A RUSH FOR THE GOAL
The shorelark soars to his topmost flight,
Sings at the height where morning springs,
What though his voice be lost in the light?
The light comes dropping from his wings.
Mount, my soul, and sing at the height
Of thy clear flight in the light and the air,
Heard or unheard in the night, in the light,
Sing there! Sing there!
--DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT.
Elmbrook felt keenly disappointed that the red threshing-machine did
not pass through the village on its return journey. Though no one
guessed it, Dr. Allen was the most deeply disappointed of all. Indeed,
such was the effect upon him, that he packed his suitcase the next day,
Davy Munn hung his mother's sunbonnet upon the top of the stable, and
the doctor boarded the train at the back lane and went to Toronto.
Elmbrook literally sat up nights, speculating as to the possible
reasons for his sudden departure. Mrs. Munn hadn't the faintest idea.
She even wasn't sure of his destination, had forgotten whether he took
many clothes or not, and was perfectly at sea in regard to his possible
return. Her son was more explicit, if more imaginative. He bet that
the doctor had gone to see the swell young lady that came in the
threshing-mill; he was quite sure he would get drunk and show people a
few things when he came back, for he was a very wild and fierce young
man, and nobody in the place, except Mr. Munn, knew just what awful
things he could do.
Fortunately, people paid no heed to Davy, and when the doctor returned
the following day, looking his usual self, no one suspected him of
riotous conduct. Mrs. Munn kept her own counsel, of course, but she
wondered secretly what had happened to make him so quiet, and why he
did not run up the stairs three steps at a time, whistling loudly, as
he used to do.
And yet, according to his own view, there was really no reason why
Gilbert should have been less happy. Everything had turned out just as
he had wanted. First, Rosalie had forgiven him--that was just like
Rosalie, he reflected fondly--and, moreover, had promised--yes,
promised faithfully this time--that if he would come down to her New
Year's party she would that day announce their engagement. There was
another provision attached, however; he must, yes, must, come to the
city in the spring; no, not a month later. There was no use in his
thinking she would live anywhere else, because she simply would die;
and if he wanted to kill her, why, she would just marry Guy Blackburn,
and go motoring over a precipice. Surely, when he saw that she was
giving up so much for his sake, he might make a little sacrifice for
her. And Gilbert had declared, with a rush of gratitude, that he would
do anything she asked.
So there was surely no good reason for his apparent lack of spirits.
There was every prospect of his being successful in Toronto, and
Harwood, his old college chum, had assured him there would be a fine
opening in the spring. Nevertheless, Gilbert Allen was not as glad at
heart as might have been expected. For Rosalie had been right in her
judgment; he was changed. Several influences had been at work to make
a new man of him. Hitherto his life had been unconsciously selfish.
It had been all getting, and no giving. That had seemed inevitable in
his college days; but when they were over, self-interest had still
remained the strongest force. To attain, to gain what he desired most
for himself, had brought him to this country practice, and for a while
he was in danger of quenching finally the generous impulses that were a
part of his nature. But until Gilbert Allen had almost reached man's
estate there had been a good mother in his home, one who had never
failed, day and night, to lay her boy's highest welfare before her God.
So it was impossible that he should go very far astray, and now, all
unknowing, he was turning into the path where that mother had always
desired he should walk. He had set himself the task of reaching the
shining mark of success, all for his own ends; but he found the road to
it so absorbing, the daily duty demanding so strenuously the
obliteration of self, that, little by little, he was losing sight of
his own interests and living primarily for the people that needed his
help. He smiled at himself in surprise one day, when, after an
unusually busy fortnight, he found that he had forgotten to keep any
account of the money owing him. That was not the Gilbert Allen who had
sat down, in the first days of his career as a physician, to calculate
carefully just how much each mile would bring. He found it was hard
for a true physician to be selfish.
And as he went about his task of relieving pain, day by day,
unconsciously he was trying to live up to the high ideal that Elmbrook
had placed for him.
"Give a dog a bad name and you can be hanging him," quoted old Hughie
Cameron one evening when the doctor had joined the company on the
milkstand, and the talk was more than usually profound. "That will be
a true saying, indeed. But, hoots! toots! it will be working the other
way, whatever. Give him a good name, now, and----"
"And he'll git up on his hind legs and walk like a man," said Spectacle
John Cross, much to Uncle Hughie's disgust.
