Chapter IX: Part 9

"He rang the bell, and his body-servant cam' in, and he gave orders that ane o' the men was to accompany me to my lodgings to get a pot o' salve. So I set oot, gled as you can weel guess, to be under the open sky aince mair. The sodger wha accompanied me was a douce lad, and by way o' reward for his convoy I gied him a wee bit o' Virginia weed to himsel', forby four pots o' the salve to tak' to Sir Robert.

"Juist as I let him oot o' the door o' my lodging, the clock struck twal, and the soond o' it brocht back to me the thocht that you wad be at a sair loss to ken what had happened to me. I turned things ower in my mind and it seemed to me that Dumfries is no' exactly a safe place for us at the moment. So I decided that in an 'oor or twa, when a' should be quiet, I would slip ower and waken you and tak' ye awa' oot o' danger.

"So here we are. That's the true story o' a' that has happened since I saw you last; and as we are weel oot o' the toon and there's naebody aboot, I think we micht rest oorsels a wee and, juist by way o' celebratin' oor escape oot o' the tiger's den, we micht sample the Malvoisie. I've got Lag's bottle, and I aye cairry a corkscrew."

*CHAPTER XXXI*

*THE CAVE BY THE LINN*

We took turns at the bottle, and found the wine of excellent quality. After a short rest we resumed our journey. The moon had set and from some distant farmyard a cock crew lustily, and I knew that daybreak was not far off.

The wine, or the exercise, or the knowledge that he had escaped from a situation of grave danger, had an exhilarating effect upon the packman, who was now in high spirits. I ventured, while congratulating him upon his escape, to ask where we might be going, for I was at a loss to know. Now and then I heard the sound of running water, and in the grey of dawn I was able to catch a glimpse of a stream to our right, which I thought must be the Nith.

"We're drawing near Auldgirth," he said. "Beyond that we'll come to Closeburn, and no' lang after that we'll be snug hidden in a cave at Crichope Linn."

Soon we came to a bridge, with three arches spanning the brown river. Hector scrambled down through the bushes by the roadside and made his way under the nearest arch, and I followed him. A little grassy bank lay between the pier of the bridge and the water, and here we sat down. The packman unstrapped his wooden leg, and, with some groaning, for the process evidently caused him discomfort, removed his great shaggy beard.

"I'll bury my tree-leg here, for the time being, but the beard I'll tak' wi' me in my pooch. That's sufficient disguise for me: as for you, you'll be nane the waur o' a bit o' disguise as weel."

He took from his pack a pair of scissors, and set to work upon my beard and whiskers. As he did so, doubt assailed me and I called to him to stop. To be clean-shaven once again was to expose myself to more ready recognition, if it should ever be my lot to encounter one of my former companions among Lag's troopers.

"Ay, lad, ye're richt," said Hector. "I should ha'e thocht o' that mysel'. But never mind, I've no' done muckle damage yet. Were you clean-shaven when you were a trooper?"

"Yes," I answered.

"Weel," he said, "I'll do a bit o' fancy work on your face, and I'll leave your upper lip alane and wi' some o' my magical salve you can dress your moustachios to make you look like a Cavalier. Forby, I'll leave you a wee tuft on your chin, like the King. I'll warrant neither the folk that saw you in Dumfries wi' a fortnicht's growth on yer face, nor the troopers that kent ye as a clean-shaven man, will be likely to recognise you."

When he had finished his work he stood back and looked at me carefully, poising his head upon one side, and as was his wont half closing his left eye. He was evidently satisfied, for, with characteristic self-complacency, he said:

"Man, Hector, ye're a lad o' mony pairts."

Out of his pack he produced a small looking-glass of burnished steel and handed it to me. In the uncertain morning light the reflection of my face was not very distinct, but enough to show that my disguise was effective, for I hardly recognised myself.

"Come on," said Hector, swinging up his pack, and crossing the bridge we continued our journey.

The country had the glamour of early summer upon it. Every bush was crowned with a coronal of green: the fields were smiling with promise: the hill-sides were dimpling with sunny laughter, and the river, which now ran beside us, babbled cheerfully as it sped on its way to the sea.

After a few more miles we saw, in the distance, a long row of cottages flanking our way. Hector suddenly quitted the road, and, hidden behind a hedge, we made a long detour in order to avoid them.

"Yon," said he, "is the village o' Closeburn. The curate's a spy and a tyrant. It behoves us no' to be seen."

Making use of all the cover we could, and continuing our way till Closeburn was left behind, we came out upon a narrow and unfrequented road overshadowed by beech and oak trees. The air thrilled with the song of birds, and the spirit of the hour seemed to have descended upon the packman, for as we trudged along he whistled merrily. By and by we came to the edge of a wood. Just on its margin we crossed a rustic bridge which spanned a little brown rivulet that trickled sinuously in and out between its mossy banks. Following the line of the stream we entered the wood, Hector leading the way. The ground was a great carpet of luscious green, save where it was spangled over with beds of blue speedwell. The foliage of the trees--beech, oak and mountain ash, pine and fir--broke up the rays of sunlight and the air within the wood was delightfully cool. Our path led steadily up from the bed of the stream till it looked like an amber thread meandering through a gorge a hundred feet beneath us. Here and there its course was checked by a quiet pool, so still that one might think the stream had ceased to flow; and where some branch of a bush or tree touched the surface of the water it was garlanded with a ball of tawny froth from which little flakes broke away and studded the surface of the pool like scattered silver coins.

