and when every sound of the rustling branches came to the ear of the listener, as a groan, a shriek, or a wailing. It was towards this road, on the morning succeeding the ominous appearances we have described, that many of the villagers directed their steps. A good number were hastening thither soon after daybreak, and one and all seemed bent on the same errand. They entered the road, now chequered with the wakening glints of the sun, and proceeded onwards till they came to a break in the rough wall, which bounded it on either side. They here struck off, and followed the windings of a narrow footpath, till they reached an open place which looked into the fields beyond. There was a bush of underwood a good deal dashed and torn; and those who had a better eyesight, or a more active fancy than the rest, declared they could trace the sprinklings of blood upon the grass. On that spot, not many hours before, a murder had been committed. A young woman, one of the loveliest and liveliest of the village, had been desperately and cruelly murdered. The affair was involved in mystery. Jessie Renton, the deceased, was the daughter of respectable parents in the village, and a favourite with young and old. She was warm-hearted and playful; and, pass her when you might, she always greeted you with a kind glance or a merry word. On the evening which closed on her for ever, she had gone out alone, as she had done a thousand times before, with a laughing eye and a light step. Her father had not returned from his daily toil, and her mother had not ceased from hers. The latter was busy at her wheel when Jessie left, and not a parting word was exchanged between them. They knew not that they were never to see each other alive again in this world, and they parted without thought or word. It was not known where the unfortunate girl had gone. She had passed the doctor's shop while his apprentice boy was squirting water from a syringe; and, joking, she had told him she would "tell his maister o' his tricks." She had chatted with two girls who were fetching water from the well, and hinted something about an approaching wedding. An old man had seen her at the outskirts of the village; and a cow-herd urchin thought--but "wasna sure"--that he had seen her entering the road leading through the wood; and that was all. Some hours after she had been thus traced, a couple of strolling pedlars had been making for the village, and were startled by a shriek and a cry of murder in the thicket. They rushed in; but had some difficulty in finding the spot whence the cry proceeded. The figure of a man dashed by them at some yards distance. They hallooed to him; but he passed on, and was out of sight in a moment. A few stifled cries led them to the fatal spot, where they found the wretched girl stretched upon the ground, faint from the loss of blood, and unable to articulate. One of the men supported her, while the other ran for help.