Part 8

I closed my eyes again, and drifted once more into a pleasant state of drowsiness, and suddenly I was my own man again, strong and sound in limb as I had ever been: free from pain, and without a care in the world. I was walking gaily along a road that stretched before me into infinite distance. Birds were singing around me and in the sweet air of the morning there was the scent of hedgerow flowers. Far off, near the summit of the hill where the road seemed to end, a woman was waiting for me. She was beckoning to me to make haste, and though I hurried fleet-foot towards her, she remained as far away as ever. The woman was Mary. Try as I might, I could not reach her. Then a miracle happened: she came towards me. A radiant welcome shone in her face: her arms were outstretched I called to her and held out eager hands towards her: but she drifted past me, and was gone, and, heavy at heart, I fell back, a sodden, tortured thing, on the cold wet moors. My eyes opened. The carrion crows still circled above me: but not for long.

Once more I was on a journey, moving, a formless mass, beneath a leaden sky with no moon or sun or stars to guide me; myself a part of the darkness that surrounded me. In this strange world in which I found myself there were other formless shapes like my own, each drifting noiselessly and without contact through infinite leagues of space. The mass that was me was not me. It was separate from me, yet indissolubly united to me. I was perplexed. Was I the mass or was the mass some other being? I had no being of my own apart from the mass, and yet the mass was not me. Where was I?--What was I?--Who was I? I had no pain, no hands or feet, no torturing thirst, no fever-racked body. Was I disembodied? If so, what was I now? In agony of mind, I, who had no mind, struggled to puzzle the problem out; and then, suddenly, the grey mass that had perplexed me rolled from my sight, and I found myself once more lying upon the moor in pain, alone. The sky above me was sprinkled with stars; night had come again: the day had brought me no succour.

If I lay here any longer, surely the troopers would find me. I must up and on. It seemed to me that a great hand came out of the sky and blotted out my pain as someone might blot out an error upon a child's slate. I was strong again. I sprang to my feet. My limb was sound once more. I ran across the moor like a hind let loose and in the darkness I stepped over a precipice and fell unendingly down. The minutes passed, and I saw them gather themselves into little heaps of hours that stood like cairns of stone on the top of the precipice. The hours piled themselves into days and the days into weeks, till the top of the precipice was covered with stones, and still I was falling through unending space. Some time--I know not when--I must have come to the bottom of the precipice. I felt no crash, but the heaped-up cairns of the minutes and hours and days disappeared from my sight, and I ceased to know anything. I cannot tell how long this deep oblivion lasted. Once only did I wake from it partially. I felt a twinge of pain as though someone had moved me, and then all was dark again.

*CHAPTER XV*

*IN THE HAVEN OF DALDOWIE*

A man may go to the very gate of death without knowing that he has stood within its shadow till he returns once more to the sunshine of life. I know not how long I lay, an unconscious mass, at the foot of the dream precipice of my delirium, but an hour came when I opened my eyes again. I opened them slowly, for even to lift my lids was an effort, and I looked above me to see if the carrion crows were still watching me. Instead I saw a low thatched roof, and in amazement I let my eyes wander to every side. I was lying on a soft mattress laid on a garret floor. My head was pillowed on a snowy pillow of down. Beside my couch stood a three-legged stool and on it there was a bowl of flowers. I stretched out a weak hand to take one. I picked up a buttercup that flaunted its proud gold before me, and I pressed it to my lips. I lay in a reverie and tried to gather together all I could remember of the past. I recollected my flight from the troopers, the thunderstorm and the rain, and then I remembered my injured limb. I tried to move it and found that it was firmly bound. I was too weak to raise myself and turn down the bedclothes to examine it, but there was further food for thought in the fact that my injury had been cared for.

Where was I?--and who had brought me here and nursed me back to life again?

Perplexed I could find no light to guide me, and weary with fruitless thoughts I fell asleep.

When I woke up again my eyes rested upon a woman who was just beginning to appear through a trap-door in the floor. She entered the garret, bearing a cup whose contents gave off a generous odour. She came to my bedside and, carefully removing the flowers from the stool, sat down upon it, and looked at me. My wide-awake eyes met her astonished gaze.

