*CHAPTER XXXII*
*TOILERS OF THE NIGHT*
The rest and sleep of the night had done the minister good service; andthough he still complained of considerable pain in the head and boreupon it the protuberant evidence of Hector's skill with his weapon, hewas able to join in our conversation. In my absence Hector had told himwho we were and what had happened. He had some difficulty inrecognising Hector, beardless and lacking his tree-leg, but when thepackman had salted his conversation with an apposite quotation fromHorace, he had been compelled to admit his identity and had hailed himas an old friend.
Hector's surmise had been correct. The inhabitant of the cave was noneother than Mr. Corsane, who, ousted from his charge and compelled tobecome a wanderer, had made it his headquarters through many a wearymonth. It was a hiding-place in which he could find shelter alike fromthe blasts of the storm and from the persecutors. Driven from hismanse, his church and his parish, a man with a price upon his head, hedid not remain in this cave from week's end to week's end, a cravenfugitive. Constantly he had ventured out. Did sickness or sorrow visitone of the homes of his little flock, he was instant in succour, readyto bring to them at all times the spiritual help and consolation forwhich they looked to him. Wherefore, though he was a minister without acharge, he was not a minister without a people.
When the meal was over I besought Hector to lie down and rest; and beingsatisfied that the minister was now out of danger, he needed no secondbidding.
The weeks and months that followed were full of interest and occupation.As always, in the annals of persecution, an hour had come when themalignity of the tyrants reached its zenith. In a wild endeavour tobreak the spirit of the persecuted, they applied themselves withincreased fury and devilish ingenuity to render the lives of theirvictims intolerable.
So it came to pass that more and more of the men in the parishes roundabout us were driven to forsake their homes and take to the moors or thehiding-places among the hills. Little cared the persecutors if the landthat should have laughed with rich crops sank into desolation since nonewere left to cultivate it. The malevolence of the oppressors gave Hectorand myself many opportunities of service. By stratagem, and sometimesby force, at great risk, and often after lively encounters, we rescuedmore than one good man and true from the clutches of the troopers andspirited him away in the dead of night to a safe hiding-place. I may nothere set down these high adventures. Some other pen than mine mayrecord them. But for the greater part our deeds were works of peace.All through the months of summer we would steal out from the cave whenthe twilight came and, making for some farm whose good man had beencompelled to flee, we would spend the hours of the night in performingthose tasks in the fields which, but for us, would have been leftundone.
Toiling all night through, we would steal back to the sanctuary of ourcave in the grey dawn, tired, but proudly conscious that we had donesomething to ease the burden which was weighing upon the heart of somedesolate woman. We cut the clover, we mowed the hay, we left it for aday or two to dry and then stacked it into little cocks upon the field,and when the time came, we sheared the sheep and did those thousand andone things that a husbandman does in their due season. We were carefulnot to be seen, though always when the night was at its darkest, Hectorwould make his way to the farmhouse or cottage nearest the field inwhich we were at work and almost invariably he would find upon thewindow-sill a store of food left for us. For, though the children andthe superstitious might imagine that the mysterious labourers in thefields were creatures from another world who accomplished heavy taskswith the wave of a magic wand, the good-wife of the house had more thana shrewd suspicion that they were creatures of flesh and blood whotoiled with the sweat on their brows and who had appetites that requiredsatisfaction.
Nor did we confine our work to the farms near our hiding-place. In thecourse of his wanderings among his flock, the minister would, now andthen, hear of a farm more remote that needed our care, and many a nightwe walked for miles before we reached the fields where ourself-appointed tasks lay. I felt, as Hector did, that in this servicewe were doing something to help the Cause of the Covenant. And ashonest work ever offers to a man the best antidote to sorrow, my heartbegan to be filled with a great contentment. Mary was lost to me. Thatthought and the sense of desolation which it provoked was ever beforeme, but my labours for the persecuted were some token of the love I hadborne her and I knew that she would understand.
Sometimes, in the darkness, when my back ached beyond endurance as Ibent over some unaccustomed task, I would cease for a moment to feel forthat little bit of metal lying over my heart that was all that remainedof the ring I had given her. And its touch would give me courage and myweariness would disappear.
