In summer there is beauty in the wildest moors of Scotland, and the
wayfaring man who sits down for an hour’s rest beside some little spring
that flows unheard through the brightened moss and water-cresses feels
his weary heart revived by the silent, serene, and solitary prospect. On
every side sweet sunny spots of verdure smile towards him from among the
melancholy heather,——unexpectedly in the solitude a stray sheep, it may
be with its lamb, starts half alarmed at his motionless figure,——insects
large, bright, and beautiful come careering by him through the desert
air,——nor does the Wild want its own songsters, the gray linnet, fond of
the blooming furze, and now and then the lark mounting up to heaven above
the summits of the green pastoral hills. During such a sunshiny hour, the
lonely cottage on the waste seems to stand in a paradise; and as he rises
to pursue his journey, the traveller looks back and blesses it with a
mingled emotion of delight and envy. There, thinks he, abide the children
of Innocence and Contentment, the two most benign spirits that watch over
human life.
But other thoughts arise in the mind of him who may chance to journey
through the same scene in the desolation of winter. The cold bleak sky
girdles the moor as with a belt of ice,——life is frozen in air and
on earth. The silence is not of repose, but extinction; and should a
solitary human dwelling catch his eye half buried in the snow, he is sad
for the sake of them whose destiny it is to abide far from the cheerful
haunts of men, shrouded up in melancholy, by poverty held in thrall, or
pining away in unvisited and untended disease.
But, in good truth, the heart of human life is but imperfectly discovered
from its countenance; and before we can know what the summer or what the
winter yields for enjoyment or trial to our country’s peasantry, we must
have conversed with them in their fields and by their firesides, and
made ourselves acquainted with the powerful ministry of the seasons, not
over those objects alone that feed the eye and the imagination, but over
all the incidents, occupations, and events that modify or constitute the
existence of the poor.
I have a short and simple story to tell of the winter life of the
moorland cottager,——a story but of one evening,——with few events and
no signal catastrophe,——but which may haply please those hearts whose
delight it is to think on the humble under-plots that are carrying on in
the great Drama of Life.
Two cottagers, husband and wife, were sitting by their cheerful peat-fire
one winter evening, in a small lonely hut on the edge of a wide moor,
at some miles’ distance from any other habitation. There had been, at
one time, several huts of the same kind erected close together, and
inhabited by families of the poorest class of day-laborers, who found
work among the distant farms, and at night returned to dwellings which
were rent-free, with their little garden won from the waste. But one
family after another had dwindled away, and the turf-built huts had all
fallen into ruins, except one that had always stood in the centre of this
little solitary village, with its summer walls covered with the richest
honeysuckles, and in the midst of the brightest of all the gardens. It
alone now sent up its smoke into the clear winter sky; and its little
end window, now lighted up, was the only ground-star that shone towards
the belated traveller, if any such ventured to cross, on a winter night,
a scene so dreary and desolate. The affairs of the small household
were all arranged for the night. The little rough pony that had drawn
in a sledge, from the heart of the Black-moss, the fuel by whose blaze
the cotters were now sitting cheerily, and the little Highland cow,
whose milk enabled them to live, were standing amicably together, under
cover of a rude shed, of which one side was formed by the peat-stack,
and which was at once byre and stable and hen-roost. Within, the clock
ticked cheerfully as the firelight reached its old oak-wood case across
the yellow-sanded floor; and a small round table stood between, covered
with a snow-white cloth, on which were milk and oat-cakes, the morning,
midday, and evening meal of these frugal and contented cotters. The
spades and the mattocks of the laborer were collected into one corner,
and showed that the succeeding day was the blessed Sabbath; while on
the wooden chimney-piece was seen lying an open Bible ready for family
worship.
The father and the mother were sitting together without opening their
lips, but with their hearts overflowing with happiness; for on this
Saturday night they were, every minute, expecting to hear at the latch
the hand of their only daughter, a maiden of about fifteen years, who was
at service with a farmer over the hills. This dutiful child was, as they
knew, to bring home to them “her sair-worn penny fee,” a pittance which,
in the beauty of her girlhood, she earned singing at her work, and which,
in the benignity of that sinless time, she would pour with tears into the
bosoms she so dearly loved. Forty shillings a year were all the wages
of sweet Hannah Lee; but though she wore at her labor a tortoise-shell
comb in her auburn hair, and though in the kirk none were more becomingly
arrayed than she, one half, at least, of her earnings were to be
reserved for the holiest of all purposes, and her kind innocent heart
was gladdened when she looked on the little purse that was, on the
long-expected Saturday night, to be taken from her bosom, and put, with a
blessing, into the hand of her father, now growing old at his daily toils.
