Heather and Snow

CHAPTER XXVI

HOW DAVID FARED

David Barclay got up the moment Kirsty was out of the room, dressed himself in haste, swallowed a glass of whisky, saddled the gray mare, gave her a feed of oats, which she ate the faster that she felt the saddle, and set out for Tiltowie to get the doctor. Threatening as the weather was, he was well on the road before the wind became so full of snow as to cause him any anxiety, either for those on the hill or for himself. But after the first moment of anxiety, a very few minutes convinced him that a battle with the elements was at hand more dangerous than he had ever had to fight with armed men. For some distance the road was safe enough as yet, for the storm had not had time to heap up the snow between the bordering hills; but by and by he must come out upon a large track recovered by slow degrees and great labour from the bog, and be exposed to the full force of the now furious wind, where in many places it would be far easier to wander off than to stay upon a road level with the fields, and not even bounded by a ditch the size of a wheel-track. When he reached the open, therefore, he was compelled to go at a footpace through the thick, blinding, bewildering tempest-driven snow; and was not surprised when, in spite of all his caution, he found, by the sudden sinking and withdrawing of one of his mare's legs with a squelching noise, that he had got astray upon the bog, nor knew any more in what direction the town or other abode of humanity lay. The only thing he did know was the side of the road to which he had turned; and that he knew only by the ground into which he had got: no step farther must in that direction be attempted. His mare seemed to know this as well as himself, for when she had pulled her leg out, she drew back a pace, and stood; whereupon David cast a knot on the reins, threw them on her neck, and told her to go where she pleased. She turned half round and started at once, feeling her way at first very carefully. Then she walked slowly on, with her head hanging low. Again and again she stopped and snuffed, diverged a little, and went on.

The wind was packed rather than charged with snow. Men said there never was a wind of the strength with so much snow in it. David began to despair of ever finding the road again, and naturally in such strait thought how much worse would Kirsty and Steenie be faring on the open hill-side. His wife, he knew, could not have started before the storm rose to tempest, and would delay her departure. Then came the reflection, how little at any time could a father do for the wellbeing of his children! The fact of their being children implied their need of an all-powerful father: must there not then be such a father? Therewith the truth dawned upon him, that first of truths, which all his church-going and Bible-reading had hitherto failed to disclose, that, for life to be a good thing and worth living, a man must be the child of a perfect father, and know him. In his terrible perturbation about his children, he lifted up his heart—not to the Governor of the world; not to the God of Abraham or Moses; not in the least to the God of the Kirk; least of all to the God of the Shorter Catechism; but to the faithful creator and Father of David Barclay. The aching soul which none but a perfect father could have created capable of deploring its own fatherly imperfection, cried out to the father of fathers on behalf of his children, and as he cried, a peace came stealing over him such as he had never before felt.

Then he knew that his mare had been for some time on hard ground, and was going with purpose in her gentle trot. In five minutes more, he saw the glimmer of a light through the snow. Near as it was, or he could not have seen it, he failed repeatedly in finding his way to it. The mare at length fell over a stone wall out of sight in the snow, and when they got up they found themselves in a little garden at the end of a farmhouse. Not, however, until the farmer came to the door, wondering who on such a morning could be their visitor, did he know to what farm the mare had brought him. Weary, and well aware that no doctor in his senses would set out for the top of the Horn in such a tempest of black and white, he gratefully accepted the shelter and refreshment of which his mare and he stood by this time in much need, and waited for a lull in the storm.

CHAPTER XXVII

HOW MARION FARED

In the meantime the mother of the family, not herself at the moment in danger, began to suffer the most. It dismayed her to find, when she came down, that Steenie had, as she thought, insisted on accompanying Kirsty, but it was without any great anxiety that she set about preparing food with which to follow them.

She was bending over her fire, busy with her cooking, when all at once the wind came rushing straight down the chimney, blew sleet into the kitchen, blew soot into the pot, and nearly put out the fire. It was but a small whirlwind, however, and presently passed.

She went to the door, opened it a little way, and peeped out: the morning was a chaos of blackness and snow and wind. She had been born and brought up in a yet wilder region, but the storm threatened to be such as in her experience was unparalleled.

