"They are nice."
"Mrs. Leslie?" he catechised.
"A trifle frivolous, perhaps, but--I like her."
"Leslie, Danvers, Poole, and the rest of them?"
"Impractical," she admitted, "thoroughly impractical, all but Captain
Molyneux. His farm is a model. Yet--I like them."
She spoke musingly, as though examining her feelings for cause, analysis
of which would have shown that the wide differences between herself and
her new acquaintances had added to the glamour and sparkle which are
given off by fresh personalities. She liked their refinement, courtesy,
subtleties, and grace of conduct which shone the brighter in that rough
setting. To her their very speech was charming, with its broad vowels,
leisurely drawled, so much softer than the clipped American idiom.
They were, indeed, over-refined. Five centuries ago the welding of
Celt, Saxon, Roman, Norman into one homogeneous whole was full and
complete; since then that potent mixture of blood had undergone slow
stagnation. Noble privilege and laws of entail had checked in the
motherland those selective processes which sweep the foolish, wicked,
and vicious from the face of the earth. Protected by the aristocratic
system, the fool, the idler, the roue had handed their undesirableness
down the generations, a heavy mortgage on posterity. Ripe fruit of a
vicious system, decay had touched them at the core; last links of a
chain once strong, they had lacked the hot hammering from grim
circumstance that alone could make them fit to hold and bind.
Morrill laid his thin finger on the spot. "All right, Nell, they are
harmless." He laughed as he used the scornful term which the Canadian
settlers applied to their English neighbors. "You must have some
company. I don't dislike them myself, and would probably like them
better if it was not for their insufferable national conceit and blind
caste feeling. They look with huge contempt on all persons and things
which cannot claim origin in the narrow bit of English society from
which they sprang. I'm not denying their country's greatness. But,
like the Buddhist, lost in contemplation of his own navel, they have
turned their eyes inward till they're blind to all else. On we
Americans they are particularly hard, regarding us with the easy
tolerance that one may extend to the imperfections of an anthropoid ape.
Now don't fire up! They have always been nice to me. Still I can feel
the superiority beneath the surface. With Carter it is different. Him
they classify with the Canadian settlers, and you may fancy the effect
on a man who, in skill of hands and brain, character, all the things
that count in life, stands waist-high above them. He sees them cheated,
cozened by every shyster. Men in years, they are children in
experience, and if help from home were withdrawn not one could stand on
his own legs. They are the trimmings of their generation, encumbrances
on the family estate or fortune, useless timber lopped off from the
genealogical tree. Do you wonder that he despises them?"
"I think," she said, after a thoughtful pause, "that he is too stern in
his judgments. Impracticability isn't a crime, Bert, and people ought
not to be blamed for the conditions that made them."
"True, little wisehead."
"He ought," she went on, "to be more friendly. I'm sure Mrs. Leslie
likes him."
Morrill smothered a laugh. "Carter's a mighty handsome man, young lady,
and Mrs. Leslie is--a shade impressionable. But in social affairs women
decide on women, men on men."
She nodded, puckering her brow. "Yes, but he behaved dreadfully to
Captain Molyneux."
Her genuine distress prevented the laugh from escaping. "Tell me about
it," he sympathized.
"It was the other evening when he came to drive me home. Despite his
reserve, the younger boys all like him, and when Captain Molyneux
brought me out he was telling Mr. Poole and Mr. Rhodes about a horse
that Danvers had bought from Cummings. 'The critter,' Carter said, 'is
blind, spavined, sweenied, and old enough to homestead.'
"'Well,' the captain added, 'Danvers has always needed a guardian, Mr.
Carter.'"
"In his patronizing way?" Morrill commented.
"A little, perhaps," she admitted. "Then, looking straight at us,
Carter answered, 'He could have picked a worse.' What did he mean,
Bert? The captain reddened and the boys looked silly."
