The Eagle Cliff by Robert Michael Ballantyne (best story books to read txt) 📕

of uncertainty, the latter made straight for old Molly Donaldson's cottage, thinking it possible that her unhappy son might go there. On the way he had to pass the keeper's own cottage, and was surprised to see a light in it and the door wide open. As he approached, the sound of the keeper's voice was heard speaking violently, mingled with blows, as if delivered with some heavy instrument against timber. A loud crash of breaking wood met Jackman's ear as he sprang in. Ivor was in the act of rending the remains of a door from a corner cupboard, while an axe, which he had just dropped, lay at his feet on the earthen floor. A black quart bottle, visible through the opening which had been made, showed the reason of his assault on the cupboard. If there had been any uncertainty on the point, it would have been dispelled by the wild laugh, or yell of fierce exultation, with which he seized the bottle, drew the cork, and raised it to his dry lips.

Before it reached them, however, Jackman's strong hand seized the keeper's arm. A gasp from the roused giant, and the deadly pallor of his countenance, as he glanced round, showed that superstition had suddenly seized on his troubled soul; but no sooner did he see who it was that had checked him, than the hot blood rebounded to his face, and a fierce glare shot from his eyes.

"Thank God!--not too late!" exclaimed Jackman, fervently.

The thanksgiving was addressed to God, of course without reference to its influence on Ivor; but no words, apparently, could have been used with better effect upon the keeper's spirit. His eyes lost their ferocity, and he stood irresolute.

"Break it, like a good fellow," said Jackman, in a soft, kindly voice, as he pointed to the bottle.

"I broke one before, sir," said Ivor, in a despairing tone; "and you see how useless that was."

"Give it to me, then."

As he spoke, he took the bottle from the man's grasp, and cast it through the open doorway, where it was shivered to atoms on the stones outside.

Striding towards a pitcher of water which stood in a corner of the room, the keeper seized it, put it to his lips, and almost drained it.

"There!" he exclaimed; "that will drown the devil for a time!"

"No, Ivor, it won't; but it will _help_ to drown it," said Jackman, in the same kindly, almost cheerful, voice. "Neither cold water nor hottest fire can slay the evils that are around and within us. There is only one Saviour from sin--Jesus, `who died for the sins of the whole world.' He makes use of means, however, and these means help towards the great end. But it was not the Saviour who told you to lock that bottle in that cupboard--was it?"

An expression of perplexity came over the keeper's face.

"You are right, sir; it was not. But, to my thinkin' it was not the devil either!"

"Very likely not. I think sometimes we are inclined to put many things on the devil's shoulders which ought to rest on our own. You know what the Bible says about the deceitfulness of our hearts."

"I do, sir, an' yet I don't quite see that it was that either. I did not put that bottle there to have it handy when I wanted it. I put it there when I made up my mind to fight this battle in Christ's name, so as I might see if He gave me strength to resist the temptation, when it was always before me."

"Just so, Ivor, my friend. That `if' shows that you doubted Him! Moreover, He has put into our mouths that prayer, `lead us not into temptation,' and you proposed to keep temptation always before your eyes."

"No, sir, no, not quite so bad as that," cried the keeper, growing excited. "I shut the door an' locked the accursed thing out of my sight, and when I found I could _not_ resist the temptation, I took the key out and flung it into the sea."

"Would it not have been better to have flung the evil thing itself into the sea? You soon found another key!" said his friend, pointing to the axe.

"You say truth, sir; but oh, you hev no notion o' the fight I hev had wi' that drink. The days an' nights of torment! The horrors! Ay, if men could only taste the horrors _before_ they tasted the drink, I do believe there would be no drunkards at all! I hev lain on that bed, sir," he pointed to it as he spoke, while large drops stood on his pale brow at the very recollection, "and I hev seen devils and toads and serpents crawlin' round me and over me--great spiders, and hairy shapeless things, wi' slimy legs goin' over my face, and into my mouth, though I gnashed my teeth together--and glaring into my tight shut eyes, an' strangling me. Oh! sir, I know not what hell may be, but I think that it begins on earth wi' some men!"

"From all this Jesus came to save us, Ivor," said Jackman, endeavouring to turn the poor man's mind from the terrible thoughts that seemed about to overwhelm him; "but God will have us to consent to be saved in _His_ _own_ way. When you put the temptation in the cupboard, you disobeyed Him, and therefore were trying to be saved in _your own_ way. Disobedience and salvation cannot go together, because salvation means deliverance from disobedience. You and I will pray, Ivor, that God would give us his holy Spirit, and then we shall fight our battles in future with more success."

