Roderick shouted to the others to wait, but the cry lost itself in the mist, or was misunderstood. The voices from below came up fainter and fainter, and finally they were heard no more. The search for the 'spy-glass' occupied some time, and all their attention, but eventually it was found within a foot or two of where they stood, and it was not till then that they discovered they were alone on the hillside. Roderick shouted till he was hoarse, but there came no response, and it became evident they must shift for themselves. 'Most disgraceful conduct! such heartlessness! To think that Peter Sangster, my own son, whom I have sat up with, and nursed through measles and hooping-cough, till my back was like to break, should drag his old mother up here among the clouds, and then desert her!' and here the old lady began to whimper, but took care to make the 'spy-glass' secure in some inner receptacle of her dress. Roderick suggested that it was getting late, and that by making haste they might yet overtake the runaways. 'I hope we may. But who knows? They may have fallen over a precipice, and be lying maimed and mangled at the bottom. Oh dear! it may be days before they are found. My poor Sophia! that would have looked so well riding about Manchester in her own carriage! She may have broken her neck, or disfigured herself for life! lying bruised and bleeding on a heap of stones. And the crows come and pick at people, they tell me, when they are too much hurt to drive them away. Oh dear, oh dear! Her active mind conjured up every imaginable horror, till, distracted by the pictures of her own invention, she lifted up her voice and wept sore. Roderick stood by powerless, and eventually silent. Each word of consolation served but to start her imagination on a new track of suggestions more frightful than the last, so he held his peace and waited. Tears brought relief in time, and now fear for herself took the place of more fanciful terrors. 'Oh, come away, Roderick!' she cried, 'what are you standing there for?--glowering at nothing! Come away!' The descent proceeded. And now they were on an extended flat, undulating in all directions, and lying between the steep ascent to the summit and the declivity which sloped to the next level below. Without the guidance afforded by continuous descent, they found very soon that they had completely lost their way, and could form no idea of what direction they were moving in. 'I thought you had often shot over this hill, and knew it well, Roderick Brown, or I would never have trusted myself in your hands; but it seems to me you know nothing about it. I'm thinkin' we may wander about here all night, for anything _you_ can do to bring us home. So I am just going to sit down till the Lord sends us help! Home! I'll never see home again; and a sorrowful woman I am, that I ever set out on this fool's errand!'