Rab and His Friends | Page 8

Rab all this time had been fully awake and motionless: he came
forward beside us: Ailie's hand, which James had held, was hanging
down; it was soaked with his tears; Rab licked it all over carefully,
looked at her, and returned to his place under the table.
James and I sat, I don't know how long, but for some time, saying
nothing: he started up abruptly, and with some noise went to the table,
and, putting his right fore and middle fingers each into a shoe, pulled
them out, and put them on, breaking one of the leather latchets, and
muttering in anger, "I never did the like o' that afore!"
I believe he never did; nor after either. "Rab!" he said, roughly, and
pointing with his thumb to the bottom of the bed. Rab leaped up, and
settled himself, his head and eye to the dead face. "Maister John, ye'll
wait for me," said the carrier; and disappeared in the darkness,

thundering downstairs in his heavy shoes. I ran to a front window; there
he was, already round the house, and out at the gate, fleeing like a
shadow.
I was afraid about him, and yet not afraid: so I sat down beside Rab,
and, being wearied, fell asleep. I awoke from a sudden noise outside. It
was November, and there had been a heavy fall of snow. Rab was in
statu quo; he heard the noise too, and plainly knew it, but never moved.
I looked out; and there, at the gate, in the dim morning,--for the sun
was not up,--was Jess and the cart, a cloud of steam rising from the old
mare. I did not see James; he was already at the door, and came up the
stairs and met me. It was less than three hours since he left, and he
must have posted out--who knows how?--to Howgate, full nine miles
off, yoked Jess, and driven her astonished into town. He had an armful
of blankets, and was streaming with perspiration. He nodded to me,
spread out on the floor two pairs of clean old blankets having at their
corners "A. G., 1794," in large letters in red worsted. These were the
initials of Alison Graeme, and James may have looked in at her from
without--himself unseen but not unthought of--when he was "wat, wat,
and weary," and, after having walked many a mile over the hills, may
have seen her sitting, while "a' the lave were sleepin'," and by the
firelight working her name on the blankets for her ain James's bed.
He motioned Rab down, and, taking his wife in his arms, laid her in the
blankets, and happed her carefully and firmly up, leaving the face
uncovered; and then, lifting her, he nodded again sharply to me, and,
with a resolved but utterly miserable face, strode along the passage, and
down-stairs, followed by Rab. I followed with a light; but he didn't
need it. I went out, holding stupidly the candle in my hand in the calm
frosty air; we were soon at the gate. I could have helped him, but I saw
he was not to be meddled with, and he was strong and did not need it.
He laid her down as tenderly, as safely, as he had lifted her out ten days
before,--as tenderly as when he had her first in his arms when she was
only "A. G.,"--sorted her, leaving that beautiful sealed face open to the
heavens; and then, taking Jess by the head, he moved away. He did not
notice me; neither did Rab, who presided behind the cart.
I stood till they passed through the long shadow of the College and
turned up Nicolson Street. I heard the solitary cart sound through the
streets and die away and come again; and I returned, thinking of that

company going up Libberton Brae, then along Roslin Muir, the
morning light touching the Pentlands and making them like on-looking
ghosts, then down the hill through Auchindinny woods, past "haunted
Woodhouselee;" and as daybreak came sweeping up the bleak
Lammermuirs, and fell on his own door, the company would stop, and
James would take the key, and lift Ailie up again, laying her on her
own bed, and, having put Jess up, would return with Rab and shut the
door.
James buried his wife, with his neighbors mourning, Rab watching the
proceedings from a distance. It was snow, and that black ragged hole
would look strange in the midst of the swelling spotless cushion of
white. James looked after everything; then rather suddenly fell ill, and
took to bed; was insensible when the doctor came, and soon died. A
sort of low fever was prevailing in the village, and his want of sleep,
his exhaustion, and his misery made him apt