"Come, come, now; that's all very fine—didn't do it, forsooth. Strange place for a walk on a winter night—the larch plantation," said the man, smiling sneeringly to his companion, as he listened to Kenneth assuring his mother that he was innocent, while they stood at the cottage door.
"Come along with us. In the meantime," he continued, as he laid his hand on Kenneth's arm to drag him away, "if you're able to prove that you didn't do it, all the better for you, my boy, I can tell you."
Kenneth turned with a look of anguish to his mother, who stood gazing at him with a face of marble. She asked no questions; it was no time for reproaches then, and, somehow, Kenneth felt that she understood how it had all happened, she looked so pitiful and so loving. When she saw that the men were really going to take him away, she went and prepared him some breakfast; but Kenneth said he could not eat, and turning to the men, volunteered to accompany them at once. He looked cold and faint in that chilly November morning: and just as he was starting, his mother brought his father's plaid, and wrapped it tenderly round him, but she did not utter a word.
"Come now, there must be no more coddling of this bird, old lady! Time's valuable, and there isn't a minute to spare!" said the man roughly, as he led the boy away.
When Kenneth had got beyond the garden gate, and was being hurried along the highway by his jailer, he turned and looked with unutterable agony and remorse toward his mother, who stood, stricken and desolate, at the door of his home, which was to be blighted during so many years for his sake.
A few weeks afterwards he was tried, and sentenced to a short term of imprisonment. He had pleaded not guilty; but could not explain how he came to be in the larch plantation at such an hour, and declined to give any information concerning the real offender.
Kirsty knew him to be none other than Alaster Dingwall. In her anguish she went to him, and implored that he would not sacrifice the innocent, speaking burning words from the depths of her broken mother's heart; but she only met with the sneering rejoinder that she would find some difficulty in proving that he had anything to do with the matter.
And then the news came that the wretched boy had escaped from prison; and from that day forward Kirsty heard nothing of her son. Seventeen long years she sat at her lonely fireside, waiting, and hoping, and praying! For a long time she left the door nightly open, in the hope that he might at least come and visit her in the dark. But he never came; and long ago Kirsty's deferred hope had changed itself into a prayer, that wherever he might be roaming throughout the wide world, they might meet in the home of God at last.
Sometimes, after a long night of prayer for her lost son, the mother felt as if she heard a voice, saying, "I have seen his ways, and I will heal him;" and she would begin the lonely day with lightened heart. And now, at last, she had the joy of knowing from the lips of his dying wife that the wanderer, who feared to come again to the Glen, and had sought refuge for his blighted life in distant lands, had, at last, been led unto the fold above, and had learnt to know the Shepherd's voice, and to follow it in the midst of many earthly trials and hard experiences through which he had to pass.
So this sorrowful night was mingled with great joy to Kirsty, as she kept watch in the fir-wood. Morag felt sure that she must have much to say to her unseen Friend, as she sat resting her head on her long thin hand, and gazing into the red embers among the stones. The little girl crouched silently by her side, often glancing at the tartan folds that covered the weary sleeper below, and pondering over the events of this strange afternoon.