The Face of Death

WITHOUT the rain was falling. High pointed roofs, high gray walls, worn gray paving-stones below, all of them glistened. The wet made shining places in the high lights ; it gave to every stone in the old narrow street an intensified power of sinking back into shadow or reflecting the light. All the light there was came from a lurid yellow glare among the moving clouds of the western sky. The sky was covered thick with flying vapor ; towards the west there was this light in it, which revealed more clearly that the wind was busy among the deep, shifting currents of cloud. Such a sky is not a very rare sight as seen on a winter afternoon from Edinburgh streets ; no one gave a thought to it. The rain fell light and soft; the wind romped cheerfully about the high chimney-pots and along the pavements.

In this street of high stone tenements no incident of interest need be expected. The people traveled east and traveled west, or stopped and gossiped in the rain ; it was only a few of the more finely dressed who carried umbrellas. The children played barefoot, or with woodensoled boots that clattered on the stones. Big rude boys stood about upon the pavement ; drays and carts passed; and now and then a drove of sheep or cattle came eastward, driven by shepherds or herdsmen and barking collies. It was market-day; the animals were being driven to the slaughter-house.

A little girl came out of a basement shop, bearing a jug of soup in her hand ; she pattered along the street for a few paces, and turned into the common stair of a tenement.

The common stair was almost like a street in itself; to all intents and purposes it was one ; the main door, if there was a door, was always open. The child went into the house as into a roofed alley or close, and began to ascend the wide dirty stone staircase. At the bottom there were several house-doors, some looking more respectable and some less, but they were all shut. As she toiled on and upwards, she came to one landing after another where house-doors again clustered ; each landing was lit by a high window, in which was fixed an iron grating instead of glass. As she left the third landing behind her, a foot was heard upon the lowest stair, a door was opened, and a woman’s voice began scolding. The footstep, the opening of the door, and the voice all resounded in the solid masonry of the echoing stair, coming with an increased volume of sound to the child’s ears. She was accustomed to the hollow echoes, and paid no heed.

When she came to the top of the house one door stood open ; it was immediately opposite the top of the stair. She passed within the door, and, turning down a narrow room, stood between the beds of two bedridden old women.

The child was not the only visitor. Sitting upon the one chair was an old man, dressed in a suit of threadbare black cloth. His gray hair was somewhat longer than is usual; his face, also, was long, and bore in it certain lines of weakness and obstinacy which suggested fanaticism. He held a large book in his hand, out of which he had been reading ; but when the child appeared with the soup, he left the room with a slow and stately step, and his light tread was heard passing down the stair.

“ Me mither says it ’ll be twa bawbees the day, for there ’s a lot of butcher’s meat in’t.” The child drawled out her words in a solemn little singsong voice.

She took two basins which were lying, not clean, upon the tiny hearth, divided the soup between them, and left the old women, as soon as one, out of an ancient purse, had fumbled forth the coppers.

Each old woman sat up in her bed, basin in hand. They discoursed together with relish upon solemn themes, as is often the manner of the Scotch. The room was very bare; the door was left open because the old women had a nervous dread of being out of the power of “ erying on ” their neighbors. A high clotheshorse, with garments upon it, was set as a rude draught-screen, but the long, narrow room was cold, very cold, the small fire smouldering on the dirty hearth hardly serving to mellow the atmosphere. The two beds were well strewn with such properties as the occupants possessed, — clothes, ancient books, knitting-work, and dishes lying upon them. Each woman was fantastically wrapped in an old flannel bedgown of various dyes ; each, for lack of power to be otherwise, was unkempt and untidy ; yet there was a great difference between them.

The little woman who had produced the coppers had a certain air of nicety about her: it was as if necessity, not indifference, had brought her to the state in which she was ; even yet, in the whiteness of the thin, blue-veined brow, in the clearness of the eye, in the manner in which she held her basin and drank her soup, there was that which would arouse respect. The other woman was a much grander - looking personage : she had a strong, commanding face, and even in her present ungainly situation a fine carriage of the head. She was the dirtier of the two, but she had greater mental powers and a better opinion of herself.

“ Ay,” said the little woman, “ but it’s an awfu’ thing to think o’ deith. It’s a’ verra weel for Mr. McLaren to read oot o’ his buik aboot the awfu’ness o’ deith and judgment, and then tell us we ’ll no be amang the saved if we ’re skeered at it; a’ me life lang I’ve been that skeered when I thocht o’ deein’ that it makes me creepie i’ the nicht when I think o’ it.”

Then the big woman replied, ‘"Hoots! but I’ve nae patience wi’ ye, confezzin’ tae Mr. McLaren that ye ’re frichted to dee. What will he think but that ye’ve some awfu’ sin on yer mind ? And what for suld ye be frichted ? I’m no frichted. I maun say, when me time comes I ha’ nae doot I can dee like a leddy.”

“ I’m sheered,” said the other humbly.

Tile larger woman waved her large head in a superior manner, and, having finished her soup, she spread her gaunt hands before her, smoothing out the quilt. “ For mesel’, I can only say that I hae lived a decent, respectet life ; ay, and little gude has comed tae me in this warld. If there’s justice wi’ A’michty God, I maun hae better things in the next life. It wud be awfu’ lack o’ justice if I did na hae a’ the gude things that are promised to them that dae weel and hae afflictions in this weary warld.”