Dr. Allen had merely laughed, and forgotten the remark soon after.
Nevertheless, the underlying truth was working out in his own life. He
was being made a better man because he had been given a fine name and
reputation. He had no petty conceit to be fed by his patients'
adulation. It brought him only a saving sense of his own shortcomings
and an honest desire to be more worthy. And there had been still
another influence at work, one of which he was entirely
unconscious--the quiet life of noble self-sacrifice lived by the girl
on the other side of Treasure Valley was a constant source of reproach
to him, though he recognized it not.
So, being the man he was, Gilbert could not be happy in view of what he
had promised to do. Even Rosalie's smile was scarcely compensation for
the pang he felt when he reflected that the splendid Christmas present
he had in store for the man who had given him his chance in life must
be used for selfish ends, and Martin must wait. That was the sting;
Martin was always waiting, and when would the waiting end?
But he soon lost sight of the future, its joys, as well as its pangs,
in the imperative call of the present. When the winter set in he
discovered that, hitherto, his work had been but child's play. The
high ridge of Elmbrook offered a splendid battle-ground for all the
opposing winds. Here they met in furious combat, filling the air with
the white dust of battle, and piling up their ramparts of snow until
roads and fields and fences were blotted out, and the whole earth lay
one dazzling waste.
With the opening of winter came an epidemic of grip [Transcriber's
note: grippe?], and other seasonable maladies. The orphans went
sliding on the pond before the ice was as thick as window-glass, and
broke through and got severe colds; Mrs. McKitterick fell ill of
pneumonia, and all the children up among the stormy hills of Glenoro
took the measles. So the young doctor learned all that it meant to be
a country physician during an Ontario winter. An early December storm
made some of the roads impassable, and he often had to leave Speed, or
the new horse he had lately bought, at some wayside farmhouse while he
made the rest of the journey on snowshoes. Often he drove home in the
gray winter dawn staggering for want of sleep, only to change his horse
and start off in another direction. But he never shirked. His
troubled conscience drove him to a vigorous fulfilment of the duty at
hand. He had a vague notion that in this way he was atoning for the
neglect of the greater obligation.
His capacity for toil won the admiration of the hard-working people
among whom he lived. Often, as they watched his lonely cutter moving
down the road, like a little ship in a stormy sea, now rising high on a
snowy billow, now almost disappearing in the hollow, as he fought his
way against the bitter blast to relieve some one's pain, they
unanimously voted the doctor a man.
And the cures he worked! They talked them over around the kitchen fire
at night, never wearying of the theme. There was Mrs.
McKitterick--everybody knew about her, of course. And there was
Arabella Winters, who was in bed and like to die, one day, and the
doctor had her sitting up and going around the next. And as for Jake
Sawyer's orphans--well, there was no knowing how often he had saved
their lives. Yes, the doctor certainly was a caution.
As he worked the days flew past, and Rosalie's New Year's celebration,
which was to bring him such happiness, was fast approaching. He had
all the arrangements made for his holidays several weeks before.
Harwood was coming to take his work for a week, and everything promised
to turn out exactly as he had hoped.
On the last night of December he drove down the Lake Simcoe road to pay
a farewell visit to Mrs. McKitterick. Harwood had arrived the day
before, and the next morning Gilbert was to take the early train for
Toronto. Lauchie had promised to wait at the back lane for him, and
Davy had shoveled a path down to the railroad track.
Gilbert wore his first-prize mittens under his fur gauntlets, and Mrs.
McKitterick praised him for the wonderful care he was taking of them.
She was better, quite herself again, but she warned him to be back in
less than a week, for how could she get on without him? He had not the
heart to tell her that he would not likely be with her much longer. He
had to wait for a cup of tea, and by the time he had made another call
it was getting late.
As he was hurrying homeward he bethought himself of a short road to the
village, a winter highway, that went up the ravine, past the Drowned
Lands, following the old abandoned corduroy track. It had been made by
Sandy McQuarry's teams hauling logs up to the mill, and being
sheltered, was comparatively free from drifts. The doctor turned into
it, and passed into the breathless silence of the cedar swamp. His
horse's bells sounded startlingly clear in the tense Stillness. To his
right lay the cold, drear stretches of the Drowned Lands; the gaunt
tree-trunks were but dimly discernible against the gray landscape, and
looked more ghostly than ever, standing there, stark and silent, like
an army of the dead. Not a light could be seen, nor a sign of human
habitation. Above stretched the illimitable blue of heaven, steely
cold, like the frozen earth, and spangled with glittering stars. For
several nights Gilbert had had very little sleep, and as he moved on
through the unbroken silence his head drooped forward on his breast,
the lines hung loosely in his limp hand, and he swayed from side to
side like a drunken man. Speed trotted steadily onward, picking her
way carefully, like the wise little animal she was. She seemed the
only living thing in all the ghostly stillness.