We penetrated deep into the wood--the stream chattering far below us--and at last Hector, half-turning, and saying earnestly "Tak' tent," began to clamber down the slope towards it. I followed, and in a few moments we had reached the edge of the water. Leaping from stone to stone, Hector led the way past a waterfall upon our left which, thin as veil of gossamer and iridescent in the sunlight, fell from an overhanging rock into the burn.

Just beyond us and to the right the stream issued from a defile. Above us, on both sides, the sandstone rocks towered, and looking up from the depths one could see the sky through the leafy screen of foliage that overshadowed us. Carefully choosing every footstep, we continued up the stream. The way, though difficult, seemed quite familiar to the packman.

Suddenly the great sandstone walls which flanked the stream began to close in upon us, rising sheer from the water edge. The stream thus confined into straiter bounds became a broiling torrent. To make progress we were compelled to bestride it, finding precarious foothold in little niches on the opposing walls. After a few more difficult steps the narrow defile widened out and we stood upon the edge of a great broad cup which was being steadily filled by an inrush of water through a gorge at its upper end similar to that along which we had come. In shape the cup was almost circular and looked like a huge misshapen bowl of earthenware. From its sides the sandstone cliffs rose almost perpendicularly, but a few feet above the water was a ledge broad enough to walk upon. It was a curious natural formation. The basin at our feet was deep, so deep that I could not see the bottom. The water leaped into it through the upper defile, churning its nearer edge into yellow froth; but the turbulence of the leaping stream swooned into quietness when it came under the spell of the still water that lay deep and impassive in the heart of the pool. Half-way round its circumference, poised on the ledge and heaped one upon another in seeming disorder, stood a pile of boulders. Hector seized one of them with both hands. He tugged at it vigorously and it moved, disclosing a cleft in the wall of the precipice through which a man might crawl.

"We're here at last," said Hector. "Doon on your hands and knees, and crawl in; there's naething to fear."

I did as he bade me, and, carefully feeling the way with my hands, thrust head and neck and shoulders into the aperture. After the light of the outer world the interior of the cave was impenetrably dark. Steadying myself with my hands, I proceeded to drag my body after me and was about to rise to my feet when suddenly something leaped upon me. A pair of hot hands closed upon my throat from behind and a great weight hurled itself upon my back. I tried to scream, but the lithe fingers gripped my neck and stifled me. There was a clamour in my head as though a thousand drums were rattling; lights danced before my eyes. Again I tried to scream, but my tongue hung helpless out of my mouth and I could hardly breathe. I struggled fiercely, but the hands that gripped my throat did not relax and suddenly I seemed to be falling through infinite space and then ceased to know anything. I remembered nothing until, at last, I felt somebody chafing my hands. Then out of the darkness I heard the voice of Hector say quite cheerfully:

"Ye'll do. Ye'll be a' richt in a minute or twa. Noo I maun ha'e a look at the minister."

"What has happened?" I asked, but Hector did not reply, so I raised myself and found him stooping over the body of another man lying not far from me.

"Thank God," he said, "I ha'ena killed him. His skull is evidently as soond as his doctrine, and that's sayin' a lot."

"Tell me what has happened?" I exclaimed. "Who is this man?"

"As far," said he, "as I can mak' oot by the licht o' these twa tallow candles, he is the Rev. Mr. Corsane, the ousted minister o' Minniehive. I canna exactly tell what happened afore I cam' into the cave, but juist as your feet were disappearing into the hole, they began to dance in the air, remindin' me o' the cantrips I ha'e seen a man perform when the hangman had him in haun'. I was at a sair loss to ken what ye micht be daein', and I was mair puzzled still when, just inside the cave, I heard a terrible struggling. Hooever, as ye weel ken, I'm nae coward, so in I crawled, wi' my auld frien' 'Trusty' in my kneive. Though it was awfu' dark, I could mak' oot twa men strugglin'. Ane o' them was astride the other and I judged that you were the nethermost. I shouted, the man that had you by the throat let ye go and flung himsel' on me. I caught him a dunt wi' the point o' my elbow juist ower his breist-bane. He reeled back, but when he got his breath he rushed at me again. By this time my e'en were better used to the darkness, so I up wi' 'Trusty' and gi'ed him a clout on the side o' the heid, and here he lies. Then I lichted the candles I had brocht wi' me, and found that he had gey near throttled you deid. By the look o' him I jaloused that he was the Rev. Mr. Corsane, and then the whole thing was plain to me. Maist likely he has been hidin' in this cave--a cave weel kent by the Covenanters--so when you cam' crawlin' in withoot word said or signal given, he maun ha'e thocht it was ane o' the dragoons and like a brave man he made up his mind to sell his life dearly. That's the story so far as I can mak' it oot and I ha'e nae doot it's the true ane.

