Part 52 (1/2)

Maclachlan's body lay on the floor of the hut. The eyes were wide open, but on his fine composed face there was no trace of the agony and pa.s.sion in which he had gone before his G.o.d. It was as if, in that last terrible second, some vision of beauty had swept his soul clean. I knelt down and reverently closed the staring eyes.

”Donald,” said I, when I arose, ”I would to G.o.d that you had killed me instead.”

”It's weird,” said he solemnly, ”and weird mun hae way.”

I looked at him closely. That he was struck to the heart was plain to see, but, the first uprush of grief over, he had become sober, steadfast, almost business-like, as if he had something great in hand to do, and would be doing it.

He took the candle, now only the length of my ring-finger, and stuck it on the narrow window-ledge. Again he spoke to the men in Gaelic, and they moved out of the hut. Turning to me, he said, ”Com in when ta licht gaes oot!”

He had the right to be alone with his dead. I wrung his hand and left him. When I looked back from the doorway, he was filling his bag with wind, but stopped to say, ”Weird mun hae way.” And as he said it he smiled.

I crossed the road to the edge of the dip. More wood had been piled on the fire, which now blazed cheerfully. Most of the men lay asleep in their plaids, but a few stood guard over the horses, and the men who had carried the body into the hut were squatting on the gra.s.s by the roadside. I took my stand near them, and looked and listened.

The terrible similarity of Donald's case to mine appalled me. Each of us, in saving another, had struck down in the darkness a man near and dear to him. Two good men and true had gone when the l.u.s.t of life is sweetest and the will to live strongest. I, who three weeks ago had never seen human life taken, had taken it, and seen it taken, as if men were of no more account than cattle. Between the house-place of the Hanyards and the top of Shap, Death had become my familiar.

For Maclachlan I had nothing but pity. He had thought that I stood between him and Margaret. Clearly he had learned of her coming back to me, and the thought had maddened him. He had disguised himself as an Englishman and come after me, and this was the end of it.

These were my thoughts as I watched the flickering flame dropping nearer and nearer to the window-ledge, and listened to the pipes. Donald was inspired. He and the pipes were one. In his hands they became a living thing. What he felt, they felt. They wept as he wept, they gloried as he gloried, they triumphed as he triumphed.

He began with a murmur of grief that grew into a wail, became a pa.s.sionate tempest, and died into a prolonged sob. Then he changed his note as memory wandered backward. The music became tenderly reminiscent, subduedly cheerful. They were again boys together at their play, youthful hunters swinging over the mountains after the red deer; young men with the maidens; warriors on their first foray. The threads of life ran in and out through the pattern of sounds he was weaving, and the older days of fighting and victories followed as I listened. There was hurrying, marching, charging; the groan of defeat; the mad slogan of final victory.

”He's fechtin' the Macleans noo,” cried out one of the men, who had some English, and the others chattered vigorously for a minute in their own Gaelic.

The candle was now guttering on the window-ledge. These glories over, Donald came hard up against the end of them all--the Chief dead at his feet, slain by his own hand. For a time he faltered, playing only in little, melancholy s.n.a.t.c.hes. Then he got surer, and the music began to come in blasts. He was seeing his way, learning what it all meant to him and the Maclachlans. Weird mun hae way. Destiny must work itself out. We children of a day are helpless before it.

The flame fell to a golden bead as the music grew in strength and purpose. There was a burst of light, a peal of triumph, and the music and the flame went out together.

Across the road I raced, threw open the door, and rushed in. Everything was dark and still.

”Donald!” I called pa.s.sionately.

There was no reply. I crept on tip-toe to the fire and kicked the embers into a flame.

Donald was lying dead across the dead body of his Chief, his dirk buried to the hilt in his own heart.

At daybreak we buried them side by side in one grave on the top of Shap, their feet pointing northward to their own mountains. When the last clod had been replaced, and a great boulder reverently carried up to mark the spot, I turned, covered my head, and prepared to go, but the men stood on.

I looked back. They were loath to go. Something that should be done, had been left undone.

I divined what they had in mind, turned back, bared my head as they uncovered, and repeated the Lord's Prayer aloud.

I am thankful to this day to those men whom fools and bigots call savages. They taught me to pray again.

”Man Captain,” said the one who had English, as we walked away in a body, ”ye wad mak' a gran' meenister.”

I could not withhold a smile, but before I could reply there was a scattered rattle of shots from the dip. Looking around, I saw a body of enemy horse on the lower hill across the valley to my left.

We were overtaken. We should have to fight.

CHAPTER XXIV