When the news that young Duncan had been shot was brought to Ben Nevis,
the effect on his father was much more severe than might have been
expected, considering their respective feelings towards each other.
It was late in the evening when the news came, and the old man was
seated in what he styled his smoking-room, taking his evening glass of
whisky and water.
"Elspie," he said, in a subdued voice, on being told, "help me up to my
bed."
This was so very unusual a request that Elspie was somewhat alarmed by
it, as well as surprised--all the more so that the old man left the room
without finishing either his pipe or glass. Still, she did not suppose
that anything serious would come of it. A night's rest, she thought,
would do away with the evils of the shock.
"Dear father," she said, as she kissed him at parting, "do believe that
God is waiting to be gracious: that He really means it when He says,
`Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest.' And, consider--we have no reason to suppose that dear
Duncan's wound is very dangerous."
"Goot-night, Elspie," was all the reply.
Next morning McKay did not make his appearance at the usual
breakfast-hour, and, on going to his room, they found him lying
speechless in his bed, suffering under a stroke of paralysis.
He soon recovered the power of speech, but not the use of his limbs, and
it became evident ere long that the poor man had received a shock which
would probably cripple him for life. Whatever may have been his secret
thoughts, however, he carefully concealed them from every one, and
always referred to his complaint as, "this nasty stiff feeling about the
legs which iss a long time of goin' away--whatever."
In a few days, Fergus returned from the plains, bringing his brother in
a cart, which had been made tolerably easy by means of a springy couch
of pine-branches. They did not tell him at first of his father's
illness, lest it should interfere with his own recovery from the very
critical condition in which he lay. At first he took no notice of his
father's non-appearance, attributing it to indifference; but when he
began slowly to mend, he expressed some surprise. Then they told him.
Whatever may have been his thoughts on the subject, he gave no sign, but
received the information--as, indeed, he received nearly all information
at that time--in absolute silence.
Fortunately, the bullet which struck him had passed right through his
side, so that he was spared the pain, as well as the danger, of its
extraction. But, from his total loss of appetite and continued
weakness, it was evident that he had received some very severe, if not
fatal, internal injury. At last, very slowly, he began to grow a little
stronger, but he was a very shadow or wreck of his former self.
Nevertheless, the more sanguine members of the family began to entertain
some faint hope of his recovery.
Of course, during these first days of his weakness his sister Elspie
nursed him. She would, if permitted, have done so night and day, but in
this matter she had to contend with one who was more than a match for
her. This was Old Peg, the faithful domestic.
"No, no, dearie," said that resolute old woman, when Elspie first
promulgated to her the idea of sitting up all night with Duncan, "you
will do nothin' of the sort. Your sainted mother left your father an'
Fergus an' yourself to my care, an' I said I would never fail you, so I
can't break my promise by letting you break your health. I will sit up
wi' him, as I've done many a time when he was a bairn."
It thus came to pass that Elspie nursed her brother by day, and Old Peg
sat up with him at night. Of course the duties of the former were
considerably lightened by the assistance rendered by various members of
the family, as well as friends, who were ever ready to sit by the
bedside of the wounded man and read to or chat with him. At such times
he was moderately cheerful, but when the night watches came, and Old Peg
took her place beside him, and memory had time to commence with him
undisturbed, the deed of which he had had been guilty was forced upon
him; Conscience was awakened, and self-condemnation was the result.
Yet, so inconsistent is poor humanity that self-exculpation warred with
self-condemnation in the same brain! The miserable man would have given
all he possessed to have been able to persuade himself that his act was
purely one of self-defence--as no doubt to some extent it was, for if he
had not fired first Perrin's action showed that he would certainly have
been the man-slayer. But, then, young McKay could not shut his eyes to
the fact that premeditation had, in the first instance, induced him to
extend his hand towards his gun, and this first act it was which had
caused all the rest.
Often during the wakeful hours of the night would the invalid glance at
his nurse with a longing desire to unburden his soul to her, but
whenever his eye rested on her calm, wrinkled old visage, and he thought
of her deafness, and the difficulty of making her understand, he
abandoned his half-formed intention with a sigh. He did not, indeed,
doubt her sympathy, for many a time during his life, especially when a
child, had he experienced the strength and tenderness of that.
