"That's right, Dan--keep away up by the slate corrie, and come down by the red tarn. If they've taken the wrong turn to the right, you're sure to fall in wi' them thereaway. Send Hugh round by the burn; I'll go straight up the hill, and come down upon Loch Cognahoighliey. Give a shout now and then, as ye goo." Dan was a man of action and few words: he vouchsafed no reply, but turned immediately and left the room, leaving a powerful odour of the byre behind him. Poor Mrs Sudberry and Tilly were unspeakably comforted by the grave business-like way, in which the search was gone about. They recalled to mind that a search of a somewhat similar nature, in point of manner and time, was undertaken a week before for a stray sheep, and that it had been successful; so they felt relieved, though they remained, of course, dreadfully anxious. McAllister refrained from administering any more moral philosophy. As he was not at all anxious about the lost party, and was rather fond of a sly joke, it remains to this day a matter of doubt whether he really expected that his nostrums would be of much use. In a few minutes he was breasting the hill like a true mountaineer, with a lantern in his hand, and with Hobbs by his side. "Only think, ma'am," said Mrs Brown, who was not usually judicious in her remarks, "only think if they've been an' fell hover a precipice." "Shocking!" exclaimed poor Mrs Sudberry, with a little shriek, as she clapped her hands on her eyes. "Poor Jacky, ma'am, p'raps 'e's lyin' hall in a mangled 'eap at the foot of a--" "Leave me!" cried Mrs Sudberry, with an amount of sudden energy that quite amazed Mrs Brown, who left the room feeling that she was an injured woman. "Darling mamma, they will come back!" said Tilly, throwing her arms round her mother's neck, and bursting into tears on her bosom. "You know that the sheep--the lost sheep--was found last week, and brought home quite safe. Dan is _so_ kind, though he does not speak much, and Hugh too. They will be sure to find them, darling mamma!" The sweet voice and the hopeful heart of the child did what philosophy had failed to accomplish--Mrs Sudberry was comforted. Thus we see, not that philosophy is a vain thing, but that philosophy and feeling are distinct, and that each is utterly powerless in the domain of the other.