There was a long pause here, and the clock struck with a long preparatory g-r-r-r, as if it were clearing its throat in order to apologise for the coming interruption.
"And that," said Robert Fraser, "was the reason why Jessie Loudon would not come up to the Dullarg this nicht – no, not even for her bairns' sake!"
THE STICKIT MINISTER WINS THROUGH
Yet Jessie Loudon did come to the Dullarg that night – and that for her children's sake.
Strangely enough, in writing of an evening so fruitful in incident, I cannot for the life of me remember what happened during the next two hours. The lads and lasses came in for the "Taking of the Book." So much I do recall. But that was an exercise never omitted on any pretext in the house of the ex-divinity student. I remember this also, because after the brief prelude of the psalm-singing (it was the 103rd), the Stickit Minister pushed the Bible across to me, open at the thirty-eighth chapter of Job. The envelope was still there. Though it was turned sideways I could see the faintly written address:
MR. ROBERT FRASER,
Student in Divinity,
50, St. Leonard's Street,
Edinburgh.
Even as I looked I seemed to hear again the woman's voice in the dark loaning – "I canna gang in there!" And in a lightning flash of illumination it came to me what the answer to that letter had meant to Jessie Loudon, and the knowledge somehow made me older and sadder.
Then with a shaking voice I read the mighty words before me: "When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy"… But when I came to the verse which says: "Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? Or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?" I saw the Stickit Minister nod his head three times very slightly, and a strange subtle smile came over his face as though he could have answered: "Yea, Lord, verily I have seen them – they have been opened to me!"
And as the lads and lasses filed out in a kind of wondering silence after Robert Fraser had prayed – not kneeling down, but sitting erect in his chair and looking out before him with wide-open eyes – we in the little sitting-room became conscious of a low knocking, persistent and remote, somewhere about the house of Dullarg. We could hear Bell Gregory open and then immediately close the kitchen door, having evidently found no one there. The knocking still continued.
"I believe it is somebody at the front door," I said, turning in that direction.
And then the Stickit Minister cried out in a curious excited voice: "Open to them – open, Alec! Quick, man!"
And his voice went through me with a kind of thrill, for I knew not who it was he expected to enter, whether sheriff's officer or angry creditor – or as it might be the Angel of the Presence Himself come to summon his soul to follow.
Nevertheless, with quaking heart enough, and resolving in future to be a more religious man, I made bold to undo the door.
The woman I had seen in the lane stood before me, as it were, projected out of the dense darkness behind, her shawl fallen back from her face, and her features all pale and changeful in the flicker of the candle I had snatched up to take with me into the little hall. For the front door was only used on state occasions, as when the parish minister came to call, and at funerals.
"He has not come – and the bairns are dying! So I had to come back!" she cried, more hoarsely and breathlessly than I had ever heard woman speak. But her eyes fairly blazed and her lips were parted wide for my answer.
"Dr. Fraser left here more than an hour ago," I stammered. "Has he not been to see the children?"
"No – no, I tell you, no. And they are choking – dying – it is the trouble in the throat. They will die if he does not come – "
I heard a noise behind me, and the next moment I found myself put aside like a child, and Robert Fraser stood face to face with her that had been Jessie Loudon.
"Come in," he said. And when she drew back from him with a kind of shudder, and felt uncertainly for her shawl, he stepped aside and motioned her to enter with a certain large and commanding gesture I had never seen him use before. And as if accustomed to obey, the woman came slowly within the lighted room. Even then, however, she would not sit down, but stood facing us both, a girl prematurely old, her lips nearly as pale as her worn cheeks, her blown hair disordered and wispy about her forehead, and only the dark and tragic flashing of her splendid eyes telling of a bygone beauty.
The Stickit Minister stood up also, and as he leaned his hand upon the table, I noticed that he gently shut the Bible which I had left open, that the woman's eye might not fall upon the faded envelope which marked the thirty-eighth of Job.
"Do I understand you to say," he began, in a voice clear, resonant, and full, not at all the voice of a stricken man, "that my brother has not yet visited your children?"
"He had not come when I ran out – they are much worse – dying, I think!" she answered, also in another voice and another mode of speech – yet a little stiffly, as if the more correct method had grown unfamiliar by disuse.
For almost the only time in his life I saw a look, stern and hard, come over the countenance of the Stickit Minister.
"Go home, Jessie," he said; "I will see that he is there as fast as horses can bring him!"
She hesitated a moment.
"Is he not here?" she faltered. "Oh, tell me if he is – I meant to fetch him back. I dare not go back without him!"
The Stickit Minister went to the door with firm step, the woman following without question or argument.
"Fear not, but go, Jessie," he said; "my brother is not here, but he will be at the bairns' bedside almost as soon as you. I promise you."
"Thank you, Robin," she stammered, adjusting the shawl over her head and instantly disappearing into the darkness. The old sweethearting name had risen unconsciously to her lips in the hour of her utmost need. I think neither of them noticed it.
"And now help me on with my coat," said Robert Fraser, turning to me. "I am going over to the village."
"You must not," I cried, taking him by the arm; "let me go – let me put in the pony; I will be there in ten minutes!"
"I have no pony now," he said gently and a little sadly, "I have no need of one. And besides, the quickest way is across the fields."
It was true. The nearest way to the village, by a great deal, was by a narrow foot-track that wound across the meadows. But, fearing for his life, I still tried to prevent him.
"It will be your death!" I said, endeavouring to keep him back. "Let me go alone!"
"If Henry is where I fear he is," he answered, calmly, "he would not stir for you. But he will for me. And besides, I have passed my word to – to Jessie!"
The details of that terrible night journey I will not enter upon. It is sufficient to say that I bade him lean on me, and go slowly, but do what I would I could not keep him back. Indeed, he went faster than I could accompany him – for, in order to support him a little, I had to walk unevenly along the ragged edges of the little field-path. All was dark gray above, beneath, and to the right of us. Only on the left hand a rough whinstone dyke stood up solidly black against the monotone of the sky. The wind came in cold swirls, with now and then a fleck of snow that stung the face like hail. I had insisted on the Stickit Minister taking his plaid about him in addition to his overcoat, and the ends of it flicking into my eyes increased