GEMINI, THE TWINS.
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HE Manse of Kirk-Andrew was a severe-looking house, over whose walls of gray granite, no playful creeper had presumed to climb. It had a square, well-kept garden in front, with a few strictly-pruned bushes in it, and two pine trees, one on either side of the gate, like sentries. A sedate white cat of uncertain age sunned herself on the doorstep of the Manse, on warm afternoons, and a red-cheeked woman came to the door at intervals. A tall, very thin gentleman also was to be seen coming down and again going up the straight little path from the door to the gate. And that was about all the sign of life outside the gray old house. A stranger's first thought might have been "there are no children at this place," and there were none.
But one day the bent-backed little mail-carrier, who trudged so many miles every day that he had become a sort of walking machine, brought the minister a letter which changed the face of life for him.
He was in his study—a stern-looking room, with stiff, uncomfortable chairs set firmly back against the walls, and a big square table with a faded brown cloth on it, a huge inkstand in the centre of the cloth, and a pile of books beside it—when Eppie, the red-checked Manse housekeeper, took it to him.
The minister's pale face grew paler as he read that letter, and presently he laid it down on the table and laid his head on it; and two tears ran over his thin cheeks and blotted the black-edged page.
For the letter told that his only sister—his dear sister Annie, had gone out of this world, leaving her two little boys alone.
His sister had married an Englishman, and had lived in England, and the minister had not seen her for a number of years, for he was not fond of taking journeys, and he had never seen her boys since they were small babies in arms. He remembered that Annie had begged him to visit her, many times, and he was very sorry now that he had put off doing so. Dear Annie! What merry times he and she had had together in the grim old Manse! It had never seemed empty and still when Annie was there; when her sweet voice was singing upstairs and down, and all the dark corners were lit up by her sunny presence!
The minister sat in the quiet room a long while; sometimes his lips moved silently, for he was praying. At last he rose and went out into the passage, and called "Eppie!"
The housekeeper came, wiping the flour from her hands, for it was baking-day and all the air was full of a warm and homelike smell.
"Eppie," said the minister, "the Lord has been pleased to send me heavy sorrow. My sister Annie is gone."
Eppie raised her hands and let them fall at her sides again.
"His will be done!" said the minister solemnly.
"Ay! His will be done!" echoed the woman. "But, Minister," she added in another tone, "what about the bairns?"
The minister looked at her with a furtive glance, for he did not know how she would take what he had to tell her on this head. Eppie was not fond of children, and she was very fond of what she called a decent, quiet-like house; the sort of house hard to keep up with a pair of nine-year-old boys in it. And the minister was rather afraid of Eppie, whose displeasure he always preferred not to arouse. But tell her soon he must, and the sooner the better, perhaps; so, trying to seem at his ease, he said in a constrained voice, "The laddies are to live with us, Eppie."
A silence full of expression followed on the announcement. The minister fidgetted; silences on his housekeeper's part were the sign of coming storm. He hastened to speak again.
"Their father having died three years ago, and his parents and near kith and kin all being gone, there is no one else but myself. I am appointed their legal guardian until they come of age."
Eppie had been making tucks in her apron, with redder cheeks than usual, but as yet she had not spoken a word. Now she heaved a sigh.
"Till they come of age!" she repeated,—"that 'll be twalve year. Eh, Minister, but Ise sorry for ye!"
The minister started. Set before him so clearly, the prospect made him a little sorry for himself; but he put the momentary weakness by.
"Eppie, my woman," he said gently and yet firmly, " this is a hard thing for you, I know well. But the Lord has sent me a new task, and I have no choice but to do it. If you find you can't thole the bairns about the house, why, you must e'en go your ways; but I've a notion that you'll take more kindly than you think, to Annie's lads."
"Annie's lads"—the simple words went straight to the woman's heart, and, for the first time in many years, Eppie broke down and cried.
The minister cleared his throat, and walked to the window. After a minute or two he said quietly, "I 'll be taking the night train south. You might put a few things in my bit bag."
Eppie passed her apron hastily across her eyes, and disappeared. And the minister knew that as far as his house-keeper was concerned, there would be nothing to fear.
A week after the minister went away, he came back, bringing the boys with him. They arrived in the afternoon, tired with their long journey, and only kept up by the cordial attentions of Jock Bruce, the stage-driver, who had regaled them with red and white peppermints, and told them fearsome Jacobite tales of the neighborhood, as they sat on the box at his side.