Thereupon, standing as they were, but with bowed spirits and heads, they laid the matter in the hands of God in a brief but earnest prayer.

While these two were thus engaged, the scene at the house had entered upon another phase. The weather, which all that day had been extremely changeable, suddenly assumed its gloomiest aspect, and rain began to fall heavily. Gradually the fall increased in volume, and at last descended in an absolute deluge, rendering the use of water-buckets quite unnecessary, and accomplishing in a very few minutes what all the men at the place could not have done in as many hours. But that which prevented effectually the extension of the fire, caused, almost as effectually, the destruction of much of the property exposed on the lawn. The men were therefore set to work with all their energies to replace in the unburnt part of the mansion all that they had so recently carried out of it.

In this work Ivor Donaldson found a sufficient outlet for the fierce unnatural energies which had been aroused within him. He went about heaving and hauling, and staggering under weights that in an ordinary state of body and mind he could scarcely have moved. Little notice was taken of him, however, for every one else was, if not doing the same thing, at least working up to the utmost extent of his ability.

Before midnight all was over. The fire was what the cook termed black out. The furniture, more than half destroyed, was re-housed. The danger of a revival of the flames was past, and the warriors in the great battle felt themselves free to put off their armour and seek refreshment.

This they did--the males at least--in the gun-room, which, being farthest from the fire, and, therefore, left untouched, had not been damaged either by fire or water. Here the thoughtful laird had given orders to have a cold collation spread, and here, with his guests, men-servants, boys, and neighbouring farmers around him, he sat down to supper.


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.


CONCLUSION.

"We are a queer lot, what-e-ver!" remarked one of the farmers, with a deep sigh and a candid smile, as he looked round the company.

The observation was incontrovertible, if charcoaled faces, lank hair, torn and dripping garments, and a general appearance of drowned-ratiness may be regarded as "queer."

"My friends," said the laird, digging the carving fork into a cold turkey, "we are also a hungry lot, if I may judge of others by myself, so let me advise you to fall to. We can't afford to sit long over our supper in present circumstances. Help yourselves, and make the most of your opportunities."

"Thank God," said Giles Jackman, "that we have the opportunity to sit down to sup under a roof at all."

"Amen to that," returned the laird; "and thanks to you all, my friends, for the help you have rendered. But for you, this house and all in it would have been burnt to ashes. I never before felt so strongly how true it is that we `know not what a day may bring forth.'"

"What you say, sir, is fery true," remarked a neighbouring small farmer, who had a sycophantish tendency to echo or approve whatever fell from the laird's lips.

"It is indeed true," returned his host, wiping the charcoal from his face with a moist handkerchief; "but it is the Word that says it, not I. And is it not strange," he added, turning with a humorous look to Barret, "that after all these years the influence of Joan of Arc should be still so powerful in the Western Isles? To think that she should set my house on fire in this nineteenth century!"

"I am very glad she did!" suddenly exclaimed Junkie, who, having been pretty well ignored or forgotten by everybody, was plying his knife and fork among the other heroes of the fight in a state of inexpressible felicity.

"You rascal!" exclaimed his father; "you should have been in bed long ago! But why are you so glad that Joan set the house on fire?"

"Because she gave me the chance to save Blackie's life!" replied Junkie, with supreme contentment.

The company laughed, and continued their meal, but some of them recalled the proverb which states that "the boy is father to the man," and secretly prophesied a heroic career for Junkie.

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Ten months passed away, during which period Allan Gordon retired to his residence in Argyllshire while his mansion in the Western Island was being restored. During the same period Archie produced innumerable hazy photographs of Kinlossie House in a state of conflagration; Eddie painted several good copies of the bad painting into which Milly Moss had introduced a megatherium cow and other specimens of violent perspective; and Junkie underwent a few terrible paroxysms of intense hatred of learning in all its aspects, in which paroxysms he was much consoled by the approval and sympathy of dear little Flo.

During this period, also, Mabberly applied himself to his duties in London, unaffected by the loss of the _Fairy_, and profoundly interested in the success of his friend Barret, who had devoted himself heart and head to natural history, with a view to making that science his profession, though his having been left a competence by his father rendered a profession unnecessary, from a financial point of view. As for Giles Jackman, that stalwart "Woods-and-Forester" returned to his adopted land, accompanied by the faithful Quin, and busied himself in the activities of his adventurous career, while he sought to commend the religion of Jesus alike to native and European, both by