Heather and Snow

He was specially capable of action with show in it. Let eyes be bent upon him, and he would go far. The presence of his kind to see and laud was an inspiration to him. Left to act for himself, undirected and unseen, his courage would not have proved of the highest order. Throughout the siege, nevertheless, he was noted for a daring that often left the bounds of prudence far behind. More than once he was wounded—once seriously; but even then he was in four days again at his post. His genial manners, friendly carriage, and gay endurance rendered him a favourite with all.

The sufferings of the besieged at length grew such, and there was so little likelihood of the approaching army being able for some time to relieve the place, that orders were issued by the commander-in-chief to abandon it: every British person must be out of the city before the night of the day following. The general in charge thereupon resolved to take advantage of the very bad watch kept by the enemy, and steal away in silence the same night.

The order was given to the companies, to each man individually, to prepare for the perilous attempt, but to keep it absolutely secret save from those who were to accompany them; and so cautious was the little English colony as well as the garrison, that not a rumour of the intended evacuation reached the besiegers, while, throughout the lines and in the cantonments, it was thoroughly understood that, at a certain hour of the night, without call of bugle or beat of drum, everyone should be ready to march. Ten minutes after that hour the garrison was in motion. With difficulty, yet with sufficing silence, the gates were passed, and the abandonment effected.

The first shot of the enemy's morning salutation, earlier than usual, went tearing through a bungalow within whose shattered walls lay Francis Gordon. In a dining-room, whose balcony and window-frame had been smashed the day before, he still slumbered wearily, when close past his head rushed the eighteen-pounder with its infernal scream. He started up, to find the blood flowing from a splinter wound on his temple and cheek-bone. A second shot struck the foot of his long chair. He sprang from it, and hurried into his coat and waistcoat.

But how was all so still inside? Not one gun answered! Firing at such an hour, he thought, the rebels must have got wind of their intended evacuation. It was too late for that, but why did not the garrison reply? Between the shots he seemed to hear the universal silence. Heavens! were their guns already spiked? If so, all was lost!—But it was daylight! He had overslept himself! He ought to have been with his men—how long ago he could not tell, for the first shot had taken his watch. A third came and broke his sword, carrying the hilt of it through the wall on which it hung. Not a sound, not a murmur reached him from the fortifications. Could the garrison be gone? Was the hour past? Had no one missed him? Certainly no one had called him! He rushed into the compound. Not a creature was there! He was alone—one English officer amid a revolted army of hating Indians!

But they did not yet know that their prey had slid from their grasp, for they were going on with their usual gun-reveille, instead of rushing on flank and rear of the retreating column! He might yet elude them and overtake the garrison! Half-dazed, he hurried for the gate by which they were to leave the city. Not a live thing save two starved dogs did he meet on his way. One of them ran from him; the other would have followed him, but a ball struck the ground between them, raising a cloud of dust, and he saw no more of the dog.

He found the gate open, and not one of the enemy in sight. Tokens of the retreat were plentiful, making the track he had to follow plain enough.

But now an enemy he had never encountered before—a sense of loneliness and desertion and helplessness, rising to utter desolation, all at once assailed him. He had never in his life congratulated himself on being alone—not that he loved his neighbour, but that he loved his neighbour's company, making him less aware of an uneasy self. And now first he realized that he had seen his sword-hilt go off with a round shot, and had not caught up his revolver—that he was, in fact, absolutely unarmed.

He quickened his pace to overtake his comrades. On and on he trudged through nothing but rice-fields, the day growing hotter and hotter, and his sense of desolation increasing. Two or three natives passed him, who looked at him, he thought, with sinister eyes. He had eaten no breakfast, and was not likely to have any lunch. He grew sick and faint, but there was no refuge: he must walk, walk until he fell and could walk no more! With the heat and his exertion, his hardly healed wound began to assert itself; and by and by he felt so ill, that he turned off the road, and lay down. While he lay, the eyes of his mind began to open to the fact that the courage he had hitherto been so eager to show, could hardly have been of the right sort, seeing it was gone—evaporated clean.

He rose and resumed his walk, but at every smallest sound started in fear of a lurking foe. With vainest regret he remembered the long-bladed dagger-knife he had when a boy carried always in his pocket. It was exhaustion and illness, true, that destroyed his courage, but not the less was he a man of fear, not the less he felt himself a coward. Again he got into a damp brake and lay down, in a minute or two again got up and went on, his fear growing until, mainly through consciousness of itself, it ripened into abject terror. Loneliness seemed to have taken the shape of a watching omnipresent enemy, out of whose diffusion death might at any moment break in some hideous form.

It was getting toward night when at length he saw dust ahead of him, and soon after, he descried the straggling rear of the retreating English. Before he reached it a portion had halted for a little rest, and he was glad to lie down in a rough cart. Long before the morning the cart was on its way again, Gordon in it, raving with fever, and unable to tell who he was. He was soon in friendly shelter, however, under skilful treatment, and tenderly nursed.

When at length he seemed to have almost recovered his health, it was clear that he had in great measure lost his reason.

CHAPTER XXXI

KIRSTY SHOWS RESENTMENT

Things were going from bad to worse at castle Weelset. Whether Mrs. Gordon had disgusted her friends or got tired of them, I do not know, but she remained at home, seldom had a visitor, and never a guest. Rumour, busy in country as in town, said she was more and more manifesting herself a slave to strong drink. She was so tired of herself, that, to escape her double, she made it increasingly a bore to her. She never read a book, never had a newspaper sent her, never inquired how things were going on about the place or in any part of the world, did nothing for herself or others, only ate, drank, slept, and raged at those around her.