"Thank God," she said, "ye're better. Ye've been queer in the heid for mair than a fortnicht, and me and Andra' had lang syne gi'en ye up."

She dropped on her knees beside me and, slipping her left arm gently under my pillow, raised me and put the cup to my lips.

"Here," she said, "drink some o' this."

I drank a long draught, and never have I tasted anything with savour so exquisite.

All too soon the cup was empty and the warmth of its contents sent a glow through my wasted body. I was about to ask where I was and how I had come there, when I remembered that I had another duty to perform. So, in a voice that shook from weakness and emotion, I said:

"I know not who you are, but you have saved my life, and I would thank you."

"Wheesht," she said. "You are far ower weak to talk yet. When you have had a guid nicht's sleep and a wee drap mair nourishment, it will be time enough. Haud yer wheesht the noo like a guid bairn and gang to sleep," and she drew the coverlet up round my neck and tucked it about me. Some old memory buried in the margin of my consciousness stirred within me. Just so had my mother tucked me to sleep many a time and oft, when I was a little lad, and the memory brought the tears to my eyes. I said nothing, for the will of the woman was stronger than mine at the moment, and I must needs obey it. I watched her place the bowl of flowers upon the stool: then, after smoothing my pillow, she went to the trap-door, passed through it and disappeared.

For a time I lay looking up at the straw roof. My eyes followed the black rafters that supported it, and I tried to count the knots in the beams: but the light which trickled through the window had begun to fade, and as I tried to count I fell asleep.

When I woke again it was dark, but a faint beam from the moon made a pool of silver on the coverlet that lay over me. I heard a voice in the room beneath me. I listened eagerly, but could not distinguish any words, and as I listened it dawned upon me that the voice was that of someone reading aloud. Then there was a pause: and in the silence that followed I heard a grating sound as though a chair were pushed a little, over a sandstone floor, and again the voice spoke. Then I knew that, in the kitchen beneath me the people under whose roof I rested were worshipping their God. I, a trooper and deserter, had been succoured by some of the moorland folk, and had found refuge in a Covenanter's cottage!

I lay and thought long of all that I owed to these hunted hill-folk. Twice had I, one of their persecutors, been succoured from death through their charity.

Some time soon after dawn I was wakened by sounds in the room beneath me. I heard a creak as though a hinge were moved, and the clank of a chain, and I knew that the good wife had swung her porridge-pot over the fire and was preparing breakfast for her family. The delicious aroma of slow-cooked porridge began to assail my nostrils and I was conscious that I was hungry.

I wondered if by any chance I should be forgotten; then I banished the uncharitable thought. By and by I heard the sound of footsteps in the kitchen and then a confused murmur of voices. I knew that the family had gathered to break their fast, and I waited with all the patience I could command. The minutes passed slowly and every moment my hunger grew more and more intolerable: but at last the time of waiting was over. I heard footsteps ascending the ladder to my garret. The trap-door was thrown open, the top of a head appeared, a hand reached up and placed a bowl on the floor, and the head disappeared once more. Then again I heard footsteps ascending the ladder, and this time the woman came into the room bearing a second bowl. She picked up the one she had laid upon the floor and came to my bedside.

"Ye've sleepit weel?" she said, inquiry in her voice. "Ye're lookin' somethin' like a man this mornin'. See, I ha'e brocht you your breakfast."

She laid her burden down, and clearing the bowl of flowers from the stool, placed a hand adroitly behind my pillow and propped me up. For a moment the room spun round me. Then she placed the bowl of porridge in my lap and poured a stream of milk over it, saying: "Can ye feed yersel', or maun I feed ye like a bairn?" She gave me a horn spoon, and with a shaky hand I fed myself. She sat watching me, but did not speak again till I had finished my meal.

"That's better," she said. "You'll soon be yersel' again. It's the prood woman I am. I never yet knew a man sae ill as you ha'e been pu' through. Man, but for the grace o' God and our Mary, the craws on the moor would ha'e picked yer banes white long ere noo."

