Heather and Snow, George MacDonald [epub e reader TXT] 📗

in wha's mooth he perfecteth praise!'

'He'll du that some day, maybe!' answered Steenie.

'But! eh, Steenie,' pursued his mother, 'ye winna gang the nicht!'

'Mother,' he answered, 'ye dinna ken, nor yet do I, what to mak o' me- what wits I hae, and what wits I haena; but this ye'll alloo, that, for onything ye ken, the bonny man may be cryin upon me to gang efter some puir little yowie o' his, oot her lane i' the storm the nicht!'

With these words he walked gently from the kitchen, his dog following him.

A terrible blast rushed right into the fire when he opened the door. But he shut it behind him easily, and his mother comforted herself that she had known him out in worse weather. Kirsty entered a moment after, and when her father came in from the loft he called his workshop, they had their tea, and sat round the fire after it, peacefully talking, a little troubled, but nowise uneasy that their Steenie, the darling of them all, was away on the Horn: he knew every foot of its sides better than the collie who, a moment ago asleep before the fire, was now following at his master's heel.

The wind, which had fallen immediately after the second gust as after the first, now began to blow with gathering force, and it took Steenie much longer than usual to make his way over height and hollow from his father's house to his own. But he was in no hurry, not knowing where he was wanted. I do not think he met any angels as he went, but it was a pleasure to think they might be about somewhere, for they were sorry for his heavy feet, and always greeted him kindly. Not that they ever spoke to him, he said, but they always made a friendly gesture-nodding a stately head, waving a strong hand, or sending him a waft of cool air as they went by, a waft that would come to him through the fiercest hurricane as well as through the stillest calm.

Before, strong-toiling against the wind, man and dog reached their refuge among the rocks, the snow had begun to fall, and the night seemed solid with blackness. The very flakes might have been black as the snow of hell for any gleam they gave. But they arrived at last, and Steenie, making Snootie go in before him, entered the low door with bent head, and closed it behind them. The dog lay down weary, but Steenie set about lighting the peats ready piled between the great stones of the hearth. The wind howled over the waste hill in multitudinous whirls, and swept like a level cataract over the ghastly bog at its foot, but scarce a puff blew against the door of their burrow.

When his fire was well alight, Steenie seated himself by it on the sheepskin settle, and fell into a reverie. How long he had sat thus he did not know, when suddenly the wind fell, and with the lull master and dog started together to their feet: was it indeed a cry they had heard, or but a moan between wind and mountain? The dog flew to the door with a whine, and began to sniff and scratch at the crack of the threshold; Steenie, thinking it was still dark, went to get a lantern Kirsty had provided him with, but which he had never yet had occasion to use. The dog ran back to him, and began jumping upon him, indicating thus in the dark recess where he found him that he wanted him to open the door. A moment more and they were in the open universe, in a night all of snow, lighted by the wide swooning gleam of a hidden moon, whose radiance, almost absorbed, came filtering through miles of snow-cloud to reach the world. Nothing but snow was to be seen in heaven or earth, but for the present no more was falling. Steenie set the lighted lantern by the door, and followed Snootie, who went sniffing and snuffing about.

Steenie always regarded inferior animals, and especially dogs, as a lower sort of angels, with ways of their own, into which it would be time to inquire by and by, when either they could talk or he could bark intelligently and intelligibly-in which it used to annoy him that he had not yet succeeded. It was in part his intense desire to enter into the thoughts of his dog, that used to make him imitate him the most of the day. I think he put his body as nearly into the shape of the dog's as he could, in order thus to aid his mind in feeling as the dog was feeling.

As the dog seemed to have no scent of anything, Steenie, after considering for a moment what he must do, began to walk in a spiral, beginning from the door, with the house for the centre. He had thus got out of the little valley on to the open hill, and the wind had begun to threaten reawaking, when Snootie, who was a little way to one side of him, stopped short, and began scratching like a fury in the snow. Steenie ran to him, and dropped on his knees to help him: he had already got a part of something clear! It was the arm of a woman. So deep was the snow over her, that the cry he and the dog had heard, could not surely have been uttered by her! He was gently clearing the snow from the head, and the snow-like features were vaguely emerging, when the wind gave a wild howl, the night grew dark again, and in bellowing blackness the death-silent snow was upon them. But in a moment or two more, with Snootie's vigorous aid, he had drawn the body of a slight, delicately formed woman out of it's cold, white mould. Somehow, with difficulty, he got it on his back, the only way he could carry it, and staggered away with it toward his house. Thus laden, he might never have found it, near as it was, for he was not very strong, and the ground was very rough as well as a little deep in snow, but they had left such a recent track that the guidance of the dog was sure. The wise creature did not, however, follow the long track, but led pretty straight across the spiral for the hut.

