The “big white house” was overflowing with music, or, rather, with
musical acrobatics. Scales, major and minor, octaves, arpeggios, and all
other musical combinations were madly chasing each other up and down the
keyboard.
“Come on, Paul.” A girl’s black head appeared at the window. The player
merely glanced at her and went on with his fireworks. “Oh, come on, you
lummix! Shut up this row and come on. We’re going round the ranch and
then down the west trail to the river.”
The player’s sole answer was a wave of his left hand, his right still
careering madly up the chromatic scale.
“Aw, Paul, won’t you come?” A little girl whose face was screwed up in a
bewitching pout came to the door.
“Now, Peg, you know I don’t quit till I’m done, and I’ve got half an
hour yet. Come back for me then, Peg.”
She came close to him. “I don’t want to go with Asa and Adelina without
you. They—they—I don’t want to go.”
“Oh, go on, Peg, for a run as far as Pine Croft driveway and back again.
Go! See, the rain is all gone. It’s a lovely day. Run now, that’s a good
girl. I’ll come when I’m through my practice.”
“You’re a mean old thing. You don’t care a bit about me,” said Peg,
bouncing indignantly out of the room.
But the boy paid no heed. He was hard at his scales again with an
enthusiasm which amounted almost to a passion. All else, for the time
being, was as nothing to him. He was at double octaves now, his fingers
roaring up and down the keys. In the full tide of the uproar Colonel
Pelham appeared at the door of the dining room where his wife was
engaged in her domestic activities.
“What a row the chap makes!” he said. “You’d think it was a full grown
man at the thing.”
“He has wonderful fingers,” said his wife, pausing in her work. “Listen!
How, that is really quite unusual work.”
“Is it? You ought to know. It’s all fury and fuss to me. But I like the
way he sticks it. The other youngsters were trying to pull him away—I
saw them at it, but it was no go.”
“He loves his music. He’s quite mad about it,” replied his wife.
“He may be,” said the Colonel, “but it’s not that. It’s a point of
honour with him. He has a kind of feeling his mother would like it.”
“He’s a queer little chap, you know. He has queer ideas about things.”
“What do you mean exactly?” inquired the Colonel. “Queer in what sense?”
“Well,” said his wife thoughtfully, “he has queer ideas about God. He
says he sees Him. One day I found him with an intense look upon his
face, and his explanation was that he was listening for God.”
“‘Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth,’” quoted the Colonel to himself.
“But, my dear,” protested his wife, “you know that sort of thing was
quite all right for those times. But now-a-days, in British
Columbia—well, you know, it’s a little unusual.”
“‘If any man hear My voice and open the door,’” again quoted the Colonel
softly.
“Oh, come now, Edgar. You don’t think those things are to be taken
literally in these days—voices, and all that sort of thing. You’ll be
off into all sorts of Spiritualistic nonsense. He _is_ queer. As a
matter of fact, he is almost uncanny, unreal, unnatural.”
“Unnatural? Unreal? Well, he is a bit of a mystic, I confess. And he
came by that naturally enough; got it from his mother. And not a bad
thing, either, in these materialistic days, and in this country. But all
the same, he’s a real boy, a game sport. He can ride, swim, shoot, and
for a boy of twelve shows an extraordinary sense of responsibility.”
“Responsibility? He’s as mad as a March hare at times,” said the
Colonel’s wife. “Forgets food, drink, sleep. He has appalling powers of
absorption, of concentration. I know he leads Peg into all sorts of
scrapes.”
“Leads Peg!” exclaimed her husband. “Good Lord! Does any one lead Peg?
He’s a real boy, he gets into scrapes, but I still contend that he has
an extraordinary sense of responsibility. Do you realise that every day
of his life he has a certain routine of study, music, Catechism, Bible
lesson, and that sort of thing, that he has kept up since his father
left him? I believe it was his father—a queer thing too!—who put it up
to him and who made it a matter of loyalty to his mother.”
