Thus advised, the second constable diverged to the right, and, plunging into the copsewood, was instantly out of sight. Soon afterwards, Willie came to the place where he had met the gypsy. Here a consultation was held as to where the booth might probably be. "He jumped over the wall here," said Willie, "and I'm sure he took the hill in this direction at _first_." "Ay, laddie; but chiels o' his stamp never gang straight to their mark. We'll follow him up _this_ way. Hoe long is't sin' ye perted wi' him, said ee?" examining the place where the gypsy had entered the copse. Willie returned no answer. The unusual amount of fatigue and the terrible mental excitement which he had undergone that day were too much for him. A feeling of deadly sickness came suddenly on him, and when the constable looked round he was lying on the road in a swoon. This unexpected incident compelled the man to abandon further pursuit for the time. Giving utterance to a "puir laddie," he raised the boy in his arms and carried him to the nearest hut, which happened to be that of old Moggy! No one was there but the young woman who acted as nurse to the invalid. It chanced that Moggy had had a sleep, and she awoke with her mental faculties much cleared, when the constable entered and laid Willie on a mat not far from her bed. The old woman gazed long and earnestly in the boy's face, and seemed much troubled and perplexed while the nurse applied water to his temples. At last Willie opened his eyes. Moggy at once recognised him. She strove eagerly to reach her long-lost child, and Willie, jumping up, sprang to her side; but ere they met she raised both arms in the air, and, uttering a long piercing cry, fell back insensible upon the bed. STORY ONE, CHAPTER 21. THE END. Rain, rain, rain; continual, pertinacious, unmitigated rain! The White House was no longer white, it was grey. Things were no longer damp, they were totally flooded. Mr McAllister's principal hay-field was a pond--every ditch was a rivulet; "the burn" was a destructive cataract; the white torrents that raged down the mountains everywhere, far and near, looked like veins of quartz, and the river had become a lake with a strong current in the middle of it. There was no sunshine now in the Highlands,--not a gleam!