The body grew heavy on poor Steenie's back, and the cold of it came through to his spine. It was so cold that it must be a dead thing, he thought. His breathing grew very short, compelling him, several times, to stop and rest. His legs became insensible under him, and his feet got heavier and heavier in the snow-filled, entangling, impeding heather.

What if it were Phemy! he thought as he struggled on. Then he would have the beautiful thing all to himself! But this was a dead thing, he feared-only a thing, and no woman at all! Of course it couldn't be Phemy! She was at home, asleep in her father's house! He had always shrunk from death; even a dead mouse he could not touch without a shudder; but this was a woman, and might come alive! It belonged to the bonny man, anyhow, and he would stay out with it all night rather than have it lie there alone in the snow! He would not be afraid of her: he was nearly dead himself, and the dead were not afraid of the dead! She had only put off her shoes! But she might be alive, and he must get her into the house! He would like to put off his feet, but most people would rather keep them on, and he must try to keep hers on for her!

With fast failing energy he reached the door, staggered in, dropped his burden gently on his own soft heather-bed, and fell exhausted. He lay but a moment, came to himself, rose, and looked at the lovely thing he had laboured to redeem from 'cold obstruction.' It lay just as it had fallen from his back, its face uppermost: it was Phemy!

For a moment his blood seemed to stand still; then all the divine senses of the half-witted returned to him. There was no time to be sorrowful over her: he must save the life that might yet be in that frozen form! He had nothing in the house except warmth, but warmth more than aught else was what the cold thing needed! With trembling hands he took off her half-thawed clothes, laid her in the thick blankets of his bed, and covered her with every woollen thing in the hut. Then he made up a large fire, in the hope that some of its heat might find her.

She showed no sign of life. Her eyes were fast shut: those who die of cold only sleep into a deeper sleep. Not a trace of suffering was to be seen on her countenance. Death alone, pure, calm, cold, and sweet, was there. But Steenie had never seen Death, and there was room for him to doubt and hope. He laid one fold of a blanket over the lovely white face, as he had seen a mother do with a sleeping infant, called his dog, made him lie down on her feet, and told him to watch; then turned away, and went to the door. As he passed the fire, he coughed and grew faint, but recovering himself, picked up his fallen stick, and set out for Corbyknowe and Kirsty. Once more the wind had ceased, but the snow was yet falling.


CHAPTER XXIII

THE STORM AGAIN


Kirsty woke suddenly out of a deep, dreamless sleep. A white face was bending over her-Steenie's-whiter than ever Kirsty had seen it. He was panting, and his eyes were huge. She started up.

'Come; come!' was all he was able to say.

'What's the metter, Steenie?' she gasped. For a quarter of a minute he stood panting, unable to speak.

'I'm no thinkin onything's gane wrong,' he faltered at length with an effort, recovering breath and speech a little. 'The bonny man-'

He burst into tears and turned his head away. A vision of the white, lovely, motionless thing, whose hand had fallen from his like a lump of lead, lying alone at the top of the Horn, with the dog on her feet, had overwhelmed him suddenly.

Kirsty was sore distressed. She dreaded the worst when she saw him thus lose the self-restraint hitherto so remarkable in him. She leaned from her bed, threw her arms round him, and drew him to her, kneeled, laid his head on her bosom, and wept as she had never known him weep.

'I'll tak care o' ye, Steenie, my man!' she murmured. 'Fear ye naething.'

It is amazing how much, in the strength of its own divinity, love will dare promise!

'Ay, Kirsty, I ken ye wull, but it's no me!' said Steenie.

Thereupon he gave a brief, lucid account of what had occurred in the night.

'And noo 'at I hae telt ye,' he added, 'it luiks a' sae strange 'at maybe I hae been but dreamin, efter a'! But it maun be true, for that maun hae been what the angels cam cryin upo' me for. I'm thinkin they wud hae broucht me straucht til her themsels-they maistly gang aboot in twas, as whan they gaed and waukent the bonny man-gien it hadna been 'at the guid collie was aiqual to that!'

Kirsty told him to go and rouse the kitchen fire, and she would