The assistants agreed they should watch the bedside of the sick
person by turns; but, about midnight, overcome by fatigue, (for
they had walked far that morning), both of them fell fast asleep.
When they awoke, which was not till after the interval of some
hours, the hut was empty, and the patient gone. They rose in
terror, and went to the door of the cottage, which was latched as
it had been at night. They looked out into the darkness, and
called upon their charge by her name. The night-raven screamed
from the old oak-tree, the fox howled on the hill, the hoarse
waterfall replied with its echoes; but there was no human answer.
The terrified women did not dare to make further search till
morning should appear; for the sudden disappearance of a creature
so frail as Elspat, together with the wild tenor of her history,
intimidated them from stirring from the hut. They remained,
therefore, in dreadful terror, sometimes thinking they heard her
voice without, and at other times, that sounds of a different
description were mingled with the mournful sigh of the night-
breeze, or the dashing of the cascade.
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