Suddenly the horse stopped, and her sleepy driver lurched forward and
almost fell over the dashboard. He sat bolt upright and stared
stupidly about him. Then he guessed that something was probably wrong
with the harness. Speed was a dainty little animal, and always refused
to move when her attire was not in perfect order. She had once
cleverly forestalled what might have been a serious accident, by
standing stock-still when a strap gave way. Gilbert stumbled out and
went around to her head. Sure enough, a buckle had broken. He patted
the little mare affectionately.
"Ah, Speed, you're a finicky old girl," he grumbled. "If you were as
dead for want of sleep as I am you wouldn't know whether you had any
harness or not."
Speed rubbed him ingratiatingly with her nose as he strove, with numb
fingers, to repair the damage. The bells were still, and the silence
of the winter night was oppressive. The dry rustle of some dead leaves
that still clung forlornly to a ghostly beech by the wayside sounded
loud and startling. All at once the doctor was conscious of another
sound, one that appealed to his professional ear--the sound of a
smothered, strangling cough. He looked about him wonderingly, and
found that he had stopped just in front of the old shanty where John
McIntyre lived. He had seen the man only once or twice since the mill
closed, though he often heard the eldest orphan talk about him. But
Tim had been confined to the house for the past week, the result of his
premature skate on the pond, and the village had heard nothing of the
watchman for some time.
Gilbert stood a moment, doubtful as to what he should do. The coughing
began again, with a sound in it, this time, that told the physician he
must hesitate no longer. He drew his horse up to the old tumbled-down
bars, tied and blanketed her, and taking his satchel, plunged through
the deep snow to the shanty. He drew off his fur gauntlet and knocked
on the shaky door, but the moment he had done so he recognized the
futility of the act. He tried the latch, it lifted, and he stepped in.
The place was in utter darkness, and bitingly cold, a chill dampness
that struck the heart. The man's strangled breathing came from a
corner of the room. The doctor spoke, but there was no answer. He
hastily struck a match and looked around. The little flickering light
showed a rickety table, an old stove red with rust, and a dark object
in a far corner. It showed, also, a lantern on the floor. Gilbert lit
it, and going to the corner, bent over the sick man. John McIntyre lay
stretched on a low straw bed, covered with a ragged quilt and a heap of
nondescript clothing. His breath was coming in choking gasps, and he
gazed up at his visitor with staring, but unseeing, eyes. The doctor
felt his burning forehead and his leaping pulse, and uttered a sharp
exclamation. John McIntyre was sick, so sick that relief must come
speedily or it would not come at all.
Gilbert was wide awake now. The weary man was lost in the alert
physician. He forced some medicine down the man's throat, found some
kindling-wood in the shed, and soon had a blazing fire and a boiling
kettle. Then he flung aside his cap and coat and went rummaging in the
meager cupboard; he must have something--anything--for poultices. He
gave a relieved whistle as he stumbled upon a can of linseed meal, and
reflected, with some amusement, upon how approvingly Mrs. Winters would
have regarded the homely treatment. When he had adjusted the hot
poultice he ran out and led his shivering horse around into the shelter
of the old shed behind the house. Then he hurried back to John
McIntyre's bedside and took up his night's work. A hard battle he knew
it would be, with, as yet, almost even chances for life and death. He
went into the struggle eagerly, with not only the strong desire to
relieve pain and save life, which is part of the true physician, but
with his fighting instinct keenly aroused. The battle was on; there
was only his strength and skill against the dread specter, and he was
determined to win.
All night long he hung over his patient, watchful, careful, seizing
every smallest vantage ground, swiftly changing his tactics when he
sighted defeat ahead. Once or twice he sank into the single chair the
place possessed and snatched a few minutes' sleep; but when the instant
came to administer medicine or change the poultices, he was wide awake
again. So completely was he absorbed in his task that he lost all
consciousness of time and place, until he noticed a sickly appearance
in the lantern's light, and glancing at the little frosted window-pane,
he saw the ghosts of the Drowned Lands standing out plainly against the
dawn. Gilbert drew a deep breath. The night had ended, and with it
the struggle. The doctor bent over his patient, pale and worn-looking,
but his eyes aglow with the light of conquest. For he had won the
battle. John McIntyre lay there, spent and white, but he was saved.