Of such a child the happy cotters were thinking in their silence. And
well indeed might they be called happy. It is at that sweet season that
filial piety is most beautiful. Their own Hannah had just outgrown the
mere unthinking gladness of childhood, but had not yet reached that time
when inevitable selfishness mixes with the pure current of love. She
had begun to think on what her affectionate heart had left so long; and
when she looked on the pale face and bending frame of her mother, on the
deepening wrinkles and whitening hairs of her father, often would she
lie weeping for their sakes on her midnight bed, and wish that she were
beside them as they slept, that she might kneel down and kiss them, and
mention their names over and over again in her prayer. The parents whom
before she had only loved, her expanding heart now also venerated. With
gushing tenderness was now mingled a holy fear and an awful reverence.
She had discerned the relation in which she, an only child, stood to her
poor parents, now that they were getting old, and there was not a passage
in Scripture that spake of parents or of children, from Joseph sold into
slavery, to Mary weeping below the Cross, that was not written, never to
be obliterated, on her uncorrupted heart.
The father rose from his seat, and went to the door, to look out into the
night. The stars were in thousands,——and the full moon was risen. It was
almost light as day, and the snow, that seemed incrusted with diamonds,
was so hardened by the frost, that his daughter’s homeward feet would
leave no mark on its surface. He had been toiling all day among the
distant Castle-woods, and, stiff and wearied as he now was, he was almost
tempted to go to meet his child; but his wife’s kind voice dissuaded him,
and, returning to the fireside, they began to talk of her, whose image
had been so long passing before them in their silence.
“She is growing up to be a bonnie lassie,” said the mother; “her long and
weary attendance on me during my fever last spring kept her down awhile;
but now she is sprouting fast and fair as a lily, and may the blessing
of God be as dew and as sunshine to our sweet flower all the days she
bloometh upon this earth.” “Ay, Agnes,” replied the father, “we are not
very old yet,——though we are getting older,——and a few years will bring
her to woman’s estate, and what thing on this earth, think ye, human or
brute, would ever think of injuring her? Why, I was speaking about her
yesterday to the minister as he was riding by, and he told me that none
answered at the examination in the kirk so well as Hannah. Poor thing,——I
well think she has all the Bible by heart,——indeed, she has read but
little else,——only some stories,——too true ones, of the blessed martyrs,
and some of the auld sangs o’ Scotland, in which there is nothing but
what is good, and which, to be sure, she sings, God bless her, sweeter
than any laverock.” “Ay, were we both to die this very night, she would
be happy. Not that she would forget us all the days of her life. But
have you not seen, husband, that God always makes the orphan happy? None
so little lonesome as they! They come to make friends o’ all the bonny
and sweet things in the world, around them, and all the kind hearts in
the world make o’ them. They come to know that God is more especially
the Father o’ them on earth whose parents he has taken up to heaven; and
therefore it is that they for whom so many have fears, fear not at all
for themselves, but go dancing and singing along like children whose
parents are both alive! Would it not be so with our dear Hannah? So douce
and thoughtful a child,——but never sad nor miserable,——ready, it is true,
to shed tears for little, but as ready to dry them up and break out into
smiles! I know not why it is, husband, but this night my heart warms
towards her beyond usual. The moon and stars are at this moment looking
down upon her, and she looking up to them, as she is glinting homewards
over the snow. I wish she were but here, and taking the comb out o’ her
bonny hair and letting it fall down in clusters before the fire, to melt
away the cranreuch.”
