An hour later Nixon brought Father Goulet. He was a little Frenchman

with gentle manners and the face of a saint. Craig welcomed him warmly,

and told him what he had done.

‘That is good, my brother,’ he said, with gentle courtesy, and, turning

to the mother, ‘Your little one is safe.’

Behind Father Goulet came Nixon softly, and gazed down upon the little

quiet face, beautiful with the magic of death. Slavin came quietly and

stood beside him. Nixon turned and offered his hand. But Slavin said,

moving slowly back--

‘I did ye a wrong, Nixon, an’ it’s a sorry man I am this day for it.’

‘Don’t say a word, Slavin,’ answered Nixon, hurriedly. ‘I know how you

feel. I’ve got a baby too. I want to see it again. That’s why the break

hurt me so.’

‘As God’s above,’ replied Slavin earnestly, ‘I’ll hinder ye no more.’

They shook hands, and we passed out.

We laid the baby under the pines, not far from Billy Breen, and the

sweet spring wind blew through the Gap, and came softly down the valley,

whispering to the pines and the grass and the hiding flowers of the New

Life coming to the world. And the mother must have heard the whisper in

her heart, for, as the Priest was saying the words of the Service, she

stood with Mrs. Mavor’s arms about her, and her eyes were looking far

away beyond the purple mountain-tops, seeing what made her smile. And

Slavin, too, looked different. His very features seemed finer. The

coarseness was gone out of his face. What had come to him I could not

tell.

But when the doctor came into Slavin’s house that night it was the old

Slavin I saw, but with a look of such deadly fury on his face that I

tried to get the doctor out at once. But he was half drunk and after his

manner was hideously humorous.

‘How do, ladies! How do, gentlemen!’ was his loud-voiced salutation.

‘Quite a professional gathering, clergy predominating. Lion and Lamb

too, ha! ha! which is the lamb, eh? ha! ha! very good! awfully sorry to

hear of your loss, Mrs. Slavin; did our best you know, can’t help this

sort of thing.’

Before any one could move, Craig was at his side, and saying in a clear,

firm voice, ‘One moment, doctor,’ caught him by the arm and had him out

of the room before he knew it. Slavin, who had been crouching in his

chair with hands twitching and eyes glaring, rose and followed, still

crouching as he walked. I hurried after him, calling him back. Turning

at my voice, the doctor saw Slavin approaching. There was something so

terrifying in his swift noiseless crouching motion, that the doctor,

crying out in fear ‘Keep him off,’ fairly turned and fled. He was too

late. Like a tiger Slavin leaped upon him and without waiting to strike

had him by the throat with both hands, and bearing him to the ground,

worried him there as a dog might a cat.

Immediately Craig and I were upon him, but though we lifted him clear

off the ground we could not loosen that two-handed strangling grip. At

we were struggling there a light hand touched my shoulder. It was Father

Goulet.

‘Please let him go, and stand away from us,’ he said, waving us back.

We obeyed. He leaned over Slavin and spoke a few words to him. Slavin

started as if struck a heavy blow, looked up at the priest with fear in

his face, but still keeping his grip.

‘Let him go,’ said the priest. Slavin hesitated. ‘Let him go! quick!’

said the priest again, and Slavin with a snarl let go his hold and stood

sullenly facing the priest.

Father Goulet regarded him steadily for some seconds and then asked--

‘What would you do?’ His voice was gentle enough, even sweet, but there

was something in it that chilled my marrow. ‘What would you do?’ he

repeated.

‘He murdered my child,’ growled Slavin.

‘Ah! how?’

‘He was drunk and poisoned him.’

‘Ah! who gave him drink? Who made him a drunkard two years ago? Who has

wrecked his life?’

There was no answer, and the even-toned voice went relentlessly on--

‘Who is the murderer of your child now?’

Slavin groaned and shuddered.

‘Go!’ and the voice grew stern. ‘Repent of your sin and add not

another.’

Slavin turned his eyes upon the motionless figure on the ground and

then upon the priest. Father Goulet took one step towards him, and,

stretching out his hand and pointing with his finger, said--

‘Go!’

And Slavin slowly backed away and went into his house. It was an

extraordinary scene, and it is often with me now: the dark figure on the

ground, the slight erect form of the priest with outstretched arm and

finger, and Slavin backing away, fear and fury struggling in his face.

It was a near thing for the doctor, however, and two minutes more

of that grip would have done for him. As it was, we had the greatest

difficulty in reviving him.

What the priest did with Slavin after getting him inside I know not;

that has always been a mystery to me. But when we were passing the

saloon that night after taking Mrs. Mavor home, we saw a light and

heard strange sounds within. Entering, we found another whisky raid

in progress, Slavin himself being the raider. We stood some moments

watching him knocking in the heads of casks and emptying bottles. I

thought he had gone mad, and approached him cautiously.

‘Hello, Slavin!’ I called out; ‘what does this mean?’

He paused in his strange work, and I saw that his face, though resolute,

was quiet enough.

‘It means I’m done wid the business, I am,’ he said, in a determined

voice. ‘I’ll help no more to kill any man, or,’ in a lower tone, ‘any

man’s baby.’ The priest’s words had struck home.

‘Thank God, Slavin!’ said Craig, offering his hand; ‘you are much too

good a man for the business.’

‘Good or bad, I’m done wid it,’ he replied, going on with his work.

‘You are throwing away good money, Slavin,’ I said, as the head of a

cask crashed in.

‘It’s meself that knows it, for the price of whisky has riz in town

this week,’ he answered, giving me a look out of the corner of his eye.

‘Bedad! it was a rare clever job,’ referring to our Black Rock Hotel

affair.

‘But won’t you be sorry for this?’ asked Craig.

‘Beloike I will; an’ that’s why I’m doin’ it before I’m sorry for it,’

he replied, with a delightful bull.

‘Look here, Slavin,’ said Craig earnestly; ‘if I can be of use to you in

any way, count on me.’

‘It’s good to me the both of yez have been, an’ I’ll not forget it to

yez,’ he replied, with like earnestness.

As we told Mrs. Mavor that night, for Craig thought it too good to

keep, her eyes seemed to grow deeper and the light in them to glow more

intense as she listened to Craig pouring out his tale. Then she gave him

her hand and said--

‘You have your man at last.’

‘What man?’

‘The man you have been waiting for.’

‘Slavin!’

‘Why not?’

‘I never thought of it.’

‘No more did he, nor any of us.’ Then, after a pause, she added gently,

‘He has been sent to us?’

‘Do you know, I believe you are right,’ Craig said slowly, and then

added, ‘But you always are.’

‘I fear not,’ she answered; but I thought she liked to hear his words.

The whole town was astounded next morning when Slavin went to work in

the mines, and its astonishment only deepened as the days went on, and

he stuck to his work. Before three weeks had gone the League had bought

and remodelled the saloon and had secured Slavin as Resident Manager.

The evening of the reopening of Slavin’s saloon, as it was still called,

was long remembered in Black Rock. It was the occasion of the first

appearance of ‘The League Minstrel and Dramatic Troupe,’ in what

was described as a ‘hair-lifting tragedy with appropriate musical

selections.’ Then there was a grand supper and speeches and great

enthusiasm, which reached its climax when Nixon rose to propose the

toast of the evening--‘Our Saloon.’ His speech was simply a quiet, manly

account of his long struggle with the deadly enemy. When he came to

speak of his recent defeat he said--

‘And while I am blaming no one but myself, I am glad to-night that this

saloon is on our side, for my own sake and for the sake of those who

have been waiting long to see me. But before I sit down I want to say

that while I live I shall not forget that I owe my life to the man that

took me that night to his own shack and put me in his own bed, and met

me next morning with an open hand; for I tell you I had sworn to God

that that morning would be my last.’

Geordie’s speech was characteristic. After a brief reference to the

‘mysteerious ways o’ Providence,’ which he acknowledged he might

sometimes fail to understand, he went on to express his unqualified

approval of the new saloon.

‘It’s a cosy place, an’ there’s nae sulphur aboot. Besides a’ that,’ he

went on enthusiastically, ‘it’ll be a terrible savin’. I’ve juist been

coontin’.’

‘You bet!’ ejaculated a voice with great emphasis.

‘I’ve juist been coontin’,’ went on Geordie, ignoring the remark and the

laugh which followed, ‘an’ it’s an awfu’-like money ye pit ower wi’ the

whusky. Ye see ye canna dae wi’ ane bit glass; ye maun hae twa or three

at the verra least, for it’s no verra forrit ye get wi’ ane glass. But

wi’ yon coffee ye juist get a saxpence-worth an’ ye want nae mair.’

There was another shout of laughter, which puzzled Geordie much.

‘I dinna see the jowk, but I’ve slippit ower in whusky mair nor a hunner

dollars.’

Then he paused, looking hard before him, and twisting his face into

extraordinary shapes till the men looked at him in wonder.

‘I’m rale glad o’ this saloon, but it’s ower late for the lad that canna

be helpit the noo. He’ll not be needin’ help o’ oors, I doot, but there

are ithers’--and he stopped abruptly and sat down, with no applause

following.

But when Slavin, our saloon-keeper, rose to reply, the men jumped up

on the seats and yelled till they could yell no more. Slavin stood,

evidently in trouble with himself, and finally broke out--

‘It’s spacheless I am entirely. What’s come to me I know not, nor how

it’s come. But I’ll do my best for yez.’ And then the yelling broke out

again.

I did not yell myself. I was too busy watching the varying lights in

Mrs. Mavor’s eyes as she looked from Craig to the yelling men on the

benches and tables, and then to Slavin, and I found myself wondering if

she knew what it was that came to Slavin.

CHAPTER XI

THE TWO CALLS

With the call to Mr. Craig I fancy I had something to do myself. The

call came from a young congregation in an eastern city, and was based

partly upon his college record and more upon the advice of those among

the authorities who knew his work in the mountains. But I flatter myself

that my letters to friends who were of importance in that congregation

were not without influence, for I was of the mind that the man who could

handle Black Rock miners as he could was ready for something larger than

a mountain mission. That he would refuse I had not imagined, though I

ought to have known him better. He was but little troubled over it. He

went with the call and the letters urging his acceptance to Mrs. Mavor.

I was putting the last touches to some of my work in the room at the

back of Mrs. Mavor’s house when he came in. She read the letters and the

call quietly, and waited for him to speak.

‘Well?’ he said; ‘should I go?’

