Salted with Fire, George MacDonald [best free novels .txt] 📗

upo' the cross, they waitit but twa nichts, and there he was up afore them! here we hae waitit, close on a haill fortnicht-and naething even to pruv that she's deid! still less ony sign that ever she'll speyk word til's again!-What think ye o' 't, man?"

"Gien ever she returns to life, I greatly doobt she'll ever bring back her senses wi' her!" said the mother, joining them from the inner chamber.

"Hoot, ye min' the tale o' the lady-Lady Fanshawe, I believe they ca'd her? She cam til hersel a' richt i' the en'!" said Peter.

"I don't remember the story," said James. "Such old world tales are little to be heeded."

"I min' naething aboot it but jist that muckle," said his father. "And I can think o' naething but that bonny lassie lyin there afore me naither deid nor alive! I jist won'er, Jeames, that ye're no as concernt, and as fillt wi' doobt and even dreid anent it as I am mysel!"

"We're all in the hands of the God who created life and death," returned James, in a pious tone.

The father held his peace.

"And He'll bring licht oot o' the vera dark o' the grave!" said the mother.

Her faith, or at least her hope, once set agoing, went farther than her husband's, and she had a greater power of waiting than he. James had sorely tried both her patience and her hope, and not even now had she given him up.

"Ye'll bide and share oor watch this ae nicht, Jeames?" said Peter. "It's an elrische kin o' a thing to wauk up i' the mirk mids, wi' a deid corp aside ye!-No 'at even yet I gie her up for deid! but I canna help feelin some eerie like-no to say fleyt! Bide, man, and see the nicht oot wi' 's, and gie yer mither and me some hert o' grace."

James had little inclination to add another to the party, and began to murmur something about his housekeeper. But his mother cut him short with the indignant remark-

"Hoot, what's she ?-Naething to you or ony o' 's! Lat her sit up for ye, gien she likes! Lat her sit, I say, and never waste thoucht upo' the queyn!"

James had not a word to answer. Greatly as he shrank from the ordeal, he must encounter it without show of reluctance! He dared not even propose to sit in the kitchen and smoke. With better courage than will, he consented to share their vigil. "And then," he reflected, "if she should come to herself, there would be the advantage he had foreseen and even half desired!"

His mother went to prepare supper for them. His father rose, and saying he would have a look at the night, went toward the door; for even his strange situation could not entirely smother the anxiety of the husbandman. But James glided past him to the door, determined not to be left alone with that thing in the chamber.

But in the meantime the wind had been rising, and the coffin had been tilting and resettling on its narrower end. At last, James opening the door, the gruesome thing fell forward just as he crossed the threshold, knocked him down, and settled on the top of him. His father, close behind him, tumbled over the obstruction, divined, in the light of a lamp in the passage, what the prostrate thing was, and scrambling to his feet with the only oath he had, I fully believe, ever uttered, cried: "Damn that fule, Willie Wabster! Had he naething better to dee nor sen' to the hoose coffins naebody wantit-and syne set them doon like rotten-traps (rat-traps) to whomel puir Jeemie!" He lifted the thing from off the minister, who rose not much hurt, but both amazed and offended at the mishap, and went to his mother in the kitchen.

"Dinna say muckle to yer mither, Jeames laad," said his father as he went; "that is, dinna explain preceesely hoo the ill-faured thing happent. I'll hae amen's (amends, vengeance) upon him!" So saying, he took the offensive vehicle, awkward burden as it was, in his two arms, and carrying it to the back of the cornyard, shoved it over the low wall into the dry ditch at its foot, where he heaped dirty straw from the stable over it.

"It'll be lang," he vowed to himsel, "or Willie Wabster hear the last o' this!-and langer yet or he see the glint o' the siller he thoucht he was yirnin by 't!-It's come and cairry 't hame himsel he sall, the muckle idiot! He may turn 't intil a breid-kist, or what he likes, the gomf!"

"Fain wud I screw the reid heid o' 'im intil that same kist, and hand him there, short o' smorin!" he muttered as he went back to the house.-"Faith, I could 'maist beery him ootricht!" he concluded, with a grim smile.

Ere he re-entered the house, however, he walked a little way up the hill, to cast over the vault above him a farmer's look of inquiry as to the coming night, and then went in, shaking his head at what the clouds boded.

Marion had brought their simple supper into the parlour, and was sitting there with James, waiting for him. When they had ended their meal, and Eppie had removed the remnants, the husband and wife went into the adjoining chamber and sat down by the bedside, where James presently joined them with a book in his hand. Eppie, having rested the fire in the kitchen, came into the parlour, and sat on the edge of a chair just inside the door.