Eppie ran out to meet them, and as soon as she looked at them, she cried—"Eh! but the brown-eyed ane's awfu' like Miss Annie!" And then she put her arms around both boys and kissed them. They drew back as soon as they could, politely, but the "brown-eyed one" looked up into Eppie's face and smiled responsively.
"I know who you are," he said; "you're the Eppie that makes such nice scones!"
Eppie laughed. "Ay, I 'm her!" she made answer, "and ye 'll taste my scones to your tea."
"Thank you," said the boy. Then he took hold of the hand of his little brother, who had not spoken. "This is Willie; and I 'm Roy, after Uncle, you know."
Willie held out his hand, and Eppie shook it gravely. Then the minister struck in. "That'll do for an introduction," he said. "Take the lads up to their room now, Eppie, and have them wash their faces: they are black with train smoke."
The twins glanced at Mr. McAllister reproachfully; their feelings were hurt. But Eppie was not aware of it. She led the way to the south room where the boys were to sleep, talking of trains and the dirtiness of travelling, and of the one long trip of her life, when she went "a' the way to Glaskie." The children were silent. Their spirits sank in the loneliness of the old gray house, buried among the moors. From their windows in England they could see an exciting view of busy streets, of horses and men; of stirring, hurrying life. Here all the view was of rolling, heather-grown slopes, with no sign of life but a few cows in the distance. And, worst of all, mother was not here!
"I don't like the Manse; I wish we were in England again," said Willie to Roy, as they lay awake in the big, strange bed that evening.
Roy broke into a storm of sobs.
"I wish I could go to mother!" he cried passionately. "I wish I had n't got to be anywhere! I wish I was n't alive! What's the good of being alive now mother's gone?"
Willie was sobbing, too, but softly and hopelessly.
"We 've got to stay," he managed to repeat through his tears.
"I won't stay!"
"Yes you will; you've got to!"
Willie never gave up a point, and Roy, used to arguing with him by the half-hour, was not irritated by his obstinacy now. On the contrary, the prospect of an argument diverted his mind. He drew the sleeve of his night-shirt across his eyes and sat up in bed.
"Now you just listen to me! We can run away as easily as anything. We'll watch for the coach, and when we hear it in the distance, we 'll slip out of the side door and go down the road a bit—out of sight of the house—and wait
"They'd see us,' interrupted his brother,
"No they would n't! And when the coach comes quite close, we'll jump out of the bushes and call, 'Hi! stop!' and that funny man who gave us the peppermints, will help us up in front, and then "—Roy came to a pause abruptly, for a figure stood at the door. It was Eppie, carrying something on a plate. She came towards them and peered through the dusk into the two little white, tear-stained faces.
"Ye 're not sleepin' yet? Ay, I thought as much! An' greetin' [crying], the two of ye! That's apoor beginning: it winna do, lads, it winna do!" She put her warm, kind arms round the boys, and drew the two curly heads down against her merino bodice; and this time they did not pull away from the embrace, but leaned gratefully on that friendly bosom and cried.
"Ye dinna look to see what I brought ye," she said in her low, soft voice, in a few minutes. Her accent, though not so refined, reminded Roy and Willie of their mother's. It made them feel at home with Eppie.
They now strained their eyes to see what it was that lay on the plate.
The summer twilight had faded almost into darkness, but they could dimly make out a pile of oval, delicious-looking cakes.
"They 're short-cake," said Eppie, "an' just bakit; take them an' eat them an' then go to sleep. Ye 'll feel mair heart-some in the morn."
The boys cuddled down in bed with the plate of short-cakes between them, and munched silently. The cakes were very good. When the last crumb was gone, they put the plate on the floor, and were in dreamland before one could have counted fifty, for they were tired out with their long journey and with crying.
At an unearthly hour (as they thought) the next morning, Eppie waked them up, and bade them be quick and dress themselves and come down-stairs to prayers. She had a severe, business-like manner today, and no one would have imagined that she was the kind of person to creep into the room after one had gone to bed, bringing one short-cake.
"I don't like Eppie so much this morning, do you?" Roy whispered to Willie, as they went in to breakfast, after the minister had read a psalm and some prayers.
"No," replied his brother. "She's got a sort of look as if she was sorry she was so nice to us last night."
