Chapter 30

END OF THE JACOBITE RISING

In the small hours of the following night the pulse of Thrums stopped
for a moment, and then went on again, but the only watcher remained
silent, and the people rose in the morning without knowing that they had
lost one of their number while they slept. In the same ignorance they
toiled through a long day.

It was a close October day in the end of a summer that had lingered to
give the countryside nothing better than a second crop of haws. Beneath
the beeches leaves lay in yellow heaps like sliced turnip, and over all
the strath was a pink haze; the fields were singed brown, except where a
recent ploughing gave them a mourning border. From early morn men, women
and children (Tommy among them) were in the fields taking up their
potatoes, half-a-dozen gatherers at first to every drill, and by noon it
seemed a dozen, though the new-comers were but stout sacks, now able to
stand alone. By and by heavy-laden carts were trailing into Thrums,
dog-tired toilers hanging on behind, not to be dragged, but for an
incentive to keep them trudging, boys and girls falling asleep on top
of the load, and so neglecting to enjoy the ride which was their
recompense for lifting. A growing mist mixed with the daylight, and
still there were a few people out, falling over their feet with fatigue;
it took silent possession, and then the shadowy forms left in the fields
were motionless and would remain there until carted to garrets and
kitchen corners and other winter quarters on Monday morning. There were
few gad-abouts that Saturday night. Washings were not brought in, though
Mr. Dishart had preached against the unseemly sight of linen hanging on
the line on the Sabbath-day. Innes, stravaiging the square and wynds in
his apple-cart, jingled his weights in vain, unable to shake even
moneyed children off their stools, and when at last he told his beast to
go home they took with them all the stir of the town. Family exercise
came on early in many houses, and as the gude wife handed her man the
Bible she said entreatingly, "A short ane." After that one might have
said that no earthly knock could bring them to their doors, yet within
an hour the town was in a ferment.

When Tommy and Elspeth reached the Den the mist lay so thick that they
had to feel their way through it to the _Ailie_, where they found
Gavinia alone and scared. "Was you peeping in, trying to fleg me twa
three minutes syne?" she asked, eagerly, and when they shook their
heads, she looked cold with fear.

"As sure as death," she said, "there was some living thing standing
there; I couldna see it for the rime, but I heard it breathing hard."

Tommy felt Elspeth's hand begin to tremble,