GLASHRUACH.
As soon as Gibbie had found a stall for Crummie, and thrown a great
dinner before her, he turned and sped back the way he had come: there
was no time to lose if he would have the bridge to cross the Lorrie by;
and his was indeed the last foot that ever touched it. Guiding himself
by well-known points yet salient, for he knew the country perhaps
better than any man born and bred in it, he made straight for Glashgar,
itself hid in the rain. Now wading, now swimming, now walking along the
top of a wall, now caught and baffled in a hedge, Gibbie held stoutly
on. Again and again he got into a current, and was swept from his
direction, but he soon made his lee way good, and at length clear of
the level water, and with only the torrents to mind, seated himself on
a stone under a rock a little way up the mountain. There he drew from
his pocket the putty-like mass to which the water had reduced the cakes
with which it was filled, and ate it gladly, eyeing from his shelter
the slanting lines of the rain, and the rushing sea from which he had
just emerged. So lost was the land beneath the water, that he had to
think to be certain under which of the roofs, looking like so many
foundered Noah’s arks, he had left his father and mother. Ah! yonder
were cattle!--a score of heads, listlessly drifting down, all the swim
out of them, their long horns, like bits of dry branches, knocking
together! There was a pig, and there another! And, alas! yonder floated
half a dozen helpless sponges of sheep!
At sight of these last he started to his feet, and set off up the hill.
It was not so hard a struggle to cross the water, but he had still
to get to the other side of several torrents far more dangerous than
any current he had been in. Again and again he had to ascend a long
distance before he found a possible place to cross at; but he reached
the fold at last.
It was in a little valley opening on that where lay the tarn. Swollen
to a lake, the waters of it were now at the very gate of the pen. For a
moment he regretted he had not brought Oscar, but the next he saw that
not much could with any help have been done for the sheep, beyond what
they could, if at liberty, do for themselves. Left where they were they
would probably be drowned; if not they would be starved; but if he let
them go, they would keep out of the water, and find for themselves what
food and shelter were to be had. He opened the gate, drove them out and
a little way up the hill, and left them.
By this time it was about two o’clock, and Gibbie was very hungry. He
had had enough of the water for one day, however, and was not inclined
to return to the Mains. Where could he get something to eat? If the
cottage were still standing--and it might be--he would find plenty
there. He turned towards it. Great was his pleasure when, after another
long struggle, he perceived that not only was the cottage there, but
the torrent gone: either the flow from the mountain had ceased, or the
course of the water had been diverted. When he reached the Glashburn,
which lay between him and the cottage, he saw that the torrent had
found its way into it, probably along with others of the same brood,
for it was frightfully swollen, and went shooting down to Glashruach
like one long cataract. He had to go a great way up before he could
cross it.
When at length he reached home, he discovered that the overshooting
stream must have turned aside very soon after they left, for the
place was not much worse than then. He swept out the water that lay
on the floor, took the dryest peats he could find, succeeded with the
tinder-box and sulphur-match at the first attempt, lighted a large
fire, and made himself some water-brose--which is not only the most
easily cooked of dishes, but is as good as any for a youth of capacity
for strong food.
His hunger appeased, he sat resting in Robert’s chair, gradually
drying; and falling asleep, slept for an hour or so. When he woke, he
took his New Testament from the _crap o’ the wa’_, and began to read.
Of late he had made a few attempts upon one and another of the
Epistles, but, not understanding what he read, had not found profit,
and was on the point of turning finally from them for the present, when
his eye falling on some of the words of St. John, his attention was
at once caught, and he had soon satisfied himself, to his wonder and
gladness, that his First Epistle was no sealed book any more than his
Gospel. To the third chapter of that Epistle he now turned, and read
until he came to these words: “Hereby perceive we the love of God,
because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our
lives for the brethren.”
“What learned him that?” said Gibbie to himself; Janet had taught him
to search the teaching of the apostles for what the Master had taught
them. He thought and thought, and at last remembered “This is my
commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you.”
“And here am I,” said Gibbie to himself, “sittin’ here in idleset, wi’
my fire, an’ my brose, an’ my Bible, and a’ the warl’ aneath Glashgar
lyin’ in a spate (_flood_)! I canna lay doon my life to save their
sowls; I maun save for them what I can--it may be but a hen or a calf.
I maun dee the warks o’ him ’at sent me--he’s aye savin’ at men.”
The Bible was back in its place, and Gibbie out of the door the
same moment. He had not an idea what he was going to do. All he yet
understood was, that he must go down the hill, to be where things might
have to be done--and _that_ before the darkness fell. He must go where
there were people. As he went his heart was full of joy, as if he had
already achieved some deliverance. Down the hill he went singing and
dancing. If mere battle with storm was a delight to the boy, what would
not a mortal tussle with the elements for the love of men be? The
thought itself was a heavenly felicity, and made him “happy as a lover.”