While the parents were thus speaking of their daughter, a loud sough of
wind came suddenly over the cottage, and the leafless ash-tree, under
whose shelter it stood, creaked and groaned dismally as it passed by. The
father started up, and, going again to the door, saw that a sudden change
had come over the face of the night. The moon had nearly disappeared,
and was just visible in a dim, yellow, glimmering den in the sky. All
the remote stars were obscured, and only one or two faintly seemed in
a sky that half an hour before was perfectly cloudless, but that was
now driving with rack and mist and sleet, the whole atmosphere being in
commotion. He stood for a single moment to observe the direction of this
unforeseen storm, and then hastily asked for his staff. “I thought I had
been more weatherwise. A storm is coming down from the Cairnbraehawse,
and we shall have nothing but a wild night.” He then whistled on his
dog,——an old sheep-dog, too old for its former labors,——and set off to
meet his daughter, who might then, for aught he knew, be crossing the
Black-moss. The mother accompanied her husband to the door, and took a
long, frightened look at the angry sky. As she kept gazing, it became
still more terrible. The last shred of blue was extinguished; the wind
went whirling in roaring eddies, and great flakes of snow circled about
in the middle air, whether drifted up from the ground, or driven down
from the clouds, the fear-stricken mother knew not, but she at last knew
that it seemed a night of danger, despair, and death. “Lord have mercy on
us, James, what will become of our poor bairn!” But her husband heard not
her words, for he was already out of sight in the snow-storm, and she was
left to the terror of her own soul in that lonesome cottage.
Little Hannah Lee had left her master’s house, soon as the rim of the
great moon was seen by her eyes, that had been long anxiously watching
it from the window, rising, like a joyful dream, over the gloomy
mountain-tops; and all by herself she tripped along beneath the beauty of
the silent heaven. Still as she kept ascending and descending the knolls
that lay in the bosom of the glen, she sung to herself a song, a hymn, or
a psalm, without the accompaniment of the streams, now all silent in the
frost; and ever and anon she stopped to try to count the stars that lay
in some more beautiful part of the sky, or gazed on the constellations
that she knew, and called them in her joy by the names they bore among
the shepherds. There were none to hear her voice, or see her smiles,
but the ear and eye of Providence. As on she glided, and took her looks
from heaven, she saw her own little fireside,——her parents waiting for
her arrival,——the Bible opened for worship,——her own little room kept so
neatly for her, with its mirror hanging by the window, in which to braid
her hair by the morning light,——her bed prepared for her by her mother’s
hand,——the primroses in the garden peeping through the snow,——old Tray,
who ever welcomed her home with his dim white eyes,——the pony and the
cow; friends all, and inmates of that happy household. So stepped she
along, while the snow diamonds glittered around her feet, and the frost
wove a wreath of lucid pearls round her forehead.
She had now reached the edge of the Black-moss, which lay half-way
between her master’s and her father’s dwelling, when she heard a loud
noise coming down Glen-Scrae, and in a few seconds she felt on her face
some flakes of snow. She looked up the glen, and saw the snow-storm
coming down, fast as a flood. She felt no fears; but she ceased her song;
and had there been a human eye to look upon her there, it might have
seen a shadow on her face. She continued her course, and felt bolder and
bolder every step that brought her nearer to her parents’ house. But the
snow-storm had now reached the Black-moss, and the broad line of light
that had lain in the direction of her home was soon swallowed up, and
the child was in utter darkness. She saw nothing but the flakes of snow,
interminably intermingled, and furiously wafted in the air, close to
her head; she heard nothing but one wild, fierce, fitful howl. The cold
became intense, and her little feet and hands were fast being benumbed
into insensibility.
“It is a fearful change,” muttered the child to herself; but still she
did not fear, for she had been born in a moorland cottage, and lived
all her days among the hardships of the hills. “What will become of the
poor sheep!” thought she; but still she scarcely thought of her own
danger, for innocence and youth and joy are slow to think of aught evil
befalling themselves, and, thinking benignly of all living things, forget
their own fear in their pity for others’ sorrow. At last she could no
longer discern a single mark on the snow, either of human steps, or of
sheep-track, or the footprint of a wild-fowl. Suddenly, too, she felt out
of breath and exhausted,——and, shedding tears for herself at last, sank
down in the snow.
It was now that her heart began to quake with fear. She remembered
stories of shepherds lost in the snow,——of a mother and child frozen to
death on that very moor,——and in a moment she knew that she was to die.
