"ALL THE BLUE BONNETS ARE OVER THE BORDER!"
One day early in the Winter, when the boys' English letters had begun
to arrive regularly, Auntie Elspie Grant came over the hills on her
snowshoes, to pay a visit of sympathy to Mrs. Lindsay. She brought a
bottle of the liniment they made every Fall from the herbs of the
Craig-Ellachie garden, a stone jar of their best raspberry cordial, a
pot of mincemeat, and a piece of Christmas cake.
She spent a long afternoon while they both knitted socks and read the
boys' letters and heard the latest news of Allister and Ellen and Mary
and discussed at great length the never-failing virtues of Gavin. John
drove the guest home in the cutter round by the road, for Mrs. Lindsay
could not bear the sight of Elspie walking away over the drifts, though
as a matter of fact, Elspie in her youthful spirits enjoyed it
immensely.
"Elspie Grant's worryin' about Gavin," said Mrs. Lindsay, when the
guest had gone and the early supper was being cleared away.
"What's the matter with him?" asked Christina with that feeling of self
condemnation that any thought of Gavin always brought.
"She doesn't quite know. That's the trouble. He's not been eating and
he doesn't seem to want to go anywhere. I wonder what can be wrong
with the lad? Such a comfort as Gavin will be to the girls!"
Christina did not suggest an explanation. She had no self-conceit, and
could not imagine that Gavin was grieving over her to the extent of
loss of appetite. But she could not help wondering if she contributed
in any measure to his trouble. For now that the matter was drawn to
her attention she remembered that Gavin was not taking the part in the
life of the young people of the village which he had once taken. Since
the Red Cross Society had brought about a reunion of the divided forces
of Orchard Glen, social activities had become very popular, but Gavin
was not one of the reunited company. He did not come to the Temperance
meetings any more and had dropped Choir Practice. He had even left the
choir of his own church and he had deserted on the very day when he was
most needed, the day they unveiled the Honour Roll with the names of
the boys who had gone overseas. And in spite of all Tremendous K.'s
scolding and pleadings he would not return.
"Gavin Grant's queer," grumbled Jimmie. "We were depending on him to
give something the next night the boys have to give the programme, but
he won't even help with the singing."
"Did you ask him what was the matter?" asked Christina, interested.
"Auntie Elspie told Mother that he is acting as if he were sick."
"I think he's acting just plain mean," declared Jimmie, who had been
taking Sandy's place with Gavin lately and was disappointed in him.
"Maybe he's in love," he added with a grin and went off whistling.
But it was not that altogether that troubled Gavin, for there was
certainly something very badly wrong with the lad. It was love and war
combined that ailed him, and the war had become a burden too heavy for
his strong young shoulders.
For quiet, shy, gentle Gavin was burning to be up and away into the
struggle. His daily tasks of peace had become a galling joke scarcely
to be borne. And the more he yearned to be gone the more bitterly he
blamed himself for what he called his ingratitude and faithlessness.
He loved his three foster-mothers with all the power of his loyal young
heart. They had rescued him from a miserable starved childhood and had
lavished all the wealth of their loving hearts upon him. And now he
had grown to manhood, and every year they looked more and more to him
for support. Their declining years had come and he dared not face the
possibility of leaving them. He argued the matter out with himself by
day in field and barnyard, and by night as he tossed on his sleepless
bed. Why should he yearn to go when his duty plainly declared that he
should stay? Many of the young farmers about Orchard Glen, boys he had
grown up with and who could easily be spared, never thought for a
moment of the war as their task. And why should he, who was so sadly
needed at home?
But it was inevitable that Gavin should be unhappy in the safety of
home while the world was in agony. Without realising it the Grant
Girls had raised their boy to be a soldier, they so gentle and so peace
loving. Life had not been narrow, even away back at Craig-Ellachie,
where the grass grew in the middle of the corduroy road. Gavin had
been nurtured on songs and tales of noble deeds and deathless devotion.
