The aftermath of the fight deprived the gallant Colonel of all his
exultation in his pupil’s triumph.
“What was it about?” he enquired of Paul as they rode home together. But
Paul was silent. His victory brought him no elation. He had done his
duty. He had fought in a perfectly good cause and, incidentally, though
this he would not acknowledge even to his own secret heart, he had wiped
out many a dark and deadly insult endured through many days. But for all
that his face was shrouded in deep gloom.
“What started the trouble?” again asked the Colonel.
“Oh! Daddy, Asa is always pickin’ on Paul, and today he said—he said—I
_will_ tell! now—he said Uncle Gaspard was a bad, bad man. And Paul said
it was a lie, and——” But at this point Peg caught sight of Paul’s face.
The look on it was enough to check Peg in mid-career. The boy was
ghastly pale, his lips blue and quivering. He pulled his pony to a dead
stop.
“He is not a bad man, is he, Uncle Colonel?” His lips could hardly frame
the words.
“Certainly not. He is not a bad man. He is a—a good man, but he is
having a very bad time.”
“He said—he said—” Paul’s voice dropped almost to a whisper, “he said—he
did—a—an awful bad thing—before—before Peter was born. But he did
not—did he, Uncle Colonel?”
The Colonel swore a deep oath, consigning Asa to depths of condemnation
unutterable. The boy’s honest clear blue eyes the Colonel felt were
boring clean down into his very soul. Nothing but the truth seemed
possible. He would have given untold wealth to have been able to “lie
like a gentleman.” But those blue eyes boring into the secret places of
his very being disconcerted the little Colonel. He hesitated just a
moment, then knew it was too late for anything but straight talking.
“Peg, ride on,” he commanded, and Peg, recognising the tone, without
question or hesitation obeyed.
Dismounting, the Colonel drew the boy down to a seat beside him and
there, face to face and as if man to man, told him the wretched tale,
seeing with the boy’s pure clean eyes all its sordidness in such light
as he had never before conceived it.
An hour passed, and the boy still lay on his face, shuddering and
sobbing. The Colonel sat down beside him, striving with word and touch
to lay what healing balm he might upon that raw and quivering wound.
Gradually the boy’s sobbing grew quiet. He rose from the ground,
exhausted, white and trembling.
“I think, Uncle Colonel,” he said, making a brave attempt to steady his
lips, “I’ll ride home.”
The Colonel searched his white face.
“Paul, you will come home with me tonight,” he said firmly, “and
tomorrow we shall have another talk.”
“Uncle Colonel,” said the boy, swallowing, “I think—I
want—to—see—Daddy.”
The Colonel had handled boys and men in his day, and knew just when
kindness was most cruel.
“Paul, you will do what I ask,” he said sharply. “Tomorrow we shall make
our plans.”
The sharp tone pulled the boy together.
“Yes, sir,” he replied quietly, “but—but—oh, Uncle Colonel, I know now
what Mother meant when she—told me—” The boy’s voice faltered, he drew a
deep breath, stood quietly for a few moments, then continued, “when she
told me to tell Daddy—about—the ‘seventy times seven.’ Poor Daddy!” The
brave little voice trailed off into a whisper.
“Come, boy, I want you to be a man, and a brave man. Your father needs
you and needs you to be strong and steady.”
He could have chosen no better word. The boy’s head went up, his
shoulders back. He threw the reins over the pony’s head, mounted and sat
waiting for the Colonel.
“Right-oh!” cried the Colonel. “Let’s gallop a bit.” They were on the
open road and for half a mile the Colonel’s broncho raced Joseph off his
feet.
“Always thought my bronc was just a shade better than your pinto,” said
the Colonel, pulling up. But Paul declined the challenge, allowing the
pinto to choose his own gait, which for that matter meant a racing pace
should the broncho feel so inclined.
Arrived at home they found a household torn with anxiety and a-thrill
with the echoes of the battle. Peg must have had a truly blissful hour.
But one of the Colonel’s quiet words was all that was needed to suppress
all curiosity and all undue exuberance of spirit.
