Three days afterwards the great tragedy happened, and no one needed again to trouble himself about Posty. It was summer time, with thunder in the air, and heavy black clouds above Glen Urtach. June was the month in which Mrs. Macfadyen scoured her blankets, and as her burn was nearly dry, she transferred her apparatus to the bank of the Tochty, where a pool below the mill gave her a sure supply of water. Elspeth lit a fire beneath the birches on the bank, and boiled the water. She plunged the blankets into a huge tub, and kilting up her coats danced therein powerfully, with many a direction to Elsie, her seven-year-old, to “see ye dinna fa' in, or ye 'll be carried intae the Kelpie's Hole ablow, an' it 'll no be yir mither can bring you oot.”
The sun was still shining brightly on the Glen, when the distant storm burst on Ben Hornish, whose steep sides drain into the Urtach, that ends in the Tochty. Down the Tochty came the first wave, three feet high, bringing on its foaming yeasty waters branches of trees, two young lambs, a stool from some cottage door, a shepherd's plaid, and all kinds of drift from eddies that had been swept clean. Elspeth heard the roar, and lifted her eyes to see Elsie, who had been playing too near the edge, swept away into the pool beneath, that in less than a minute was a seething cauldron of water that whirled round and round against the rocks before it rushed down the bed of the river.
“Ma bairn! ma bairn! God hae mercy upon her!” and Elspeth's cry ran through the bonnie birk wood and rose through the smiling sky to a God that seemed to give no heed.
“Whar is she?” was all Posty asked, tearing off his coat and waistcoat, for he had heard the cry as he was going to the mill, and took the lade at a leap to lose no time.
“Yonder, Posty, but ye...”
He was already in the depths, while the mother hung over the edge of the merciless flood. It seemed an hour—it was not actually a minute—before he appeared, with the blood pouring from a gash on his forehead, and hung for a few seconds on a rock for air.
“Come oot, Posty, ye hae a wife and bairns, an' ye 'll be drooned for Elspeth was a brave-hearted, unselfish woman.
“A'll hae Elsie first,” and down he went again, where the torrent raged against the rocks.
This time he came up at once, with Elsie, a poor little bundle, in his arms.
“Tak' her quick,” he gasped, clinging with one hand to a jagged point.