He had been reared in a home where each one vied with the other in
forgetting self and serving the other. The best books had been his
daily reading. And, greatest of all, he had been trained to take as
his life's pattern the One whose sole purpose had been not to be
ministered unto, but to minister.
Night after night as he was growing into manhood, Auntie Flora would
seat herself at the little old organ, and together they would all sail
happily over a sea of song, thrilling ballads of the old days when men
went gaily to death, singing
"So what care I though Death be nigh,
I live for love or die!"
Then Auntie Elspie would put aside her spinning and Auntie Janet her
knitting and they would tell him tales from the glorious history of the
clan Grant. And he was never tired of hearing that story of the Indian
Mutiny, told the Grant Girls by their grandfather; how a Highland
regiment held a shot torn position till help came, held against
overwhelming odds while men fell on every side, held, crying to each
other all up and down the sore-pressed line, "Stand fast,
Craig-Ellachie!"
And so Gavin could not but grow up filled with great aspirations. He
could no more help being chivalrous and self-forgetful than he could
help having the slow, soft accent of his Aunties.
And then into his high-purposed life came the Great Occasion! It
seemed as if he had been trained just for this. It called to him and
him alone. The greatest struggle of history; a death-struggle of
sore-pressed Freedom against hideous Oppression was shaking the earth,
and the smoke of the conflict was blackening the heavens--and through
it all Gavin Grant remained at peace in his home! Every old Belgian
woman of whom he read, driven from her ruined home, was Auntie Elspie.
Every Belgian girl, suffering unspeakable wrong, was Christina. And
they were crying night and day to him for help and crying in vain.
Many a night, after he had read a flaming page of Belgium's and
Armenia's fearful history, he sat, sleepless, by the dying kitchen fire
until dawn, and the day that the name of Edith Cavell was written in
letters of fire across the sides of civilisation, Gavin went off into
the woods alone with his axe, and tried to put some of the fury that
was burning him up into savage blows against the unoffending timber.
And then the Orchard Glen boys began to answer the call, one by one;
Burke and Trooper, and Christina's brothers. Tommy Holmes and Charlie
Henderson, and Bruce McKenzie, and he was like Gareth in the story
Auntie Flora had so often told him, Gareth who had to work in the
kitchen, while his brother-knights rode clanking past him through the
doorway, out into the world of mighty deeds, out to meet Death on the
Field of Glory. Those were the days when he had to repeat "Stand fast,
Craig-Ellachie" over and over again as he went about his peaceful
tasks. It brought him little comfort, for it was not to stand fast
that he wanted, but to spring forward in answer to the call to the
hazardous task, to death itself, the call which through the ages has
always summoned the high heart. Sometimes the acutest misery would
seize him at the thought that persistently haunted him, the fear that
if he had been really a Grant he would have seen his duty more clearly
and would already be in the battle line. Perhaps there was some
necessary spirit left out of him, some saving quality which his
degraded parents could not hand down to him. If he had been of better
blood might he not have paid no attention to tears and partings but
have thrown away everything in the glorious chance of dying in the
greatest cause for which the world had ever struggled?
He argued the question from every point, and yet he could not find it
in his soul to leave his Aunts. He watched them intently to see if
they would drop any hint of their opinion in the matter. But while
they highly admired Trooper and commended the Lindsay boys, saying that
not even the ministry should keep Neil at home, he could not elicit
from them the smallest hint that they thought he was called to enlist.
And so he set his teeth, determined to Stand Fast though his heart
should break. But he was ashamed to be seen in public and he grew more
shy and reticent as the hard days dragged on. Gradually he dropped out
of all the activities that used to take him to the village. When he
went he always saw Christina and Wallace Sutherland together, and that
sight added to his misery. And finally he could not bear to hear
himself sing. He looked down at his big brawny hands and arms and felt
ashamed that he should be standing in a safe and peaceful place,
singing! He choked at the thought. He sometimes wished he were not so
big and strong. If he were small and weak like Willie Brown or even
had one leg like Duke it would be easier to bear.