"But I wish ye would lay your hand ower his heart and tell me I haena killed him, for I wouldna' like to ha'e the death o' sic a godly man on my conscience."

I did as I was requested and I was able to reassure the packman that the man's heart was beating regularly and strongly, although somewhat slowly.

"Thank God," he said fervently. "I'll see what my salve will dae for him," and he opened a pot of his ointment and proceeded to rub it gently into the lump which his stick had raised upon the minister's temple. The effect, however, was far from being immediate. The minister lay with lips half parted and eyes half open, breathing heavily, without signs of returning consciousness. Hector began to show signs of alarm.

"If," he said, "this was only a dragoon I wouldna worry: but this is a minister, a different breed o' man a' thegither. A clout that would dae nae mair than gie a dragoon a sair heid micht kill a minister. He maun be in a bad way if my salve winna revive him."

"Give him time," I said, "and let us see what cold water will do." Crawling out into the open, I leaned over the pool and, filling my bonnet with water, returned to the cave and sprinkled the minister's face copiously. I saw his eyelids flicker as the first cold drop touched his forehead, and a few minutes later he moved one of his hands.

"He's recovering," I said, and taking off my coat I folded it and placed it beneath his head. We waited in great anxiety, and by and by saw other signs of returning vitality. The better part of an hour had elapsed before the minister endeavoured to raise himself upon his elbow, an effort which we gently resisted. Immediately afterwards, with eyes staring up to the roof of the cave, he said:

"Where am I? What has happened?"

I motioned to Hector to reply.

"Oh, ye're a' richt, and we are frien's. Ha'e nae fear. Settle yoursel' doon, if ye can, for a sleep: and when you ha'e rested we'll tell you everything."

Without demur the minister closed his eyes again, and we were able to tell from his regular breathing that he had fallen asleep.

Hector rose, whispering behind his hand: "If you'll sit by the minister I'll close the door," and he crawled noiselessly through the aperture and returned, pushing his pack before him, and then closed the opening, cutting off the thin shaft of daylight that had been coming through it.

About an hour later the minister stirred in his sleep, and turning over upon his side opened his eyes and looked at me inquiringly. Hector produced the bottle of Malvoisie with which we had refreshed ourselves on the roadside, and held it to the minister's lips.

"This will refresh you," he said, and without protest he drank. He made some attempt to speak, but Hector forbade him. "No, no, sir, haud yer wheesht a wee langer. Dinna fash yoursel'. We are your frien's. Ha'e nae fear and settle yoursel' to sleep."

Like an obedient child, the minister did so.

The day passed and still the patient slept. By and by Hector went to the mouth of the cave and peered through one of the chinks between the rocks.

"The nicht has come," he said. "It's time we were bedded." Taking up the candle, he searched the floor of the cave. "Dae ye think," he asked, "we daur lift the minister? Here's his bed," and he pointed to a heap of withered brackens in a corner. I suggested that it might be an easier thing to carry his bed to the minister, and, stooping down, I gathered up an armful of the leaves, which I spread upon the floor beside him. So gently that he did not stir we lifted the minister on to it, and once more I slipped my folded coat under his head for a pillow. Hector drew off his coat and spread it over the minister's chest, then seizing a corner of his pack he pulled it up, scattering the contents in a jumbled heap on the floor, and spread the canvas covering over the lower part of the minister's body.

"That will keep him warm," he said. "Now you mak' your bed where ye will. I'll keep watch for the first pairt o' the nicht and I'll waken you by and by, and ye can tak' yer turn."

Worn out with the experiences of the previous night and day, I lay down not far off. My neck still ached from the strangling grip of the minister's fingers, and the floor of the cave was a hard bed. But I had lain in many strange places ere this and soon I was fast asleep. Once during the night I awoke and peering through the shadows could discern the figure of the minister on his bracken couch, and, with hands clasped round his bent knees, the packman sitting beside him. But I judged that my time had not yet come, for Hector made no sign and soon I was asleep again.

I awoke cold and stiff as though I had been beaten. Looking towards the doorway I could see a thin streak of light filtering through, and I knew that day had come. Hector still sat motionless: he had kept his vigil the whole night through.

I ventured to upbraid him because he had not kept his word and wakened me in the night to share the watch with him. He laughed.

"It was a kind o' penance," he said. "I ha'e twa things on my conscience that will want a lot o' expiation. _Imprimis_, I felled the minister; _secundo_, I gi'ed him some o' Lag's wine. In the nicht I've been thinkin' the second is the mair serious transgression. To godless men like you and me, Lag's wine could dae nae hairm, but hoo think ye the wine o' a persecutor will agree wi' the body o' a saint? As like as no it will turn to gall in his blood and dae him a peck o' hairm."

