Faithful Unto Death

The fire burns cheerily on the hearth the great logs crackle and flare up the wide chimney, up which it is my wont to say you could drive a eoach-and-four. I draw my chair nearer to it with a shiver " What a night !" I say. " Is it still snowing ?" asks my wife who sits opposite to me, lier books and' work on the table beside her. 'Tast. You can scarcely see a yard bef ore you." " Heaven help any poor creature on the moor to-night !" says she. "Who would venture out?' It began snowing before dark, and all the people aoout know the danger of being benighted on the moor in a snow-stomi. " "Yes. But I have known peopïe frozen to death hereabouts before now " My wife is Scotch, and this pleasant house in the Highlands is hers We aretryinga winter in it for the first time, and I flnd it excessively coid and somewhat dull. Mentally I decide that m future we will only grace it with our presence during the shooting season. Presently I go to the window and look out ; it has ceased snowing, and through a rift in the clouds I see a star. " It is beginning to olear," I teil my wife, and also inform her that it is past 11. As she lights her candle at a table I hear a whining and scratching at the front door. " There is Laddie loose again," eays she. " Would you let him in, dear?" Ididnot like facing the cold wind but could not refuse to let in the poor animal. Strangely enough, when I opened the door and called him he wouldn't come. He runs up to the door and looks into my f aoe with dumb entreaty; then he runs back a few steps looking around to see if I am following' and finally, he takes my coat in his Hiouth and tries to draw me out. " Laddie won't come in," I cali out to mywife. "On the contrary, he seems to want me to go out and have a game of snow-ball with him." She throws a shawl around her and comes to the door. The collie was hers before we were married, and she is almost as fond of him, I teil her, as she is of Jack, our eldest boy. "Laddie, Laddie !"she calis ; "come in, sir." He comes obediently at her cali, but refuses to enter the house, and pursues the same dumb pantomime he has already tried on me. " I shall shut him out, Jessie," I say. " A night in the snow won't hurt him " and I prepare to close the door. "Youwill do nothing of the kind !" she replies with an anxious look, "but you will rouse the servants at once and follow him. Some one is lost in the snow, and Laddie knows it. " I laugh "Keally, Jessie, you are absurd. Laddie is a sagacious animal no doubt, but I cannot believe he is as clever as that. How can he possibly know whether any one is lost in the snow or not?" "Because he has found them and come back to us for help. Look at him now, " I cannot but own that the dog seems restless and uneasy, and is evidently endeavoring to coax us to follow him ; he looks at us with pathetic entreaty in his eloquent eyes. "Why won't you believe me ?" he seems to ask. " Come," she continúes ; " you know you could not rest while there was a possibility of a fellow-creature wanting your assistance. And I am certain Laddie is not deceiving us." What is a poor hen-pecked man to do ? I grumble and resist and yield, as I have often grumbled and resisted and yielded before, and as I doubtless shall do again. " Laddie once found a man in the snow before, but he was dead," Jessie says, as she hurries off to fill a flask with brandy, and get ready some blankets for us to take with us. In the meantime I rouse the servants. They are all English, with the exception of Donald, the gardener, and I can see they are scoffingly skeptical of Laddie's sagacity, and inwardly disgusted at having to turn out of their warm beds and face the bitter winter's night. " Dinna trouble yoursels," I hear old Donald say. "The mistress is right enough. Auld Laddie is cleverer than mony a Christian, and will fiiid something; in the snavr thia nignt." "J)pB't sit up, Jessie," I eay as we start; "we may be out half the night on tliis wild-goose chase." " Follow Laddie closely" is the only answer she makes. The dog springs forward with a joyous bark, constantly looking back to see if we are following. As wo pass through the avenue gates and emerge on to the moor, the moon struggles for a moment through the driving clouds, and lights up with a sickly gleam the snow-clad country bef ore us. " It's like hunting for a needie in a bundle of hay, sir," says John, the coachman, confldentially, " to think as we should find anybody on uch a night as this ! Why, in some places the snow is more than a couple o' f eet thick, and it goes again' reason to think tlist a dumb .animal would have the sense .tocóme home and fetch help." "Bidé a wee, bidé a wee," says old Donald. " I dinna ken what your English dugs can do; but a collie, though it hasn't been pleasing to Providence to give the creatur the gift o' speech, can do niony mair things. than them that wad deride it. " t r 1 ii -i i - - m X ain t a dendm oí em," saya John. ' ' I only say as how if they . be. so very clever l've never séen it. " "Ye wull, though, ye wull," says oíd Donald, as he hurries forward after Laddie, who has now settíed down into a swinging. trot, and is taking his way straight across the loneliest paj-t -oí the bleak moor. The. eold wind almost cuts us in two, and whirls the snow into our faces, nearly blinding us. My fingertips are becoming nnmbed, icicles