could desire; porridge in brown bowls, smoking and fragrant, sweet
white bread, and bannocks with plenty of maple syrup. And afterwards,
when the supper was cleared away, and Scotty and Hamish had finished
the milking, they all gathered about the stove, which now stood in
front of the old discarded fireplace. First the schoolmaster had to
tell of his life and lineage, during which recital he proved his
Scottish blood to everyone's satisfaction. There did not seem to be
much to tell of his past doings, though in response to the simple,
kindly questionings, he gave it all. He had been born in Scotland and
was quite alone in Canada, except for Captain Herbert, who was an old
friend, and whose wife had been a distant relative. He had studied law
for some years, but his health had failed before his course was
completed. Then he had knocked about the world a good deal, and had
come north at Captain Herbert's advice to see if the Oro air would not
do him good.
"Indeed, and it will that!" Big Malcolm declared heartily. "Jist you
eat plenty o' pork and oatmeal porridge and you'll be a new man in no
time. Hoots, when we would be coming here first folk would never be
sick like now-a-days; and indeed it wasn't often a man died except a
tree would be falling on him, whatever."
"Those must have been fine times," said the schoolmaster smilingly; and
thereupon his host and hostess launched into long tales of the old
days, when the forest came up to the door, and of those older and
happier days in the homeland across the sea.
Big Malcolm and his wife lived much in the past now, and, when the
guest displayed a kindly interest in their history, they opened their
hearts even to speak of Callum, their light-hearted, bright Callum,
whose end had been so untimely. The schoolmaster heard also the manner
of his death; how it had brought the great preacher, and how in the
double grave in the Glen by the river one of the Fighting MacDonalds,
at least, had buried all his feuds. And they told him, too, of their
only daughter, the beautiful little Margaret, who had been Scotty's
mother. Monteith asked many questions concerning her, and Scotty
listened eagerly, but his new friend offered no explanation of his
interest.
When it was time to depart, Big Malcolm was for insisting that he
should spend the night with them; but when he declared that he must
return to the Glen, or Mrs. Thompson would be worried, his hostess
seized the teapot again, and another supper was spread out, of which
the guest had perforce to partake before leaving.
That finished, Big Malcolm reverently laid aside his bonnet, and Scotty
brought him the old yellow-leaved Bible. The old man read the 103d
Psalm in a triumphant tone that showed he had passed all his
temptations and trials, and now in a serene old age his soul blessed
the Lord for His guidance.
And then they sang a Psalm, Old Farquhar coming out from his corner to
join them. They sang it in English, in deference to the guest's lack
of Gaelic, and the brown rafters rang to the solemn old Scottish tune
in harmony with the beautiful words:
"Oh, taste and see that God is good:
Who trusts in Him is bless'd!"
And listening, the man of the world experienced a vague sensation of
something like regretful envy. Had he not, in his broader life, missed
some uplifting joy, some great blessing in which these old people
rejoiced?
While Monteith was taking a lingering farewell and promising a speedy
return, Scotty went to a corner and lit the lantern, and in spite of
the schoolmaster's protests, insisted upon accompanying him for a mile
to show him the short road across the swamp.
The two walked side by side along the snowy path, the lantern flashing
fitfully amongst the bare branches and dark boles of the trees.
Monteith chatted away pleasantly, but Scotty answered only in
monosyllables. He was employed in making desperate efforts to bring
about some allusion to the condition of the schoolhouse. But the new
master seemed to have totally forgotten school affairs, and when they
came to the end of the forest path and stood upon the Glenoro road,
saying good-night, this strange man had not in the smallest way
recurred to the shameful subject. Scotty was in despair. "It would be
a fool's trick we were doing!" he burst forth, as Monteith held out his
hand in farewell, "if we could jist be having another day----" He
stopped overcome.
The new master did not seem to need an explanation of this apparently
irrelevant speech. "Could you fix it all up in one day?" he inquired
in a business-like manner.
"Oh, yes!" Scotty gasped eagerly, "easy."
"All right, we'll take to-morrow; I'll come over and help you.
Good-night!"
And he turned away, leaving his pupil standing in the middle of the
road amazed and humbled.
