But now my own affairs were thrown into such disorder that I could think of nothing else, and had the greatest difficulty in hiding my uneasiness.  For suddenly, without any warning, or a word of message, all my Lorna’s signals ceased, which I had been accustomed to watch for daily, and as it were to feed upon them, with a glowing heart.  The first time I stood on the wooded crest, and found no change from yesterday, I could hardly believe my eyes, or thought at least that it must be some great mistake on the part of my love.  However, even that oppressed me with a heavy heart, which grew heavier, as I found from day to day no token.

Three times I went and waited long at the bottom of the valley, where now the stream was brown and angry with the rains of autumn, and the weeping trees hung leafless.  But though I waited at every hour of day, and far into the night, no light footstep came to meet me, no sweet voice was in the air; all was lonely, drear, and drenched with sodden desolation.  It seemed as if my love was dead, and the winds were at her funeral.

Once I sought far up the valley, where I had never been before, even beyond the copse where Lorna had found and lost her brave young cousin.  Following up the river channel, in shelter of the evening fog, I gained a corner within stone’s throw of the last outlying cot.  This was a gloomy, low, square house, without any light in the windows, roughly built of wood and stone, as I saw when I drew nearer.  For knowing it to be Carver’s dwelling (or at least suspecting so, from some words of Lorna’s), I was led by curiosity, and perhaps by jealousy, to have a closer look at it.  Therefore, I crept up the stream, losing half my sense of fear, by reason of anxiety.  And in truth there was not much to fear, the sky being now too dark for even a shooter of wild fowl to make good aim.  And nothing else but guns could hurt me, as in the pride of my strength I thought, and in my skill of single-stick.

[Illustration:  304.jpg Nevertheless, I went warily]

Nevertheless, I went warily, being now almost among this nest of cockatrices.  The back of Carver’s house abutted on the waves of the rushing stream; and seeing a loop-hole, vacant for muskets, I looked in, but all was quiet.  So far as I could judge by listening, there was no one now inside, and my heart for a moment leaped with joy, for I had feared to find Lorna there.  Then I took a careful survey of the dwelling, and its windows, and its door, and aspect, as if I had been a robber meaning to make privy entrance.  It was well for me that I did this, as you will find hereafter.

Having impressed upon my mind (a slow but, perhaps retentive mind), all the bearings of the place, and all its opportunities, and even the curve of the stream along it, and the bushes near the door, I was much inclined to go farther up, and understand all the village.  But a bar of red light across the river, some forty yards on above me, and crossing from the opposite side like a chain, prevented me.  In that second house there was a gathering of loud and merry outlaws, making as much noise as if they had the law upon their side.  Some, indeed, as I approached, were laying down both right and wrong, as purely, and with as high a sense, as if they knew the difference.  Cold and troubled as I was, I could hardly keep from laughing.