“Tush! dinna afflict me about thae creatures in bad health,” said Jaacob; “what’s the use o’ them, lads or lasses, is mair than I can tell--can they no’ dee and be done wi’t? I tell you, a docken on the roadside is mair guid to a country than the like of Me’mar’s son!” “Is he in bad health?” asked the persistent Cosmo. “They’re a’ in bad health,” said Jaacob, contemptuously, “as any auld wife could tell you; a’ but that red-haired lassie, that Joan. Speak o’ your changelings! how do ye account to me, you that’s a philosopher, for the like of an honest spirit such as that, cast into the form of a lassie, and the midst of a hatching o’ sparrows like Me’mar? If she had but been a lad, she would have turned them a’ out like a cuckoo in the nest.” “And Oswald Huntley is ill--an invalid?” said Cosmo, softly returning to the thread of his own thoughts. Jaacob once more thrust with contempt some imaginary opponent out of the way. “Get away with you down Tyne or into the woods wi’ your Oswald Huntleys!” cried Jaacob, indignantly--“do you think I’m heeding about ane of the name? Whisht! what’s that? Did you hear onything?--haud your tongue for your life!” Cosmo grew almost as excited as Jaacob--he seized upon the lowest bough of a big ash tree, and swung himself up, with the facility of a country boy, among the fragrant dark foliage which rustled about him as he stood high among the branches as on a tower. “D’ye see onything?” cried Jaacob, who could have cuffed the boy for the noise he made, even while he pushed him up from beneath. “Hurra! here she comes--I can see the light!” shouted Cosmo. The lad stood breathless among the rustling leaves, which hummed about him like a tremulous chorus. Far down at the foot of the slope, nothing else perceptible to mask its progress, came rushing on the fiery eye of light, red, fierce, and silent, like some mysterious giant of the night. It was impossible to hear either hoofs or wheels in the distance, still more to see the vehicle itself, for the evening by this time was considerably advanced, and the shadow of the three mystic hills lay heavy upon the road. “She’s late,” said Jaacob, between his set teeth. The little Cyclops held tight by the great waving bough of the ash, and set his foot in a hollow of its trunk, crushing beneath him the crackling underwood. Here the boy and he kept together breathless, Cosmo standing high above, and his companion thrusting his weird, unshaven face over the great branch on which he leaned. “She’s up to Plover ha’--she’s at the toll--she’s stopped. What’s that! listen!” cried Cosmo, as some faint, far-off sound, which might have been the cry of a child, came on the soft evening air towards them. Jaacob made an imperative gesture of silence with one hand, and grasped at the branch with the other till it shook under the pressure.