Morrill grinned. "Well--you see, Nell, Molyneux's income is mostly
derived from the farming of pupils who are apprenticed to him by a firm
of London lawyers while under the impression that colonial farming is a
complex business that requires years of study. Having whacked up from
five hundred to five thousand dollars premium, they find, on arrival,
that they have simply paid for the privilege of doing ordinary farm
work. You said Molyneux's place was a model. No wonder, when he draws
pay where other men have to hire. No, the business isn't exactly
dishonorable!" He anticipated her question. "He does teach them
something, and prevents them from falling into the hands of Canuck
shysters who would bleed them for hundreds when he takes fifties.
But--well, it isn't a business I'd care to be in. But there! I've
talked myself tired, and Molyneux is coming at three to drive you up to
Leslie's. You have just half an hour to dress."
"But I won't go," she protested, "if you're not feeling well."
"Bosh!" he laughed. "I'm dying to be rid of you. Expect to get quiet
sleep this afternoon."
But as, half an hour later, he watched her drive away, his face
darkened, and he muttered: "This will never do. She can't settle down
to this life. Just as soon--" A fit of coughing left him gasping; but,
under the merciful hallucination that attends consumption, he finished,
"I'll sell out as soon as I'm rid of this cough and go back to the law."
Carter also watched her go. As, dank with sweat, grimed with dust and
labor, he "geed" his oxen around the "land," she went by, a flutter of
billowy white, deliciously dainty, cool, and clean. The contrast
emphasized the difference between them so strongly that a sudden feeling
of bitter hopelessness caused him to return only a stern nod to her bow
and smile. Surprised, she looked back, and gleaning, perhaps, an
intuition of his feeling from the dogged set of his face and figure, she
was swept with sudden pity.
For a mile she was quiet; but while the sun shines youth may not hobnob
with care, and that was a perfect day. Autumn's crimsons mottled the
tawny prairies; waves of sunshine chased one another over the brown
grasses to the distant forest line; and as, with cheerful clatter of
pole and harness, the buggy dipped, swallow-like, over the long earth
rolls, her spirits rose. She laughed, chatted, within five miles was
involved in a mild flirtation. That was wicked! Of course! Afterwards,
in private, she mortified the strain of coquetry that made such shame
possible. Yet it was very natural. Given a handsome man, a pretty
maid, and isolation, what else should follow? Molyneux had travelled in
far countries and talked well of them and their savage peoples. He knew
London, the Mecca of womankind, like a book; abounded in anecdotes of
people and places that had been awesome names to her. Also he was
skilled in subtle flattery, never exceeding by a hair's-breadth the
amount which her vanity--of which she had a pretty woman's rightful
share--could easily assimilate. Small wonder if she forgot the grim
figure at the ploughtail.
Forgetfulness, however, was not for Carter. As he followed the steady
rhythm of his furrows in heat and dust, heavy thought now loosened, now
tightened the corners of his mouth. But bitterness did not hold him
long.
"Baby! You are going to get her. But that ain't the way to play the
game," he said, as the buggy disappeared. And she saw only friendliness
in his smile on her return that evening and the score of other occasions
on which he watched her goings and comings.
He "played his game" like a man, and with a masterly hand. Never
obtrusive, he was always kind, cheerful, hopefully sympathetic during
Merrill's bad spells. At other times his dry humor kept her laughing.
He was always helpful. When the snows blanketed the prairies he
instructed her in the shifts of winter housekeeping--how to keep the
cabin snug when the blizzard walled it in fleecy cloud; how to keep the
frost out of the cellar and from the small stock of fruits in the
pantry. Together they "froze down" a supply of milk against the time
when it would be cruel to keep cows milking. A night's frost transmuted
her pans of milk into oval cakes, which he piled out-doors like
cordwood. A milk pile! The snows soon covered it, and how she laughed
when, drawing home wood from the forest, he mistook the pile for a drift
and so upset his load.
Indeed, he wrought well! Kindliness, good temper, consideration, these
are splendid bases for love. Not that he ever hinted his hope. He was
far too shrewdly circumspect. It speaks for the quality of his wit that
he recognized that, given differences in rank and station, love must
steal upon her from ambush. Startled, she would fly behind ramparts
that would be proof against the small god's sharpest arrows. So he was
very careful, masking his feeling under a gentle imperturbability; sure
that, if not alarmed, she must turn to him in the coming time of
trouble.