Their uncle was very silent at the table, and Eppie, stern and red-faced from stooping over the kitchen fire, came and went about the room, without taking the least notice of them. The boys hated oatmeal, but it seemed to be all the breakfast they were to have at the Manse. Oatmeal and new milk, which was given them in bowls of generous size. They had been taught that most valuable lesson—never to ask for anything not on the table; and to take what was offered without making a fuss if it did not happen to suit them; but it was evident that the porridge and milk were not what they were used to eating; and Mr. McAllister remarked in an abstract manner as they rose, leaving their portion half finished, that simple fare was the rule in his house, and nothing else was fit and wholesome for young folk.
The boys blushed and hung their heads at this hidden rebuke, which they felt they hardly deserved. They looked at their uncle with a sense of dread; he was not the man they had always thought of as their dear Uncle Robert, the loving brother their mother had told them about. This was a terribly exacting, grim kind of an Uncle Robert: they felt as if he had never been a boy himself. But he had taken them into the study, and seated himself at the table with the brown cloth, not asking them to sit, but letting them stand before the table as if it was a Bar of Justice, and he the judge.
"We will now see what you know about English History," he announced.
The twins held their heads higher. They had been well taught, and Uncle Robert should see it. In fact, he did. He was surprised at the amount of what his little nephews had read, and still more at the thoroughness of their knowledge; but being of the old-fashioned opinion that praise was harmful, he gave none; going on with his questions in a harsh, cold voice, as if he suspected the boys of trying to take him in in some way. After English History, came Arithmetic; then Geography; then Grammar. Last of all Mr. McAllister requested them to write a page at his dictation. They came out with a brilliant record, and a wiser person would have told them that their honest efforts were very creditable to them, and that, having started in so good a manner, it the more behoved them to go on working well, and pleasing those set over their education. Instead, the minister merely said in an unenthusiastic way: "That will do for this time; you need not study any lessons to-day, as it is the first day. I will set you some for to-morrow. You may run out of doors now and play—only mind and be in at the minute to dinner."
The twins went out, not running, as their uncle had said they could, but walking slowly and seriously, with grave faces.
They went down the garden-path, and across the white, dusty road, and up the moor opposite, for a little way, and then sat down;—all without taking counsel together. for they were almost always of one mind about what they wanted to do.
Roy spoke first. His face was flushed, and his lip trembled.
"I can't bear Uncle Robert!"
"And I can't."
"He is just a—a—what 's the name of that awfully wicked Roman Emperor that killed all those nice people?"
"Nero?" suggested Willie.
"Yes, Nero, the tyrant. Uncle Robert is a tyrant. He wanted to frighten us and make us make mistakes in the things he asked us about, so that he could find fault with us. He is perfectly horrid! I don't see how mother could have had such a horrid brother."
Willie considered the matter.
"She thought he was kind and nice; she always said so."
"That was just because she was kind and dear and lovely and an angel, herself," said Roy with a shaking voice. "mother always thought well of people, even if every one else knew they were hateful."
Willie was silent for a while. At length he said gently,
"Don't you s 'pose we ought to try and do it too?"
"Do what too?"
Roy had drifted away from the subject in hand, a characteristic thing with him. Willie never left a train of thought half-worked out.
"I meant, ought n't we to try to think well of everyone, as mother did. I'm sure she would want us to, Roy."
Roy looked uncomfortable.
"And it is the most sensible thing, too," Willie went on, "for we have to be with people, whether we like them or not; and it's more disagreeable to be with them if we hate them than if we are fond of them."
Willie's first reason for charitable judgment was better than his last, but his brother was not disposed to yield to either at the moment.
"Of course mother could feel kindly to anyone," he said impatiently, "but we are not good, like her."
"We could be if we tried," said Willie dogmatically.
"Besides," Roy went on, "even she would allow that Uncle Robert was unkind this morning."
"I think he does n't remember how he used to feel when he was a boy," suggested the other. "Maybe we 'll be just the same when we 're as old as he is. He must be awfully old—as old as forty, I should say!"
Roy laughed a boy's gay laugh; the idea of Uncle Robert's great age as contrasted with their nine years. amused him. Perhaps Willie was right,—he was often right, and age was the cause of their uncle's unattractive ways. And if this were so, of course, they could do nothing but bear with him; for "mother" had impressed on the twins that old people had a sort of sacredness about them, and were always to be listened to, and said "yes" to, and waited upon, and, above all,—never to be contradicted. He sighed, thinking all these things over. He almost wished that Uncle Robert had been young enough to argue with, and—if matters grew worse—to defy!
