"Ought I to stand by for fear of responsibility, or for the sake of my own pride, or for the risk of ingratitude, and see my sister's son sink into ignorance and debasement, and end in being the autocrat of an ale-house?" he said to himself, and did all that was possible to change the current of his own thoughts. But it was not much easier to choose a profession for Horace, or to fix on what he ought to be. Colonel Sutherland had come to perceive that he did not understand his nephew, and that not a single feature of resemblance existed between them. He marched on upon the road with his steady soldier's step, not perceiving how far he was going, nor how the night darkened--marching gradually into a more and more bewildering mist of thought. The village lay sheltered in a shallow valley, with low slopes ascending on every side towards a higher level of country, slopes much too gentle and gradual to have much affinity with the distant fells. Colonel Sutherland had nearly reached the top of one of these banks, when the toil of the ascent, which just there was steep, awakened him to a consciousness of where he was. He might have wandered for miles over the open country, but for the failure of wind and sensation of fatigue which seized him upon that brae. When he came to himself, wheeling about suddenly, he saw the lights of the village twinkling into the twilight a long way beneath him, and perceived, for the first time, how far he had come. "The wind being on my back all the time," he said, with a kind of involuntary apology to himself half-aloud, as he commenced his return. The Colonel's ears were sharper out of doors than in. He recognized that somewhere near, somebody had made a sudden start at the sound of his voice. There was no one to be seen--the Colonel beat the hedgerows with his stick, and called "Who's there?" with soldierly promptitude. He had no idea of being attacked from behind, in case a highwayman lurked behind those bare thorns. After a little interval, during which Colonel Sutherland continued his examination minutely, a voice gruff but subdued, answered somewhat peevishly-- "Cornel, it's me." And the gaunt figure of Kennedy came crushing through a gap of the hedge to the Colonel's side. "You!--why, what the deuce are you after here?" said the Colonel, his extreme amazement forcing that mysterious adjuration from his lips, he could not tell how. "Weel, Cornel, watching the sport o' them living craetures," said Kennedy, with a little hesitation. "I seed the rabbits whisking in and out as I took my walk, and says I to myself--they're as diverting as childer, I'll take a look at them. And that's how it was--I'm rael fond of dumb craetures, Cornel, and there's sich a spirit in thae wild things."