“He is certainly devoted to his mother’s memory. But there again he is
queer. He has an idea that his mother knows, hears, understands all that
he does.”
“Why not?” asked the Colonel.
“Oh, I don’t know. I have no use for these spooky things. But the boy is
queer, and he is unpractical.”
“Well, it is hardly to be wondered at. He has his father’s artistic
temperament and his mother’s mysticism. But, after all, is he
unpractical? Don’t you know that once a week, winter and summer, for the
last year and a half, with Indian Tom he has ridden the marches of the
ranch? The Lord knows he’s always reporting fences broken and cattle and
horses straying over to Sleeman’s herd,” added the Colonel ruefully.
“Sleeman’s herd! My opinion is that the chronic state of disrepair in
those fences can be easily accounted for. I observe that Sleeman’s
calves last year and this year too show a strong Saddle-back strain, and
as for his colts they are all Percheron. I don’t like the man Sleeman. I
don’t trust him.”
“Neither does Paul,” said the Colonel. “Of course, Paul has quite made
up his mind that Sleeman is going to hell, so he doesn’t let his various
iniquities worry him too much. Sleeman will receive a due reward for his
misdeeds. Paul has warmly adopted the Psalmist’s retribution point of
view.”
“What do you mean?” inquired his wife.
“‘Fret not thyself because of evil doers, for they shall soon be cut
down like the grass and wither as the green herb.’ The little beggar
brought me the quotation not long ago with great satisfaction. He thinks
that Asa too is heading toward the same untimely end.”
“Why!” said his wife, “I thought that Paul held a most liberal doctrine
of forgiveness, which practically wiped out hell.”
“Don’t imagine any such thing,” asserted her husband. “I know his
‘seventy times seven’ theory, but he is careful to insist that this is
only for the man who turns and repents. He would be terribly
disappointed, I imagine, if Sleeman should ever show any signs of
repentance. Of course, he doesn’t expect this. Oh, he’s a relentless
little devil in his hatred and his theories of judgment. And with a
fighting strain in him, too.”
“What do you mean?” asked his wife. “Fighting?”
“Why, you remember last autumn when he came to me with the calm request
that I teach him to fight. He had evidently had some trouble with Asa.
When I asked him why he wanted to learn to fight, his answer was
characteristic enough, ‘I don’t want to fight exactly,’ he said, ‘but I
don’t want to feel afraid to fight.’ Rather a fine distinction, I think.
And every week since that time the little beggar insists upon his
‘fighting’ lesson.”
“Well,” said his wife with a slight smile, “he couldn’t have come to a
better master of the art, I fancy, if college rumours mean anything.
Wasn’t it light-weight championship you held for a year at Oxford?”
“Three years, my dear,” modestly corrected the Colonel.
“There is one thing I do like in the boy,” continued Mrs. Pelham, “and
that is his devotion to old Jinny. Of course, Jinny worships the ground
he walks on. She has all that fine old Scotch spirit of devotion and
loyalty to the family that this age and this country know nothing about.
She is an old dear, and immensely helpful about the house. But I do like
Paul’s way with her. I always say that there is no truer sign of
breeding than the way people treat their servants, and Paul certainly
has that fine touch.”
In a pause of the conversation weird sounds were heard coming from the
music room. The musical acrobatics had ceased. Both sat listening for
some moments.
“Now what is he on?” the Colonel inquired. “I don’t know that thing.”
“Nor I, and I’ve looked over all his father’s things which he is
continually trying. Listen! Sounds like a Chopin Nocturne. But, no!
