When we had gone some half-dozen miles a light shone out from the wayside, and we descried a house. It was a little, low dwelling, with many sheds at the rear; clearly a smithy or a humble farm. My servant leaped down and knocked. The door was opened, a warm stream of light lay across the snowy road. I had a glimpse within, and there was a cheerful kitchen with a fire of logs crackling. A man sat by the hearth, shaping something or other with a knife, and around him two children were playing. The woman who came to us was buxom and comely, one who delighted in her children and her home. The whole place gave me a sharp feeling of envy and regret. Even these folk, poor peasants, had the joys of comfort and peace, while I, so long an outlaw and a wanderer, must still wander hopeless seeking the lost, cumbered about with a thousand dangers. "Did any riders pass by the road to-day?" I asked. "Ay, four passed on horses about midday or maybe a wee thing after it, twae stoot fellows, and a braw-clad gentleman and a bonny young leddy. They didna stop but gaed by at a great rate." "What was the lady like?" I asked, breathlessly. "Oh, a bit young thing, snod and genty-like. But I mind she looked gey dowie and I think she had been greetin’. But wherefore d’ye speir, sir? And what are ye daein’ oot hereaways on siccan a nicht? Ye best come in and bide till mornin’. We’ve an orra bed i’ the house for the maister, and plenty o’ guid, saft straw i’ the barn for the man." "Did they go straight on?" I cried, "and whither does this way lead?" "They went straight on," said she, "and the road is the road to the toun o’ Dumbarton." And she would have told me more, but with a hasty word of thanks, I cut her short, and once more we were off into the night. From this place our way and the incidents thereof are scarce clear in my memory. For one thing the many toils of the preceding time began at last to tell upon me, and I grew sore and wearied. Also a heavy drowsiness oppressed me, and even in that cold I could have slept on my horse’s back. We were still on the path, and the rhythmical jog of the motion served to lull me, till, as befell every now and then, there came a rut or a tussock, and I was brought to my senses with a sharp shock. Nicol rode silently at my side, a great figure in the gloom, bent low, as was always his custom, over his horse’s neck. In one way the state was more pleasing than the last, for the turmoil of cares in my heart was quieted for the moment by the bodily fatigue. I roused myself at times to think of my purpose and get me energy for my task, but the dull languor would not be exorcised, and I always fell back again into my sloth. Nevertheless we kept a fair pace, for we had given the rein to our animals, and they were fresh and well-fed.