soon found an excuse to enter also. It hadn't been a dream after all,
for she was there, sitting close by Kirsty, holding her hand, and
surrounded by the people who made up the more genteel portion of
society in the Oa and the Glen. A little space seemed to divide them
from the common crowd, and she sat, the recognised centre of the group.
Scotty noticed, too, that even Mrs. Cameron, the minister's wife,
treated the young lady with bland deference, quite unlike her manner of
kind condescension towards the MacDonald girls. As he watched the
graceful gestures and easy well-bred air of his late comrade, Scotty
was suddenly smitten with a sense of his own shortcomings; he was
rough, uncouth, awkward. Isabel belonged to a different sphere; she
was far removed from him and his people. It was the first time he had
realised the difference, and he felt it just at the moment that it
first had power to hurt him. He experienced a sudden return of the old
wild ambition that used to shake him in his childhood when Rory played
a warlike air. And then he wanted to slip out and go away from the
wedding feast and never see Isabel again. He glanced at her again, and
felt resentfully that she must surely be guilty of the sin of "pride,"
which so characterised the class to which she belonged.
But he had soon to change his mind. The blue eyes had been glancing
eagerly about the room, and as soon as they spied him their owner arose
and came crushing through the throng towards him. For though Scotty
was distrustful, Isabel's frank simplicity of nature had not changed in
her years of absence. Her happiest days had been spent in the Oa, and
her return to her old home with its sense of welcome and freedom meant
more to the lonely girl than he could realise. Practically she had
been brought up among the MacDonalds, and at heart she was one of them.
Scotty saw her approach in combined joy and embarrassment, and just as
he was trying to efface himself in a corner he found her at his side.
She wanted to talk about the good old times, she whispered, as she
pulled him down beside her on the low window sill. "They were just the
loveliest old times, weren't they, Scotty? And don't you hate to be
grown up?" she asked.
Hate it? Scotty gloried in it. It was a new birth. He tried to say
so, but Isabel shook her head emphatically.
"Well, I don't, and you wouldn't in my place, for I can't run in the
bush any more. Aunt Eleanor bewails me; she says I've been spoiled by
Kirsty, for I can't settle down to a proper life in the city. The
backwoods is the best place, isn't it, Scotty?"
He drew a long breath. "Do you mean you'd really like to come here and
live with--with Kirsty again?" he asked.
"Oh, wouldn't I?" she cried, her eyes sparkling so that Scotty had to
look away. "It was never dull here. Don't you wish I'd come back,
too?"
Scotty felt his head reeling. "I--don't know," he faltered ungallantly.
"You don't know?" she echoed indignantly. "Scotty MacDonald, how can
you say such a mean thing?"
Scotty looked up with a sudden desperate boldness.
"Because I wouldn't be doing any work if you were here," he exclaimed
with a recklessness that appalled even himself.
Isabel laughed delightedly. "That's lovely," she cried. "Do you know,
I was beginning to be afraid, _almost_, that you weren't just very glad
to see me, and--and you always used to be. You _are_ glad I came,
aren't you, Scotty?"
Like a timid swimmer, who, having once plunged in, discovers his own
strength and gains courage, Scotty struck out boldly into the
conversational sea.
"It was the best thing that ever happened in all my life," he answered
deliberately.
She was prevented from receiving this important declaration with the
consideration it deserved by a sudden silence falling over the room.
The minister was standing up in the centre of the room, clearing his
throat and looking around portentously. The ceremony was about to
commence, and all conversation was instantly hushed. Mothers quieted
their babies, and the men came clumsily tiptoeing indoors. Whenever
possible the more ceremonious precincts of the house were left to the
more adaptable sex, the masculine portion of such assemblies always
retiring to the greater freedom of the barn and outbuildings. Now they
came crowding in, however, obviously embarrassed, but when the minister
stood up, book in hand, and a hush fell over the room, the affair took
on a religious aspect and everyone felt more at home.
Mr. Cameron moved to a little open space in the centre of the room, and
bade Kirsty and Weaver Jimmie stand before him. Mary Lauchie, pale and
drooping as she always was now, stood at Kirsty's side, and Jimmie had
the much needed support of Roarin' Sandy's Archie, now the most
fashionable young man in the Oa, who was resplendent in aromatic hair
oil and a flaming tie. Jimmie was white and trembling, but Kirsty was
calm. Only once did she show any emotion, when she had to search for
her neatly-folded handkerchief in the pocket of her ample skirt to wipe
away a tear--a tear that, all the sympathetic onlookers knew, was for
the little mother who had said so confidently she had no fears for
Kirsty's future.
