The Eagle Cliff, R. M. Ballantyne [best fiction books to read .txt] 📗

furniture when the stars began to glimmer in the darkening sky.

“My dear,” said the laird, on finding his wife in the group, “it is all safe now, so you had better get off to rest, and take all the women with ye. Come, girls, be off to your beds,” he added, turning with kindly smile to the domestics, and with the energetic manner that was habitual to him. “You’ve done good service, and stand much in need of rest, all of you. The men will keep a sharp look out on what’s left o’ the fire, so you have nothing to fear. Off with you, an’ get to sleep!”

There was no hesitation in obeying the laird’s commands. The female domestics went off at once to their dormitories, and these were fortunately in that part of the mansion which had escaped. Some of the younger girls, however, made no effort to conceal a giggle as they glanced at their master who, with coat off, shirt torn, face blackened, hair dishevelled, and person dripping, presented rather an undignified appearance. But as worthy Allan Gordon had never set up a claim to dignity, the giggles only amused him.

“Duncan! Duncan, man, where are ye?” he called out, when the ladies and female domestics had gone. “Oh! there ye are—an’ not much more respectable than myself!” he added, as the butler answered to his summons. “Go and fetch the whisky bottle. We’ll all be the better of a dram after such a fight. What say you, gentlemen? Do you not relax your teetotal principles a little on an occasion like this?”

“We never relax our total abstinence principles,” returned Jackman, with a smile, as he wrung some of the water out of his garments. “I think I may speak for my companions as well as myself. Friendship has been a sufficient stimulant while we were engaged in the work, and gratitude for success will suffice now that the work is done.”

“Run, Donald, boy, an’ tell them to get some hot coffee ready at once! It’s all very well, gentlemen,” said the laird, turning again to his friends, “to talk of subsisting on friendship and gratitude; but although very good in their way, they won’t do for present necessities. At least it would ill become me to express my gratitude to such good friends without offering something more. For myself,” he added, filling and tossing off a glass of whisky, “I’m an old man, and not used to this kind of work, so I’ll be the better of a dram. Besides, the Gordons—my branch of them, at least—have always taken kindly to mountain dew, in moderation, of course, in strict moderation!”

There was a quiet laugh at this among some of the men who stood near, for it was well-known that not a few of the laird’s ancestors had taken kindly to mountain dew without the hampering influence of moderation, though the good man himself had never been known to “exceed”—in the Celtic acceptation of that term.

“Are ye laughing, you rascals?” he cried, turning to the group with a beaming, though blackened countenance. “Come here an’ have your share—as a penalty!”

Nothing loath, the men came forward, and with a quiet word of thanks each poured the undiluted fiery liquid down his throat, with what the boy Donald styled a “pech” of satisfaction.

Ivor Donaldson chanced to be one of the group, but he did not come forward with the rest.

“Come, Ivor, man, and have a dram,” said the laird, pouring out a glass.

But the keeper did not move. He stood with his arms crossed firmly on his broad chest, and a stern dogged expression on his handsome face.

“Ivor, hi!” exclaimed the old gentleman, in a louder voice, supposing that the man had not heard. “After work like this a dram will do you good.”

“Oo, ay!” remarked one of the shepherds, who had probably began to feel the “good” by that time; “a tram of whusky iss a fery coot thing at all times—specially when it is coot whusky!”

At this profound witticism there was a general laugh among the men, in the midst of which the laird repeated his invitation to Ivor, saying that he seemed knocked up after his exertions (which was partially true), and adding that surely he was man enough to take a little for his good at such a time, without giving way to it.

The laird did not mean this as a taunt, but it was taken as such by the keeper, who came forward quickly, seized the glass, and drained it. Having done so he stood for a moment like one awaking from a dream. Then, without a word of thanks, he dropped the glass, sprang into the shrubbery, and disappeared.

The laird was surprised, and his conscience smote him, but he turned the incident off with a laugh.

“Now, lads,” he said, “go to work again. It will take all your energies to keep the fire down, if it comes on to blow; and your comrades must be tired by this time.”

Fortunately it did not come on to blow. The night was profoundly calm, so that a steady though small supply of water sufficed to quench incipient flames.

Meanwhile Giles Jackman had left the group on the lawn almost at the same moment with the gamekeeper; for, having been accustomed to deal with men in similar circumstances, he had a suspicion of what might follow. The poor man, having broken the resolve so recently and so seriously formed, had probably, he thought, become desperate.