I laughed quietly. "You may set your mind at rest," I said. "The wine was good. Even though it came from Lag's cellar, it will do the Covenanter no harm."

While we were talking the minister began to move, and in a few seconds opened his eyes. In a moment Hector was bending over him.

"Hoo are ye this morning, sir?" he said. "I hope ye ha'e rested weel?"

The minister raised himself upon his elbow, and looked at Hector anxiously. "Thank you," he said, "I have had a good sleep, but my brain is in a strange whirl and my head is very sore. Have I been ill?"

"A' in good time, sir, a' in good time," said Hector, cheerfully. "You are in nae danger. By and by I'll tell ye a'. Meantime ye maun break yer fast."

The packman rose and going to a shelf of rock on which the candle stood picked up a bowl.

"Here, Bryden," he said. "I'll open the door if you crawl oot and fill this bowl at the linn."

He gripped the movable boulder and swung it round and I crawled out into the open air. The morning sky above me was fleecy with soft clouds; the air was full of melody; all the feathered world was awake. Thrush vied with blackbird, blackbird with linnet, and linnet with the far off tremulous lark. I stood on the little sandstone platform above the pool filling my lungs with great draughts of morning air. The haunting beauty of the place--the mystical and impenetrable depths of the pool, the tender foliage above me mirrored on its surface, the soft wind of the morning throbbing with melody--all conspired to cast a spell over me. But I woke from my dream as I remembered the stern realities that beset me. Leaning over I filled the bowl and returned with it to the cave. Hector had already laid out the morning meal, but at the moment a desire more urgent than hunger was upon me.

So I crawled once more into the open air and, quickly undressing, dived into the pool, and swam round it a dozen times. Greatly refreshed I was about to swing myself out, when I saw the shoulders of Hector protruding from the aperture in the wall. He shook his head and smiled at me, saying:

"You gi'ed me a terrible fricht. I heard the splash and thocht ye had fa'en in. Ye're a queer chiel; ye like cauld water a lot better than I do," and he drew his head back into the cave.

*CHAPTER XXXII*

*TOILERS OF THE NIGHT*

The rest and sleep of the night had done the minister good service; and though he still complained of considerable pain in the head and bore upon it the protuberant evidence of Hector's skill with his weapon, he was able to join in our conversation. In my absence Hector had told him who we were and what had happened. He had some difficulty in recognising Hector, beardless and lacking his tree-leg, but when the packman had salted his conversation with an apposite quotation from Horace, he had been compelled to admit his identity and had hailed him as an old friend.

Hector's surmise had been correct. The inhabitant of the cave was none other than Mr. Corsane, who, ousted from his charge and compelled to become a wanderer, had made it his headquarters through many a weary month. It was a hiding-place in which he could find shelter alike from the blasts of the storm and from the persecutors. Driven from his manse, his church and his parish, a man with a price upon his head, he did not remain in this cave from week's end to week's end, a craven fugitive. Constantly he had ventured out. Did sickness or sorrow visit one of the homes of his little flock, he was instant in succour, ready to bring to them at all times the spiritual help and consolation for which they looked to him. Wherefore, though he was a minister without a charge, he was not a minister without a people.

When the meal was over I besought Hector to lie down and rest; and being satisfied that the minister was now out of danger, he needed no second bidding.

The weeks and months that followed were full of interest and occupation. As always, in the annals of persecution, an hour had come when the malignity of the tyrants reached its zenith. In a wild endeavour to break the spirit of the persecuted, they applied themselves with increased fury and devilish ingenuity to render the lives of their victims intolerable.

So it came to pass that more and more of the men in the parishes round about us were driven to forsake their homes and take to the moors or the hiding-places among the hills. Little cared the persecutors if the land that should have laughed with rich crops sank into desolation since none were left to cultivate it. The malevolence of the oppressors gave Hector and myself many opportunities of service. By stratagem, and sometimes by force, at great risk, and often after lively encounters, we rescued more than one good man and true from the clutches of the troopers and spirited him away in the dead of night to a safe hiding-place. I may not here set down these high adventures. Some other pen than mine may record them. But for the greater part our deeds were works of peace. All through the months of summer we would steal out from the cave when the twilight came and, making for some farm whose good man had been compelled to flee, we would spend the hours of the night in performing those tasks in the fields which, but for us, would have been left undone.

Toiling all night through, we would steal back to the sanctuary of our cave in the grey dawn, tired, but proudly conscious that we had done something to ease the burden which was weighing upon the heart of some desolate woman. We cut the clover, we mowed the hay, we left it for a day or two to dry and then stacked it into little cocks upon the field, and when the time came, we sheared the sheep and did those thousand and one things that a husbandman does in their due season. We were careful not to be seen, though always when the night was at its darkest, Hector would make his way to the farmhouse or cottage nearest the field in which we were at work and almost invariably he would find upon the window-sill a store of food left for us. For, though the children and the superstitious might imagine that the mysterious labourers in the fields were creatures from another world who accomplished heavy tasks with the wave of a magic wand, the good-wife of the house had more than a shrewd suspicion that they were creatures of flesh and blood who toiled with the sweat on their brows and who had appetites that required satisfaction.