Bitterly did the poor child weep, for death was terrible to her, who,
though poor, enjoyed the bright little world of youth and innocence. The
skies of heaven were dearer than she knew to her,——so were the flowers
of earth. She had been happy at her work,——happy in her sleep,——happy in
the kirk on Sabbath. A thousand thoughts had the solitary child,——and
in her own heart was a spring of happiness, pure and undisturbed as any
fount that sparkles unseen all the year through in some quiet nook among
the pastoral hills. But now there was to be an end of all this,——she was
to be frozen to death,——and lie there till the thaw might come; and then
her father would find her body, and carry it away to be buried in the
kirk-yard.
The tears were frozen on her cheeks as soon as shed; and scarcely had her
little hands strength to clasp themselves together, as the thought of an
overruling and merciful Lord came across her heart. Then, indeed, the
fears of this religious child were calmed, and she heard without terror
the plover’s wailing cry, and the deep boom of the bittern sounding in
the moss. “I will repeat the Lord’s Prayer.” And, drawing her plaid more
closely around her, she whispered, beneath its ineffectual cover, “Our
Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,——thy kingdom come,——thy
will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Had human aid been within
fifty yards, it could have been of no avail,——eye could not see her,——ear
could not hear her in that howling darkness. But that low prayer was
heard in the centre of eternity; and that little sinless child was lying
in the snow, beneath the all-seeing eye of God.
The maiden having prayed to her Father in heaven, then thought of her
father on earth. Alas! they were not far separated! The father was lying
but a short distance from his child; he too had sunk down in the drifting
snow, after having, in less than an hour, exhausted all the strength of
fear, pity, hope, despair, and resignation, that could rise in a father’s
heart blindly seeking to rescue his only child from death, thinking
that one desperate exertion might enable them to perish in each other’s
arms. There they lay, within a stone’s throw of each other, while a huge
snow-drift was every moment piling itself up into a more insurmountable
barrier between the dying parent and his dying child.
There was all this while a blazing fire in the cottage, a white-spread
table, and beds prepared for the family to lie down in peace. Yet was
she who sat therein more to be pitied than the old man and the child
stretched upon the snow. “I will not go to seek them, that would be
tempting Providence, and wilfully putting out the lamp of life. No!
I will abide here and pray for their souls!” Then, as she knelt down,
looked she at the useless fire burning away so cheerfully, when all
she loved might be dying of cold; and, unable to bear the thought, she
shrieked out a prayer, as if she might pierce the sky to the very throne
of God, and send with it her own miserable soul to plead before him for
the deliverance of her child and husband. She then fell down in blessed
forgetfulness of all trouble, in the midst of the solitary cheerfulness
of that bright-burning hearth; and the Bible, which she had been trying
to read in the pauses of her agony, remained clasped in her hands.
Hannah Lee had been a servant for more than six months, and it was
not to be thought that she was not beloved in her master’s family.
Soon after she had left the house, her master’s son, a youth of about
eighteen years, who had been among the hills looking after the sheep,
came home, and was disappointed to find that he had lost an opportunity
of accompanying Hannah part of the way to her father’s cottage. But the
hour of eight had gone by, and not even the company of young William
Grieve could induce the kind-hearted daughter to delay setting out on
her journey a few minutes beyond the time promised to her parents. “I do
not like the night,” said William; “there will be a fresh fall of snow
soon, or the witch of Glen-Scrae is a liar, for a snow-cloud is hanging
o’er the Birch-tree-lin, and it may be down to the Black-moss as soon as
Hannah Lee.” So he called his two sheep-dogs that had taken their place
under the long table before the window, and set out, half in joy, half
in fear, to overtake Hannah, and see her safely across the Black-moss.
The snow began to drift so fast, that before he had reached the head of
the glen, there was nothing to be seen but a little bit of the wooden
rail of the bridge across the Sauch-burn. William Grieve was the most
active shepherd in a large pastoral parish; he had often passed the night
among the wintry hills for the sake of a few sheep, and all the snow
that ever fell from heaven would not have made him turn back when Hannah
Lee was before him, and, as his terrified heart told him, in imminent
danger of being lost. As he advanced, he felt that it was no longer a
walk of love or friendship, for which he had been glad of an excuse.