He gave no reason when he suddenly left the choir the day the Honour
Roll was unveiled. He could not confess that he found it intolerable
to sit up there right next to that list of heroes. His Aunts
remonstrated gently, but though he answered as gently he was
unyielding. So he went back to the family pew and sat beside Auntie
Elspie. To be sure the growing Honour Roll faced him there, every name
written in letters of flame that leaped out and scorched him, but at
least he did not have to sing back there and could bear his shame
better.
His Aunts worried themselves almost ill over him. Auntie Janet dosed
him with medicine and compelled him to wear heavier underwear. Auntie
Flora was so fearful that his spiritual condition was languishing that
she spoke to Mr. Sinclair and he promised to see Gavin and talk to him.
Auntie Elspie said nothing but she watched him, and finally her keen
mother-heart divined his malady.
Auntie Flora had always been Gavin's instructor, and had led him along
the way of good books and into a slight knowledge of music, Auntie
Janet had been his playmate and confidante, the one with whom he had
always shared his secrets and to whom he had confessed his boyish
scrapes. But Auntie Elspie had been his mother, and she knew her boy.
At first she thought the trouble arose over Christina and was bitterly
disappointed when the handsome young man from town had stepped in and
ruined all Gavin's hopes. But she knew he was too proud to grieve
long, and he had laughed one night when Auntie Flora read him "The
Manly Heart," "Shall I, wasting in despair, die because a lady's fair?
If she be not fair to me, what care I how fair she be?" and asked that
she read it again. It was just right, he declared, and went around
whistling that evening. There must be something more than Christina
troubling him she concluded. And then she began to suspect the truth.
Many little incidents helped to confirm her suspicions, and at last she
realised it beyond a doubt. Gavin was craving to be up and away into
the death struggle of the trenches!
The truth broke upon her with a thrill of mingled exultation and
dismay. For the three gentle ladies who could not bear to contemplate
the possibility of Gavin's leaving them, were each secretly cherishing
a longing to hear him express a desire to be away to the war, the
desire which he was so painfully smothering for their sakes.
Hughie Reid, who was next of kin to the Grant girls, lived on the farm
just below Craig-Ellachie on the road to the village. He was a distant
cousin, and a kindly man and the Aunties were always giving his wife a
hand with her work and practically kept his boys in socks and mittens.
His oldest boys were almost grown to manhood, and Hughie had often said
to Auntie Elspie,
"If Gavin ever wants to quit farming, Elspie, I'll take Craig-Ellachie
on shares. I need a bit more land for my stock." And Auntie Elspie
had always laughed at him, saying there was little fear of his ever
getting it, for Gavie would never think of anything but the farm. But
the night when Gavin's heart was laid bare before her, Auntie Elspie
remembered Hughie's oft repeated wish and made a great and noble
resolve.
She came to her dismaying conclusion concerning Gavin one evening after
he had been to town. He was all unconscious of her loving espionage
and had no idea that he was betraying himself. A Highland Battalion
was being raised in the County, called the Blue Bonnets. Recruiting
agents were going all through the country, and at concert and tea
meeting the young people sang a gallant old Scottish song transcribed
to suit the locality.
"March, March! Dalton and Anondell!
Why my lads, dinna ye march forward in order?
March, March! Greenwood and Orchard Glen,
All the Blue Bonnets are over the Border!"
Gavin had been to Algonquin and had heard it on every side, had seen
boys in khaki marching down the street, and worse still, lads in kilts
swinging along, laughing and light-hearted. And he had fled home, in
terror lest some one accost him and ask him to join them. The lilting
lines had set themselves to the jingle of his bells as he drove
homeward, and mile by mile he could hear nothing but
"Trumpets are sounding, war steeds are bounding,
Stand to your arms and march in good order.
