Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 10

by Unknown

the deep sonorous sound of a well-blown horn fell upon his ears, and roused him to fresh exertions. He had crossed the burn and clambered to the top of the bank before the blast had ceased; and, as he endeavoured to fix the direction of the sound, the horn was again winded. It seemed not to be very distant. Hope invigorated his weary limbs, and he dashed through the opposing wreaths as stoutly as if his toils had been only newly begun. Another blast was blown, and he continued to run upon the sound till it ceased, and it was not again repeated.

He recollected that it was common for the farmers, in many parts of Scotland, to blow a horn at eight o'clock on the winter evenings, for the purpose of warning their servants to attend to the suppering of the horses; and he hoped that, if he could keep to the proper direction, this might lead him to some hospitable farmhouse, where he would soon forget the horrors of the storm before a comfortable fire. He now proceeded more leisurely, striving not to deviate from the course which the horn had induced him to take; and keeping a sharp look-out on all sides, and an intense attention to every sound, in the expectation that some cottage light might twinkle upon his eye, or some human voice reach his ear, in the intervals of the deafening blast. But still he could discover no sight nor sound of man; and the shifting tempest, which attacked him from every direction, soon confounded all his ideas of time and distance. In some places, too, the snow had accumulated in such immense masses, that he could not pass through them; and the circuits which he was obliged to make tended farther to confuse his mind. His spirits again began to sink, and his limbs to falter; and that sluggish indifference which follows the extinction of hope again took possession of his senses. But, while he was dragging himself onward with slow and feeble steps, a new and extraordinary noise broke upon his ear. He stood still and listened; but he could not conjecture the cause of it. It seemed to mingle with, and yet it was different from, the ravings of the storm. It proceeded from one quarter, and remained steadily in one place. There was a mingling of sounds, like the dashing of waves, the rushing of winds, and the jingling of a thousand little bells, accompanied occasionally by a harsh, guttural cry, like that which is emitted by a band of wild geese when disturbed in their "watery haunt."

Though this mysterious noise was more appalling than attractive, and though it promised neither rest nor shelter to the stranger, yet it operated upon his curiosity, and induced him to continue his exertions. The terrific sounds grew louder and louder as he advanced. The clouds of snow, which were every moment dashed into his face, prevented him from seeing more than a few yards before him; and an involuntary shudder passed over his frame, as he thought that he might even now be toppling upon the brink of some dreadful gulf, and that another step might precipitate him into destruction. Something terrible was certainly at hand; but what was the nature of the danger was beyond his powers of conception.

The unaccountable noise, which was now thundering beneath him, resembled most the dashing of a cataract, or the roaring of the ocean, when its far-accumulated waves are broken into foaming madness among hidden rocks. He stood still, and gazed intently in the direction of the sound.

The storm abated a little in its violence, and he thought he could perceive a black expanse at a little distance stretching out before him. He advanced a few steps nearer it. It was tossing in fearful commotion, and here and there streaked with lines, and dotted with patches of white. It was evidently water; but whether lake, river, or ocean, was all a mystery.

"Can it be possible," thought he, "that the storm has insensibly driven me in the right direction? Do I now stand among the rocks that look down upon the breaker-beaten bay of St Andrews? Or have I returned again to the banks of the Tay? Or can this be the little loch which I passed in the afternoon, and which then lay stretched out in frozen tranquillity beneath me?"

His heart grew sick and his brain dizzy with conjecture. He turned away from the stunning scene with a shiver of despair. A strange sense of torpidity and madness passed along his nerves—it was the confused energy of an active soul, struggling with the numbedness of exhausted nature. The snow seemed to swim around him—his eyes became heavy, and, when he closed them, numberless phantoms seemed to pass before him, like figures in a dream. In this state of drowsy insensibility, he lost for a time all recollection of his sufferings—his blood began to stagnate in his veins, and the icy coldness of death was stealing over his extremities, when a covey of wild ducks swept past, and their short, sharp cries startled him again into consciousness of his condition. When he opened his eyes, a faint light seemed to be glimmering from a hill-side about a hundred yards above him. It was now seen, and now lost, as the clouds of drift passed between him and the place from which it issued. But still it was there; and its dim, shadowy lustre was to him like life to the dead. Hope again returned to his heart, and animation to his limbs; and in a few minutes he had reached the window of a little cottage, which was so completely drifted up with snow on all sides save that on which he stood, that any one might have passed in broad daylight without supposing it to be a human habitation.

The stranger looked in at the window. The fire, which was composed of peats, had been covered up with ashes to prevent them from wasting through the night; but, by this time, the small dust had passed through the grate, and there only remained a little heap of live embers, which cast a sombre glow around the interior of the cottage. The family were in bed. The stranger rapped gently on the window, and then listened for an answer; but nothing stirred. He rapped a little louder, and again listened.

"What's that, Jamie?" said a female voice within.

"Hoch, hoch, hey!" said another, yawning and stretching out his arms from the same box or bed, as if to relieve them from the uneasiness of lying long in one position. It was evident that the voice of the first speaker had awakened the second, without communicating to his mind the purport of the question, which was again repeated.