She started, and grew a little pale. His question suggested a

possibility that had not occurred to her. That he could leave his work

in Black Rock she had hitherto never imagined; but there was other work,

and he was fit for good work anywhere. Why should he not go? I saw the

fear in her face, but I saw more than fear in her eyes, as for a moment

or two she let them rest upon Craig’s face. I read her story, and I was

not sorry for either of them. But she was too much a woman to show her

heart easily to the man she loved, and her voice was even and calm as

she answered his question.

‘Is this a very large congregation?’

‘One of the finest in all the East,’ I put in for him. ‘It will be a

great thing for Craig.’

Craig was studying her curiously. I think she noticed his eyes upon her,

for she went on even more quietly--

‘It will be a great chance for work, and you are able for a larger

sphere, you know, than poor Black Rock affords.’

‘Who will take Black Rock?’ he asked.

‘Let some other fellow have a try at it,’ I said. ‘Why should you waste

your talents here?’

‘Waste?’ cried Mrs. Mavor indignantly.

‘Well, “bury,” if you like it better,’ I replied.

‘It would not take much of a grave for that funeral,’ said Craig,

smiling.

‘Oh,’ said Mrs. Mavor, ‘you will be a great man I know, and perhaps you

ought to go now.’

But he answered coolly: ‘There are fifty men wanting that Eastern

charge, and there is only one wanting Black Rock, and I don’t think

Black Rock is anxious for a change, so I have determined to stay where I

am yet a while.’

Even my deep disgust and disappointment did not prevent me from seeing

the sudden leap of joy in Mrs. Mavor’s eyes, but she, with a great

effort, answered quietly--

‘Black Rock will be very glad, and some of us very, very glad.’

Nothing could change his mind. There was no one he knew who could take

his place just now, and why should he quit his work? It annoyed me

considerably to feel he was right. Why is it that the right things are

so frequently unpleasant?

And if I had had any doubt about the matter next Sabbath evening would

have removed it. For the men came about him after the service and let

him feel in their own way how much they approved his decision, though

the self-sacrifice involved did not appeal to them. They were too truly

Western to imagine that any inducements the East could offer could

compensate for his loss of the West. It was only fitting that the West

should have the best, and so the miners took almost as a matter of

course, and certainly as their right, that the best man they knew should

stay with them. But there were those who knew how much of what most men

consider worth while he had given up, and they loved him no less for it.

Mrs. Mavor’s call was not so easily disposed of. It came close upon

the other, and stirred Black Rock as nothing else had ever stirred it

before.

I found her one afternoon gazing vacantly at some legal documents spread

out before her on the table, and evidently overcome by their contents.

There was first a lawyer’s letter informing her that by the death of her

husband’s father she had come into the whole of the Mavor estates, and

all the wealth pertaining thereto. The letter asked for instructions,

and urged an immediate return with a view to a personal superintendence

of the estates. A letter, too, from a distant cousin of her husband

urged her immediate return for many reasons, but chiefly on account

of the old mother who had been left alone with none nearer of kin than

himself to care for her and cheer her old age.

With these two came another letter from her mother-in-law herself. The

crabbed, trembling characters were even more eloquent than the words

with which the letter closed.

‘I have lost my boy, and now my husband is gone, and I am a lonely

woman. I have many servants, and some friends, but none near to me, none

so near and dear as my dead son’s wife. My days are not to be many. Come

to me, my daughter; I want you and Lewis’s child.’

‘Must I go?’ she asked with white lips.

‘Do you know her well?’ I asked.

‘I only saw her once or twice,’ she answered; ‘but she has been very

good to me.’

‘She can hardly need you. She has friends. And surely you are needed

here.’

She looked at me eagerly.

‘Do you think so?’ she said.

‘Ask any man in the camp--Shaw, Nixon, young Winton, Geordie. Ask

Craig,’ I replied.

‘Yes, he will tell me,’ she said.

Even as she spoke Craig came up the steps. I passed into my studio and

went on with my work, for my days at Black Rock were getting few, and

many sketches remained to be filled in.

Through my open door I saw Mrs. Mavor lay her letters before Mr. Craig,

saying, ‘I have a call too.’ They thought not of me.

He went through the papers, carefully laid them down without a word

while she waited anxiously, almost impatiently, for him to speak.

‘Well?’ she asked, using his own words to her; ‘should I go?’

‘I do not know,’ he replied; ‘that is for you to decide--you know all

the circumstances.’

‘The letters tell all.’ Her tone carried a feeling of disappointment. He

did not appear to care.

‘The estates are large?’ he asked.

‘Yes, large enough--twelve thousand a year.’

‘And has your mother-in-law any one with her?’

‘She has friends, but, as she says, none near of kin. Her nephew looks

after the works--iron works, you know--he has shares in them.’

‘She is evidently very lonely,’ he answered gravely.

‘What shall I do?’ she asked, and I knew she was waiting to hear him

urge her to stay; but he did not see, or at least gave no heed.

‘I cannot say,’ he repeated quietly. ‘There are many things to consider;

the estates--’

‘The estates seem to trouble you,’ she replied, almost fretfully. He

looked up in surprise. I wondered at his slowness.

‘Yes, the estates,’ he went on, ‘and tenants, I suppose--your

mother-in-law, your little Marjorie’s future, your own future.’

‘The estates are in capable hands, I should suppose,’ she urged, ‘and my

future depends upon what I choose my work to be.’

‘But one cannot shift one’s responsibilities,’ he replied gravely.

‘These estates, these tenants, have come to you, and with them come

duties.’

‘I do not want them,’ she cried.

‘That life has great possibilities of good,’ he said kindly.

‘I had thought that perhaps there was work for me here,’ she suggested

timidly.

‘Great work,’ he hastened to say. ‘You have done great work. But you

will do that wherever you go. The only question is where your work

lies.’

‘You think I should go,’ she said suddenly and a little bitterly.

‘I cannot bid you stay,’ he answered steadily.

‘How can I go?’ she cried, appealing to him. ‘Must I go?’

How he could resist that appeal I could not understand. His face was

cold and hard, and his voice was almost harsh as he replied--

‘If it is right, you will go--you must go.’

Then she burst forth--

‘I cannot go. I shall stay here. My work is here; my heart is here. How

can I go? You thought it worth your while to stay here and work, why

should not I?’

The momentary gleam in his eyes died out, and again he said coldly--

‘This work was clearly mine. I am needed here.’

‘Yes, yes!’ she cried, her voice full of pain; ‘you are needed, but

there is no need of me.’

‘Stop, stop!’ he said sharply; ‘you must not say so.’

‘I will say it, I must say it,’ she cried, her voice vibrating with

the intensity of her feeling. ‘I know you do not need me; you have your

work, your miners, your plans; you need no one; you are strong. But,’

and her voice rose to a cry, ‘I am not strong by myself; you have made

me strong. I came here a foolish girl, foolish and selfish and narrow.

God sent me grief. Three years ago my heart died. Now I am living again.

I am a woman now, no longer a girl. You have done this for me. Your

life, your words, yourself--you have showed me a better, a higher life,

than I had ever known before, and now you send me away.’

She paused abruptly.

‘Blind, stupid fool!’ I said to myself.

He held himself resolutely in hand, answering carefully, but his voice

had lost its coldness and was sweet and kind.

‘Have I done this for you? Then surely God has been good to me. And you

have helped me more than any words could tell you.’

‘Helped!’ she repeated scornfully.

‘Yes, helped,’ he answered, wondering at her scorn.

‘You can do without my help,’ she went on. ‘You make people help you.

You will get many to help you; but I need help, too.’ She was standing

before him with her hands tightly clasped; her face was pale, and her

eyes deeper than ever. He sat looking up at her in a kind of maze as she

poured out her words hot and fast.

‘I am not thinking of you.’ His coldness had hurt her deeply. ‘I am

selfish; I am thinking of myself. How shall I do? I have grown to depend

on you, to look to you. It is nothing to you that I go, but to me--’ She

did not dare to finish.

By this time Craig was standing before her, his face deadly pale. When

she came to the end of her words, he said, in a voice low, sweet, and

thrilling with emotion--

‘Ah, if you only knew! Do not make me forget myself. You do not guess

what you are doing.’

‘What am I doing? What is there to know, but that you tell me easily to

go? She was struggling with the tears she was too proud to let him see.

He put his hands resolutely behind him, looking at her as if studying

her face for the first time. Under his searching look she dropped her

eyes, and the warm colour came slowly up into her neck and face; then,

as if with a sudden resolve, she lifted her eyes to his, and looked back

at him unflinchingly.

He started, surprised, drew slowly near, put his hands upon her

shoulders, surprise giving place to wild joy. She never moved her eyes;

they drew him towards her. He took her face between his hands, smiled

into her eyes, kissed her lips. She did not move; he stood back from

her, threw up his head, and laughed aloud. She came to him, put her head

upon his breast, and lifting up her face said, ‘Kiss me.’ He put his

arms about her, bent down and kissed her lips again, and then reverently

her brow. Then putting her back from him, but still holding both her

hands, he cried--

‘Not you shall not go. I shall never let you go.’

She gave a little sigh of content, and, smiling up at him, said--

‘I can go now’; but even as she spoke the flush died from her face, and

she shuddered.

‘Never!’ he almost shouted; ‘nothing shall take you away. We shall work

here together.’

‘Ah, if we could, if we only could,’ she said piteously.

‘Why not?’ he demanded fiercely.

‘You will send me away. You will say it is right for me to go,’ she

replied sadly.

‘Do we not love each other?’ was his impatient answer.

‘Ah! yes, love,’ she said; ‘but love is not all.’

‘No!’ cried Craig; ‘but love is the best’

‘Yes!’ she said sadly; ‘love is the best, and it is for love’s sake we

will do the best.’

‘There is no better work than here. Surely this is best,’ and he

pictured his plans before her. She listened eagerly.

‘Oh! if it should be right,’ she cried, ‘I will do what you say. You are

good, you are wise, you shall tell me.’

She could not have recalled him better. He stood silent some moments,

then burst out passionately--

‘Why then has love come to us? We did not seek it. Surely love is of

God. Does God mock us?’

He threw himself into his chair, pouring out his words of passionate

protestation. She listened, smiling, then came to him and, touching his

hair as a mother might her child’s, said--

‘Oh, I am very happy! I was afraid you would not care, and I could not

bear to go that way.’

‘You shall not go,’ he cried aloud, as if in pain. ‘Nothing can make

that right.’

But she only said, ‘You shall tell me to-morrow. You cannot see

to-night, but you will see, and you will tell me.’

He stood up and, holding both her hands, looked long into her eyes, then

turned abruptly away and went out.