'God preserve 's!' cried the poor woman, 'can this be the en' o' a'thing? Is the earth turnin intil a muckle snaw-wreath, 'at whan a' are deid, there may be nae miss o' fowk to beery them? Eh, sic a sepulchrin! Mortal wuman cudna carry a basket in sic a leevin snaw-drift! Losh, she wudna carry hersel far! I maun bide a bit gien I wad be ony succour till them! It's my basket they'll be wantin', no me; and i' this drift, basket may flee but it winna float!'

She turned to her cooking as if it were the one thing to save the world. Let her be prepared for the best as well as for the worst! Kirsty might find Phemy past helping, and bring Steenie home! Then there was David, at that moment fighting for his life, perhaps!—if he came home now, or any of the three, she must be ready to save their lives! they must not perish on her hands. So she prepared for the possible future, not by brooding on it, but by doing the work of the present. She cooked and cooked, until there was nothing more to be done in that way, and then, having thus cleared the way for it, sat down and cried. There was a time for tears: the Bible said there was! and when Marion's hands fell into her lap, their hour—and not till then, was come. To go out after Kirsty would have been the bare foolishness of suicide, would have been to abandon her husband and children against the hour of their coming need: one of the hardest demands on the obedience of faith is—to do nothing; it is often so much easier to do foolishly!

But she did not weep long. A moment more and she was up and at work again, hanging a great kettle of water on the crook, and blowing up the fire, that she might have hot bottles to lay in every bed. Then she assailed the peat-stack in spite of the wind, making to it journey after journey, until she had heaped a great pile of peats in the corner nearest the hearth.

The morning wore on; the storm continued raging; no news came from the white world; mankind had vanished in the whirling snow. It was well the men had gone home, she thought: there would only have been the more in danger, the more to be fearful about, for all would have been abroad in the drift, hopelessly looking for one another! But oh Steenie, Steenie! and her ain Kirsty!

About half-past ten o'clock the wind began to abate its violence, and speedily sank to a calm, wherewith the snow lost its main terror. She looked out; it was falling in straight, silent lines, flickering slowly down, but very thick. She could find her way now! Hideous fears assailed her, but she banished them imperiously: they should not sap the energy whose every jot would be wanted! She caught up the bottle of hot milk she had kept ready, wrapped it in flannel, tied it, with a loaf of bread, in a shawl about her waist, made up the fire, closed the door, and set out for Steenie's house on the Horn.

CHAPTER XXVIII

HUSBAND AND WIFE

Two hours or so earlier, David, perceiving some Assuagement in the storm, and his host having offered to go at once to the doctor and the schoolmaster, had taken his mare, and mounted to go home. He met with no impediment now except the depth of the snow, which made it so hard for the mare to get along that, full of anxiety about his children, he found the distance a weary one to traverse.

When at length he reached the Knowe, no one was there to welcome him. He saw, however, by the fire and the food, that Marion was not long gone. He put up the gray, clothed her and fed her, drank some milk, caught up a quarter of cakes, and started for the hill.

The snow was not falling so thickly now, but it had already almost obliterated the footprints of his wife. Still he could distinguish them in places, and with some difficulty succeeded in following their track until it was clear which route she had taken. They indicated the easier, though longer way—not that by the earth-house, and the father and daughter passed without seeing each other. When Kirsty got to the farm, her father was following her mother up the hill.

When David reached the Hillfauld, the name he always gave Steenie's house, he found the door open, and walked in. His wife did not hear him, for his iron-shod shoes were balled with snow. She was standing over the body of Phemy, looking down on the white sleep with a solemn, motherly, tearless face. She turned as he drew near, and the pair, like the lovers they were, fell each in the other's arms. Marion was the first to speak.

'Eh Dauvid! God be praised I hae yersel!'

'Is the puir thing gane?' asked her husband in an awe-hushed tone, looking down on the maid that was not dead but sleeping.

'I doobt there's no doobt aboot that,' answered Marion. 'Steenie, I was jist thinkin, wud be sair disapp'intit to learn 'at there was. Eh, the faith o' that laddie! H'aven to him's sic a rale place, and sic a hantle better nor this warl', 'at he wad not only fain be there himsel, but wad hae Phemy there—ay, gie it war ever sae lang afore himsel! Ye see he kens naething aboot sin and the saicrifeece, and he disna un'erstan 'at Phemy was aye a gey wull kin' o' a lassie!'

