"You little ass," said poor Jock, in the petulant inconsistency of his distress; "it is not come to that yet."
Armine did not answer at once. He was kneeling against the rock, and a strange thrill came over Jock, forbidding him again to say-"It was not come to that," but a shoot of aching pain in his ankle presently drew forth an exclamation.
Armine again offered to rub it for him, and the two arranged themselves for this purpose, the curtain of damp woolliness seeming to thicken on them. There was a moon somewhere, and the darkness was not total, but the dreariness and isolation were the more felt from the absence of all outlines being manifest. They even lost sight of their own hands if they stretched out their arms, and their light summer garments were already saturated with damp and would soon freeze. No part of their bodies was free from that deadly chill save where they could press against one another.
They were brave boys. Jock had collected himself again, and for some time they kept up a show of mirth in the shakings and buffetings they bestowed on one another, but they began to grow too stiff and spent to pursue this discipline. Armine thought that the night must be nearly over, and Jock tried to see his watch, but decided that he could not, because he could not bear to believe how far it was from day.
Armine was drowsily rubbing the ankle, mechanically murmuring something to himself. Jock shook him, saying-
"Take care, don't doze off. What are you mumbling about leisure?"
"O tarry thou the Lord's leisure. Be strong and- Was I saying it aloud?" he broke off with a start.
"Yes; go on."
Armine finished the verse, and Jock commented-
"Comfort thine heart. Does the little chap mean it in a fix like this?"
"Jock," said Armine, now fully awake, "I do want to say something."
"Cut on."
"If you get out of this and I don't-"
"Stop that! We've got heat enough to last till morning."
"Will they find us then? These fogs last for days and turn to snow."
"Don't croak, I say. I can't face mother without you."
"She'll be glad enough to get you. Please listen, Jock, while I'm awake. I want you to give her and all of them my love, and say I'm sorry for all the times I've vexed them."
"As if you had ever-"
"And please Jock, if I was nasty and conceited about the champagne-"
"Shut up, I can't stand this," cried Jock, chiefly from force of habit, for it was a tacit agreement among the elder brothers that Armine must not be suffered to "be cocky and humbug," by which they meant no implication on his sincerity, but that they did not choose to hear remonstrances or appeals to higher motives, and this had made him very reticent with all except his sister Barbara and Miss Ogilvie, but he now persisted.
"Indeed I want you to forgive me, Jock. You don't know how often I've thought all sorts of horridness about you."
Jock laughed, "Not more than I deserved, I'll be bound. How can you be so absurd! If anyone wants forgiveness, it is I. I say, Armie, this is all nonsense. You don't really think you are done for, or you would not take it so coolly."
"Of course I know Who can bring us through if He will," said Armine. "There's the Rock. I've been asking Him all this time-every moment- --only I get so sleepy."
"If He will; but if He won't?"
"Then there's Paradise. And Himself and father," said Armine, still in a dreamy tone.
"Oh, yes; that's for you! But how about a mad fellow like me? It's so sneaking just to take to one's prayers because one's in a bad case."
"Oh, Jock! He is always ready to hear! More ready than we to pray!"
"Now don't begin to improve the occasion," broke out Jock. "By all the stories that ever were written, I'm the one to come to a bad end, not you."
"Don't," said Armine, with an accent of pain that made Jock cry, hugging him tighter. "There, never mind, Armie; I'll let you say all you like. I don't know what made me stop you, except that I'm a beast, and always have been one. I'd give anything not to have gone on playing the fool all my life, so as to be able to mind this as little as you do."
"I don't seem awake enough to mind anything much," said the little boy, "or I should trouble more about Mother and Babie; but somehow I can't."
"Oh!" wailed Jock, "you must! You must get out of it, Armie. Come closer. Shove in between me and the rock. Here, Chico, lie down on the top of us! Mother must have you back any way, Armie."
The little fellow was half-dozing, but words of prayer and faith kept dropping from his tongue. Pain, and a stronger vitality alike, kept Jock free from the torpor, and he used his utmost efforts to rouse his brother; but every now and then a horrible conviction of the hopelessness of their condition came over him.