When he had made his patient as comfortable as possible with his
inadequate means, Gilbert prepared to go home. He left reluctantly,
but he promised himself he would send Harwood back immediately. He
hurried out to the cutter, and sent Speed spinning up the road toward
the village. As he faced the brightening horizon it came to him with a
leap of his heart that it was New Year's Day! He would barely have
time to catch the train! He drove swiftly into his own yard and dashed
in at the kitchen door.
"Is Dr. Harwood up?" he demanded, coming suddenly upon Mrs. Munn, and
paralyzing her preparations for breakfast.
Had he not been in such a hurry he would have known it was too much to
expect his silent housekeeper to vouchsafe, all at once, the amount of
information required to answer that question.
"Dear! dear!" she cried, in consternation, standing with the dripping
porridge-stick held over the hot stove. "I dunno. There's a letter on
your desk," she added reluctantly.
Gilbert darted into his office and tore open the note. Harwood had
been called out in the night to an urgent case, fifteen miles away, and
would not be back till the afternoon.
The young doctor walked slowly to the frosty window and looked out upon
the white lawn, the paper crushed in his hand. He stood there,
motionless, for fully a minute, and when he turned away his face was
very stern. He walked upstairs and knocked peremptorily on the door of
Davy's room.
The high, falsetto squeak of a gramophone was coming gaily through the
portal, and without waiting for an answer Gilbert impatiently put his
head through the doorway. Since the lawnmower had gone to its
well-earned rest Mr. Munn lived only for this other instrument, the
sound of whose music he found similar to that of his lost treasure.
He was sitting up in bed now, shrouded in blankets, a smile of content
illuminating his face, while the buzzing little machine on the table at
his side was grinding out a Sousa march.
The stern look on the doctor's face startled the young man. He stared
in perturbation.
"Is anybody dead?" he whispered.
"Jump up quick," said the doctor sharply, "and run down and feed Speed
right away; I want her again in a few minutes, do you understand? Then
go down to the track when Lauchie stops, and give him a telegram I want
sent on. Tell him I'm not going to Toronto."
On the third day of the new year, when John McIntyre was quite out of
danger, Gilbert went over to Mrs. Winters' to ask if she could do
something to make the man's surroundings more comfortable. This was
just the opportunity for which the village manager had been longing
ever since the watchman had taken up his residence at the Drowned
Lands. She organized a housecleaning brigade, and every woman in the
place joined the ranks. Old Hughie Cameron drove them down the ravine
in Sandy McQuarry's big sleigh, and they descended upon John McIntyre's
establishment, and soaked and washed and scrubbed until there seemed no
small danger of the little shanty's joining the Drowned Lands under a
deluge of soapy water. They brought all sorts of comforts, too. Miss
Arabella donated her bedroom rug with the purple robins. Miss McQuarry
brought bedclothes, Mrs. Winters a feather mattress, and the Longs
cooking utensils; and they made beef-tea and chicken broth and jellies,
until, from fearing that his patient might die of neglect, the doctor
changed to apprehensions lest he be killed with over-attention.
When the rush and excitement of it was all over Gilbert felt as though
he had fallen from some great height, and was not yet certain how badly
he was hurt. That he had grievously offended Rosalie this time he was
assured. She would listen to no explanations. He might have come if
he had wanted, she declared; and when he humbly asked if he might not
come yet, he was answered by a newspaper with a paragraph in the
society column marked. Miss Rosalie Lane, it stated, was visiting
friends in New York.
Harwood went back to the city, and, left alone, Gilbert was too busy to
speculate much upon his wrongs. He put them behind him manfully, his
indignation at the unfairness of Rosalie's treatment helping him to
bear them. But he wrote to her again, very humbly, as usual, and
repeated his promise to come to the city in the spring. She
condescended to answer, but her brief note was all about the fun she
was having, and she made no allusion to his future plans. And with
this he was forced to be content.
He was passing John McIntyre's shanty one dazzling mid-January day,
and, tying his horse, ran in to see how he was faring. He found his
patient, dressed in one of his own warm bathrobes--a present from Mrs.
