"I'm wearin' awa', Jean,
Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, Jean;
I'm wearin' awa'
To the Land o' the Leal."
Old Song.
Scene: Kenneth at home in his mother's humble cot. A fire of peats and
wood burning on the low hearth. Kenneth's mother reading the good Book
with spectacles on her eyes. Kenneth leading also at the other side of
the fire. Above the mantelpiece a black iron oil lamp is burning, with
old-fashioned wicks made from peeled and dried rushes. Between the
pair, his head on his paws, Kooran is lying. He is asleep, and probably
dreaming of the sheep that he cannot get to enter the "fauld," for he is
emitting little sharp cheeping barks, as dogs often do when they dream.
Kenneth gets up at last and reaches down his plaid and crook.
"Dear laddie," says his mother, "you're surely not going out to-night!"
Kooran jumps up and shakes himself.
"Yes, mother; I must," is the quiet reply. "I had a strange dream about
poor Nancy last night. She has been ill, you know, and I haven't called
for three days."
"But in such a night, laddie! Listen to the wind! Hear how the snow
and the hail are beating on the window!"
Kenneth did listen.
It was indeed a fearful night.
The wind was sighing and crying through every cranny of the window, and
shaking the sash; it was howling round the chimney, and wailing through
the keyhole of the door.
Snow was sifting in underneath the door, too, and lying along the floor
like a stripe of light.
Kenneth drew his plaid closer round him.
"I must go, mother," he said; "I could not sleep to-night if I didn't.
"Don't be uneasy about me even if I don't return till morning. I may
stay all night at Dugald's."
When Kenneth opened the door he was almost driven back with the force of
the wind, and almost suffocated with the soft, powdery, drifting snow.
But he closed the door quickly after him and marched boldly on down the
glen, rolling the end of his plaid about his neck, and at times having
even to breathe through a single fold of it to prevent suffocation.
It was now well on in January. There had been but little snow all the
winter, but this storm came on sharp and sudden. All day gigantic
masses of cloud had been driving hurriedly over the sky on the wings of
an easterly wind; the ground was as hard as adamant, and towards sunset
the snow had begun to fall. But it took no time to settle on the bare
ground; it was blown on and heaped wherever there was a bit of shelter
from the fierce east wind. So it lay under the hedges and dykes, and on
the lee-side of trees, and deep down in the ravines, and under banks and
rocks, and across the road here and there in rifts like frozen waves of
the ocean.
The wind howled terribly across the moorland. There was a moon, but it
gave little light.
Kooran knew, however, where his master was going, and went feathering on
in front, stopping now and then to turn round and give a little sharp
encouraging bark to his sturdy young master.
Kenneth was all aglow when he reached Nancy's hut, and his face wet and
hot. His hair and the fringes of the plaid and even his eyebrows were
covered with ice.
He shook the plaid and his bonnet, and folded the former under the porch
for Kooran to lie on. Then he opened the latch and entered.
All was dark. Not a blink of fire was on the hearth, and long white
lines across the floor showed him where the snow had been sifting in
through the holes that did duty as windows. Kenneth's heart suddenly
felt as cold and heavy as lead.
"Nancy," he cried, "Nancy, oh! Nancy."
There was a feeble answer from the bed in the corner.
He advanced towards it. There were two shining lights there, the cat's
eyes. Poor pussy was on the bed watching by her dying mistress.
He felt on the coverlet and found Nancy's hand there. It was cold,
almost hard. "Nancy," he said, "it is Kennie, your own boy Kennie;
don't be afraid."
It did not take long for Kenneth to light a roaring fire on the hearth.
As soon as it burned up he held the iron lamp over it to melt the frozen
oil; then he hung it up. The water in a bucket was frozen, and even
some milk that stood on a little table near Nancy's bed was solid.
The inside of that cot was dreary in the extreme, but Kenneth soon made
it more cheerful.
Poor old Nancy smiled her thanks and held out her hand to her boy, as
she always called Kennie. He chafed it while he entreated her to tell
him how she felt.
"Happy! happy! happy!" she replied, "but, poor boy, you are shaking."
Kenneth was, and he felt his heart so full that tears would have been a
relief, but he wisely restrained himself.
He melted and warmed the milk, and made her drink some. Then, at her
own request, he raised her up in the bed.
"Dinna be sorry," she said, "when poor auld Nancy's in the mools. It is
the gate we have a' to gang. But oh! dear boy, it's the gate to glory
for poor Nancy. And so it will be for you, laddie, if you never forget
to pray. Prayer has been the mainstay and comfort o' my life; God has
always been near me, and He's near me now, and will see me safe through
the dark waters o' death. Here's a little Bible," she said. "It was
Nancy's when young. Keep it for her sake, and oh! never forget to read
it.
"Now, laddie, can you find your way to Dugald's? Send him here. There
is an aulder head on his shoulders than on yours, and I have that to say
a man should hear and remember."
"I'll go at once," said Kenneth, "and come back soon, and bring the
doctor too, Nancy. I won't say good-night, I'll be back so soon."
