know, except pine and die in the first heather-cow or whin-bush she can crawl
into?"
"Right, Henry--right--very right," said Luch, mournfully, holding the boy fast by the
hand, after she had given him the wire he wanted; "but there are more riflers in
the world than your falcon, and more wounded birds that seek but to die in quiet,
that can find neither brake nor whin-bush to hide their head in."
"Ah! that's some speech out of your romances," said the boy; "and Sholto says
they have turned your head. But I hear Norman whistling to the hawk; I must go
fasten on the jesses."
And he scampered away with the thoughtless gaiety of boyhood, leaving his
sister to the bitterness of her own reflections.
"It is decreed," she said, "that every living creature, even those who owe me
most kindness, are to shun me, and leave me to those by whom I am beset. It is
just it should be thus. Alone and uncounselled, I involved myself in these perils;
alone and uncounselled, I must extricate myself or die."