After attending to his wants, it was the habit of Old Peg to put on a
pair of tortoise-shell spectacles and read. Her only book was the
Bible. She read nothing else--to say truth, at that time there was
little else to read in Red River. The first night of her watch she had
asked the invalid if he would like her to read a few verses to him.
"You may if you like, Peg," he had replied. "You know it iss little I
care for releegion, for I don't believe in it, but you may read if you
like--it may amuse me, an' will help to make the time pass--whatever."
Thus the custom was established. It was plain that the old woman
counted much on the influence of the simple Word of God, without
comment, for every time she opened the Bible she shut her eyes and her
lips moved in silent prayer before she began to read.
The invalid was greatly tickled with this little preliminary prayer, and
would have laughed aloud if he had not been too weak to do so. As time
went on, however, he became interested in the Gospel narratives in spite
of himself, and he began to experience some sort of relish for the
evening reading--chiefly because, as he carefully explained to Elspie,
"the droning o' the old wumman's voice" sent him to sleep.
Meanwhile the other invalid--Duncan senior--progressed as slowly as did
his son. The nursing of him was undertaken chiefly by Jessie Davidson--
the sympathetic Jessie--who was established as an inmate of Ben Nevis
_pro tem_, for that very purpose. She was ably seconded--during part of
each day--by Billie Sinclair, between whom and the old Highlander there
grew up at that time a strong friendship. For many weeks poor old McKay
was confined to his bed, and then, when allowed to rise, he could only
walk across his room with the aid of the strong arm of his stalwart son
Fergus. To sit at his open window and look out at his garden was his
principal amusement, and smoking a long clay pipe his chief solace.
Like Duncan junior, old Duncan was quite willing to hear the Bible read
to him now and then, by Jessie Davidson and more especially by Little
Bill; but the idea of deriving any real comfort from that book never for
a moment entered his head.
One day Elspie came to him and said:
"Daddy, Dan wants to see you to-day, if you feel well enough."
"Surely, my tear. It iss not the first time he will be seein' me since
I got the stroke."
"He has brought you a present--something that he has made--which he
hopes will be useful to you."
"What is it, Elspie?"
"You shall see. May I tell him to come in and bring it with him?"
"Surely, my tear. Let him come in. It iss always goot for sore eyes to
see himself--whatever."
Elspie went out. A few minutes later there was heard in the passage a
strange rumbling sound.
"What in all the world iss that?" said the old man to Little Bill, who
happened to be his companion at the time.
"It sounds like wheels, I think," said Billie.
The door opened as he spoke, and Dan Davidson entered, pushing before
him an invalid chair of a kind that is familiar enough in the civilised
world, but which was utterly unknown at that time in those regions.
"Goot-mornin', Tan; what hev you got there? Iss it a surprise you will
be givin' me?"
"It is a chair, sir, which will, I hope, add a good deal to your
comfort," said Dan. "I made it myself, from the memory-model of one
which I once saw in the old country. See, I will show you how it acts.
Push me along, Jessie."
Dan sat down in the chair as he spoke, and his sister Jessie, who
entered at the moment, pushed him all about the room with the greatest
ease.
"Well, well!" said the amused invalid. "Ye are a clever man, Taniel.
It iss a goot contrivance, an' seems to me fery well made. Could Little
Bill push it, think ye? Go an' try, boy."
Little Bill found that he could push Dan in the chair as easily as
Jessie had done it.
"But that is not all," said Dan. "See--now I will work the chair
myself."
So saying he laid his hands on the two large wheels at either side--
which, with a little wheel behind, supported the machine--and moved it
about the room, turned it round, and, in short, acted in a very
independent manner as to self-locomotion.
"Well, now, that _iss_ goot," exclaimed the pleased invalid. "Let me
try it, Tan."
In his eagerness the poor man, forgetting for a moment his helpless
condition, made an effort to rise, and would certainly have fallen off
the chair on which he was seated if Elspie had not sprung to his
assistance.
