MRS. FOLEY ON MARRIAGE
Faith and Angus were to be married at Faith's ranch. There was small
preparation, to the scandal of Mrs. Foley.
"Sure I niver thought to see ye go off this way, wid no style about ye!"
she mourned. "Foour min have I tuk, hopin' th' bether an' gettin' th'
worse, but annyways ivery time they was lashin's to ate an' dhrink, an'
all the folks there we knowed an' plenty we didn't. But here ye're
fixin' for nobody at all."
"Well, there won't be anybody," Faith replied. "It's to be a very quiet
wedding."
"Ye may say that," Mrs. Foley agreed. "All th' differ' bechune it an' a
death-bed will be a docther an' a nurse."
"Oh it's not as bad as that, Mary," Faith laughed. "I really prefer it
that way."
"Bein' a woman mesilf, I know ye're lyin'," Mrs. Foley returned
uncompromisingly. "'Tis not the nacher iv us to dispinse wid frills in
annything."
Faith laughed, stifling a sigh. She had had her dreams. But she was
quite content. Mrs. Foley ran on:
"Sure, thin, iver since ye was a little tot I've been thinkin' that some
day I'd see ye comin' up th' aisle in a big church on yer blessed
father's arrum, all in white wid a big bookay an' veil an' orange
blossoms an' all; an' th' organist tearin' th' bowils out iv th' organ
whiles, an' th' choir rippin' loose; an' a foine fat bishop or th'
loikes, wid a grand voice rowlin' th' solemn words out in his chist.
An' aftherwards atin' an' dhrinkin' an speechifyin', an' showers iv rice
an' shoes an' white ribbon be th' yarrd. Thim's th' things I t'ought f'r
to see. An' instid iv that, ye will stand up in privut in a shack in a
neck iv woods, an' have th' words said over ye by a dom', wryneck,
Gospel George iv a heretic pulpit-poundher, that's dhruv out in a
buckboord dhrawed be a foundhered harrse, to do th' job loike a plumber
comes. Well, God's will be done. An' mebbe yer second weddin' will be
diff'rent. Though they's never th' peachbloom on th' second they is on
th' first, worse luck."
"Mary! what a thing to say!" Faith cried. "There will never be a second
wedding for me."
"Ye say so--knowin' nawthin'," Mrs. Foley responded. "All wimmin say so
before they're first married, knowin' nawthin' iv marriage; an' half iv
thim swear it to thimselves before they've been married a year, knowin'
too much. But sure 'tis th' nacher iv us to take chances, or we'd niver
marry at all. An' f'r why should a young widdy woman like yerself go
lonely all yer days?"
"Heavens, Mary, stop it!" Faith shuddered. "Talking like that before I'm
married at all. I'm not a widow; I won't be a widow."
"I'm wan foour times," Mrs. Foley observed. "An' I've knowed thim that
wud have give their sowls to be wan just wanst. Ye niver can tell."
"To judge by Angus' looks I won't be a widow for a long time," Faith
laughed.
Mrs. Foley shook her head sagely. "Nor ye can't tell about that. Sthrong
th' lad is, but he's voylent, an' voylent min come to quick ends."
"Violent? Nonsense! He never loses his temper."
"All min lose their timpers," Mrs. Foley asserted; "an' th' quoiter th'
man th' bigger divil he is whin he starts. Thim kind is th' worst. It's
not f'r nawthin' he carries that harrd face."
"His face isn't hard," Faith contradicted indignantly.
Mrs. Foley waved her hand. "I was speakin' in parables, loike. I'm not
meanin' it's bad-lookin' he is, but he's harrd. He's th' kind that niver
forgives wrong or slight, an' it wud shtrain him awful to forgive th'
same. They's a divil lives deep down in him, I'm tellin' ye, that's best
left asleep."
"Bosh!" said Faith.
"Ye say that, bein' ign'rant iv min," Mrs. Foley told her gravely. "I
believe he loves ye thrue, an' ut's little th' life iv a man wud be
worth who should speak a light word iv ye, or lay a hand on ye in other
than respect, if he knew it. But take ye heed, my gyurl, niver to rouse
that sleepin' divil an' have him peep at ye through the eyes of yer man.
Niver, as ye value yer station as a wife, give him annything to forgive
in ye as a wife. Forgive it he might, but forget it he niver would."
Faith, her smooth cheeks aflame, drew herself up haughtily. "You have no
right to speak to me like that."
