Flower o' the Heather: A Story of the Killing Times

by Robert William MacKenna

It was too dark to see the injured part, but from the increasing pressure on the edge of my shoe I knew my foot was swelling. Soon the pain of the pressure became intolerable, and with an effort I leaned over and undid the lace. This gave me some relief, but when I tried to remove the shoe the pain compelled me to desist. But, taking courage, I made trial once more and succeeded at last in getting it off. Then I removed my sock. Very gently I passed a hand over the injured part. I could feel that it was greatly swollen. My foot lay at an angle which led me to think that one or other of the bones of my leg had been broken. My heel dropped backwards, and the inner edge of my foot was twisted outward. If I kept the limb at rest the pain was tolerable; if I moved it the agony was more than I could support. The falling rain upon it was like a cooling balm, and gave me relief, but as I sat there--sodden, helpless--alone amid the desolation of that vast moorland, I was overwhelmed by a sense of my misfortune. Twice already had I escaped from the troopers' hands, and now, unless succour, which seemed outside the range of hope, should come to me, I was doomed to a lingering death.

I prayed for the dawn to break, and then I realised that dawn could bring me no hope, and I ceased to care whether it were light or dark. But the dawn came nevertheless, and with it a wind that swept the rain-clouds out of the sky. I tore up some tufts of heather and made a soft couch upon which to rest my injured limb; then, wet though I was and cold, I lay down and ere long had fallen asleep. I know not how long I slept, but when I woke my head was on fire and I was aching in every limb. My tongue was parched like a piece of leather and I was tortured by a burning thirst, so that I was fain to pluck the grass and heather that lay within my reach and suck from them the scanty drops of moisture that still clung to them. To add to my distress, I was seized with a violent shivering which shook my whole body and caused my injured limb to send stabbing darts of pain all through my being. I laid a hand upon my forehead and found that it was burning hot, and I knew that I was in the grip of some deadly fever. I called for help in my extremity, but my voice was weak as a child's and the only reply that came to me was the cry of a startled whaup. Well, what did it matter if I had to die? Surely it were better to be freed by a speedy death, than to lie there a helpless log until I should die of starvation.

I closed my eyes again and drifted into a dreamy state of partial comfort, from which I was awakened by a violent pain in my right side. My breathing had become difficult. Every movement of my chest was torment, and, to add to my miseries, I began to cough. I opened my eyes and looked into the depths of the sky as though to summon help out of the infinite; but all I could see was a pair of carrion crows that were circling above me, waiting, I had little doubt, for the moment when the breath should leave my body and their foul feasting could begin.

So this was to be the end of it--a week or two, and all that would be left would be a heap of bones, bleaching in the wind and rain of that vast moor.

I closed my eyes again, and drifted once more into a pleasant state of drowsiness, and suddenly I was my own man again, strong and sound in limb as I had ever been: free from pain, and without a care in the world. I was walking gaily along a road that stretched before me into infinite distance. Birds were singing around me and in the sweet air of the morning there was the scent of hedgerow flowers. Far off, near the summit of the hill where the road seemed to end, a woman was waiting for me. She was beckoning to me to make haste, and though I hurried fleet-foot towards her, she remained as far away as ever. The woman was Mary. Try as I might, I could not reach her. Then a miracle happened: she came towards me. A radiant welcome shone in her face: her arms were outstretched I called to her and held out eager hands towards her: but she drifted past me, and was gone, and, heavy at heart, I fell back, a sodden, tortured thing, on the cold wet moors. My eyes opened. The carrion crows still circled above me: but not for long.

Once more I was on a journey, moving, a formless mass, beneath a leaden sky with no moon or sun or stars to guide me; myself a part of the darkness that surrounded me. In this strange world in which I found myself there were other formless shapes like my own, each drifting noiselessly and without contact through infinite leagues of space. The mass that was me was not me. It was separate from me, yet indissolubly united to me. I was perplexed. Was I the mass or was the mass some other being? I had no being of my own apart from the mass, and yet the mass was not me. Where was I?--What was I?--Who was I? I had no pain, no hands or feet, no torturing thirst, no fever-racked body. Was I disembodied? If so, what was I now? In agony of mind, I, who had no mind, struggled to puzzle the problem out; and then, suddenly, the grey mass that had perplexed me rolled from my sight, and I found myself once more lying upon the moor in pain, alone. The sky above me was sprinkled with stars; night had come again: the day had brought me no succour.

If I lay here any longer, surely the troopers would find me. I must up and on. It seemed to me that a great hand came out of the sky and blotted out my pain as someone might blot out an error upon a child's slate. I was strong again. I sprang to my feet. My limb was sound once more. I ran across the moor like a hind let loose and in the darkness I stepped over a precipice and fell unendingly down. The minutes passed, and I saw them gather themselves into little heaps of hours that stood like cairns of stone on the top of the precipice. The hours piled themselves into days and the days into weeks, till the top of the precipice was covered with stones, and still I was falling through unending space. Some time--I know not when--I must have come to the bottom of the precipice. I felt no crash, but the heaped-up cairns of the minutes and hours and days disappeared from my sight, and I ceased to know anything. I cannot tell how long this deep oblivion lasted. Once only did I wake from it partially. I felt a twinge of pain as though someone had moved me, and then all was dark again.

CHAPTER XV

IN THE HAVEN OF DALDOWIE

A man may go to the very gate of death without knowing that he has stood within its shadow till he returns once more to the sunshine of life. I know not how long I lay, an unconscious mass, at the foot of the dream precipice of my delirium, but an hour came when I opened my eyes again. I opened them slowly, for even to lift my lids was an effort, and I looked above me to see if the carrion crows were still watching me. Instead I saw a low thatched roof, and in amazement I let my eyes wander to every side. I was lying on a soft mattress laid on a garret floor. My head was pillowed on a snowy pillow of down. Beside my couch stood a three-legged stool and on it there was a bowl of flowers. I stretched out a weak hand to take one. I picked up a buttercup that flaunted its proud gold before me, and I pressed it to my lips. I lay in a reverie and tried to gather together all I could remember of the past. I recollected my flight from the troopers, the thunderstorm and the rain, and then I remembered my injured limb. I tried to move it and found that it was firmly bound. I was too weak to raise myself and turn down the bedclothes to examine it, but there was further food for thought in the fact that my injury had been cared for.