'Maybe the bonny man, as Steenie ca's him,' returned David, 'may hae as muckle compassion for the puir thing i' the hert o' 'im as Steenie himsel!'

'Ow ay! Whatfor no! But what can the bonny man himsel du, a' bein sattlet?'

'Dinna leemit the Almichty, wuman—and that i' the verra moment whan he's been to hiz—I wunna say mair gracious nor ord'nar, for that cudna be—but whan he's latten us see a bit plainer nor common that he is gracious! The Lord o' mercy 'ill manage to luik efter the lammie he made, ae w'y or ither, there as here. Ye daurna say he didna du his best for her here, and wull he no du his best for her there as weel?'

'Doobtless, Dauvid! But ye fricht me! It souns jist rank papistry—naither mair nor less! What can he du? He canna dee again for ane 'at wudna turn til 'im i' this life! The thing's no to be thoucht!'

'Hoo ken ye that, wuman? Ye hae jist thoucht it yersel! Gien I was you, I wudna daur to say what he cudna du! I' the meantime, what he maks me able to houp, I'm no gaein to fling frae me!'

David was a true man: he could not believe a thing with one half of his mind, and care nothing about it with the other. He, like his Steenie, believed in the bonny man about in the world, not in the mere image of him standing in the precious shrine of the New Testament.

After a brief silence—

'Whaur's Kirsty and Steenie?' he said.

'The Lord kens; I dinna.'

'They'll be safe eneuch.'

'It's no likly.'

'It's sartin,' said David.

And therewith, by the side of the dead, he imparted to his wife the thoughts that drove misery from his heart as he sat on his mare in the storm with the reins on her neck, nor knew whither she went.

'Ay, ay,' returned his wife after a pause, 'ye're unco richt, Dauvid, as aye ye are! And I'm jist conscience-stricken to think 'at a' my life lang I hae been ready to murn ower the sorrow i' my hert, never thinkin o' the glaidness i' God's! What call hed I to greit ower Steenie, whan God maun hae been aye sair pleased wi' him! What sense is there in lamentation sae lang's God's eident settin richt a'! His hert's the safity o' oors. And eh, glaid sure he maun be, wi sic a lot o' his bairns at hame aboot him!'

'Ay,' returned David with a sigh, thinking of his old comrade and the son he had left behind him, 'but there's the prodigal anes!'

'Thank God, we hae nae prodigal!'

'Aye, thank him!' rejoined David; 'but he has prodigals that trouble him sair, and we maun see til't 'at we binna thankless auld prodigals oorsels!'

Again followed a brief silence.

'Eh, but isna it strange?' said Marion. 'Here's you and me stanin murnin ower anither man's bairn, and naewise kennin what's come o' oor ain twa!—Dauvid, what can hae come o' Steenie and Kirsty?'

'The wull o' God's what's come o' them; and God hand me i' the grace o' wussin naething ither nor that same!'

'Haud to that, Dauvid, and hand me till't: we kenna what's comin!'

'The wull o' God's comin,' insisted David. 'But eh,' he added, 'I'm concernt for puir Maister Craig!'

'Weel, lat's awa hame and see whether the twa bena there afore 's!—Eh, but the sicht o' the bonny corp maun hae gien Steenie a sair hert! I wudna won'er gien he never wan ower't i' this life!'

'But what'll we du aboot it or we gang? It's the storm may come on again waur nor ever, and mak it impossible to beery her for a month!'

'We cudna carry her hame atween's, Dauvid—think ye?'

'Na, na; it's no as gien it was hersel! And cauld's a fine keeper—better nor a' the embalmin o' the Egyptians! Only I'm fain to hand Steenie ohn seen her again!'

'Weel, lat's hap her i' the bonny white snaw!' said Marion. 'She'll keep there as lang as the snaw keeps, and naething 'ill disturb her till the time comes to lay her awa!'

'That's weel thoucht o'!' answered David. 'Eh, wuman, but it's a bonny beerial compared wi' sic as I hae aften gien comrade and foe alike!'

They went out and chose a spot close by the house where the snow lay deep. There they made a hollow, and pressed the bottom of it down hard. Then they carried out and laid in it the death-frozen dove, and heaped upon her a firm, white, marble-like tomb of heavenly new-fallen snow.