Kenneth gulped down his tears, patted her hand, and rushed away.
"Come on, Kooran," he cried. "Oh! Kooran, let us run; my heart feels
breaking."
He took his way across the moor in a different direction from that in
which he had come. The storm had abated somewhat. The wind had gone
down, and the moon shone out now and then from a rift in the clouds.
He determined to take the shortest cut to Dugald's house, though there
would be the stream to ford, and it must be big and swollen. Never
mind; he would try it.
He soon reached a scattered kind of wood of stunted trees; there was no
pathway through it, but he guided himself by the moon and kept going
downhill. He would thus strike the river, and keeping on by its banks,
ford wherever he could.
Nothing could be easier. So he said to himself, and on he went. It was
very cold; and though the wind was not so fierce, it moaned and sighed
most mournfully through the trees in this wood. Even Kooran started
sometimes, as a spruce or Scottish fir tree would suddenly free itself
from its burden of snow as if it were a living thing, free itself with a
rushing, crackling sort of sound, and stand forth among its fellows dark
and spectre-like.
Kenneth had gone quite a long way, but still no stream came in sight.
He listened for the sound of running water over and over again, and just
as often he seemed to hear it, and went in that direction, but found it
must be only wind after all.
He grew tired all at once, tired, weak, and faint, and sat down on a
tree stump, and Kooran came and licked his cheek with his soft warm
tongue. He placed one hand in the dog's mane, as if to steady himself,
for his head began to swim.
"I must go on, though," he muttered to himself. "Poor old Nancy. The
doctor. I'll soon be back--I--"
He said no more for a time. He had fainted. When he recovered, he
started at once to his feet.
"I've been asleep," he cried. "How could I!" He ate some snow; then he
began to move on automatically, as it were, the dog running in front and
barking. The dog would have led him home. "No, no, Kooran," he said;
"the river, doggie, the river."
Kenneth tried to run now. His teeth were chattering with the cold, but
his face was hot and flushed.
His nerves had become strangely affected. He started fifty times at
imaginary spectres. Some one was walking on in front of him--some
shadowy being. He ran a little; it eluded him. Then he stopped; he was
sure he saw a head peering at him over a piece of rock. He called
aloud, "Archie! Archie!"
His voice sounds strange to his own ears. He runs towards the rock.
There is no one behind it. No one. Nothing.
He feels fear creeping over his heart. He never felt fear before.
But still he wanders on, muttering to himself, "I'll soon be back. Poor
old Nancy! Poor old Nancy!"
All at once--so it seems--he finds himself at the banks of a stream. He
is bewildered now, completely. He presses his cold hand against that
burning brow of his.
What is this river or stream? Where is he going? Did he cross this
stream before? He must cross it now, but where is the ford? How deep
and dark and sullen it looks.
He seats himself on the icy bank to think or try to think.
He is burning, yet he shivers.
Stories of water-kelpies keep crowding through his mind, and the words
and weird music of a song he has heard,--
"Kelpie dwells in a wondrous hall
Beneath the shimmering stream;
His song is the song of the waterfall,
And his light its rainbow gleam.
The rowans stoop,
And the long ferns droop
Their feathery heads in the spray."
And now he jumps to his feet. He has recollected himself, he was going
for the doctor for poor Nancy, and this is the stream he was looking
for. He must seek the ford. He cannot have far to go now. Once over
the river, and a run will take him to Dugald's cottage.
But stay; what cares he for the ford? He will plunge into the deepest
pool, and swim across. He is hot; he is burning; it will cool him.
He walks on a little way, and still the kelpie song runs in his brain.
The trees seem singing it; the wind keeps singing it; the driving clouds
nod to its music.
"Where the foam flakes are falling,
Falling, falling, falling,
Falling for ever and ay--"
Ha! here is a deep dark pool at last. Why, yonder is the kelpie himself
beckoning to him, and the maiden.
"When forest depths were dim,
For love of her long golden hair--"
The poor dog divines his intention. He rushes betwixt him and the cold
black water, uttering a cry that is almost human in its plaintive
pathos.
Too late. He laughs wildly, and plunges in. Then there is a strange
sense of fulness in his head. Sparks crackle across his eyes.
"Falling, falling, falling,
Foam flakes are--"
He remembers no more.
But the brave dog has pulled him to the brink, and sits by his side,
lifting his chin up towards the sky, and howling most pitifully.
Ah! if we only knew how much our faithful dogs love us, and how much
they know in times of trouble and anguish, we would be kinder to them
even than we are, even now, while sorrow smees far away from us.
Presently it appeared to strike even Kooran that giving vent to his
grief would result in nothing very practical, so he suddenly ceased to
whine. He bent down and licked his master's cold inanimate face.
He howled once again after this, as if his very heart were breaking.
Then he looked all round him.
No help, I suppose, he thought, could come from these cold woods, and no
danger.
So he emitted one little impatient bark, as if his mind were quite made
up as to what he should do, turned tail, and trotted off.