"Oh!" he groaned out, "how is it to be if this is the end of it? What is to become of a fellow that has been like me?"
Armine only spoke one word; the Name that is above every name.
"Yes, you always cared! But I never cared for anything but fun! Never went to Communion at Easter. It is too late."
"Oh, no, no!" cried Armine, rousing up, "not too late! Never! You are His! You belong to Him! He cares for you!"
"If He does, it makes it all the worse. I never heeded; I thought it all a bore. I never let myself think what it all meant. I've thrown it all away."
"Oh! I wish I wasn't so stupid," cried Armine, with a violent effort against his exhaustion. "Mother loves us, however horrid we are! He is like that; only let us tell Him all the bad we've done, and ask Him to blot it out. I've been trying-trying-only I'm so dull; and let us give ourselves more and more out and out to Him, whether it is here or there."
"That I must," said Jock; "it would be shabby and sneaking not."
"Oh, Jock," cried Armine, joyfully, "then it will all be right any way;" and he raised his face and kissed his brother. "You promise, Jock. Please promise."
"Promise what? That if He will save us out of this, I'll take a new line, and be as good as I know how, and-"
Armine took the word, whether consciously or not: "And manfully to fight under His banner, and continue Christ's faithful soldiers and servants unto our lives' end. Amen!"
"Amen," Jock said, after him.
After that, Jock found that the child was repeating the Creed, and said it after him, the meanings thrilling through him as they had never done before. Next followed lines of "Rock of Ages," and for some time longer there was a drowsy murmur of sacred words, but there was no eliciting a direct reply any more; and with dull constern- ation, Jock knew that the fatal torpor could no longer be broken, and was almost irritated that all the words he caught were such happy, peaceful ones. The very last were, "Inside angels' wings, all white down."
The child seemed almost comfortable-certainly not suffering like himself, bruised and strained, with sharp twinges rending his damaged foot; his limbs cramped, and sensible of the acute misery of the cold, and the full horror of their position; but as long as he could shake even an unconscious murmur from his brother, it seemed like happiness compared with the utter desolation after the last whisper had died away, and he was left intolerably alone under the solid impenetrable shroud that enveloped him, and the senseless form he held on his breast. And if he tried to follow on by that clue which Armine had left him, whirlwinds of dismay seemed to sweep away all hope and trust, while he thought of wilfulness, recklessness, defiance, irreverence, and all the yet darker shades of a self- indulgent and audacious school-boy life!
It was a little lighter, as if dawn might be coming, but the cold was bitterer, and benumbing more than paining him. His clothes were stiff, his eyelashes white with frost, he did not feel equal to looking at his watch, he _would_ not see Armine's face, he found the fog depositing itself in snow, but he heeded it no longer. Fear and hope had alike faded out of his mind, his ankle seemed to belong to some one else far away, he had left off wishing to see his mother, he wanted nothing but to be let alone!
He did not hear when Chico, finding no comfor
t, no sign of life in his masters, stood upon them as they lay clasped together in the drift of fine small snow, and in the climax of misery he lifted up the long and wretched wailing howlings of utter dog-wretchedness.
CHAPTER XX. A RACE.
Speed, Melise, speed! such cause of haste Thine active sinews never braced, Bend 'gainst the steepy hill thy breast, Burst down like torrent from its crest. Scott.
"Hark!"
The guides and the one other traveller, a Mr. Graham, who had been at the inn, were gathered at the border of the Daubensee, entreating, almost ready to use force to get the poor mother home before the snow should efface the tracks, and render the return to Schwarenbach dangerous.
Ever since the alarm had been given there had been a going about with lights, a shouting and seeking, all along the road where she had parted with her sons. It was impossible in the fog to leave the beaten track, and the traveller told her that rewards would be but temptations to suicide.