"I am really afraid you 're right, Willie," he said thoughtfully, "and in that case we can't do anything—except run away!" he added with a bright recollection of the plan he had been explaining the night previous, before Eppie came in with the delicious diversion of cakes.
Willie was not so ready as before to oppose this scheme. He had conscientiously tried to cheer Roy's mind, but deep down in his own lay a discontent and a rebellion as sincere as his brother's, and he feared that he could not always stay at Kirk-Andrew himself, bold as he had seemed.
"We'll have to stop here a little while, anyway," he answered rather faintly. " We'll be bigger by and by, and then we can go where we like."
Roy gave a snort.
"Bigger by and by!" he repeated scornfully. "If we wait till then"————
Willie was silent.
"And if we run away while we are little, we have ever so much more chance of being taken as cabin-boys; they don't want big cabin-boys."
"Oh!" said Willie. There was one thing that Roy had not thought of in this cabin-boy scheme; he had better point it out before they went further with it. Only one boy was wanted at a time on a boat, surely.
"Don't you think we had better be something else, Roy?" he said; "because, if we were cabin-boys,—why, we'd be separated, don't you see?"
Roy's face fell. He had certainly forgotten that. To be separated was not to be thought of for an instant. Willie thereupon suggested that they wait a year, and after that, try for a place together on a "man-of-war" as cook and steward; or, if possible, as first and second mate. This led to a deeply interesting discussion, which kept them so busily occupied that dinner-time—the oddly early dinner-time of Kirk-Andrew—took them unprepared; for which their uncle reproved them.
"I told you not to be late, lads," he said in a voice colder than he knew. "I am never late for any of the occasions of life, myself. Time is a gift; it must not be lightly wasted."
Roy looked at him earnestly. "I suppose you did n't care about not wasting time when you were young, did you, Uncle?" he asked.
Mr. McAllister colored. "That is a disrespectful manner of speech," he said very sternly.
Roy's big brown eyes grew bigger; he had not meant to be rude: he was only inquisitive.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "but Willie and I think you don't just remember how a boy feels, because you have been old so long, that's all."
"Guide us!" murmured Eppie, who had that moment come in with a new dish..
"And so we're going to try and feel a little older; and maybe you could try and feel a little younger, and so we should get along better," added Willie calmly.
The minister stared at them. Was this impertinence? The twins stared back.
A dull flush rose in the minister's cheeks. Then he spoke:
"I will be glad if you will eat, and not talk foolishly," he said. "The table is not the place for talking especially for children."
So their well-meant effort at coming to an understanding with their uncle failed. Sorrowfully, and perhaps a little angrily, the boys ate their plain but wholesome meal, and a deeper gloom settled over their minds.
"The only thing is to run away," Roy announced when they had wandered out again. So they planned how it should be, sitting together on the wild moor-side, deaf to the lonely, sad cry of the curlew and the hum of the bees over the beautiful purple heather-bloom and the golden gorse, blind to the loveliness of the blue summer sky, and the wealth of splendid color all about them.
Willie did not take the opposite side, after his usual mode; he was convinced that Roy and Uncle Robert would never be able to live in the same house, and he would not stay where Roy could not. The hearts of the boys were hot with resentment at their mother's brother; the unloving brother who never spoke of her, and who seemed to care nothing for the children she had loved so well. Poor Mr. McAllister! It would have grieved him much if he had known how "Annie's lads" felt towards him. At the very time when Roy and Willie were planning to run away from his house he was sitting in his study thinking of them and trying to understand what their words at dinner had meant.
"Old, am I?" he said to himself. "Like enough—though I did not know it! It needs young eyes to see that one has grown old: one is not ready to see it of one's self. Well, may be the lads have the right of the matter, and I have forgotten how I felt when I was a lad. I mind I got many a scolding for one ploy or another." He smiled to himself, the memories of boyhood beginning to flow in upon him. He had been rather a mischievous boy, as he realized now. Perhaps he had spoken a little sharply to the twins; he would be more patient in future. They were fine lads, bonny lads, with their mother's wide, honest gaze that feared nothing. A little time was needed to accustom them to the new life; he ought to keep that in view. And then he took up a learned book on the Children of Israel and forgot the children at the Manse.
Sunday came round, and the boys were made aware that this was a different kind of Sunday from the one they were used to in England.