Death stared him in the face, and his young soul, now beginning to feel
all the passions of youth, was filled with frenzy. He had seen Hannah
every day,——at the fireside,——at work,——in the kirk,——on holidays,——at
prayers,——bringing supper to his aged parents,——smiling and singing
about the house from morning till night. She had often brought his own
meal to him among the hills; and he now found that though he had never
talked to her about love, except smilingly and playfully, he loved her
beyond father or mother, or his own soul. “I will save thee, Hannah,”
he cried, with a loud sob, “or lie down beside thee in the snow; and we
will die together in our youth.” A wild, whistling wind went by him, and
the snow-flakes whirled so fiercely around his head, that he staggered
on for a while in utter blindness. He knew the path that Hannah must
have taken, and went forward shouting aloud, and stopping every twenty
yards to listen for a voice. He sent his well-trained dogs over the
snow in all directions; repeating to them her name, “Hannah Lee,” that
the dumb animals might, in their sagacity, know for whom they were
searching; and as they looked up in his face, and set off to scour the
moor, he almost believed that they knew his meaning (and it is probable
they did), and were eager to find in her bewilderment the kind maiden
by whose hand they had so often been fed. Often went they off into the
darkness, and as often returned, but their looks showed that every quest
had been in vain. Meanwhile the snow was of a fearful depth, and falling
without intermission or diminution. Had the young shepherd been thus
alone, walking across the moor on his ordinary business, it is probable
that he might have been alarmed for his own safety; nay, that, in spite
of all his strength and agility, he might have sunk down beneath the
inclemency of the night and perished. But now the passion of his soul
carried him with supernatural strength along, and extricated him from
wreath and pitfall. Still there was no trace of poor Hannah Lee: and one
of his dogs at last came close to his feet, worn out entirely, and afraid
to leave its master; while the other was mute, and, as the shepherd
thought, probably unable to force its way out of some hollow or through
some floundering drift. Then he all at once knew that Hannah Lee was
dead,——and dashed himself down in the snow in a fit of passion. It was
the first time that the youth had ever been sorely tried; all his hidden
and unconscious love for the fair lost girl had flowed up from the bottom
of his heart; and at once the sole object which had blest his life and
made him the happiest of the happy was taken away and cruelly destroyed,
so that, sullen, wrathful, baffled, and despairing, there he lay, cursing
his existence, and in too great agony to think of prayer. “God,” he then
thought, “has forsaken me, and why should he think on me, when he suffers
one so good and beautiful as Hannah to be frozen to death?” God thought
both of him and of Hannah, and through his infinite mercy forgave the
sinner in his wild turbulence of passion. William Grieve had never gone
to bed without joining in prayer; and he revered the Sabbath day and kept
it holy. Much is forgiven to the human heart by him who so fearfully
framed it; and God is not slow to pardon the love which one human being
bears to another, in his frailty, even though that love forget or arraign
his own unsleeping providence. His voice has told us to love one another;
and William loved Hannah in simplicity, innocence, and truth. That she
should perish, was a thought so dreadful, that, in its agony, God seemed
a ruthless being——“Blow——blow——blow, and drift us up forever,——we cannot
be far asunder. O Hannah,——Hannah!——think ye not that the fearful God has
forsaken us?”
As the boy groaned these words passionately through his quivering lips,
there was a sudden lowness in the air, and he heard the barking of his
absent dog, while the one at his feet hurried off in the direction of the
sound, and soon loudly joined the cry. It was not a bark of surprise,
or anger, or fear, but of recognition and love. William sprang up from
his bed in the snow, and with his heart knocking at his bosom even to
sickness, he rushed headlong through the drifts, with a giant’s strength,
and fell down half dead with joy and terror beside the body of Hannah Lee.
But he soon recovered from that fit, and, lifting the cold corpse in
his arms, he kissed her lips, and her cheeks, and her forehead, and her
closed eyes, till, as he kept gazing on her face in utter despair, her
head fell back on his shoulder, and a long, deep sigh came from her
inmost bosom. “She is yet alive, thank God!” And as that expression
left his lips for the first time that night, he felt a pang of remorse.