Munn--sitting in a cushioned rocking-chair by the fire. The place was
exquisitely clean and tidy, and there was a subtle touch here and
there--a blooming geranium in the window, a smoothness of the feather
bed--that showed the recent mark of a woman's hand. Seated in the most
comfortable chair, behind the stove, was the eldest Sawyer orphan,
happily devouring the remains of a boiled chicken, and talking fast and
furiously. John McIntyre was pale and haggard, as usual, but his air
of fierce reserve had changed to a dreary toleration of the
companionship of his fellow-mortals. He was still reticent and silent,
but in a helpless, broken-hearted way.
Since his recovery the young doctor felt constrained in his presence.
He could not forget their first interview; so he confined his remarks
and questions to strictly professional matters, and made his visits as
short as possible.
"And how are you feeling to-day?" he asked cheerily, as he removed his
coat, and stood warming his hands by the shining stove.
"Oh, better--quite better." It was John McIntyre's unfailing answer.
The doctor slipped his fingers over his pulse, and nodded in a
satisfied way.
"I don't know that it's very wise of you to be out of bed yet, though,"
he said. "You must not sit up too long."
He placed a bottle on the table, gave a few instructions concerning
diet, and then turned to go. John McIntyre had been regarding him as
though he wanted to speak.
"Sit down a moment, I would like to say something," he said suddenly.
Gilbert took a chair opposite, and looked at him inquiringly.
"They were telling me yesterday how you saved my life that night you
found me here," he began slowly.
"Oh, never mind that. It's nothing. Any doctor would have done the
same."
"I am not thanking you for it," said John McIntyre, in his old hard
voice. "I would much rather you had left me alone. But you did what
you thought best, and you have been very kind since." He paused a
moment, then went on slowly: "I once said something to you, it is
likely you have not forgotten. I would like to take it back. I know
now I must have been mistaken."
Dr. Gilbert Allen arose. The room felt stifling. "Will you tell me
exactly what you meant? Who was the friend you mentioned?" he asked in
a low tone.
The man shook his head. "No; what is the use?" he asked wearily. "He
is dead and gone, long ago. I was mistaken, that was all."
Gilbert went away puzzled. The "friend" was dead? Then the man had
not meant Martin, after all. It was a case of conscience making a
coward of him, he reflected. And so the two parted, all unconscious of
how near each had come to giving an uplift to the other's life.
Gilbert drove up the glittering road, following the fairy windings and
turnings of the valley. Down in the shadows the bare trees were vivid
blue, up on the heights the snow was a blinding silver. He was
meditating deeply on John McIntyre's words. They had hurt him more
than his angry accusation that evening in the mill. How he hated
himself! Why not plunge in and do the right thing now, whether Martin
needed it or not, and then, after that, let the future bring what it
would?
A woman's figure appeared on the road ahead of him, carrying a basket,
and explaining by her presence the immaculate state of John McIntyre's
home. Gilbert recognized the shimmer of Elsie Cameron's deep gold hair
with renewed feelings of compunction. If he had only had the calm
courage to walk the path of duty as this girl was doing! He touched
his horse and drew up beside her. The keen air had given her cheeks a
deeper tint, her hair was glorious in the sunlight, and her eyes were
brilliant.
She thanked him smilingly as he helped her into the cutter. He could
not help remembering the last time they had ridden together, and the
disastrous consequences.
They spun along the smooth road, and just as they were rounding a turn
in the winding valley a heavy sleigh, with a load of wood, came out of
the forest and moved slowly along in the track ahead. Gilbert uttered
an exclamation of impatience. "Now we shall have to crawl," he said.
"Sandy might have let us pass."
"Perhaps he didn't see us. He looks preoccupied."
"Likely he's concocting some scheme for sending the minister to Muskoky
for the rest of the winter."
"I really believe he'll drive him away from here some day. No one
knows how much Sandy's conduct has made poor Mr. Scott suffer."
"Well, the end is near, according to Silas Long's predictions. He
prophesies sure retribution, and it's not far off now, he says. Such a
learned astronomer ought to know. Hello! what's the matter?"
The sleigh ahead had stopped, and its driver was haranguing some
obstacle in his pathway. The two in the cutter leaned out and gazed
forward inquiringly.
