“It's a' richt,” came back the brave, honest voice. “We'll win through”; and now Jock turned the leader's head up-stream, and the cart began to move round on the nearer turn of the horseshoe. Yes, they would win through, for surely the worst was past, and I jumped upon the bank for very joy, but ever watched the slightest movement, while every inch seemed a mile and every moment an hour.
Alas! there was no end to the deceit and wickedness of that river; for, owing to some slight bend at a little distance higher up on the opposite bank, the current ran with its main strength, not in the middle of the channel, but toward the place where I was standing, and into a black deep just at my feet. It beat upon the cart, and as I looked I could see the cart begin to yield, and to be carried sidewise off the track of the ford. I shouted—I know not what now; I think the plowman's name—but Jock already had felt himself going with the cart as it turned round. He called upon his horses: “Pull up, Star! Steady, lass!”—this to the mare in his hand.
The intelligent creatures answered to his voice and made a valiant effort, Star plunging forward, and the mare—a wise old beast—straining herself to recover the cart. For an instant the cart's further wheel was pulled on to the track, and I saw the cart once more level in the water; and again I shouted, calling both man and horses by their names. Then the river, afraid that she was to be spoiled of her prey, put out all her strength. The cart yields and sinks on the lower side and begins to turn over. It is off the ford now, and will pull the horses after it, and all that can be done is for Jock to let go the horses, who are now struggling in desperation, and to save his own life. He could swim, and was a powerful man, forty inches and more round the chest, and a fellow, if you please, to toss the hammer on a summer evening.
“For God's sake, let go the horses, Jock, and make for the bank!” And I went to the edge where he was likely to come, and lying down upon my chest, I twisted one arm round a sturdy bush, and was ready with the other hand to catch Jock if he should be fighting his way through the current and come within reach of shore.
By this time the horse in the shaft was fighting on the edge of the abyss, and only the top of one side-board of the cart could be seen, and the upper shaft, which was standing straight out of the water. Star was screaming with terror—and a horse's scream is a fearful sound—for if only he could be free of the two chains that fastened him to the shaft, he, a powerful young horse, would soon reach safety where the road came out from the ford through the banks, up the slope, to dry land. And Jock, forgetful of himself, was determined to give Star his chance for life—Star, whom he had broken in as a colt, and taught to take an oatmeal cake out of his pocket, of whom he boasted in the markets, and for whom he had bought little brass ornaments to wear on his forehead and chest. The mare was beyond redemption, and must perish with the cart; she was old, and had done her work. But Star must not be drowned. Already he has loosened the near chain and on one side Star is free, and now, in the midst of that wild hurly-burly of plunging horses, Jock, holding on to the projecting shaft with one hand, is reaching with the other underneath the neck of the mare, to free the other chain from the farther shaft.
He succeeded, as I took it, at the very last moment; for Star, now on the brink, made a desperate effort, and, shaking himself free of all entanglement, swam into the quieter water, just above where I had hoped to meet his driver.
In another minute Star was standing on the road, shaking in every limb, and hanging his head between his fore legs, with all the strength and bravery taken out of him.
Before he reached the bank, the cart and the mare, and poor Jock with them, had been swept over the edge of the unseen ford into the deep water below. Had Jock been free of the cart and horse he might have made some fight for his life, even in that caldron; but, from the marks upon his body, we judged that he had been struck, just when he loosed the chain, by the iron hoofs of the mare in her agony, and had been rendered unconscious.
Within a second, horse and cart and man had disappeared, and the cruel river had triumphed and was satisfied.
Three days afterward we rescued his body from her grasp; and when we carried it up to the bothy where he and his mates had lived together, the roughest of them felt that this man had been a hero.