Number Nine learned during the following week that for some
inexplicable reason the MacDonalds, whose hand had hitherto been
against every other man's hand, were on the side of the new master, and
that anyone who gave him trouble was courting dire calamities at the
hands of Big Malcolm's Scot. As a direct result the fiat went forth
that Dan Murphy, and consequently all his generation, also approved of
the new rule. Subsequently the Tenth announced its neutrality; and
from that time the new era, which had arisen at the building of the
church in the social world of the Oro valley, dawned in the schoolhouse
too, and the land had rest from war.
To no one did the new dispensation bring greater things than to Scotty.
Ever since the days when all knowledge and wisdom could be extracted,
by persistent questionings, from Hamish, he had experienced an
unslakable thirst for books. He had been much more fortunate in
finding reading material than his uncle had been, for Captain Herbert's
library was always at Scotty's disposal. Every summer and winter
Isabel came to Kirsty's laden with books, and what feasts she and
Scotty had reading under the boughs of the Silver Maple or before
Kirsty's fire! Dickens, Scott, Thackeray, Macaulay--they devoured them
all; and once, by mistake, she had brought some books by a wonderful
man named Carlyle, which she declared were dreadfully stupid, but which
Scotty found strangely fascinating, though somewhat beyond his
understanding.
But Isabel had been away at school for more than a year now, and though
she wrote Scotty voluminous letters, which he answered at shamefully
long intervals, and only when Kirsty's reproaches goaded him to the
effort, she had almost entirely passed out of his life.
So when there had been no more books to read he had turned his restless
energies into less profitable channels. But now, here were not only
books of all kinds, but a man ready and willing to interpret them.
Scotty heard no more of the sentence of expulsion, and with the energy
that characterised everything he did, he plunged headlong into a course
of study far beyond any public school curriculum. Monteith was first
amazed, then delighted, and lastly found he had to set himself severe
tasks to keep sufficiently ahead of his pupil.
And in return for his pains Scotty gave an allegiance to his master
that had in it something of homage. Not the gay, reckless Callum was
his hero now, but this quiet, self-controlled gentleman. Unconsciously
the boy copied him in every particular, and unquestioningly adopted his
opinions. Monteith had seen the world, had lived in cities, and even
in that magic land, "the old country," and surely he should be an
authority. Scotty early learned that the new master despised the
tavern, not quite in the way Store Thompson and the minister and his
grandfather did, as a force of evil, but in lofty scorn of its lowness.
In consequence the boy was never found hanging about its doors any
more. And though the teacher said nothing about his religious views,
the pupil soon learned and adopted them too. Monteith treated all
creeds with a good-natured tolerance. The Bible, he declared, was a
grand piece of literature, and he liked to go to church because Mr.
Cameron's sermons gave him some intellectual stimulus. Religion he
characterised chiefly as an emotion. A man needed only common sense to
show him how to live, he declared. Scotty felt that this was the creed
for him; he had come under Monteith's control at a period when he was
in revolt against all earlier restraint and rejoiced in the feeling of
independence which the new belief brought.
The two soon became fast friends in their common pursuit of learning.
When the second winter came, and Scotty had become too old for school,
he and Monteith studied together in the long evenings, and each month
of companionship served to deepen their friendship. But in spite of
their intimacy the boy never elicited any explanation of his friend's
strange behaviour when he first realised that Scotty's name was
Stanwell. Monteith was always careful to call him Ralph, but he
forebore from any allusion to the subject; and as the days went happily
on the matter dropped from the boy's thoughts.
XI
THE WEAVER'S REWARD
Love came at dawn when all the world was fair,
When crimson glories, bloom and song were rife;
Love came at dawn when hope's wings fanned the air,
And murmured, "I am life."
Love came at even when the day was done,
When heart and brain were tired and slumber pressed;
Love came at eve, shut out the sinking sun,
And whispered, "I am rest."
--WILLIAM WILFRED CAMPBELL.
And just as Scotty entered manhood a wonderful thing happened in the
Highlands, something that amazed the neighbours and convinced them of
the instability of all things, particularly of a woman's resolution,
for Kirsty John promised to marry the Weaver. All these weary years,
as faithful as the sun and as untiring, Jimmie had been climbing the
hills to the Oa to shed the beams of his devotion unheeded at Kirsty's
doorstep; but now the long period of Jacob-like service was over, for
he had at last won his Rachel.