Nor did we confine our work to the farms near our hiding-place. In the course of his wanderings among his flock, the minister would, now and then, hear of a farm more remote that needed our care, and many a night we walked for miles before we reached the fields where our self-appointed tasks lay. I felt, as Hector did, that in this service we were doing something to help the Cause of the Covenant. And as honest work ever offers to a man the best antidote to sorrow, my heart began to be filled with a great contentment. Mary was lost to me. That thought and the sense of desolation which it provoked was ever before me, but my labours for the persecuted were some token of the love I had borne her and I knew that she would understand.

Sometimes, in the darkness, when my back ached beyond endurance as I bent over some unaccustomed task, I would cease for a moment to feel for that little bit of metal lying over my heart that was all that remained of the ring I had given her. And its touch would give me courage and my weariness would disappear.

Hector, I discovered, was a master of all the arts of agriculture. No task seemed too heavy for him, and never have I seen a man so proficient at shearing sheep or with such a subtle way of pacifying a querulous dog. Dogs, indeed, were one of the dangers that beset us, for more than once we spent the night at work on a farm which was in the occupation of the soldiery. If the farm dog had but given the alarm, we might have found ourselves surrounded and shot on the instant, or compelled to flee for our lives. But no dog ever barked at Hector. There was some indefinable understanding between him and the faithful creatures. A startled collie would raise its head and thrust forward its snout as though about to alarm the night, but, at a whisper from Hector, it would steal up to him and rub its head and shoulders in comradeship against his legs. This sympathy between himself and the dogs made for our safety, and there was something else which helped. Most of the troopers were creatures of the grossest superstition, thrilled with an uncanny dread of warlocks, witches, and all the evil spirits of the night. Their bloody deeds by day filled their nights with ghostly terrors, and more than once I have known them desert a farm--upon which they had descended to devour its substance like the locusts--headlong and in fear when they found that the "brownies" had been at work in the fields by night. To them it had become a place uncanny, and they would hastily take their departure, to the no small joy of the farmer's wife and her little children. To the children a visit of the "brownies" was a thing to be hailed with delight and shy amazement.

Once, after a heavy night's work, Hector and I were resting in the early dawn beneath a hedgerow ere we set out upon our long journey to the cave, when I heard the voices of children on the road. I looked through the hedge and saw a little boy leading his sister by the hand. They climbed upon the bars of the gate and surveyed the field before them. Then the quiet of the morning was broken by the shrill voice of the lad, who, pointing to the mown hay, shouted:

"Aggie, Aggie, the brownies ha'e been here," and, leaping down from the gate so quickly as to capsize his sister, who, awed by the mystery, did not burst into tears, he rushed along the road to the house calling at the top of his voice: "Oh, mither, mither, come and see. The brownies ha'e been working in the hay-field and the hay is a' cut. Oh, I wish my faither knew."

We waited till--at the urgent summons of her little son--the woman had walked down the road to the gate and had surveyed our handiwork. We saw her stoop, pick up her children, and kiss them fondly. Then she turned away that they might not see her tears, and, at the sight, our own hearts grew strangely full. We waited until she had taken her little ones home, and then we stole away.

"Puir lassie," said Hector, "puir lassie."

During the day I rarely ventured from the cave, though now and then Hector would fare forth in daylight on mysterious errands of his own. I suspected that he had some tryst to keep with the widow at Locharbriggs, but he did not take me into his confidence. But usually he and I were birds of the night. We were busy folk, and the minister was no less occupied. Messages would come to him mysteriously; how, I was never able to discover; but by some means he was kept informed not only as to the doings and welfare of his own flock, but as to the larger happenings throughout the whole country-side. He knew what men had been compelled to flee from their homes; which others had been haled to Edinburgh and put to torture in the hope that the persecutors might wring from them some confession. He knew the houses which had been touched by the hand of sorrow, and with no thought of self he would steal forth to offer what consolation he could. His quiet bravery impressed me deeply, and I found myself developing a lively admiration for him which rapidly grew into a warm affection.

He was a man of large scholarship; no bigoted fanatic, but a gentle and genial soul borne up perpetually by an invincible faith in the ultimate triumph of the cause for which he had already sacrificed so much, and for which, if need be, he was ready to sacrifice his all.

In little fragments I had from time to time told him my story. I finished it one night as we sat together outside our cave on the narrow ledge above the pool. There may have been some anger in my voice, or some bitterness in my words, for when my tale was ended he was silent for a time. Then he laid one of his hands upon my knee and with the other pointed to the stream as it poured through the gorge into the quietness of the pool.

"See," he said, "the water in turmoil catches no reflection of the sky, whereas the stars are mirrored every one on the quiet face of the pool. So it is with human hearts. Where bitterness and turmoil are there can be no reflection of the heart of God. It's the quiet heart which catches the light."