Germans shall many a day tell of the bloody fray
When all the Blue Bonnets came over the Border!"
"March! March!"...
He was very silent at supper that evening. He made an effort to be
especially kind and attentive, but he could not be merry. He could not
chat about his visit to town and the doings there which the Aunties
were all eager to hear. For he had seen nothing but boys in kilts,
swinging laughingly down the street, had heard nothing but the pipes
and drums lilting "All the Blue Bonnets are over the Border!"
And all the while Auntie Elspie watched him closely, her heart sinking.
When supper was over and they sat around the sitting room stove, Auntie
Flora seated herself at the organ, thinking to cheer him.
"Come away, Gavie dear," she cried. "It's a long time since we had
some music and I'm afraid you'll be forgettin' the fiddle altogether.
Come away and we'll have a good old sing."
He could not refuse, but said he would play if she would sing, and then
he passed over all the old war-like favourites, "A Warrior Bold" and
"Scots Wha Hae," and asked instead for songs of peace, "Caller
Herrin'," "Ye Banks and Braes," "Silver Threads Among the Gold."
"Sing 'A Warrior Bold' Gavie," cried Auntie Janet, looking up from the
sock she was knitting for Burke Wright, "Ye've no sung it for such a
long, long time."
He made an excuse about not being able to sing it; it was too high for
him.
"Ye haven't got a cold, have you, hinny?" she asked anxiously, and he
answered no, that he was quite well.
Then Auntie Flora, all unconscious, opened all the stops of the little
organ and burst into Bruce's deathless "Battle Hymn," the welcome to
all gallant souls to a gory bed or to victory.
"Play it and sing it both, Gavie!" cried Auntie Janet joining her voice
in, "Now's the day, and now's the hour!" But Gavin made a hurried
excuse about seeing to the cattle, and hastily putting down his violin
went out quickly. Auntie Elspie saw his face as he passed and all her
doubts and with them her hopes vanished. She had suspected before; now
she knew!
"I thought Gavie did all the chores," said Auntie Flora, looking up as
she finished only the first stanza of the song. Auntie Elspie said
nothing. She bent over the hospital shirt she was sewing, as though to
look for a flaw in her work. She was winking away the tears that her
sisters must not see.
She put on an old coat of Gavin's and slipped out after him to the barn.
She found there was little to do. He had recovered his composure, and
scolded her lovingly for coming out in the cold. He had a momentary
picture of his Aunts' going out to the stable on sharp nights like
these to feed the cattle and bed the horses, and he tried to believe he
was glad he was not going.
The next day at dinner Auntie Elspie remarked casually that she thought
she would take a run over to Hughie's and see if little Elspie was
better of her cold, and have a cup of tea with Hughie's wife.
Gavin had an errand to Orchard Glen Mill, and on his way drove her over
in the old box sleigh, promising to call for her early on his return.
Auntie Janet had a few purchases she wanted him to make at the store in
Orchard Glen, and when he had come back from the mill, Gavin tied his
horse and ran into the store.
Marmaduke was sitting tilted back on a chair behind the stove making
love to Tilly. Life had been but a dreary business for Duke since
Trooper went to the war. Old Tory Brown and old Willie Henderson, who
had been bitter enemies ever since the disastrous day the Piper took
his music to the wrong meeting, were sitting waiting for the mail on
opposite sides of the stove. Mr. Holmes was slowly and carefully
putting the letters and papers into their proper compartments, at the
back of the store, looking up over his spectacles as each newcomer
entered.
"Hello, Gavin," called Marmaduke, "Cold day. Reg'lar Tory weather
we're gettin' these days."
"It'd be hot enough times if yous folks and Quebec was runnin' the
country," remarked old Tory Brown, while Mrs. Holmes, who had come in
to give a hand at distributing the mail, gave a warning before her
departure into the house, "Now, Pa, don't let the folks talk politics.
It's bad enough to have our boys goin' to the war without havin' war at
home."
