When I joined them an hour after supper, they were talking about the
heater that had been put up in the living-room while we were away. The
warmth from it was delightful, but the blazing fire in the fireplace
gave the true cheer to the room, added charm for the eye. The Doctor
looked up as I came in.
"Have you ever seen a stove like this--Marcia?" There was a twinkle
both in his voice and his eye, as he called me for the first time by my
Christian name. He was tease enough to try it in the presence of the
rest of the household.
"Oh, yes, my grandfather had two in his farmhouse. There is nothing
like them for an even heat; it never burns the face. The top is a
lovely place to fry griddlecakes."
"You seem to know this species root and branch, Miss Farrell," said Mr.
Ewart. "After that remark may I challenge you to make a few for us
some night for supper?"
"You won't have to challenge, for I like them myself; and if you 'll
trust me we 'll have a griddlecake party here in this room some
evening."
"My first innings, Marcia!" cried Jamie.
"I 'll have to let that go unchallenged, Macleod, seeing I 'm host; but
you took unfair advantage of me. I 'll get even with you sometime."
"Where did you get your idea, Gordon?" The Doctor turned to his friend.
"I was born with it, you might say. I don't remember the time when we
did n't have two or three in my father's house, and I 've never found
anything equal to them for heating. They 're all out of date now;
there is no manufactory for them. I had trouble in finding these, but
I unearthed three last spring when I was in northern Vermont. I knew
we should need them, and they keep all night, you know. I 'm going to
have one put up in the bathroom--these oil stoves are an abomination."
"Amen," said the Doctor.
"So say we all of us.-- Hark, hear that wind!" said Jamie.
The stove was of soapstone, square, with hinged top that, opening
upward, gave room for the insertion of a "chunk"--a huge, unsplittable,
knotty piece of maple, birch, or beech. Cale came in with one while we
were listening to the roar of the gale; it was a section of a maple
butt.
"There, thet 'll last all night an' inter the forenoon," he said,
lowering it carefully into the glowing brands in the box. "I 'll shet
up the drafts, an' you 'll have a small furnace with no dust nor dirt
to bother with; an' the ashes is good fertilizer--can't be beat for
clover."
"Let's take a household vote on the subject of modern improvements for
the manor," said Mr. Ewart, helping himself to a cigar and then passing
the box to Cale who had turned to leave the room.
Cale took one with an "I thank _you_" this being a habit of speech to
emphasize the last word, and was about to go out.
"Stay a while with us, Cale," said Mr. Ewart, speaking as a matter of
course; "I want the opinion of every member of my household--my
Anglo-Saxon one, I mean."
The two men stood facing each other, and between them I saw a look pass
that bespoke mutual confidence. I thought they must have made rapid
progress in one short day.
"Wal, I don't mind if I do. It's flatterin' to a man, say what you 've
a mind ter, ter have his advice asked on any subject--let alone what
interests him."
"That's a fine back-handed compliment for you, Ewart," said Jamie,
whose delight in Cale's acquiescence was very evident.
"I took it so," said Mr. Ewart quietly, drawing up a chair beside his
and motioning to Cale who, after a slight hesitation, sat down.
How cosy it was around the fire! Since our return from the pung ride,
the wind had risen, keen and hard in the northwest and, crossing the
Laurentians, was swooping down upon the river lands, swaying the great
spruces in the woods all about us till it seemed as if ocean surf were
breaking continuously just without the walls of the manor and, now and
then, spending its force upon them until the great beams quivered under
the impact. Every blast seemed to intensify our comfort within.
"The telephone will be a great convenience," Mrs. Macleod remarked from
the corner of the sofa, looking up from her knitting; "it will save so
many trips to the village in weather like this."
"Is it a long distance one, Gordon?" said Jamie who was lolling on the
other end.
"Yes; I thought we might as well connect with almost anywhere. Our
household is rather cosmopolitan. Does this suit you?"
"Suits me to a dot. I can talk with my 'best girl', as they call her
in the States, when she is on the wing--as she is now."
"Oh, ho, Boy! Has it come to this so soon?" The Doctor sighed
audibly, causing us to laugh.
"Jamie's 'best girl' changes with the season and sometimes the
temperature, Doctor," said Mrs. Macleod, smiling at some remembrance.
"Do you recall a little girl who with her mother had lodgings at
Duncairn House, just opposite ours in Crieff?"
The Doctor nodded. "Yes, and how Jamie Macleod enticed her away one
summer afternoon to the meadows and banks of the Earn just below the
garden gate, and the hue and cry that was raised when the two failed to
make their appearance at supper time? Somebody--I won't say who--went
to bed without porridge that night. What was her name, Boy?"