hang from my mustache and beard, and my f eet and lega are soaking wet, even through my shooting-boots and stout leather leggings. The moon has gone in again, and the liglit from the lantern we carry is barelv sufficient to show the inequalities in the height of the snow, by which we are guessing at our path. I begin to wish I had staid at home. " L'homme propose, mais la femme, dispose," I sigh to myself ; and I begin to consider whether I may venture to give up the search VAxAvm j. uavc uuuci müeil puxciy tü SUTisfy my wif e, f or I am like John, and won't believe in Laddie), when suddenly I hear a shout in front of me, and see Donald, who aas all the time been keeping close to Laddie, drop on his knees and begin digging wildly in the snow with his hands. We all rush forward. Laddie has stopped at what appears to be the foot of a stnnted tree, and, after scratching and whining for a moment, sits down and watches, leaving the rest to us. What is it appears when we have shoveled away the snow ? A dark object. Is it a bundie of rags? Is it - or alas ! was it a human being ? We raise it carefully and tenderly, wrap it. in one of the warm blanlrets with which my wife's forethought has provided us. "Bring the lantern," I said huskily ; and John holds it over the prostráte form of, not as we might have expected, some stalwart shepherd of the hills, but over that of a poor, shriveled, wrinkled, ragged old woman. I try to pour a littte brandy down the poor old throat, but the teeth are so firmly clenched that I cannot. " Best get her home as quickly as may be, sir ; the miBtress wiÜ know better what to do fór her nor we, if so be the poor creature is not past help," says John, turning instinctively, as we all do in sickness or trouble, to woman' s aid. So we improvine a sort of hammeck of tlie blankets, and gently and tenderly the men prepare to carry their poor, helpless burden over the snow. " I ara af raid your mistress will be in bed," I say, as we begin to retrace our steps. " Never fear, sir," says Donald with a triumphant glance at John ; lithe mistress will be up and waitin' for us. She kens Laddie didna bring us out in the snaw for naething. " " ril never say naught about believing a dawg again, says John, gracefully striking his colors. "You were right and I was wrong, and that's all about it ; but to think tliere should be such sense in a animal piases me!" As we reach the avenue gate I dispatch one of the men for the doctor, who t'ortuntitely lives within a stone's-tbrow of us, and hurry on myself to prepare my wife for what is coming. She runs out into hall to meet me. " Well ?" she asked eagerly. "Wehavefound a poor oíd woman," I say; "but I do mot know whether she is alive or dead." My wife throws her arms round me and gives me a great hug. ' You will find drytüingsand a jug of hot toddy in your dressing-room, dear," she says; and this is all the revenge she takes on me for my skepticism. The poor old woman is carried up stairs and placed in a warm bath under my wife's direction; ánd bef ore the doctor arrivés she has shown some faint symptoms of lífe; so my wife sends me -word. Dr. Bruce shakes his head when he sees her. "Poor old soul," he says; "how carne she out on the moor on such a fearíul night? I doubt she has received a shock, which at her age she will not easily get over." They manage, however, to forcé a few spoonfuls of hot brandy and water down her throat; and presently a faint color flickers on her cheek, and the poor old eyelids begin tp tremble. My wife raises her head and makes her swallow some cordial which Dr. Bruce has brought witli him, then lays her back among the soft, warm pillows. ' ' I think she will rally now," says Dr. Bruce, as her breathing becomes more audible and regular. " Nourishment and warmth will do the rest; but she has received a shock from which, I fear, she will never recover ;" and so saying he takes his leave. By and' by I go up to the room and find my wife TTittching alone by the aged sufferer. She looks up at jne with tears in her eyes. "Poor old soul," she says; "I am af raid she will not rally from the cold and exposure." I go round to the other side of the bed and look down upon her. The aged face looks wan and pinched, and the scanty gray locks which lie on the pillow are still wet from the snow. She is a ve'ry little woman, as far as I can judge of her in her recumbent position, and I should think she must have reached her allotted three-score years and ten. " Who can she be ?" I repeat, wonderingly. "She does not belong to any of the villages hereabouts, or we should know her face; and I cannot imagine what could bring a siranger to the moor on such a night." As I speak a change passes over her face; the ejes uncióse, and she looks inquiringly about her. She tries to speak, but is evidently too weak. My }?ife raises her, and gives her a spoonful of nourishment, while she says, sodthiflgly: ' ' jiqn't try to speak. You are arnong i'ricuds; and when you are better you shall teil us all about yourself . Lie still now and try to sleep." The gray heftd drops back wearily on tlie pillow; and soera tye have the faction of hearing by the regular respiraron that our patiënt is asleep. " You must come to bed now, Jessie," I say. " I shall ring for Mary, acd she can sit up for the rernainder of the night. " But my wif e, who is a tenderhearted soul and a born