Ivor was too active for him, however. He disappeared before Jackman had followed more than a few yards. After a few moments of uncertainty, the latter made straight for old Molly Donaldson’s cottage, thinking it possible that her unhappy son might go there. On the way he had to pass the keeper’s own cottage, and was surprised to see a light in it and the door wide open. As he approached, the sound of the keeper’s voice was heard speaking violently, mingled with blows, as if delivered with some heavy instrument against timber. A loud crash of breaking wood met Jackman’s ear as he sprang in. Ivor was in the act of rending the remains of a door from a corner cupboard, while an axe, which he had just dropped, lay at his feet on the earthen floor. A black quart bottle, visible through the opening which had been made, showed the reason of his assault on the cupboard. If there had been any uncertainty on the point, it would have been dispelled by the wild laugh or yell of fierce exultation with which he seized the bottle, drew the cork, and raised it to his dry lips.

Before it reached them, however, Jackman’s strong hand seized the keeper’s arm. A gasp from the roused giant, and the deadly pallor of his countenance, as he glanced round, showed that superstition had suddenly seized on his troubled soul; but no sooner did he see who it was that had checked him, than the hot blood rebounded to his face, and a fierce glare shot from his eyes.

“Thank God!—not too late!” exclaimed Jackman, fervently.

The thanksgiving was addressed to God, of course without reference to its influence on Ivor; but no words, apparently, could have been used with better effect upon the keeper’s spirit. His eyes lost their ferocity, and he stood irresolute.

“Break it, like a good fellow,” said Jackman, in a soft, kindly voice, as he pointed to the bottle.

“I broke one before, sir,” said Ivor, in a despairing tone; “and you see how useless that was.”

“Give it to me, then.”

As he spoke, he took the bottle from the man’s grasp, and cast it through the open doorway, where it was shivered to atoms on the stones outside.

Striding towards a pitcher of water which stood in a corner of the room, the keeper seized it, put it to his lips, and almost drained it.

“There!” he exclaimed; “that will drown the devil for a time!”

“No, Ivor, it won’t; but it will help to drown it,” said Jackman, in the same kindly, almost cheerful, voice. “Neither cold water nor hottest fire can slay the evils that are around and within us. There is only one Saviour from sin—Jesus, ‘who died for the sins of the whole world.’ He makes use of means, however, and these means help towards the great end. But it was not the Saviour who told you to lock that bottle in that cupboard—was it?”

An expression of perplexity came over the keeper’s face.

“You are right, sir; it was not. But, to my thinkin’ it was not the devil either!”

“Very likely not. I think sometimes we are inclined to put many things on the devil’s shoulders which ought to rest on our own. You know what the Bible says about the deceitfulness of our hearts.”

“I do, sir, an’ yet I don’t quite see that it was that either. I did not put that bottle there to have it handy when I wanted it. I put it there when I made up my mind to fight this battle in Christ’s name, so as I might see if He gave me strength to resist the temptation, when it was always before me.”

“Just so, Ivor, my friend. That ‘if’ shows that you doubted Him! Moreover, He has put into our mouths that prayer, ‘lead us not into temptation,’ and you proposed to keep temptation always before your eyes.”

“No, sir, no, not quite so bad as that,” cried the keeper, growing excited. “I shut the door an’ locked the accursed thing out of my sight, and when I found I could not resist the temptation, I took the key out and flung it into the sea.”

“Would it not have been better to have flung the evil thing itself into the sea? You soon found another key!” said his friend, pointing to the axe.

“You say truth, sir; but oh, you hev no notion o’ the fight I hev had wi’ that drink. The days an’ nights of torment! The horrors! Ay, if men could only taste the horrors before they tasted the drink, I do believe there would be no drunkards at all! I hev lain on that bed, sir,” he pointed to it as he spoke, while large drops stood on his pale brow at the very recollection, “and I hev seen devils and toads and serpents crawlin’ round me and over me—great spiders, and hairy shapeless things, wi’ slimy legs goin’ over my face, and into my mouth, though I gnashed my teeth together—and glaring into my tight shut eyes, an’ strangling me. Oh! sir, I know not what hell may be, but I think that it begins on earth wi’ some men!”

“From all this Jesus came to save us, Ivor,” said Jackman, endeavouring to turn the poor man’s mind from the terrible thoughts that seemed about to overwhelm him; “but God will have us to consent to be saved in His own way. When you put the temptation in the cupboard, you disobeyed Him, and therefore were trying to be saved in your own way. Disobedience and salvation cannot go together, because salvation means deliverance from disobedience. You and I will pray, Ivor, that God would give us his holy Spirit, and then we shall fight our battles in future with more success.”

Thereupon, standing as they were, but with bowed spirits and heads, they laid the matter in the hands of God in a brief but earnest prayer.

While these two were thus engaged, the scene at the house had entered upon another phase. The weather, which all that day had been extremely changeable, suddenly assumed its gloomiest aspect, and rain began to fall heavily. Gradually the fall increased in volume, and at last descended in an absolute deluge, rendering the use of water-buckets quite unnecessary, and accomplishing in a very few minutes what all the men at the place could not have done in as many hours. But that which prevented effectually the extension of the fire, caused, almost