ed horror,
which no words can describe, and which was not in any degree allayed by
the grave shaking of the head, with which Mr McAllister accompanied his
vain efforts to comfort and re-assure her. This excellent man quoted
several passages from the works of Dugald Stewart and Locke, tending to
show, in common parlance, that "necessity has no law," and that the
rightly constituted human mind ought to rise superior to all
circumstances--quotations which had the effect of making Mrs Sudberry
more hysterical than ever, and which induced Mrs Brown to call him who
offered such consolation a "brute!"

But McAllister did not confine his efforts solely to the region of mind.
While he was earnestly administering doses of the wisdom of Stewart and
Locke to the agitated lady in the parlour, Dan and Hugh, with several
others, were, by his orders, arming themselves in the kitchen for a
regular search.

"She's ready," said Dan, entering the parlour unceremoniously with a
huge stable lantern.

"That's right, Dan--keep away up by the slate corrie, and come down by
the red tarn. If they've taken the wrong turn to the right, you're sure
to fall in wi' them thereaway. Send Hugh round by the burn; I'll go
straight up the hill, and come down upon Loch Cognahoighliey. Give a
shout now and then, as ye goo."

Dan was a man of action and few words: he vouchsafed no reply, but
turned immediately and left the room, leaving a powerful odour of the
byre behind him.

Poor Mrs Sudberry and Tilly were unspeakably comforted by the grave
business-like way, in which the search was gone about. They recalled to
mind that a search of a somewhat similar nature, in point of manner and
time, was undertaken a week before for a stray sheep, and that it had
been successful; so they felt relieved, though they remained, of course,
dreadfully anxious. McAllister refrained from administering any more
moral philosophy. As he was not at all anxious about the lost party,
and was rather fond of a sly joke, it remains to this day a matter of
doubt whether he really expected that his nostrums would be of much use.
In a few minutes he was breasting the hill like a true mountaineer,
with a lantern in his hand, and with Hobbs by his side.

"Only think, ma'am," said Mrs Brown, who was not usually judicious in
her remarks, "only think if they've been an' fell hover a precipice."

"Shocking!" exclaimed poor Mrs Sudberry, with a little shriek, as she
clapped her h