"Good-bye, dearest Ishbel! Don't forget Normal, who has been your brother for so long. Write to me, Ishbel-my own dear, true, little Ishbel! and, when on the summer nights you are singing, 'My heart's in the Highlands,' think of me: mine will be ever there. Ishbel, I'll return some day."

He pressed her to his heart, and turned up the Roua Pass: no parting word left for Esmé. But it came at last: looking backwards for a moment, he cried,

"Tell Esmé, I hope she will like England, and be happy!" then, dashing away a rising tear, he walked swiftly on.

Once again he stopped, when on the very verge of the Pass, and took a parting view. Oh! how vividly, long afterwards, did he recall the spot, and remember it ever after. The old house beneath, the singing, dancing river, the old trees, and the older hills, all the old associations recalled by them, blended as in mist together. On he strode again, that stern young Celt, with clenched hands, and a conquering, scornful feeling for the world he was about to enter.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE HIGHLAND SHEPHERD'S FATE.

The snow was so deep,

That his heart it grew weary,

And he sank down to sleep

In the moorland so dreary.-HOGG.

It gars the life-blood quicker run,

It fills the heart wi' glee,

It brings the rose tint to the cheek,

The sparkle to the e'e.-CURLER'S SONG.

WINTER set in at Glenbenrough with great severity in the month of January, just after Esmé and Ishbel, with their father, returned from Strathshielie, where a large party had kept New Year with Highland honours and unabated spirit for nearly a fortnight after its entrance. They congratulated themselves on having arrived at home, for the snow-flakes began silently to fall so fast and thick, that twelve hours' delay would have made the road almost impassable. Snow fell almost uninterruptedly for a week, until the whole face of the country was wrapped in the white winding-sheet of nature's death-like sleep; and then hard frost set in: yet the air felt warmer than it had

done for weeks, for the slight breeze that occasionally shook their snowy burthen from the trees, blew from the west. Beautiful it was to stand at the open window and gaze upon the scene: the snow lay deep in a wide unstained expanse of glittering whiteness, far as the eye could reach, over hill and glen and forest; varied by shades and tints of diverse beauty, as the sun's rays gave a warm glow to the snowy waste, and cast long shadows of the trees. Groups of silvery-frosted birch hung drooping their long-veiled heads like frozen brides, and serried ranks of stalwart pines reared their snowy crests in bold relief against a wintry sky of ethereal blue, without a flake or rack of cloud; while younger pines, crowding near, brightened the old brown neutral tints with foliage of dark green. The high peak of the rocks glittered like icy spears in the sunshine, and cast their jagged shadows upon the lower jutting crags. Death-like stillness reigned over all; but it was the stillness of nature's repose of the hybernation of the frost-bound earth; and not without indications of the future awakening of vegetable life.

Esmé and Ishbel had been kept within doors for some days by the continual fall of snow, which had blocked every road and path near; but on the first day of frost they prepared to sally out with all the impatience generated by past imprisonment. Glenbenrough having, at breakfast time, wondered if Huistan, the shepherd, had attended to a flock of young ewes which, before the snow began, were wintering in a deep glen a long way off, the girls said they would go to Lochandhu, and ask Florh about it; so off they set, wrapped in their plaids, with their short linsey skirts, and each with a long stick in her hand, in case they encountered any obstacle. The Roua Pass was now impassable; for who would dare to try its narrow width, concealed as it was in treacherous snow, which lay so thick that the whole surface of the hill, from top to bottom, seemed to slope without any indentation. Esmé and Ishbel walked with elastic activity, the rarity of the atmosphere stimulating them to a bounding pace, and sending light into their eyes and brilliant colour to their cheeks. The snowy surface was thickly crusted; but they passed quickly and carefully over it, for a false step would have plunged them into deep yielding wreaths of snow.

Florh was delighted to see them; and Ewen, who was seated moodily by the fire, showed more open pleasure than usual. As Florh had feared, he had done little good since Normal's

departure, but had kept much to the fireside, spending his time in sedentary occupation. He was just now engaged in alternately shaping a piece of wood into an otter, and polishing a pair of pistols which Normal had left, with other things, in his care. Huistan was without, but would be in presently: and Florh began, with busy alacrity, to prepare luncheon for her dear young ladies. She roasted eggs in the peat ashes, fried slices of mutton ham, and mixed rich cream, eggs, sugar, and whisky into a delicious compound, called "old man's milk.” Esmé asked her about Jeanie Cameron, when Ewen left the room: Florh told her that she and Ewen had had no further interviews; but that she had heard Jeanie was going, whenever the weather permitted, to visit an aunt in the town of Braemorin, as Jeanie had had a heavy cold" all winter, and her father thought her very "dwining." Esmé, taking up one of Normal's pistols, saw her own name scratched, in a rude way, upon the stock: she recollected the day she had done it with a pin, after Normal had given her some lessons in firing at a mark; and that he had seemed anything but displeased at the disfigurement.

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"It's me that misses Normal, och hone!" said Florh, as she eyed Esmé with the pistol, while busily preparing her hospitable repast.

"And so we all do, Florh," Ishbel replied; "I wish he was home again."

"An' I'm afraid that day won't shine for some time yet," answered Florh.