Seldom were the conversational powers of the Colonel more brilliantly
exercised than through the dinner hour that evening, but with all he
could do and with the loyal backing of his wife—for these two never
failed to play up to each other’s lead—the haggard face of the boy had
the effect upon the little company of a ghost at a feast.
“Well, he knows the whole story now,” said the Colonel when the children
had said good-night. “He wanted to go home tonight.”
“And what’s this about Asa?” enquired Augusta. “As far as I could gather
from Peg’s dramatic recital they were all in a general mêlée.”
The Colonel’s face brightened.
“The boy is a wonder, a perfect wonder, cool as cress and a whirlwind in
attack.”
“But what happened?” demanded Augusta, whose sporting instincts were
deeply intrigued by Peg’s version of the encounter between the boys.
Nothing loth, the Colonel indulged himself in a graphic description of
the battle.
“A clear win, beautifully generalled and superbly handled! Like an old
ringer he was. The boy has it in him. And were it not for the horrible
fact that that young beast Asa had blurted out the wretched story,
doubtless with his own beastly embellishments, we should have all been
celebrating tonight. As it is, I know that boy is not sleeping, and I
tell you, Augusta, I am quite sick about it. The boy will go to his
father. Nothing under heaven will keep him back. He loves to be here,
but if it tears his heart up by the roots he will go. The very
wrong-doing of his father is a kind of lure. If people are down on his
father, all the more the boy will be at his side. And, b’gad, I think
the more of him for it. Tomorrow morning the boy leaves us forever.”
“Why, in all the world?”
“Point of honour. His father’s shame will be his.”
“And do you mean to say he will be tied for life to his father’s Indian
wife and half-breed family?”
“As to the Indian wife, she is as good as the husband, if not a bit
better.”
“But impossible, Edgar. She will be a burden, a burden impossible. Why
should a young boy assume that handicap?”
“Mark me, he’ll stick to his father. Try him tomorrow.”
The Colonel was proved to be right in his judgment, for, a quarter of an
hour after lessons and practice were finished, Paul stood ready at the
door of the living room.
“The wagon will come for my box, Aunt Augusta,” he said, standing up
white and very straight.
“Mother! Mother! He says he’s going to leave us! And his father told him
to stay. Tell him to stay, Mother.” Peg’s face was red and indignant.
“And why are you leaving us, Paul? Come here and sit down and let us
talk it over.”
Paul approached her, but did not sit down.
“Are you not happy here?” Augusta’s voice, when she chose, could carry a
world of tenderness. Paul’s lip trembled. He could not trust his voice,
and before Peg he would rather suffer much bodily injury than “cry like
a girl.” So he wisely remained silent, while Augusta cunningly and
carefully marshalled her arguments which she had spent much of the night
in preparing. The boy would have often made reply but for his recreant
lips which would not keep firm. In the midst of the one-sided argument
the Colonel entered the room.
“Daddy! oh, Daddy! he says he’s going away!” stormily cried Peg, whose
emotions had been deeply wrought upon by her mother’s moving
argumentation.
“Is he, Peg?” enquired the Colonel gravely.
The Colonel’s quiet voice fell upon them like the doom of fate. For the
first time since Paul’s first announcement to her two hours ago, his
departure seemed possible, and, as she looked at her father’s serious
face, inevitable. With a cry the child flung herself into her mother’s
arms in a passion of tears.
“Oh, Mother, don’t let him go. I don’t want him to go.”
With a bitter look at her husband, the mother gathered her child into
her arms for a brief moment or two, then lightly cried, “Hut! tut!
What’s all this about? If Paul wants to go home for a while, why
shouldn’t he go? We’ll see him every day. And he will come back again in
a few days.”
“He will not. He says he will never come back. He says we won’t want him
to come back. You did,” said Peg, glaring at the boy through her tears.
“You know you did.”
Peg’s words released the boy’s emotional tension. He glared back at her,
indignant that she should thus betray his confidence.
Hoping against hope, but too simply sincere to temporise, the Colonel
turned to Paul and, as if talking man to man, said gravely, “You have
thought this over carefully, Paul?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve been thinking all night.”
“And you feel you must leave us?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But, what nonsense, Paul! Why must you go?” enquired Augusta
impatiently.
