stones, and Geordie lying on the heather, with all the mischief
done to him that Blackie was likely to do. But the enraged animal might
attack somebody else presently, and the man thought the best service he
could render was to secure Blackie against doing further injury. Never
did repentant criminal receive handcuffs with more submission than the
guilt-stricken Blackie the badge of punishment. There was a subdued
pathetic look of almost human remorse and woe in the eye of the brute,
as he was led past the place where Geordie lay low among the heather.
The hands that had so often fed him and made a clean soft bed for him at
night, often stroking his great knotted neck, and never raised in unjust
punishment, lying helpless and shattered now, and the fair locks hung
across his face, all dabbled with blood. Elsie was now kneeling by his
side, but he was quite unconscious of her presence, and heedless of her
low wailing, as she looked wildly round to see if nobody was coming to
help Geordie, who had helped her so bravely. Little Jean had hurried
shrieking to the farm, with the news of the accident, and Mistress
Gowrie presently appeared, to Elsie's intense relief. She was a kindly
woman, and felt conscience-stricken as she kneeled beside the little
herd-boy; for she knew that it was not with his will that Blackie roamed
at large among those knolls. She had happened to hear his last
expostulation with her husband on the point; and this was how it had
ended. But she did not think he was dead. Elsie could hardly restrain a
cry of delight when she heard the whispered word that he lived still.
How joyfully she carried water in her sun-bonnet from the flowing river,
how tenderly she sprinkled it on his face and hands, and wiped the
bloodstained locks.

And then old Farmer Gowrie came and stood with his hands behind his
back, and a shadow on his furrowed face, as he gazed on his young
servant with an uneasy stare. He kept restlessly moving backwards and
forwards to see whether the still motionless figure showed any sign of
life, till his wife reminded him that Granny Baxter was probably
ignorant of the terrible accident which had happened to her grandson,
and asked him to go and break the news to her. Little Jean had been
there before him, however; and Gowrie found the old woman crawling
helplessly along in the direction of the knolls, quite stupefied by the
terrible tidings that Jean had managed to convey to her deaf ears. The
li