Startled, I looked at her. She had said "Mary." Could it be that this Mary was the Mary of my dreams? I ventured to speak.

"I cannot thank you enough for all you have done for me. But I do not know where I am nor how I came here. I remember nothing since I lay upon the moor, waiting for death."

"Weel," she said, "to make a long story short, ye're in the laft o' Andrew Paterson's fairm-hoose at Daldowie. Mary fand ye lyin' on the moor, in a kin' o' stupor. She got an awfu' fricht, puir lassie. First she thocht ye micht be ane o' the hill-fowk, and then she thocht ye had a kent face, and lookin' again, she minded that she had seen ye wi' the meenister at the field-meeting, the Sabbath afore. She saw ye were gey near deid, but she jaloused ye werena' quite, because ye kept muttering tae yoursel'. So she raced hame like a hare and wadna' rest till she had ta'en her faither oot to fin' ye. They carried ye here on the tail-board o' a cairt, and that's three weeks sin'; and here ye lie and here ye'll bide till ye're a weel man aince mair."

As the full meaning of her words dawned upon me, I was uplifted with joy. Mary had found me! She had known me! She had cared enough for me to think that I was worth saving! Her big heart had pitied my necessity, and to her I owed my life! A sudden access of strength ran through my being. The blood coursed in my veins; I felt it pulse in my temples. It must have brought a glow to my cheeks, for the woman said:

"Ye're better--a lot better the day. The parritch has put a bit o' colour in your cheeks."

I found my tongue. "Will you," I said, "please thank your husband and your daughter"--I had fain said Mary with my lips: I said it in my heart--"for what they have done for me. Later, I hope to thank them myself."

"Oh, aye," she said, "ye'll be seein' them later on when ye're better. But I'll tell them. Meantime, maybe the nicht, when his work's dune, the guid-man'll be comin' up to see ye himsel'. He's got a wheen questions he wants to ask ye. For instance, we're sairly troubled because you were wearin' the meenister's claes when Mary found ye, and in ane o' your pockets ye had the meenister's Bible. And though ane or twa o' the hill-fowk hae been up to look for the guid man in his hiding-place, naebody has seen him and we're mair than a wee troubled. We ken ye were a trooper, and though the meenister vouched for ye himsel' at the meeting, Andra says that ye canna make a blackfaced tup into a white ane by clippin' its 'oo', and we hope ye haena dune the guid man a mischief. To tell ye the truth, when we got ye here and found the meenister's claes on ye, my guid-man was for puttin' ye oot on the moor again and leavin' ye to dee. But Mary pleaded for ye, and I minded my aan lad, so we hid ye here and nursed ye."

She said no more, and before I could explain she had descended the ladder and shut the trap-door.

The day passed rapidly; I slept and woke and slept and woke again. The good woman came to me more than once with food, but she did not talk to me again nor would she let me talk to her.

"The morn is the Sabbath day. I ha'e nae doot Andra' will come up to see ye sometime, and ye can tell him your story then." That was her good night to me, and when she had descended I heard again, as on the previous evening, the sound of these devout folk at their evening prayer.

Then all was silent and I slept.

*CHAPTER XVI*

*ANDREW PATERSON, HILL-MAN*

The shrill crowing of a cock woke me, just as the first rays of the sun were stealing through the skylight. I lay adrowse, half sleeping, half awake, listening for the first sound of the house coming to life. The cock sounded his bugle again. Somewhere a hen cackled, and then all was still.

My eyes wandered round the garret. A mouse had stolen out of some cranny and was examining the room. He seemed unaware of my presence, for he sat solemnly in the middle of the floor with his tail curved like a sickle and proceeded to preen himself, till some unwitting movement of mine startled him and he scampered to his hole.