nuree, will not desert her post; so I leave her watching and retire to my solitary chamber. Wlien we meet in the morning I find that the little oíd woman has spoken a few words and seems scronger. " Coine in with me now," says my wif e, " and let us try and find out who she is." We find her propped into a recliniiig posture with pillows, and Mary beside her feeding her. "How are you now?" asks Jessie, bending over her. " Better, much better, thank you, good lady," she says in a low voice, which trembles from age as well as weakness. "And very thankful to yon for yonr goodness." I hear at once by the accent that ehe is English. " Are you strong enough to teil me how you got lost on the moor, and where you eame from, and where yon were going ?" continues my wife. "Ah ! I was going to my lad, my poor lad, and now I doubt I sfiall never see hini more, "says the poor soul, with a long sigh of weariness. "Where is your lad, and how f ar have you come ? " " My lad is a soldier at Fort George ; and I have come all the wayfrom Liverpool to see him, and give him his old mother's blessing beíore he goes to the rndies." And then, brokenly, with long pauses of weariness and weakness, the little old woman tells us her pitiful story. Her lad, she tells us, is her only remaining child. She had six, and this, the youngest, is the only one who did not die of want during the Lancashiro cotton f&mine. He grew tip a fine, likely boy, the comfort and pride of his mother's heart, and the stay of her declining years. But a "strike" threw him out of work. and. unahlfi tn Rn1nri the privation and misery, in a fit of deaperation he "listed." His regiment was quartered at Fort George, and he wrote regularly to his mother, his letters getting more cheerful and hopeful every day; until suddenly he wrote to say that his regiment -was ordered to India, and begging her to send him her blessing, as he had not enough money to carry him to Liverpool to see her. The aged mother, widowed and childless, save for this one remaining boy, felt that slie must look on his face once more before she died. She begged from a few ladies, whose kindnnss had kept her from the workhouse, sufficient money to carry her by train to Glasgow; and from thence she had made her way, now on foot, now begging a lift in a passing cart or wagon, to within a few miles of Fort George, when she was caught in the snow-ctorm; and, wandering from the road, would have perished in the snow - but for Laddie. My wite is in tears and Mary is sobbing audibly as the little oíd woman eoncludes her simple and touching story, and I walk to the window and look out for a moment before I am able to ask her what her son's name is. Ae I teil her that we are but a few miles from Fort George, and that I wül send over for him, a smile of extreme content illumines the withered face. " His name is John Síüter," she says. "Heisa tall, handsome lad ; they will know him by that." I basten down stairs and write a short note to Col. Freeman, whom I know intimately, informing him ol the stance, and begging that he will allow John Salter to come over at once, and I dispatch my groom in the dog-cart tliat he may bring him back without loss of time. As I return to the house after seeing him start I meet Dr. Bruce leaving thè house. "Poor old soul," he says; "her troubles are nearly over ; she is sinking fast. I almost doubt whether she will live till her son comes. ' " How she could have accomplished such a journey at her age I cannot undergtand," I observe. " Nothing is impossible to a mother," answers Dr. Bruce ; "butit has killed her." I go in ; but I find I cannot settle to my usual occupations. My thoughts are with the aged heroine who is dying up-stairs, and presently I yield to the fascination which draws me back to her presence. As Dr. Bruce says, she is sinking fast. She lies back on the pillows, her cheeks as ashy gray as her hair. She clasps my wife's hand in hers, but her eyes are wide open, and have an eager, expectant look in them. " At what time may we expect them ?' whispers my wiie to me. "Not bef ore 4," I answer in the same tone. "He will be too late, I fear," shej says; " she is getting rapidly weaker." Buc love is stronger than dcath, and she will not go until her son comes. All through the winter's day she lies dying, obediently taking what nourishment is given to her, but never speaking except to say : " My lad, my lad ! God is good ; He will not let me die until he comes." And at last I hear the dog-cart. I lay my finger on my lip and teil Mary to go and bring John Salter up very quietly. But my caution is needless ; the mother has heard the sound, and with a last effort of her remaining strength she raises herself and stretches out her arms. " My lad, my lad !" she gasps, as, with a great sob, he springs f orward, and mother and son are clasped in each other's arms once more. For a moment they remain so. Then the little old woman sinks back on my wife's shoulder, and her spirit is looking down f rom heaven on the lad she loved so dearly on earth. She lies in our little church-yard under a spreading yew-tree, and on the stone which mark s her resting-place are inscribed the words, "Faithful unto Death." Our Laddie has gained farspread renown for his good works ; and, as I sit finishing this short record of a tale of which he is the hero, he lies at my feet, our ever-watchful, faithful