IN the days of long ago I used to live in the summer-time upon a farm in
one of the rich plains of Scotland, where the soil was deep and we could
grow everything, from the fragrant red clover to the strong, upstanding
wheat. One reason why our farm bore such abundant crops was its
situation; for it lay, in the shape of the letter V, between two rivers
which met upon our ground. One of the rivers was broad and shallow, and
its clear water ran over gravel, brawling and fretting when it came upon
a large stone, and making here and there a pleasant little fall. This
river in the winter-time could rise high and run with a strong current,
and there were days and sometimes weeks when we could not send our men
and horses across its ford. We never hated this river, because, although
it could be angry and proud when the snow was melting on the distant
hill or a big thunder-cloud burst in the glens above us, it was never
treacherous and sullen; it had no unexpected depths into which a man and
horse might fall, but was open as the day, and its water was as bright.
Wherefore I have kindly thoughts of that stream, and when the sun is hot
in the city, and there is no unused air to breathe, I wish I were again
upon its banks and could see it gleaming underneath the bushes as it
sings its way past my feet.
The other river was narrow, and ran in silence between its banks; or
rather it did not run, but trailed itself along like a serpent, deep,
black, and smooth. There was no end to its wicked cunning, for it
pretended to be only three feet deep and it was twelve, and sometimes it
hollowed out to itself a hole where a twenty-foot line would not touch
the bottom. One of its worst tricks was to undermine the bank so that
the green turf on which you stood became a trap, and, yielding beneath
your feet, unless you were very dexterous, shot you into the river. Then
unless you could swim, the river would drown you in its black water as
if with fiendish delight.
Over this river, also, we required to have a ford; but in this case it
was not natural, for the bottom of this river was far below the surface
of the water, and it was soft, deep clay. Across the river, therefore,
the ford had to be built up with stones; and it was made in the shape
of a horseshoe, so that any one crossing must follow a rough half-circle
from bank to bank, and he had to keep to the line of the ford, for below
it the water poured into a depth of thirty feet. When the river was low
one could easily trace the ford, and there was no excuse for getting
into danger; but if the river had been fed by the upland rains, then
every sign of the ford was lost, and a man had to be very careful how
he picked his horse's way. And all the time the wicked water would be
bringing its weight to bear on him, in the hope of carrying him and his
horse and everything else that was with him over the edge.
This river we loathed, and at the thought of its wickedness and its
tragedies--for twice I nearly lost my life in it--I still shudder, here
in my study.
One afternoon I went down to the ford in order to warn a plowman that
he must not cross. That morning he had taken a load of grain to the
railway-, station, and now he was coming back with the empty cart and
two horses. During the day there had been rain upon the mountains, and
the river was swollen so that every sign of the ford was lost.
I stood high up upon the bank, and when he came down the road on
the other side I shouted across the river--which was rising every
minute--that he must not on any account attempt it, but must turn back
and go round by the bridge. Of course he ought to have obeyed this
order, and I am not going to say that he was wise in what he did; but
safety would mean a détour of ten miles, and he knew not fear. It was
from his breed that our Highland regiment got their recruits and more
than one of our men had gone into the “Black Watch.”
“I'll risk it,” he cried from the other side; and he made his
preparations for the daring enterprise, while I, on my side, could say
and do nothing more. All that remained for me was to watch, and, if it
were possible, in case of things coming to the worst, to give such help
as I could from the bank.
It was a heavy two-wheeled cart he had, with one horse in the shafts and
another before, tandem-wise, and this kind of team could not be driven
from the cart. The driver must walk, holding the reins of the tandem
horse in his right hand, and, if necessary, guiding the horse in the
shafts with his left; and so they entered the stream.
After the horses had gone a few yards into the water they wished to
stop; for they had an instinct of danger, all the more because they
were not free, but were strapped and chained, so that it would be almost
impossible for them to save their lives by swimming. Jock chided and
encouraged them, calling them by name, and they went in without any
more hesitation; for horses are full of faith, and trust their driver
absolutely if they know his voice and love him. Each of our men had a
pair of horses under his charge; and so close was the tie between the
men and their horses that the pair would come to their driver in the
field when he called them by name, and would allow another plowman to
handle them only under protest.
Very carefully did Jock guide his team round the farther bend of the
horseshoe, but when they reached the middle of the stream the water
reached his waist and was lapping round his chest. Of course he could
not have stood had it not been that he was on the upper side, and had
the support of the shaft, to which he clung, still holding the reins of
the foremost horse and the bridle of the other.
“Take care, Jock! for any sake, take care, man!” I yelled from my bank.
