All trace of the road through the mountain pass had disappeared; and it would have fared ill with the Honorable Mr. Clifford's slim English footman, with his elegant calves, as he made his way towards the keeper's shieling among the crags, if he had not taken the precaution of securing a guide from the village below.
The steep ascent to the hut was almost impassable, and more than once the man seemed disposed to give it up and beat a retreat to his quarters at the village without fulfilling his mission. But his more stalwart companion cheered him on, assuring him at intervals that it was only a "mile and a bittock," and pointed to the light in the window of the hut long before it shed any encouraging ray on the exhausted flunkey, who went stumbling and grumbling up the hill through the blinding drift, feeling himself the most ill-used of persons to have been sent to such regions in such weather.
The light from the window of the hut was at last really visible, shimmering through the darkness, and soon the benighted travellers stood under the snowy crags which towered above the little shieling.
Our old friend Morag was, meanwhile, comfortably seated in the ingle-neuk, reading laboriously from one of her ancient yellow-leaved volumes, little dreaming what was in store for her to-night. Her father sat near her smoking his evening pipe, but he was not staring into the fire in idleness and grim silence as of old. He seemed at the present moment quite absorbed in a newspaper, the date of which was uncertain, seeing it had been torn off when it was used for lining a packing-case of game during autumn. But though it was not a "day's paper," it seemed to satisfy the keeper's literary cravings, and he had carefully perused it from beginning to end by the light of the fire of peat and pine, which blazed brightly on the hearth.
The snow made a warm covering round the wall, and a secure white thatch on the porous roof, so it happened that to-night the hut was really a more comfortable abode than it had often proved during autumn-days.
Morag jumped to her feet when she heard the sound of voices and the loud knocking; and now she stood gazing at her father with a look of startled surprise.
Laying down his pipe, the keeper prepared to open the door, but before he had time to do so, the injured footman stood in the middle of the floor, stamping the snow from his feet, and inspecting his precious person generally, as he muttered expressions of indignation concerning this unpleasant piece of service which had fallen to his lot.
Morag recognized the visitor at once, and forgetting her shyness, she sprang forward, saying, in low, eager tones, "Will ye no be frae the wee leddy o' the castle? I'm thinkin' there maun be something wrang. Is she no weel?"
"Miss Clifford, I presume you mean, little girl. Well, you are right, so far. I come from her father—my master, the Honorable Mr. Clifford. I think I've got a letter for you; but 'pon my word it's been at the risk of my life bringin' it here. S'pose I'd better read it myself?" said he, looking round patronizingly at the keeper.
And without waiting for a reply, he tore open the closed envelope, amid the smouldering indignation of the keeper, to whom it was evidently addressed, and began to read as follows:—