Some declared that this was only a new method Kirsty had found for
tormenting her hapless lover, and that after they were tied up she
would lead him a dog's life. But Long Lauchie's girls--there were
still girls at Long Lauchie's, though a goodly number of matrons looked
back to the place as their old home--declared that Jimmie no longer
dodged when Kirsty passed him, and that he even entered her house
without knocking. And Big Malcolm's wife would shake her head
smilingly at all the dark predictions and declare in her quiet, firm
way that indeed they need never fear for Jimmie.
And she was right; the Weaver was not undertaking any such hazardous
enterprise as the neighbours supposed. For a change had come over
Kirsty the winter she lost the frail little mother, and only Big
Malcolm's wife knew its depth. All Kirsty's bold courage, all her
fearless fight with poverty, had had for its inspiration the poor
sufferer on the bed in the corner of the little shanty, and when the
spring of action was removed there went also the daughter's dauntless
spirit, and nowhere was the change so strongly evinced as in this
promise to marry the Weaver.
Kirsty's grief had no bitterness in it. It had softened her greatly,
for the little mother's death had been as beautiful as her patient,
pain-filled life. And wonderful it seemed that, like that other woman
who had suffered so long before, just eighteen years of pain had been
completed when the Master called her to Him and said in His infinite
love, "Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity."
"But you will surely not be leaving me," pleaded Kirsty brokenly when
her mother told her the end could not be far off. "Ah've nobody but
you."
"Eh, ma lassie, ye'll be better wi'oot such a puir auld buddie, jist a
burden to ye a' these years."
"Oh, mother, mother, ye'll surely not be talkin' that way to me,"
sobbed her daughter.
"Eh, eh, lass! There, there! It's naething but the best Ah could say
to ye, Kirsty." The weak old hand was fumbling feebly for Kirsty's
bowed head. "For, eh, ye've jist been that guid to yer mither, the
Lord'll reward ye; Ah've nae fear o' ye, Kirsty, He'll reward ye."
There was a long silence in the little room. The fire flared up in the
old chimney, the clock's noisy pendulum went tap, tap, tap, loud and
clear in the stillness. "Read it tae me jist once mair, Kirsty," she
whispered. Kirsty arose and fetched the old yellow-leaved Bible from
the dresser. She did not need to be told what she was to read.
"Aye," whispered the old woman with a gleam of triumph in her eyes,
"aye, He called her; an' it's jist eighteen year. Aye, eighteen! Eh,
it's been a long time, Kirsty," she continued as her daughter seated
herself at the bedside again, "eh, a weary time, an' the pain's been
that bad, whiles, Ah wished He would tak' it awa, but Ah didna ask Him.
No, no! She didna ask Him, an' Ah jist waited like her, an' it's
eighteen year, and Ah think He'll be callin' me.... Read it, Kirsty."
Kirsty opened the Book; her eyes were blinded with tears, but she had
so often read that passage that she knew it by heart. She was
faltering through it when a timid step sounded, a crunch, crunch on the
snow outside the door, and a low tap, scarcely audible above the noise
of the clock, announced Weaver Jimmie. Old Collie, lying before the
fire, so accustomed to Jimmie's approach, merely uttered a gruff snort,
as though to apprise all that he was well aware that someone had
arrived, but did not consider the visitor worthy of his notice. But as
Kirsty opened the door he thumped his tail upon the hearthstone.
For the first time in his life Weaver Jimmie realised that Kirsty was
glad to see him, and his heart leaped. But he choked at the sight of
her grief-stricken face, and could only stand and look down at his
great "shoepacks" in the snow.
"Will ye bring Big Malcolm's Marget," whispered Kirsty, "mother's----"
She stopped, unable to say more, but more was unnecessary, for, eager
to do her bidding, Jimmie was already off across the white clearing and
was lost to view before she could shut the door.
Kirsty went softly back to the bed.
"Was it Jimmie?" whispered her mother.
"Yes."
"He's a kind chiel, Kirsty. Ye must marry puir Jimmie, ma lassock,
he's got a guid hert, an' he'll mak' ye a kind man, an' Ah'll no be
fearin' for ye." She paused, and then came the whisper, "Read it." So
Kirsty read it to her for the last time, the sweet old story that had
comforted the poor, pain-racked woman and upheld her in patience and
fortitude for eighteen weary years of suffering. And when at the end
of the story came those gracious words bearing a world of love and
divine compassion, "And Jesus called her to Him and said unto her,
Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity," Kirsty paused. Her
mother always interrupted there, always broke in with a word of
triumph, a renewal of the firm faith that for eighteen years had
forbidden her to ask for relief. But as she waited now there came no
sound, and, looking up, she saw that the Divine Healer had loosed this
other woman from her infirmity and made her straight and beautiful in
His kingdom of happiness.