Right in the middle of the highway, facing Sandy McQuarry's team, stood
the schoolmistress. She had a basket on her arm, and was bound for
John McIntyre's place with a mold of jelly, but she was really bent on
finding out if that eldest orphan-imp had been spending the day with
that dreadful old man instead of coming to school.
The ravine road was narrow, and on either side the deep, untrodden snow
made it impossible for a sleigh to turn out without risking an upset.
It was an unwritten law of the winter highway that pedestrians must
give the right of way to vehicles, particularly those that bore loads.
But the Duke of Wellington was subject to no law she did not wish to
obey. To turn off the road meant plunging into the deep snow, and that
she had not the smallest intention of doing.
"Ye'll hae to turn oot!" shouted Sandy McQuarry peremptorily.
"Do you think I'm going to flounder through that snow to my waist?"
demanded the Duke indignantly.
"Move aside and let me pass!"
"Ah canna move oot, wumman!" he cried, with truth. "Ma load'll upset!"
"What are you going to do about it, then?" Sandy McQuarry glared.
"Ah'm goin' to drive on," he declared grimly.
"Indeed!" Miss Weir placed her basket exactly in the middle of the
road, carefully adjusted her shawl over it, and, with perfect
deliberation, sat down upon it.
"Hoh!" Sandy McQuarry grunted disdainfully. He could soon scare even
the Duke of Wellington out of such an untenable position. "Ma
conscience, but ye'll no sit there lang!" he muttered. He urged his
team forward until the nose of one of his grays was right over her
head. But he had not calculated on the immovability of the Iron Duke.
She did not stir a muscle, but sat, with a calm, meditative face,
gazing across the valley. The grays tossed their heads, puzzled and
indignant, and then stopped.
Sandy McQuarry was red with rage.
"D'ye want me to run over ye, ye thrawn piece o' humanity, ye?" he
shouted.
The Duke did not appear to hear him. He rose to his feet, whip in hand.
"Jemima Weir!" he thundered, "will ye, or will ye no step off that road
and let me drive on?"
"I will no!" answered the Duke, with unkind emphasis.
The man raised his whip over his horses' backs and then paused.
Plainly she intended to be slain rather than yield, and though murder
was in Sandy's heart he hesitated to commit it. He glanced about him
with a movement of impotent rage. Never before had he been balked in
his will by man, nor had he ever met the woman who had dared to cross
him. And here he was, held up in his own particular saw-log road by
one of the despised sex! He remembered, in choking wrath, that he was
a pillar of the Glenoro church, that before him was the schoolmistress,
and behind the doctor and old Hughie Cameron's niece, and he dared not
give adequate expression to the rage with which he was being consumed.
In a voice inarticulate with anger he opened a parley. He declared
that he would have the law, that he would publish her high-handed act
from one end of the county of Simcoe to the other, that he would get
himself elected for trustee and drive her out of the section. He
blustered, he threatened, he scolded, he argued. And through it all
the obstacle sat on her basket, in the middle of the highway, not
deigning him even a glance. But as the maddened man foamed on, there
arose once to the surface the lurking twinkle in the Duke's gray eyes.
For there was no doubt Sandy was weakening. He had even stooped to
reason with her now.
"The snow's no more nor a half fut deep!" he was bellowing.
The Duke caught the first symptom of yielding, but was too wise to make
answer.
"Yon's the doctor back there," he cried, with a great show of righteous
concern, "he'll mebby be in a hurry."
There was no sign of impatience from the two, choking down their
laughter, in the cutter behind; and though she could not see them, well
the Duke knew they were enjoying themselves. Nevertheless, she
condescended to answer.
"You'd better not keep him waiting, then," she advised.
The man darted one more glance around, the glance of an imprisoned lion
which suddenly realizes its position. Slowly, his brows erect, his
face dark, he descended from the sleigh and walked around to her side.
He stood for a moment regarding her, with a dawning expression of
something like respect struggling with the gleam of his fierce eyes.
"If Ah tramp ye a path 'round the sleigh will ye walk in it?" he asked,
his voice tremulous with wrath.
The Duke weighed the proposition with great deliberation. She would
have died there under the horses' feet rather than show the slightest
interest in it. "Well," she admitted indifferently, "I can't say. If
I don't get my skirts snowy, I might. You tramp the road, and then
I'll see."
With smothered imprecations, Sandy plunged into the snow.