That was a very pleasant kind, and they had always looked forward to it. To begin with, they had more of mother then than was possible on week-days. Mother never seemed hurried on Sunday, and everything disturbing was banished. Troublesome matters were never talked over on Sunday; naughtinesses were only punished by a gentle look of mother's sweet eyes, which generally brought the offender to her feet, penitent.
There was an indescribable air of peace about mother's best dress—soft silk, with a hushed, unobtrusive rustle to it; the boys had liked to sit on a footstool beside her and lean their heads against its folds.
They had always had some delightful book put by for Sunday, and in the morning they had gone to the pretty little ivy-covered church, each holding one of mother's hands; and in the afternoon, they had taken mother for a walk, and led her up the fields outside the town, to find wild flowers. Then after tea, they had all three drawn around the piano, and mother had sung for them out of the hymn-book till bedtime.
Sunday at Kirk-Andrew was a different affair. An atmosphere of gravity was everywhere. The minister looked so serious that the twins wondered if he felt ill. Eppie refused to smile when they bade her a good morning. Breakfast passed in awful silence, and, immediately after, they were told to get ready for "kirk." The service did not begin for a long time yet; so they were at a loss to know why it was necessary to get ready thus early. They asked Eppie, and she told them that what was meant by "getting ready" was sitting still, reading their books, and not running wild over all creation, as they did on other days.
The twins accordingly seated themselves demurely in the doorway, each with a book. The minister, passing a few minutes after, asked with an air of suspicion, "what they were reading?" The boys held up two brightly bound volumes.
"Travels in Central Africa" exclaimed their uncle in a tone of horror, "What like book is this for the Sabbath?"
Roy, to whom the work belonged, blushed angrily.
"Mother always let us read travels on Sunday," he said defiantly, "and these are splendid. There 's an account of a perfectly delightful missionary who used to hunt lions, and the lions nearly ate him up once, only he just got his gun in time, and—"
"That will do," said Mr. McAllister, holding up his hand. "It may be a good enough book for a week-day, but here you must read only grave books on the Sabbath." He took both volumes from the boys and bore them into the house. In a little while he brought out two severe-looking "memoirs," and laid them in their laps in silence. Roy waited until his back was turned, and then hurled his into the wet grass.
"The hateful man!" he said through his teeth. Willie went and picked up the "memoir" and put it down on the step; for which Roy scowled at him.
"I wanted him to see it there; it serves him right," he said.
"It's just as well not to make him any crosser than he is."
"We are n't obliged to read his horrid old things. As if mother did not know what was proper for us!"
"It is just as well not to vex him, though," rejoined Willie.
It was a relief to be called to come to 'kirk.' It seemed a very small and bare kirk, quite unlike any church they had ever seen before.
The pews were like little cattle-pens, except for a table in the centre, with a black cloth over it. The clerk gave out the key-note of the long metrical psalms on a tuning-fork; and the twins learned, to their great surprise, that in kirk, people stood up to pray and sat down to sing. They could not remember this, and were constantly doing the wrong thing, which confused them much.
They were shocked to see old women and girls eating candy, and chewing green herbs. It shocked them, too, at first, to see so many dogs in church; but as the long, uncheerful service went on, they were grateful for their presence, and began to think which ones they would each like to have for their own. By the time Mr. McAllister stood up to preach, Willie had become very sleepy, and his uncle gave him a reproving look from the pulpit which he did not see.
The sermon was long and learned, and quite beyond the boys' understanding; and,—sad to say,—they were both asleep before it ended. Now, in the old days in England, when they had felt sleepy in church, it had been their pleasant privilege to put their heads against mother, and softly float away into dreamland. Therefore, Eppie sitting close to him in the Manse pew—it befell that Willie, growing drowsy, dropped his yellow head on her plump arm. But Eppie shook him, and set him in his place again. Two minutes after, he did the same thing—and so did she. But when he fell against her for the third time, she let him stay. And, presently, Roy's brown curls were resting on her other arm; and she sat so through the remainder of the service, her cheeks scarlet, staring defiantly past the gaping faces of the congregation.
"The poor wee things!" she was saying to herself, "they canna help it! they 're fair silly wi' sleep; an' it's little they would know if they were keepit awake by pinchin' an' shakin.'"