At last the minister pronounced them one, and the friends gathered
about them with their congratulations, and, to the delight of all, what
should Miss Herbert do, after hugging the bride, but fling her arms
about the bridegroom's neck also and give him a sounding kiss! If
anything could have added to Jimmie's pride and joy at that moment,
this treatment by Kirsty's little girl would certainly have done so.
And then came the wedding supper, the tables set out with the precious
new china dishes and weighed down and piled up with everything good the
MacDonald matrons knew how to cook. The bride and groom sat close
together at the head of the long table, Jimmie's affectionate
demonstrations partially hidden by the huge wedding cake. The minister
sat at the foot, and after a long and fervent grace had been said
everyone drew a deep breath and proceeded to enjoy himself.
There was a deal of clatter and noise and laughter and running to and
fro of waiters. In the old house where the work was going on, and
where there was no minister to put a damper on the proceedings, there
were high times indeed; for Dan Murphy was there, and wherever Dan was
there was sure to be an uproar. Scotty was responsible for the young
man's presence; he had invited Mr. Murphy on the strength of his own
relationship to both contracting parties, knowing a warm welcome was
assured. So, with an apron tied round his waist, Dan was making a fine
pretence of helping Betty Lauchie wash dishes, his chief efforts,
however, being directed towards balancing pots of boiling water in
impossible positions, twirling precious plates in the air, and other
outlandish feats that added a great deal to the enjoyment, but very
little to the competence, of the assembled cooks.
Scotty joined the army of workers in the shanty, but he had left the
blue vision seated at the table between his grandparents, and his
culinary efforts were not much more successful than Dan's. His chum
tried to rally him on his absent looks, and made a sly allusion to the
effusive greeting of the young lady from Lake Oro. But Scotty met his
well-meant raillery with such unwonted ferocity that he very promptly
subsided.
In the new house, where the elder guests were gathered about the table,
affairs were much more ceremonious, for all the genteel folk the
neighbourhood could boast were there, and Jimmie's face shone with
pride as he glanced down the splendid array.
The bridegroom's joy seemed to permeate the whole feast. There was
much talk and laughter, and, among the elder women, a wonderful clatter
of Gaelic. For only on such rare occasions as this had they a chance
to meet, and there were many lengthy recountings of sicknesses, deaths,
and burials.
Long Lauchie, as usual, was full of vague and ominous prophecies. His
remarks were chiefly concerning the wedding feast to which those who
were bidden refused to come, with dark reference to the man who had not
on the wedding garment; neither of which allusions, surely, pointed to
either Weaver Jimmie or his marriage festivities. Near him, in a
little circle where English was spoken, Praying Donald and the minister
were leading a discussion on the evidences of Christianity. There was
only one quarter in which there were signs of anything but perfect
amity, and that was where a heated argument had arisen between Old
Farquhar and Peter Sandy Johnstone upon the respective merits of Ossian
and Burns; a discussion which, in spite of the age of the disputants,
would certainly have ended in blows, had it been in the old days when a
marriage was scarcely considered binding without a liberal supply of
whiskey.
But Kirsty's wedding, happily, belonged to the new era, and the
minister, glancing round the well conducted assemblage and recalling
the days, not so far past, when most of the Highlanders enlivened any
and every social function, from a barn-raising to a burial, with
spirits, heaved a great sigh of gratitude. And Store Thompson
unconsciously voiced his sentiments when he declared, in a neatly
turned little speech, that the occasion was "jist an auspicious
consummation-like."
