SHELTER

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20510, 28 May 1938, Page 25 (Supplement)

SHELTER

(Continued from last week) 111 From thit wonderful slumber Marlon wakened suddenly, to the touch j of a hand on her shoulder and the sound of a voice repeating her name. How could she have got so cold after the lapping comfort of that bed? And now that ohe opened her eyes, why did she not see that rude but cosy interior? She was lying half-buried In a anow-drlft. and over her was bending somebody she recognised as the doctor from Balgie, the father of her friend whose home she had meant to visit, while behind him, looking at her, were the stalwart figures of two men who looked like gamekeepers or shepherds. “What’a happened How did I eome here?" she exclaimed, sitting up and staring round. Where was the little stone house, her haven? She was lying, she realised, in the lee of an old rough stone gable, all that remained of some building long In ruins. “Well, Marion, a nice scare you've given us all !’* said the doctor, smiling. “But never mind that now. Take a awlg of this, there's lots of sugar In It—that'll do you good ” He had produced a vacuum flask and the hot, sweet, milkless tea he poured from It revived Marion so that she could laugh, though just a little tremulously. “Can you walk, d’you think?” the doctor asked anxiously. “ Try. It'll be beastly at first, but you'll be all the better If you can.*’ Marion stood up, while the snow showered from her clothes. ** Of course I can walk P she said, and. clutching the doctor’s arm for a monynt she proved her words with an eas<* that surprised herself less perhaps than it seemed to astonish him. “That’s great. You'll do. Now we’fc step out and you'll be home before’ you know where you are. We can talk as we go —if you *feel like talking or listening. Cameron,”—to one of his companions—“you might go ahead to Balgie Mains and say we've found §te lost sheep, and then go on and tell my folks to send a telegram to Miss Calm's aunt—they’ll understand.” And Cameron, with a nod for the others and a grin at Marlon, strode off down the snowy slopes, pallid in the dawn, at a real hillman’s pace. As the trio made their way after him, Marion learned how it came about that a search-party had found her. The previous night old Mrs Raeburn, .though unaware of the snowstorm sweeping the hills, had grown so anxious about Marion that she had sent a message to Balgie by a bus. which, crossing the mountains by a pass miles away, reached it in the small hours. Her inquiry about Marion had be«p delivered to the doctor at once by a bus conductress of common sense, and forthwith that good man had bestirred himself, roused a pair of local men he could count on, and set off up the track by which she ought to have arrived. Thus before going very far they had found her. So she had not wandered off the route after all. “ But what about the cottage where they were so kind to me?” asked Marlon, munching a marmalade sandwich as she walked “Marmadale’s the stuff when you’re all In,” said the doctor). “I was told there wasn’t an Inhabited house nearer than Balgie Mains.” ** There isn’t.** she was told. •* Then where was I? And when did I get out of that lovely warm bed and curl up in the snow?” ** My dead girl. I suppose you fell asleep in the snow uml had a pleasant dream, that’s what happened.” ** That was no dream.” Marion said emphatically. -Well, a hallucination, then.” •* Please don’t say that.” she pled. ** I know it was nothing of the kind. And don’t you think 1 should have been far hungrier and wetter and gen erally more miserable if I’d lain all night where you found me?” - I must say that has ben puzzling me. From your looks now. and the way you're stepping out. you might have had a good supper and a night’s rest, fn your bed «t home." “That's how T feel.” she assured him and with truth. “ And T must try to And out more about all this. I can almost remember “r two of the thmes the- said to m l ’ tn Oaeife I believe j shall recall something later on ” 1 Marion was n«n** th» worse for Adventure H*»r Trends «fr» Tifonished at the absence of all ill effects even of any particular tiredness. As all persisted in assuring her that

(By W. Kersley Holmes)

[The end]

she had dreamed the cottage, the food, the bed and the dear old Highland couple, she slopped talking about it to Anyone. But her aunt, greatly perplexed. but by no means persuaded out of her own Impression, was an Ideal confidant; nothing beautiful was incredible to her. and she was ready to assert that Providence had prepared for her dear girl that lodging in the wilderness. It was she who persuaded Marion to tell the old parish minister about her experience. The Rev. David Macdonald was an old man. a dreadfully dreich preacher, particularly when he abandoned his native Gaelic to use “ the English,” utterly unpractical, but with a wonderful knowledge of local lore and the oddest library, books of divinity shouldering antiquarian tomes forgotten by an but himself.

Hearing her tale, he was silent awhile, as though communing with himself. When he did speak it was to say that it might have been a dream as the sensible folk said it was, but then again—well, she was a Cairns, was she not. on her mothers side? And things might well befall a Cairns in that country which would happen to no others. And up yonder in Glen Croe where Kennedys had lived as crofters for centuries, long before the glens were cleared of their inhabitants, there was every reason why no Cairns should be left to perish in the snow. Many a year ago, said the Rev. David Macdonald, when the family of a certain crofter named Kennedy, living on the hills above Balgie, had been stricken with the plague and deserted by all. a lovely lady of the Cairns family, scorning her own safety, had gone to their simple shelling and tended them with her own hands, saving them, but at last herself falling a victim to the sickness. And it was on record said the minister, that the crofter Kennedy had in his gratitude and grief sworn that he and his would serve any of the name of Cairns who should be in distress to the end of time. “ I have heard what were his words, exactly. In the Gaelic,” added the old man. “ They will sound strange to vour ears, young lady, but they are sweet to a Highland tongue not so familiar with the English you speak so nicely. The man Kennedy, then, used these words.” The old minister began the phrase and Marion found herself completing It for it flashed back to her memory from the moment when, on the night of her adventure, that strong supporting arm went round her shoulders to bring her into shelter.