That’s not Chopin. He must be improvising. He told me one day he was
playing all the things out of doors, a kind of Nature Symphony, the Pine
Croft out of doors, as it were—the stream tumbling down beside the
bungalow, the pines and the poplars and the flowers and the clouds. He
told me he was playing the great yellow splashes of sunlight on the
valley. He kept me an hour that day, fascinated, playing the different
colours in the landscape—blue of the sky, light, sweet, smooth-flowing,
a Handel sort of thing; reds and yellows were set forth in dashing,
smashing chords and runs, a Liszt or Tschaikowsky effect; then, for
sunset gold and saffron he used a kind of Mozart thing, rich, full,
sweet. It was quite marvellous. He is queer, undoubtedly queer. Why! Do
you know he had the audacity to even play ‘God’ to me that day. He was
like an inspired thing. Played ‘God smiling at him from the clouds.’ He
protests he sees God, you know, and hears Him. Oh, he’s quite spooky!”
“Spooky? Nonsense! That’s not the word. There are artistic and mystic
strains in him, that’s all. But all the same, I wonder when his father
is coming back, or if he is coming back at all. That Pine Croft Ranch is
going bad. I simply can’t keep it on.”
“Of course you can’t. You were mad to take it on at first.”
“My dear Augusta, what could I do? The man was distracted, broken. I was
actually afraid for his brain. I really was. You remember those days.
Well—then came his request and the formal will—by Jove! Now I think of
it, it was you who offered to take the boy.”
“The boy? Yes, I did. But the ranch was a different thing. And that
Sleeman sniffing round, I simply can’t bear him.”
“Sleeman? I don’t much care for him myself. He may be honest enough, but
he’s sharp. Says he holds I O U’s for loans and such like from Gaspard.
True enough, Gaspard was hard up. You know the Bank had closed down on
him. He could get no more extensions. Frankly, I am worried. The stock
is running wild, as you say.”
“Edgar, I forbid you to worry. It’s not worth it. We’ll look after the
boy. The bungalow is closed up, everything all right there; old Tom
looks after it. The ranch and stock must simply take care of
themselves.”
At this point a louder crash than usual on the piano arrested their
attention. A wild whoop followed, and Paul stood in the doorway.
“Oh, Uncle Colonel, where are they? Did you see them go?” he burst
forth.
“Come, Paul,” said the Colonel’s lady severely. “It’s not customary to
rush in upon people like that.” The boy flushed to his hair roots.
“I’m sorry, Aunt Augusta. Awfully sorry, Uncle Colonel. But did you see
them go, sir?”
“Yes, they went up toward Pine Croft Ranch. But you ought to be able to
track them easily, for the rain has softened the trail.”
“Oh, splendid! I’ll do it. I’ll just get Joseph and find them.”
“By the way, what were you playing last, Paul?” asked the Colonel. The
boy flushed.
“Oh, just some nonsense, Uncle Colonel. I was through with my lesson,”
he said apologetically, “and I was just fooling a bit—like Daddy used to
do sometimes—” he paused, “for Mother and me, you know.” He stood
quietly, looking out the door, his eyes on the far mountains.
“All right, boy. Off you go,” said the Colonel.
“Lunch at one, Paul, remember,” said Mrs. Pelham.
“I’ll try, Aunt Augusta. But it’s awfully hard to remember sometimes.”
“I want Peg at one,” said Mrs. Pelham firmly. “We have something on
after lunch. I depend upon you, Paul.”
“Oh, all right, then, I’ll have to remember.” He stuck his hand in his
pocket and extracted something which he began to wind around his finger.
“What’s that, old chap? String, eh?”
“A ’lastic band—to remember me about one o’clock. I hate having to
remember,” he added impatiently.
“Hey day!” exclaimed Mrs. Pelham. “What sort of a boy would you be if
you couldn’t remember?”
“All right, Aunt Augusta, but I hate it all the same.”
“He’ll remember,” said the Colonel. “He feels he’s on his honour.”
“Yes, he’ll remember. He’s a reliable little beggar.”
In a surprisingly short time the lad appeared on his pony, a beautiful
pinto, bred from an Arabian sire out of an Indian pony, a strain of
which his father was inordinately proud and in the breeding of which he
had been unusually successful. The boy went flashing past the window,
riding cowboy fashion, straight leg and with lines held loosely in his
left hand, his cap high in his right, making right for the bars at the
end of the drive.