He said no more, but, ever since, when storms have risen in my soul I have remembered his words and the memory of them has stilled the passion within me.

When the nights were too rough for work in the fields, we would spend them in the cave together. And sometimes Hector, who had a subtle mind, would try to entangle the minister in the meshes of a theological argument, and I would sit amazed at the thrust and parry of wit against wit. These discussions usually ended in the defeat of Hector--though he would never admit it. More than once, at their conclusion, the minister would say:

"We must never forget this; theology is but man's poor endeavour to interpret the will of God towards humanity. It is not for me to belittle theology, but at the end of all things it will not count for much. It's the life of a man that counts; the life, and the faith that has illumined it. Theological points are but sign-posts at the cross-roads, and sometimes not even that. Faith is the lamp that shows the wayfaring man where to set his feet."

As the summer mellowed into early autumn, Hector began to grow restless. I ventured to suggest to him that he was heart-sick for love.

He laughed. "Maybe ye're richt," he said; "but ye dinna imagine that I ha'e managed to live a' these weeks withoot a sicht o' the widda. No, no, my lad."

"And how runs the course of love?" I asked.

"Man," he answered, "I'm gettin' on fine. I verily believe Virgil was wrang when he said 'Woman is a fickle jade.' The widda's no fickle at ony rate. D'ye ken she wears my kaim in her hair ilka day o' the week. It's the prood man I am."

"Then why this restlessness?" I asked.

He laughed as he replied: "Weel, to mak' a lang story short, I am hungerin' for the road. A man that has got the wander fever in his bluid can never be lang content in ae place. I'm bidin' wi' you a week or twa mair, for the time o' the hairst is at hand, but when we ha'e cut a wheen o' the riper fields I'll ha'e to leave ye for a bit. I'll be back inside twa months, and we'll settle doon then for the winter. And when I gang, dinna forget this, I'll keep my ears open for ony news o' what happened at Daldowie, and maybe when I come back I'll be able to tell ye hoo Mary deed."

The mention of Daldowie awoke in my heart a keen desire to accompany him, and I told him so.

"No, no," he said, "no' yet. By and by, if ye like. In the meantime yer duty lies here. You've got to look efter the minister. As ye weel ken, he's a feckless man at lookin' after himsel'. Forby, you'll ha'e work to dae. The hairst winna' be ower when I gang. So you'd best juist bide here."

His arguments were not weighty, but obviously he did not want my company and he had proved himself so good a friend that I shrank from offending him by insisting. So, reluctantly, I agreed to remain behind.

"You will take care," I said. "I fear that Lag has begun to suspect you, and you may run into danger unless you are wary."

He laughed as he replied: "Ah weel, as Horace said, '_Seu me tranquilla senectus expectat, seu mors atris circumvolat alis_' which ye can nae doot translate for yersel', but which means in this connection, that Hector will either see a peacefu' auld age by his ain fireside wi' the widda, or the black-winged corbies will pick his banes. Man, Horace has the richt word every time."

We did not discuss the matter of his departure again, but continued our nightly tasks in the fields. There was something peculiarly beautiful about our work at this time. The nights were short and never wholly dark. We would steal into a ripening field of corn in the twilight, when the purple shadows lay asleep among the golden grain. As the light of day gave place to the half-darkness of the night, the grain, pierced by the silver shafts of the moon, grew lustrous and shone like fairy jewels. I paused in wonder every time I bent to put my sickle between the tall blades. It seemed almost a sacrilege to cut down such things of beauty.

As the nights were short we could work only a few hours before the daylight came again; but always ere it came the slumbering earth was wakened by a burst of melody. When, in the east, one saw a little lightening of the grey shadows, as though a candle had been lit on the other side of some far off hill, one's ear would catch the sound of a bird's pipe, solitary at first and strangely alone. That first adventurous challenge would soon be answered from a myriad hidden throats. Far off, a cock would crow, and then on every side, from the heart of hidden lark and pipit, linnet and finch, a stream of melody would begin to flow over the field. The music increased in volume as bird after bird awoke from its sleep in hedge, and bush and tree, and the choir invisible poured its cataract of song into that empty hour that lies in the hand of time between the darkness and the dawn.

*CHAPTER XXXIII*

*THE GOING OF HECTOR*

September came with all its golden glory and each day Hector became more and more restless. When the month was half sped he left us. One morning on our way home to the cave after a busy night of harvesting he said:

"I'm gaun the nicht." And though I urged upon him that he could not have chosen a worse time, since we had many fields yet to cut, I failed to dissuade him from his purpose. "No," he said, "I can bide nae langer. The fever is in my bluid, and there's nae cure for it but the road."

When night came I accompanied him down the course of the linn and on to the high road. At the last he laid many injunctions upon me, the chief being to take care of our companion in the cave.

"He's a guid man," he said, "but a thochtless. I blame mysel' yet for the crack I gi'ed him on the heid. It seems tae ha'e left him a bit confused. Ye'll tak' care o' him."

