, he kept upon the edge of the river, to be as far as possible from the influence of their violence. And thus he proceeded, slowly and with trepidation, through numerous defiles, and under the plunge of many a mountain-torrent, till the augmented storm of a world of waters, dashing from side to side, and boiling up with the noise and fury of the contending elements above, told him he was indeed not far from the fall of Corie Lynn.
The spray was spread in so thick a mist over the glen, he knew not how to advance. A step further might be on the firm earth, but more probably illusive, and dash him into the roaring Lynn, where he would be ingulfed at once in its furious whirlpool. He paused and looked around. The rain had ceased, but the thunder still rolled at a distance and echoed tremendously from the surrounding rocks. Halbert shook his gray locks, streaming with wet, and looked toward the sun, now gliding with its last rays the vast sheets of falling water.
"This is thine hour, my master!" exclaimed the old man; "and surely I am too near the Lynn to be far from thee!"
With these words he raised the pipe that hung at his breast, and blew three strains of the appointed air. In former days it used to call from her bower that "fair star of evening," the beauteous Marion, now departed for ever into her native heaven. The notes trembled as his agitated breath breathed them into the instrument; but feeble as they were, and though the roar of the cataract might have prevented their reaching a less attentive era than that of Wallace, yet he sprung from the innermost recess under the fall, and dashing through its rushing waters, the next instant was at the side of Halbert.
"Faithful creature!" cried he, catching him in his arms, which all the joy of that moment which ends the anxious wish to learn tidings of what is dearest in the world, "how fares my Marion?"
"I am weary," cried the heart-stricken old man; "take me within your sanctuary, and I will tell you all."
Wallace perceived that his time-worn servant was indeed exhausted; and knowing the toils and hazards of the perilous track he must have passed over in his way to his fearful solitude, also remembering how, as he sat in his shelter, he had himself dreaded the effects of the storm upon so aged a traveler, he no longer wondered at the dispirited tone of his greeting, and readily accounted for the pale countenance and tremulous step which at first had excited his alarm.
Giving the old man his hand, he led him with caution to the brink of the Lynn; and then, folding him in his arms, dashed with him through the tumbling water into the cavern he had chosen for his asylum. Halbert sunk against the rocky side, and putting forth his hand to catch some of the water as it fell, drew a few drops to his parched lips, and swallowed them. After this light refreshment, he breathed a little and turned his eyes upon his anxious master.
"Are you sufficiently recovered, Halbert, to tell me how you left my dearest Marion."