"Pray, Alec," shouted Thomas.
"I haena time. Pray yersel'," shouted Alec in reply, and gave a stroke that shot him far towards the current. Before he reached it, he shifted his seat, and sat facing the bows. There was little need for pulling, nor was there much fear of being overtaken by any floating mass, while there was great necessity for looking out ahead. The moment Thomas saw the boat laid hold of by the current, he turned his back to the Glamour, fell upon his knees in the grass, and cried in an agony:
"Lord, let not the curse o' the widow and the childless be upo' me,
Thomas Crann."
Thereafter he was silent.
Johnstone and the farm-lad ran down the river-side. Truffey had started for the bridge again, having tied up his crutch with a string. Thomas remained kneeling, with his arms stretched out as stiff as the poles of a scaffold, and the joints of his clasped fingers buried in the roots of the grass. The stone piers of the wooden bridge fell into the water with a rush, but he never heard it. The bridge floated past him bodily, but his back was towards it. Like a wretch in sanctuary, he dared not leave "the footstool of grace," or expose himself to the inroads of the visible world around him, by opening his eyes.
Alec did not find it so hard as he had expected to keep his boat from capsizing. But the rapidity with which the banks swept past him was frightful. The cottage lay on the other side of the Glamour, lower down, and all that he had to do for a while, was to keep the bows of his boat down the stream. When he approached the cottage, he drew a little out of the centre of the current, which, confined within rising ground, was here fiercer than anywhere above. But out of the current he could not go; for the cottage lay between the channel of the river and the mill-race. Except for its relation, however, to the bridge behind it, which he saw crowded with anxious spectators, he would not have known where it ought to be—so much was the aspect of everything altered. He could see that the water was more than half way up the door, right at which he had resolved to send his boat. He was doubtful whether the doorway was wide enough to let it through, but he saw no other way of doing. He hoped his momentum would be sufficient to force the door open, or, better still, to carry away the posts, and give him more room. If he failed no doubt the boat would be in danger, but he would not make any further resolutions, till action, becoming absolute, should reveal the nature of its own necessity. As he drew near his mark, therefore, he resumed the seat of a rower, kept taking good aim at the door, gave a few vigorous pulls, and unshipping his oars, bent his head forward from the shock. Bang went the Bonnie Annie; away went door and posts; and the lintel came down on Alec's shoulders.
But I will now tell how the night had passed with Tibbie and Annie.
CHAPTER LXIV.
Tibbie's moaning grew gentler and less frequent, and both fell into a troubled slumber. From this Annie awoke at the sound of Tibbie's voice. She was talking in her dream.
"Dinna wauk him," she said; "dinna wauk him; he's fell (Germ. viel) tired and sleepy. Lat the win' blaw, lads. Do ye think He canna see whan his een are steekit. Gin the watter meddle wi' you, He'll sune lat it ken it's i' the wrang. Ye'll see 't cowerin' at 's feet like a colley-dog. I'll jist dight the weet aff o' my Lord's face.—Weel, wauk him gin ye will. I wad raither gang to the boddom mysel'."