Without re-entering it, they closed the door of Steenie's refuge, and leaving the two deserted houses side by side, made what slow haste they could, with anxious hearts, to their home. The snow was falling softly, for the wind was still asleep.

CHAPTER XXIX

DAVID, MARION, KIRSTY, SNOOTIE, AND WHAT WAS LEFT OF STEENIE

Kirsty saw their shadows darken the wall, and turning from her work at the dresser, ran to the door to meet them.

'God be thankit!' cried David.

Marion gave her daughter one loving look, and entering cast a fearful, questioning glance around the kitchen.

'Whaur's Steenie?' she said.

'He's wi' Phemy, I'm thinkin,' faltered Kirsty.

'Lassie, are ye dementit?' her mother almost screamed. 'We're this minute come frae there!'

'He is wi' Phemy, mother. The Lord canna surely hae pairtit them, gangin in maist haudin hans!'

'Kirsty, I haud ye accoontable for my Steenie!' cried Marion, sinking on a chair, and covering her face with her hands.

'It's the wull o' God 'at's accoontable for him, wuman!' answered David, sitting down beside her, and laying hold of her arm.

She burst into terrible weeping.

'He maun be sair at hame wi' the bonny man!' said Kirsty.

'Lassie,' said David, 'you and me and yer mither, we hae naething left but be better bairns, and gang the fester to the bonny man!—Whaur's what's left o' the laddie, Kirsty?'

'Lyin i' my hoose, as he ca'd it. Mine was i' the yerd, his i' the air, he said. He was awa afore I wan to the kitchen. He had jist killt himsel savin at Phemy, rinnin and fechtin on, upo' the barest chance o' savin her life; and sae whan he set off again to gang til her, no bidin for me, he was that forfouchten 'at he hed a bluid-brak in 's breist, and was jist able, and nae mair, to creep intil the weem oot o' the snaw. He didna like the place, and yet had a kin' o' a notion o' the bonny man bein there whiles. I'm thinkin Snootie maun hae won til him, and run hame for help, for I faund him maist deid upo' the door-step.'

David stooped and patted the dog.

'Na, that cudna be,' he said, 'or he wud never hae left him, I'm thinkin.—Ye're a braw dog,' he went on to the collie, 'and I'm thankfu' yer no lyin wi yer tongue oot!—But guid comes to guid doggies!' he added, fondling the creature, who had risen, and feebly set his paws on his knee.

'And ye left him lyin there! Hoo hed ye the hert, Kirsty?' sobbed the mother reproachfully.

'Mother, he was better aff nor ony ither ane o' 's! I winna say, mother, 'at I lo'ed him sae weel as ye lo'ed him, for maybe that wudna be natur—I dinna ken; and I daurna say 'at I lo'e him as the bonny man lo'es his brithers and sisters a'; but I hae yet to learn hoo to lo'e him better. Onygait, the bonny man wantit him, and he has him! And whan I left him there, it was jist as gien I hield him oot i' my airms and said, "Hae, Lord; tak him: he's yer ain!"'

'Ye're i' the richt, Kirsty, my bonny bairn!' said David. 'Yer mither and me, we was never but pleased wi' onything 'at ever ye did.—Isna that true, Mar'on, my ain wuman?'

'True as his word!' answered the mother, and rose, and went to her room.

David sought the yard, saw that all was right with the beasts, and fed them. Thence he made his way to his workshop over the cart-shed, where in five minutes he constructed, with two poles run through two sacks, a very good stretcher, carrying it to the kitchen, where Kirsty sat motionless, looking into the fire.

'Kirsty,' he said, 'ye're 'maist as strong's a man, and I wudna wullinly ony but oor ain three sels laid finger upo' what's left o' Steenie: are ye up to takin the feet o' 'im to fess him hame? Here's what'll mak it 'maist easy!'

Kirsty rose at once.

'A drappy o' milk, and I'm ready,' she answered. 'Wull ye no tak a moofu' o' whusky yersel' father?'

'Na, na; I want naething,' replied David.

He had not yet learned what Kirsty went through the night before, when he asked her to help him carry the body of her brother home through the snow. Kirsty, however, knew no reason why she should not be as able as her father.

He took the stretcher, and they set out, saying nothing to the mother: she was still in her own room, and they hoped she might fall asleep.