Dr. Allen, quenching his unseemly mirth, sprang from the cutter and
came to his aid. There was something to arouse pity in the downfall of
the man of strength. Neither by word nor sign did Sandy recognize
either his or Elsie Cameron's presence. The atmosphere was too highly
charged to admit of ordinary courtesies. When the two men had trampled
a wide pathway, and made it sufficiently smooth and firm, the Duke of
Wellington condescended to march out of her citadel. There was no
smallest sign of haste in her movements; she stood and eyed the track
critically, as if doubtful as to whether she would use it, after all.
Her hesitation proved the last straw to her enemy's endurance. With an
inarticulate cry of rage Sandy McQuarry sprang toward her. The Duke
was tall and stately, and of no light weight, but he caught her up as
if she had been a child, and with a few mighty strides bore her along
the pathway. Reaching the road, he planted her in the middle of it
with a violent thud.
"The Lord Almighty peety the man that gets a wumman like you!" he
exclaimed with vehement solemnity. He strode back to his sleigh,
leaped upon his load, and lashed his horses into a gallop.
The Duke was perfectly calm. She bowed in her stateliest fashion to
Elsie and the doctor, but the twinkle in her eye answered the laughter
in the girl's. Then, arranging her basket more carefully on her arm,
she passed on her way as if nothing had happened.
Gilbert sprang into his cutter, and the two witnesses of poor Sandy's
Waterloo followed his tumultuous retreat up the valley. They were
young and light-hearted, and what wonder if one put aside her gravity
and the other his troubles, and both laughed all the way to the village?
It was not until they had gained the main highway, and Sandy had
disappeared, that they recovered their composure and could speak of
other things.
"And you did not get away for your vacation at New Year's," the girl
said. "That was too bad."
"No," said Gilbert, suddenly growing somber at the recollection.
"Everything conspired against me, it seemed. I couldn't get away."
"Uncle Hughie would say that everything had conspired for you. His
theory is the happiest one. He would tell you that if you had gone
probably some disastrous circumstance would have followed."
"Perhaps he is right," said the young man meditatively. He could not
yet regard his failure to meet Rosalie's demands as anything but a
misfortune. And yet, there was that money still in the bank that
Martin might have. That was surely a satisfaction.
"Oh, everything seems to me to be guided by the merest chance," he said
half bitterly.
The girl shook her head. "I think it seems so only on the surface.
There can be no hazard about one's duty. The results are as sure as
cause and effect. You know that, Dr. Allen."
"Yes, I know it," said Gilbert as he assisted her to alight at the
door. "I am aware of it, I mean, but I don't act upon it."
He looked up at her, standing on the steps above him, and felt again
that longing her presence always inspired within him to do something
good and great. Why was he such a sham? John McIntyre's words of
praise returned, with their weight of humiliation, and he drove away in
utter self-contempt.
At college, the boys always said that generally Easy Allen, as they
called him, was only a very ordinary football player. He ambled
cheerily about the field, and seemed to enjoy the game so much that he
did not bother trying to do anything remarkable. But let something
arouse him to a sense of responsibility, a goal for the other side, a
knockdown that stirred his temper, then look out! He would put his
head down and pitch himself into the fray, and then something had to
give way, and the boys knew it wouldn't be Easy. To-day, something of
that old conquering mood had come over him. He was possessed with a
rage against his former dilatory self, and a fierce desire to win, to
do the clean, square thing, no matter what the consequences. He had
done it that New Year's morning, when John McIntyre's life lay in his
hand. The call of duty had been imperative then. He had not even
considered the possibility of shirking it, and in spite of all the
disappointment and sorrow his action had brought, he had never once
viewed it with regret. And now, once more, he had his head down, in
fierce determination, and cared for nothing but to score and feel
himself a man.
He marched straight past a group of patients waiting in his office and
sat down at his desk. What a long time since he had written to Martin!
He had almost forgotten his address. The letter was short and humble,
and inside it he slipped a check. When he left it at the post-office,
half an hour later, he was a poor man, and his prospects of starting a
city practice in the spring were of the slimmest sort; nevertheless, he
walked very straight, and held up his head with an air of pride, as
though he owned the whole earth.
But his exultation did not last long. The next morning Miss Ella Anne
Long handed him a letter; it was in Rosalie's handwriting. He tore it
open on the street, not being able to wait till he reached home. It
was merely a note, very short and very merry, telling how she had just
returned from New York, and in a brief postscript, crowded in at the
bottom, she announced her engagement to Guy Blackburn.