The Keys of the Kingdom Read Online Free PDF Page A

felt weak with anger that this sottish fool should have filled Alex up with drink on top of the dreadful hurt he had sustained. She saw that he had lost a great quantity of blood … she had nothing here to treat him with … she must get him away at once … at once. She murmured, tensely:
    ‘Could you manage home with me, Alex?’
    ‘I think so, woman … if we take it slow.’
    She thought feverishly, battling her panic, her confusion. All her instinct was to move him to warmth, light and safety. She saw that his worst wound, a gash to the temple bone, had ceased to bleed. She swung round towards her son.
    ‘Run back quick, Francis. Tell Polly to get ready for us. Then fetch the doctor to the house at once.’
    Francis, shivering as with ague, made a blind, convulsive gesture of understanding. With a last glance at his father he bent his head and set off frantically along the quay.
    ‘Try, then, Alex … let me give you a hand.’ Bitterly dismissing Mirlees’ offer of assistance which she knew to be worse than none, she helped her husband up. He swayed slowly, obediently to his feet. He was dreadfully shaky, hardly knew what he was doing. ‘I’ll away then, Sam,’ he muttered, dizzily. ‘ Good night to ye.’
    She bit her lip in a torment of uncertainty, yet persisted, led him out, met by the stinging sheets of rain. As the door shut behind them and he stood, unsteady, heedless of the weather, she was daunted by the prospect of that devious return, back through the mire of the fields with a helpless man in tow. But suddenly, as she hesitated, a thought illuminated her. Why had it not occurred to her before? If she took the short cut by the Tileworks Bridge she could save a mile at least, have him home and safe in bed within half an hour. She took his arm with fresh resolution. Pressing into the downpour, supporting him, she pointed their course up-river towards the bridge.
    At first he did not apparently suspect her purpose, but suddenly, as the sound of rushing water struck his ear, he halted.
    ‘Whatna way’s this to come, Lisbeth? We cannot cross by the Tileworks with Tweed in such a spate.’
    ‘Hush, Alex … don’t waste your strength by talking.’ She soothed him, helped him forward.
    They came to the bridge, a narrow hanging span, fashioned of planks with a wire rope handrail, crossing the river at its narrowest, quite sound, though rarely used, since the Tileworks which it served had long ago shut down. As Elizabeth placed her foot upon the bridge, the blackness, the deafening nearness of the water, caused a vague doubt, perhaps a premonition, to cross her mind. She paused, since there was not room for them to go abreast, peering back at his subdued and sodden figure, swept by a rush of strange maternal tenderness.
    ‘Have ye got the handrail?’
    ‘Ay, I have the handrail.’
    She saw plainly that the thick wire rope was in his big fist. Distracted, breathless and obsessed, she could not reason further. ‘Keep close to me, then.’ She turned and led on.
    They began to cross the bridge. Halfway across his foot slid off a rainslimed board. It would have mattered little another night. Tonight it mattered more, for the Tweed, in flood, had risen to the planking of the bridge. At once the racing current filled his thighboot. He struggled against the pull, the overpowering weight. But they had beaten the strength from him at Ettal. His other leg slipped, both boots were waterlogged, loaded as with lead.
    At his cry she spun round with a scream and caught at him. As the river tore the handrail from his grip her arms enfolded him; she fought closely, desperately, for a deathless instant to sustain him. Then the sound and the darkness of the waters sucked them down.
    All that night Francis waited for them. But they did not come. Next morning they were found, clasped together, at low tide, in the quiet water near the sand bar.
II
    One Thursday evening in September four years later, when Francis Chisholm