Johnny had fortunately been so tired out that he had gone to bed soon after coming in, and had not been wakened by the alarm till eleven o'clock. Then, startled by the noises and lights, he had risen and made his way to his aunt. Substantial help he could not give-even his German was halting, but he was her stay and help, and she would- as she knew afterwards-have been infinitely more desolate without him. And now, when all were persuading her to wait, as they said, till more aid could be sent for to Kandersteg, he knew as well as she did that it was but a kindly ruse to cover their despair, and was striving to insist that another effort in daylight should be made.
He it was who uttered the "Hark," and added, "That is Chico!"
At first the tired, despairing guides did not hear, but going along the road by the lake in the direction from which the sound came, the prolonged wail became more audible.
"It is on the moraine," the men said, with awe-struck looks at one another.
They would fain not even have taken John with them, but with a resolute look he uttered "Ich komm."
Mr. Graham, an elderly man, not equal to a moraine in the snow, stayed with the mother. He wanted to take her back to prepare for them, as he said-in reality to lesson any horrors there might be to see.
But she stood like a statue, with clasped hands and white face, the small feathery snow climbing round her feet and on her shoulders.
"O God, spare my boys! Though I don't deserve it-spare them!" had been her one inarticulate prayer all night.
And now-shouts and yodels reach her ears. They are found! But how found! The cries are soon hushed. There is long waiting-then, through the snow, John flashes forward and takes her hand. He does not speak-only as their eyes meet, his pale lips tremble, and he says, "Don't fear; they will revive in the inn. Jock is safe, they are sure."
Safe? What? that stiff, white-faced form, carried between two men, with the arm hanging lifelessly down? One man held the smaller figure of Armine, and kept his face pressed inwards. Kind words of "Liebe Frau," and assurances that were meant to be cheering passed around her, but she heard them not. Some brandy had, it seemed, been poured into their mouths. They thought Jock had swallowed, Armine had not.
At intervals on the way back a little more was administered, and the experienced guides had no doubt that life was yet in him. When they reached the hotel the guides would not take them near the stove, but carried them up at once by the rough stair to the little wood- partitioned bedrooms. There were two beds in each room, and their mother would have had them both together; but the traveller, and the kindly, helpful young landlady, Fraulein Rosalie, quietly managed otherwise, and when Johnny tried to enforce his aunt's orders, Mr. Graham, by a sign, made him comprehend why they had thus arranged, filling him with blank dismay.
A doctor? The guides shook their heads. They could hardly make their way to Leukerbad while it was snowing as at present, and if they had done so, no doctor could come back with them. Moreover the restoratives were known to the mountaineers as well as to the doctors themselves, and these were vigorously applied. All the resources of the little way-side house were put in requisition. Mr. Graham and Johnny did their best for Jock, his mother seemed to see and think of nothing but Armine, who lay senseless and cold in spite of all their efforts.
It was soon that Jock began to moan and turn and struggle painfully back to life. When he opened his eyes with a dazed half- consciousness, and something like a word came from between his lips, Mr. Graham sent John to call the mother, saying very low, "Get her away. She will bear it better when she sees this one coming round."
John had deep and reverent memories connected with Armine. He knew- as few did know-how steadfastly that little gentle fellow could hold the right, and more than once the two had been almost alone against their world. Besides, he was Mother Carey's darling! Johnny felt as if his heart would break, as with trembling lips he tried to speak, as if in glad hope, as he told his aunt that Jock was speaking and wanted her, while he looked all the time at the still, white, inanimate face.
She looked at him half in distrust.
"Yes! Indeed, indeed," he said, "Jock wants you."
She went; Johnny took her place. The efforts at restoration were slackening. The attendants were shaking their heads and saying, "der Arme."
Mr. Graham came up to him, saying in his ear, "She is engrossed with the other. He will not let her go. Let them do what is to be done for this poor little fellow. So it will be best for her."
There was a frantic longing to do something for Armine, a wild wonder that the prayers of a whole night had not been more fully answered in John's mind, as he threw himself once more over the senseless form, propped with pillows, and kissed either cheek and the lips. Then suddenly he uttered a low cry, "He breathed. I'm sure he did; I felt it! The spoon! O quick!"
Mr. Graham and the Fraulein looked pitifully at one another at the delusion; but they let the lad have the spoon with the drops of brandy. He had already gained experience in giving it, and when they looked for disappointment, his eyes were raised in joy.
