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Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 705, June 30, 1877
Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 705, June 30, 1877
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 coach-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, her books and work on the table beside her.
'Fast. You can scarcely see a yard before 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 about know the danger of being benighted on the moor in a snow-storm.'
'Yes. But I have known people frozen to death hereabouts before now.'
My wife is Scotch, and this pleasant house in the Highlands is hers. We are trying a winter in it for the first time, and I find it excessively cold and somewhat dull. Mentally I decide that in 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 clear,' I tell my wife, and also inform her that it is past eleven. As she lights her candle at a side-table I hear a whining and scratching at the front-door.
'There is Laddie loose again,' says she. 'Would you let him in, dear?'
I did not 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 face with dumb entreaty; then he runs back a few steps, looking round to see if I am following; and finally, he takes my coat in his mouth and tries to draw me out.