Peter had said nothing about the night, and indeed, in his wrath with the carpenter, had hardly noted how imminent was the storm; but the air had grown very sultry, and the night was black as pitch, for a solid mass of cloud had blotted out the stars: it was plain that, long before morning, a terrible storm must break. But midnight came and went, and all was very still.

Suddenly the storm was upon them, with a forked, vibrating flash of angry light that seemed to sting their eyeballs, and was replaced by a darkness that seemed to crush them like a ponderous weight. Then all at once the weight itself seemed torn and shattered into sound-into heaps of bursting, roaring, tumultuous billows. Another flash, yet another and another followed, each with its crashing uproar of celestial avalanches. At the first flash Peter had risen and gone to the larger window of the parlour, to discover, if possible, in what direction the storm was travelling. Marion, feeling as if suddenly unroofed, followed him, and James was left alone with the dead. He sat, not daring to move; but when the third flash came, it flickered and played so long about the dead face, that it seemed for minutes vividly visible, and his gaze was fixed on it, fascinated. The same moment, without a single preparatory movement, Isy was on her feet, erect on the bed.

A great cry reached the ears of the father and mother. They hurried into the chamber: James lay motionless and senseless on the floor: a man's nerve is not necessarily proportioned to the hardness of his heart! The verity of the thing had overwhelmed him.

Isobel had fallen, and lay gasping and sighing on the bed. She knew nothing of what had happened to her; she did not yet know herself-did not know that her faithless lover lay on the floor by her bedside.

When the mother entered, she saw nothing-only heard Isy's breathing. But when her husband came with a candle, and she saw her son on the floor, she forgot Isy; all her care was for James. She dropped on her knees beside him, raised his head, held it to her bosom, and lamented over him as if he were dead. She even felt annoyed with the poor girl's moaning, as she struggled to get back to life. Why should she whose history was such, be the cause of mishap to her reverend and honoured son? Was she worth one of his little fingers! Let her moan and groan and sigh away there-what did it matter! she could well enough wait a bit! She would see to her presently, when her precious son was better!

Very different was the effect upon Peter when he saw Isy coming to herself. It was a miracle indeed! It could be nothing less! White as was her face, there was in it an unmistakable look of reviving life! When she opened her eyes and saw her master bending over her, she greeted him with a faint smile, closed her eyes again, and lay still. James also soon began to show signs of recovery, and his father turned to him.

With the old sullen look of his boyhood, he glanced up at his mother, still overwhelming him with caresses and tears.

"Let me up," he said querulously, and began to wipe his face. "I feel so strange! What can have made me turn so sick all at once?"

"Isy's come to life again!" said his mother, with modified show of pleasure.

"Oh!" he returned.

"Ye're surely no sorry for that!" rejoined his mother, with a reaction of disappointment at his lack of sympathy, and rose as she said it.

"I'm pleased to hear it-why not?" he answered. "But she gave me a terrible start! You see, I never expected it, as you did!"

"Weel, ye are hertless, Jeernie!" exclaimed his father. "Hae ye nae spark o' fellow-feelin wi' yer ain mither, whan the lass comes to life 'at she's been fourteen days murnin for deid? But losh! she's aff again!-deid or in a dwaum, I kenna!-Is't possible she's gaein to slip frae oor hand yet?"

James turned his head aside, and murmured something inaudibly.

But Isy had only fainted. After some eager ministrations on the part of Peter, she came to herself once more, and lay panting, her forehead wet as with the dew of death.

The farmer ran out to a loft in the yard, and calling the herd-boy, a clever lad, told him to rise and ride for the doctor as fast as the mare could lay feet to the road.

"Tell him," he said, "that Isy has come to life, and he maun munt and ride like the vera mischeef, or she'll be deid again afore he wins til her. Gien ye canna get the tae doctor, awa wi' ye to the tither, and dinna ley him till ye see him i' the saiddle and startit. Syne ye can ease the mere, and come hame at yer leisur; he'll be here lang afore ye!-Tell him I'll pey him ony fee he likes, be't what it may, and never compleen!-Awa' wi' ye like the vera deevil!"

"I didna think ye kenned hoo he rade," answered the boy pawkily, as he shot to the stable. "Weel," he added, "ye maunna gley asklent at the mere whan she comes hame some saipy-like!"

When he returned on the mare's back, the farmer was waiting for him with the whisky-bottle in his hand.

"Na, na!" he said, seeing the lad eye the bottle, "it's no for you! ye want a' the sma' wit ye ever hed: it's no you 'at has to gallop; ye hae but to stick on!-Hae, Susy!"

He poured half a tumblerful into a soup-plate, and held it out to the mare, who, never snuffing at it, licked it up greedily, and immediately started of herself at a good