"It's gone down," he said.
Mr. Graham put his hand on the pulse and nodded.
Another drop or two, and renewed rubbing of hands and feet. The icy cold, the deadly white, were certainly giving way, the lips began to quiver, contract, and gasp.
Was it for death or life? They would not call his mother for that terrible, doubtful minute; but she could not long stay away. When Jock's fingers first relaxed on hers, she crept to the door of the other room, to see Armine upheld on Johnny's breast, with heaving chest and working features, but with eyes opening: yes, and meeting hers.
Johnny always held that he never had so glad a moment in all his life as that when he saw her countenance light up.
The first word was "Jock !"
Armine's full perceptions were come back, unlike those of Jock, who was moaning and wandering in his talk, fancying himself still in the desolation of the moraine, with Armine dead in his arms, and all the miseries, bodily, mental and spiritual, from which he had suffered were evidently still working in his brain, though the words that revealed them were weak and disjointed. Besides, he screamed and moaned with absolute and acute pain, which alarmed them much, though Armine was sufficiently himself to be able to assure them that there had been no hurt beyond the strain.
It was well that Armine was both rational and unselfish, for nothing seemed to soothe Jock for a moment but his mother's hand and his mother's voice. It was plain that fever and rheumatism had a hold upon him, and what or who was there to contend with them in this wayside inn? The rooms, though clean, were bare of all but the merest necessaries, and though the young hostess was kind and anxious, her maids were the roughest and most ignorant of girls, and there were no appliances for comfort-nothing even to drink but milk, bottled lemonade, and a tisane made of yellow flowers, horrible to the English taste.
And Jock, ill as he was, did not fill his mother with such dread for the future as did Armine, when she found him, quiet indeed, but un
able to lie down, except when supported on John's breast and in his arms-with a fearful oppression and pain in his chest, and every token that the lungs were suffering. He had not let them call her. Jock's murmurs and cries were to be heard plainly through the wooden partition, and the little fellow knew she could not be spared, and only tried to prevent John and Mr. Graham from alarming her. "She- can't-do-any-good," he gasped out in John's ear.
No, nobody could, without medical skill and appliances. The utmost that the house could do was to produce enough mustard to make two plasters, and to fill bottles with hot water, to warm stones, and to wrap them in blankets. And what was this, in such cold as penetrated the wooden building, too high up in the mountains for the June sun as yet to have full power? The snow kept blinding and drifting on, and though everyone said it could not last long at that time in the summer, it might easily last too long for Armine's fragile life. Here was evening drawing on and no change outside, so that no offer of reward could make it possible for any messenger to attempt the Gemmi to fetch advice from Leukerbad.
Caroline could not think. She was in a dull, dreary state of consternation, and all she could dwell on was the immediate need of the moment, soothing Jock's terrors, and, what was almost worse, his irritable rejection of the beverages she could offer him, and trying to relieve him by rubbing and hot applications. If ever she could look into Armine's room, she was filled with still greater dismay, even though a sweet, patient smile always met her, and a resolute endeavour to make the best of it.
"It-does-not-make-much-difference," gasped Armine. "One would not like anything."
John came out in a character no one could have expected. He showed himself a much better nurse, and far more full of resource than the traveller. It was he who bethought him of keeping a kettle in the room over the inevitable charcoal, so as slightly to mitigate the chill of the air, or the fumes of the charcoal, which were equally perilous and distressing to the labouring lungs. He was tender and handy in lifting, tall and strong, so as to be efficient in supporting, and then Armine and he understood one another. They had never been special companions; John had too much of the Kencroft muscularity about him to accord with a delicate, imaginative being like Armine, but they respected one another, and made common cause, and John had more than once been his little cousin's protector. So when they were so much alone that all reserves were overcome, Armine had comfort in his cousin that no one else in the place could have afforded him. The little boy perfectly knew how ill he was, and as he lay in John's arms, breathed out his messages to Babie as well as he could utter them.
Magnum Bonum Page 27