Tilly ran forward and took Gavin's list and began to put up his
parcels. She stopped to stare out of the frosty window as a smart
cutter dashed up to the store veranda. A portly gentleman in the
uniform of a Major stepped out of it. He was not an unfamiliar figure
in the locality, having been through the country for some time raising
recruits for The Blue Bonnets. Major Harrison was not very successful
in his dealings with men, but if he had little influence at home he had
plenty at Ottawa and was sure of his position.
"Here comes Lord Kitchener," remarked Marmaduke. "Better take a good
look at him, Tilly. He'll maybe be goin' to the Front in a year or so,
and you won't see him for a while."
Mr. Holmes looked over his glasses, a flash of appreciation in his
eyes. Since Tommy had gone to the Front his father was on the lookout
for any one who stayed behind under the shelter of a khaki uniform and
Major Harrison was said to belong to that rapidly growing unit.
"Look out, Duke," he warned. "He's a great persuader, he'll have you
in The Blue Bonnets before you know what's happened you."
A joyous resolution suddenly shone in Marmaduke's eyes. He quickly
concealed his peg leg behind a barrel, and leaning back, the picture of
idleness, he drummed on the floor with his one good foot and whistled,
"It's a Long Way to Tipperary."
The Major swung open the door and marched in, followed by his bat man.
He had been but an indifferent business man on a small salary before he
fell upon the fat days of war, but now he had a servant and a position
of authority.
"Good-day, Mr. Holmes," he cried heartily. "Good-day, Miss Tilly,
you're looking as lovely as ever, I see."
Tilly gasped and giggled and took refuge in questioning Gavin as to
whether it was number forty or fifty white spool his Aunt wanted.
"Good-day, sir," cried Marmaduke heartily, suspending his musical
performance for a moment. "Glad to see you. Heard you were gone to
the Front. Glad to see it's a false alarm again."
"_But my heart's right there,_" he added tunefully, keeping time on the
top of a barrel with his fingers.
"How's things going in the Army, Major Harrison?" put in Mr. Holmes,
seeing the Major looking slightly annoyed.
"The Army's growing," answered the officer, pulling off his gloves and
spreading his cold hands over the stove.
"We just need a few more young fellows like you've got hanging round
this corner, and we'll have the Germans driven back to Berlin in
another month or so."
He looked around him sharply. "This is a war where no young chap
that's got red blood in his veins can stay at home." He glanced
meaningly from Gavin to Marmaduke.
Gavin was one of Marmaduke's warmest friends and he did not enjoy the
thought of the Major worrying him. He attempted to draw the fire to
himself.
"Some folks round here claims to have blue blood, though," he remarked
with a guilelessness that would have misled a German Spy. He
accomplished his object; the Major looked down at him.
"If their claims are true they won't be here long, my friend," he said
emphatically, but he turned to Gavin again.
"Come along, young man, and let me put you down for The Blue Bonnets.
It's the finest Battalion that's going overseas, and we've room for
only a few more. I believe you're Scotch, aren't you? What's your
name?"
"Grant, Gavin Grant."
"Grant! Why, you're the very fellow I'm looking for! Come along and
get into a kilt, man. What's a fellow by the name of Grant doing at
home when there's a war on? Wouldn't you like to go over and smash the
Germans, now?"
Gavin looked at him dumbly. It was as if a lost soul were being asked
if it would like to enter Paradise.
"Well, what's keeping you?" asked the Major impatiently.
"I--I can't leave the farm and my Aunts," he stammered.
"Pshaw, you're not tied to your Auntie's apron string, are you? Every
fellow I ask to enlist in this part of the country has got either an
aunt or a grandmother or a second cousin----"
"I'm worse off than that," interrupted Marmaduke, seeing that Gavin was
in misery, "I've got a--" His voice dropped to a confidential
whisper,--"A _girl_!"
The Major looked at him sharply, but Marmaduke was a perfect picture of
rural simplicity.