“What the—— By Jove, he’s done it! Must be quite four feet.”
With never a halt the pony had taken the bars in his stride, and was off
down the road, head down and at racing speed.
“Superb, Augusta! Couldn’t have done it better yourself, what?”
“He can ride,” said his wife. Her eyes were upon the flying figure. “He
is quite without fear and has the true rider’s instinct for what his
mount can do. Wonderful pony of his that. There’s a mate to it in
Gaspard’s bunch I’d like for Peg.”
“Oh, thanks, my dear; Peggy is quite sufficiently well mounted. Tubby
does her quite well. I have no desire to see my daughter tearing like a
mad thing after that race horse.”
“Poor old Tubby! She does her best, but I fear she is a continual source
of humiliation and heartache to her rider when out with the pinto.
Perhaps next year, eh? She will be quite ready to ride with me by that
time.”
“With you? The Lord forbid! You know quite well, my dear, when once you
are astride a horse you are conscious only of one consuming passion.”
“Well, I like to hear you talk!” And it must be confessed there was
ground for her scorn. For in cross-country work in the Homeland there
was just one place in the hunt that gave any real satisfaction to the
little Colonel, as daring a hunter as ever rode to hounds.
Meantime the pinto and his rider had tracked the others up to the Pine
Croft bungalow, along the upper trail, and down again toward the big
rapid. To Paul, who for the past two years had been trained in sign
reading by Indian Tom, his father’s ancient factotum, the trail lay
plain as the open road. After the first wild gallop he was in no hurry
to catch up. The glory of the early June day filled his world, right up
to the blue sky. With his eyes open to the unending variety of colour
and form in the growing things about him, he cantered slowly along, his
lithe form swaying in unison with every motion of his pony. He had the
make of a rider and his style was a curious mixture of his father’s and
Indian Tom’s. His hands were his father’s; the easy yielding sway of his
body he had from Indian Tom. But, whatever its source, every movement of
every part of his body was smooth, easy, graceful. As the pinto carried
him along in swallow-like movement, his mind following his eye went
first to the pictures that kept composing and dissolving themselves on
either side, and from them to those pictures which from his earliest
years he had watched his father call into being in his studio. Where was
his father now? For three years there had been silence, from that
dreadful day when his father, gaunt, broken, his great frame heaving
with deep-drawn sobs, had ridden down the Golden trail, followed by
Indian Tom, leaving him with Colonel Pelham. Two words only had his
father spoken, two unforgettable words. “Paul, your mother has gone to
God. Let every morning bring back to you her words.” And the other,
“Some day I will come back to you—point of honour,” using a phrase
common to those three when the word was pledged. Those two words he
carried in his heart. With every opening dawn his first thoughts went to
his mother. He was dismayed to find how few were his mother’s words that
came to him as he sat down deliberately to recall them. To his delight
he stumbled upon a plan. When struggling with his Catechism—it was a
point of honour that he should complete the task his mother had not seen
completed—he found upon reviewing the questions he had discussed with
her that floods of memories were let loose upon his mind. With painful
care, for, though he had his father’s fingers and was clever with them,
he had made no very great progress with his penmanship, he undertook to
set down, in one of his father’s sketch books, all her sayings that came
back to him. The words associated with the Bible stories were much
easier to recall. The chirography and orthography would have quite
paralysed the intelligence of learned experts, but to himself the record
was perfectly intelligible, and with its increasing volume became an
increasingly precious possession. This record he kept hidden from mortal
eyes, but somehow he had the conviction both God and his mother knew all
about it. The two were very really and vitally associated in his
thought. Indeed, God had come nearer since his mother had passed out of
his sight. His mother, he knew, was intimately involved in his life,
sharing his thoughts, his imaginations, his dreams. And since she had
gone to God, naturally it followed that God must be somehow, somewhere,
quite close at hand. He no longer saw God’s face up in the blue between
the clouds. He was deeply grieved that he never could visualise that
kindly face looking down, so quiet and so kind, “as if He liked him.” It
seemed as if God had moved much nearer to him, so near that he seemed to
be aware of Him, and by intently “listening with his ears inside,” as he
explained to Indian Tom who seemed to quite understand, he could “hear
God thinking.” “And so,” as he confidently asserted to the gravely
sympathetic Indian, “I always know what He wants me to know.” Life was a
very simple proceeding with Paul. He had only to listen carefully and,
having heard, to give heed.
