But he calmed down in the course of time into a species of mild despair. A bursting sob broke from him occasionally, as with his face buried in his hands, his head deep in the heather, and his eyes tight shut, he strove in vain to blind himself to the true nature of his dreadful position. At last he became recklessly desperate, and, rising hastily, he fled. He sought, poor lad, to fly from himself. Of course the effort was fruitless. Instead of distancing himself--an impossibility at all times--doubly so in a rugged country--he tumbled himself over a cliff, (fortunately not a high one), and found himself in a peat-bog, (fortunately not a deep one). This cooled and somewhat improved his understanding, so that he returned to the knoll a wiser, a wetter, and a sadder boy. Who shall describe the agonies, the hopes, the fears, the wanderings, the faggings, and the final despair of the succeeding hours? It is impossible to say who will describe all this, for _we_ have not the slightest intention of attempting it. Towards midnight Dan reached a very dark and lonely part of the mountains, and was suddenly arrested by a low wail. The sturdy Celt raised his lantern on high. Just at that moment Peter's despair happened to culminate, and he lifted his head out of the heather to give free vent to the hideous groan, with which he meant, if possible, to terminate his existence. The groan became a shriek, first of terror, then of hope, after that of anxiety, as Dan came dancing towards him like a Jack-o'-lantern. "Fat is she shriekin' at?" said Dan. "Oh! I'm _so_ glad--I'm so-o-ow-hoo!" Poor Peter seized Dan round the legs, for, being on his knees, he could not reach higher, and embraced him. "Fat's got the maister?" Peter could not tell. "Can she waalk?" Peter couldn't walk--his limbs refused their office. "Here, speel up on her back." Peter could do that. He did it, and hugged Dan round the neck with the tenacity of a shipwrecked mariner clinging to his last plank. The sturdy Celt went down the mountain as lightly as if Peter were a fly, and as if the vice-like grip of his arms round his throat were the embrace of a worsted comforter. "Here they are, ma'am!" screamed Mrs Brown. She was wrong. Mrs Brown was usually wrong. Peter alone was deposited before the eager gaze of Mrs Sudberry, who fainted away with disappointment. Mrs Brown said "be off" to Peter, and applied scent-bottles to her mistress. The poor boy's grateful heart wanted to embrace somebody; so he went slowly and sadly upstairs, where he found the cat, and embraced _it_. Hours passed away, and the Sudberry Family still wandered lost, and almost hopeless, among the mountains. STORY ONE, CHAPTER 12. FOUND. We left Mr Sudberry and his children in the nearly dry bed of a mountain-torrent, indulging the belief that matters were as bad as could be, and that, therefore, there was no possibility of their getting worse.