She stood where he left her for some moments, her face radiant, and her

hands pressed upon her heart. Then she came toward my room. She found me

busy with my painting, but as I looked up and met her eyes she flushed

slightly, and said--

‘I quite forgot you.’

‘So it appeared to me.’

‘You heard?’

‘And saw,’ I replied boldly. ‘It would have been rude to interrupt, you

see.’

‘Oh, I am so glad and thankful.’

‘Yes; it was rather considerate of me.’

‘Oh, I don’t mean that,’ the flush deepening; ‘I am glad you know.’

‘I have known some time.’

‘How could you? I only knew to-day myself.’

‘I have eyes.’ She flushed again.

‘Do you mean that people--’ she began anxiously.

‘No; I am not “people.” I have eyes, and my eyes have been opened.’

‘Opened?’

‘Yes, by love.’

Then I told her openly how, weeks ago, I struggled with my heart and

mastered it, for I saw it was vain to love her, because she loved a

better man who loved her in return. She looked at me shyly and said--

‘I am sorry.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I said cheerfully. ‘I didn’t break my heart, you know; I

stopped it in time.’

‘Oh!’ she said, slightly disappointed; then her lips began to twitch,

and she went off into a fit of hysterical laughter.

‘Forgive me,’ she said humbly; ‘but you speak as if it had been a

fever.’

‘Fever is nothing to it,’ I said solemnly. ‘It was a near thing.’ At

which she went off again. I was glad to see her laugh. It gave me time

to recover my equilibrium, and it relieved her intense emotional strain.

So I rattled on some nonsense about Craig and myself till I saw she was

giving no heed, but thinking her own thoughts: and what these were it

was not hard to guess.

Suddenly she broke in upon my talk--

‘He will tell me that I must go from him.’

‘I hope he is no such fool,’ I said emphatically and somewhat rudely,

I fear; for I confess I was impatient with the very possibility of

separation for these two, to whom love meant so much. Some people take

this sort of thing easily and some not so easily; but love for a woman

like this comes once only to a man, and then he carries it with him

through the length of his life, and warms his heart with it in death.

And when a man smiles or sneers at such love as this, I pity him, and

say no word, for my speech would be in an unknown tongue. So my

heart was sore as I sat looking up at this woman who stood before me,

overflowing with the joy of her new love, and dully conscious of the

coming pain. But I soon found it was vain to urge my opinion that she

should remain and share the work and life of the man she loved. She only

answered--

‘You will help him all you can, for it will hurt him to have me go.’

The quiver in her voice took out all the anger from my heart, and before

I knew I had pledged myself to do all I could to help him.

But when I came upon him that night, sitting in the light of his fire,

I saw he must be let alone. Some battles we fight side by side, with

comrades cheering us and being cheered to victory; but there are fights

we may not share, and these are deadly fights where lives are lost and

won. So I could only lay my hand upon his shoulder without a word. He

looked up quickly, read my face, and said, with a groan--

‘You know?’

‘I could not help it. But why groan?’

‘She will think it right to go,’ he said despairingly.

‘Then you must think for her; you must bring some common-sense to bear

upon the question.’

‘I cannot see clearly yet,’ he said; ‘the light will come.’

‘May I show you how I see it?’ I asked.

‘Go on,’ he said.

For an hour I talked; eloquently, even vehemently urging the reason and

right of my opinion. She would be doing no more than every woman does,

no more than she did before; her mother-in-law had a comfortable home,

all that wealth could procure, good servants, and friends; the estates

could be managed without her personal supervision; after a few years’

work here they would go east for little Majorie’s education; why should

two lives be broken?--and so I went on.

He listened carefully, even eagerly.

‘You make a good case,’ he said, with a slight smile. ‘I will take time.

Perhaps you are right. The light will come. Surely it will come. But,’

and here he sprang up and stretched his arms to full length above his

head, ‘I am not sorry; whatever comes I am not sorry. It is great to

have her love, but greater to love her as I do. Thank God! nothing can

take that away. I am willing, glad to suffer for the joy of loving her.’

Next morning, before I was awake, he was gone, leaving a note for me:--

‘MY DEAR CONNOR,--I am due at the Landing. When I see you again I think

my way will be clear. Now all is dark. At times I am a coward, and

often, as you sometimes kindly inform me, an ass; but I hope I may never

become a mule.

I am willing to be led, or want to be, at any rate. I must do the

best--not second best--for her, for me. The best only is God’s

will. What else would you have? Be good to her these days, dear old

fellow.--Yours, CRAIG.’

How often those words have braced me he will never know, but I am a

better man for them: ‘The best only is God’s will. What else would you

have?’ I resolved I would rage and fret no more, and that I would worry

Mrs. Mavor with no more argument or expostulation, but, as my friend had

asked, ‘Be good to her.’

CHAPTER XII

LOVE IS NOT ALL

Those days when we were waiting Craig’s return we spent in the woods

or on the mountain sides, or down in the canyon beside the stream that

danced down to meet the Black Rock river, I talking and sketching and

reading, and she listening and dreaming, with often a happy smile upon

her face. But there were moments when a cloud of shuddering fear would

sweep the smile away, and then I would talk of Craig till the smile came

back again.

But the woods and the mountains and the river were her best, her wisest,

friends during those days. How sweet the ministry of the woods to her!

The trees were in their new summer leaves, fresh and full of life. They

swayed and rustled above us, flinging their interlacing shadows upon

us, and their swaying and their rustling soothed and comforted like the

voice and touch of a mother. And the mountains, too, in all the glory of

their varying robes of blues and purples, stood calmly, solemnly about

us, uplifting our souls into regions of rest. The changing lights and

shadows flitted swiftly over their rugged fronts, but left them ever as

before in their steadfast majesty. ‘God’s in His heaven.’ What would you

have? And ever the little river sang its cheerful courage, fearing not

the great mountains that threatened to bar its passage to the sea. Mrs.

Mavor heard the song and her courage rose.

‘We too shall find our way,’ she said, and I believed her.

But through these days I could not make her out, and I found myself

studying her as I might a new acquaintance. Years had fallen from her;

she was a girl again, full of young warm life. She was as sweet as

before, but there was a soft shyness over her, a half-shamed, half-frank

consciousness in her face, a glad light in her eyes that made her all

new to me. Her perfect trust in Craig was touching to see.

‘He will tell me what to do,’ she would say, till I began to realise how

impossible it would be for him to betray such trust, and be anything but

true to the best.

So much did I dread Craig’s home-coming, that I sent for Graeme and

old man Nelson, who was more and more Graeme’s trusted counsellor and

friend. They were both highly excited by the story I had to tell, for I

thought it best to tell them all; but I was not a little surprised

and disgusted that they did not see the matter in my light. In vain I

protested against the madness of allowing anything to send these two

from each other. Graeme summed up the discussion in his own emphatic

way, but with an earnestness in his words not usual with him.

‘Craig will know better than any of us what is right to do, and he will

do that, and no man can turn him from it; and,’ he added, ‘I should be

sorry to try.’

Then my wrath rose, and I cried--

‘It’s a tremendous shame! They love each other. You are talking

sentimental humbug and nonsense!’

‘He must do the right,’ said Nelson in his deep, quiet voice.

‘Right! Nonsense! By what right does he send from him the woman he

loves?’

‘“He pleased not Himself,”’ quoted Nelson reverently.

‘Nelson is right,’ said Graeme. ‘I should not like to see him weaken.’

‘Look here,’ I stormed; ‘I didn’t bring you men to back him up in his

nonsense. I thought you could keep your heads level.’

‘Now, Connor,’ said Graeme, ‘don’t rage--leave that for the heathen;

it’s bad form, and useless besides. Craig will walk his way where his

light falls; and by all that’s holy, I should hate to see him fail; for

if he weakens like the rest of us my North Star will have dropped from

my sky.’

‘Nice selfish spirit,’ I muttered.

‘Entirely so. I’m not a saint, but I feel like steering by one when I

see him.’

When after a week had gone, Craig rode up one early morning to his shack

door, his face told me that he had fought his fight and had not been

beaten. He had ridden all night and was ready to drop with weariness.

‘Connor, old boy,’ he said, putting out his hand; ‘I’m rather played.

There was a bad row at the Landing. I have just closed poor Colley’s

eyes. It was awful. I must get sleep. Look after Dandy, will you, like a

good chap?’

‘Oh, Dandy be hanged,!’ I said, for I knew it was not the fight, nor the

watching, nor the long ride that had shaken his iron nerve and given him

that face. ‘Go in and lie down I’ll bring you something.’

‘Wake me in the afternoon,’ he said; ‘she is waiting. Perhaps you will

go to her’--his lips quivered--‘my nerve is rather gone.’ Then with a

very wan smile he added, ‘I am giving you a lot of trouble.’

‘You go to thunder!’ I burst out, for my throat was hot and sore with

grief for him.

‘I think I’d rather go to sleep,’ he replied, still smiling. I could not

speak, and was glad of the chance of being alone with Dandy.

When I came in I found him sitting with his head in his arms upon the

table fast asleep. I made him tea, forced him to take a warm bath,

and sent him to bed, while I went to Mrs. Mavor. I went with a fearful

heart, but that was because I had forgotten the kind of woman she was.

She was standing in the light of the window waiting for me. Her face

was pale but steady, there was a proud light in her fathomless eyes, a

slight smile parted her lips, and she carried her head like a queen.

‘Come in,’ she said. ‘You need not fear to tell me. I saw him ride home.

He has not failed, thank God! I am proud of him; I knew he would be

true. He loves me’--she drew in her breath sharply, and a faint colour

tinged her cheek--‘but he knows love is not all--ah, love is not all!

Oh! I am glad and proud!’

‘Glad!’ I gasped, amazed.

‘You would not have him prove faithless!’ she said with proud defiance.

‘Oh, it is high sentimental nonsense,’ I could not help saying.

‘You should not say so,’ she replied, and her voice rang clear. ‘Honour,

faith, and duty are sentiments, but they are not nonsense.’

In spite of my rage I was lost in amazed admiration of the high spirit

of the woman who stood up so straight before me. But, as I told how worn

and broken he was, she listened with changing colour and swelling bosom,

her proud courage all gone, and only love, anxious and pitying, in her

eyes.

‘Shall I go to him?’ she asked with timid eagerness and deepening

colour.

‘He is sleeping. He said he would come to you,’ I replied.

‘I shall wait for him,’ she said softly, and the tenderness in her tone

went straight to my heart, and it seemed to me a man might suffer much

to be loved with love such as this.

In the early afternoon Graeme came to her. She met him with both hands

outstretched, saying in a low voice--

‘I am very happy.’

