CHAPTER XXVI
HOW DAVID FARED
David Barclay got up the moment Kirsty was out of the room, dressed
himself in haste, swallowed a glass of whisky, saddled the gray mare,
gave her a feed of oats, which she ate the faster that she felt the
saddle, and set out for Tiltowie to get the doctor. Threatening as the
weather was, he was well on the road before the wind became so full of
snow as to cause him any anxiety, either for those on the hill or for
himself. But after the first moment of anxiety, a very few minutes
convinced him that a battle with the elements was at hand more
dangerous than he had ever had to fight with armed men. For some
distance the road was safe enough as yet, for the storm had not had
time to heap up the snow between the bordering hills; but by and by he
must come out upon a large track recovered by slow degrees and great
labour from the bog, and be exposed to the full force of the now
furious wind, where in many places it would be far easier to wander off
than to stay upon a road level with the fields, and not even bounded by
a ditch the size of a wheel-track. When he reached the open, therefore,
he was compelled to go at a footpace through the thick, blinding,
bewildering tempest-driven snow; and was not surprised when, in spite
of all his caution, he found, by the sudden sinking and withdrawing of
one of his mare's legs with a squelching noise, that he had got astray
upon the bog, nor knew any more in what direction the town or other
abode of humanity lay. The only thing he did know was the side of the
road to which he had turned; and that he knew only by the ground into
which he had got: no step farther must in that direction be attempted.
His mare seemed to know this as well as himself, for when she had
pulled her leg out, she drew back a pace, and stood; whereupon David
cast a knot on the reins, threw them on her neck, and told her to go
where she pleased. She turned half round and started at once, feeling
her way at first very carefully. Then she walked slowly on, with her
head hanging low. Again and again she stopped and snuffed, diverged a
little, and went on.
The wind was packed rather than charged with snow. Men said there never
was a wind of the strength with so much snow in it. David began to
despair of ever finding the road again, and naturally in such strait
thought how much worse would Kirsty and Steenie be faring on the open
hill-side. His wife, he knew, could not have started before the storm
rose to tempest, and would delay her departure. Then came the
reflection, how little at any time could a father do for the wellbeing
of his children! The fact of their being children implied their need of
an all-powerful father: must there not then be such a father? Therewith
the truth dawned upon him, that first of truths, which all his
church-going and Bible-reading had hitherto failed to disclose, that,
for life to be a good thing and worth living, a man must be the child
of a perfect father, and know him. In his terrible perturbation about
his children, he lifted up his heart--not to the Governor of the world;
not to the God of Abraham or Moses; not in the least to the God of the
Kirk; least of all to the God of the Shorter Catechism; but to the
faithful creator and Father of David Barclay. The aching soul which
none but a perfect father could have created capable of deploring its
own fatherly imperfection, cried out to the father of fathers on behalf
of his children, and as he cried, a peace came stealing over him such
as he had never before felt.
Then he knew that his mare had been for some time on hard ground, and
was going with purpose in her gentle trot. In five minutes more, he saw
the glimmer of a light through the snow. Near as it was, or he could
not have seen it, he failed repeatedly in finding his way to it. The
mare at length fell over a stone wall out of sight in the snow, and
when they got up they found themselves in a little garden at the end of
a farmhouse. Not, however, until the farmer came to the door, wondering
who on such a morning could be their visitor, did he know to what farm
the mare had brought him. Weary, and well aware that no doctor in his
senses would set out for the top of the Horn in such a tempest of black
and white, he gratefully accepted the shelter and refreshment of which
his mare and he stood by this time in much need, and waited for a lull
in the storm.
