It was a travelling carriage--a rare sight in those parts at any time, and rarer still in winter. Both of them had certainly seen one before, but as certainly, never a pair of lighted carriage-lamps, with reflectors to make of them fiendish eyes. It had but two horses, and, do what the driver could, which was not much, they persisted in standing stock-still, refusing to take a single step farther. Indeed they could not. They had tried and tried, and done their best, but finding themselves unable to move the carriage an inch, preferred standing still to spending themselves in vain struggles, for all their eight legs went slipping about under them. Cosmo looked up to the box. The driver was little more than a boy, and nearly dead with cold. Already Aggie had a forefoot of the near horse in her hand. Cosmo ran to the other. “Their feet’s fu’ o’ snaw,” said Aggie. “Ay; it’s ba’d hard,” said Cosmo. “They maun hae come ower a saft place: it wadna ba’ the nicht upo’ the muir.” “Hae ye yer knife, Cosmo?” asked Aggie. Here a head was put out of the carriage-window. It was that of a lady in a swansdown travelling-hood. She had heard an unintelligible conversation--and one intelligible word. They must be robbers! How else should they want a knife in a snowstorm? Why else should they have stopped the carriage? She gave a little cry of alarm. Aggie dropped the hoof she held, and went to the window. “What’s yer wull, mem?” she asked. “What’s the matter?” the lady returned in a trembling voice, but not a little reassured at the sight, as she crossed the range of one of the lamps, of the face of a young girl. “Why doesn’t the coachman go on?” “He canna, mem. The horse canna win throu’ the snaw. They hae ba’s o’ ’t i’ their feet, an’ they canna get a grip wi’ them, nae mair nor ye cud yersel’, mem, gien the soles o’ yer shune war roon’ an’ made o’ ice. But we’ll sune set that richt.--Hoo far hae ye come, mem, gien I may speir? Aigh, mem, its an unco nicht!” The lady did not understand much of what Aggie said, for she was English, returning from her first visit to Scotland, but, half guessing at her question, replied, that they had come from Cairntod, and were going on to Howglen. She told her also, now entirely reassured by Aggie’s voice, that they had been much longer on the way than they had expected, and were now getting anxious. “I doobt sair gien ye’ll win to Howglen the nicht,” said Aggie.-- “But ye’re not yer lone?” she added, trying to summon her English, of which she had plenty of a sort, though not always at hand. “My father is with me,” said the lady, looking back into the dark carriage, “but I think he is asleep, and I don’t want to wake him while we are standing still.” Peeping in, Aggie caught sight of somebody muffled, leaning back in the other corner of the carriage, and breathing heavily. To Aggie’s not altogether unaccustomed eye, it seemed he might have had more than was good for him in the way of refreshment.