There were several other speakers besides the minister and Store
Thompson, and each made the kindliest allusions to both bride and
groom; but, like the true Scots they were, carefully refrained from
paying compliments. There were songs and stories, too, stirring
Scottish choruses, and tales of the early days and of the great doings
in the homeland. Then Big Malcolm's Farquhar, who had long ago come to
regard himself in the light of the old itinerant bards, sang, like
Chibiabos, to make the wedding guests more contented. He had but a
single English song in his repertoire, one which he rendered with much
pride, and only on state occasions. This was a flowery love-lyric,
entitled "The Grave of Highland Mary," and was Farquhar's one tribute
to the despised Burns. It consisted of a half-dozen lengthy stanzas,
each followed by a still lengthier refrain, and was sung to an ancient
and erratic air that rose and fell like the wail of the winter winds in
the bare treetops. The venerable minstrel sang with much fervour, and
only in the last stanza did the swelling notes subside in any
noticeable degree. This was not because the melancholy words demanded,
but because the singer was rather out of breath. So he sang with some
breathless hesitation:
"Yet the green simmer saw but a few sunny mornings
Till she, in the bloom of her beauty and pride,
Was laid in her grave like a bonnie young flower
In Greenock kirkyard on the banks of the Clyde."
But, when he found himself launched once more upon the familiar
refrain, he rallied his powers and sang out loudly and joyfully:
"Then bring me the lilies and bring me the roses,
And bring me the daisies that grow in the dale,
And bring me the dew of the mild summer evening,
And bring me the breath of the sweet-scented gale;
And bring me the sigh of a fond lover's bosom,
And bring me the tear of a fond lover's e'e,
And I'll pour them a' doon on thy grave, Highland Mary,
For the sake o' thy Burns who sae dearly loved thee!"
It did not seem the kind of song exactly suited to a hymeneal feast,
but everyone listened respectfully until the old man had wavered
through to the end and called, for the last time, for the lilies, the
roses and the daisies; and before he had time to start another Fiddlin'
Archie struck up "Scots Wha Hae," and the whole company joined.
When everyone, even to the last waiter in the old shanty, had been fed
and the tables were all cleared away, Scotty deserted Monteith, and
once more took up his station on the window sill where he could catch
glimpses of Isabel's golden head through the crowd. He could see she
was the object of many admiring glances; the MacDonald girls stood
apart whispering wondering remarks concerning the beauty of her velvet
gown, and even Betty Lauchie seemed shy of her old playmate.
Nevertheless, when, upon spying him in his corner, Isabel came again
and seated herself beside him, Scotty forgot all differences between
them and blossomed out into friendliness under the light of her eyes.
For she had clear, honest eyes that looked beneath the rough exterior
of her country friends and recognised the true, leal hearts beneath.
Yes, she was the same old Isabel, Scotty declared to himself, and
something more, something he hardly dared think of yet.
He sat and chatted freely with her of all that had happened since they
had last met, her life in a ladies' boarding school and his progress
under Monteith's instruction, and he found that with all her schooling
he was far ahead of her in book knowledge. Then there were past
experiences to recall; the playhouse they had built beneath the Silver
Maple, the mud pies they had made down by the edge of the swamp, the
excursions down the Birch Creek, and the part they had played in poor
Callum's sad romance.
"And what are you going to be, Scotty?" she asked. "Don't you remember
it was always either an Indian or a soldier, a 'Black Watcher' you used
to call it? You ought to go to college, you must be more than prepared
for it since you've learned so much from Mr. Monteith."
Scotty's eyes glowed. A college course was the dream of his life,
sleeping or waking. But he shook his head.
"I'd like it," he said, trying to keep the gloom out of his voice, "but
there's not much chance."
"Oh, dear," sighed the girl, "things seem to be all wrong in this
world. There's Harold now; Uncle Walter fairly begged him to go to
college, but he went only one year."
"Where is your cousin now?"
"He's in the English navy, and poor Uncle frets for him. He's an
officer too. I can't imagine Hal making anybody mind him. I always
used to be the 'party in power,' as Uncle Walter used to say when Hal
was home."
Scotty laughed. "I expect he'd have a hard time if he didn't let you
have your own way," he said slyly.
"Now, Scotty, you know you didn't let me have my own way, now, did you?
But somehow, I think I was always in a better humour at Kirsty's here,
I didn't have anyone to bother me."
"I know what I'd like most to be," said Scotty, with a sudden burst of
feeling.
"What?"
"A Prince!"
"A Prince! Why, in all the world?"
"Because you are just like all the Princesses I have ever read about."
Scotty was making headlong progress in a subject to which he had never
been even introduced by Monteith.
The girl looked up at him with an expression of half-amused wonder in
her eyes.
"Why, Scotty," she declared, "you're as bad as any society man for
paying compliments. But you will be something great some day, I know.
Mr. Monteith says so."
Scotty's face lit up. "If I'm ever worth anything I'll owe it all to
him," he exclaimed enthusiastically. "Isn't he fine?"