“I—don’t know. Daddy—I think Daddy’s awful—awfully lonely,” said the
boy, dumb misery in his face.
“Why must he go, Daddy?” appealed Peg.
“Why?” The little Colonel rose to his feet, went and stood beside the
boy, and put his hand on his shoulder. “You want to know why he must go,
Peg?” His voice rang out vibrant and clear. “Then listen to me. He goes
because, b’gad, he’s a gentleman.”
A hot flush surged over the boy’s face. He flashed up one swift glance
into the Colonel’s eyes, a glance of adoring gratitude. Here was a man
who could understand a fellow. His head went up and his shoulders back.
“Thank you, sir,” he said, and walked steadily out of the house, and for
many a day was seen therein no more.
Nor did the Colonel run across him for well nigh a month. For it was
well toward the end of September when, riding along the upper trail, he
met the boy on his pinto and hailed him jovially.
“Hello, you young rascal! Why have you never been to see your friends?
Don’t you know you are behaving very badly indeed?” Paul smiled back at
him in unfeigned joy.
“Oh, Uncle Colonel, I’m awful glad to see you. I just wanted to see you
awfully much.”
“Oh, you did, eh? Strange, too. The trail to the white house I believe
is still open. And your eyesight appears to be fairly good.”
“Oh, Uncle Colonel, I don’t know what to do.”
The distress in the boy’s face sobered the little Colonel.
“Tut, tut, boy! What is so very wrong? I saw your father a couple of
days ago and he was looking fairly fit, better indeed than for some
time.”
“Yes, I know, I know—but, oh, I can’t tell you, Uncle Colonel.”
“Well, come along, we will ride a bit along the trail. The nuts are
coming on fine, eh? Going to be a great crop. We’ll have a day at ’em in
a couple of weeks. A touch o’ frost and they will be fit, eh? I haven’t
had a good long day in the woods for weeks. We’ll take this upper trail.
Haven’t been to the top this whole summer. The colouring of the valley
ought to be worth seeing, eh?” And so the Colonel chatted, giving the
boy no chance to make answer. The doings and goings of the family, the
ranch operations, plans for the autumn hunting, these all were fully
discoursed upon till they reached a bare shoulder overlooking the wide
sweeping valley. Already the mountain sides were aflame with the hues of
autumn, variegated with the dark green of the massed pines. A truly
noble view unfolded itself before them where the valley with its
confluents rolled north and south, east and west.
“My! I wish Daddy were here,” sighed Paul. “He never paints at all now.”
“Ah, not at all?”
“Never. He just sits and sits, looking dreadful, except when I play
sometimes, then he tells me how to—to—make it sing, you know, sing like
some one singing. That’s the way he plays. But sometimes he won’t have
me play at all. Just hates it. And I don’t know what to do.”
“What about the fences and stables? Is he not going to get them in
shape?”
“He began to, but he gets tired awful quick, and he hasn’t got lumber
and things. And I heard him tell Sleeman he couldn’t get any money. A
man in Vancouver wouldn’t give him, not a dollar, he said. And he can’t
buy anything he wants. And Sleeman just laughs and says he’s a fool.”
The boy paused, holding back his wrath, then recovering himself went on
quietly. “Of course, Sleeman is a bad man, a very bad man, and I wish he
would not come and stay so late. Of course, Daddy is lonesome sometimes,
I guess.”
“Lonesome? Why doesn’t he drop over and see us now and then?”
“He says the neighbours have all forgotten him. But I went with him to
the Post and a lot of people remembered him. Jim—Mr. Powers, I mean, and
Mr. Macdonald, and Mr. Tom Smith and Jake Smith and Mr. Perrault and old
Murphy, Mr. Murphy, I mean, and a lot more men, they all remembered him.
But he thinks they have forgotten him. Of course they don’t come and sit
and talk as they used to when—before—I mean when Mother was here too.
Everything is different now, and Daddy just sits and—and—Uncle Colonel,
when Sleeman comes—” Paul always forgot his manners in mentioning
Sleeman—“when Sleeman comes they just play cards and play and play, and
they make such a noise, and Sleeman keeps filling up Daddy’s glass. Old
Jinny sometimes comes in and just takes the bottle right away. And I
wish she would every night, because next day Daddy has always a bad
headache. Oh, I wish Sleeman wouldn’t come.”
