"Well, the time went by till our children were two years old--not, to be
sure, without some trouble, but still we got along, and I was never
without the hope that better days were coming. About that time we got
some new neighbours; but it was a dark day for us,--the day that Sam
Healy came and took a place near us. They were kind folks enough, and I
don't think the man began by wishing to do my Stephen harm. He could
drink and stop when he wanted to--at least, so he said; but Stephen
couldn't, and I was never sure of him after the Healys came.
"They came in the fall and a dreary winter followed their coming; but
when spring opened things began to mend with us. I did what I could to
help Stephen, and kept by him in the field. There wasn't much to do
within doors. There was only one room in the house, and a bed and table
and a bench or two was all the furniture we had; but we might have been
well and happy there till now, if we had been let alone.
"So, having but little to do in the house, as I said, I helped what I
could in the field. I used to take my boys out and let them play about
on the warm ground while I planted or hoed; and in this way I got
Stephen home many a time when he would have gone over to Healy's, or
some of the neighbours, if it hadn't been for carrying the babies home.
Not that they needed carrying, for they were strong, hearty lads; but
they were fond of their father, and a ride on his shoulders was their
great pleasure. And he was always good to them when he was himself; and
I kept them out of the way as much as I could at other times.
"We got along somehow, on into the summer. Healy's wife was a kind
woman enough, but she had been brought up different to me; and it
worried me so to have Stephen hanging round there that I hadn't much to
say to her any way. I suppose this vexed her, for she was lonesome, and
didn't know what to do with herself; and I used to think she put her
husband up to being more friendly with Stephen on that account: I mean,
partly because she was lonesome, and partly because she saw his being
there worried me. I suffered everything, that summer, in my mind. It
was the old Weston days over again, only worse. It was so lonesome. I
had no one to look to, nowhere to turn. It wouldn't have been so if
Stephen had been all right. With him and my boys well, I would have
asked for nothing more.
"Sunday was worst. I used to think I was a Christian then; but I didn't
take all the comfort in my religion that I might have done; and Sunday
was a long day. There was no meeting to go to. We had been too well
brought up to think of working in the fields, as the Healys and others
of the neighbours did; and the day was long--longer to Stephen than to
me. I used to read and sing to him and the babies; and if we got
through the day without his straying off to Healy's or some of the
neighbours, I was happy. He might by chance come home sober on other
nights, but on Sunday--never; and it was like death to me to see him go.
"Well, one Sunday afternoon Healy sent for him. Some folks had come
from a settlement farther up the lake, and they wanted Stephen for some
reason or other--I can't tell what, now--and me too, if I would come,
the boy said who brought the message. But I wouldn't go, and did my
best to keep Stephen at home, till he got vexed, and went away, at last,
without a pleasant word.
"Oh! what a long day that was! The children played about very quietly
by themselves, and I sat with my head upon my hands, thinking some,
praying a little, and murmuring a great deal. I can shut my eyes now,
and see myself sitting there so miserable, and the little boys playing
about, so hushed and quiet. I can see the little green patch of
vegetables, and the cornfield, and the roof of Healy's house beyond, and
the blue smoke rising up so straight and still, and on the other side
the prairie, and the gleam of the lake-water far away. I never hear the
crickets on a summer afternoon but I think of that day, so bright and
warm and still. Oh, how long it seemed to me!
"The children grew tired, and I put them to bed when I could keep them
up no longer; and then I went and waited on the doorstep till I grew
chilly and sick in the dew; and then I went in. I did not mean to go to
sleep, though I sat down on the floor and laid my head on the pillow of
my boys' low bed; but I was tired with the week's work, and more tired
with the day's waiting, and I did drop off. I could not have slept very
long. I woke in a fright from a dream I had, and the room was filled
with smoke; and when I made my way to the door and opened it the flames
burst out, and I saw my husband lying on the bed. He had come in,
though I had not heard him. God alone knows how the fire happened. I
don't know, and Stephen don't know, to this day.
"I tried my best to wake him; but I could not. What with liquor, and
what with the smoke, he was stupefied. I dragged him out and dashed
water on him, and then went back for my boys. I don't know what
happened then. I have a dream, sometimes, of holding a little body, and
being held back when the blazing roof fell in; and then, they say, I
went mad.
"I don't know how long the time was after that before I saw my husband.
I have a remembrance of long nights, troubled by dreams of fire and the
crying out of little children; and then of seeing kind faces about me,
and of long, quiet days; and then they took me to my husband. He was
ill, and cried out for me in his fever; and they took me to him, fearing
for us both.
"He did not know me at first. I had been a young woman when we lived
together on the prairie; but when I went back to him my hair was as
white as it is to-day. He was changed too--oh, how changed and broken!
He needed me, and I stayed and nursed him till he got well. I was weak
in mind, and couldn't remember everything that had happened for a while;
but I grew stronger, and it all came back; and then, oh, how I pitied
him! There was no room in my heart for blame when I saw how he blamed
himself; and we did the best we could to comfort one another.
"Then we said we'd begin again. We came away here to Canada, because we
thought it was almost the end of the earth, and nobody would be likely
to find us who had known us before.
"And here the Lord met us and cared for us and comforted us. And I'm
not afraid now. Stephen's safe now in His keeping and His
loving-kindness--oh, how good!"
The last words were uttered brokenly and with an effort, and Mrs
Grattan leaned back in her chair pale and faint. Mrs Morely leaned
over her, and her tears fell fast on the hands which she clasped in
hers.
"It shakes me to go back to those old days," said Mrs Grattan, faintly.
"You must let me lie down, so as I shall get over it before my husband
comes along. It worries him dreadfully to see me bad. It won't last
long. I shall be better soon."
She was but a little creature, thin and light, and, though Mrs Morely
was not strong; she lifted her in her arms and laid her on the bed; and
as the poor little woman covered her face and turned it to the wall, she
sat down beside her to take the lesson of her story to herself. Surely
the grace that had changed Stephen Grattan and given him rest from his
enemy could avail for her husband too. "`I will trust, and not be
afraid!'" she murmured; and, with her hand clasping the hand of this
woman who had suffered so much and was healed now, Mrs Morely had faith
given her to touch the hem of the Great Healer's garment; and in the
silence, broken only by the prayer-laden sighs of the two women, she
seemed to hear a voice saying to her, "Go in peace."
There were no sorrowful faces waiting the coming of Stephen in the
little log-house that night. The little lads met him with shouts of
welcome halfway down the hill, and when he came into the house there was
Sophy busy with her tea-cakes, and Mrs Morely sewing her never-failing
white seam, and Dolly was dancing the baby on her lap, and singing a
song which brought the prairie, and their home there, and the long
summer Sabbaths to his mind, and a sudden shadow to his face. Mrs
Morely's face showed that her heart was lightened.
"You look bright to-night, sister," said Stephen, greeting her in his
quaint way; "have you heard good news?"
"I am waiting for good news," said Mrs Morely, with a quiver in her
voice.
"They never wait in vain who wait for Him," said Stephen, looking a
little wistfully from one to the other, as though he would fain hear
more. But there was no time. Little Sophy's face was growing anxious;
for her tea-cakes were in danger of being spoiled by the delay, and
there was time to think of nothing else when they appeared.
"Have you had a good time, Dolly?" asked Stephen, as they went down the
hill together in the moonlight, when the evening's frost had made the
roads fit to walk on again.
"A good time, Stephen--a very good time," said Dolly, brightly. "I
think that poor soul has renewed her strength; and, indeed I think so
have I. Yes, dear, I've had a very good time to-day."