‘Are you sure?’ he asked anxiously.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, but her voice was like a sob; ‘quite, quite sure.’

They talked long together till I saw that Craig must soon be coming, and

I called Graeme away. He held her hands, looking steadily into her eyes

and said--

‘You are better even than I thought; I’m going to be a better man.’

Her eyes filled with tears, but her smile did not fade as she answered--

‘Yes! you will be a good man, and God will give you work to do.’

He bent his head over her hands and stepped back from her as from a

queen, but he spoke no word till we came to Craig’s door. Then he said

with humility that seemed strange in him, ‘Connor, that is great, to

conquer oneself. It is worth while. I am going to try.’

I would not have missed his meeting with Craig. Nelson was busy with

tea. Craig was writing near the window. He looked up as Graeme came in,

and nodded an easy good-evening; but Graeme strode to him and, putting

one hand on his shoulder, held out his other for Craig to take.

After a moment’s surprise, Craig rose to his feet, and, facing him

squarely, took the offered hand in both of his and held it fast without

a word. Graeme was the first to speak, and his voice was deep with

emotion--

‘You are a great man, a good man. I’d give something to have your grit.’

Poor Craig stood looking at him, not daring to speak for some moments,

then he said quietly--

‘Not good nor great, but, thank God, not quite a traitor.’

‘Good man!’ went on Graeme, patting him on the shoulder. ‘Good man! But

it’s tough.’

Craig sat down quickly, saying, ‘Don’t do that, old chap!’

I went up with Craig to Mrs. Mavor’s door. She did not hear us coming,

but stood near the window gazing up at the mountains. She was dressed in

some rich soft stuff, and wore at her breast a bunch of wild-flowers. I

had never seen her so beautiful. I did not wonder that Craig paused with

his foot upon the threshold to look at her. She turned and saw us.

With a glad cry, ‘Oh! my darling; you have come to me,’ she came with

outstretched arms. I turned and fled, but the cry and the vision were

long with me.

It was decided that night that Mrs. Mavor should go the next week. A

miner and his wife were going east, and I too would join the party.

The camp went into mourning at the news; but it was understood that

any display of grief before Mrs. Mavor was bad form. She was not to be

annoyed.

But when I suggested that she should leave quietly, and avoid the pain

of saying good-bye, she flatly refused--

‘I must say good-bye to every man. They love me and I love them.’

It was decided, too, at first, that there should be nothing in the way

of a testimonial, but when Craig found out that the men were coming to

her with all sorts of extraordinary gifts, he agreed that it would

be better that they should unite in one gift. So it was agreed that I

should buy a ring for her. And were it not that the contributions were

strictly limited to one dollar, the purse that Slavin handed her when

Shaw read the address at the farewell supper would have been many times

filled with the gold that was pressed upon the committee. There were no

speeches at the supper, except one by myself in reply on Mrs. Mavor’s

behalf. She had given me the words to say, and I was thoroughly

prepared, else I should not have got through. I began in the usual

way: ‘Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. Mavor is--’ but I got no

further, for at the mention of her name the men stood on the chairs and

yelled until they could yell no more. There were over two hundred and

fifty of them, and the effect was overpowering. But I got through my

speech. I remember it well. It began--

‘Mrs. Mavor is greatly touched by this mark of your love, and she will

wear your ring always with pride.’ And it ended with--

‘She has one request to make, that you will be true to the League, and

that you stand close about the man who did most to make it. She wishes

me to say that however far away she may have to go, she is leaving her

heart in Black Rock, and she can think of no greater joy than to come

back to you again.’

Then they had ‘The Sweet By and By,’ but the men would not join in the

refrain, unwilling to lose a note of the glorious voice they loved to

hear. Before the last verse she beckoned to me. I went to her standing

by Craig’s side as he played for her. ‘Ask them to sing,’ she entreated;

‘I cannot bear it.’

‘Mrs. Mavor wishes you to sing in the refrain,’ I said, and at once the

men sat up and cleared their throats. The singing was not good, but at

the first sound of the hoarse notes of the men Craig’s head went down

over the organ, for he was thinking I suppose of the days before them

when they would long in vain for that thrilling voice that soared high

over their own hoarse tones. And after the voices died away he kept

on playing till, half turning toward him, she sang alone once more the

refrain in a voice low and sweet and tender, as if for him alone. And

so he took it, for he smiled up at her his old smile full of courage and

full of love.

Then for one whole hour she stood saying good-bye to those rough,

gentle-hearted men whose inspiration to goodness she had been for five

years. It was very wonderful and very quiet. It was understood that

there was to be no nonsense, and Abe had been heard to declare that he

would ‘throw out any cotton-backed fool who couldn’t hold himself down,’

and further, he had enjoined them to remember that ‘her arm wasn’t a

pump-handle.’

At last they were all gone, all but her guard of honour--Shaw, Vernon

Winton, Geordie, Nixon, Abe, Nelson, Craig, and myself.

This was the real farewell; for, though in the early light of the next

morning two hundred men stood silent about the stage, and then as it

moved out waved their hats and yelled madly, this was the last touch

they had of her hand. Her place was up on the driver’s seat between Abe

and Mr. Craig, who held little Marjorie on his knee. The rest of the

guard of honour were to follow with Graeme’s team. It was Winton’s

fine sense that kept Graeme from following them close. ‘Let her go out

alone,’ he said, and so we held back and watched her go.

She stood with her back towards Abe’s plunging four-horse team, and

steadying herself with one hand on Abe’s shoulder, gazed down upon us.

Her head was bare, her lips parted in a smile, her eyes glowing with

their own deep light; and so, facing us, erect and smiling, she drove

away, waving us farewell till Abe swung his team into the canyon road

and we saw her no more. A sigh shuddered through the crowd, and, with a

sob in his voice, Winton said: ‘God help us all.’

I close my eyes and see it all again. The waving crowd of dark-faced

men, the plunging horses, and, high up beside the driver, the swaying,

smiling, waving figure, and about all the mountains, framing the picture

with their dark sides and white peaks tipped with the gold of the rising

sun. It is a picture I love to look upon, albeit it calls up another

that I can never see but through tears.

I look across a strip of ever-widening water, at a group of men upon the

wharf, standing with heads uncovered, every man a hero, though not a man

of them suspects it, least of all the man who stands in front, strong,

resolute, self-conquered. And, gazing long, I think I see him turn again

to his place among the men of the mountains, not forgetting, but every

day remembering the great love that came to him, and remembering, too,

that love is not all. It is then the tears come.

But for that picture two of us at least are better men to-day.

CHAPTER XIII

HOW NELSON CAME HOME

Through the long summer the mountains and the pines were with me. And

through the winter, too, busy as I was filling in my Black Rock sketches

for the railway people who would still persist in ordering them by the

dozen, the memory of that stirring life would come over me, and once

more I would be among the silent pines and the mighty snow-peaked

mountains. And before me would appear the red-shirted shantymen or

dark-faced miners, great, free, bold fellows, driving me almost mad with

the desire to seize and fix those swiftly changing groups of picturesque

figures. At such times I would drop my sketch, and with eager brush

seize a group, a face, a figure, and that is how my studio comes to be

filled with the men of Black Rock. There they are all about me. Graeme

and the men from the woods, Sandy, Baptiste, the Campbells, and in many

attitudes and groups old man Nelson; Craig, too, and his miners, Shaw,

Geordie, Nixon, and poor old Billy and the keeper of the League saloon.

It seemed as if I lived among them, and the illusion was greatly helped

by the vivid letters Graeme sent me from time to time. Brief notes came

now and then from Craig too, to whom I had sent a faithful account of

how I had brought Mrs. Mavor to her ship, and of how I had watched her

sail away with none too brave a face, as she held up her hand that bore

the miners’ ring, and smiled with that deep light in her eyes. Ah!

those eyes have driven me to despair and made me fear that I am no great

painter after all, in spite of what my friends tell me who come in to

smoke my good cigars and praise my brush. I can get the brow and hair,

and mouth and pose, but the eyes! the eyes elude me--and the faces of

Mrs. Mavor on my wall, that the men praise and rave over, are not such

as I could show to any of the men from the mountains.

Graeme’s letters tell me chiefly about Craig and his doings, and about

old man Nelson; while from Craig I hear about Graeme, and how he and

Nelson are standing at his back, and doing what they can to fill the gap

that never can be filled. The three are much together, I can see, and I

am glad for them all, but chiefly for Craig, whose face, grief-stricken

but resolute, and often gentle as a woman’s, will not leave me nor let

me rest in peace.

The note of thanks he sent me was entirely characteristic. There were

no heroics, much less pining or self-pity. It was simple and manly, not

ignoring the pain but making much of the joy. And then they had their

work to do. That note, so clear, so manly, so nobly sensible, stiffens

my back yet at times.

In the spring came the startling news that Black Rock would soon be

no more. The mines were to close down on April 1. The company, having

allured the confiding public with enticing descriptions of marvellous

drifts, veins, assays, and prospects, and having expended vast sums of

the public’s money in developing the mines till the assurance of their

reliability was absolutely final, calmly shut down and vanished. With

their vanishing vanishes Black Rock, not without loss and much deep

cursing on the part of the men brought some hundreds of miles to aid the

company in its extraordinary and wholly inexplicable game.

Personally it grieved me to think that my plan of returning to Black

Rock could never be carried out. It was a great compensation, however,

that the three men most representative to me of that life were soon to

visit me actually in my own home and den. Graeme’s letter said that in

one month they might be expected to appear. At least he and Nelson were

soon to come, and Craig would soon follow.

On receiving the great news, I at once looked up young Nelson and

his sister, and we proceeded to celebrate the joyful prospect with a

specially good dinner. I found the greatest delight in picturing the

joy and pride of the old man in his children, whom he had not seen for

fifteen or sixteen years. The mother had died some five years before,

then the farm was sold, and the brother and sister came into the city;

and any father might be proud of them. The son was a well-made young

fellow, handsome enough, thoughtful, and solid-looking. The girl

reminded me of her father. The same resolution was seen in mouth and

jaw, and the same passion slumbered in the dark grey eyes. She was not

beautiful, but she carried herself well, and one would always look at

her twice. It would be worth something to see the meeting between father

and daughter.

But fate, the greatest artist of us all, takes little count of the

careful drawing and the bright colouring of our fancy’s pictures, but

with rude hand deranges all, and with one swift sweep paints out the

bright and paints in the dark. And this trick he served me when, one

June night, after long and anxious waiting for some word from the west,

my door suddenly opened and Graeme walked in upon me like a spectre,

grey and voiceless. My shout of welcome was choked back by the look in

his face, and I could only gaze at him and wait for his word. He gripped

my hand, tried to speak, but failed to make words come.