"I am takin' th' right," Mrs. Foley replied steadily. "Do I not know ye
for what ye are--a little lady born an' bred, pure-minded an'
high-minded? Ye blush whin an old woman that's seen th' rough iv ut
calls a spade a spade. I wud tear th' eyes out iv man or woman that
spoke ill of ye. But ye are a woman, an' women will be women, and min
min, foriver an' a day."
"You have never spoken to me so before. Why do you do it now?"
"Bekase ye are about to take a man," Mrs. Foley replied. "A colleen is
her own woman, wid none but herself to gyard an' care for; but a wife is
her man's woman, an' besides herself she must gyard an' care for her man
an' his love for her. The wise wife will gyard herself closer nor whin
she was a maid, an' she will gyard her man closer nor his mother."
"Angus may trust me," Faith said proudly, "as I trust him."
"An' well f'r both iv ye," said Mrs. Foley, "if as ye say now in yer
youth ye do till ye have grandchilder." She wound a great arm around
Faith and drew her to her ample bosom. "There, there, gyurl iv me heart!
Forgive th' rough tongue iv an owld woman wid a long, harrd road behind
her. Th' lad is a rale man, if iver I saw wan. An' as f'r th' divil in
him, I wouldn' give a snap iv me thumb for a man widout wan."
Whereat Faith, being motherless and in spite of her independence lonely
as well, cried a little and so did Mrs. Foley, and both enjoyed it very
much.
The wedding took place a few days later. Kathleen French was the only
one of her family present. Turkey would not come, sending Jean an
excuse. Faith had never even seen him.
There was no wedding trip. But after a few days at the Mackay ranch
Angus began to arrange excursions. So far as he could see, it was now
merely a matter of weeks till the place had another owner, probably
Braden. He had done his best, and he was more or less resigned to the
inevitable. With the resignation a load of worry dropped from his
shoulders. Later he must make a fresh start, but now he would enjoy the
present.
With Faith he took long rides into the foothills, along faint, old
trails first beaten by the feet of the long-vanished elk, through deep
timber where towering, seal-brown trunks shot fifty feet in the air
without a limb and met in dense, needle-foliage above, and the horses'
feet fell without sound; beside creeks fed by the hoary, old glaciers
which far away glinted gray, and ridged, and fissured, relics of the
ancient ice-cap which once overlay and over-rode the land. To Faith
these trips were a novelty, opening a fresh world new and wonderful.
Incidentally they showed her husband to advantage, in a new light and
her trust in him strengthened.
[Illustration: _To Faith these trips were a novelty, opening a world new
and wonderful._]
In such surroundings Angus was at home, adequate, competent. His
knowledge of them amazed Faith, though there was nothing at all
wonderful about it, since he had lived in the open all his life and
consorted with men who had done likewise. His camps were always
comfortable and sheltered. He constructed deep beds in which one sank
luxuriously. Rain or shine he was a wizard with a fire and a frying pan,
building browned and feathery bannocks in a minimum of time, the
doughgods he mixed were marvels, his mulligan a thing to dream of. All
was accomplished without hurry and without fuss. She saw the results
without quite appreciating the method.
Another thing which impressed her was his apparent ability to make the
horses comprehend his wishes. When he spoke to them he seldom raised his
voice. When trouble developed he was infinitely patient; when punishment
was necessary he inflicted it without temper. Faith saw no signs of the
"divil" of which Mrs. Foley had spoken. If he existed at all he dwelt
deep, in the dungeons of the man's being, securely chained.
It was natural that she should take pride in her husband's physique. His
body was hard, lean, in the condition of an athlete's in training. Her
fingers pressing his forearm made scarcely an impression. Once, as he
bent to heave out of the way fallen timber which blocked the trail, she
placed her hands upon his back. He turned his head.
"Lift!" she said, and beneath her hands she felt the long, pliant
muscles spring and tauten and harden. On another occasion a bowlder had
fallen upon the trail, partially embedding itself. It was possible to go
around, but he would not. Finally he worried out the rock and rolled it
down the hillside.
"Heavy?" she queried.
"Pretty heavy. The trouble was I couldn't get hold of it."
"Do you know how strong you are?" she questioned.
"Why, no," he admitted. "That is, I don't know just what I can lift, if
that is what you mean, nor what I could pack for say a mile if I had to.