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Why did you not ask Normal to take Ewen with him, Florh?" Ishbel said.

I wanted it, Ishbel, methal, but I had not the luck to succeed: Normal went against me in it."

"Oh! if you had persevered, I am sure Normal would have taken him," Ishbel replied: "you know you always can succeed in what you like, Florh."

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"No, Ishbel, ma guil, the luck has gone through other wi' me this year there's nothing happened but disappointment and harm. Normal should never have needed to go away. Who knows but his fate may gang all astray! He left his ain land with a dreeful heart."

"Well, Florh!" said Esmé, " you must have patience. I am very glad Normal went abroad; he will enjoy himself very much, and travelling will be a good thing for him in every way. While they were seated at Florh's smoking table, the wind

began suddenly, and, at first almost inaudibly, to blow, accompanied by drifting showers of sleety snow. The girls looked up in dismay at the sky,-bright blue but half an hour ago, now completely overcast by an ominous leaden hue. The wind rose into a few loud wailing blasts that almost shook the cottage, and then died quietly away; while the snow drove straight down in small feathery particles, that fell with blinding velocity and thickness. Ere the wind quite ceased, Huistan entered with Ewen, who had gone up to the sheep fank in search of him; both their plaids were encumbered by deep folds of snow, and it lay like a thick thatch upon the top of their Kilmarnock bonnets. Huistan's steady face was in unusual excitement; he scarce waited to salute the young ladies, ere he hurriedly addressed his mother:

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Mither, I must be off to Glen Madhu! A feeding storm is coming on here, and has been at it all night up there. I must see can the ewies be driven to the hill fank yonder, puir beasties." And then turning to Esmé: "Will ye tell the laird o 't, Miss Esmé? I was na going till the morn; but I see now no time can be lost. I was up all night on Ben Pollo: the wedders are all safe, and Sandie Mac Tavish and Tam Mạc Gillivray are to stop in the bothy."

"Had not you better go too, Ewen ?" Esmé said.

"Na, na," Huistan interrupted; "he must stay here to get ye baith safe hame, Miss Esmé, an' to be at hand for fear my mither will want him. I'll be hame by the morn. Hie! Conas and Freuchen-gude collies-hie to the ewies!" His two shepherd dogs wagged their tails, and looked in the direction of Glen Madhu: they knew as well as he did where they were going, and how much they were needed. Florh hastily cut off a lump of cheese, and crammed it, with some oat-cake, into Huistan's pocket; she filled a flask with whisky, which she also put in, and then she pulled a dry plaid that hung upon a nail, and was going to take off the snowy one he had on. But Ewen grumbled and objected. It was his Sabbath plaid: was there no worse one to give? Huistan, with a laugh, told him to keep it: the climbing of the hills would make him warm without it; and, wrapping his damp plaid about him. again, he set off with his faithful dogs. The storm was, indeed, a "" feeding" one; there was no wind or drift, but the snow fell so thick and continuously, that in a few hours the present depth was fearfully increased. Esmé and Ishbel declared they could wait no longer; so Florh and Ewen got

ready a little conical-shaped cart, called a lobahn, used in the Highlands for carrying turf over morass and mossy tracts; and in this covered up with Ewen's best plaid they proceeded, he leading the steady old hill pony by the head. Scarcely had they got upon the road beyond the flat at the loch, when, with a wild shriek, the winds seemed to rise together from every point, and meet midway in the sky above. Before the travellers could well remark it in words, the weather changed its aspect; the snow seemed to dash itself enraged into their faces, and hurtled with the blast in eddying whirlpools in the air. The previous light-formed depths rose from the ground like swelling, frothing waves; and the storm-gust blew with fury, bringing down overwhelming drifts from the surrounding hills. The girls crouched down in the rude cart, and Ewen crept as far beneath it as the cumbrous wheels permitted. The pony, in its sagacity turning round to leeward, held its head lowered to the storm; which increased momentarily until it reached its wildest, loudest height. Any conveyance less low and solid than the lobahn would have been lifted up and carried bodily before it; but the cart merely rocked and groaned in the blast, while the girls kept silence within. The tempest slackened after a while, and the winds went moaning back to the hills; there to recruit and come forth again by-and-by with redoubled strength. The pony, at the first lull in the storm, plunged forward, and made for Lochandhu. Ewen urged it on with every expression of Gaelic encouragement; for the sooner they could regain his mother's cottage the better: to attempt to go on to Glenbenrough was, indeed, impracticable for them; though Ewen did it by himself a little later. The winds were still lulled when they reached Lochandhu; but the snow, resuming its former course, came down thick and blindingly, and the girls were half buried beneath it as they sat in the cart. When they had gone in, Ewen unyoked and mounted the pony, and rode off to tell at Glenbenrough of the young ladies' safe detention there; but he did not return that night to tell of it; for ere he reached the house, the tempest came on with renewed violence: it was one of the most fearful nights ever remembered in that part of the country. Sheep were rolled over, and entombed in gullies on the hills; the stones loosened on the walls of the fanks, were hurled in upon the suffering brute creatures that sought their shelter the small stacks of hay and straw beside the poor peasants' homesteads were thrown down, and blown ruthlessly to de