like
to have done with it before the Sabbath!" And she fell to work with a
will, so briskly to work that she did not realize how time was
flying,--did not, strangest of all, hear the letting off of steam when
the "Heather Bell" moored at the wharf; and she was still busily turning
and lifting and separating the stalks of flax, bending low over the
frame, heated, hurrying, her whole heart in her work, when Donald came
striding up the field from the wharf,--striding at his greatest pace,
for he was disturbed at not finding Elspie at the landing to meet him.
He turned his head toward the spruce grove, thinking vaguely of the June
picnic, and what had come of his walking away from the dance that
morning, when suddenly a great column of smoke and fire rolled up from
the grove, and in the same second came piercing shrieks in Elspie's
voice. The grove was only a few rods away, but it seemed to Donald an
eternity before he reached the spot, to see not only the spruce boughs
and flax on fire, but Elspie tossing up her arms like one crazed, her
gown all ablaze. The brave, foolish girl, at the first blazing of the
stalks on the slats, had darted into the corner of the house and
snatched an armful of the piled flax there to save it; but as she passed
the flaming centre the whole sheaf she carried had caught fire also, and
in a twinkling of an eye had blazed up around her head, and when she
dropped it, had blazed up again fiercer than ever around her feet.

With a groan Donald seized her. The flames leaped on him, too, as if to
wrestle with him; his brown beard crackled, his hair, but he fought
through it all. Throwing Elspie on the ground, he rolled her over and
over, crying aloud, "Oh, my darlin', if I break your sweet bones, it is
better than the fire!" And indeed it seemed as if it must break her
bones, so fiercely he rolled her over and over, tearing off his woollen
coat to smother the fire; beating it with his tartan cap, stamping it
with his knees and feet "Oh, my darlin'! make yourself easy. I'll save
ye! I'll save ye if I die for it," he cried.

And through the smoke and the fire and the terror Elspie answered back:
"I'll not leave ye, my Donald. We're gettin' it under." And with her own
scorched hands she pulled the coat-flaps down over the smouldering bits
of flax, and tore off her burning garments.

Not a coward thread in her whole body had little Elspie, and in less
time than the story could ever be told, all was ove