‘Sit down, old man,’ I said, pushing, him into my chair, ‘and take your

time.’

He obeyed, looking up at me with burning, sleepless eyes. My heart was

sore for his misery, and I said: ‘Don’t mind, old chap; it can’t be so

awfully bad. You’re here safe and sound at any rate,’ and so I went on

to give him time. But he shuddered and looked round and groaned.

‘Now look here, Graeme, let’s have it. When did you land here? Where is

Nelson? Why didn’t you bring him up?’

‘He is at the station in his coffin,’ he answered slowly.

‘In his coffin?’ I echoed, my beautiful pictures all vanishing. ‘How was

it?’

‘Through my cursed folly,’ he groaned bitterly.

‘What happened?’ I asked. But ignoring my question, he said: ‘I must see

his children. I have not slept for four nights. I hardly know what I

am doing; but I can’t rest till I see his children. I promised him. Get

them for me.’

‘To-morrow will do. Go to sleep now, and we shall arrange everything

to-morrow,’ I urged.

‘No!’ he said fiercely; ‘to-night--now!’

In half an hour they were listening, pale and grief-stricken, to the

story of their father’s death.

Poor Graeme was relentless in his self-condemnation as he told how,

through his ‘cursed folly,’ old Nelson was killed. The three, Craig,

Graeme, and Nelson, had come as far as Victoria together. There they

left Craig, and came on to San Francisco. In an evil hour Graeme met a

companion of other and evil days, and it was not long till the old fever

came upon him.

In vain Nelson warned and pleaded. The reaction from the monotony and

poverty of camp life to the excitement and luxury of the San Francisco

gaming palaces swung Graeme quite off his feet, and all that Nelson

could do was to follow from place to place and keep watch.

‘And there he would sit,’ said Graeme in a hard, bitter voice, ‘waiting

and watching often till the grey morning light, while my madness held me

fast to the table. One night,’ here he paused a moment, put his face in

his hands and shuddered; but quickly he was master of himself again, and

went on in the same hard voice--‘One night my partner and I were playing

two men who had done us up before. I knew they were cheating, but could

not detect them. Game after game they won, till I was furious at my

stupidity in not being able to catch them. Happening to glance at Nelson

in the corner, I caught a meaning look, and looking again, he threw me

a signal. I knew at once what the fraud was, and next game charged the

fellow with it. He gave me the lie; I struck his mouth, but before

I could draw my gun, his partner had me by the arms. What followed I

hardly know. While I was struggling to get free, I saw him reach for his

weapon; but, as he drew it, Nelson sprang across the table, and bore him

down. When the row was ever, three men lay on the floor. One was Nelson;

he took the shot meant for me.’

Again the story paused.

‘And the man that shot him?’

I started at the intense fierceness in the voice, and, looking upon the

girl, saw her eyes blazing with a terrible light.

‘He is dead,’ answered Graeme indifferently.

‘You killed him?’ she asked eagerly.

Graeme looked at her curiously, and answered slowly--

‘I did not mean to. He came at me. I struck him harder than I knew. He

never moved.’

She drew a sigh of satisfaction, and waited.

‘I got him to a private ward, had the best doctor in the city, and sent

for Craig to Victoria. For three days we thought he would live--he was

keen to get home; but by the time Craig came we had given up hope. Oh,

but I was thankful to see Craig come in, and the joy in the old man’s

eyes was beautiful to see. There was no pain at last, and no fear. He

would not allow me to reproach myself, saying over and over, “You would

have done the same for me”--as I would, fast enough--“and it is better

me than you. I am old and done; you will do much good yet for the boys.”

And he kept looking at me till I could only promise to do my best.

‘But I am glad I told him how much good he had done me during the last

year, for he seemed to think that too good to be true. And when Craig

told him how he had helped the boys in the camp, and how Sandy and

Baptiste and the Campbells would always be better men for his life

among them, the old man’s face actually shone, as if light were coming

through. And with surprise and joy he kept on saying, “Do you think

so? Do you think so? Perhaps so, perhaps so.” At the last he talked of

Christmas night at the camp. You were there, you remember. Craig had

been holding a service, and something happened, I don’t know what, but

they both knew.’

‘I know,’ I said, and I saw again the picture of the old man under the

pine, upon his knees in the snow, with his face turned up to the stars.

‘Whatever it was, it was in his mind at the very last, and I can never

forget his face as he turned it to Craig. One hears of such things:

I had often, but had never put much faith in them; but joy, rapture,

triumph, these are what were in his face, as he said, his breath coming

short, “You said--He wouldn’t--fail me--you were right--not once--not

once--He stuck to me--I’m glad he told me--thank God--for you--you

showed--me--I’ll see Him--and--tell Him--” And Craig, kneeling beside

him so steady--I was behaving like a fool--smiled down through his

streaming tears into the dim eyes so brightly, till they could see no

more. Thank him for that! He helped the old man through, and he helped

me too, that night, thank God!’ And Graeme’s voice, hard till now, broke

in a sob.

He had forgotten us, and was back beside his passing friend, and all his

self-control could not keep back the flowing tears.

‘It was his life for mine,’ he said huskily.

The brother and sister were quietly weeping, but spoke no word, though I

knew Graeme was waiting for them.

I took up the word, and told of what I had known of Nelson, and his

influence upon the men of Black Rock. They listened eagerly enough, but

still without speaking. There seemed nothing to say, till I suggested

to Graeme that he must get some rest. Then the girl turned to him, and,

impulsively putting out her hand, said--

‘Oh, it is all so sad; but how can we ever thank you?’

‘Thank me!’ gasped Graeme. ‘Can you forgive me? I brought him to his

death.’

‘No, no! You must not say so,’ she answered hurriedly. ‘You would have

done the same for him.’

‘God knows I would,’ said Graeme earnestly; ‘and God bless you for your

words!’ And I was thankful to see the tears start in his dry, burning

eyes.

We carried him to the old home in the country, that he might lie by the

side of the wife he had loved and wronged. A few friends met us at the

wayside station, and followed in sad procession along the country road,

that wound past farms and through woods, and at last up to the ascent

where the quaint, old wooden church, black with the rains and snows of

many years, stood among its silent graves. The little graveyard sloped

gently towards the setting sun, and from it one could see, far on every

side, the fields of grain and meadowland that wandered off over softly

undulating hills to meet the maple woods at the horizon, dark, green,

and cool. Here and there white farmhouses, with great barns standing

near, looked out from clustering orchards.

Up the grass-grown walk, and through the crowding mounds, over which

waves, uncut, the long, tangling grass, we bear our friend, and let

him gently down into the kindly bosom of mother earth, dark, moist, and

warm. The sound of a distant cowbell mingles with the voice of the last

prayer; the clods drop heavily with heart-startling echo; the mound is

heaped and shaped by kindly friends, sharing with one another the

task; the long rough sods are laid over and patted into place; the old

minister takes farewell in a few words of gentle sympathy; the brother

and sister, with lingering looks at the two graves side by side, the old

and the new, step into the farmer’s carriage, and drive away; the sexton

locks the gate and goes home, and we are left outside alone.

Then we went back and stood by Nelson’s grave.

After a long silence Graeme spoke.

‘Connor, he did not grudge his life to me--and I think’--and here the

words came slowly--‘I understand now what that means, “Who loved me and

gave Himself for me.”’

Then taking off his hat, he said reverently, ‘By God’s help Nelson’s

life shall not end, but shall go on. Yes, old man!’ looking down upon

the grave, ‘I’m with you’; and lifting up his face to the calm sky, ‘God

help me to be true.’

Then he turned and walked briskly away, as one might who had pressing

business, or as soldiers march from a comrade’s grave to a merry tune,

not that they have forgotten, but they have still to fight.

And this was the way old man Nelson came home.

CHAPTERS XIV.

GRAEME’S NEW BIRTH

There was more left in that grave than old man Nelson’s dead body. It

seemed to me that Graeme left part, at least, of his old self there,

with his dead friend and comrade, in the quiet country churchyard. I

waited long for the old careless, reckless spirit to appear, but he was

never the same again. The change was unmistakable, but hard to define.

He seemed to have resolved his life into a definite purpose. He was

hardly so comfortable a fellow to be with; he made me feel even more

lazy and useless than was my wont; but I respected him more, and liked

him none the less. As a lion he was not a success. He would not roar.

This was disappointing to me, and to his friends and mine, who had been

waiting his return with eager expectation of tales of thrilling and

bloodthirsty adventure.

His first days were spent in making right, or as nearly right as he

could, the break that drove him to the west. His old firm (and I have

had more respect for the humanity of lawyers ever since) behaved really

well. They proved the restoration of their confidence in his integrity

and ability by offering him a place in the firm, which, however, he

would not accept. Then, when he felt clean, as he said, he posted off

home, taking me with him. During the railway journey of four hours he

hardly spoke; but when we had left the town behind, and had fairly

got upon the country road that led toward the home ten miles away, his

speech came to him in a great flow. His spirits ran over. He was like a

boy returning from his first college term. His very face wore the boy’s

open, innocent, earnest look that used to attract men to him in his

first college year. His delight in the fields and woods, in the sweet

country air and the sunlight, was without bound. How often had we driven

this road together in the old days!

Every turn was familiar. The swamp where the tamaracks stood straight

and slim out of their beds of moss; the brule, as we used to call it,

where the pine-stumps, huge and blackened, were half-hidden by the new

growth of poplars and soft maples; the big hill, where we used to get

out and walk when the roads were bad; the orchards, where the harvest

apples were best and most accessible--all had their memories.

It was one of those perfect afternoons that so often come in the early

Canadian summer, before Nature grows weary with the heat. The white

gravel road was trimmed on either side with turf of living green, close

cropped by the sheep that wandered in flocks along its whole length.

Beyond the picturesque snake-fences stretched the fields of springing

grain, of varying shades of green, with here and there a dark brown

patch, marking a turnip field or summer fallow, and far back were the

woods of maple and beech and elm, with here and there the tufted top of

a mighty pine, the lonely representative of a vanished race, standing

clear above the humbler trees.

As we drove through the big swamp, where the yawning, haunted gully

plunges down to its gloomy depths, Graeme reminded me of that night when

our horse saw something in that same gully, and refused to go past; and

I felt again, though it was broad daylight, something of the grue that

shivered down my back, as I saw in the moonlight the gleam of a white

thing far through the pine trunks.