When the moment of parting came he took off his bonnet, and gripping me fervently by the hand said:

"I'll be back ere lang, but if I dinna return, I should like ye noo and then to gie a kindly thocht to the memory o' the packman. Maybe I may find a grave under the open sky on the purple moorland; and if that be my lot and ye should be spared for happier days and can fin' the place where I lie, maybe ye'll see that my cairn is no' left withoot a name. But dinna be carvin' ony extravagant eulogy on the stane. Juist put the words 'Hector the packman.' That'll be enough for me--but it's the prood man I wad be, lying in the mools beneath, if ye wad add a line or twa o' Latin juist to let the unborn generations ken that I was a scholar. There are twa bit legends that come ready to my min'; ane is,

"Sciro potestates herbarum usumque medendi
Maluit, et mutas agitare inglorius artes.

'He was skilly in the knowledge o' herbs and o' their healing powers, and wi' nae thocht o' higher glory he liked to practise that quiet art'--that's frae Virgil, as ye will nae doot remember an' of course refers to my salve. But there's anither word frae my auld frien' Horace; it's a fit epitaph for a man like me wha's life has never been what it micht ha'e been:

"... Amphora coepit
Institui: currente rota cur urceus exit?

'The potter was minded to make a bonnie vessel; why does naething but a botchery come frae the running wheel?'"

Before I could make a fitting reply he dropped my hand and left me. I stood in the dusk watching him go. He glided into the shadows and soon he had become as incorporeal as one of them. With a sense of desolation upon me, I made for the field where my night's task awaited me, and laboured steadily till the dawn.

As I made my way back to the cave I could not help wondering where Hector might be.

There had been something almost ominous in the manner of his parting. Had he felt the shadow hovering over him?--or was his farewell and his reference to his possible death nothing more than an expression of his curiously sentimental nature?

I could not decide: but I trusted that his natural caution and his mother-wit, of which I knew something, would carry him safely through.

Consoling myself with this thought, I entered the wood and proceeded to make my way up the bed of the stream.

A week or two passed undisturbed by any eventful happening. Night after night I continued my work in the fields. More than once the minister joined me, lending me what aid he could. But his spirit was greater than his strength, and at last I had to ask him for his own sake, and for the sake of those who counted upon his ministrations, to reserve his energies for their own special work. Recognising his physical limitations, he took my advice.

"Maybe," he said, "you're right. Perhaps it was given to me to be a sower only, and not a harvester. The fields you are reaping were sown by other hands than yours, and mayhap the ripe fruit which in the good Providence of God may spring from the seed I have sown will be gathered by other hands than mine. But it matters little. The thing is to sow honestly and to reap faithfully, so that at the end of the day when we go home for our wages we may win the Master Harvester's 'Well done.'"

Even had he been physically capable of doing useful work in the fields, it would have been unfair to expect him to do it at this time. His days were already full. He was making preparations for a great Conventicle to be held among the Closeburn hills early in October. It was to be a very special occasion--a gathering together of all the faithful to unite in that simple love feast which has inspired with fresh courage and inflamed with new devotion men and women throughout the ages. It was a brave, a hazardous thing to venture on.

I was more than a little uplifted when he honoured me by asking me if I would care to be a sentinel.

His request touched me deeply, and I felt that Mary was smiling upon me with radiant eyes out of the unknown.

A few more days elapsed. Another Sunday came and went, the last before the great occasion. I had spent the day in the coolness of the cave, and the minister had been out about his spiritual duties. I stole out and sitting on the ledge above the pool sat dreaming in the twilight. Far off in the fields beyond the wood I heard a corncrake rasping out his raucous notes. There was a twitter of birds in the trees above me as they settled down to sleep.

As I sat there I was joined by Mr. Corsane, who came through the narrow defile below the pool. He looked weary and somewhat distraught; but though I surmised that some anxiety oppressed him, he did not offer to share it with me, so I held my peace. Soon he retired to rest and when midnight came I set off to my labours. I did not see him on my return to the cave in the morning, nor had he come back by evening when I left again. But when on the morning of Tuesday I came in sight of the pool, I discovered him waiting for me on the ledge outside the cave. He hailed me at once:

"I have been watching anxiously for your return. I am in sore perplexity."

"Can I help you, sir?" I asked.

"If I were younger," he replied, "and could perform the task myself, I would gladly do it; but it is past my power. It is an urgent matter--for it concerns the safety of one dear to me and very precious to the Cause."

"Command me," I exclaimed. "I am ready to do anything I can; only tell me how I may help."

"I have a friend in Edinburgh," he said, "Peter Burgess by name. His life is in danger. I must get a message to him ere Friday. Will you take it?"

"Gladly," I cried. "Trust me--and all the persecutors in Scotland shall not prevent me."

A smile flickered upon his face. "That is a reckless boast," he said. "But I trust you, and thank you."

"I am ready to start at once," I said.