The Colonel’s face grew grave and stern.
“How often is Sleeman there?” he asked.
“He comes every week two or three times,” said Paul. “He’s a bad man.
When he dies he will go to hell. And it would be better for him to die
soon, because he is getting worse every day, wouldn’t it, Uncle
Colonel?”
“He’s no kind of a man to be round your house, at any rate.”
“And Onawata hates him. She would like to kill him, I know,” said Paul
quietly.
“What are you saying, boy?” asked the horrified Colonel.
“Onawata would like to kill him.”
“How do you know, Paul?”
“I have watched her eyes. Awful eyes. And it would be better, for he
won’t repent, of course. And he swears all the time, and you know when
he breaks the Third Commandment, what it says in the ‘reason annexed.’”
But the Colonel, being deprived of the privilege of instruction in the
shorter Catechism in his youth, was quite beyond his depth.
“‘Reason annexed?’ What on earth are you driving at?”
“You know what the reason annexed to the Third Commandment says, Uncle
Colonel, about the breakers of the commandment.”
“No,” confessed the Colonel. “What does it say?”
“That ‘the Lord our God will not suffer them to escape his righteous
judgment.’ So you see he can’t escape, and it would be better if he died
very soon.”
“Good Lord!” muttered the Colonel, appalled at the relentless theory of
the divine administration of the universe. “But what about the Sixth
Commandment? Surely that forbids killing.”
“No, Uncle Colonel,” replied the young theologian, “not always. For it
says it ‘forbiddeth the taking away of our own life or the life of our
neighbour _unjustly_,’ and of course it wouldn’t be ‘_unjustly_,’ you
see.”
“Great Heavens, boy! Don’t fancy yourself Almighty God. Better leave
these things to Him.”
“I do, Uncle Colonel,” said Paul with great solemnity. “Of course I do.”
“Well, keep up your Catechism, but for Heaven’s sake get old Fraser, I
mean Mr. Fraser—he’s your parson, isn’t he?—to explain things to you.”
“Oh, Daddy explains them to me every Sunday. He makes me say the
Catechism over every Sunday, and then I read him my lessons. You know,
the lessons Mother used to teach me from the Bible. Except when Sleeman
comes—then we sometimes forget.”
“One thing, young fellow, don’t let your—ah—what do you call her?—the
Indian woman, I mean——”
“Onawata.”
“Don’t let Onawata—a pretty name—get any such bloodthirsty notions in
her head, or she may murder the beast some day. Then they’d hang her,
b’Jove. Now I’m coming round to see your father soon. I have been rather
busy, but I must come soon. Now let us ride down. Don’t fret, and if you
want help any time ride over for me.”
It was not till the following Sunday that the Colonel was able to fulfil
his promise, and it being the Sunday for the Anglican service, which
came once in the month, it was late in the afternoon when he rode up to
Pine Croft and gave his horse into the care of Indian Louis. Through the
open door of the living room came Gaspard’s voice, booming loudly.
“That’s good for your soul, Sleeman, you ungodly heathen. Say it again,
Paul. It will do him good, if he has the brains to take it in. Go on,
boy. ‘What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?’”
High, clear, and with an unmistakable note of triumph in his voice, came
Paul’s answer.
“‘All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath
and curse, and so made liable to the miseries in this life, to death
itself, and to the pains of hell forever.’”
“That ought to do you good, you old sinner,” said Gaspard.
“What about yourself? I guess you’re in the same boat,” said Sleeman
with an oath.
“Oh, no,” said Paul.
“Why not?” said Sleeman savagely.
“Because there’s ‘repentance unto life,’ you know,” said the boy, with
no attempt to conceal his satisfaction.
“And what’s that?” asked Sleeman, with a sneer.
“Tell him, Paul. Tell the benighted sinner.” Gaspard was hugely enjoying
himself. Nothing loth, Paul recited the noble words, ‘Repentance unto
life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his
sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief
and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of and
endeavour after new obedience.’
“There, Sleeman, did you ever hear anything more complete?”