For Morrill had steadily failed since winter set in. During the
Christmas week he rallied, recovered voice and color, improved so much
that Helen yielded to his wish for her to attend a New Year's party at
Mrs. Leslie's; and as she kissed him good-bye there was nothing to
indicate that this was but the last flash, the leaping flame which
precedes the darkness.
A genuine frontier party, it was to be an all-day affair, and Carter
drove her up in the morning. New Year had broken beautifully: clear,
bright, almost warm; for the first time in a month the mercury had
thawed long enough to register twenty-eight below. There had been no
wind or drift for a week, so the trail was packed hard, and as the
ponies swept its curves, balancing the cutter on one or the other
runner, rapid motion joined with pleasurable anticipation to raise the
girl's spirits to the point of repentance.
"Here I'm laughing and chatting," she said, soberly, "when I ought to be
home with Bert."
"Nonsense!" Carter glanced approvingly upon the glow which the keen air
had brought to her cheeks. "You haven't been out for a month, and you
were getting that pale and peaked. I shall be with him. Now you just
go in for a good time."
His generous solicitude for her happiness, for she was going among
people he did not like, touched her. "I wish you were coming," she
said. Then she added, "Won't you come in--just for a little while--if
Mrs. Leslie asks you?"
He returned her coaxing smile. "I'll see." And as the men were all
away, clearing a slough for skating, he stayed long enough to drink a
toast with Mrs. Leslie.
That lady's eyes shone with soft approval as, standing by the table that
was already spread with glass, silver, and white napery, he bowed. "To
your continued health and beauty."
"Now wasn't that pretty?" she exclaimed, after he was gone. "Do you
know, standing there in his furs, so tall and strong, he reminded me of
one of those old Norsemen who sometimes strayed into degenerate southern
courts. You are happy in your cavalier, my dear. If he asked me, I
believe I'd run away with him." And there was a sigh in her laugh. For
though a good fellow, Leslie was prodigiously chuckle-headed, and she
had moods when his simple foolishness was as unbearable as her own
frivolity--dangerous moods for a woman of her light timber.
"I wish," she added, a little later, "that we could have persuaded him
to stay."
He knew better. Striding, a conqueror, into southern halls, the
Norseman cut a mighty figure where he would have made but a poor
appearance as an invited guest. A thought that was expressed in Carter's
meditation on the homeward drive.
"She meant it, shorely! But, bless her! you ain't to be drawn into such
a brace game. You'd look nice among those dudes."
He had left no fire in his cabin, but he was not surprised when, afar
off, he saw his stove-pipe flinging a banner of smoke to the crystal
air. As yet the northland had not achieved refinements in the shape of
locks and bolts, and, coming in from a forty-mile drive from a Cree
village, Father Francis, the priest of the Assiniboin mission, had put
in and brewed a jug of tea.
Easy, courteous in bearing, upright despite his silvered years, the
priest came to the door and welcomed Carter home. "Not much travel
beyond the settlements," he said. "It was pretty heavy going and my
ponies are tired. So I'll just accept the old invitation, son, and stay
the night--that is"--his mellow laugh rang out--"if my presence won't
make you anathema maranatha unto your neighbors."
Carter knew them, their rigid dogmatism, the bigotry which made them
look askance at this man who, for thirty years, had fought the devil
over the face of a parish as big as an Eastern State.
"I don't allow that they'll more than excommunicate me," he grinned,
"and if they do I reckon that you'd drop the bars of your fold."
"Gladly!" the priest laughed. "They are always down, son." So, seated
by the humming stove with the jug steaming between them, the two settled
down to exchange the news of the neighborhood--an elastic term that
stretched over territory enough to set an Old-World kingdom up in
business.
