“I do not require John. What is to be done, I can do myself. Give me a light.” But Mysie, who was in reality a brave girl, and could manage horses as easily as she managed the brown cow, and who besides doted on little Harry and the baby, and would not have hesitated at even a greater thing for their father, answered by lifting John’s lantern; and catching down a plaid which hung on the wall as they passed, she led the way to the stables without another word. It was a strange scene: Mysie excited, and still half-dreaming, forced the unwilling horse between the shafts; and Martha, like a marble statue, with hands which never trembled nor hesitated, secured the fastenings in perfect silence. John could not have done this daily business of his in half the time which it took these women to lead the carriage softly out of the stables round by a lane behind the house into the highway. They had no time to seek for the lamps to light them, so Martha carried the lantern in her hand, and held it up into the darkness as they advanced, while Mysie drove on steadily towards Stirling. They had not gone a mile, Martha continually lifting her lantern and gazing into the gloom, when they heard that some one on a gallopping horse approached them. Martha rose to her feet, and held up the light. It seemed to scare the animal, who suddenly paused, with reins dangling on his neck and foam upon his breast; but he was riderless. “It’s Allenders’ ain horse,” said Mysie, in a strong hissing whisper through her closed teeth, as she touched the bay in the carriage with her whip, and with a leap they proceeded. But Martha desperately caught at the reins of the other horse, and grasped them--she could not, even in her agony for Harry, bear to think that her other children should receive such a dreadful shock as this, while she was not with them to strengthen them. And the exhausted animal went on quietly for a little time--then he began to plunge and rear, and turn towards home. “Let him go--let him go,” again whispered Mysie, now desperate with anxiety and fright. “You canna get lookit at the roadside for hauding him--let him go.” And Martha did let him go. Not twenty yards farther on, their horse suddenly came to a dead pause--and there, lying across the highway, was a dark figure, with a battered hat by its side, and the face gleaming ghastly in the light of Martha’s lantern. She was bending over him before Mysie’s first gasp of terror gave her breath; and Martha’s white lips were calling upon God, upon God--but no sound came from them upon the heavy darkness.