“Sirs,” said the old man coming forward, fancying as it seemed that they appealed to him, “let us go to the kirkyard. You can pit up shelters there—no man can cast ye out of the place where your forebears are sleeping. If they take all the land beside, ye have yet a right to that.”
The listeners shrank and trembled—the old man with his palsied head, and withered face, and wandering light blue eyes, proposing to them so ghastly a refuge. The Macalpines were not driven so utterly to extremity. It remained for these more enlightened days to send Highland cottars, in dire need, to seek a miserable shelter above the dust of their fathers.
The consultation was stayed—no one dared answer the old man—when suddenly Giles Sympelton was seen running in haste up the glen. He had brought the carriage as high as it could come, and now flew forward himself to get the invalid transferred to it. Big Duncan lifted the sick lad in his arms, and carried him away, while Giles lingered to deliver Mrs. Catherine’s orders.
“Let me take the old people with me,” he said, eagerly, to Mr. Lumsden. “The carriage is large—the old lady said I was to bring as many as could come. It is Mrs. Catherine Douglas, of the Tower—do not let us lose time, Sir: get the oldest people down to the carriage.”
The Macalpines did not cheer—they were too grave for that; but the lad’s hand was grasped in various honest rough ones, and “blessings on him!” were murmured from many tongues. Three of the most feeble could be accommodated in the carriage—at least, could be crowded beneath its roof, while the sick youth was placed on the cushions, and his mother sat at his feet.
“Is there anything more I can do?” said Giles, looking in grief and pity upon the agonized face of the young mother, sitting within the dismantled cottage waiting while her neighbors prepared another hot-bath for her child.
“Nothing,” said Mr. Lumsden. “I thank you heartily, young gentleman, for what you have already done. You may have saved that poor lad’s life by your promptitude. Tell Mrs. Catherine that every arrangement that can possibly be made for the comfort of the Macalpines, I will attend to. Good night—I thank you most sincerely. You will never repent this day’s work, I am sure.”
Giles lingered still.
“How is the child? will it die?” he asked anxiously of one of the women.
“Bless the innocent, the water’s hot this time,” was the answer; “it’s no moaning sae muckle. Eh, the Lord forbid it should die!”