"She must be lying in the road," he said; "she was an old woman unable to walk." He held the lamp to the ground, as if at any moment he might tread her under foot. By this time other dark figures were detaching themselves from amidst their heaped-up wraps from the top of the coach and jumping down, stamping their feet upon the iron and ice of the frozen ruts. "What is it? Who is it? An old body? Bless us all, an old body. She will just get her death!" There was a chorus of voices and of warm breath going up on the still air. The guard and John, each with a lamp, walked down to the bottom of the hill, accompanied vaguely by several scarcely decipherable attendants. "I fell asleep," he said, explaining himself to the night, scarcely conscious of any auditor, "and then she was sitting there close up in the corner, as she had been since we left Edinburgh, and would never speak: but when I woke up, the door was wide open, swinging, and there was nobody----" He added, after a moment, as if he had suddenly discovered that face: "Some woman passing on the road shut to the door with a bang--and that woke me." It seemed to him as he related this that he was telling an incident in a dream; and yet he was sure it was quite true. "A woman on the road--did you see a woman on the road? there's few foot-passengers here at this hour of the night," said the guard. "I saw her as clear as I see you." He held up his lamp instinctively to the face of the other, which was bent like his own on the ground. "One of you," cried the guard, "hurry up the hill and stop her if she's gone that way. She canna have gone far on this steep road. Stop her and see what she knows." But no wayfarer was found on the ascending road, nor could all the light of the lamps find any trace of any one who had fallen. The inhabitants of the first wayside cottage at the foot of the hill were imperiously knocked up by the guard and put upon the trace. "We canna stop the coach whatever happens," he cried, "but we'll send out a search party from Duntrum immediate. How long were you sleepin'?" he added peremptorily to John, who looked at his watch in the light of the lamp and answered-- "Perhaps an hour." "An hour is a long time," said the guard, knitting his brows. "As far back as the brig we would be then, and at a smart pace, for the horses, poor things, scented their stables. Take your lantern, lad, if you have one, and go as far as that.--Ou ay, ye'll be paid, you needna be feared for that. Will ye come, sir, or bide? I daurna stop the coach."