Then Boy Hugh, who had not gone to Hunker Court for nothing, bethought him that, since there was nothing else that he could do, it was time to say his prayers. "O Lord!" he prayed—"O Lord, forgive us our sins, and remember not our trans-somethings against us! Look down from heaven and help"—(so far his supplications had run in the accustomed groove in which Samson Langpenny conducted the "opening exercises" of Hunker Court, but at this point Boy Hugh diverged into originality, as Samson did sometimes when he stuck in the middle of the Lord's prayer)—"Look down from heaven and help—a—wee laddie in a moss-hole. Keep him frae teegers and lions, and bogles and black horses that come oot o' lochs and eat ye up, and frae the green monkeys that hing on to trees and claw ye as ye gang by. And gie me something to eat, and Vara and Gavin after me. For I'm near dead o' hunger, and I want nae mair yesterday's bread, and help me to find my whup-lash. And make me grow up into a man fast, for I want to do as I like—and then, my certes, but I'll warm the Drabble for stealin' my pistol. And bless Vara and Gavin, my faither and Cleg Kelly, and a' inquirin' freends. Amen." And if anybody knows a more comprehensive prayer, let him instantly declare it, or, as the charge runs, be for ever silent. ADVENTURE XXXVII. BOY HUGH FINDS OUT THE NATURE OF A KISS. Vara always looks back upon that night of fear and loneliness as the worst in all their wanderings. She wrapped Gavin tightly in the shawl, till only a little space was left for him to breathe. Then she ran from knowe-top to knowe-top to look for Boy Hugh, and to call him to come back to her. She dared not go far from the boulder lest she should miss her way, and so not be able to find her way to the baby. While Vara was wandering distracted over the moor, calling pitifully to him, Boy Hugh was comfortably asleep beneath a heather bush. And the June nights are brief and merciful in Scotland. It was not long before a broad bar of light lay across the eastern hills. The pale sea-green lingering in the west where the sun had gone down had not altogether faded into the ashy grey of uncoloured night ere the eastern sky began to flame. The clouds of sunrise are like ocean-rollers on a wide beach—long, barred, and parallel—for the sun rises through them with majestic circumspection. But the clouds of sunset are apt to converge to a point, like the wake which the sun draws after him in his tumultuous downward plunge.