Then Christine was laid beside her father, and the shop was reopened, and the household returned to its ways.

But James was not seen in house or shop, and the neighbors said, "Kirsty Cameron has had a wearisome sickness, and nae doobt her gudeman was needing a rest.

Dootless he has gane to the Hielands a bit." But it was not northward James Blackie went.

It was south; south past the bonnie Cumberland Hills and the great manufacturing towns of Lancashire and the rich valleys of Yorkshire; southward until he stopped at last in London.

Even then, though he was weary and sick and the night had fallen, he did not rest.