It was poor advice, but one had to say something as he looked on the
man and the horses, more than half covered by the stream, so lonely and
helpless. “You are at the turn now”; for we knew that the bend of the
shoe was at the middle of the stream.
“It's a' richt,” came back the brave, honest voice. “We'll win through”;
and now Jock turned the leader's head up-stream, and the cart began
to move round on the nearer turn of the horseshoe. Yes, they would win
through, for surely the worst was past, and I jumped upon the bank for
very joy, but ever watched the slightest movement, while every inch
seemed a mile and every moment an hour.
Alas! there was no end to the deceit and wickedness of that river; for,
owing to some slight bend at a little distance higher up on the opposite
bank, the current ran with its main strength, not in the middle of the
channel, but toward the place where I was standing, and into a black
deep just at my feet. It beat upon the cart, and as I looked I could see
the cart begin to yield, and to be carried sidewise off the track of the
ford. I shouted--I know not what now; I think the plowman's name--but
Jock already had felt himself going with the cart as it turned round. He
called upon his horses: “Pull up, Star! Steady, lass!”--this to the mare
in his hand.
The intelligent creatures answered to his voice and made a valiant
effort, Star plunging forward, and the mare--a wise old beast--straining
herself to recover the cart. For an instant the cart's further wheel was
pulled on to the track, and I saw the cart once more level in the water;
and again I shouted, calling both man and horses by their names. Then
the river, afraid that she was to be spoiled of her prey, put out all
her strength. The cart yields and sinks on the lower side and begins to
turn over. It is off the ford now, and will pull the horses after it,
and all that can be done is for Jock to let go the horses, who are now
struggling in desperation, and to save his own life. He could swim, and
was a powerful man, forty inches and more round the chest, and a fellow,
if you please, to toss the hammer on a summer evening.
“For God's sake, let go the horses, Jock, and make for the bank!” And
I went to the edge where he was likely to come, and lying down upon my
chest, I twisted one arm round a sturdy bush, and was ready with the
other hand to catch Jock if he should be fighting his way through the
current and come within reach of shore.
By this time the horse in the shaft was fighting on the edge of the
abyss, and only the top of one side-board of the cart could be seen, and
the upper shaft, which was standing straight out of the water. Star was
screaming with terror--and a horse's scream is a fearful sound--for if
only he could be free of the two chains that fastened him to the shaft,
he, a powerful young horse, would soon reach safety where the road came
out from the ford through the banks, up the slope, to dry land. And
Jock, forgetful of himself, was determined to give Star his chance
for life--Star, whom he had broken in as a colt, and taught to take an
oatmeal cake out of his pocket, of whom he boasted in the markets, and
for whom he had bought little brass ornaments to wear on his forehead
and chest. The mare was beyond redemption, and must perish with the
cart; she was old, and had done her work. But Star must not be drowned.
Already he has loosened the near chain and on one side Star is free,
and now, in the midst of that wild hurly-burly of plunging horses, Jock,
holding on to the projecting shaft with one hand, is reaching with the
other underneath the neck of the mare, to free the other chain from the
farther shaft.
He succeeded, as I took it, at the very last moment; for Star, now on
the brink, made a desperate effort, and, shaking himself free of all
entanglement, swam into the quieter water, just above where I had hoped
to meet his driver.
In another minute Star was standing on the road, shaking in every limb,
and hanging his head between his fore legs, with all the strength and
bravery taken out of him.
Before he reached the bank, the cart and the mare, and poor Jock with
them, had been swept over the edge of the unseen ford into the deep
water below. Had Jock been free of the cart and horse he might have made
some fight for his life, even in that caldron; but, from the marks upon
his body, we judged that he had been struck, just when he loosed the
chain, by the iron hoofs of the mare in her agony, and had been rendered
unconscious.
Within a second, horse and cart and man had disappeared, and the cruel
river had triumphed and was satisfied.
Three days afterward we rescued his body from her grasp; and when we
carried it up to the bothy where he and his mates had lived together,
the roughest of them felt that this man had been a hero.
No doubt he ought not to have dared so much; but having dared, he did
not flinch. His duty was that of every driver--to stick to the last by
his horses--and he did it to the uttermost.
He was a rough man, Jock, who never read anything except the stories in
the weekly newspaper which used to circulate in the bothies. There were
times when Jock took a glass too much on a fair-day at Muirtown, and
then he was inclined to fight. His language, also, was not suited for
polite society, and his temper was not always under perfect control.
Let me say it plainly: Jock was nothing but a Scots plowman, and all he
did that day was to save the life, not of a child or of a man, but of
a cart-horse worth about £50. It was, however, his bit of duty as Jock
understood it; all he had to give was his life, and he gave it without
hesitation and without fear.