These requisites were soon brought.
'Lower away—take courage—we'll soon have you out,' exclaimed his father. 'Tie the ropes tightly round you.'
Allan, in a faint voice, made them aware that this was impossible, as his left arm was broken, tidings which added commiseration and grief to the blank amazement of Olive, Eveline, and his mother.
'Who will go down?' asked Lord Aberfeldie, looking around him.
'I—and I—and I!'
Every man in the house was ready to descend, but Angus Glas, the active young deerstalker, slid down the rope with a lanthorn in his hand, followed by the prayer of Olive, who would not be kept back, her eyes wild, her now pale lips apart, her sweet face blanched, and a strange stiffness in all her usually lithe limbs.
Pale as death, his face plastered with dried blood—blood that had flowed from a contusion in his head—livid and helpless, his left arm hanging limp as an empty sleeve by his side, his eyes half closed, as if unable to endure the glare of the day after being so long in the dark, Allan was brought up, and, on beholding him, the exclamations of commiseration and astonishment redoubled; and yet it could be seen that he was almost past questioning, and mounted grooms were instantly despatched to summon all the medical aid of the district.
Had the butler's nocturnal visit to his binns been twenty-four hours later, Allan Graham must have perished, and his fate might never have been known in his own generation perhaps.
The whole catastrophe seemed so strange, unintelligible, unnatural, and harrowing that the nerves of Lady Aberfeldie were terribly shaken by it; so were those of her daughter and Olive, and each needed all the comfort and support the other could give.
Some wine, which he drank thirstily, first revived the patient after he was conveyed to his room.