But where was his father, and when would he come back? The little
Colonel was quite silent upon that question, and upon that question the
boy was equally reserved with the Colonel. With a maturity ripened by
responsibility, the boy had fallen into the habit of keeping an eye upon
the ranch matters. His own observation was quickened by the rare but
penetrating comments of Indian Tom who, though deficient in initiative
and inclined when not impelled to activity by necessity to a _laissez
faire_ attitude towards life, was nevertheless, when once set upon a
trail, tenacious of his quest as a bloodhound on the scent. It was a
remark of Indian Tom’s that gave the Colonel’s lady the clue as to
Sleeman’s Saddle-backs and Percherons. It was a grunt of Indian Tom’s
that had set Paul off one day on a tour round the ranch, and that first
tour with Indian Tom proved so fascinating that once a week for a year
and a half, through rain or shine, cold or heat, Paul had ridden round
the line of fences of the ranch. He had come to know that things were
not going well, and this knowledge intensified in him the longing for
his father’s return.
The sound of shouting broke the current of his thoughts. He pulled up
his pony and stood listening. “They’re away beyond the big rapid,” he
said to himself. “Must be down by the creek.” Again the shouting came to
him, and in an instant he was off at a gallop. A short run brought him
to the edge of a rapidly flowing stream along which a cow path ran.
Following this path he came upon an open grassy meadow through which the
stream had cut its way between overhanging banks. At a little distance
he saw his friends, and as he drew near learned the cause of the
shouting. The stream had cut a channel about eight feet wide, through
which the water ran, deep and swift, to a pool some thirty yards farther
down, from which it tumbled over jagged rocks to a bench below. Across
this flowing stream Asa and his sister were jumping their horses in high
glee, and taunting Peg to attempt the same exploit.
“Hurrah! Out of the way there!” shouted Paul, heading his pony toward
the jump. With his ears pricked forward the pinto approached the stream
on an easy lope. “Up there, old chap,” cried Paul, lifting his pony with
the reins. With never a pause, the pony gathered himself in two or three
quick strides and went sailing over the stream like a bird.
“That’s nothing,” cried Asa, a stocky youth of fourteen, mounted on a
fine rangy cow pony. “Watch old Kicker do it.” He took his broncho back
a few yards and at racing speed cleared the stream with ease.
“That’s the way we do it, eh?” he shouted back at the others.
“Aw, pshaw! Who couldn’t do that?” cried Paul scornfully.
“_She_ can’t! She’s afraid!” jeered Asa, pointing to Peg, who, sitting
quietly on the fat and placid Tubby, was looking gloomily upon the
swift-flowing water.
“Come on Peg,” called Asa, “if old Tubby can’t jump she kin float
acrost.”
“Of course she can jump it if she wants to,” said Paul, who had taken in
the whole situation. “But Peg needn’t do it if she doesn’t want to.” As
he spoke he circled round on the pinto and once more cleared the stream.
“She daren’t. She’s afraid.” Asa’s laugh made Peg wince.
“I’m not afraid to jump, but I don’t think Tubby wants to try,” she said
to Paul. Asa shouted.
“I came acrost as easy as anything,” said Adelina sweetly. “An’ I kin do
it again.”