It was strange gossip. To the north of them--and not very far at that;
old Fort Pelly lay within twenty miles--the Hudson Bay Company, the
oldest of chartered traders, still lorded it over the tribes. In dark
woods, on open prairies stood the forts with their storehouses, fur
lofts waiting groups of Indians. There Factor, Clerk, the Bois Brules
still lived and loved in the primitive fashion, careless of the
settlement, first wave of civilization that was lipping around their
borders. So the talk ran on fur packs, mishaps by trail or river,
sinister doings in the far north, where the aftermath of the Metis
rebellion was still simmering. A wild budget! What between it and
Carter's choring, dark was settling as he and the priest entered
Morrill's cabin.
Both started at what they saw. Despite Carter's optimism in Helen's
presence, he had been fully alive to Morrill's condition, yet--he now
stood, shocked, grieved in the presence of the expected.
The sick man was wellnigh spent, yet the stroke of death brought only a
spark from his iron courage. "Another hemorrhage!" he whispered.
"Shortly after you left. No, don't go for Helen. She gets so little
pleasure. It is all over. I'll be all right to-morrow."
But it was _not_ all over--though it would be "right" on the morrow.
The rising moon saw Carter's ponies scouring the ghostly snows.
It had been a jolly party, skating in the afternoon, music and dancing
in the evening; then, as reserve thawed under the prolonged association,
they had fallen to playing Christmas games. Forfeits were being
"declared" as Carter reined in at the door, and Mrs. Leslie's merry
tones fell like blasphemy upon his ear.
"Fine or superfine?"
"Superfine? Then that must be Helen! Captain Molyneux will--" The
penalty was drowned in uproar, which also smothered his knock. Followed
loud laughter, and the door quivered under the impact of struggling
bodies.
"Don't--please!"
Now, under Christmas license no girl is particularly averse to being
kissed, and had Molyneux gone a little more gently about it, Helen had
probably offered no more than the conventional resistance. But when he
forced her head back so that her lips would come up to his with all the
abandon of lovers, she broke his grip, and when pinned again against the
door, struggled madly.
"Don't!"
There was no mistaking her accent. A flame of anger, leaping,
confusing, blinded Carter. His every muscle contorted. From his
unconscious pressure, hasp and handle flew from the door; as Mrs. Leslie
shrieked her surprise, his hand dropped on Helen's shoulder, and from
that small leverage his elbow sent Molyneux staggering back to the wall.
The action cleared his brain, calmed the great muscles that quivered
under his furs with primordial impulse to break and tear. The flush
faded from his tan, the flash from his eye. The hasp lay on the floor
with the handle he had forgotten to turn. He saw neither them nor the
guests in their postures of uneasy astonishment. Before his mental
vision rose the scene he had just left, the priest kneeling in prayer
beside a dying man.
The reaction of his shove had thrown Helen in against him, and her touch
recalled his mission. "Your brother--" he began, then paused. He had
meant to break it gently, but the confusion of conflicting emotions left
him nothing but the fact. "Is--" he went on, then, appalled by a sudden
sense of the ruthlessness of it, he stopped. But, reading the truth in
his eyes, she collapsed on his arm.
To Carter, waiting outside in the moonlight for Helen, came Molyneux,
and the door closing behind him shut in the hum of wonder and the
sobbing that came from the bedroom where the women were putting on their
wraps.
Molyneux was smoking, though, to give him his due, he did not require
that invaluable aid to a cool bearing. Regarding the spirals, curling
sharply blue in the moonlight, he remarked, "I don't quite understand
your methods, my friend." The insolence of the "my friend" is
indescribable. "It may be fashionable in Stump town to announce bad
news by breaking down a gentleman's door, but with us--it savors of
roughness."
"_Roughness?_" Carter scrutinized the dim horizon. "It wasn't all on
one side of the door--_my friend_." His mimicry was perfect.
The captain hummed, cleared his throat. "A little Christmas
foolery--perfectly allowable."
Carter's gaze shifted to the nimbus about the moon, a clear storm
warning. "Foolery becomes roughness when it ain't agreeable to both
parties."
"Who told you it wasn't?"
"My ear. If yours didn't--it needs training."
Molyneux smoked out a pause that perhaps covered a slight confusion.
"Well, I don't care to accept you for a music-master. Under the
distressing circumstances, I shall have to let it pass--for the present.
But I shall not forget."