No, they were not near it; still down they went, becoming more and more alarmed, yet always tempted on by the feeling that each step would bring them to the bottom. "What a noise the stream makes! why, it must be a river!" No, it was not a river--it was a mere burn; quite a little burn, but-- what then? Little men are always fussier and noisier than big men; little boys invariably howl more furiously than big boys. Nature is full of analogies; and little streams, especially mountain streams, always make more ado in finding their level than big rivers. They got down at last, and then they found the stream rushing, bursting, crashing among rent and riven rocks and boulders as if it had gone furiously mad, and was resolved never more to flow and murmur, but always to leap and roar. It was impassable; to walk down its banks or bed was impossible, so the wanderers had to re-ascend the bank, and roam away over black space in search of another crossing. They soon lost the sound in the intricacies of cliffs and dells, and never again found that stream. But they found a narrow path, and Fred announced the discovery with a cheer. It was an extremely rugged path, and appeared to have been macadamised with stones the size of a man's head. This led them to suspect that it must be a ditch, not a path; but it turned out to be the dry bed of a mountain-torrent--dry, at least, as regards running water, though not dry in respect of numerous stagnant pools, into which at various times each member of the party stepped unintentionally. It mattered not--nothing could make them wetter or more miserable than they were--so they thought. They had yet to learn that the thoughts of men are forever misleading them, and that there is nothing more certain than the uncertainty of all human calculations. STORY ONE, CHAPTER 11. STILL LOST! Meanwhile, Mrs Sudberry was thrown into a species of frenzied horror, which no words can describe, and which was not in any degree allayed by the grave shaking of the head, with which Mr McAllister accompanied his vain efforts to comfort and re-assure her. This excellent man quoted several passages from the works of Dugald Stewart and Locke, tending to show, in common parlance, that "necessity has no law," and that the rightly constituted human mind ought to rise superior to all circumstances--quotations which had the effect of making Mrs Sudberry more hysterical than ever, and which induced Mrs Brown to call him who offered such consolation a "brute!" But McAllister did not confine his efforts solely to the region of mind. While he was earnestly administering doses of the wisdom of Stewart and Locke to the agitated lady in the parlour, Dan and Hugh, with several others, were, by his orders, arming themselves in the kitchen for a regular search. "She's ready," said Dan, entering the parlour unceremoniously with a huge stable lantern.