Gavin passed on through Windyghoul, thinking in his frenzy that he
still heard the trap. In a rain that came down like iron rods every
other sound was beaten dead. He slipped, and before he could regain
his feet the dog bit him. To protect himself from dikes and trees and
other horrors of the darkness he held his arm before him, but soon it
was driven to his side. Wet whips cut his brow so that he had to
protect it with his hands, until it had to bear the lash again, for
they would not. Now he had forced up his knees, and would have
succumbed but for a dread of being pinned to the earth. This fight
between the man and the rain went on all night, and long before it
ended the man was past the power of thinking.
In the ringing of the ten o'clock bell Gavin had lived the seventh
part of a man's natural life. Only action was required of him. That
accomplished, his mind had begun to work again, when suddenly the loss
of Babbie stopped it, as we may put out a fire with a great coal. The
last thing he had reflected about was a dogcart in motion, and,
consequently, this idea clung to him. His church, his mother, were
lost knowledge of, but still he seemed to hear the trap in front.
The rain increased in violence, appalling even those who heard it from
under cover. However rain may storm, though it be an army of archers
battering roofs and windows, it is only terrifying when the noise
swells every instant. In those hours of darkness it again and again
grew in force and doubled its fury, and was louder, louder, and
louder, until its next attack was to be more than men and women could
listen to. They held each other's hands and stood waiting. Then
abruptly it abated, and people could speak. I believe a rain that
became heavier every second for ten minutes would drive many listeners
mad. Gavin was in it on a night that tried us repeatedly for quite
half that time.
By and by even the vision of Babbie in the dogcart was blotted out. If
nothing had taken its place, he would not have gone on probably; and
had he turned back objectless, his strength would have succumbed to
the rain. Now he saw Babbie and Rintoul being married by a minister
who was himself, and there was a fair company looking on, and always
when he was on the point of shouting to himself, whom he could see
clearly, that this woman was already married, the rain obscured his
words and the light went out. Presently the ceremony began again,
always to stop at the same point. He saw it in the lightning-flash
that had startled the hill. It gave him courage to fight his way
onward, because he thought he must be heard if he could draw nearer to
the company.
A regiment of cavalry began to trouble him. He heard it advancing from
the Spittal, but was not dismayed, for it was, as yet, far distant.
The horsemen came thundering on, filling the whole glen of Quharity.
Now he knew that they had been sent out to ride him down. He paused in
dread, until they had swept past him. They came back to look for him,
riding more furiously than ever, and always missed him, yet his fears
of the next time were not lessened. They were only the rain.
All through the night the dog followed him. He would forget it for a
time, and then it would be so close that he could see it dimly. He
never heard it bark, but it snapped at him, and a grin had become the
expression of its face. He stoned it, he even flung himself at it, he
addressed it in caressing tones, and always with the result that it
disappeared, to come back presently.
He found himself walking in a lake, and now even the instinct of
self-preservation must have been flickering, for he waded on,
rejoicing merely in getting rid of the dog. Something in the water
rose and struck him. Instead of stupefying him, the blow brought him
to his senses, and he struggled for his life. The ground slipped
beneath his feet many times, but at last he was out of the water. That
he was out in a flood he did not realize; yet he now acted like one in
full possession of his faculties. When his feet sank in water, he drew
back; and many times he sought shelter behind banks and rocks, first
testing their firmness with his hands. Once a torrent of stones,
earth, and heather carried him down a hillside until he struck against
a tree. He twined his arms round it, and had just done so when it fell
with him. After that, when he touched trees growing in water, he fled
from them, thus probably saving himself from death.
What he heard now might have been the roll and crack of the thunder.
It sounded in his ear like nothing else. But it was really something
that swept down the hill in roaring spouts of water, and it passed on
both sides of him so that at one moment, had he paused, it would have
crashed into him, and at another he was only saved by stopping. He
felt that the struggle in the dark was to go on till the crack of
doom.
Then he cast himself upon the ground. It moved beneath him like some
great animal, and he rose and stole away from it. Several times did
this happen. The stones against which his feet struck seemed to
acquire life from his touch. So strong had he become, or so weak all
other things, that whatever clump he laid hands on by which to pull
himself out of the water was at once rooted up.
The daylight would not come. He longed passionately for it. He tried
to remember what it was like, and could not; he had been blind so
long. It was away in front somewhere, and he was struggling to
overtake it. He expected to see it from a dark place, when he would
rush forward to bathe his arms in it, and then the elements that were
searching the world for him would see him and he would perish. But
death did not seem too great a penalty to pay for light.
And at last day did come back, gray and drear. He saw suddenly once
more. I think he must have been wandering the glen with his eyes shut,
as one does shut them involuntarily against the hidden dangers of
black night. How different was daylight from what he had expected! He
looked, and then shut his dazed eyes again, for the darkness was less
horrible than the day. Had he indeed seen, or only dreamed that he
saw? Once more he looked to see what the world was like; and the sight
that met his eyes was so mournful that he who had fought through the
long night now sank hopeless and helpless among the heather. The dog
was not far away, and it, too, lost heart. Gavin held out his hand,
and Snap crept timidly toward him. He unloosened his coat, and the dog
nestled against him, cowed and shivering, hiding its head from the
day. Thus they lay, and the rain beat upon them.
Chapter Thirty-Five.