"You're not married are you?" he asked shortly, glancing at Tilly, who
had forgotten all about Gavin's purchases and was staring at the smart
officer in open-mouthed admiration.
"Well, not,--that is," Duke hesitated in evident painful embarrassment,
"well, we're not married yet, but we expect very soon,--" He turned a
languishing look upon Tilly, and indicated her to the Major with a jerk
of his thumb over his shoulder. "You wouldn't have a fellow go and
leave his girl now, would you?"
Tilly went off into a spasm of hysterical giggles and denials, and the
shoulders of the two old men beside the stove began to heave with
suppressed laughter.
"Oh, well, you're not married yet," cried the Major briskly. "You come
along and enlist in our Highland Battalion. What's your name?"
"Timothy O'Toole," said Marmaduke shamelessly, "and I'll go in no
Highland gang, I'd nivir do at all at all among them outlandish
spalpeens with their bare legs; Tilly wouldn't like it," he added
modestly.
"Pshaw! Everybody knows that half the Highland regiments in the
British Army are Irish. Enlist first and you can get married after.
Every girl admires the khaki, eh, Miss Holmes?"
Tilly was hanging on to the counter by this time, too far gone to be
able to enlighten the Major as to the truth, while her father was
standing with a bunch of letters in his hand, a pleased smile on his
face. Nobody minded Duke's nonsense and he dearly loved to see these
city fellows taken down a button hole or two.
"No sir," cried Duke firmly, "no Highland Battalion for me. I'm goin'
over wearin' o' the Grane or nothing at all. Besides my Bittalion
ain't goin' yet for a while. I was askin' some of them high-up
officers in Algonquin and they were tellin' me not to be in any hurry.
You see," he added confidingly, "it's this way. You can get
transferred. If you're in a Bittalion that's goin' over you get
transferred to another, and when it goes you get transferred again. I
can let you in on the thing if you'd like to know how they do it," he
added with ingratiating generosity.
The Major's face flamed hot. It was no secret that he had been going
through the transferring process. Red anger leaped into his eyes.
"Aw, what's the matter with you?" he asked, dropping his suave manner
and becoming abusive. "Are you one of those yellow-livered chaps
that's got chronic cold feet?"
"Well," said Marmaduke ingenuously, "it ain't quite so bad as that.
I've got one cold foot though, but I s'pose that wouldn't keep me out.
I guess a wooden leg wouldn't matter any more than a wooden head would
it?" And straight in the air he held his peg leg up to view.
The long pent up amusement of the audience burst forth. The two old
enemies across the stove broke into a simultaneous upheaval, a
disturbance that filled up the breach between them with the loose earth
of laughter. Mr. Holmes dropped his letters and chuckled loudly, and
as for Tilly, she was past giggling, she fairly shouted.
The Major turned and walked out, his face white with anger.
"He's gone to get transferred to the Five-Hundredth," declared Timothy
O'Toole joyfully. "I hear that Canada's goin' to send over Five
Hundred Battalions and he'll be all ready for the last one."
"Ah, Duke, Duke, you're a rascal," said Mr. Holmes reprovingly.
"It's the only fun I can get out o' this business of stayin' at home,"
declared Duke, his face growing grave, "and I guess I need all that's
comin' to me with Trooper and the other fellows away fightin' for me!"
Gavin could not join the laughter. He was too deeply hurt. He
gathered up his parcels and hurried away; and once more the bells set
themselves to the tune of "Blue Bonnets" and played "March, March, Why,
ma lads, dinna' ye March Forward in Order?" as he drove home.
Auntie Elspie was talking to Hughie Reid in deep conference when Gavin
arrived at the farm, and on the way home she was so silent, that he was
worried over her.
"You're not cold, are you, Auntie Elspie?" he asked for the third time,
as he tucked the old sheep skin robe around her.
"No, no, lad, I'm not cold," she said, but she shivered as she said it.
