I was passive in his hands, for I felt as weak as an infant. They wrapped me up in greatcoats and blankets, and supported me to the courtyard. I had hardly strength to speak to Aleck, whom I now saw for the first time since the night of his disaster; the poor fellow's face still bore the livid marks of his punishment, but he was active and assiduous as ever. A slide car or slipe--a vehicle something like a Lapland sledge--was covered with bedding in the middle of the square: a cart was just being hurried off, full of loose furniture, with Peggy and Jenny in front. I was placed upon my hurdle, apparently as little for this world as if Tyburn had been its destination: Knowehead and Aleck mounted their horses, took the reins of that which drew me at either side, and hauled me off at a smart trot along the smooth turf of the grass-grown causeway. The motion was sliding and agreeable, except on one occasion, when we had to take a few perches of the highway in crossing the river; but when we struck off into the green horse-track again, and began to rise and sink upon the ridges of the broad lea, I could have compared my humble litter to the knight's horses, which felt like proud seas under them. From the sample I had had of that part of the country on the night of the flood, I had anticipated a "confused march forlorn, through bogs, caves, fens, lakes, dens, and shades of death," but was agreeably surprised to see the Longslap Moss a simple stripe along the water's edge, lying dark in the deepening twilight, a full furlong from our path, which, instead of weltering through the soaked and spungy flats that I had expected, wound dry and mossy up the gentle slope of a smooth green hill; so that, although the night closed in upon us ere half our journey was completed, we arrived at Knowehead without farther accident than one capsize (the beauty of slipping consists in the impossibility of breaks down), and so far from being the worse of my "sail," I felt actually stronger than on leaving the Grange; nevertheless I was put to bed, where I continued for a week. Next day brought intelligence of the wrecking of Moyabel in the search for the rebel general and the sick Frenchman: our measures had been so well taken, however, that no suspicion attached itself to Knowehead. I learned from Peggy, so soon as her lamentations subsided, that Mr O'More was a south country gentleman, who had married her master's sister, and that Madeline was his only child; that this had been his first visit to the north since the death of his lady, which had taken place at her brother's house, but that Moyabel had long been the resort of his friends and emissaries. The old woman left Knowehead that night, and I learned no more; for Jenny (who remained with Miss Janet) had been so busy with her care of Aleck during his illness, and afterwards so unwell herself, that she knew nothing more than I.