“I said, O God, that thou hadst forsaken us; I am not worthy to be
saved; but let not this maiden perish, for the sake of her parents, who
have no other child.” The distracted youth prayed to God with the same
earnestness as if he had been beseeching a fellow-creature, in whose hand
was the power of life and of death. The presence of the Great Being was
felt by him in the dark and howling wild, and strength was imparted to
him as to a deliverer. He bore along the fair child in his arms, even as
if she had been a lamb. The snow-drift blew not,——the wind fell dead,——a
sort of glimmer, like that of an upbreaking and disparting storm,
gathered about him,——his dogs barked and jumped, and burrowed joyfully
in the snow,——and the youth, strong in sudden hope, exclaimed, “With the
blessing of God, who has not deserted us in our sore distress, will I
carry thee, Hannah, in my arms, and lay thee down alive in the house of
thy father.”
At this moment there were no stars in heaven, but she opened her dim
blue eyes upon him in whose bosom she was unconsciously lying, and said,
as in a dream, “Send the riband that ties up my hair as a keepsake to
William Grieve.”
“She thinks that she is on her death-bed, and forgets not the son of her
master. It is the voice of God that tells me she will not now die, and
that, under His grace, I shall be her deliverer.”
The short-lived rage of the storm was soon over, and William could attend
to the beloved being on his bosom. The warmth of his heart seemed to
infuse life into hers; and as he gently placed her feet on the snow, till
he muffled her up in his plaid, as well as in her own, she made an effort
to stand, and with extreme perplexity and bewilderment faintly inquired
where she was, and what fearful misfortune had befallen them. She was,
however, too weak to walk; and as her young master carried her along, she
murmured, “O William! what if my father be in the moor? For if you, who
need care so little about me, have come hither, as I suppose, to save
my life, you may be sure that my father sat not within doors during the
storm.”
As she spoke, it was calm below, but the wind was still alive in the
upper air, and cloud, rack, mist, and sleet were all driving about in the
sky. Out shone for a moment the pallid and ghostly moon, through a rent
in the gloom, and by that uncertain light came staggering forward the
figure of a man. “Father, father,” cried Hannah, and his gray hairs were
already on her cheek. The barking of the dogs and the shouting of the
young shepherd had struck his ear, as the sleep of death was stealing
over him, and with the last effort of benumbed nature he had roused
himself from that fatal torpor, and pressed through the snow-wreath that
had separated him from his child. As yet they knew not of the danger each
had endured; but each judged of the other’s suffering from their own, and
father and daughter regarded one another as creatures rescued, and hardly
yet rescued, from death.
But a few minutes ago, and the three human beings who loved each other
so well, and now feared not to cross the moor in safety, were, as they
thought, on their death-beds. Deliverance now shone upon them all like
a gentle fire, dispelling that pleasant but deadly drowsiness; and the
old man was soon able to assist William Grieve in leading Hannah along
through the snow. Her color and her warmth returned, and her lover——for
so might he well now be called——felt her heart gently beating against
his side. Filled as that heart was with gratitude to God, joy in her
deliverance, love to her father, and purest affection for her master’s
son, never before had the innocent maiden known what was happiness, and
nevermore was she to forget it.
The night was now almost calm, and fast returning to its former beauty,
when the party saw the first twinkle of the fire through the low window
of the Cottage of the Moor. They soon were at the garden gate; and to
relieve the heart of the wife and mother within, they talked loudly and
cheerfully, naming each other familiarly, and laughing between, like
persons who had known neither danger nor distress.
No voice answered from within, no footstep came to the door, which stood
open as when the father had left it in his fear; and now he thought with
affright that his wife, feeble as she was, had been unable to support the
loneliness, and had followed him out into the night, never to be brought
home alive. As they bore Hannah into the house, this fear gave way to
worse, for there upon the hard clay floor lay the mother upon her face,
as if murdered by some savage blow. She was in the same deadly swoon into
which she had fallen on her husband’s departure, three hours before.
