As I pondered these things the darkness fell, lit by a myriad scintillant stars which mirrored themselves in the depths of the lake so that as I sat there I seemed to be in the centre of a great hollow sphere, whose roof and floor were studded with innumerable diamonds. For a time I sat feasting my eyes on this enchanting spectacle; then I crawled into my hiding-place and pillowing my head on a sheaf of dead bracken leaves I composed myself to sleep. I slept heavily and when I awoke the hour of dawn was long past. Some old instinct made me push aside the overhanging fronds with a wary hand and peep out cautiously; but there was nothing to be seen except the great rolling hillside. As of old, the laughing waters of the loch called to me, and soon I was revelling in their refreshing coolness. When I had clambered out I scampered along the edge of the loch till I was dry, then putting on my clothing I sat down and breakfasted. I had not much food left; hardly enough to blunt my appetite, but I hoped that I should be able to make good speed on the homeward journey, and that in a few hours I should once again rejoin the expectant household at Daldowie. *CHAPTER XXIV* *BAFFLED* My meal over I went to the loch-side, and dropping on my hands and knees took a long draught of the cool water. Then, raising myself, I uttered the whaup call, but I did not expect any answer and I received none. I looked across the loch to the little cairn that stood sentinel above the sainted dead, and then I turned and made for home and Mary. I climbed up the slope to my left and scanned the moor. For miles and miles it spread before me, but far as the eye could reach there was no one to be seen. Then the spell of the solitude fell upon me, and I began to understand how, in the dawn of the world, the dim-seeing soul of man had stretched out aching hands in the lone places of the earth if haply it might find God. The mood passed, and I prepared to haste me on my journey. Taking my bearings carefully, I decided to make straight for Daldowie. The ache in my injured limb had abated and I found that I could make fair speed. My heart was light; I was going back to Mary, and I should find Andrew safe. The larks above me were storming the heavens with their song; my heart was singing too; and soon my lips were singing as well. I sang a love-song--one of Mary’s songs--and as I sang I smiled to think that I was practising the art of what Andrew had called "speaking like a ceevilised body." Midday came, as the sun above me proclaimed, and I judged that already I was half-way home, when suddenly, in the distance, I saw some moving figures. The wariness of a hill-man flung me at once upon my face, and peering through a tuft of sheltering heather, I looked anxiously towards them.