Part 28 (2/2)

So instead of pulling they hung back.

I am bound to say, however, that the tall horse did his very best.

First he gave one wild pull, then a second, then a third and a wilder one, and at that moment everything gave way, and the horse coolly walked off with the trace chains.

It was very provoking, all hopes of enjoyment fled. Hardly could the strawberries and cream that Mrs R brought console us. Here we were stuck in a meadow on the glorious twelfth, of all days, in a slough of despair, in a deluge of rain, and with our harness smashed.

No use lamenting, however. I sent my servant off to Glasgow to get repairs done at once, and obtain hydraulic a.s.sistance for the semi-wrecked Wanderer.

About noon there came round a kindly farmer Jackson.

”Men can do it,” he said, after eyeing us for a bit. ”There's nothing like men.”

I had sent the ladies into the farmhouse for warmth, and was in the saloon by myself, when suddenly the caravan gave herself a shake and began to move forward.

In some surprise I opened the door and looked out. Why, surely all the manhood of Chryston was around us, cl.u.s.tering round the wheels, lining the sides, pus.h.i.+ng behind and pulling the pole. With a hip! ho! and away we go!

”Hurrah, lads, hurrah!”

”Bravo, boys, bravo!”

In less time than it takes me to tell it, the great caravan was hoisted through that meadow and run high and dry into the farmer's courtyard.

To offer these men money would have been to insult them--they were Scotch. Nor can a kindness like this be measured by coin. I offered them liquid refreshment, however, but out of all who helped me I do not think that half-a-dozen partook.

All honour to the manly feelings of the good folks of Chryston.

But our day's enjoyment was marred and we were left lamenting.

_August 13th_. We are off.

We are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur. And happy we feel, on this bright, bracing morning, to be once more on the road again with our backs to old England, our faces to the north.

Click, click--click, click! Why, there positively does seem music in the very horses' feet. They seem happy as well as ourselves. Happy and fresh for, says my gentle Jehu, ”They are pulling, sir, fit to drag the very arms out of ye.”

”Never mind, John,” I reply, ”the Highland hills are ahead of us, and the heather hills, my Jehu. Knowest thou this song, John?”

”'O! glorious is the sea, wi' its heaving tide, And bonnie are the plains in their simmer pride; But the sea wi' its tide, and the plains wi' their rills, Are no half so dear as my ain heather hills.

I may heedless look on the silvery sea, I may tentless muse on the flowery lee, But my heart wi' a nameless rapture thrills When I gaze on the cliffs o' my ain heather hills.

Then hurrah, hurrah, for the heather hills, Where the bonnie thistle waves to the sweet bluebells, And the wild mountain floods heave their crests to the clouds, Then foam down the steeps o' my ain heather hills.'”

No wonder the rattling chorus brought half-dressed innocent cottage children to their doors to wave naked arms and shout as we pa.s.sed, or that their mothers smiled to us, and fathers doffed their bonnets, and wished us ”good speed.”

But summer has gone from nature if not from our hearts. All in a week the change has come, and many-tinted autumn was ushered in with wild and stormy winds, with rain and floods and rattling thunder.

Not as a lamb has autumn entered, but as a lion roaring; as a king or a hero in a pantomime, with blue and red fire and grand effects of all kinds.

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