"Come, there's life in you yet!" said Dan as he assisted the old man
into the wheel-chair. "Put your hands--so. And when you want to turn
sharp round you've only to pull with one hand and push with--"
"Get along with you," interrupted the old man, facetiously giving the
chair a swing that caused all who stood around him to leap out of his
way: "will you hev the presumption to teach a man that knew how to scull
a boat before you wass born? But, Taniel," he added, in a more serious
tone, "we must hev one like this made for poor Tuncan."
As this was the first reference which McKay had made to his younger son
since his illness--with the exception of the daily inquiry as to his
health--it was hailed as an evidence that a change for the better was
taking place in the old man's mind. For up to that period no one had
received any encouragement to speak of, or enter into conversation
about, Duncan junior.
"You are right," returned Dan. "I have been thinking of that, and have
even laid in the wood to make a similar chair for him. But I fear he
won't be able to use it for some time to come. Elspie was thinking, if
you don't object, to have your bedroom changed to one of the rooms on
the ground floor, so that you could be wheeled into the garden when so
inclined."
"Yes, daddy," said Elspie, taking up the discourse; "we can put you into
the room that corresponds with Duncan's room at the other end of the
house, so that you and he will be able to meet after your long illness.
But there is another contrivance which Dan has been making for us--not
for you, but for Old Peg. Tell daddy about it, Dan."
"Like the chair," said Dan, "it is no novelty, except in this
out-o'-the-way place. You see, I have noticed that Old Peg is rather
deaf--"
"Well, Tan," interrupted old McKay with a benignant smile, "it iss not
much observation that you will be requirin' to see that!"
"Just so. Well, I also observed that it gives Duncan some trouble to
speak loud enough to her. So I have invented a sort of ear-trumpet--a
tin pipe with an ear-piece at one end and a mouth-piece at the other,
which I hope may make things easier."
"Hev ye not tried it yet?" asked McKay.
"Not yet. I've only just brought it."
"Go down, lad, an' try it at wanse, an' let me know what the upshot
iss."
Down they all went accordingly, leaving Duncan senior alone.
They found Old Peg in the act of administering beef-tea refreshment--or
something of that sort--to the invalid. Peter Davidson and Archie
Sinclair were there also, paying him a visit.
"Hallo, Little Bill!" said Archie as his brother entered. "You here! I
guessed as much. Your passion for nursing since you attended Dan is
outrageous. You do more nursing in this house, I do believe, than
Elspie and Jessie and Old Peg put together. What d'ee mean by it, Bill?
I get no good of you at all now!"
"I like it, Archie, and I'm training myself to nurse you when you get
ill or old!"
"Thank 'ee for nothin', Little Bill, for I don't mean to become either
ill or old for some time to come; but, I say, are they goin' to perform
an operation on Old Peg's head?"
This was said in consequence of Elspie shouting to the old woman to let
her put something into her ear to cure deafness.
"Cure deafness!" she exclaimed, with a faint laugh, "nothin' will ever
cure _my_ deafness. But I can trust _you_, dearie, so do what you
please."
"Shut your eyes, then."
"And open your mouth!" said Archie to Little Bill in a low voice.
Old Peg did as she was bid. Dan, approaching behind her, put the small
end of the tube into her right ear--which was the best one--and Elspie,
putting her mouth to the other end, spoke to her in her soft, natural
voice.
The effect was amusing. Old Peg dropped into her chair as if paralysed,
and gazed from one to another in mute amazement.
"Eh! dearie. Did I ever think to hear the sweet low voice o' Elspie
like as it was when she was a bairn! Most amazin'!" she said. "Let me
hear't again."
The operation was repeated, and it was finally found that, by means of
this extemporised ear-trumpet, the poor creature once more became a
conversable member of society. She went about the house the remainder
of that day in a quite excited state, asking questions of everybody, and
putting the end of the instrument to their mouths for an answer. Archie
even declared that he had caught her alone in the back-kitchen shoving
the cat's head into the mouth-piece of the instrument, and pinching its
tail to make it mew.
It was two days after the occurrence of these incidents that the old
woman was seated by Duncan's bedside, gazing through her tortoise-shell
glasses at the well-thumbed Bible, when her patient, who had been very
restless, looked up and spoke.
"Can I do anything for ye, dearie?" said Old Peg, putting the
trumpet-end into her ear, and handing the mouth-piece to Duncan.