As we came nearer home the houses became familiar. Every house had its

tale: we had eaten or slept in most of them; we had sampled apples, and

cherries, and plums from their orchards, openly as guests, or secretly

as marauders, under cover of night--the more delightful way, I fear.

Ah! happy days, with these innocent crimes and fleeting remorses, how

bravely we faced them, and how gaily we lived them, and how yearningly

we look back at them now! The sun was just dipping into the tree-tops

of the distant woods behind as we came to the top of the last hill that

overlooked the valley, in which lay the village of Riverdale. Wooded

hills stood about it on three sides, and, where the hills faded out,

there lay the mill-pond sleeping and smiling in the sun. Through the

village ran the white road, up past the old frame church, and on to the

white manse standing among the trees. That was Graeme’s home, and mine

too, for I had never known another worthy of the name. We held up our

team to look down over the valley, with its rampart of wooded hills, its

shining pond, and its nestling village, and on past to the church and

the white manse, hiding among the trees. The beauty, the peace, the

warm, loving homeliness of the scene came about our hearts, but, being

men, we could find no words.

‘Let’s go,’ cried Graeme, and down the hill we tore and rocked and

swayed to the amazement of the steady team, whose education from

the earliest years had impressed upon their minds the criminality of

attempting to do anything but walk carefully down a hill, at least

for two-thirds of the way. Through the village, in a cloud of dust,

we swept, catching a glimpse of a well-known face here and there, and

flinging a salutation as we passed, leaving the owner of the face rooted

to his place in astonishment at the sight of Graeme whirling on in his

old-time, well-known reckless manner. Only old Dunc. M’Leod was equal to

the moment, for as Graeme called out, ‘Hello, Dunc.!’ the old man lifted

up his hands, and called back in an awed voice: ‘Bless my soul! is it

yourself?’

‘Stands his whisky well, poor old chap!’ was Graeme’s comment.

As we neared the church he pulled up his team, and we went quietly past

the sleepers there, then again on the full run down the gentle slope,

over the little brook, and up to the gate. He had hardly got his team

pulled up before, flinging me the lines, he was out over the wheel, for

coming down the walk, with her hands lifted high, was a dainty little

lady, with the face of an angel. In a moment Graeme had her in his arms.

I heard the faint cry, ‘My boy, my boy,’ and got down on the other side

to attend to my off horse, surprised to find my hands trembling and my

eyes full of tears. Back upon the steps stood an old gentleman, with

white hair and flowing beard, handsome, straight, and stately--Graeme’s

father, waiting his turn.

‘Welcome home, my lad,’ was his greeting, as he kissed his son, and the

tremor of his voice, and the sight of the two men kissing each other,

like women, sent me again to my horses’ heads.

‘There’s Connor, mother!’ shouted out Graeme, and the dainty little

lady, in her black silk and white lace, came out to me quickly, with

outstretched hands.

‘You, too, are welcome home,’ she said, and kissed me.

I stood with my hat off, saying something about being glad to come,

but wishing that I could get away before I should make quite a fool of

myself. For as I looked down upon that beautiful face, pale, except for

a faint flush upon each faded cheek, and read the story of pain endured

and conquered, and as I thought of all the long years of waiting and

of vain hoping, I found my throat dry and sore, and the words would not

come. But her quick sense needed no words, and she came to my help.

‘You will find Jack at the stable,’ she said, smiling; ‘he ought to have

been here.’

The stable! Why had I not thought of that before? Thankfully now my

words came--

‘Yes, certainly, I’ll find him, Mrs. Graeme. I suppose he’s as much of

a scapegrace as ever, and off I went to look up Graeme’s young brother,

who had given every promise in the old days of developing into as

stirring a rascal as one could desire; but who, as I found out later,

had not lived these years in his mother’s home for nothing.

‘Oh, Jack’s a good boy,’ she answered, smiling again, as she turned

toward the other two, now waiting for her upon the walk.

The week that followed was a happy one for us all; but for the mother it

was full to the brim with joy. Her sweet face was full of content, and

in her eyes rested a great peace. Our days were spent driving about

among the hills, or strolling through the maple woods, or down into the

tamarack swamp, where the pitcher plants and the swamp lilies and the

marigold waved above the deep moss. In the evenings we sat under the

trees on the lawn till the stars came out and the night dews drove us

in. Like two lovers, Graeme and his mother would wander off together,

leaving Jack and me to each other. Jack was reading for divinity, and

was really a fine, manly fellow, with all his brother’s turn for rugby,

and I took to him amazingly; but after the day was over we would gather

about the supper table, and the talk would be of all things under

heaven--art, football, theology. The mother would lead in all. How quick

she was, how bright her fancy, how subtle her intellect, and through all

a gentle grace, very winning and beautiful to see!

Do what I would, Graeme would talk little of the mountains and his life

there.

‘My lion will not roar, Mrs. Graeme,’ I complained; ‘he simply will

not.’

‘You should twist his tail,’ said Jack.

‘That seems to be the difficulty, Jack,’ said his mother, ‘to get hold

of his tale.’

‘Oh, mother,’ groaned Jack; ‘you never did such a thing before! How

could you? Is it this baleful Western influence?’

‘I shall reform, Jack,’ she replied brightly.

‘But, seriously, Graeme,’ I remonstrated, ‘you ought to tell your people

of your life--that free, glorious life in the mountains.’

‘Free! Glorious! To some men, perhaps!’ said Graeme, and then fell into

silence.

But I saw Graeme as a new man the night he talked theology with his

father. The old minister was a splendid Calvinist, of heroic type, and

as he discoursed of God’s sovereignty and election, his face glowed and

his voice rang out.

Graeme listened intently, now and then putting in a question, as one

would a keen knife-thrust into a foe. But the old man knew his ground,

and moved easily among his ideas, demolishing the enemy as he appeared,

with jaunty grace. In the full flow of his triumphant argument, Graeme

turned to him with sudden seriousness.

‘Look here, father! I was born a Calvinist, and I can’t see how any one

with a level head can hold anything else, than that the Almighty has

some idea as to how He wants to run His universe, and He means to carry

out His idea, and is carrying it out; but what would you do in a case

like this?’ Then he told him the story of poor Billy Breen, his fight

and his defeat.

‘Would you preach election to that chap?’

The mother’s eyes were shining with tears.

The old gentleman blew his nose like a trumpet, and then said gravely--

‘No, my boy, you don’t feed babes with meat. But what came to him?’

Then Graeme asked me to finish the tale. After I had finished the

story of Billy’s final triumph and of Craig’s part in it, they sat long

silent, till the minister, clearing his throat hard and blowing his nose

more like a trumpet than ever, said with great emphasis--

‘Thank God for such a man in such a place! I wish there were more of us

like him.’

‘I should like to see you out there, sir,’ said Graeme admiringly;

‘you’d get them, but you wouldn’t have time for election.’

‘Yes, yes!’ said his father warmly; ‘I should love to have a chance

just to preach election to these poor lads. Would I were twenty years

younger!’

‘It is worth a man’s life,’ said Graeme earnestly. His younger brother

turned his face eagerly toward the mother. For answer she slipped her

hand into his and said softly, while her eyes shone like stars--

‘Some day, Jack, perhaps! God knows.’ But Jack only looked steadily at

her, smiling a little and patting her hand.

‘You’d shine there, mother,’ said Graeme, smiling upon her; ‘you’d

better come with me.’ She started, and said faintly--

‘With you?’ It was the first hint he had given of his purpose. ‘You are

going back?’

‘What! as a missionary?’ said Jack.

‘Not to preach, Jack; I’m not orthodox enough,’ looking at his father

and shaking his head; ‘but to build railroads and lend a hand to some

poor chap, if I can.’

‘Could you not find work nearer home, my boy?’ asked the father; ‘there

is plenty of both kinds near us here, surely.’

‘Lots of work, but not mine, I fear,’ answered Graeme, keeping his eyes

away from his mother’s face. ‘A man must do his own work.’

His voice was quiet and resolute, and glancing at the beautiful face at

the end of the table, I saw in the pale lips and yearning eyes that the

mother was offering up her firstborn, that ancient sacrifice. But not

all the agony of sacrifice could wring from her entreaty or complaint

in the hearing of her sons. That was for other ears and for the silent

hours of the night. And next morning when she came down to meet us her

face was wan and weary, but it wore the peace of victory and a glory not

of earth. Her greeting was full of dignity, sweet and gentle; but when

she came to Graeme she lingered over him and kissed him twice. And that

was all that any of us ever saw of that sore fight.

At the end of the week I took leave of them, and last of all of the

mother.

She hesitated just a moment, then suddenly put her hands upon my

shoulders and kissed me, saying softly, ‘You are his friend; you will

sometimes come to me?’

‘Gladly, if I may,’ I hastened to answer, for the sweet, brave face was

too much to bear; and, till she left us for that world of which she was

a part, I kept my word, to my own great and lasting good. When Graeme

met me in the city at the end of the summer, he brought me her love, and

then burst forth--

‘Connor, do you know, I have just discovered my mother! I have never

known her till this summer.’

‘More fool you,’ I answered, for often had I, who had never known a

mother, envied him his.

‘Yes, that is true,’ he answered slowly; ‘but you cannot see until you

have eyes.’

Before he set out again for the west I gave him a supper, asking the men

who had been with us in the old ‘Varsity days. I was doubtful as to the

wisdom of this, and was persuaded only by Graeme’s eager assent to my

proposal.

‘Certainly, let’s have them,’ he said; ‘I shall be awfully glad to see

them; great stuff they were.’

‘But, I don’t know, Graeme; you see--well--hang it!--you know--you’re

different, you know.’

He looked at me curiously.

‘I hope I can still stand a good supper, and if the boys can’t stand me,

why, I can’t help it. I’ll do anything but roar, and don’t you begin to

work off your menagerie act--now, you hear me!’

‘Well, it is rather hard lines that when I have been talking up my lion

for a year, and then finally secure him, that he will not roar.’

‘Serve you right,’ he replied, quite heartlessly; ‘but I’ll tell you

what I’ll do, I’ll feed! Don’t you worry,’ he adds soothingly; ‘the

supper will go.’

And go it did. The supper was of the best; the wines first-class. I had

asked Graeme about the wines.

‘Do as you like, old man,’ was his answer; ‘it’s your supper, but,’ he

added, ‘are the men all straight?’

I ran them over in my mind.

‘Yes; I think so.’

If not, don’t you help them down; and anyway, you can’t be too careful.

But don’t mind me; I am quit of the whole business from this out.’ So I

ventured wines, for the last time, as it happened.