And so Kirsty, always kind and true-hearted, had been made better and
more womanly by her trial; and although she kept her faithful suitor
waiting for a couple of years more, she yielded at last and the Weaver
received his reward.
As if to be in keeping with the time of life at which the bride and
groom had arrived, the wedding day was set in the autumn; the soft
vaporous October days when the Oro forests were all aflame.
Kirsty had refused to leave her little farm; so Jimmie, well content,
had a fine new frame house built close to her old home; and as soon as
the wedding was over he was to bring his loom from the Glen and they
would begin their new life together.
Kirsty declared that he might bring the loom any day, for there was to
be no nonsense at her wedding; they would drive to the minister's in
the Glen by themselves, and she would be home in time to milk the cows
in the evening.
But when she saw the bitter disappointment a quiet wedding would be to
the prospective groom, she had not the heart to insist. For years
Jimmie had buoyed up his sorely-tried courage by the ecstatic picture
of himself and Kirsty dancing on their wedding night, he the envy of
all the MacDonald boys, she the pattern for all the girls; and though
neither he nor his bride were any longer young, he still cherished his
youthful dream. And then Long Lauchie's girls came over in a body and
demanded a wedding and a fine big dance, and even Big Malcolm's wife
declared it would hardly be right not to have some public recognition
of the fact that there was a wedding among the MacDonalds.
And so, laughing at what she called their foolishness, Kirsty yielded,
and the girls came over and sewed and scrubbed and baked, and Scotty
and Peter Lauchie gathered in the apples and turnips and potatoes and
raked away all the dead leaves and made everything neat and tidy for
the great event.
And the day actually dawned, in spite of Weaver Jimmie's anticipation
that some dire catastrophe would befall to prevent it. A radiant
autumn day it was, a Canadian autumn day, when all the best days of the
year seem combined to crown its close. The dazzling skies belonged to
June, the air was of balmiest May, and the earth was clothed in hues of
the richest August blooms. The forest was a blaze of colour. The
sumachs and the woodbine made flaming patches on the hills and in the
fence-corners. The glossy oaks, with their polished bronze leaves, and
the pale, yellow elms softened the glow and blended with the distant
purple haze. But Canada's own maple made all the rest of the forest
look pale, where it lined the road to the bride's house, in rainbows of
colour, rose and gold and passionate crimson.
Early in the afternoon high double buggies, waggons, and buckboards
began clattering up the lane to Kirsty's dwelling. And such a crowd as
they brought! In the exuberance of his joy Weaver Jimmie had bidden
all and sundry between the two lakes. And besides, everyone in the Oa
went to a MacDonald wedding, anyway. Invitations were always issued in
a rather haphazard fashion, and if one did not get a direct call, it
mattered little in this land of prodigal hospitality, for one always
bestowed a compliment upon one's host by attending.
Long Lauchie's girls took the whole affair out of Kirsty's hands and
arranged everything to their hearts' desire. The cooking and washing
of dishes was to be done in the old house, while the double ceremony of
the marriage and the wedding dinner was to be performed in the new
establishment.
This place was gaily decorated with the aromatic boughs of the cedar,
dressed with scarlet berries and crimson maple leaves. A table at one
end held the wedding presents. This was the work of the Lauchie girls,
too, for Kirsty felt it was nothing short of ostentation to put up to
the public gaze all the fine quilts and blankets and hooked mats the
neighbours had given her towards the furnishing of the new home. But
the girls had their way in this as in all other arrangements, and most
conspicuous in the fine array were a Bible from the minister and a set
of fine gilt-edged china dishes from Captain Herbert's family.
And amidst all this splendour sat the bride, sedate and happy, arrayed
in a bright blue poplin dress and the regulation white cap.
