From that point the Stickit Minister went faster than ever. Indeed, he rushed forward, in spite of my restraining arm, with some remaining flicker of the vigour which in youth had made him first on the hillside at the fox-hunt and first on the haystacks upon the great day of the inbringing of the winter's fodder.
It seemed hardly a moment before we were at the door of the inn—the Red Lion the name of it, at that time in the possession of one "Jeems" Carter. Yes, Henry Fraser was there. His horse was tethered to an iron ring which was fixed in the whitewashed wall, and his voice could be heard at that very moment leading a rollicking chorus. Then I remembered. It was a "Cronies'" night. This was a kind of informal club recruited from the more jovial of the younger horsebreeding farmers of the neighbourhood. It included the local "vet.," a bonnet laird or two grown lonesome and thirsty by prolonged residence upon the edges of the hills, and was on all occasions proud and glad to welcome a guest so distinguished and popular as the young doctor of Cairn Edward.
"Loose the beast and be ready to hand me the reins when I come out!" commanded the Stickit Minister, squaring his stooped shoulders like the leader of a forlorn hope.
So thus it happened that I did not see with my own eyes what happened when Robert Fraser opened the door of the "Cronies'" club-room. But I have heard it so often recounted that I know as well as if I had seen. It was the Laird of Butterhole who told me, and he always said that it made a sober man of him from that day forth. It was (he said) like Lazarus looking out of the sepulchre after they had rolled away the stone.
Suddenly in the midst of their jovial chorus some one said "Hush!"—some one of themselves—and instinctively all turned towards the door.
And lo! there in the doorway, framed in the outer dark, his broad blue bonnet in his hand, his checked plaid waving back from his shoulders, stood a man, pale as if he had come to them up through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. With a hand white as bone, he beckoned to his brother, who stood with his hands on the table smiling and swaying a little with tipsy gravity.
"Why, Robert, what are you doing here——?" he was beginning. But the Stickit Minister broke in.
"Come!" he said, sternly and coldly, "the children you have neglected are dying—if they die through your carelessness you will be their murderer!"
And to the surprise of all, the tall and florid younger brother quailed before the eye of this austere shade.
"Yes, I will come, Robert—I was coming in a moment anyway!"