The old man raised her up, and her pulse was still; so was her heart;
her face pale and sunken, and her body cold as ice. “I have recovered a
daughter,” said the old man, “but I have lost a wife.” And he carried
her, with a groan, to the bed, on which he laid her lifeless body. The
sight was too much for Hannah, worn out as she was, and who had hitherto
been able to support herself in the delightful expectation of gladdening
her mother’s heart by her safe arrival. She, too, now swooned away, and
as she was placed on the bed, beside her mother, it seemed, indeed,
that death, disappointed of his prey on the wild moor, had seized it in
the cottage and by the fireside. The husband knelt down by the bedside,
and held his wife’s icy hand in his, while William Grieve, appalled and
awe-stricken, hung over his Hannah, and inwardly implored God that the
night’s wild adventure might not have so ghastly an end. But Hannah’s
young heart soon began once more to beat; and soon as she came to her
recollection, she rose with a face whiter than ashes, and free from all
smiles, as if none had ever played there, and joined her father and
young master in their efforts to restore her mother to life.
It was the mercy of God that had struck her down to the earth, insensible
to the shrieking winds, and the fears that would otherwise have killed
her. Three hours of that wild storm had passed over her head, and she
heard nothing more than if she had been asleep in a breathless night of
the summer dew. Not even a dream had touched her brain; and when she
opened her eyes, which, as she thought, had been but a moment shut, she
had scarcely time to recall to her recollection the image of her husband
rushing out into the storm and of a daughter therein lost, till she
beheld that very husband kneeling tenderly by her bedside, and that very
daughter smoothing the pillow on which her aching temples reclined. But
she knew from the white, steadfast countenances before her that there had
been tribulation and deliverance, and she looked on the beloved beings
ministering by her bed, as more fearfully dear to her from the unimagined
danger from which she felt assured they had been rescued by the arm of
the Almighty.
There is little need to speak of returning recollection and returning
strength. They had all now power to weep and power to pray. The Bible had
been lying in its place ready for worship; and the father read aloud that
chapter in which is narrated our Saviour’s act of miraculous power, by
which he saved Peter from the sea. Soon as the solemn thoughts awakened
by that act of mercy, so similar to that which had rescued themselves
from death, had subsided, and they had all risen from prayer, they
gathered themselves in gratitude around the little table which had stood
so many hours spread; and exhausted nature was strengthened and restored
by a frugal and simple meal partaken of in silent thankfulness. The whole
story of the night was then recited; and when the mother heard how the
stripling had followed her sweet Hannah into the storm, and borne her in
his arms through a hundred drifted heaps,——and then looked upon her in
her pride, so young, so innocent, and so beautiful, she knew that, were
the child indeed to become an orphan, there was one who, if there was
either trust in nature or truth in religion, would guard and cherish her
all the days of her life.
It was not nine o’clock when the storm came down from Glen Scrae upon
the Black-moss, and now in a pause of silence the clock struck twelve.
Within these three hours William and Hannah had led a life of trouble
and of joy, that had enlarged and kindled their hearts within them, and
they felt that henceforth they were to live wholly for each other’s
sake. His love was the proud and exulting love of a deliverer who, under
Providence, had saved from the frost and the snow, the innocence and
the beauty of which his young passionate heart had been so desperately
enamored; and he now thought of his own Hannah Lee evermore moving
about his father’s house, not as a servant, but as a daughter; and when
some few happy years had gone by his own most beautiful and most loving
wife. The innocent maiden still called him her young master, but was
not ashamed of the holy affection which she now knew that she had long
felt for the fearless youth on whose bosom she had thought herself dying
in that cold and miserable moor. Her heart leaped within her when she
heard her parents bless him by his name; and when he took her hand into
his before them, and vowed before that Power who had that night saved
them from the snow, that Hannah Lee should erelong be his wedded wife,
she wept and sobbed as if her heart would break in a fit of strange and
insupportable happiness.
The young shepherd rose to bid them farewell. “My father will think I
am lost,” said he, with a grave smile, “and my Hannah’s mother knows
what it is to fear for a child.” So nothing was said to detain him, and
the family went with him to the door. The skies smiled as serenely as
if a storm had never swept before the stars; the moon was sinking from
her meridian, but in cloudless splendor, and the hollow of the hills
was hushed as that of heaven. Danger there was none over the placid
night-scene; the happy youth soon crossed the Black-moss, now perfectly
still; and, perhaps, just as he was passing, with a shudder of gratitude,
the very spot where his sweet Hannah Lee had so nearly perished, she was
lying down to sleep in her innocence, or dreaming of one now dearer to
her than all on earth but her parents.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]