te ready to be torn to pieces by the wind, and the
valley beneath covered with stormy water. The tumult was so loud,
that she did not hear a gentle knock at her door: as she turned
away, weary of everything, she saw it softly open--and there to her
astonishment stood Gibbie--come, she imagined, to seek shelter,
because their cottage had been blown down.--Calculating the position
of her room from what he knew of its windows, he had, with the
experienced judgment of a mountaineer, gone to it almost direct.

"You mustn't come here, Gibbie," she said, advancing. "Go down to
the kitchen, to Mistress Mac Farlane. She will see to what you
want."

Gibbie made eager signs to her to go with him. She concluded that
he wanted her to accompany him to the kitchen and speak for him; but
knowing that would only enrage her keeper with them both, she shook
her head, and went back to the window. She thought, as she
approached it, there seemed a lull in the storm, but the moment she
looked out, she gave a cry of astonishment, and stood staring.
Gibbie had followed her as softly as swiftly, and looking out also,
saw good cause indeed for her astonishment: the channel of the
raging burn was all but dry! Instantly he understood what it meant.
In his impotence to persuade, he caught the girl in his arms, and
rushed with her from the room. She had faith enough in him by this
time not to struggle or scream. He shot down the stair with her,
and out of the front door. Her weight was nothing to his excited
strength. The moment they issued, and she saw the Glashburn raving
along through the lawn, with little more than the breadth of the
drive between it and the house, she saw the necessity of escape,
though she did not perceive half the dire necessity for haste.
Every few moments, a great gush would dash out twelve or fifteen
yards over the gravel and sink again, carrying many feet of the bank
with it, and widening by so much the raging channel.

"Put me down, Gibbie," she said; "I will run as fast as you like."

He obeyed at once.

"Oh!" she cried, "Mistress Mac Farlane!--I wonder if she knows. Run
and knock at the kitchen window."

Gibbie darted off, gave three loud hurried taps on the window, came
flying back, took Ginevra's hand in his, drew her on till she was at
her full speed, turned sharp to the left round the corner of the
house, and shot down to the empty channel of the burn. As they
crossed it, even to the inexperie