I saw, we all saw, just the least hesitation on Jamie's part to answer
with his usual assurance. We saw, also, the touch of red on his high
cheek bones deepen a little.
"Bess--Bess Stanley."
"There is a Miss Stanley who visited at the new manor last summer--any
relation, do you know?" asked Mr. Ewart.
"Same," Jamie answered concisely, meanwhile puffing vigorously at his
pipe.
"The plot thickens, Mrs. Macleod," said the Doctor dubiously.
"Is she tall and slender and fair, Jamie?" I put what I considered an
opportune question; I knew it would both surprise and irritate him as
well as rouse his curiosity of which he has an abundance. I really
spoke at a venture because the name recalled to me the two girls in the
sleeping-car and their destination: Richelieu-en-Bas.
He turned to me with irony in his look. "She is all you say. May I
make so bold as to enquire of you whether you speak from knowledge, or
if you simply made a good guess?"
"From knowledge--first hand, of course," I said with assurance.
He sat up then, eyeing me defiantly, much to the others' amusement.
"Perhaps you can give me further information about the young lady--all
will be gratefully received."
"No, nothing--except that I believe it was she through whom you
obtained Cale, was n't it?" I heard Cale chuckle.
"Look here, Marcia," he began severely enough, then burst into one of
his hearty laughs that dissolves his irritation at once; "you 'll be
telling me what she wrote me in my last letter if you 're such a mind
reader. I say," he said, settling himself into a chair beside me, "let
up on a man once in a while in the presence of such a cloud of
witnesses, won't you? Take me when I 'm alone. The truth is, Ewart,
Marcia gives herself airs because she is three years my senior. She
takes the meanest kind of advantage; and I can't hit back because she
's a woman. But about that telephone, Ewart; are they going to run it
on the trees."
"It's the only way at this season."
"Could n't it remain so the year round?" I asked.
"Why?" said Mr. Ewart.
"Because the poles will just spoil everything; as it is, it is--"
"Is what, Marcia? Out with it," said Jamie encouragingly.
"Perfect as it is," I said boldly, willing they should know what I
thought of this wilderness of neglect that surrounded us in the heart
of French Canada.
"Guess we can keep it perfect, as you say, Marcia, 'thout havin' to rub
the burrs off'n our coats every time we go round the house," said Cale.
"We 're going to do some pretty tall cuttin' inter some of this
underbrush and dead timber next week if the snow ain't too deep."
"Oh, Cale, it will spoil it!"
"Wal, thet 's as you look at it; but 't ain't good policy to keep a
fire-trap quite so near to a livin'-place; makes insurance rates
higher."
"How would you feel then about having a modern hot water heater put
into the old manor, Miss Farrell?" Mr. Ewart put the question to me.
"Put it to a vote," I replied.
"All in favor, aye," he continued.
There was silence in the room except for one of the dogs that, asleep
under the table, stirred uneasily and whined as if rousing from a dream
of an unattainable bone.
"It's a vote against. How about piping in gas?"
"No!" we protested as one.
"Settled," he said smiling. We saw that our decision pleased him.
"Confess, now, Gordon, you did n't want any such innovations yourself,"
said the Doctor.
"I did n't, for I like my--home, as it is," he said simply.
"I like to hear you use that word 'home', Gordon," said the Doctor,
looking intently into the fire; "as long as I 've known you, I think I
've never heard you use it."
"No." The man on the opposite side of the hearth spoke decidedly, but
in a tone that did not invite further confidence. "I 've never
intended to use it until I could feel the sense of it."
"Another who has felt what it is to be a stranger in this world," I
thought to myself. And the fact that there were others, made me, for
the moment, feel less a stranger. I was glad to hear him speak so
frankly.
The Doctor looked up, nodding understandingly.
"Now I want some advice from all this household," he said earnestly,
and I thought to change the subject; "it's about the farm I 've hired
and the experiment with it. Give it fully, each of you, and, like
every other man, I suppose I shall take what agrees with my own way of
looking at it. My plans were so indefinite when I wrote to you to hire
it, Gordon, that I went into no detail; and I 'm not at all sure that
they are so clear to me now. Here 's where I want help."
"That's not like you, John; what's up?" said his friend.
"I want to start the thing right, and I 'm going to tell you just how I
'm placed; a deuce of a fix it is too."
Cale put on a log and left the room, saying good-night as he passed
out. I gathered up my sewing--I was hemming some napkins--and made a
motion to follow him.
The Doctor rose. "Marcia,"--he put out a hand as if to detain me; he
spoke peremptorily,--"come back. There are no secrets among us, and I
want you to advise with."
There seemed nothing to do but to obey, and I was perfectly willing to,
because I wanted to hear all and everything about the farm project that
threatened to break up my pleasant life in the manor.