"He's just a dear. If it hadn't been for his help I should never have
been able to come for this visit. But he told Aunt Eleanor that we
would elope if I wasn't allowed to come. Isn't he funny? And just
think, Scotty, I'm going to stay a whole month, perhaps two!"
Scotty was speechless.
"Now, I'm sure you're glad! Yes, I'm to stay at the manse for about
two weeks, until poor Jimmie and Kirsty have a little honeymoon by
themselves, and then I'm coming here. Auntie and Uncle have been
invited to spend a month with friends in Toronto, and I didn't want to
go because"--she hesitated and then laughed softly--"well, because I
have to be so horribly proper all the time, so I begged to come here
instead, and as Mrs. Cameron had invited me and Mr. Monteith coaxed
too, Uncle Walter consented. And there's a possibility they might not
be back till Christmas. Oh, I wish they wouldn't! Am I not wicked?"
"I've got a colt of my own," Scotty burst forth with apparent
irrelevance, "he's a fine driver."
Isabel seemed to understand.
"I hope Mrs. Cameron will let me go," she said, though there had been
no invitation. She glanced around the room and found that lady making
rather anxious motions in her direction.
The minister's wife had been taking note of the fact that Miss Herbert
and one of the young MacDonald men had been renewing their acquaintance
in a rather headlong fashion. Mrs. Cameron was a lady who had an eye
for the fitness of things, and, being responsible for young Miss
Herbert, she decided it was high time to take her home. So, when the
girl looked up her hostess beckoned her, and announced rather sedately
that they must be going, as the minister had already begun his round of
handshaking.
"And when will I see you again?" Scotty asked forlornly, as the girl
came downstairs dressed for her drive.
Isabel was intent on buttoning her glove. "I--I suppose you sometimes
come to the Glen?" she suggested, without looking up.
Scotty hastened to asseverate that he spent almost all his waking hours
there, and that he was a daily visitor at the Manse; and before Mrs.
Cameron could get through bidding the neighbours good-bye, he had
secured permission to come with his black colt the next day, and with
Mrs. Cameron's consent they would drive up to the Oa to see how the
Silver Maple looked in its autumn dress.
No sooner had the minister and the elder guests turned their backs,
than the young folk who remained made a joyous rush for the furniture.
Chairs and benches were piled helter-skelter in the corners and a
unanimous demand arose for Fiddlin' Archie's Sandy to bestir his lazy
bones and tune up!
Thus importuned, the musician, who had fearfully concealed his unholy
instrument from the minister's eyes all afternoon, mounted upon a
table, and after much screwing up and letting down and strumming of
notes, now high and squeaky, now low and buzzing, banged his bow down
upon all the strings at once, and in stentorian tones gave forth the
electrifying command: "Take--yer--partners!"
This was the signal for a general stampede, not out upon the floor, but
back to the walls, leaving a clear space down the middle of the room;
for dancing before company was a serious business not to be entered
upon lightly, and it required no small courage to be the first to step
out into the range of the public eye.
Balls were generally opened by a couple of agile young men dashing
madly into the middle of the floor to execute a clattering step dance
opposite each other, and under cover of this sortie the whole army
would sweep simultaneously into the field.
Dan Murphy and Roarin' Sandy's Archie were the two who this night first
ventured into the jaws of public opinion. Jimmie's best man, as became
the dandy of the countryside, could disport himself with marvellous
skill on the terpsichorean floor, and Dan Murphy was at least warranted
to make plenty of noise. The two young men flung aside their coats and
went at their task, heel and toe, with a right good will and a
tremendous clatter. They pranced before each other, stepping high,
like thoroughbred horses, they slapped the floor with first one foot,
then the other, they reeled, they twirled, they shuffled and
double-shuffled, and pounded the floor, as though they would fain tramp
their way through to Kirsty's new cellar; while, in his efforts to keep
pace with them, the fiddler nearly sawed his instrument asunder.
But just when they were in the midst of the most intricate part of the
gyrations, the spirit of the dance seized the spectators, and the next
moment the performers were engulfed in the whirl of the oncoming flood.