We were a quaint combination. Old ‘Beetles,’ whose nickname was

prophetic of his future fame as a bugman, as the fellows irreverently

said; ‘Stumpy’ Smith, a demon bowler; Polly Lindsay, slow as ever and as

sure as when he held the half-back line with Graeme, and used to make my

heart stand still with terror at his cool deliberation. But he was

never known to fumble nor to funk, and somehow he always got us out safe

enough. Then there was Rattray--‘Rat’ for short--who, from a swell, had

developed into a cynic with a sneer, awfully clever and a good enough

fellow at heart. Little ‘Wig’ Martin, the sharpest quarter ever seen,

and big Barney Lundy, centre scrimmage, whose terrific roar and rush had

often struck terror to the enemy’s heart, and who was Graeme’s slave.

Such was the party.

As the supper went on my fears began to vanish, for if Graeme did not

‘roar,’ he did the next best thing--ate and talked quite up to his

old form. Now we played our matches over again, bitterly lamenting the

‘if’s’ that had lost us the championships, and wildly approving the

tackles that had saved, and the runs that had made the ‘Varsity crowd go

mad with delight and had won for us. And as their names came up in talk,

we learned how life had gone with those who had been our comrades of ten

years ago. Some, success had lifted to high places; some, failure had

left upon the rocks, and a few lay in their graves.

But as the evening wore on, I began to wish that I had left out the

wines, for the men began to drop an occasional oath, though I had let

them know during the summer that Graeme was not the man he had been. But

Graeme smoked and talked and heeded not, till Rattray swore by that name

most sacred of all ever borne by man. Then Graeme opened upon him in a

cool, slow way--

‘What an awful fool a man is, to damn things as you do, Rat. Things are

not damned. It is men who are; and that is too bad to be talked much

about but when a man flings out of his foul mouth the name of Jesus

Christ’--here he lowered his voice--‘it’s a shame--it’s more, it’s a

crime.’

There was dead silence, then Rattray replied--

‘I suppose you’re right enough, it is bad form; but crime is rather

strong, I think.’

‘Not if you consider who it is,’ said Graeme with emphasis.

‘Oh, come now,’ broke in Beetles. ‘Religion is all right, is a good

thing, and I believe a necessary thing for the race, but no one takes

seriously any longer the Christ myth.’

‘What about your mother, Beetles?’ put in Wig Martin.

Beetles consigned him to the pit and was silent, for his father was an

Episcopal clergyman, and his mother a saintly woman.

‘I fooled with that for some time, Beetles, but it won’t do. You can’t

build a religion that will take the devil out of a man on a myth. That

won’t do the trick. I don’t want to argue about it, but I am quite

convinced the myth theory is not reasonable, and besides, it wont work.’

‘Will the other work?’ asked Rattray, with a sneer.

‘Sure!’ said Grame; ‘I’ve seen it.’

‘Where?’ challenged Rattray. ‘I haven’t seen much of it.’

‘Yes, you have, Rattray, you know you have,’ said Wig again. But Rattray

ignored him.

‘I’ll tell you, boys,’ said Graeme. ‘I want you to know, anyway, why I

believe what I do.’

Then he told them the story of old man Nelson, from the old coast days,

before I knew him, to the end. He told the story well. The stern fight

and the victory of the life, and the self-sacrifice and the pathos of

the death appealed to these men, who loved fight and could understand

sacrifice.

‘That’s why I believe in Jesus Christ, and that’s why I think it a crime

to fling His name about!’

‘I wish to Heaven I could say that,’ said Beetles.

‘Keep wishing hard enough and it will come to you,’ said Graeme.

‘Look here, old chap,’ said Rattray; ‘you’re quite right about this;

I’m willing to own up. Wig is correct. I know a few, at least, of that

stamp, but most of those who go in for that sort of thing are not much

account’

‘For ten years, Rattray,’ said Graeme in a downright, matter-of-fact

way, ‘you and I have tried this sort of thing’--tapping a bottle--‘and

we got out of it all there is to be got, paid well for it, too,

and--faugh! you know it’s not good enough, and the more you go in for

it, the more you curse yourself. So I have quit this and I am going in

for the other.’

‘What! going in for preaching?’

‘Not much--railroading--money in it--and lending a hand to fellows on

the rocks.’

‘I say, don’t you want a centre forward?’ said big Barney in his deep

voice.

‘Every man must play his game in his place, old chap. I’d like to see

you tackle it, though, right well,’ said Graeme earnestly. And so he

did, in the after years, and good tackling it was. But that is another

story.

‘But, I say, Graeme,’ persisted Beetles, ‘about this business, do you

mean to say you go the whole thing--Jonah, you know, and the rest of

it?’

Graeme hesitated, then said--

‘I haven’t much of a creed, Beetles; don’t really know how much I

believe. But,’ by this time he was standing, ‘I do know that good is

good, and bad is bad, and good and bad are not the same. And I know

a man’s a fool to follow the one, and a wise man to follow the other,

and,’ lowering his voice, ‘I believe God is at the back of a man who

wants to get done with bad. I’ve tried all that folly,’ sweeping his

hand over the glasses and bottles, ‘and all that goes with it, and I’ve

done with it’

‘I’ll go you that far,’ roared big Barney, following his old captain as

of yore.

‘Good man,’ said Graeme, striking hands with him.

‘Put me down,’ said little Wig cheerfully.

Then I took up the word, for there rose before me the scene in the

League saloon, and I saw the beautiful face with the deep shining eyes,

and I was speaking for her again. I told them of Craig and his fight for

these men’s lives. I told them, too, of how I had been too indolent to

begin. ‘But,’ I said, ‘I am going this far from to-night,’ and I swept

the bottles into the champagne tub.

‘I say,’ said Polly Lindsay, coming up in his old style, slow but sure,

‘let’s all go in, say for five years.’ And so we did. We didn’t sign

anything, but every man shook hands with Graeme.

And as I told Craig about this a year later, when he was on his way back

from his Old Land trip to join Graeme in the mountains, he threw up his

head in the old way and said, ‘It was well done. It must have been worth

seeing. Old man Nelson’s work is not done yet. Tell me again,’ and he

made me go over the whole scene with all the details put in.

But when I told Mrs. Mavor, after two years had gone, she only said,

‘Old things are passed away, all things are become new’; but the light

glowed in her eyes till I could not see their colour. But all that, too,

is another story.

CHAPTER XV

COMING TO THEIR OWN

A man with a conscience is often provoking, sometimes impossible.

Persuasion is lost upon him. He will not get angry, and he looks at one

with such a far-away expression in his face that in striving to persuade

him one feels earthly and even fiendish. At least this was my experience

with Craig. He spent a week with me just before he sailed for the Old

Land, for the purpose, as he said, of getting some of the coal dust and

other grime out of him.

He made me angry the last night of his stay, and all the more that he

remained quite sweetly unmoved. It was a strategic mistake of mine to

tell him how Nelson came home to us, and how Graeme stood up before

the ‘Varsity chaps at my supper and made his confession and confused

Rattray’s easy-stepping profanity, and started his own five-year league.

For all this stirred in Craig the hero, and he was ready for all sorts

of heroic nonsense, as I called it. We talked of everything but the one

thing, and about that we said not a word till, bending low to poke my

fire and to hide my face, I plunged--

‘You will see her, of course?’

He made no pretence of not understanding but answered--

‘Of course.’

‘There’s really no sense in her staying over there,’ I suggested.

‘And yet she is a wise woman,’ he said, as if carefully considering the

question.

‘Heaps of landlords never see their tenants, and they are none the

worse.’

‘The landlords?’

‘No, the tenants.’

‘Probably, having such landlords.’

‘And as for the old lady, there must be some one in the connection to

whom it would be a Godsend to care for her.’

‘Now, Connor,’ he said quietly, ‘don’t. We have gone over all there is

to be said. Nothing new has come. Don’t turn it all up again.’

Then I played the heathen and raged, as Graeme would have said, till

Craig smiled a little wearily and said--

‘You exhaust yourself, old chap. Have a pipe, do’; and after a pause he

added in his own way, ‘What would you have? The path lies straight from

my feet. Should I quit it? I could not so disappoint you--and all of

them.’

And I knew he was thinking of Graeme and the lads in the mountains he

had taught to be true men. It did not help my rage, but it checked my

speech; so I smoked in silence till he was moved to say--

‘And after all, you know, old chap, there are great compensations for

all losses; but for the loss of a good conscience towards God, what can

make up?’

But, all the same, I hoped for some better result from his visit to

Britain. It seemed to me that something must turn up to change such an

unbearable situation.

The year passed, however, and when I looked into Craig’s face again I

knew that nothing had been changed, and that he had come back to take up

again his life alone, more resolutely hopeful than ever.

But the year had left its mark upon him too. He was a broader and deeper

man. He had been living and thinking with men of larger ideas and

richer culture, and he was far too quick in sympathy with life to remain

untouched by his surroundings. He was more tolerant of opinions other

than his own, but more unrelenting in his fidelity to conscience and

more impatient of half-heartedness and self-indulgence. He was full of

reverence for the great scholars and the great leaders of men he had

come to know.

‘Great, noble fellows they are, and extraordinarily modest,’ he

said--‘that is, the really great are modest. There are plenty of the

other sort, neither great nor modest. And the books to be read! I am

quite hopeless about my reading. It gave me a queer sensation to

shake hands with a man who had written a great book. To hear him make

commonplace remarks, to witness a faltering in knowledge--one expects

these men to know everything--and to experience respectful kindness at

his hands!’

‘What of the younger men?’ I asked.

‘Bright, keen, generous fellows. In things theoretical, omniscient; but

in things practical, quite helpless. They toss about great ideas as

the miners lumps of coal. They can call them by their book names easily

enough, but I often wondered whether they could put them into English.

Some of them I coveted for the mountains. Men with clear heads and big

hearts, and built after Sandy M’Naughton’s model. It does seem a sinful

waste of God’s good human stuff to see these fellows potter away their

lives among theories living and dead, and end up by producing a book!

They are all either making or going to make a book. A good thing we

haven’t to read them. But here and there among them is some quiet chap

who will make a book that men will tumble over each other to read.’

Then we paused and looked at each other.

‘Well?’ I said. He understood me.

‘Yes!’ he answered slowly, ‘doing great work. Every one worships her

just as we do, and she is making them all do something worth while, as

she used to make us.’

He spoke cheerfully and readily as if he were repeating a lesson

well learned, but he could not humbug me. I felt the heartache in the

cheerful tone.