It was not the blustering February wind that chilled, but the cold hand
that seemed closing round her heart, the knowledge that now it was
possible for Gavin to go and that soon she must tell him. She put off
the evil day. She could not tell him to-night, she felt, but perhaps
on the morrow.
As they were sitting down to their early supper and the February sunset
was turning all the white fields to a glory of rose and gold, a big
sleigh-load of merry young folk came jingling down the glittering road
and swept past the house with a storm of bell-music. There was a good
Winter road here across their sheltered valley and through the swamp to
Dalton's Corners and the Orchard Glen Choir was taking its musical way
thither. They were singing "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," and Auntie
Janet, young as any of them, ran to the door and waved to them, while
Bruce and Wallace and Prince and Bonnie bounded out barking madly. But
Gavin did not go near the door nor look after them. He suspected
Christina would be there, and most likely Wallace Sutherland and their
gay company was not for him.
"You ought to be going with them, Gavie, lad," cried Auntie Janet,
coming in with a rush of fresh air. "Listen, they're singin': 'All the
Blue Bonnets are over the Border!' now! Eh, isn't it bonnie?"
Auntie Elspie's loving eyes were watching Gavin, and her sinking heart
told her she must soon do something to put an end to his misery.
He went to his bed early that night, before they could ask him to sing,
but he could not sleep. He heard Auntie Janet and Auntie Flora come up
the creaking old stairs together, talking in whispers lest they disturb
him. They shared a room at the end of the hall and Auntie Elspie's
room was opposite his. It was quite late when finally he heard her
come up to bed. But yet he could not sleep. His window-blind was
rolled to the top and the moonlight flooded his room. Outside the
diamond-spangled earth lay still and frost bound. Craig-Ellachie stood
out white, silver-crowned, against the blue of the forest. Gavin
raised himself on his elbow and looked out at the silent beauty of the
night. The great white expanse seemed calling to him to come away and
do as his fellow heroes were doing. He ought to be lying in a freezing
trench, grasping a rifle instead of skulking in a feather bed wrapped
in warm blankets. But indeed the bed had become a very rack to poor
Gavin, the blankets smothered him. He tossed from side to side, vainly
seeking relief.
Suddenly he sat up in bed, holding his breath to listen. The great
glittering space of the outdoor world had taken voice and was crying
out against him for not playing the man. From far across the silver
sheen of the fields, clear and piercing, came the words,
"By oppression's woes and pains,
By our sons in servile chains,
We will drain our dearest veins
But they shall be free!
Lay the proud usurper low;
Tyrants fall in every foe;
Liberty's in every blow;
Let us do--or die!"
Gavin sprang from his bed and flung on his clothes madly. He had a
wild notion that he must run out to the road and shout aloud to the
world that he was coming, coming to the battle-front! When he was
dressed he ran to the window and threw it up and his madness departed
from him. It was only the gay sleigh-load returning from the Dalton
tea-meeting. They swept past the house, setting his dogs barking
madly, and the song died away as they disappeared down the glittering
silver road. Gavin leaned far out of the window; his burning face
stung by the cold air.
"Stand fast, Craig-Ellachie!" he whispered through his clenched teeth.
The hot tears came smarting to his eyes, and he suddenly drew back,
ashamed of his weakness. He closed the window, remembering even in his
misery to do it quietly so as not to disturb the dear ones who were
sleeping. He still knelt on at the window watching the shining track
where the song of deathless liberty was fading away.
But there was a pair of loving ears near, that had heard all Gavin's
movements. Auntie Elspie slept in the room opposite his, and ever
since the night he had developed the whooping cough she had kept her
door ajar and that was the reason she knew that her boy had not been
sleeping well for many a night. And to-night she lay awake listening
to the incessant creak of his old roped bed, and sharing his misery.
She knew she could not bear it much longer, she must rise and tell him
he was free. And then she heard him bounding from his bed, and the
notes of the song as it swept gloriously past and died away.
