Magnum Bonum; Or, Mother Carey's Brood Part 50

"We must halloo," said Armine, attempting it.

"Yes, and we don't know when to begin! We can't go on all night, you know," said Jock; "and if we begin too soon, we may have no voice left just at the right time."

"It is half-past seven now," said Armine, looking at his watch. "The food was to be at seven, so they must have missed us by this time."

"They won't think anything of it till it gets dark."

"No. Give them till half-past eight. Somewhere about nine or half-past it may be worth while to yodel."

"And how awfully cold it will be by that time. And my foot is aching like fun!"

Armine offered to rub it, and there was some occupation in this and in watching the darkening of the evening, which was very gradual in the dense white fog that shut them in with a damp, cold, moist curtain of undeveloped snow.

The poor lads were thinly clad for a summer walk, Jock had left his plaid behind him, and they were beginning to feel only too vividly that it was past supper-time, when they could dimly see that it was past nine, and began to shout, but they soon found this severe and exhausting.

Armine suggested counting ten between each cry, which would husband their powers and give them time to listen for an answer. Yet even thus there was an empty, feeble sound about their cries, so that Jock observed--

"It's very odd that when there's no good in making a row, one can make it fast enough, and now when it would be of some use, one seems to have no more voice than a little sick mouse."

"Not so much, I think," said Armine. "It is hunger partly."

"Hark! That sounded like something."

Invigorated by hope they shouted again, but though several times they did hear a distant yodel, the hope that it was in answer to themselves soon faded, as the sound became more distant, and their own exertions ended soon in an utter breakdown--into a hoa.r.s.e squeak on Jock's part and a weak, hungry cry on Armine's. Jock's face was covered with tears, as much from the strain as from despair.

"There!" he sighed, "there's our last chance gone! We are in for a night of it."

"It can't be a very long night," Armine said, through chattering teeth.

"It's only a week to the longest day."

"Much that will matter to us," said Jock, impatiently. "We shall be frozen long before morning."

"We must keep ourselves awake."

"You little a.s.s," said poor Jock, in the petulant inconsistency of his distress; "it is not come to that yet."

Armine did not answer at once. He was kneeling against the rock, and a strange thrill came over Jock, forbidding him again to say--"It was not come to that," but a shoot of aching pain in his ankle presently drew forth an exclamation.

Armine again offered to rub it for him, and the two arranged themselves for this purpose, the curtain of damp woolliness seeming to thicken on them. There was a moon somewhere, and the darkness was not total, but the dreariness and isolation were the more felt from the absence of all outlines being manifest. They even lost sight of their own hands if they stretched out their arms, and their light summer garments were already saturated with damp and would soon freeze. No part of their bodies was free from that deadly chill save where they could press against one another.

They were brave boys. Jock had collected himself again, and for some time they kept up a show of mirth in the shakings and buffetings they bestowed on one another, but they began to grow too stiff and spent to pursue this discipline. Armine thought that the night must be nearly over, and Jock tried to see his watch, but decided that he could not, because he could not bear to believe how far it was from day.

Armine was drowsily rubbing the ankle, mechanically murmuring something to himself. Jock shook him, saying--

"Take care, don't doze off. What are you mumbling about leisure?"

"O tarry thou the Lord's leisure. Be strong and--Was I saying it aloud?"

he broke off with a start.

"Yes; go on."

Armine finished the verse, and Jock commented--

"Comfort thine heart. Does the little chap mean it in a fix like this?"

"Jock," said Armine, now fully awake, "I do want to say something."

"Cut on."

"If you get out of this and I don't--"

"Stop that! We've got heat enough to last till morning."

"Will they find us then? These fogs last for days and turn to snow."

"Don't croak, I say. I can't face mother without you."

"She'll be glad enough to get you. Please listen, Jock, while I'm awake.

I want you to give her and all of them my love, and say I'm sorry for all the times I've vexed them."

"As if you had ever--"

"And please Jock, if I was nasty and conceited about the champagne--"

"Shut up, I can't stand this," cried Jock, chiefly from force of habit, for it was a tacit agreement among the elder brothers that Armine must not be suffered to "be c.o.c.ky and humbug," by which they meant no implication on his sincerity, but that they did not choose to hear remonstrances or appeals to higher motives, and this had made him very reticent with all except his sister Barbara and Miss Ogilvie, but he now persisted.

"Indeed I want you to forgive me, Jock. You don't know how often I've thought all sorts of horridness about you."

Jock laughed, "Not more than I deserved, I'll be bound. How can you be so absurd! If anyone wants forgiveness, it is I. I say, Armie, this is all nonsense. You don't really think you are done for, or you would not take it so coolly."

"Of course I know Who can bring us through if He will," said Armine. "There's the Rock. I've been asking Him all this time--every moment--only I get so sleepy."

"If He will; but if He won't?"

"Then there's Paradise. And Himself and father," said Armine, still in a dreamy tone.

"Oh, yes; that's for you! But how about a mad fellow like me? It's so sneaking just to take to one's prayers because one's in a bad case."

"Oh, Jock! He is always ready to hear! More ready than we to pray!"

"Now don't begin to improve the occasion," broke out Jock. "By all the stories that ever were written, I'm the one to come to a bad end, not you."

"Don't," said Armine, with an accent of pain that made Jock cry, hugging him tighter. "There, never mind, Armie; I'll let you say all you like.

I don't know what made me stop you, except that I'm a beast, and always have been one. I'd give anything not to have gone on playing the fool all my life, so as to be able to mind this as little as you do."

"I don't seem awake enough to mind anything much," said the little boy, "or I should trouble more about Mother and Babie; but somehow I can't."

"Oh!" wailed Jock, "you must! You must get out of it, Armie. Come closer. Shove in between me and the rock. Here, Chico, lie down on the top of us! Mother must have you back any way, Armie."