The Little Minister
Page 38
Chapter Thirty-Seven.
SECOND JOURNEY OF THE DOMINIE TO THRUMS DURING THE TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.
Here was a nauseous draught for me. Having finished my tale, I turnedto Gavin for sympathy; and, behold, he had been listening for thecannon instead of to my final words. So, like an old woman at herhearth, we warm our hands at our sorrows and drop in faggots, and eachthinks his own fire a sun, in presence of which all other fires shouldgo out. I was soured to see Gavin prove this, and then I could havelaughed without mirth, for had not my bitterness proved it too?
"And now," I said, rising, "whether Margaret is to hold up her headhenceforth lies no longer with me, but with you."
It was not to that he replied.
"You have suffered long, Mr. Ogilvy," he said. "Father," he added,wringing my hand. I called him son; but it was only an exchange ofmusty words that we had found too late. A father is a poor estate tocome into at two and twenty.
"I should have been told of this," he said.
"Your mother did right, sir," I answered slowly, but he shook hishead.
"I think you have misjudged her," he said. "Doubtless while my fa--,while Adam Dishart lived, she could only think of you with pain; butafter his death----"
"After his death," I said quietly, "I was still so horrible to herthat she left Harvie without letting a soul know whither she wasbound. She dreaded my following her."
"Stranger to me," he said, after a pause, "than even your story is herbeing able to keep it from me. I believed no thought ever crossed hermind that she did not let me share."
"And none, I am sure, ever did," I answered, "save that, and suchthoughts as a woman has with God only. It was my lot to bring disgraceon her. She thought it nothing less, and she has hidden it all theseyears for your sake, until now it is not burdensome. I suppose shefeels that God has taken the weight off her. Now you are to put aheavier burden in its place."
He faced me boldly, and I admire him for it now.
"I cannot admit," he said, "that I did wrong in forgetting my motherfor that fateful quarter of an hour. Babbie and I loved each other,and I was given the opportunity of making her mine or losing herforever. Have you forgotten that all this tragedy you have told me ofonly grew out of your own indecision? I took the chance that you letslip by."
"I had not forgotten," I replied. "What else made me tell you lastnight that Babbie was in Nanny's house?"
"But now you are afraid--now when the deed is done, when for me therecan be no turning back. Whatever be the issue, I should be a cur toreturn to Thrums without my wife. Every minute I feel my strengthreturning, and before you reach Thrums I will have set out to theSpittal."
There was nothing to say after that. He came with me in the rain asfar as the dike, warning me against telling his people what was nottrue.
"My first part," I answered, "will be to send word to your mother thatyou are in safety. After that I must see Whamond. Much depends onhim."
"You will not go to my mother?"
"Not so long as she has a roof over her head," I said, "but that maynot be for long."
So, I think, we parted--each soon to forget the other in a woman.
But I had not gone far when I heard something that stopped me assharply as if it had been McKenzie's hand once more on my shoulder.For a second the noise appalled me, and then, before the echo began, Iknew it must be the Spittal cannon. My only thought was one ofthankfulness. Now Gavin must see the wisdom of my reasoning. I wouldwait for him until he was able to come with me to Thrums. I turnedback, and in my haste I ran through water I had gone round before.
I was too late. He was gone, and into the rain I shouted his name invain. That he had started for the Spittal there could be no doubt;that he would ever reach it was less certain. The earl's collie wasstill crouching by the fire, and, thinking it might be a guide to him,I drove the brute to the door, and chased it in the direction heprobably had taken. Not until it had run from me did I resume my ownjourney. I do not need to be told that you who read would follow Gavinnow rather than me; but you must bear with the dominie for a littlewhile yet, as I see no other way of making things clear.
In some ways I was not ill-equipped for my attempt. I do not know anyone of our hillsides as it is known to the shepherd, to whom everyrabbit-hole and glimmer of mica is a landmark; but he, like his flock,has only to cross a dike to find himself in a strange land, while Ihave been everywhere in the glen.
In the foreground the rain slanted, transparent till it reached theground, where a mist seemed to blow it along as wind ruffles grass. Inthe distance all was a driving mist. I have been out for perhaps anhour in rains as wetting, and I have watched floods from my window,but never since have I known the fifth part of a season's rainfall ineighteen hours; and if there should be the like here again, we shallbe found better prepared for it. Men have been lost in the glen inmists so thick that they could plunge their fingers out of sight in itas into a meal girnel; but this mist never came within twenty yards ofme. I was surrounded by it, however, as if I was in a round tent; andout of this tent I could not walk, for it advanced with me. On theother side of this screen were horrible noises, at whose cause I couldonly guess, save now and again when a tongue of water was shot at myfeet, or great stones came crashing through the canvas of mist. Then Iran wherever safety prompted, and thus tangled my bearings until I waslike that one in the child's game who is blindfolded and turned roundthree times that he may not know east from west.
Once I stumbled over a dead sheep and a living lamb; and in a clump oftrees which puzzled me--for they were where I thought no trees shouldbe--a wood-pigeon flew to me, but struck my breast with such forcethat I picked it up dead. I saw no other living thing, though half adozen times I must have passed within cry of farmhouses. At one time Iwas in a cornfield, where I had to lift my hands to keep them out ofwater, and a dread filled me that I had wandered in a circle, and wasstill on Waster Lunny's land. I plucked some corn and held it to myeyes to see if it was green; but it was yellow, and so I knew that atlast I was out of the glen.