“O’ course you did. An’ yeh kin do it again any ole time yeh want to,”
said her brother.
Paul’s glance wandered from one girl to the other. Peg’s face was pale
and set. She was the youngest of the party, tall for her age, but slight
in body and of a highly nervous and sensitive temperament. Asa’s
taunting jeers disturbed her but little, but Adelina’s smooth superior
tone stung her like the lash of a whip. Her pale face flushed a bright
red.
“I’m _not_ afraid, and I can do it if I want to,” she said with quick
defiance.
“Go it then! Let’s see you!” cried Asa.
“Don’t you do it, Peg, if you don’t want to,” said Paul quietly. “Never
mind him!”
“Here, young feller, you keep y’re mouth shut,” said Asa truculently,
rushing his broncho at Paul.
“I’m going to do it,” said Peg, as Paul swerved his pinto out of Asa’s
way.
“Don’t try it, Peg,” said Adelina’s smooth voice. “You know old Tubby’s
pretty slow, an’ she might fall in.” The insult was more than Peg could
bear, to whom Tubby was a friend greatly beloved.
“I’m going, Paul,” said Peg, between her shut teeth.
“All right, Peg, I’ll go with you. Come on, we’ll take it together.” As
he spoke they took their ponies back and went at the jump full gallop.
“Hai-yai!” yelled Asa, as, thundering down on them from behind, he put
his broncho between the ponies. Whether it was the sudden yell that
caused poor old Tubby to lose her stride, or whether it was the sudden
rush of the broncho’s feet behind her that made Peg lose her nerve, as
Tubby rose for the leap Peg pulled hard and next instant Tubby was
floundering in the swift running water and Peg floating down toward the
pool.
“Swim, Peg,” shouted Asa, rather alarmed at the event, springing from
his broncho and running toward the bank. But poor Peggy’s swimming
powers, at best of the smallest, were more than neutralised by the shock
and terror of her sudden plunge, and it was all she could do to keep
afloat while she was being swept down toward the pool and the rocks
below. The roar and splash of the rapids struck terror to her heart.
“Oh, Paul, save me!” she shrieked, beginning to splash wildly.
“All right, Peg, I’ll get you,” cried Paul. Like a flash he swung his
pony on its heels, dashed down the stream and plunged into the pool. As
the water came up over the saddle he slipped off, holding to the
stirrup. “Here you are, Peg,” he shouted, as the pony headed off the
floating girl from the rapid. Reaching out, he seized her dress and held
firm, while Joseph gallantly made for the farther bank and clambered up
to safety, Tubby meantime managing to scramble out of danger.
“All right, Peg, eh?” gasped Paul, holding the child close to him.
“Oh, Paul,” cried Peg, crying and choking. “It wasn’t—Tubby’s—fault. I
pulled her.”
“No! It wasn’t Tubby’s fault, nor your fault. It was that—that—that—damn
beast, Asa,” pointing across the stream to the bigger boy who stood,
white and shaken, beside his sister. “I don’t care, I’ve said it and I
mean it and I say it again. He’s a damn, damn, damn beast! So he is!”
The boy was beside himself with fury. “And I don’t care either. I won’t
repent. It’s true! And God doesn’t want me not to tell the truth, and he
is a beast and a damn beast, and he will go to hell, I know. And he just
deserves to go. And I’ll ask God to send him there.”
“Oh, Paul!” gasped Peg in sobbing delight. “I think you’re just lovely.”
“Here!” said the boy in a gruff voice, pulling off his coat and wringing
it dry. “Put this on and let us get home. It must be nearly one, and I
promised.”
Meekly Peg put on the coat. The warm June sun soon had their soaked
garments steaming. Paul caught Tubby, helped Peg to mount, swung himself
on Joseph and with never a glance at the others across the stream rode
off at a gallop to keep his one o’clock appointment. For a full half
mile he let the pinto have his head, to the great and audible distress
of old Tubby, heroically resolved not to be distanced. Suddenly he
pulled up and waited for Tubby to draw level.