His first definitely directive thought was, that his nearest neighbours
were likely enough to be in trouble--“the fowk at the muckle hoose.” He
would go thither straight.
Glashruach, as I have already said, stood on one of the roots of
Glashgar, where the mountain settles down into the valley of the Daur.
Immediately outside its principal gate ran the Glashburn; on the other
side of the house, within the grounds, ran a smaller hill-stream,
already mentioned as passing close under Ginevra’s window. Both these
fell into the Lorrie. Between them the mountain sloped gently up for
some little distance, clothed with forest. On the side of the smaller
burn, however, the side opposite the house, the ground rose abruptly.
There also grew firs, but the soil was shallow, with rock immediately
below, and they had not come to much. Straight from the mountain,
between the two streams, Gibbie approached the house, through larches
and pines, raving and roaring in the wind. As he drew nearer, and saw
how high the house stood above the valley and its waters, he began to
think he had been foolish in coming there to find work; but when he
reached a certain point whence the approach from the gate was visible,
he started, stopped and stared. He rubbed his eyes. No; he was not
asleep and dreaming by the cottage fire; the wind was about him, and
the firs were howling and hissing; there was the cloudy mountain, with
the Glashburn, fifty times its usual size, darting like brown lightning
from it; but where was the iron gate with its two stone pillars,
crested with wolf’s-heads? where was the bridge? where was the wall,
and the gravelled road to the house? Had he mistaken his bearings? was
he looking in a wrong direction? Below him was a wide, swift, fiercely
rushing river, where water was none before! No; he made no mistake:
there was the rest of the road, the end of it next the house! That was
a great piece of it that fell frothing into the river and vanished!
Bridge and gate and wall were gone utterly. The burn had swallowed
them, and now, foaming with madness, was roaring along, a great way
within the grounds, and rapidly drawing nearer to the house, tearing to
pieces and devouring all that defended it. There! what a mouthful of
the shrubbery it gobbled up! Slowly, graciously, the tall trees bowed
their heads and sank into the torrent, but the moment they touched it,
shot away like arrows. Would the foundations of the house outstand
it? Were they as strong as the walls of Babylon, yet if the water
undermined them, down they must! Did the laird know that the enemy was
within his gates? Not with all he had that day seen and gone through,
had Gibbie until now gathered any notion of the force of rushing water.
Rousing himself from his bewildered amazement, he darted down the hill.
If the other burn was behaving in like fashion, then indeed the fate of
the house was sealed. But no; huge and wild as that was also, it was
not able to tear down its banks of rock. From that side the house did
not seem in danger.
Mr. Galbraith had gone again, leaving Ginevra to the care of Mistress
MacFarlane, with a strict order to both, and full authority to
the latter to enforce it, that she should not set foot across the
threshold on any pretext, or on the smallest expedition, without the
housekeeper’s attendance. He must take Joseph with him, he said, as
he was going to the Duke’s, but she could send for Angus upon any
emergency.
The laird had of late been so little at home, that the establishment
had been much reduced; Mistress MacFarlane did most of the cooking
herself; had quarrelled with the housemaid and not yet got another;
and, Nicie dismissed, and the kitchen maid gone to visit her mother,
was left alone in the house with her Mistress, if such we can call
her who was really her prisoner. At this moment, however, she was
not alone, for on the other side of the fire sat Angus, not thither
attracted by any friendship for the housekeeper, but by the glass of
whisky of which he sipped as he talked. Many a flood had Angus seen,
and some that had done frightful damage, but never one that had caused
him anxiety; and although this was worse than any of the rest, he had
not yet a notion how bad it really was. For, as there was nothing to
be done out of doors, and he was not fond of being idle, he had been
busy all the morning in the woodhouse, sawing and splitting for the
winter-store, and working the better that he knew what honorarium
awaited his appearance in the kitchen. In the woodhouse he only heard
the wind and the rain and the roar, he saw nothing of the flood; when
he entered the kitchen, it was by the back door, and he sat there
without the smallest suspicion of what was going on in front.
Ginevra had had no companion since Nicie left her, and her days had
been very dreary, but this day had been the dreariest in her life.
Mistress MacFarlane made herself so disagreeable that she kept away
from her as much as she could, spending most of her time in her own
room, with her needlework and some books of poetry she had found in
the library. But the poetry had turned out very dull--not at all like
what Donal read, and throwing one of them aside for the tenth time that
day, she wandered listlessly to the window, and stood there gazing
out on the wild confusion--the burn roaring below, the trees opposite
ready to be torn to pieces by the wind, and the valley beneath covered
with stormy water. The tumult was so loud, that she did not hear a
gentle knock at her door: as she turned away, weary of everything, she
saw it softly open--and there to her astonishment stood Gibbie--come,
she imagined, to seek shelter, because their cottage had been blown
down.--Calculating the position of her room from what he knew of its
windows, he had, with the experienced judgment of a mountaineer, gone
to it almost direct.