She rose from her bed and lit the lamp. She dressed herself fully, for
she knew there was no more sleep for her that night. She was trembling
from head to foot, and praying for strength to carry out her heavy
task. She had something of the feeling of the patriarch when the
imperative Voice called, "Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom
thou lovest, and offer him for a burnt offering." She dropped on her
knees before her bed. She knelt a long time, and then, strengthened,
obedient to the Voice that summons all great souls, she rose and walked
into Gavin's room.
Gavin was still kneeling by the window when she entered. His hair,
touched by the moonlight, was soft and wavy, he looked very young and
grief-stricken. For a moment the vision of him lying wounded and
helpless in a trench, uncared for, shook her brave resolve. A great
lump rose in her throat. She braced herself and said softly, "Gavin,
Laddie!"
Gavin leaped to his feet. "Auntie Elspie!" he cried in amazement, his
eyes dazzled by the light, "why, you are dressed! You're not sick?" he
cried anxiously, taking the lamp from her hand.
"No, no," she said; "I'm jist all right. Put the lamp down, hinny, I
want to talk with you." She sat down on the edge of his bed and he
placed the lamp on his high old dresser and came and sat beside her
wonderingly.
"I couldn't help hearing you tossing about. You're not sleepin',
Gavie, you're worryin', lad."
"No, no, Auntie Elspie," he cried hastily, "I'm all right, I'm not
sick. You go back to bed, do. You'll catch cold."
But the woman only gazed at him mournfully. "Eh, eh, hinny, I ken all
about it," she whispered, lapsing into broader Scotch in her agitation.
"Ye can't hide things from your Auntie Elspie. Ye're wearyin' to be
away to the war, I ken as well as if ye telled me."
There was a wail in her voice that wrung Gavin's heart. "Oh, Auntie
Elspie," he cried, "oh, no, no! I'll never leave you. I'll not be
going. I'm not wearying. I know what my duty is; and it's here at
home with you." He was repeating his assurance incoherently, when she
stopped him.
"Gavie, there's no need to tell your Auntie Elspie that you would do
all that is in your power for us. I ken you've kept silence all these
months for fear of giving us pain. But I've been watching you, and I
guessed what ailed you. And it is what we would have, Gavie. We would
not have you want to stay at home while others go to die for us to save
our homes and lives. And indeed it's proud I am this night, even if my
heart is sore--sore----"
She broke down a moment, and again Gavin firmly declared his decision.
He could not deny he wanted to go to the Front he confessed, but maybe
it was just a foolish love of adventure and it did not interfere with
the fact that he was needed at home.
"So I'll jist stay here, Auntie Elspie," he repeated, "I am needed
here, and I would be ashamed to turn my back on you. I couldn't be
happy knowing you needed me, and I wasn't here to take care of you all."
And so they argued the matter far into the night, Auntie Elspie
insisting that he should go, and the boy declaring that he would not.
She was reinforced shortly by her sisters. Auntie Flora had heard the
low rumble of voices and had seen the light in Gavin's room. She
wakened Janet, and fearing that Gavin's strange conduct had culminated
in an attack of some real illness, the two anxious old ladies hurriedly
flung on some clothes and went down the hall to Gavin's room. And
there they found a strange scene, Elspie urging Gavin to enlist, and
Gavin holding back and declaring that nothing would induce him to go to
the war!
It was the look in his two younger Aunts' eyes, when the case was
explained to them, that first shook Gavin's resolution. Auntie Flora
stood up tall and stately, and her face flushed proudly as she turned
to Janet. "What did I tell ye!" she cried triumphantly, "I knew he
wanted to go!" And Auntie Janet burst into tears, and hiding her face
in the old shawl she had thrown round her shoulders she sobbed, "Aye,
and I said it, too. I knew ye couldn't be the kind that would want to
stay at home, Gavie." And Gavin comforted them in a state of
speechless wonder. It appeared that after all they had been waiting
for him to express a desire to go and that their pride was quite equal
to their grief!