‘Tell me about her,’ I said, for I knew that if he would talk it would

do him good. And talk he did, often forgetting me, till, as I listened,

I found myself looking again into the fathomless eyes, and hearing

again the heart-searching voice. I saw her go in and out of the little

red-tiled cottages and down the narrow back lanes of the village; I

heard her voice in a sweet, low song by the bed of a dying child, or

pouring forth floods of music in the great new hall of the factory town

near by. But I could not see, though he tried to show me, the stately

gracious lady receiving the country folk in her home. He did not linger

over that scene, but went back again to the gate-cottage where she had

taken him one day to see Billy Breen’s mother.

‘I found the old woman knew all about me,’ he said, simply enough; ‘but

there were many things about Billy she had never heard, and I was glad

to put her right on some points, though Mrs. Mavor would not hear it.’

He sat silent for a little, looking into the coals; then went on in a

soft, quiet voice--

‘It brought back the mountains and the old days to hear again Billy’s

tones in his mother’s voice, and to see her sitting there in the very

dress she wore the night of the League, you remember--some soft stuff

with black lace about it--and to hear her sing as she did for Billy--ah!

ah!’ His voice unexpectedly broke, but in a moment he was master of

himself and begged me to forgive his weakness. I am afraid I said words

that should not be said--a thing I never do, except when suddenly and

utterly upset.

‘I am getting selfish and weak,’ he said; ‘I must get to work. I am glad

to get to work. There is much to do, and it is worth while, if only to

keep one from getting useless and lazy.’

‘Useless and lazy!’ I said to myself, thinking of my life beside his,

and trying to get command of my voice, so as not to make quite a fool

of myself. And for many a day those words goaded me to work and to the

exercise of some mild self-denial. But more than all else, after Craig

had gone back to the mountains, Graeme’s letters from the railway

construction camp stirred one to do unpleasant duty long postponed, and

rendered uncomfortable my hours of most luxurious ease. Many of the old

gang were with him, both of lumbermen and miners, and Craig was their

minister. And the letters told of how he laboured by day and by night

along the line of construction, carrying his tent and kit with him,

preaching straight sermons, watching by sick men, writing their letters,

and winning their hearts; making strong their lives, and helping them

to die well when their hour came. One day, these letters proved too much

for me, and I packed away my paints and brushes, and made my vow unto

the Lord that I would be ‘useless and lazy’ no longer, but would do

something with myself. In consequence, I found myself within three weeks

walking the London hospitals, finishing my course, that I might join

that band of men who were doing something with life, or, if throwing

it away, were not losing it for nothing. I had finished being a fool,

I hoped, at least a fool of the useless and luxurious kind. The letter

that came from Graeme, in reply to my request for a position on his

staff, was characteristic of the man, both new and old, full of gayest

humour and of most earnest welcome to the work.

Mrs. Mavor’s reply was like herself--

‘I knew you would not long be content with the making of pictures, which

the world does not really need, and would join your friends in the dear

West, making lives that the world needs so sorely.’

But her last words touched me strangely--

‘But be sure to be thankful every day for your privilege. . . . It will

be good to think of you all, with the glorious mountains about you, and

Christ’s own work in your hands. . . . Ah! how we would like to choose

our work, and the place in which to do it!’

The longing did not appear in the words, but I needed no words to tell

me how deep and how constant it was. And I take some credit to myself,

that in my reply I gave her no bidding to join our band, but rather

praised the work she was doing in her place, telling her how I had heard

of it from Craig.

The summer found me religiously doing Paris and Vienna, gaining a more

perfect acquaintance with the extent and variety of my own ignorance,

and so fully occupied in this interesting and wholesome occupation

that I fell out with all my correspondents, with the result of weeks of

silence between us.

Two letters among the heap waiting on my table in London made my heart

beat quick, but with how different feelings: one from Graeme telling me

that Craig had been very ill, and that he was to take him home as soon

as he could be moved. Mrs. Mavor’s letter told me of the death of the

old lady, who had been her care for the past two years, and of her

intention to spend some months in her old home in Edinburgh. And this

letter it is that accounts for my presence in a miserable, dingy, dirty

little hall running off a close in the historic Cowgate, redolent of

the glories of the splendid past, and of the various odours of the

evil-smelling present. I was there to hear Mrs. Mavor sing to the crowd

of gamins that thronged the closes in the neighbourhood, and that had

been gathered into a club by ‘a fine leddie frae the West End,’ for

the love of Christ and His lost. This was an ‘At Home’ night, and the

mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, of all ages and sizes were

present. Of all the sad faces I had ever seen, those mothers carried the

saddest and most woe-stricken. ‘Heaven pity us!’ I found myself saying;

‘is this the beautiful, the cultured, the heaven-exalted city of

Edinburgh? Will it not, for this, be cast down into hell some day, if

it repent not of its closes and their dens of defilement? Oh! the utter

weariness, the dazed hopelessness of the ghastly faces! Do not the

kindly, gentle church-going folk of the crescents and the gardens see

them in their dreams, or are their dreams too heavenly for these ghastly

faces to appear?’

I cannot recall the programme of the evening, but in my memory-gallery

is a vivid picture of that face, sweet, sad, beautiful, alight with the

deep glow of her eyes, as she stood and sang to that dingy crowd. As I

sat upon the window-ledge listening to the voice with its flowing song,

my thoughts were far away, and I was looking down once more upon the

eager, coal-grimed faces in the rude little church in Black Rock. I was

brought back to find myself swallowing hard by an audible whisper from a

wee lassie to her mother--

‘Mither! See till yon man. He’s greetin’.’

When I came to myself she was singing ‘The Land o’ the Leal,’ the Scotch

‘Jerusalem the Golden,’ immortal, perfect. It needed experience of the

hunger-haunted Cowgate closes, chill with the black mist of an eastern

haar, to feel the full bliss of the vision in the words--

‘There’s nae sorrow there, Jean,

There’s neither cauld nor care, Jean,

The day is aye fair in

The Land o’ the Leal.’

A land of fair, warm days, untouched by sorrow and care, would be heaven

indeed to the dwellers of the Cowgate.

The rest of that evening is hazy enough to me now, till I find myself

opposite Mrs. Mavor at her fire, reading Graeme’s letter; then all is

vivid again.

I could not keep the truth from her. I knew it would be folly to try. So

I read straight on till I came to the words--

‘He has had mountain fever, whatever that may be, and he will not

pull up again. If I can, I shall take him home to my mother’--when she

suddenly stretched out her hand, saying, ‘Oh, let me read!’ and I

gave her the letter. In a minute she had read it, and began almost

breathlessly--

‘Listen! my life is much changed. My mother-in-law is gone; she needs

me no longer. My solicitor tells me, too, that owing to unfortunate

investments there is need of money, so great need, that it is possible

that either the estates or the works must go. My cousin has his all in

the works--iron works, you know. It would be wrong to have him suffer. I

shall give up the estates--that is best.’ She paused.

‘And come with me,’ I cried.

‘When do you sail?’

‘Next week,’ I answered eagerly.

She looked at me a few moments, and into her eyes there came a light

soft and tender, as she said--

‘I shall go with you.’

And so she did; and no old Roman in all the glory of a Triumph carried a

prouder heart than I, as I bore her and her little one from the train to

Graeme’s carriage, crying--

‘I’ve got her.’

But his was the better sense, for he stood waving his hat and shouting--

‘He’s all right,’ at which Mrs. Mavor grew white; but when she shook

hands with him, the red was in her cheek again.

‘It was the cable did it,’ went on Graeme. ‘Connor’s a great doctor! His

first case will make him famous. Good prescription--after mountain fever

try a cablegram!’ And the red grew deeper in the beautiful face beside

us.

Never did the country look so lovely. The woods were in their gayest

autumn dress; the brown fields were bathed in a purple haze; the air was

sweet and fresh with a suspicion of the coming frosts of winter. But

in spite of all the road seemed long, and it was as if hours had gone

before our eyes fell upon the white manse standing among the golden

leaves.

‘Let them go,’ I cried, as Graeme paused to take in the view, and down

the sloping dusty road we flew on the dead run.

‘Reminds one a little of Abe’s curves,’ said Graeme, as we drew up at

the gate. But I answered him not, for I was introducing to each other

the two best women in the world. As I was about to rush into the house,

Graeme seized me by the collar, saying--

‘Hold on, Connor! you forget your place, you’re next.’

‘Why, certainly,’ I cried, thankfully enough; ‘what an ass I am!’

‘Quite true,’ said Graeme solemnly.

‘Where is he?’ I asked.

‘At this present moment?’ he asked, in a shocked voice. ‘Why, Connor,

you surprise me.’

‘Oh, I see!’

‘Yes,’ he went on gravely; ‘you may trust my mother to be discreetly

attending to her domestic duties; she is a great woman, my mother.’

I had no doubt of it, for at that moment she came out to us with little

Marjorie in her arms.

‘You have shown Mrs. Mavor to her room, mother, I hope,’ said Graeme;

but she only smiled and said--

‘Run away with your horses, you silly boy,’ at which he solemnly shook

his head. ‘Ah, mother, you are deep--who would have thought it of you?’

That evening the manse overflowed with joy, and the days that followed

were like dreams set to sweet music.

But for sheer wild delight, nothing in my memory can quite come up to

the demonstration organised by Graeme, with assistance from Nixon, Shaw,

Sandy, Abe, Geordie, and Baptiste, in honour of the arrival in camp

of Mr. and Mrs. Craig. And, in my opinion, it added something to the

occasion, that after all the cheers for Mr. and Mrs. Craig had died

away, and after all the hats had come down, Baptiste, who had never

taken his eyes from that radiant face, should suddenly have swept the

crowd into a perfect storm of cheers by excitedly seizing his tuque, and

calling out in his shrill voice--

‘By gar! Tree cheer for Mrs. Mavor.’

And for many a day the men of Black Rock would easily fall into the old

and well-loved name; but up and down the line of construction, in all

the camps beyond the Great Divide, the new name became as dear as the

old had ever been in Black Rock.

Those old wild days are long since gone into the dim distance of the

past. They will not come again, for we have fallen into quiet times;

but often in my quietest hours I feel my heart pause in its beat to hear

again that strong, clear voice, like the sound of a trumpet, bidding

us to be men; and I think of them all--Graeme, their chief, Sandy,

Baptiste, Geordie, Abe, the Campbells, Nixon, Shaw, all stronger, better

for their knowing of him, and then I think of Billy asleep under the

pines, and of old man Nelson with the long grass waving over him in the

quiet churchyard, and all my nonsense leaves me, and I bless the Lord

for all His benefits, but chiefly for the day I met the missionary of

Black Rock in the lumber-camp among the Selkirks.