But Roarin' Sandy's Archie was not the sort to lose his identity in the
vulgar throng. He was the most famous "caller-off" in the township of
Oro, as everyone knew; and staggering out of the maelstrom, he seized
Betty Lauchie and was soon in the midst of his double task, his face
set and tense, for it was no easy matter to manage one's own feet and
at the same time guide the reckless movements of some twenty heedless
and bouncing couples who acted as though a dance was an affair of no
moment whatever.
Scotty did not remain for the dance, but accompanied his uncle home.
He wanted to be alone to think over the wonderful events of the day and
of the joys of the morrow. There were not many youths who followed his
example. When the dance broke up the majority of them merely retired
to the edge of the clearing to return half an hour later armed with
guns, horns, tin pans, old saws from the mill, and all other implements
warranted to produce an uproar and annihilate peace. With these they
proceeded to make the night hideous by serenading the bridal pair until
the late autumn dawn chased them to the cover of the woods. This last
festivity gave no offence, however, being quite in accordance with the
custom of the country and the expectations of the bride and groom.
And so Weaver Jimmie's wedding passed off just as, through the long
years of waiting, he had dreamed it would; and one young man, who had
been a guest at their marriage feast, entered that day upon a new life,
as surely as did the bride and groom.
XII
A WELL-MEANT PLOT
O, Love will build his lily walls,
And Love his pearly roof will rear,--
On cloud or land, or mist or sea--
Love's solid land is everywhere!
--ISABELLE VALANCY CRAWFORD.
The minister and his wife had been on a pastoral visitation to the Oa,
and, having had an early tea at Long Lauchie's, were driving homeward.
The first snow had fallen a few days before and had been succeeded by
rain, which, freezing as it fell, formed a hard, glassy "crust" on the
top of the snow. This glimmering surface reflected the radiant evening
skies like a polished mirror. The surrounding fields were a sea of
glass mingled with fire, and the whole earth had become an exact copy
of heaven. Away ahead stretched the road like two polished, golden
bars that gradually melted into the violet and mauve tints of the dusky
pines. Through the frequent openings in the purple forest they could
see, far over hill and valley, a marvellous vista, all enveloped in the
wondrous glow, the patches of woodland looking like fairy islands
floating in a sea of gold. Overhead, the delicately green heavens
shone through the marvellous tracery of the bare branches. The horse's
bells echoed far into the woods, the only sound in the winter
stillness, for the whole world seemed silent and wondering before the
beauty of the dying day.
The two travellers had not spoken for some time; the minister was lost
in contemplation of the glorious night, and the minister's wife, alas,
was absorbed in a subject that had been worrying her for more than a
month, the subject of Miss Isabel Herbert.
Before her visit at the manse had terminated, Mrs. Cameron had come to
consider her invitation to that young lady as the great mistake of her
hitherto well-ordered life. For no sooner had the guest been settled
than that young MacDonald, who was such a friend of Mr. Monteith, began
to appear with alarming frequency. Now, though there might have been
no harm in Captain Herbert's niece playing in the backwoods with Big
Malcolm's grandson when they were children, Mrs. Cameron mentally
declared that, now they were grown up, such a thing as intimacy between
them was absolutely out of the question. Miss Herbert, she well knew,
would be horrified at the thought, and she set herself sternly to
discourage the young man's attentions.
But she found this no easy task. One of her greatest obstacles was the
minister himself. The good man had long yearned to bring Monteith and
his friend into the church and now hailed Scotty's visits as special
opportunities sent him by Providence. To his wife's dismay he warmly
welcomed the young man, pressed him to come again speedily, and was, in
his innocent goodness of heart, as much a trial to his wife as Isabel
herself.
And Isabel certainly was a handful. In Captain Herbert's niece one
surely might have looked for a model, but the young lady did not
conduct herself with the exact propriety her hostess expected. Mrs.
Cameron was quietly proud of the fact that she had been very well
brought up herself and knew what was due one's station in life. But
Miss Isabel was an anomaly. She belonged to one of the best families
in the County of Simcoe and had been educated in a select school for
young ladies; but, in spite of these advantages, she would much rather
tear around the house with the dog, her hair flying in the wind, than
sit in the parlour with her crocheting, as a young lady should.
Moreover, if she could be persuaded to settle for a moment with a piece
of sewing, at the sound of a horse's hoofs at the gate, or the whirl of
a buggy up the driveway, she would jump from her seat, scattering
spools, scissors and thimble in every direction and go dancing out to
the door, joyfully announcing to everyone within the house that here
was "dear old Scotty!"