ars. First she, and then Rorie, had been forth to seek my uncle; each
in turn had found him perched upon the hill-top, and from each in turn
he had silently and swiftly fled. Rorie had tried to chase him, but in
vain; madness lent a new vigour to his bounds; he sprang from rock to
rock over the widest gullies; he scoured like the wind along the
hill-tops; he doubled and twisted like a hare before the dogs; and Rorie
at length gave in; and the last that he saw, my uncle was seated as
before upon the crest of Aros. Even during the hottest excitement of the
chase, even when the fleet-footed servant had come, for a moment, very
near to capture him, the poor lunatic had uttered not a sound. He fled,
and he was silent, like a beast; and this silence had terrified his
pursuer.

There was something heart-breaking in the situation. How to capture the
madman, how to feed him in the meanwhile, and what to do with him when
he was captured, were the three difficulties that we had to solve.

"The black," said I, "is the cause of this attack. It may even be his
presence in the house that keeps my uncle on the hill. We have done the
fair thing; he has been fed and warmed under this roof; now I propose
that Rorie put him across the bay in the coble, and take him through the
Ross as far as Grisapol."

In this proposal Mary heartily concurred; and bidding the black follow
us, we all three descended to the pier. Certainly, Heaven's will was
declared against Gordon Darnaway; a thing had happened, never paralleled
before in Aros: during the storm, the coble had broken loose, and,
striking on the rough splinters of the pier, now lay in four feet of
water with one side stove in. Three days of work at least would be
required to make her float. But I was not to be beaten. I led the whole
party round to where the gut was narrowest, swam to the other side, and
called to the black to follow me. He signed, with the same clearness and
quiet as before, that he knew not the art; and there was truth apparent
in his signals, it would have occurred to none of us to doubt his truth;
and that hope being over, we must all go back even as we came to the
house of Aros, the negro walking in our midst without embarrassment.

All we could do that day was to make one more attempt to communicate
with the unhappy madman. Again he was visible on his perch; again he
fled in silence. But food and a great cloak were at least left for his
comfort; the rain, besides, h