Slowly the minutes passed, then I heard movements in the kitchen beneath me. I knew that the day might be a difficult one for me, for sometime during its course I had to explain to the master of the house how I came to be disguised in the garb of the minister. My tale was a plain enough one, and I thought it would not be hard to clear myself of any suspicion of having had a hand in his death; but I could not be sure. Kind though my succourers had been, I knew that they were likely to be distrustful of one who had once been a trooper. The minister had been their friend, and it was but natural that they should feel his death keenly and be all too ready to suspect me of complicity in bringing it about. I determined to tell the tale simply, and I trusted that my words would carry conviction. If not, what then? I knew the fanatic spirit with which the hill-folk were sometimes charged. Would the master of the house, in his wrath, lay hands upon me and wring the life from my body? The evil, uncharitable thought was crushed down. They had shown me such love in the hours of my weakness that they were hardly likely to sacrifice me to their suspicions now.

As I pondered, the trap-door was raised, and, bearing my breakfast, the master of the house entered the garret. "Hoo are ye the day?" he asked.

"Better, I thank you, much better;--I owe my life to you and yours;--I shall never be able to repay you."

He set the food upon the stool before he answered. "Ye're gey gleg wi' your tongue. Naebody was talkin' aboot payin'. Haud your wheesht, and sup your parritch. I jalouse ye need them. Later on I'll be comin' up for a crack. There's a wheen things that are no' clear in my min'. The thing lies here: hoo did ye come by the minister's claes and his Bible?" and he looked at me with a steely glance, that, had I not been guiltless, would have covered me with confusion.

"I am ready," I said, "to tell you the whole story as soon as you are ready to listen."

"Weel," he answered, "I'm comin' back sune," and he went to the trap-door and descended, closing it behind him.

I made a hearty meal and was pleased to discover my strength was coming back to me. When I had finished I must have dropped into a sleep, from which I was wakened by hearing footsteps in the room once more. The man had returned, and under his arm he was carrying a bundle of heather, while in his hand there was a mass of wool. He knelt beside my bed and, turning up the blankets, said:

"Afore we begin to talk I think I'd better see aboot this leg o' yours."

He undid the bandages, and looking down I saw that beneath them the ankle had been carefully padded with wool and heather. I knew now the purpose of the things he had brought with him, for he stripped off the pad with which the ankle was surrounded and began to make a fresh one. Apparently he had some knowledge of the healing art. He ran his fingers gently over the joint and then bade me try to move the foot. I found that movement was difficult, but that though it was painful it did not provoke such suffering as that which I remembered having experienced upon the moor.

"It's daein' fine," he said. "It was a bad break, but by and by ye'll be able to walk again, though I fear ye'll aye be a lamiter. But Jacob himsel'--a better man than you--hirpled for the maist pairt o' his life."

As he talked he was binding my foot again, and when he had finished, it felt most comfortable.

"And noo," he said, "let me hear what ye ha'e to say for yersel'. The facts are black against ye. We fand you on the moor in the meenister's claes: ye had the guid man's Bible in your pocket: when last he was seen you were in his company: and nocht has been heard o' him frae that day to this. What say ye?" and he looked at me piercingly.

Without more ado I told him how the brave old saint had given his life that mine might be saved, and how I had buried his body in the silence of the hills, taking his clothes to disguise myself and bringing away his Bible as a precious possession.

As I talked I watched the changing emotions chase each other across his face. At first his eyes were watchful with suspicion, but as I continued he seemed thrilled with a tensity of expectation, and when I told him how the end had come with the rattle of muskets I saw his strong, gnarled hands clench, and, through his tightened lips, he muttered, "The black deevils," and then the tears stole down his weather-beaten cheeks.

When I had finished there was a silence which at last he broke:

"A man o' God, a saint if ever there was ane. We'll miss him sairly here I'm thinkin', but they will be glad to ha'e him on the other side." Then he rose from the stool and gripping my right hand, crushed it in his own. "I believe you, my lad, I believe you, and if Alexander Main counted you worthy to die for, Andrew Paterson o' Daldowie may count you worthy o' a share of his kail and saut. I maun gang and tell the wife; her and Mary are anxious to ken the truth": and he made for the trap-door and began to go down. But just before his head disappeared he turned and called: "Maybe I'll come back the day to see ye again, but if I dinna', the wife'll be up to look after ye, and if I'm spared I'll be up masel' the morn. This is nae day to talk aboot the dambrod. I'll speir ye aboot it some ither time."

