The Buffalo Runners: A Tale of the Red River Plains by R. M. Ballantyne (e reading malayalam books .TXT) 📖

When the news that young Duncan had been shot was brought to Ben Nevis, the effect on his father was much more severe than might have been expected, considering their respective feelings towards each other.

It was late in the evening when the news came, and the old man was seated in what he styled his smoking-room, taking his evening glass of whisky and water.

“Elspie,” he said, in a subdued voice, on being told, “help me up to my bed.”

This was so very unusual a request that Elspie was somewhat alarmed by it, as well as surprised—all the more so that the old man left the room without finishing either his pipe or glass. Still, she did not suppose that anything serious would come of it. A night’s rest, she thought, would do away with the evils of the shock.

“Dear father,” she said, as she kissed him at parting, “do believe that God is waiting to be gracious: that He really means it when He says, ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ And, consider—we have no reason to suppose that dear Duncan’s wound is very dangerous.”

“Goot-night, Elspie,” was all the reply.

Next morning McKay did not make his appearance at the usual breakfast-hour, and, on going to his room, they found him lying speechless in his bed, suffering under a stroke of paralysis.

He soon recovered the power of speech, but not the use of his limbs, and it became evident ere long that the poor man had received a shock which would probably cripple him for life. Whatever may have been his secret thoughts, however, he carefully concealed them from every one, and always referred to his complaint as, “this nasty stiff feeling about the legs which iss a long time of goin’ away—whatever.”

In a few days, Fergus returned from the plains, bringing his brother in a cart, which had been made tolerably easy by means of a springy couch of pine-branches. They did not tell him at first of his father’s illness, lest it should interfere with his own recovery from the very critical condition in which he lay. At first he took no notice of his father’s non-appearance, attributing it to indifference; but when he began slowly to mend, he expressed some surprise. Then they told him.

Whatever may have been his thoughts on the subject, he gave no sign, but received the information—as, indeed, he received nearly all information at that time—in absolute silence.

Fortunately, the bullet which struck him had passed right through his side, so that he was spared the pain, as well as the danger, of its extraction. But, from his total loss of appetite and continued weakness, it was evident that he had received some very severe, if not fatal, internal injury. At last, very slowly, he began to grow a little stronger, but he was a very shadow or wreck of his former self. Nevertheless, the more sanguine members of the family began to entertain some faint hope of his recovery.

Of course, during these first days of his weakness his sister Elspie nursed him. She would, if permitted, have done so night and day, but in this matter she had to contend with one who was more than a match for her. This was Old Peg, the faithful domestic.

“No, no, dearie,” said that resolute old woman, when Elspie first promulgated to her the idea of sitting up all night with Duncan, “you will do nothin’ of the sort. Your sainted mother left your father an’ Fergus an’ yourself to my care, an’ I said I would never fail you, so I can’t break my promise by letting you break your health. I will sit up wi’ him, as I’ve done many a time when he was a bairn.”

It thus came to pass that Elspie nursed her brother by day, and Old Peg sat up with him at night. Of course the duties of the former were considerably lightened by the assistance rendered by various members of the family, as well as friends, who were ever ready to sit by the bedside of the wounded man and read to or chat with him. At such times he was moderately cheerful, but when the night watches came, and Old Peg took her place beside him, and memory had time to commence with him undisturbed, the deed of which he had had been guilty was forced upon him; Conscience was awakened, and self-condemnation was the result. Yet, so inconsistent is poor humanity that self-exculpation warred with self-condemnation in the same brain! The miserable man would have given all he possessed to have been able to persuade himself that his act was purely one of self-defence—as no doubt to some extent it was, for if he had not fired first Perrin’s action showed that he would certainly have been the man-slayer. But, then, young McKay could not shut his eyes to the fact that premeditation had, in the first instance, induced him to extend his hand towards his gun, and this first act it was which had caused all the rest.

Often during the wakeful hours of the night would the invalid glance at his nurse with a longing desire to unburden his soul to her, but whenever his eye rested on her calm, wrinkled old visage, and he thought of her deafness, and the difficulty of making her understand, he abandoned his half-formed intention with a sigh. He did not, indeed, doubt her sympathy, for many a time during his life, especially when a child, had he experienced the strength and tenderness of that.

After attending to his wants, it was the habit of Old Peg to put on a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles and read. Her only book was the Bible. She read nothing else—to say truth, at that time there was little else to read in Red River. The first night of her watch she had asked the invalid if he would like her to read a few verses to him.

“You may if you like, Peg,” he had replied.