"What?" he exclaimed. "Weary as you are!"

"Certainly," I answered, "one must needs haste. I'll have a plunge in the pool while you write your letter, and after a mouthful of food, I'll be off."

By the time I had bathed and eaten, his message was ready, and with a few last words of instruction I was about to set off. But he called me back.

"Have a care to your goings, my son. Be wary! be brave! I trust you will succeed in reaching my friend ere it is too late; but you cannot be back in time for the great Assembly on Sabbath. I shall miss you."

He raised his hand in blessing, and, secreting the letter about me, I turned, and was gone.

*CHAPTER XXXIV*

*THE FLIGHT OF PETER BURGESS*

When night fell I was far away among the hills. I had made good progress and was well content. I should accomplish the journey in good time--of that I was confident--so I crawled into a bed of heather and slept soundly.

In the early morning I was awakened by the call of the moor birds. Before starting on my journey again, I thought it wise to secrete the letter with greater care, so I took off one of my shoes, and, making a hollow in the heel, folded the letter tightly and placed it there. Then I took to the road again.

I had hoped to reach Edinburgh by noon on Thursday, but when I came in sight of the city it was past five o'clock. The journey had proved more arduous than I expected; but I was still in time. The last long mile accomplished, I reached the city. The moon had risen, and as I swung round beneath the grey shadow of Holyrood I caught a glimpse of the noble brow of Arthur's Seat towering high behind it. I passed the guard of soldiers at the Canongate without challenge, for, apparently, they saw in me nothing more than a travel-stained and dusty wanderer--some gangrel body.

I did not wish to draw suspicion upon myself by asking anyone to direct me to Halkerstone Wynd where Peter Burgess dwelt. But, meeting a boy, I stopped him to ask where I could find the Tron Kirk, which Mr. Corsane had given me as a landmark. His reply was explicit enough, if somewhat rude. "Follow yer nose," he said, "and ye'll be there in five meenutes," which I took to mean that I was to continue my journey up the hill. Very shortly a large church came into view, and as it took shape in the moonlight a clock in its tower struck ten. I counted the strokes, and, turning, retraced my steps and found at no great distance from the Church, as the minister had told me, the Wynd which I sought. The minister had given me careful instructions, so that when I entered the Wynd I had no difficulty in finding the house in which his friend lived. The outer door stood open, and I entered, passing at once into the confusion of darkness; but I had learned from Hector the wisdom of carrying a candle in one's pocket, and lighting it, I looked around me. I knew that I should find Peter Burgess on the top floor of the house, so, shading the candle with one hand, I began the ascent. Up, and up and up, in never ceasing spirals wound the stair. To me, weary with my journey, it seemed interminable. Between two of its flights I paused, and leaning over the balustrade looked downwards. A chasm, black as pitch and unfathomable to my straining eyes, gaped below me. After a moment's rest I continued my ascent, and by and by, breathless, I came to the top. An oaken door barred my further progress. An iron knocker, shaped like a lady's hand, hung gracefully upon its middle beam. I remember that as I seized it to knock, I held it for a second while I looked at the delicate metal filigree of lace that adorned the wrist. Then I knocked three times--first gently, then more firmly and, as no answer came, more loudly still. At last I heard movements on the other side, and in the flickering candle-light I saw a little peep-hole open, and a voice said "Who is it?" I bent my head to the tiny aperture and said in a whisper "Naphthali," the password I had been told to use. Instantly the peep-hole was closed, and the door was thrown open. "Enter and welcome," said the voice, and I needed no second invitation. I found myself in a narrow passage at the end of which was a room through whose open door a light shone. The man who had admitted me closed and barred the door and then led the way to the room. Then turning to me he said:

"To what do I owe this late visit?"

"I bring," I replied, "a message from a friend, but before I give it to you I must know who you are."

He went to a bookcase that stood against one of the walls and from it withdrew a little calf-bound volume. Opening it he pointed to the book-plate within.

On the scroll I read the legend "Ex libris Petri Burgess," and I saw that the book was a copy of Rutherford's _Lex Rex_. I sat down at once on a high-backed oak chair, and, taking off my shoe, found the letter and handed it to him. He took it with a grave bow, and, breaking its seal, sat down at the black-oak table in the centre of the room.

As he did so, I looked about me. The room was furnished with considerable taste and was lit by two candles which stood in silver candlesticks on the table. Between the candlesticks lay a sheet of paper. Beside them stood an ink-horn and a little bowl of sand in which was a small bone spoon. The light was somewhat uncertain, and to read with greater ease he drew one of the candlesticks nearer to him.

When he had read the letter through, he sat in a fit of meditation, beating a gentle tattoo with the fingers of his left hand upon the top of the table. He read it again, and went towards the fireplace where he tore the missive into tiny pieces and dropped them into the fire. Then he came back to the table.

"Forgive," he said, "my seeming lack of hospitality; you must be worn out and famished. Let me offer you some refreshment."

I thanked him heartily, and in a few minutes he had set food and wine before me.