One morning David Barclay, having occasion to see the factor, went to the castle, and finding he was at home ill, thought he would make an attempt to see Mrs. Gordon, and offer what service he could render: she might not have forgotten that in old days he had been a good deal about the estate. She received him at once, but behaved in such extraordinary fashion that he could not have any doubt she was at least half-drunk: there was no sense, David said, either to be got out of her, or put into her.

At Corbyknowe they heard nothing of the young laird. The papers said a good deal about the state of things in India, but Francis Gordon was not mentioned.

In the autumn of the year 1858, when the days were growing short and the nights cold in the high region about the Horn, the son of a neighbouring farmer, who had long desired to know Kirsty better, called at Corbyknowe with his sister, ostensibly on business with David. They were shown into the parlour, and all were sitting together in the early gloamin, the young woman bent on persuading Kirsty to pay them a visit and see the improvements they had made in house and garden, and the two farmers lamenting the affairs of the property on which they were tenants.

'But I hear there's new grief like to come to the auld lairdship,' said William Lammie, as he sat with an elbow on the tea-table whence Kirsty was removing the crumbs.

'And what may the wisdom o' the country-side be puttin furth the noo?' asked David in a tone of good-humoured irony. 'Weel, as I hear, Mistress Comrie's been to Embro' for a week or twa, and's come hame wi' a gey queer story concernin the young laird—awa oot there whaur there's been sic a rumpus wi' the h'athen so'diers. There's word come, she says, 'at he's fa'en intil the verra glaur o' disgrace, funkin at something they set him til: na, he wudna! And they hed him afore a coort-mairtial as they ca' 't, and broucht it in, she says, bare cooardice, and jist broke him. He'll hae ill shawin the face o' 'm again i' 's ain calf-country!'

'It's a lee,' said Kirsty. 'I s' tak my aith o' that, whaever took the tellin o' 't. There never was mark o' cooard upo' Francie Gordon. He hed his fauts, but no ane o' them luikit that gait. He was a kin' o' saft-like whiles, and unco easy come ower, but, haein little fear mysel, I ken a cooard whan I see him. Something may hae set up his pride—he has eneuch o' that for twa deevils—but Francie was never nae cooard!'

'Dinna lay the lee at my door, I beg o' ye, Miss Barclay. I was but tellin ye what fowk was saying.'

'Fowk's aye sayin, and seldom sayin true. The warst o' 't is 'at honest fowk's aye ready to believe leears! They dinna lee themsel's, and sae it's no easy to them to think anither wad. Thereby the fause word has free coorse and is glorifeed! They're no a' leears 'at spreads the lee; but for them 'at maks the lee, the Lord silence them!'

'Hoots, Kirsty,' said her mother, 'it disna become ye to curse naebody! It's no richt o' ye.'

'It's a guid Bible-curse, mother! It's but a w'y o' sayin "His wull be dune!"'

'Ye needna be sae fell aboot the laird, Miss Barclay! He was nae partic'lar frien o' yours gien a' tales be true!' remarked her admirer.

'I'm tellin ye tales is maistly lees. I hae kenned the laird sin' he was a wee laddie—and afore that; and I'm no gaein to hear him leed upo' and haud my tongue! A lee's a lee whether the leear be a leear or no!—I hae dune.'

She did not speak another word to him save to bid him good-night.

In the beginning of the year, a rumour went about the country that the laird had been seen at the castle, but it died away.

David pondered, but asked no questions, and Mrs. Bremner volunteered no information.

Kirsty of course heard the rumour, but she never took much interest in the goings on at the castle. Mrs. Gordon's doings were not such as the angels desire to look into; and Kirsty, not distantly related to them, and inheriting a good many of their peculiarities, minded her own business.

CHAPTER XXXII

IN THE WORKSHOP

One night in the month of January, when the snow was falling thick, but the air, because of the cloud-blankets overhead, was not piercing, Kirsty went out to the workshop to tell her father that supper was ready. David was a Jack-of-all-trades—therein resembling a sailor rather than a soldier, and by the light of a single dip was busy with some bit of carpenter's work.

He did not raise his head when she entered, and heard her as if he did not hear. She wondered a little and waited. After a few moments of silence, he said quietly, without looking up—

'Are ye awaur o' onything by ord'nar, Kirsty?

'Na, naething, father,' answered Kirsty, wondering still.

'It's been beirin 'tsel in upo' me at my bench here, 'at Steenie's aboot the place the nicht. I canna help imaiginin he's been upo' this verra flure ower and ower again sin' I cam oot, as gien he wad fain say something, but cudna, and gaed awa again.'

'Think ye he's here at this moment, father?'

'Na, he's no.'

'He used to think whiles the bonny man was aboot!' said Kirsty reflectively.

'My mother was a hielan wuman, and hed the second sicht; there was no mainner o' doobt aboot it!' remarked David, also thoughtfully.

'And what wad ye draw frae that, father?' asked Kirsty.

'Ow, naething verra important, maybe, but just 'at possibly it micht be i' the faimily!'

'I wud like to ken yer verra thoucht, father!'

'Weel, it's jist this: I'm thinkin 'at some may be nearer the deid nor ithers.'

'And, maybe,' supplemented Kirsty, 'some o' the deid may win nearer the livin nor ithers!'

'Ay, that's it! that's the haill o' 't!' answered David.

Kirsty turned her face toward the farthest corner. The place was rather large, and everywhere dark except within the narrow circle of the candle-light. In a quiet voice, with a little quaver in it, she said aloud:

'Gien ye be here, Steenie, and hae the pooer, lat's ken gien there be onything lyin til oor han' 'at ye wuss dune. I'm sure, gien there be, it's for oor sakes and no for yer ain, glaid as we wud a' be to du onything for ye: the bonny man lats ye want for naething; we're sure o' that!'