But the minister took another view, and when the Manse dinner was ready, the boys were not allowed to come to table, nor to partake of the very nice pudding Eppie had made specially for them. And this seemed to Eppie a terrible punishment. She was angry with her master, and, as was sometimes the case, told him so in her own fashion; slamming the door when she went through; putting the dishes down upon the board violently, and sniffing disdainfully. The minister did not know what was wrong, and waited for enlightenment.
But when the enlightenment came, it was in a way he had not expected.
The twins sat together on the big bed that evening and Roy spoke:
"It will be a moonlight night: that's just what we wanted, isn't it?"
"Just. When shall we start?"
"Not until they have shut up the house and gone to sleep."
"And what shall we do first?" Willie always gave Roy the lead.
"We will go across the moors till we get to the sea. You know, Eppie says the sea is that way—" he pointed out of the window by the bed.
Willie looked a little anxious.
"You are sure you don't want to go and hide by the road, and wait for the stage, and get the peppermint-man to take us,—the way we meant to do before?"
"No," said Roy decidedly. "I 've thought that over and I see it would n't do. He would not take us; he 'd tell Uncle, and Uncle would shut us up on bread and water for months, maybe."
"I suppose he might," Willie admitted, sadly, "but the sea is so awfully far off, Roy; and we don't really know the way a bit."
"If you 're afraid—" began his brother scornfully.
"I 'm not afraid, only"
"Then don't take all the fun out of everything!"
"Only, if we got lost, Uncle Robert would find us, maybe, and nothing could be worse than that, could it?"
"Nothing!" agreed Roy with a shiver. "But we will never, never be found! We will disappear like—like"
"Like anything!" suggested Willie, and Roy assented.
"I fancy he 'll feel rather bad when he discovers our flight," said Roy; "he 'll be glad we 're gone, but he will have a dreadfully bad conscience about having made us do it. At least, I hope so!"
And with this, the twins rose and fell to completing their preparations for the journey. These took a good while, and still there were two hours to wait before the house would be quiet enough to make it safe to start. They laid themselves down on the bed, and then, very naturally, they dropped asleep.
Roy woke with a shiver. The moonlight was streaming into the room, and a bright ray streaked Willie's golden hair, making it look like silver. He sat up and looked about him, wondering what was the matter, that he and his brother should be lying on the outside of their bed with all their clothes on. Then he remembered.
"Willie!" he cried in a loud whisper, "Willie! wake up!"
"What is it?" asked the boy drowsily.
"Why, we have been asleep, and we had no business to be!" Roy said. "We have lost a lot of time, and we must n't lose another minute. Wake up, I say!" He shook Willie briskly as he spoke, and dragged him into a sitting posture. Willie rubbed his eyes and yawned and presently realized everything. But it seemed as if sleep had cooled his eagerness.
"Oh, Roy—I say, suppose we give it up; just for to-night, anyway!"
"Give it up! Why, you precious little duffer!" Roy stood in the middle of the floor gazing at him in surprise and contempt.
Willie colored under the look. But he was not wholly subdued by it.
"It's so cold; and so awfully dark! Why don't we go to-morrow morning when we can see where we are going?"
Roy made no verbal reply, but went to his box, took out a small purse, and put it in his pocket.
"I think I have all the things I want, now," he said. Willie understood that appeal was useless, and obediently prepared to follow him.
"Of course you need not come if you don't want to," remarked Roy in a chilly tone. "Stay, by all means, if you like Uncle Robert better than me." The result of this speech was that Willie flung his arms about Roy, and then Roy embraced Willie; for it was terrible to the twins to quarrel; and then they softly opened their door, and softly crept down the dark stairs, and, after a slight struggle with the hall window, were out-of-doors. The moonlight was so brilliant that it showed every tree and bush, and every high gray rock on the moor opposite. The shadows it cast were proportionately black and deep; and the more sensitive Willie shivered as he looked. But for arousing Roy's scorn afresh, he would have returned to the Manse and waited for day. As it was, he drew a long breath and went forward. They crossed the white high road and began the ascent of the moor. It sloped upward about two hundred feet, and then dropped somewhat abruptly into a little valley, beyond which it rose again more steeply. The boys began to realize that there was a good deal more of it than they had seen from the Manse. They walked on and on, always getting higher in spite of the little valleys. At last they came to a piece of swampy ground where the hard, heather-grown soil gave place to soft moss,—moss such as they had never seen before; moss which showed, even in the moonlight, rich hues of crimson, and which felt like a thick rug to their feet. They got those same feet very wet in crossing this place, and were not sorry to regain the solid ground, for, as Willie said, "It might have been a bog and swallowed them up."