“You mustn’t come here, Gibbie,” she said, advancing. “Go down to the
kitchen, to Mistress MacFarlane. She will see to what you want.”
Gibbie made eager signs to her to go with him. She concluded that he
wanted her to accompany him to the kitchen and speak for him; but
knowing that would only enrage her keeper with them both, she shook
her head, and went back to the window. She thought, as she approached
it, there seemed a lull in the storm, but the moment she looked out,
she gave a cry of astonishment, and stood staring. Gibbie had followed
her as softly as swiftly, and looking out also, saw good cause indeed
for her astonishment: the channel of the raging burn was all but dry!
Instantly he understood what it meant. In his impotence to persuade,
he caught the girl in his arms, and rushed with her from the room. She
had faith enough in him by this time not to struggle or scream. He shot
down the stair with her, and out of the front door. Her weight was
nothing to his excited strength. The moment they issued, and she saw
the Glashburn raving along through the lawn, with little more than the
breadth of the drive between it and the house, she saw the necessity of
escape, though she did not perceive half the dire necessity for haste.
Every few moments, a great gush would dash out twelve or fifteen yards
over the gravel and sink again, carrying many feet of the bank with it,
and widening by so much the raging channel.
“Put me down, Gibbie,” she said; “I will run as fast as you like.”
He obeyed at once.
“Oh!” she cried, “Mistress MacFarlane!--I wonder if she knows. Run and
knock at the kitchen window.”
Gibbie darted off, gave three loud hurried taps on the window, came
flying back, took Ginevra’s hand in his, drew her on till she was at
her full speed, turned sharp to the left round the corner of the house,
and shot down to the empty channel of the burn. As they crossed it,
even to the inexperienced eyes of the girl it was plain what had caused
the phenomenon. A short distance up the stream, the whole facing of
its lofty right bank had slipped down into its channel. Not a tree,
not a shrub, not a bed of moss was to be seen; all was bare wet rock.
A confused heap of mould, with branches and roots sticking out of
it in all directions, lay at its foot, closing the view upward. The
other side of the heap was beaten by the raging burn. They could hear,
though they could not see it. Any moment the barrier might give way,
and the water resume its course. They made haste, therefore, to climb
the opposite bank. In places it was very steep, and the soil slipped
so that often it seemed on its way with them to the bottom, while the
wind threatened to uproot the trees to which they clung, and carry them
off through the air. It was with a fierce scramble they gained the top.
Then the sight was a grand one. The arrested water swirled and beat
and foamed against the landslip, then rushed to the left, through the
wood, over bushes and stones, a raging river, the wind tearing off the
tops of its waves, to the Glashburn, into which it plunged, swelling
yet higher its huge volume. Rapidly it cut for itself a new channel.
Every moment a tree fell and shot with it like a rocket. Looking up its
course, they saw it come down the hillside a white streak, and burst
into boiling brown and roar at their feet. The wind nearly swept them
from their place; but they clung to the great stones, and saw the airy
torrent, as if emulating that below it, fill itself with branches and
leaves and lumps of foam. Then first Ginevra became fully aware of the
danger in which the house was, and from which Gibbie had rescued her.
Augmented in volume and rapidity by the junction of its neighbour,
the Glashburn was now within a yard--so it seemed from that height at
least--of the door. But they must not linger. The nearest accessible
shelter was the cottage, and Gibbie knew it would need all Ginevra’s
strength to reach it. Again he took her by the hand.
“But where’s Mistress MacFarlane?” she said. “Oh, Gibbie! we mustn’t
leave her.”
He replied by pointing down to the bed of the stream: there were she
and Angus crossing. Ginevra, was satisfied when she saw the gamekeeper
with her, and they set out, as fast as they could go, ascending the
mountain, Gibbie eager to have her in warmth and safety before it was
dark.