Sleeman growled out an oath. “I don’t know what the devil you’re talkin’
about.”
Gaspard laughed loud and long. “Of course not, my dear fellow. Have
another drink. A man needs brains to understand that little book. That’s
why the great unwashed gag at our great system of theology. Ha! ha!”
Gaspard was immensely tickled at the boy’s answer. “Brains, my dear
fellow, brains. We furnish the system, we Calvinists, but not the
brains.”
“All the same, I guess I got as good a chance of missin’ hell as you,
anyhow.”
“No,” said Paul again, serenely triumphant.
“And why not?” said Sleeman with another oath.
“Tell him, Paul. This is really great. Tell the blighter, while I have a
drink.” There was a clink of glasses.
“Because you won’t repent,” said Paul, announcing a perfectly obvious
and cheering fact.
“And what about yourself, you—you——”
“Steady on, Sleeman. No profanity in our theological class. Go on,
Paul.”
“Oh, you won’t repent, you see, and we do. Don’t we, Daddy? O’ course we
do.”
The discussion was becoming a little too much for the Colonel, greatly
though he enjoyed the apparent perplexity and confusion of the outcast
and unregenerate Sleeman, so he made his presence known and entered the
room. He was welcomed by Gaspard with acclaim and with urgent
invitations to drink, by Paul with vociferous delight, by Sleeman with a
reluctant pretence of neighbourly friendliness.
Refusing a drink, the Colonel enquired, “What’s doing, Paul? Did I hear
you on your native heath, the shorter Catechism? My dear Gaspard, if I
am not an expert in Calvinistic theology, the fault is neither that of
Paul nor of the shorter Catechism, for the last three years we have had
almost daily exercises, Paul and I, in that most terrible and most
remarkable book.”
“Most remarkable, I grant you,” said Gaspard, whose love for theological
discussion grew with each successive glass, “but one not easily absorbed
by the unschooled Sassenach mind. Sleeman here, for instance, if I
repeated to him the immortal and noble phrases which register the answer
to the paralysing question, ‘What is effectual calling?’ would be as
hopelessly befogged as if I were reciting a bit of the Koran in its
original tongue.”
Sleeman squirmed and was silent. When Gaspard was discoursing upon
either art or theology he realised his hopeless inadequacy and had the
wit to venture no contribution. All the same, it angered him and
disturbed him not a little to have his postmortem career outlined for
him in the calmly judicial and final manner affected by Paul. His
obvious uneasiness under the process gave Gaspard unqualified delight.
It was hard enough to be coolly assigned to hell by a youngster who was
at no pains to conceal his entire approval of the Divine judgment in the
case, but that this disturbing verdict should become the occasion of
joyous mirth by his neighbour was, to say the least, irritating.
Besides, the homely and relentless logic of some of the “Questions,”
when rubbed in by the gleeful Gaspard, gave him some serious moments.
But to the Colonel the whole scene was not without its disturbing and
depressing elements. Gaspard, for all his cynical hilarity, had every
symptom of nerve strain and exhaustion. He was in no condition to run
neck and neck with the tough and seasoned Sleeman in a race for the last
drop out of the whiskey bottle. It was to the Colonel too a horror that
the boy should be forced to endure the sordid environment of a Sunday
afternoon spent in so degrading a manner. The thing was obviously
hateful to Paul. The boy’s whole manner showed high nervous tension,
anxiety, even dread. But from the situation there appeared to the
Colonel no escape. Paul would stick by his father, and the father was
held in the grip of circumstances beyond his power to shake off.
The Colonel sought to turn the conversation away from the profundities
of Calvinistic theology into the lighter vein of neighbourly gossip. But
Gaspard had imbibed enough from his bottle to be unreasonably fixed in
his own opinion of what was seemly in his house on a Sunday afternoon.
Moreover, it gave him an unholy joy to see Sleeman flounder among ideas
far beyond his comprehension and squirm under the forebodings of an
uneasy conscience. As the afternoon passed, Gaspard became less
controlled and more provocative and unpleasant in his goading of
Sleeman, till the Colonel began to fear a violent rupture between the
two. He became conscious also of a consuming anxiety in Paul, mingled
with a certain sense of humiliation for his father. Once and again he
caught an appealing look in the boy’s eyes, till he could bear it no
longer.