Beside her sat Jimmie, his arm about her in proper bridegroom fashion,
but loosely, for Kirsty was not to be trifled with, even on her wedding
day. He sat up, erect and stiff, strangling ecstatically in a flaring
white collar, and striving manfully to keep his broad smiles from
overflowing into loud laughter, for poor Jimmie's belated joy bordered
on the hysterical. His magnificent appearance almost eclipsed the
bride. He wore a coat of black, such as the minister himself might
have envied, a saffron waistcoat, and a pair of black and white
trousers of a startlingly large check. His hair was oiled and combed
up fiercely, his red whiskers waged a doubtful warfare for first place
with the white collar, his big feet were doubly conspicuous in a pair
of red-topped, high-heeled boots which, unfortunately, met the trousers
halfway and swallowed up much of their glory. But as both could not be
exposed, Jimmie, evidently believing in the survival of the fittest,
had allowed the boots the place of honour.
Scotty drove his grandmother over to Kirsty's early in the morning, for
the bride said she must have her mother's old friend with her all day;
and when he returned in company with Hamish, his grandfather, and Old
Farquhar, it was almost the hour set for the ceremony.
The wedding guests had already gathered in large numbers, many of them
standing about the door or in the garden--matrons in gay plaid shawls,
with here and there a fantastic "Paisley" brought out, for this festive
occasion, from the seclusion of some deep sea-chest; men,
weather-beaten and stooped, in grey flannel shirtsleeves, showing an
occasional genteel Sabbath coat from the Glen; bright-eyed lasses, with
gay touches of finery to brighten their young beauty; youths in heavy
boots and homespun clothing, gathered in laughing groups as far from
the house as possible; and everywhere babies of all sizes.
Scotty left a crowd of his friends at the barn and went up to the house
to look for Monteith. The schoolmaster had spent the preceding
Saturday and Sunday with his friends at Lake Oro, but had promised
Jimmie faithfully that he would not miss the wedding. As the young man
swung open the little garden gate and came up the pathway between rows
of Kirsty's asters he caught sight of his friend standing in the
doorway of the new house, and gave a gay whistle. Monteith looked up
quickly, but instead of answering he turned to someone inside the house.
"Here he is at last," he called, "come and see if you think he's grown
any."
And the same instant a vision flashed into the little doorway, a vision
that nearly took away Scotty's breath--a tall young lady in a blue
velvet gown with a sweet, laughing face and a crown of golden hair
overshadowed by a big plumed hat, a lady who looked as if she had just
stepped out of a book of romance; a high-born princess, very remote and
unapproachable, and yet, somehow, strangely, enchantingly familiar.
The vision apparently did not want to be remote, for it came down the
steps in a little, headlong rush, casting a pair of gloves to one side
and a cape to the other, and caught hold of both Scotty's hands.
"_Scotty_! Oh, oh, Scotty, _dear_!" it cried; and then it was no
longer an unapproachable heroine from a story-book, but just Isabel;
Isabel, his old chum, and something more, something strangely
wonderfully new.
Scotty did not return her welcome with the warmth he would have shown a
few years earlier. He stood gazing down at her as if in a dream, and
then the red came up under the dark tan of his cheek and overspread his
face. He dropped her hands and looked around hastily, as if he wanted
to escape. But Isabel dragged him up the garden path in her old way,
deluging him with questions for which she never waited an answer. She
had seen Granny Malcolm and Betty and Peter, and she had been afraid he
wasn't coming. And, oh, wasn't it an awfully long time since she had
seen any of them? And didn't he think he was very unkind not to have
answered her last two letters? And she had been away at school all
this endless time, not home to the Grange even in the summer! And, oh,
how glad she was to get back! And how he had grown! Why, he was a
giant! And had he missed her? She had missed him just awfully, for
Harold was away all the time now. And wasn't it just too perfectly
lovely for anything that Kirsty and Jimmie were getting married, and
that he and she were together at the wedding?
Scotty stood and listened to these ecstatic outpourings, his head
swimming. He was enveloped in a rose-coloured mist, a mist in which
blue velvet and golden hair and dancing eyes surrounded and dazzled
him. One moment he was a child again, and his little playmate had come
back, and the next he was a man and Isabel was the lady of romance.
And while he stood in this delightful daze someone came and took the
vision away; he thought it was Mary Lauchie, but was not sure. When
she had disappeared into the new house he awoke sufficiently to notice
that Monteith was standing at the door regarding him with twinkling
eyes, and for the second time that afternoon he blushed.