The way grew steeper and steeper, the air colder, as they went on. The boys' clothing was soaked with dew, and their feet grew weary with hard climbing. After a time they sat down to rest under a rock. If Roy had begun to wish that he had waited for day, he would not allow as much.
Willie loyally kept silent. And, as the weird stillness around them was soothing, they presently dropped into a dull slumber, leaning back against the boulder. The sun was just rising in a tangle of mists as they opened their eyes once more. They felt very cold, and, when they tried to rise up, very stiff and cramped.
"Oh, how queer my arms and legs do feel!" cried Willie, twisting and turning himself about.
"I fancy we ought n't to have gone to sleep out-of-doors," answered Roy. "We have caught cold, and that's a nuisance for you, old man, because your colds always last such a long time. Let's eat the short-cakes now; they 'll be all the breakfast we will get, most likely."
Eppie, (kind, unconscious Eppie) had brought two cakes up to the boys the evening before, in consideration of their abbreviated dinner. The cakes tasted particularly good as the hungry children ate them out under the sky; and each hid from the other a coward-longing to be in the warm Manse kitchen, with more shortcakes to come: such weakness was not to be confessed. Roy brushed the crumbs from his mouth and got on his feet.
"We must be pushing on," he said in a brisk tone. Then he remembered that this was a new day, and a day full of new difficulties and dangers.
"We must say our prayers, Willie."
Then they began their climb again, up and up, the tawny bracken and purple heather and wet grass under foot, and the endless moor always beyond.
"I wish the sea wasn't so far off," poor Willie gasped by and by.
"Oh, we'll get there some time," Roy gasped back.
"To-night, do you suppose?"
"Well, perhaps. But not if we give out at the start."
"At the start! " Willie cried. "Why, Roy, we've been walking and walking, and I hoped we were getting nearly there."
"It does n' t do to be impatient," Roy made answer sagely. "We knew we should have a bad time getting away, and we must be plucky and keep up each other's hearts—not fuss."
Willie was hurt; he had tried with all his might to be plucky and cheery, and Roy never appreciated his efforts! But he toiled on.
And now came a new difficulty such as they had not reckoned upon. They had reached the top of a very high ridge, when they were aware that the sky was overcast, and that a fine, misty rain was beginning to fall. They pushed on, but the mist pushed on faster. In five minutes, they could not see two feet before them.
"We must wait till this is over," Roy said carelessly. So they drew under the edge of a boulder again, and waited. But time passed, and the mist only grew more dense. The boys chafed at the waste of time; they did not know that a great danger was over them. To be lost in a real mountain mist is what the oldest mountaineer dreads. Their clothing was now wet through and through, and their teeth chattered.
After a while Roy heard Willie sobbing softly to himself. He put an arm about him tenderly.
"Don't, please!" he begged. Willie caught him in a tight hug.
"I did n't mean to, Roy, truly, but I 'm afraid! Yes, I am! I wish we were back at the Manse. You must not be angry; I can't help it I "
"I 'm not a bit angry." If Roy had told what was in his heart, he, too, longed to be at the Manse. He saw what a mad thing it had been,—this running away. But he was too proud to allow it. Besides, he had led his brother into it, and he must keep calm and brave, whatever came.
He held Willie closer. What if this chill and fright should make him ill? Willie had always been the delicate one—the one mother had worried about. suppose Willie were to die out here, in this awful fog, away from any help? He could have screamed with agony. Instead, he said in a very quiet voice,
"I think maybe the sun will come out pretty soon. Don't fret: I'm here, Willie; I'll take care of you!"
When Eppie called at the boys' door— "Time ye wakened!" and got no answer, that Monday morning, she opened the door, and went into the room.
In a moment, she saw what had happened. And "to make assurance doubly sure," here was a scrap of ruled paper on the table, saying:
"dear epie This is to tell you we have run away because uncle robert is to hard To please. we think you are nice and we will see you again some day. yours with love, Roy and Wilie."
Eppie carried the scrap to the minister's door.
"Noo ye see what ye hae done," she cried; "read that!"
Mr. McAllister took the paper and stared at it blankly.
"What does this mean?" he asked with a pale face, his hand shaking.
