I climbed the hill above the Howe burn-head, keeping the wind on my
right cheek as the girl had ordered. That took me along a rough ridge
of mountain pitted with peat-bogs into which I often stumbled. Every
minute I expected to descend and find the young Water of Leith, but if
I held to my directions I must still mount. I see now that the wind
must have veered to the south-east, and that my plan was leading me
into the fastnesses of the hills; but I would have wandered for weeks
sooner than disobey the word of the girl who sang in the rain.
Presently I was on a steep hill-side, which I ascended only to drop
through a tangle of screes and jumper to the mires of a great bog. When
I had crossed this more by luck than good guidance, I had another
scramble on the steeps where the long, tough heather clogged my
footsteps.

About eight o'clock I awoke to the conviction that I was hopelessly
lost, and must spend the night in the wilderness. The rain still fell
unceasingly through the pit-mirk, and I was as sodden and bleached as
the bent I trod on. A night on the hills had no terrors for me; but I
was mortally cold and furiously hungry, and my temper grew bitter
against the world. I had forgotten the girl and her song, and desired
above all things on earth a dry bed and a chance of supper.

I had been plunging and slipping in the dark mosses for maybe two hours
when, looking down from a little rise, I caught a gleam of light.
Instantly my mood changed to content. It could only be a herd's
cottage, where I might hope for a peat fire, a bicker of brose, and, at
the worst, a couch of dry bracken.

I began to run, to loosen my numbed limbs, and presently fell headlong
over a little scaur into a moss-hole. When I crawled out, with peat