Chapter VIII: The Storm--Snow Shoes--A Sleigh Ride

More than once during this week Sandie M‘Crae experienced an almost irresistible longing to get back to his books. What, he could not help saying to himself, would dear old Horace and Homer the thunderer do without him? Then he remembered his promise to Rector Geddes and refrained. He knew in his own heart that the Rector really was right, for by giving the brain a complete rest, it would be all the fresher when it came to stand the test. The first part of the brain-power to get weak is the memory; and rest, and rest alone, can restore this.

So whenever Sandie longed for his books, he jumped up and went in search of Willie, who was never far away, and together they would plan some new amusement.

They marched over to the manse of Belhaven one day, for example, with their shooting-bags on their backs, and their guns upon their shoulders. The minister was delighted to see them. Yes, they had just come to the right place. There were plenty of partridges in the turnips, there were rabbits on or near the corries, and there were thousands of wild pigeons, devouring the remainder of the blaeberries on the blaeberry hill. The good minister even caused his cook to make up a delightful luncheon for them, and put in the basket two bottles of heather-ale.

“Of course,” said Mackenzie, “you will want a keeper or guide.”

“Shall we?”

“Oh, yes, most certainly; and I’ll send you one.”

He retired for that purpose.

Presently into the room marched pretty Maggie May herself, with a bag slung over her shoulder, and in her hand a tiny double-barrelled fowling-piece.

After her came her father.

“Boys,” he said, smiling, “behold your keeper!”

Both lads looked astonished, but especially Willie.

“Why--why,” he ejaculated, “you never mean to say that _she_ can let a gun off?”

“She is a very good sportsman, indeed,” said her father proudly. “I myself would go with you, but I am busy to-day. She knows the whereabouts of every bird on the glebe and on the hills. Trust her.”

I may mention here, parenthentically, that it is by no means an uncommon thing in the Highlands of Scotland for young ladies to go to the hill with bag and gun, and I know many at this moment who are very excellent shots indeed.

“Well,” continued Willie, “I _am_ astonished. In fact, I believe you could knock me down with a feather, or with a sledge-hammer anyhow. Shouldn’t wonder now if Miss M‘Crae mightn’t be a better shot than I am.”

“Have you had much experience?” asked Mackenzie.

“Oh, quite a deal!” answered Willie seriously--“in the ha’penny shooting-galleries, ye know. ‘Only a ha’penny a shot, and fire away;’ and ‘a great big cocoa-nut if ye rings the bell.’ I rung the bell once. It was before I took aim--the gun just went off by chance. But of course that is a mere detail; I got the great big cocoa-nut all the same, I have it in my study till this day, labelled, ‘Won at a shooting-match.’”

Maggie May and her father both laughed.

“But you’ve never been on the hill?”

“Oh, never near it.”

“Well, you must try not to shoot the dogs.”

“I’ll try hard.”

“Mine are a charming Gordon setter, who won’t range far away, and a curly retriever, as wise as many a Christian.”

The dogs were delighted to get out: the setter fawned and cringed by way of showing his delight and thankfulness; the retriever stood boldly erect and barked his joy.

Maggie May proposed walking first to the distant blaeberry hill, and trying their luck among the wild pigeons.

“The worst of it is,” said Maggie, “that after the first volley they all fly away, and it may be hours before we see them again.”

They reached the hill at last, and approached the feeding-grounds of the doves very cautiously--almost creeping, in fact.

All at once the good setter started a flock that flew right over them.

Both Sandie’s barrels and both Maggie May’s rang out on the still autumn air almost simultaneously, and four birds fell.

But Willie’s gun, the trigger of which had been duly drawn, missed fire.

“Whatever is the matter?” cried the boy wonderingly.

Now, this gun was a muzzle-loader; but, if the truth must be told, the lad had never loaded a fowling-piece in his life before; and, being cross-questioned, here is how he confessed having done so now. First he had measured the charge of shot, and put that in, next the gunpowder, and finally the wad. When he had put on the cap, he thought himself a true sportsman, and fit for anything.