"What does it mean?" repeated Eppie fiercely. "It means ye hae driven the poor bairns to run fro' ye, wi' your harryin' them this way and that way—What else? Keepin' them in their bed-chamber a' Sabbath because they sleepit a bit in kirk, an' no givin' them enough to eat, the poor wee laddies! Think shame to yersel', Minister!"
Mr. McAllister looked at Eppie in amazed silence; never had she so addressed him before.
"I will allow no such talk as this, my woman," he said sternly, "but if ye have any sense in your head, tell me if the lads had said aught to show they had an idea of this beforehand."
"I dinna ken," Eppie replied, a little subdued; "I canna mind—unless it would be Roy askin' me was the sea very far fro' this? An' anither time, Willie telled me he would like fine to be a sailor, an' maybe it would be a sailor he was to be, some day. I 'm thinkin' the lads hae gone over the moor to find the sea."
"I will set some folk to seeking them," said the minister; and he went out, not staying for breakfast. Eppie sank down on the stairs crying.
The minister went to the small cottage of "Lang" Jock Mackenzie, the shepherd. Jock listened to his tale without a change of feature, only taking a pinch of snuff, and saying gravely, "Ay, that might be; "for he was a cautious man. But when Mr. McAllister asked if he were willing to go out and try to find the boys, he said at once that he would go, and that his collie, Meg, should go too.
"Meg's a powerfu' fine nose for a scent," he added. "I will be steppin' tae the Manse, an' Eppie will be givin' me a bit O' the bairns' clothes, an' Meg will find them, dinna fear."
After Lang Jock, the minister saw big Sandy Ford, and little Jamesie Campbell, and two or three more; and when they had made their plans, they separated, each taking a different way.
Lang Jock and his faithful dog chose the moor opposite the Manse, and when Meg had carefully sniffed at the jacket Eppie had given to the shepherd, she gave an impatient bark, as if to say—"Well, let us get to work!"
"Gae find the lads, Meg!" cried Jock, "Gae find!" and she laid her sharp, slender nose to the ground, and disappeared into the mist, which was still over everything, though gradually thinning.
Jock followed, calling to the dog from time to time. After a long absence, back she came, and jumped up, whining, and trying to tell him to hurry. And hurry he did, striding up and down the ridges, till he came to a big boulder, and as Meg rushed to it and back again, barking wildly, stooped and found two unconscious little figures, lying wrapped in one another's arms!
Roy waked from a long sleep to hear a sound of short, hard breathing close to him. He turned slightly and saw a man's figure stooping over at the side of his bed, its shoulders heaving. Rather queer that, he thought; but no queerer than his being in bed. Where ought he to be? He tried to remember. Why, yes—he had no business to be in bed; he was on the moor with Willie, and it was high time they were going on now, because the mist had all gone and the sun' was shining. Or, was it a lamp? He could n't tell. Funny to have a lamp out on the moor! Only everything seemed to have grown funny. And why did n't Willie say something? That was the queerest thing of all! Where was Willie, anyway? He tried to see around the room; he called in a faint voice, "Willie!"
The figure at the bedside came close and peered anxiously into his face. It was his uncle!
Roy looked up at him, and held out a wavering little hand.
"Uncle Robert," he said weakly, "I suppose you are going to put us on bread and water, but I want you to let Willie off the easiest; he would never have run away but for me. I made him."
Mr. McAllister strode to the window and blew his nose. Then he came back.
"Eh, my lad," he said wistfully, "What made you run away from me?"
"We thought you did n't like us, and we meant to be sailors," was the simple answer. "Please,—where is Willie?" he went on eagerly.
"Ah, Willie is a sick lad," said the minister sadly. "It 's he who will be the most likely to remember this foolish piece of work. Roy, man, he is too ill to see you—too ill to leave his bed in the other room there for a long while, I 'm afraid. And to think I should have frightened my own Annie's lads so that they ran from my house!"
Roy opened his eyes wide, for, if he could believe them, stern Uncle Robert—harsh Uncle Robert—was crying!
He had sat down again close by the bed, and now Roy stretched out his hand once more and touched the minister's.
"Please don't, Uncle!" he sobbed. "I 'll never run away again—and when Willie gets well, we won't go to sleep in church, or do anything any more!"
And then the queerest thing of all happened, (as Roy told Willie by and by), for Uncle Robert actually leaned over and kissed him!
"God has taught me a lesson," he said humbly.
And the twins stayed at the Manse, and grew to love it. And, so far as I know, they are not and never will be, sailors.