'It min's me o' the women gauin til the sepulchre!' said David. 'Eh, but it maun hae been a sair time til them!—a heap sairer nor this hert-brak here!' 'Ye see they didna ken 'at he wasna deid,' assented Kirsty, 'and we div ken 'at Steenie's no deid! He's maybe walkin aboot wi the bonny man—or maybe jist ristin himsel a wee efter the uprisin! Jist think o' his heid bein a' richt, and his een as clear as the bonny man's ain! Eh, but Steenie maun be in grit glee!'

Thus talking as they went, they reached and entered the earth-house. They found no angels on guard, for Steenie had not to get up again.

David wept the few tears of an old man over the son who had been of no use in the world but the best use—to love and be loved. Then, one at the head and the other at the feet, they brought the body out, and laid it on the bier.

Kirsty went in again, and took Steenie's shoes, tying them in her apron.

'His feet's no sic a weicht noo!' she said, as together they carried their burden home.

The mother met them at the door.

'Eh!' she cried, 'I thoucht the Lord had taen ye baith, and left me my lane 'cause I was sae hard-hertit til him! But noo 'at he 's broucht ye back—and Steenie, what there is o' him, puir bairn!—I s' never say anither word, but jist lat him du as he likes.—There, Lord, I hae dune! Pardon thoo me wha canst.'

They carried the forsaken thing up the stair, and laid it on Kirsty's bed, looking so like and so unlike Steenie asleep. Marion was so exhausted, both mind and body, that her husband insisted on her postponing all further ministration till the morning; but at night Kirsty unclothed the untenanted, and put on it a long white nightgown. When the mother saw it lying thus, she smiled, and wept no more; she knew that the bonny man had taken home his idiot.

CHAPTER XXX

FROM SNOW TO FIRE

My narrative must now go a little way back in time, and a long way from the region of heather and snow, to India in the year of the mutiny. The regiment in which Francis Gordon served, his father's old regiment, had lain for months besieged in a well known city by the native troops, and had begun to know what privation meant, its suffering aggravated by that of not a few women and children. With the other portions of the Company's army there shut up, it had behaved admirably. Danger and sickness, wounds and fatigue, hunger and death, had brought out the best that was in the worst of them: when their country knew how they had fought and endured, she was proud of them. Had their enemies, however, been naked Zulus, they would have taken the place within a week.

Francis Gordon had done his part, and well.

It would be difficult to analyze the effect of tho punishment Kirsty had given him, but its influence was upon him through the whole of the terrible time—none the less beneficent that his response to her stinging blows was indignant rage. I dare hardly speculate what, had she not defended herself so that he could not reach her, he might not have done in the first instinctive motions of natural fury. It is possible that only Kirsty's skill and courage saved him from what he would never have surmounted the shame of—taking revenge on a woman avenging a woman's wrong: from having deserved to be struck by a woman, nothing but repentant shame could save him.

When he came to himself, the first bitterness of the thing over, he could not avoid the conviction, that the playmate of his childhood, whom once he loved best in the world, and who when a girl refused to marry him, had come to despise him, and that righteously. The idea took a firm hold on him, and became his most frequently recurrent thought. The wale of Kirsty's whip served to recall it a good many nights; and long after that had ceased either to smart or show, the thought would return of itself in the night-watches, and was certain to come when he had done anything his conscience called wrong, or his judgment foolish.

The officers of his mess were mostly men of character with ideas better at least than ordinary as to what became a man; and their influence on one by no means of a low, though of an unstable nature, was elevating. It is true that a change into a regiment of jolly, good-mannered, unprincipled men would within a month have brought him to do as they did; and in another month would have quite silenced, for a time at least, his poor little conscience; but he was at present rising. Events had been in his favour; after reaching India, he had no time to be idle; the mutiny broke out, he must bestir himself, and, as I have said, the best in him was called to the front.

He was specially capable of action with show in it. Let eyes be bent upon him, and he would go far. The presence of his kind to see and laud was an inspiration to him. Left to act for himself, undirected and unseen, his courage would not have proved of the highest order. Throughout the siege, nevertheless, he was noted for a daring that often left the bounds of prudence far behind. More than once he was wounded—once seriously; but even then he was in four days again at his post. His genial manners, friendly carriage, and gay endurance rendered him a favourite with all.