Eric, finding that his father had not yet returned from the college,
went into the library and sat down to read a letter he had picked up
from the hall table. It was from Larry West, and after the first few
lines Eric’s face lost the absent look it had worn and assumed an
expression of interest.
“I am writing to ask a favour of you, Marshall,” wrote West. “The fact
is, I’ve fallen into the hands of the Philistines--that is to say, the
doctors. I’ve not been feeling very fit all winter but I’ve held on,
hoping to finish out the year.
“Last week my landlady--who is a saint in spectacles and calico--looked
at me one morning at the breakfast table and said, VERY gently, ‘You
must go to town to-morrow, Master, and see a doctor about yourself.’
“I went and did not stand upon the order of my going. Mrs. Williamson
is She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. She has an inconvenient habit of making you
realize that she is exactly right, and that you would be all kinds of a
fool if you didn’t take her advice. You feel that what she thinks to-day
you will think to-morrow.
“In Charlottetown I consulted a doctor. He punched and pounded me, and
poked things at me and listened at the other end of them; and finally he
said I must stop work ‘immejutly and to onct’ and hie me straightway
to a climate not afflicted with the north-east winds of Prince Edward
Island in the spring. I am not to be allowed to do any work until the
fall. Such was his dictum and Mrs. Williamson enforces it.
“I shall teach this week out and then the spring vacation of three weeks
begins. I want you to come over and take my place as pedagogue in the
Lindsay school for the last week in May and the month of June. The
school year ends then and there will be plenty of teachers looking for
the place, but just now I cannot get a suitable substitute. I have a
couple of pupils who are preparing to try the Queen’s Academy entrance
examinations, and I don’t like to leave them in the lurch or hand them
over to the tender mercies of some third-class teacher who knows little
Latin and less Greek. Come over and take the school till the end of the
term, you petted son of luxury. It will do you a world of good to learn
how rich a man feels when he is earning twenty-five dollars a month by
his own unaided efforts!
“Seriously, Marshall, I hope you can come, for I don’t know any other
fellow I can ask. The work isn’t hard, though you’ll likely find it
monotonous. Of course, this little north-shore farming settlement isn’t
a very lively place. The rising and setting of the sun are the most
exciting events of the average day. But the people are very kind and
hospitable; and Prince Edward Island in the month of June is such a
thing as you don’t often see except in happy dreams. There are some
trout in the pond and you’ll always find an old salt at the harbour
ready and willing to take you out cod-fishing or lobstering.
“I’ll bequeath you my boarding house. You’ll find it comfortable and not
further from the school than a good constitutional. Mrs. Williamson is
the dearest soul alive; and she is one of those old-fashioned cooks who
feed you on feasts of fat things and whose price is above rubies.
“Her husband, Robert, or Bob, as he is commonly called despite his sixty
years, is quite a character in his way. He is an amusing old gossip,
with a turn for racy comment and a finger in everybody’s pie. He knows
everything about everybody in Lindsay for three generations back.
“They have no living children, but Old Bob has a black cat which is his
especial pride and darling. The name of this animal is Timothy and
as such he must always be called and referred to. Never, as you value
Robert’s good opinion, let him hear you speaking of his pet as ‘the
cat,’ or even as ‘Tim.’ You will never be forgiven and he will not
consider you a fit person to have charge of the school.
“You shall have my room, a little place over the kitchen, with a ceiling
that follows the slant of the roof down one side, against which you will
bump your head times innumerable until you learn to remember that it is
there, and a looking glass which will make one of your eyes as small as
a pea and the other as big as an orange.
“But to compensate for these disadvantages the supply of towels is
generous and unexceptionable; and there is a window whence you will
daily behold an occidental view over Lindsay Harbour and the gulf beyond
which is an unspeakable miracle of beauty. The sun is setting over it
as I write and I see such a sea of glass mingled with fire as might have
figured in the visions of the Patmian seer. A vessel is sailing away
into the gold and crimson and pearl of the horizon; the big revolving
light on the tip of the headland beyond the harbour has just been
lighted and is winking and flashing like a beacon,
“‘O’er the foam
Of perilous seas in faerie lands forlorn.’”
“Wire me if you can come; and if you can, report for duty on the
twenty-third of May.”
Mr. Marshall, Senior, came in, just as Eric was thoughtfully folding up
his letter. The former looked more like a benevolent old clergyman or
philanthropist than the keen, shrewd, somewhat hard, although just and
honest, man of business that he really was. He had a round, rosy face,
fringed with white whiskers, a fine head of long white hair, and a
pursed-up mouth. Only in his blue eyes was a twinkle that would have
made any man who designed getting the better of him in a bargain think
twice before he made the attempt.