To say that Maggie May and Sandie laughed, would but poorly express the degree of merriment they experienced at Willie’s confession.

Sandie now addressed a few words to Maggie May in the Gaelic, and she smiled as she gave a brief reply.

The truth is, that with the screw end of the ramrod Sandie could easily have drawn the wad and emptied the gun; but as Willie did not know this, his companion determined to do nothing of the kind; for, if he did, he felt certain in his own mind that one of the dogs would be shot ere sundown, even if no more terrible tragedy should occur.

“What _am_ I to do?” cried poor Willie, looking the very picture of disconsolation.

“There is a blacksmith,” said Sandie, “lives about five miles from here, who, I dare say, in three or four hours could put matters right. But I’m not sure.”

“And my sport is ended for the day?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“_Heu! me miserum!_ as the Latin Grammar says. I’m in the dumps.”

And he looked so sad that Maggie May positively felt sorry for him.

They adjourned now to the corries, and all the forenoon was spent among the rabbits. Here they certainly made a good bag--two good bags--though they would have done better had they faced the bunnies in the open or in the woods. Among the corries there was so much cover, so many stones, and burrows or caves, and rabbits have a disagreeable habit of dragging themselves out of sight even when all but dead. Carlo, the retriever, however, did most excellent work, and succeeded in dragging many a rabbit to bank, even after it had almost disappeared.

About two o’clock Maggie May frankly expressed herself as being hungry, and Willie said he was famishing, though he hadn’t fired a shot.

So luncheon was produced, and ample justice done thereto, for these three young people had succeeded in establishing appetites of a kind practically unknown in the lower districts of Merrie England.

Willie, after luncheon and a draught of heather-ale, admitted he felt better, and could bear his misfortune with greater equanimity.

A start was now made for the turnip-fields, and here, the dogs having better play, excellent sport was obtained. The Gordon setter worked wonderfully well, keeping well in, not ranging, as Irish setters--beautiful though they be--are rather too apt to do. He made splendid points, and never less than two fell to the two guns if there was anything like a covey. This was good, for it must be remembered that the birds were now rather wild.

After the partridges, they once more adjourned to the blaeberry hill, to which by this time the wild pigeons had returned. They managed to bag a few more; and going on upwards to the heath-crested portion of the hill, they were lucky enough to bring down a couple of grouse and a ptarmigan.

Neither Sandie nor Maggie May, who were real children of the mist, felt one whit tired, but Willie frankly confessed that he was beginning to get both “dweeble” and drowsy.

Well, the sun was already so near the horizon that it was getting as red as a rising moon, and was just as rayless; so Maggie May, out of pity for Willie, proposed to return home.

Mackenzie was standing in his hall-door to welcome home the sportsmen, laden with the spoils of the chase.

“And what sort of a day have you had, boys?”

“Oh, splendid, sir, especially I,” said poor Willie. He then told him how he had loaded his gun to begin with.

“But,” said the parson, “couldn’t you----”

A few words of Gaelic from Maggie May, and the sentence was never finished.

“I’m afraid, Willie,” said Mackenzie, “your city method of loading guns and our rural way present some slight differences. But away you go and wash, the whole lot of you; dinner will be ready in half-an-hour.”

And dinner was. And such a dinner! Willie felt a happy man now. Clear soup to trifle with as a commencement; then salmon that, but the day before, had been sporting in the clear waters of the sunny Don; partridges, and a small turkey to follow, with all the usual vegetable fixings--what could heart of even so mighty a Nimrod as Willie Munro desire better than that?

* * * * *

It was long past nine o’clock, and the moon’s rich light was falling on woods and valleys, when the two students, bidding their kindly entertainers good-bye, started to walk home to the old farm of Kilbuie.

“I feel very contented and happy, Sandie,” said Willie, when they at length reached the long loanings, and saw the lights from Kilbuie windows blinking bonnily over the garden. “Very contented and happy. There certainly are a few advantages in living in a city, but, ah! give me a farmer’s life in preference to any. I do believe I shall ask my dad to make me a farmer.”