“Sleeman, it is quite time we were going home, you and I.”
Gaspard made loud and indignant protest. “Nonsense, Pelham! You don’t
come so often. Sit down, man.”
“No, we must go. And you are needing rest too, Gaspard. You want sleep.”
“Sleep!” shouted Gaspard. “Sleep! Ha! ha! Yes, I need sleep. But shall I
sleep? ‘To sleep, perhaps to dream! Ah, there’s the rub!’ The old boy
knew what he was talking about. But I know better. Sit down, Sleeman.
Don’t leave me, Colonel. Sit down—Ah, yes, Paul will play for you, and
then perhaps, who knows? I may sleep. Play, Paul! Play, boy! Play!
Play!” He was growing terribly excited.
“All right, Daddy. Listen to this. I call it ‘Asleep in the Woods.’
You’ll get it. You’ll hear all the things.” The boy was excited, too,
almost beyond control. He ran to the piano, struck a few crashing
chords, then allowed his fingers to rush up and down the keyboard in a
perfect fury of sounds, gradually passing into a more moderate tempo and
a more melodious theme, till he fell into a movement rich in tone
colour, dreamy in motif, varied in phrase, which might well suggest
night’s many tender moods in the great out-of-doors.
The Colonel waited to observe the effect upon the other two. Upon
Gaspard the effect was immediate. Deep in his arm chair he allowed
himself to sink, motionless, silent, and buried in thought. The demon of
furious unrest was exorcised. As with Saul of old, the evil spirit
departed from him, and for the hour at least he passed into peace. With
a feeling of immense relief, the Colonel turned his eyes toward Sleeman,
and could hardly believe but that his eyes were playing him false. With
his face full in the glare of the lamp Sleeman sat, bolt upright,
gripping the arms of his chair, held as by a spell, fascinated. Sleeman,
material of soul, vulgar in taste, coarse in fibre, there he sat with a
look as of another world in his face, as if another soul were gazing
through his eyes. Bewildered, rebuked, humbled, the Colonel looked and
listened, while the music poured out its melodious song, reminiscent of
murmuring pines and running streams under the quiet stars. How long they
sat thus, the Colonel could not reckon. It seemed that from some strange
and far off country he was recalled as the music passed into the stately
solemn chords of Handel’s Largo, with which the boy closed his
improvisation.
“Good night, Gaspard,” he said, as silence followed the music. “Now you
will sleep.”
“Good night, good night, old friend,” replied Gaspard, stretching up a
hand from his chair. “Yes, I shall sleep now.”
The Colonel touched Sleeman on the arm. “Come along,” he said quietly.
As if wakened from a sleep; Sleeman rose, stretched himself and with a
nod to Gaspard passed out into the falling evening. Together they walked
their horses down the avenue of pines in silence.
“Wonderful performance that, Sleeman, eh?” said the Colonel when they
had almost reached the road.
“Say, what was that little devil playing there? Ain’t he the limit? Say,
he’s the limit.”
“He’s a wonderful chap. Made me feel as if I had been in church.”
“Say, ain’t he the limit? He made me feel like hell!”
The emotions were similar, the phraseology varying as the personality of
the speaker.
When the men reached the parting of their ways the Colonel held out his
hand. “Good night, Sleeman,” he said. “We’ve had a great afternoon.”
“Good night, sir,” replied Sleeman, with a new respect in his tone.
“Say, ain’t he the very devil, eh?”
“That chap Sleeman isn’t a half had sort, after all,” the Colonel
announced to his wife as he sat smoking his after dinner pipe.
“Sleeman?” ejaculated Augusta. “Beast! That’s what he is!”
But the Colonel, recalling the look in Sleeman’s eyes, shook his head, a
puzzled wonder in his face.
“My dear, my dear, I am not so sure that I am the one to judge. And,
thank God, I don’t have to.”
And his wife, noting the look on his face, ventured no reply. This was
one of those rare moments with her when she wondered whether after all
the man she had lived with all these years were the simple soul she
thought him.