"You--you hear much better now, Old Peg?" said the sick man, in his
natural voice.
"Ay, much, much better; thanks to the Lord--and to Mr Daniel."
"If Daniel had not thought of it," said the invalid, quite gravely, "do
you think that the Lord would hev sent the machine to you?"
"He might or He might not," returned the old woman, promptly. "It's not
for me to say, nor yet to guess on that point. But this I do know for
certain--if the Lord hadna' thought upon Mr Daniel, then Mr Daniel
wouldna' have been here to think upon _me_."
Duncan made no reply, and for some time remained quite silent. Then he
spoke again.
"Peg, what wass it that you would be reading to me last night--something
about a malefactor, I'm thinking."
"Ay, it was about the robbers that was crucified on each side o' the
Lord. One o' them reviled the Lord as he was hangin' there, the other
found forgiveness, for he was led to see what a lost sinner he was, and
repented and confessed his sins."
"That is fery strange," said Duncan, after a few moments' thought. "Do
you think, Peg, that the robber that was forgiven wass a--a murderer?"
"I have little doubt o't," answered Peg, "for I've heard say that they
think very little o' human life in them Eastern countries. But whatever
he was, the blood of Jesus Christ was able to cleanse him."
"Ay, but if he was a murderer, Peg, he did not _deserve_ to be
forgiven."
"My bairn," said the old woman, with something of motherly tenderness in
her tone, "it's not them that _deserve_ to be forgiven that _are_
forgiven, but them that see that they _don't_ deserve it. Didna' this
robber say that he was sufferin' for his sins justly? That, surely,
meant that he deserved what he was getting, an' how is it possible to
deserve both condemnation an' forgiveness at the same time? But he
believed that Jesus was a king--able and willing to save him though he
did _not_ deserve it, so he asked to be remembered, and he _was_
remembered. But lie down now, bairn, an' rest: Ye are excitin'
yoursel', an' that's bad for ye."
A week or so after the conversation above recorded, Dan brought a
wheel-chair for Duncan, similar to the one he had made for his father.
As Duncan had been getting out of bed for several days before, Dan found
him dressed and sitting up. He therefore lifted him into the chair at
once, and wheeled him out into the garden, where a blaze of warm
sunshine seemed to put new life into the poor invalid.
It had been pre-arranged that old McKay should be brought down that same
day to his new room, and that he should also be wheeled into the garden,
so as to meet his son Duncan, without either of them being prepared for
the meeting.
"I don't feel at all sure that we are right in this arrangement," Elspie
had said; but Dan and Fergus, and Mrs Davidson and Jessie had thought
otherwise, so she was overruled.
Archie was deputed to attend upon Duncan junior, and Little Bill
obtained leave to push the chair of old McKay. The younger man was
wheeled under the shade of a tree with his back to the house, and left
there. Then the family retired out of the way, leaving Archie to attend
the invalid.
A few minutes after young Duncan had been placed, Little Bill pushed his
charge under the same tree, and, wheeling the chair quickly round,
brought father and son suddenly face to face.
The surprise was great on both sides, for each, recollecting only the
man that _had been_, could hardly believe in the reality of the ghost
that sat before him.
"Father!" exclaimed Duncan at last.
But the old man answered not. Some strong feeling was evidently surging
within him, for his mouth was tightly pursed and his features worked
strangely. Suddenly he burst into tears, but the weakness was
momentary. With an effort that seemed to concentrate the accumulated
energy of all the McKays from Adam downwards, he again pursed his mouth
and looked at his younger son with a stern persistent frown, worthy of
the most rugged of Highlanders in his fiercest mood.
Duncan was inexpressibly touched.
"Father," said he again, "I've been a baad, baad son to _you_."
"Tuncan," retorted the old man, in a husky but firm voice, "I've been a
baad, baad father to you."
"Let us shake hands--whatever," said the son.
The two silently grasped each other's hands with all the little strength
that remained to them. Then old McKay turned suddenly to his henchman.
"Little Bill," said he, in a tone that was not for an instant to be
disregarded, "shove me down to the futt of the garden--you _rascal_!"
With a promptitude little short of miraculous the Highlander was wheeled
away, and thus the momentous meeting was abruptly brought to a close.