*CHAPTER XVII*

*AN ADOPTED SON*

It is needless to trace day by day the events of the next fortnight. Each morning found me with increasing strength. The good wife of the house was continually solicitous for my welfare, and had I been son of hers she could not have bestowed more care upon me. She took a pride in every sign of returning strength. Daily she brought me shreds of family gossip; news of the crops; news of the cattle; told me, with housewifely pride, how many chickens had come from her last sitting of eggs.

More than once, in our talk, I tried to turn the conversation to Mary; but never with much success. Shyness kept me from advances too direct. Sometimes she would tell me of the hill-men; and once she told me, with pride flashing in her eyes, of her son.

"He died," she said, "at Drumclog. It was a short, sharp fecht, and the dragoons reeled and fled before the Bonnets o' Blue. My laddie was sair wounded, and died in the arms o' guid Maister Main. His last words were: 'Tell my mither no' to greet. It's been a graun' fecht, and oor side's winnin'.'" There were no tears in her eyes as she told me the tale, but when she had finished she laid a hand upon my head and gently stroked my hair. "He was sic' anither as you, when he fell," and she turned and left me. Of an evening the farmer would sometimes come up, bringing with him a dambrod, and many a well-fought game we had together. He played skilfully and usually won, which gave him considerable satisfaction.

"Ye canna' beat Daldowie on the dambrod," he would say, with a twinkle in his eyes. "Scotland owes little enough to Mary Stuart, the Jezebel, but she or some o' her following brocht this game wi' them, and that is something they'll be able to say for themselves on the Judgment Day. They'll mak' a puir enough show that day, or I'm mistaken, but the dambrod will coont on their side."

When we had played for a week, and Saturday night came, he brought up a slate with a record of the score.

"It's like this, ye see," he said. "We've played a score and half o' games. I ha'e won a score and seven, and you won three--which ye shouldna' ha'e done ava' if I had opened richt and no foozled some o' the moves wi' my king. So ye're weel bate, and it's as weel for you that I dinna' believe in playin' for money, or it is a ruined lad ye'd be the nicht."

There was a gleam of satisfaction in his grey eyes, and I could see that to have beaten me so soundly had given him great pleasure.

"We'll no play the nicht; it's gettin' ower near the Sabbath," he continued, "but I'll bate ye even better next week."

I should have been lacking in gratitude if I had not begun to develop a warm affection for my friends. Simple folks, their joys were simple ones, but they were both filled with the zest of life; and in spite of the daily peril in which they lived, sunshine, rather than clouds, seemed to overhang their dwelling.

There came a day when, after examining my ankle with care, the old man said: "I think we micht try to get ye on your legs," and he raised me in his arms and set me on my feet. The garret spun round me, and the floor rose like the billows of the sea and would have swept me down had it not been for his strong arm.

"Steady lad, steady," he said. "Ye'll fin' your feet in a wee. Just shut your een for a minute and then open them again. I'll haud ye fast; dinna' be feart!"

I did as he bade me and found that the floor had become steady again; then, supported by his arm, I essayed to walk. To my joy I discovered that, though the effort cost me pain, I was able to walk from one end of the room to the other. The old man was delighted.

"Jean," he cried, "come awa' up to the laft. Bryden can walk," and I saw the trap-door rise to admit her.

She stood with her hands on her hips: "It bates a'," she said. "The nicht ye cam' I never thocht to see you on your legs again, but ha'e a care, Andra, the lad's weak yet; help him back intil his bed and I'll fetch him a bowl o' sheep's-heid broth for his supper."

And when I was comfortably settled once more, she was as good as her word.

Next day she brought me a strong ash stick, and with its help and the aid of her arm I was able to walk round the loft in some comfort.

Day by day my strength grew and I began to look forward to the hour when I should be able to join my friends in the kitchen below, when I hoped to see Mary face to face. It may have been nothing more than a coincidence--though, as I listened eagerly, I flattered myself it might be for joy that I was so far recovered--that on the night I first began to walk again, I heard Mary singing a song.

As the hour drew nearer when I should meet her, I began to be covered with confusion. How would she receive me?