“Well,” sighed Sandie, “it is all right when things go well; but, alas! my dear father has had losses that would have driven many a man distracted. Ha! here comes Tyro to bid us welcome. Down, doggie, down, boy, down. Good dog! did you think we’d never return again any more?”

My English readers will not, I trust, feel shocked when I tell them that the boys really enjoyed the nice little supper that Elsie had spread for them by the roaring kitchen-fire. They were not gluttons, but remember they had had a long walk since dinner, and that the air of the Don-side Highlands is so strong and pure, that to be out in it for even a couple of hours is to secure the appetite of a lion-hunter.

* * * * *

It was eight o’clock next morning before either awoke, and, considering the exertions of the previous day, this is not to be wondered at. But when they did at last draw the blinds and look out, they were surprised, agreeably or otherwise, to find that, during the night, a heavy snowstorm had fallen, and that the snow was still coming steadily down. There had been no wind, however, and it had not drifted.

Just after breakfast Jamie Duncan announced that he and Geordie, the orra man, were going off to the fields to get up a “fordle” (large supply) of “neeps” (turnips) for the cattle before the storm became deeper and rendered it impossible.

“I’ll go too,” said Sandie determinedly.

“And I also,” put in Willie.

Willie would not be denied; so half-an-hour afterwards four brave young fellows were busy in the turnip-field. To pull the turnips with the hands was, of course, impossible. They had to be dragged up with a curious kind of fork, whose toes were claws. It is called in Aberdeenshire a “pluck.”

But so well and manfully did they work, that, with the assistance of the light cart and the orra beast, before one o’clock the “fordle” was secured, and as many turnips stored in the shed as would last the cattle for three weeks’ time at least.

It cleared up in the afternoon, and Sandie got out a pair of real skis,[4] or snowshoes, that a cousin of his had brought him from Norway some years ago. He was quite an adept on these, and the speed with which he went skidding over the snow-clad fields was truly marvellous.

It seemed so easy, too; so, of course, Willie must beg to be allowed to try.

“You’ll find them a bit awkward at first,” said Sandie. “In about a week you might master them.”

Willie got them on, or rather he got fastened on to them.

His first sensation on trying to move was that his feet were tied like those of a hen going to market; his second, that he had dislocated both ankles; his third, that he had broken his neck in the heap of snow into which he had tumbled.

However, he prayed Sandie, as a good and kind friend, to release him.

“No more shees or skis, or whatever you call them, for me, thank you.”

Sandie laughed.

“If to-morrow is anything like a day,” he said, “we’ll get out the sleigh, and Lord Raglan will tool us over to see the minister; you’ll be safe enough in that, anyhow.”

“Oh, that will be delightful,” cried Willie excitedly.

Well, the next day was propitious, so far as the fore part of it went, at all events. So Lord Raglan had his best harness put on, with any number of silver-toned bells to jangle all around him; then he was put into the sleigh, which was loaded with rugs and furs of all kinds, and after luncheon they got on board. Geordie Black tucked the rugs well around them; Sandie flicked the pony lightly with the whip.

“Hip, hip, hip, hurray!” cried Geordie, Jamie, and Jeannie, and away went the sleigh, never a sound breaking the silence save the merry music of the bells, bells, bells, the ringing and the jingling of the bells.

How very brightly the sun shone! How bright and white the snow! It seemed to have been sown with diamonds too, for the snow-stars sparkled with all the colours of the rainbow, but far more brightly than any rainbow ever bent o’er blackest cloud.

As the boys walked it, across country that is, the distance to the manse of Belhaven would not be over five miles, but by horse-road it was fully seven; and this was the road Sandie had to take with the sleigh. But so warm and snug were they, and so exhilarating was the journey, that the time seemed very short indeed. To Willie it was more than exhilarating--it was romantic, and his heart spoke through his eyes as he exclaimed--

“As long as I live, Sandie, I will never forget this delightful visit to your charming Highland home.”