But the minister's wife heeded her not.
“You are not walking, Ranald?”
“No, I have the colt.”
“Oh, that's splendid. We'll have a fine gallop—that is, if the moon is up.”
“Yes, it is just coming up,” said Ranald, hurrying away to the stable that he might escape Jessie's wrath and get the pony ready.
It was no unusual thing for the minister and his wife to be called upon to do duty for doctor and nurse. The doctor was twenty miles away. So Mrs. Murray got into her riding-habit, threw her knitted hood over her head, put some simple medicines into her hand-bag, and in ten minutes was waiting for Ranald at the door.
CHAPTER IV
THE RIDE FOR LIFE
The night was clear, with a touch of frost in the air, yet with the feeling in it of approaching spring. A dim light fell over the forest from the half-moon and the stars, and seemed to fill up the little clearing in which the manse stood, with a weird and mysterious radiance. Far away in the forest the long-drawn howl of a wolf rose and fell, and in a moment sharp and clear came an answer from the bush just at hand. Mrs. Murray dreaded the wolves, but she was no coward and scorned to show fear.