de suggested that all the windows of
heaven had been suddenly opened. The incident was natural enough in
itself, but the anxious youth took it as a bad omen, and trembled as he
had never before trembled at the disturbances of nature. One glance,
however, sufficed to relieve his mind. The dying woman was young.
Delicate of constitution by nature, long exposure to damp air in caves,
and cold beds on the ground, with bad and insufficient food, had sealed
her doom. Lying there, with hollow cheeks, eyes closed and lips deathly
pale, it seemed as if the spirit had already fled.

"Oh, my ain Lizzie!" cried a poor woman who knelt beside her.

"Wheesht, mither," whispered the dying woman, slowly opening her eyes;
"it is the Lord's doing--shall not the Judge of a' the earth do right?
We'll understand it a' some day--for ever wi' the Lord!"

The last words were audible only to the mother's ear. Food for the
body, even if it could have availed her, came too late. Another moment
and she was in the land where hunger and thirst are unknown--where the
wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.

The mourners were still standing in silence gazing on the dead, when a
loud noise and stamping of feet was heard at the entrance of the cave.
Turning round they saw several drenched and haggard persons enter, among
them a man supporting--almost carrying--a woman whose drooping figure
betokened great exhaustion.

"Thank you, O thank you; I--I'm better now," said the woman, looking up
with a weary yet grateful expression at her protector.

Will Wallace sprang forward as he heard the voice. "Mother! mother!" he
cried, and, next moment, he had her in his arms.

The excitement coupled with extreme fatigue was almost too much for the
poor woman. She could not speak, but, with a sigh of contentment,
allowed her head to fall upon the broad bosom of her son.

Accustomed as those hunted people were to scenes of suffering, wild
despair, and sometimes, though not often, to bursts of sudden joy, this
incident drew general attention and sympathy--except, indeed, from the
mother of the dead woman, whose poor heart was for the moment stunned.
Several women--one of whom was evidently a lady of some position--
crowded to Will's assistance, and conveyed Mrs. Wallace to a recess in
the cave which was curtained off. Here they gave her food, and changed
her soaking garments. Meanwhile her brother, David Spence--a
grand-looking old man o