“Your mother will be awful mad,” he growled.
“I don’t care,” said Peg serenely. Already she was revelling in the
thrills which would follow her tale. “Oh, Paul, you were awful mad,
weren’t you?” said Peg with a delighted shiver at the memory of Paul’s
terrible outburst. Never had he used such dreadful words in all his
life, no matter what the provocation. Indeed, she had often heard him
gloatingly predict Asa’s post mortem state because of his indulgence in
that very same sort of language.
“Oh, shut up!” said Paul rudely. “It was all your fault.”
“I know it was, Paul,” replied Peg sweetly. She understood quite well
what Paul meant, and she was not a little pleased that she had been the
occasion of Paul’s moral downfall, the depth of which was but the
measure of his regard for her. She was never quite sure of her standing
with Paul when Adelina was about. Adelina was so much stronger and
braver and could do so many more things that boys could do. Too often
had she endured silent agonies of jealousy and humiliation over Paul’s
evident admiration of Adelina’s many masculine virtues. Today she was
quite sure that Paul would never have flung himself headlong from his
pinnacle of moral rectitude for Adelina’s sake. Her mother might be “mad
at her,” might indeed punish her. In her present mood of exaltation she
felt she would enjoy punishment. Paul glanced at her face, puzzled not a
little at her pleased serenity, and all the more deeply enraged because
of that serenity.
“It was your fault,” he repeated, “and I just know I’ll have to
repent—or go to hell. And I don’t want to repent. I just hate to.”
“Oh, never mind, Paul,” comforted Peg. “I don’t think God will care
about Asa. He’s just a horrid boy, and he’s going to hell anyway, you
know.”
But this view of the matter brought Paul little cheer. Not but that he
was quite clear in his mind as to Asa’s destiny, but he was equally
clear that he could not keep up his feeling of righteous indignation
against him, that in very truth before he went to sleep that night he
would have to repent, a thought most distasteful to him. He turned
wrathfully upon his companion.
“Much you know about it,” he said scornfully, and, disdaining further
conversation with her, he set off again at a gallop, lest he should fail
of keeping his “point of honour” engagement.
The meeting with Aunt Augusta, if a matter of no great concern to Peg,
was fraught to Paul with a certain amount of anxiety. It was an accepted
if tacit understanding that on these excursions Peg was under his charge
and for her he must assume responsibility, by no means an insignificant
burden, as he had discovered on more occasions than one. He had no
notion of seeking to escape trouble. There was no escaping Aunt
Augusta’s penetration, and to do him justice it never occurred to Paul
to attempt to do so. He was fully prepared to accept the full
consequences of the escapade. A greater burden, however, weighed down
his spirits, the burden of his moral delinquency. For the ordinary sins
of his daily life, the way to forgiveness and to consequent restoration
of his peace and of his self-respect was quite plain. The removal of
this sin, however, by the simple method of repentance and forgiveness
was complicated by new and perplexing elements. It was a grave
complication, for instance, that repentance was an antecedent condition
to forgiveness. He was at present conscious of no regret for his
language. Back in the shadows of his mind he knew there lurked a secret
and distinctly pleasurable satisfaction in recalling the phrase in which
he had described the boy who had undoubtedly acted in a thoroughly
beastly fashion. The phrase he had used continued, even while violating
his sense of rectitude, to give him a thrill of unholy joy. How could he
repent of that phrase which he felt to be at once true and wholly
adequate? Then, too, the pathway to pardon was hedged by the condition
of his forgiving Asa. In his mood that was hopelessly impossible.
Before he had reached a solution of these moral and theological
problems, they had arrived at Peg’s home. At the door they were welcomed
by Peg’s mother.
“Why, Peggy!” she exclaimed. “What do you mean by wearing Paul’s coat a
hot day like this?”