“ Whisht, but I’m skeered tae hear ye talk that way o’ the A’michty.”

The little woman looked round uneasily at the window ; she could not see out of it, because it was at the end of the room opposite the door ; but she could see the light tluit came through it upon the wall, the ceiling, and the screen hung with old garments. It was about the hour of sunset, and the lurid light in the west had grown into a bright thunderous glare.

The big woman saw that the little woman was feeling timorous. She took a certain slight satisfaction in working upon her fears.

“ Oo, ay ! it’s an awfu’ queer licht the day,” she said, “ and Mr. McLaren’s been telling us that there’s many that calc’lates that the end of the warld is coming aboot noo. A’ weel, I for ane am no frichted o’ the trump o’ doom ; I’m no ane o’ them that need go aboot cryin’ on the rocks to fa’ on me; I hae lived a guid life, and I hae the affliction of being forced to lie here, and canna put a fit tae the ground. Losh, me ! if Deith should come in at the door at this meenit, I wud say, ‘ A’ weel, I was na expectin’ ye, but I’ve nae cause to be frichted.’”

“ I wudna speak sae,” said the other ; “for mesel’, I canna think that I hae lived as weel as I mecht; and tho’ I hae asked the A’michty to hae mercy, I can never stan’ a veesit fra’ Mr. McLaren, talking sae as he does aboot deith and the deevil and the judgment, wi’out feelin’ awfu’ skeered ; an’ it’s an awfu’ queer licht the day, say what you wall, an’ ” — before she had finished speaking, her ear was arrested by an unusual noise, and the big woman broke in upon her words with a shrill whisper : “ Losh, me ! what’s that awfu’ sound o’ cryin’ i’ the street ? ”

On the lips of the two excited old women there was a moment of intense silence ; they looked about them, and upon one another, in the anguish of impotent curiosity. There was not silence in the room ; it was full of noise ; hut for the space of some seconds the women held their peace.

From the street arose a cry that seemed, to their excited minds, like the united howlings of all the human voices upon earth. There was another noise, more awful still, a bellowing that was to them like the sound of the last trump. The very dogs, also, seemed to have caught the contagion of human fear, for the sharp, incessant barking of collies pierced above the roar. Then, suddenly, there was a tumult as if a fear-stricken multitude had swept into their own staircase, for up its echoing, resounding stones came that awful vibrating trumpet-like sound they had heard before, and cries of fear, and shouts of anger, and the barking of dogs.

The little woman turned pleading, frightened eyes in an agonized glance upon her companion, but she gained no support from the terrified workings of the big woman’s face.

“ Losh, me! ” — the big woman threw up her arms, and looked wildly about her, — “I didna think that the Last Day wud come on us sae unprepared-like.” She raised herself in her bed, and gave an answering howl to the ever-increasing noise that was sweeping rapidly up the stair.

Three minutes before, at the end of the street, a strong young bull, on its way to the market, had broken loose from its keeper. The bull had galloped down the street, a screaming crowd flying before it and surging behind. A heavy dray had blocked the way, and the bull, mad with terror of the tumult which itself had raised, with a renewed bellow of fear, had turned into the only opening it could find just there, the common stair of this tenement.

Dogs and boys and men were upon its track in a moment; the animal had no choice but to continue the ascent it had so madly begun. Women, opening their doors to see what might be coming to them, shrieked and slammed them in its face. Dogs and boys and men came on after the bull, swaying back in terror when the animal showed signs of turning at bay, and again pursuing when the nimble young creature rushed stumbling on up the strange path which it had chosen.

A minute more, and from the room of the two bedridden crones there rang out a wild shriek of mortal fear. The shriek proceeded from the passing spirit of the big woman. The bull had thrust its horns and eyes through the old clothes upon the screen, and looked at her for the space of a moment.

“ It’s the Angel o’ Deitli ! it’s the Angel o’ Deith ! ” screamed the big woman. Then she fell back, forever dumb.

The rabble found the hull within the door of the room. The animal, with foam at its mouth and frenzy in its eyes, made for the window, shattered it with its strong horns, and jumped out to its death.

The crowd surged on to the window, then back again down the stair.

On the pavement below the young bull was lying, a beautiful animal even yet, its body, unmutilated, limp and still.

A little while afterwards, a group of neighbor-women gathered around the figure of the little old woman. She was standing upright in a corner of the upper room.

“ Sirs, me ! ” she was saying, “ I can never be skeered again, in this warld or the next, I’m thinkin’, sin’ I lived through this.” She looked about her at the motley crowd of women in petticoats and gowns, and shook her head at them with solemn conviction. “Ay, ay, I was awfu’ skeered ; but I jist said tae mesel’, I canna tak’ hert to he grond and brave-like, but I can dae me best to thole wi’ patience whativer the A’michty sends, an’ I jist loupit oot o’ me bed to be a’ready-like ; and sin’ I lived through’t, I’m thinkin’ I canna feel skeered ony mair at onything.”

The little old woman was a favorite with her neighbors. They cried approvingly, “ Ay, and ye ’ve got the use o’ yer twa legs ; see how fine ye can stan’ an’ walk ! ” And this was true. She did not need to go back to her bed.

On the other bed, stretched out and covered decently with a sheet, the big woman lay. Fear had severed the cord of her life.

L. Dougall.