There was one particular poem that struck Sandie as very beautiful and true to nature. In order to enjoy it more thoroughly, he had seated himself on a bank under the shade of a silver birch. He was now on the main road, and not a very long way from the mill. While still reading, there had fallen upon his ears the rapid rattling of a swiftly advancing trap, and the sound of a horse’s hoofs coming onwards at full gallop. Sandie took in the situation at a glance. He knew the extreme danger of the hill and the precipice, and resolved to act on the spur of the moment, even although it was at the risk of his own life.
How bravely and how well he acted we already know, and we also know how successful he was, though, alas! so sadly stunned and wounded.
Luckily, while Larnie was still plunging on the ground, the minister sitting on his head, and poor Sandie lying so stark and still, two countrymen came up. The trap and pony, from whom now all spunk had clean gone, were righted, and Larnie’s head turned homewards.
Sandie was got on board and made as easy as possible, and a doctor being sent for, Larnie was driven slowly homewards.
The ploughman-student never spoke, but he was breathing.
Mackenzie had bound up his wounded head with his own and Maggie May’s handkerchiefs, and the bleeding was in a measure staunched,
. . . . . .
“Mother, mother, where am I?”
It was the first words Sandie had spoken for a long weary week. It was the first time he had opened his eyes.
“Where am I?”