Both burns were now between them and the cottage, which greatly added
to their difficulties. The smaller burn came from the tarn, and round
that they must go, else Ginevra would never get to the other side of
it; and then there was the Glashburn to cross. It was an undertaking
hard for any girl, especially such for one unaccustomed to exertion;
and what made it far worse was that she had only house-shoes, which
were continually coming off as she climbed. But the excitement of
battling with the storm, the joy of adventure, and the pleasure of
feeling her own strength, sustained her well for a long time; and in
such wind and rain, the absence of bonnet and cloak was an advantage,
so long as exertion kept her warm. Gibbie did his best to tie her
shoes on with strips of her pocket handkerchief; but when at last
they were of no more use, he pulled off his corduroy jacket, tore out
the sleeves, and with strips from the back tied them about her feet
and ankles. Her hair also was a trouble: it would keep blowing in
her eyes, and in Gibbie’s too, and that sometimes with quite a sharp
lash. But she never lost her courage, and Gibbie, though he could not
hearten her with words, was so ready with smile and laugh, was so
cheerful--even merry, so fearless, so free from doubt and anxiety,
while doing everything he could think of to lessen her toil and pain,
that she hardly felt in his silence any lack; while often, to rest her
body, and withdraw her mind from her sufferings, he made her stop and
look back on the strange scene behind them. It was getting dark when
they reached the only spot where he judged it possible to cross the
Glashburn. He carried her over, and then it was all down-hill to the
cottage. Once inside it, Ginevra threw herself into Robert’s chair, and
laughed, and cried, and laughed again. Gibbie blew up the peats, made a
good fire, and put on water to boil; then opened Janet’s drawers, and
having signified to his companion to take what she could find, went to
the cow house, threw himself on a heap of wet straw, worn out, and had
enough to do to keep himself from falling asleep. A little rested, he
rose and re-entered the cottage, when a merry laugh from both of them
went ringing out into the storm: the little lady was dressed in Janet’s
workday garments, and making porridge. She looked very funny. Gibbie
found plenty of milk in the dairy under the rock, and they ate their
supper together in gladness. Then Gibbie prepared the bed in the little
closet for his guest and she slept as if she had not slept for a week.
Gibbie woke with the first of the dawn. The rain still fell--descending
in spoonfuls rather than drops; the wind kept shaping itself into long
hopeless howls, rising to shrill yells that went drifting away over the
land; and then the howling rose again. Nature seemed in despair. There
must be more for Gibbie to do! He must go again to the foot of the
mountain, and see if there was anybody to help. They might even be in
trouble at the Mains, who could tell!
Ginevra woke, rose, made herself as tidy as she could, and left her
closet. Gibbie was not in the cottage. She blew up the fire, and,
finding the pot ready beside it, with clean water, set it on to boil.
Gibbie did not come. The water boiled. She took it off, but being
hungry, put it on again. Several times she took it off and put it on
again. Gibbie never came. She made herself some porridge at last.
Everything necessary was upon the table, and as she poured it into the
wooden dish for the purpose, she took notice of a slate beside it, with
something written upon it. The words were, “I will cum back as soon as
I cann.”
She was alone, then! It was dreadful; but she was too hungry to think
about it. She ate her porridge, and then began to cry. It was very
unkind of Gibbie to leave her, she said to herself. But then he was a
sort of angel, and doubtless had to go and help somebody else. There
was a little pile of books on the table, which he must have left for
her. She began examining them, and soon found something to interest
her, so that an hour or two passed quickly. But Gibbie did not return,
and the day went wearily. She cried now and then, made great efforts
to be patient, succeeded pretty well for a while, and cried again. She
read and grew tired a dozen times; ate cakes and milk, cried afresh,
and ate again. Still Gibbie did not come. Before the day was over, she
had had a good lesson in praying. For here she was, one who had never
yet acted on her own responsibility, alone on a bare mountain-side, in
the heart of a storm which seemed as if it would never cease, and not a
creature knew where she was but the dumb boy, and he had left her! If
he should never come back, what would become of her? She could not find
her way down the mountain; and if she could, where was she to go, with
all Daurside under water? She would soon have eaten up all the food in
the cottage, and the storm might go on for ever, who could tell? Or who
could tell whether, when it was over, and she got down to the valley
below, she should not find it a lifeless desert, everybody drowned, and
herself the only person left alive in the world?
Then the noises were terrible. She seemed to inhabit noise. Through
the general roar of wind and water and rain every now and then came
a sharper sound, like a report or crack, followed by a strange low
thunder, as it seemed. They were the noises of stones carried down by
the streams, grinding against each other, and dashed stone against
stone; and of rocks falling and rolling, and bounding against their
fast-rooted neighbours. When it began to grow dark, her misery seemed
more than she could bear; but then, happily, she grew sleepy, and slept
the darkness away.
With the new light came new promise and fresh hope. What should we
poor humans do without our God’s nights and mornings? Our ills are all
easier to help than we know--except the one ill of a central self,
which God himself finds it hard to help.--It no longer rained so
fiercely; the wind had fallen; and the streams did not run so furious
a race down the sides of the mountain. She ran to the burn, got some
water to wash herself--she could not spare the clear water, of which
there was some still left in Janet’s pails--and put on her own clothes,
which were now quite dry. Then she got herself some breakfast, and
after that tried to say her prayers, but found it very difficult, for,
do what she might to model her slippery thoughts, she could not help,
as often as she turned herself towards him, seeing God like her father,
the laird.