It was easily seen that Eric must have inherited his personal beauty and
distinction of form from his mother, whose picture hung on the dark wall
between the windows. She had died while still young, when Eric was a boy
of ten. During her lifetime she had been the object of the passionate
devotion of both her husband and son; and the fine, strong, sweet face
of the picture was a testimony that she had been worthy of their love
and reverence. The same face, cast in a masculine mold, was repeated in
Eric; the chestnut hair grew off his forehead in the same way; his eyes
were like hers, and in his grave moods they held a similar expression,
half brooding, half tender, in their depths.
Mr. Marshall was very proud of his son’s success in college, but he had
no intention of letting him see it. He loved this boy of his, with the
dead mother’s eyes, better than anything on earth, and all his hopes and
ambitions were bound up in him.
“Well, that fuss is over, thank goodness,” he said testily, as he
dropped into his favourite chair.
“Didn’t you find the programme interesting?” asked Eric absently.
“Most of it was tommyrot,” said his father. “The only things I liked
were Charlie’s Latin prayer and those pretty little girls trotting up
to get their diplomas. Latin IS the language for praying in, I do
believe,--at least, when a man has a voice like Old Charlie’s. There was
such a sonorous roll to the words that the mere sound of them made me
feel like getting down on my marrow bones. And then those girls were as
pretty as pinks, now weren’t they? Agnes was the finest-looking of the
lot in my opinion. I hope it’s true that you’re courting her, Eric?”
“Confound it, father,” said Eric, half irritably, half laughingly, “have
you and David Baker entered into a conspiracy to hound me into matrimony
whether I will or no?”
“I’ve never said a word to David Baker on such a subject,” protested Mr.
Marshall.
“Well, you are just as bad as he is. He hectored me all the way home
from the college on the subject. But why are you in such a hurry to have
me married, dad?”
“Because I want a homemaker in this house as soon as may be. There has
never been one since your mother died. I am tired of housekeepers. And I
want to see your children at my knees before I die, Eric, and I’m an old
man now.”
“Well, your wish is natural, father,” said Eric gently, with a glance at
his mother’s picture. “But I can’t rush out and marry somebody off-hand,
can I? And I fear it wouldn’t exactly do to advertise for a wife, even
in these days of commercial enterprise.”
“Isn’t there ANYBODY you’re fond of?” queried Mr. Marshall, with the
patient air of a man who overlooks the frivolous jests of youth.
“No. I never yet saw the woman who could make my heart beat any faster.”
“I don’t know what you young men are made of nowadays,” growled his
father. “I was in love half a dozen times before I was your age.”
“You might have been ‘in love.’ But you never LOVED any woman until you
met my mother. I know that, father. And it didn’t happen till you were
pretty well on in life either.”
“You’re too hard to please. That’s what’s the matter, that’s what’s the
matter!”
“Perhaps I am. When a man has had a mother like mine his standard of
womanly sweetness is apt to be pitched pretty high. Let’s drop the
subject, father. Here, I want you to read this letter--it’s from Larry.”
“Humph!” grunted Mr. Marshall, when he had finished with it. “So Larry’s
knocked out at last--always thought he would be--always expected it.
Sorry, too. He was a decent fellow. Well, are you going?”
“Yes, I think so, if you don’t object.”
“You’ll have a pretty monotonous time of it, judging from his account of
Lindsay.”
“Probably. But I am not going over in search of excitement. I’m going to
oblige Larry and have a look at the Island.”
“Well, it’s worth looking at, some parts of the year,” conceded Mr.
Marshall. “When I’m on Prince Edward Island in the summer I always
understand an old Scotch Islander I met once in Winnipeg. He was always
talking of ‘the Island.’ Somebody once asked him, ‘What island do you
mean?’ He simply LOOKED at that ignorant man. Then he said, ‘Why, Prince
Edward Island, mon. WHAT OTHER ISLAND IS THERE?’ Go if you’d like to.
You need a rest after the grind of examinations before settling down to
business. And mind you don’t get into any mischief, young sir.”
“Not much likelihood of that in a place like Lindsay, I fancy,” laughed
Eric.
“Probably the devil finds as much mischief for idle hands in Lindsay as
anywhere else. The worst tragedy I ever heard of happened on a backwoods
farm, fifteen miles from a railroad and five from a store. However, I
expect your mother’s son to behave himself in the fear of God and man.
In all likelihood the worst thing that will happen to you over there
will be that some misguided woman will put you to sleep in a spare room
bed. And if that does happen may the Lord have mercy on your soul!”