People up here will complain if I do not tell how I found the farmerof Green Brae's fifty pounds. It is one of the best-rememberedincidents of the flood, and happened shortly after I got out of thecornfield. A house rose suddenly before me, and I was hastening to itwhen as suddenly three of its walls fell. Before my mind could give ameaning to what my eyes told it, the water that had brought down thehouse had lifted me off my feet and flung me among waves. That wouldhave been the last of the dominie had I not struck against a chest,then halfway on its voyage to the sea. I think the lid gave way underme; but that is surmise, for from the time the house fell till I wason the river in a kist that was like to be my coffin, is almost ablank. After what may have been but a short journey, though I had timein it to say my prayers twice, we stopped, jammed among fallen trees;and seeing a bank within reach, I tried to creep up it. In this therewould have been little difficulty had not the contents of the kistcaught in my feet and held on to them, like living things afraid ofbeing left behind. I let down my hands to disentangle my feet, butfailed; and then, grown desperate, I succeeded in reaching firmground, dragging I knew not what after me. It proved to be apillow-slip. Green Brae still shudders when I tell him that my firstimpulse was to leave the pillow-slip unopened. However, I ripped itup, for to undo the wet strings that had ravelled round my feet wouldhave wearied even a man with a needle to pick open the knots; andamong broken gimlets, the head of a grape, and other things no beggarwould have stolen, I found a tin canister containing fifty pounds.Waster Lunny says that this should have made a religious man of GreenBrae, and it did to this extent, that he called the fall of thecotter's house providential. Otherwise the cotter, at whose expense itmay be said the money was found, remains the more religious man of thetwo.
At last I came to the Kelpie's brig, and I could have wept in joy (andmight have been better employed), when, like everything I saw on thatjourney, it broke suddenly through the mist, and seemed to
run at melike a living monster. Next moment I ran back, for as I stepped uponthe bridge I saw that I had been about to walk into the air. What wasleft of the Kelpie's brig ended in mid-stream. Instead of thanking Godfor the light without which I should have gone abruptly to my death, Isat down miserable and hopeless.
Presently I was up and trudging to the Loups of Malcolm. At the Loupsthe river runs narrow and deep between cliffs, and the spot is socalled because one Malcolm jumped across it when pursued by wolves.Next day he returned boastfully to look at his jump, and gazing at itturned dizzy and fell into the river. Since that time chains have beenhung across the Loups to reduce the distance between the farms ofCarwhimple and Keep-What-You-Can from a mile to a hundred yards. Youmust cross the chains on your breast. They were suspended there by RobAngus, who was also the first to breast them.
But I never was a Rob Angus. When my pupils practise what they callthe high jump, two small boys hold a string aloft, and the bigger onesrun at it gallantly until they reach it, when they stop meekly andcreep beneath. They will repeat this twenty times, and yet never, whenthey start for the string, seem to know where their courage will fail.Nay, they will even order the small boys to hold the string higher. Ihave smiled at this, but it was the same courage while the difficultyis far off that took me to the Loups. At sight of them I turned away.
I prayed to God for a little of the mettle of other men, and He heardme, for with my eyes shut I seemed to see Margaret beckoning fromacross the abyss as if she had need of me. Then I rose calmly andtested the chains, and crossed them on my breast. Many have done itwith the same danger, at which they laugh, but without that vision Ishould have held back.
I was now across the river, and so had left the chance of drowningbehind, but I was farther from Thrums than when I left the school-house,and this countryside was almost unknown to me. The mist had begun toclear, so that I no longer wandered into fields; but though I kept to theroads, I could not tell that they led toward Thrums, and in myexhaustion I had often to stand still. Then to make a new start in themud was like pulling stakes out of the ground. So long as the rainfaced me I thought I could not be straying far; but after an hour I lostthis guide, for a wind rose that blew it in all directions.
In another hour, when I should have been drawing near Thrums, I foundmyself in a wood, and here I think my distress was greatest; nor isthis to be marvelled at, for instead of being near Thrums, I waslistening to the monotonous roar of the sea. I was too spent toreason, but I knew that I must have travelled direct east, and must beclose to the German Ocean. I remember putting my back against a treeand shutting my eyes, and listening to the lash of the waves againstthe beach, and hearing the faint toll of a bell, and wonderinglistlessly on what lighthouse it was ringing. Doubtless I would havelain down to sleep forever had I not heard another sound near at hand.It was the knock of a hammer on wood, and might have been a fishermanmending his boat. The instinct of self-preservation carried me to it,and presently I was at a little house. A man was standing in the rain,hammering new hinges to the door; and though I did not recognize him,I saw with bewilderment that the woman at his side was Nanny.
"It's the dominie," she cried, and her brother added:
"Losh, sir, you hinna the look o' a living man."
"Nanny," I said, in perplexity, "what are you doing here?"
"Whaur else should I be?" she asked.
I pressed my hands over my eyes, crying, "Where am I?"
Nanny shrank from me, but Sanders said, "Has the rain driven you gyte,man? You're in Thrums."
"But the sea," I said, distrusting him. "I hear it. Listen!"
"That's the wind in Windyghoul," Sanders answered, looking at mequeerly. "Come awa into the house."