Hector, I discovered, was a master of all the arts of agriculture. Notask seemed too heavy for him, and never have I seen a man so proficientat shearing sheep or with such a subtle way of pacifying a querulousdog. Dogs, indeed, were one of the dangers that beset us, for more thanonce we spent the night at work on a farm which was in the occupation ofthe soldiery. If the farm dog had but given the alarm, we might havefound ourselves surrounded and shot on the instant, or compelled to fleefor our lives. But no dog ever barked at Hector. There was someindefinable understanding between him and the faithful creatures. Astartled collie would raise its head and thrust forward its snout asthough about to alarm the night, but, at a whisper from Hector, it wouldsteal up to him and rub its head and shoulders in comradeship againsthis legs. This sympathy between himself and the dogs made for oursafety, and there was something else which helped. Most of the trooperswere creatures of the grossest superstition, thrilled with an uncannydread of warlocks, witches, and all the evil spirits of the night.Their bloody deeds by day filled their nights with ghostly terrors, andmore than once I have known them desert a farm--upon which they haddescended to devour its substance like the locusts--headlong and in fearwhen they found that the "brownies" had been at work in the fields bynight. To them it had become a place uncanny, and they would hastilytake their departure, to the no small joy of the farmer's wife and herlittle children. To the children a visit of the "brownies" was a thingto be hailed with delight and shy amazement.
Once, after a heavy night's work, Hector and I were resting in the earlydawn beneath a hedgerow ere we set out upon our long journey to thecave, when I heard the voices of children on the road. I looked throughthe hedge and saw a little boy leading his sister by the hand. Theyclimbed upon the bars of the gate and surveyed the field before them.Then the quiet of the morning was broken by the shrill voice of the lad,who, pointing to the mown hay, shouted:
"Aggie, Aggie, the brownies ha'e been here," and, leaping down from thegate so quickly as to capsize his sister, who, awed by the mystery, didnot burst into tears, he rushed along the road to the house calling atthe top of his voice: "Oh, mither, mither, come and see. The browniesha'e been working in the hay-field and the hay is a' cut. Oh, I wish myfaither knew."
We waited till--at the urgent summons of her little son--the woman hadwalked down the road to the gate and had surveyed our handiwork. We sawher stoop, pick up her children, and kiss them fondly. Then she turnedaway that they might not see her tears, and, at the sight, our ownhearts grew strangely full. We waited until she had taken her littleones home, and then we stole away.
"Puir lassie," said Hector, "puir lassie."
During the day I rarely ventured from the cave, though now and thenHector would fare forth in daylight on mysterious errands of his own. Isuspected that he had some tryst to keep with the widow at Locharbriggs,but he did not take me into his confidence. But usually he and I werebirds of the night. We were busy folk, and the minister was no lessoccupied. Messages would come to him mysteriously; how, I was neverable to discover; but by some means he was kept informed not only as tothe doings and welfare of his own flock, but as to the larger happeningsthroughout the whole country-side. He k
new what men had been compelledto flee from their homes; which others had been haled to Edinburgh andput to torture in the hope that the persecutors might wring from themsome confession. He knew the houses which had been touched by the handof sorrow, and with no thought of self he would steal forth to offerwhat consolation he could. His quiet bravery impressed me deeply, and Ifound myself developing a lively admiration for him which rapidly grewinto a warm affection.
He was a man of large scholarship; no bigoted fanatic, but a gentle andgenial soul borne up perpetually by an invincible faith in the ultimatetriumph of the cause for which he had already sacrificed so much, andfor which, if need be, he was ready to sacrifice his all.
In little fragments I had from time to time told him my story. Ifinished it one night as we sat together outside our cave on the narrowledge above the pool. There may have been some anger in my voice, orsome bitterness in my words, for when my tale was ended he was silentfor a time. Then he laid one of his hands upon my knee and with theother pointed to the stream as it poured through the gorge into thequietness of the pool.
"See," he said, "the water in turmoil catches no reflection of the sky,whereas the stars are mirrored every one on the quiet face of the pool.So it is with human hearts. Where bitterness and turmoil are there canbe no reflection of the heart of God. It's the quiet heart whichcatches the light."
He said no more, but, ever since, when storms have risen in my soul Ihave remembered his words and the memory of them has stilled the passionwithin me.