There's a good deal of knack in that sort of thing--balance and
distribution of weight, and the development of a certain set of muscles
by keeping at it. There are men who can pack five hundred on a short
portage. I've heard of eight hundred--but I don't know."
Faith thought she had known Angus before marriage. But in the
companionship of the trail and beside the evening fires beneath the
stars she learned that her knowledge of him had been superficial. She
found that the country rock of his reserve hid unsuspected veins of
tenderness, of poesy and of melancholy. But though he possessed these
softer veins--and she reflected that it should be her task to develop
them--the man himself was essentially hard and grim. His outlook, when
she came to know it, proved primitive, the code which governed him
simple and ancient--the old, old code of loyalty to friends, and in the
matter of reprisals eye for eye and tooth for tooth.
"But that is not right," she urged when he had set forth this latter
belief. "We are told to return good for evil."
Angus smiled grimly. "We may be told to do so," he said, "and we are
told to turn the other cheek to the smiter. That is all very well when
the evil or the blow is unintentional, sort of by accident. But when a
man does you harm on purpose, out of meanness, the best way to show him
he has made a mistake is to get back at him hard."
"Which makes him hate you all the more."
"Maybe. But it makes him mighty careful what he does."
"But don't you see," she argued, "that if there were no such thing as
forgiveness--if everybody paid back everybody for injuries in the same
coin--the whole world would be at feud and at war. We should go back to
savagery."
"And don't you see," he responded, "that if men knew they could get away
with anything without a comeback the world wouldn't be much better.
There are men and nations who are decent, and there are both who are
not. These have to be kept down. If they ruled, it would be terrorism."
"There would be the law; there must be the law, of course. That would
protect people."
"The law has too much red tape about it. In the old days things were
better. Then a man packed his own law."
"The gun? A horrible state of affairs! Barbarism!"
"Well, it made men careful. Now you take Braden. With the help of the
law he is going to get our ranch for a fraction of its value. I am not
kicking about that. But he blew up my ditch. I don't mean he did it
himself, but he framed it, though I can't prove it. If it wasn't for the
law I would go and twist the truth out of him, and then I would settle
with the men who did it. And then there's your ranch. I know it must be
Braden who wants to buy that. I'd find out about that, too. There's
something wrong. He's trying to put something over." His fist clenched
suddenly. "The rotten crooks!" he growled. "They've got me. But let them
try any dirty work on _you_!"
Secretly, Faith worried a little about the future, the more because
Angus seemed utterly careless of it. He had utterly refused to allow her
to sell her ranch and apply the proceeds to satisfy Braden's claim. If
he had any definite plans for the future he would not talk of them. With
what money he would have from the sale of stock and various chattels
there would be enough for a start elsewhere. But when and where and how
that start should be made was up to Angus.
"Shouldn't we be making some definite plans?" she asked.
"I suppose we should," he admitted. "But I've always planned and
worried, and the best I've made out of it all is to land in this mess.
Now and then I've asked myself what was the use of it."
"But that's no state of mind for a man," she protested. "That's lie down
and quit. You're not that sort, surely?"
"I didn't think I was," he said slowly. "I thought I had sand and
staying power. But I'm tired. Lord, you don't know how tired I am--and
sore! Every thought I've had for years has been for the old place. And
now to lose it! It sort of upsets me--temporarily. I'm deliberately not
thinking, nor planning. When the place is sold it will be different.
Till then I'm going to loaf, body and mind, for all I'm worth."
Though she thoroughly disapproved of this state of mind, Faith said no
more. Time drew on. And one night Angus announced that loafing was done.
"Now I'll get into the collar for another stretch of years," he said.
"To-morrow we'll start back. I want to be at the sale, to see who will
bid the place in."
"It will be like turning the knife, won't it?"
"Yes, but I can take my medicine. Then I'll sell off the stock, turn
everything I can into cash, fix up you and Jean somewhere and go
cruising."
"Cruising?"
"Prospecting for new ground somewhere. The farther away the better. I
want a lot of land--cheap. I'm out to make a stake--to found a fortune
for the Mackay family."
"You'll take me with you."
"No."
"Please!"
"Better not, old girl. I may have to cover a lot of ground before I find
what I'm looking for, and the traveling will be rough. It's better for
me to go alone."
Faith did not press. She recognized the truth of what he said. But she
realized as they rode down out of the hills what a difference already
his absence would make in her life.