“Oh, Mamma,” cried Peg, her voice vibrant with excitement, “Paul put it
on me to keep me from taking cold.”
“Taking cold, child? Why should you take cold? Here, let me see you.”
She pulled the coat off the little girl and discovered her soaked
condition. “Why, good heavens! What has happened to you? Where have you
been? What does this mean, Paul?” she added severely, turning to Paul.
“She fell into the creek, Aunt Augusta. We were jumping our horses
across, and Tubby slipped and fell in.”
“Oh, Mamma—” began Peg in high excitement.
“It was our fault, Aunt Augusta,” cut in Paul, meantime scowling heavily
at Peg, hoping to check the exuberance of her recital. “Asa and I were
jumping our horses across the stream, and Peggy tried and Tubby fell
in.”
“Well, you ought to have known better, Paul. I trust Peggy to you, and
you ought to take better care of her.”
“I know, Aunt Augusta, and—and—and I’m awfully sorry.”
“You have a right to be sorry,” said Aunt Augusta indignantly. “Well,
get your horses away and come in to lunch. And take off those wet
things. Come away, Peg. You are a foolish little thing.”
When Paul returned to the house after rubbing down the ponies and
turning them loose in the paddock, he found Aunt Augusta’s mood quite
changed, and he knew that Peggy must have told the whole story. Whether
her recital had covered the story of his moral collapse remained an
anxious uncertainty in his mind. He could only await developments.
“Come here, boy,” said the Colonel, as Paul entered the room. “You are a
plucky little chap, and I want to tell you that I shan’t forget what you
did for Peg today.” The little Colonel’s voice grew suddenly husky. He
shook Paul warmly by the hand and turned away, leaving Paul standing
overwhelmed with embarrassment and filled with rage at Peggy. But an
even more trying experience awaited the unhappy Paul, when Aunt Augusta
came to him and, putting her arms around him, drew him close and kissed
him, a most unusual proceeding with her.
“Paul,” she said, “I am sorry I spoke to you as I did. And I am glad it
was not your fault. I know I can trust Peggy with you always. Now, come
away to lunch.”
Paul found himself gulping and fighting hard to keep back the tears,
tears caused partly by Aunt Augusta’s unusual demonstration of affection
and partly by his furious indignation at Peg, that she should have given
him away. It did not help matters much that Peg insisted during the
lunch hour of reiterating her various thrilling experiences, her
emotions of fear and despair and relief and joy, her admiration of
Paul’s heroic courage, her gratitude, and all the rest of it. Paul was
grateful, however, that apparently up to this point Peg had so far
observed the decencies as to make no reference to his lamentable “fall
from grace.”
Immediately after lunch, with the timely assistance of Aunt Augusta, who
seized upon Peg and promptly put her to bed, Paul was able to effect his
escape from the household, and betook himself to the solitude of Pine
Croft Ranch. There, under the pines on the hill at the back of the
bungalow, which had become to him a holy place, a very temple of God,
where he was wont to hold his secret communions with his own spirit and
with the world unseen, he entered upon the soul conflict which had to be
fought out before he could sleep in peace.
How it came he could not tell, but somehow, before the pines at the far
horizon across the river had cast their long lance-shaped shadows upon
the plain below, he had found his way to peace. As he lay upon his back,
looking up through the waving tops of the great pine trees into the blue
of the sky above, the surging tides of furious rage against Asa and his
sense of ill-desert which had deepened within him throughout the early
afternoon faded, in some mysterious way, from his soul, as the mists
before the rising sun. There, beneath the pines, he became aware of a
mighty Presence, comforting, cleansing, healing, that made all else seem
insignificant. He was his own man again, and once more in tune with
those vast infinities in the midst of which he moved and had his being.
Chastened and at peace with himself and all his world, he returned to
the big white house, ready to meet with a serene heart whatever life
might bring to him.
It was well that it was so, for the morrow had in store for him
experiences that should test to the uttermost the quality of that serene
peace.