When the nights were too rough for work in the fields, we would spendthem in the cave together. And sometimes Hector, who had a subtle mind,would try to entangle the minister in the meshes of a theologicalargument, and I would sit amazed at the thrust and parry of wit againstwit. These discussions usually ended in the defeat of Hector--though hewould never admit it. More than once, at their conclusion, the ministerwould say:
"We must never forget this; theology is but man's poor endeavour tointerpret the will of God towards humanity. It is not for me tobelittle theology, but at the end of all things it will not count formuch. It's the life of a man that counts; the life, and the faith thathas illumined it. Theological points are but sign-posts at thecross-roads, and sometimes not even that. Faith is the lamp that showsthe wayfaring man where to set his feet."
As the summer mellowed into early autumn, Hector began to grow restless.I ventured to suggest to him that he was heart-sick for love.
He laughed. "Maybe ye're richt," he said; "but ye dinna imagine that Iha'e managed to live a' these weeks withoot a sicht o' the widda. No,no, my lad."
"And how runs the course of love?" I asked.
"Man," he answered, "I'm gettin' on fine. I verily believe Virgil waswrang when he said 'Woman is a fickle jade.' The widda's no fickle atony rate. D'ye ken she wears my kaim in her hair ilka day o' the week.It's the prood man I am."
"Then why this restlessness?" I asked.
He laughed as he replied: "Weel, to mak' a lang story short, I amhungerin' for the road. A man that has got the wander fever in hisbluid can never be lang content in ae place. I'm bidin' wi' you a weekor twa mair, for the time o' the hairst is at hand, but when we ha'e cuta wheen o' the riper fields I'll ha'e to leave ye for a bit. I'll beback inside twa months, and we'll settle doon then for the winter. Andwhen I gang, dinna forget this, I'll keep my ears open for ony news o'what happened at Daldowie, and maybe when I come back I'll be able totell ye hoo Mary deed."
The mention of Daldowie awoke in my heart a keen desire to accompanyhim, and I told him so.
"No, no," he said, "no' yet. By and by, if ye like. In the meantimeyer duty lies here. You've got to look efter the minister. As ye weelken, he's a feckless man at lookin' after himsel'. Forby, you'll ha'ework to dae. The hairst winna' be ower when I gang. So you'd bestjuist bide here."
His arguments were not weighty, but obviously he did not want my companyand he had proved himself so good a friend that I shrank from offendinghim by insisting. So, reluctantly, I agreed to remain behind.
"You will take care," I said. "I fear that Lag has begun to suspectyou, and you may run into danger unless you are wary."
He laughed as he replied: "Ah weel, as Horace said, '_Seu me tranquillasenectus expectat, seu mors atris circumvolat alis_' which ye can naedoot translate for yersel', but which means in this connection, thatHector will either see a peacefu' auld age by his ain fireside wi' thewidda, or the black-winged corbies will pick his banes. Man, Horace hasthe richt word every time."
We did not discuss the matter of his departure again, but continued ournightly tasks in the fields. There was something peculiarly beautifulabout our work at this time. The nights were short and never whollydark. We would steal into a ripening field of corn in the twilight,when the purple shadows lay asleep among the golden grain. As the lightof day gave place to the half-darkness of the night, the grain, piercedby the silver shafts of the moon, grew lustrous and shone like fairyjewels. I paused in wonder every time I bent to put my sickle betweenthe tall blades. It seemed almost a sacrilege to cut down such things ofbeauty.
As the nights were short we could work only a few hours before thedaylight came again; but always ere it came the slumbering earth waswakened by a burst of melody. When, in the east, one saw a littlelightening of the grey shadows, as though a candle had been lit on theother side of some far off hill, one's ear would catch the sound of abird's pipe, solitary at first and strangely alone. That firstadventurous challenge would soon be answered from a myriad hiddenthroats. Far off, a cock would crow, and then on every side, from theheart of hidden lark and pipit, linnet and finch, a stream of melodywould begin to flow over the field. The music increased in volume asbird after bird awoke from its sleep in hedge, and bush and tree, andthe choir invisible poured its cataract of song into that empty hourthat lies in the hand of time between the darkness and the dawn.
Flower o' the Heather: A Story of the Killing Times Page 32