When Donald returned to The Dreamerie about eleven o'clock, he was
agreeably surprised to find his father in the living-room.
"Hello, dad!" he greeted The Laird cheerfully. "Glad to see you. When
did you get back?"
"Came down on the morning train, Donald."
They were shaking hands now. The Laird motioned him to a chair, and
asked abruptly.
"Where have you been all day, son?"
"Well, I represented the clan at church this morning, and, after
luncheon here, I went down to visit the Brents at the Sawdust Pile.
Stayed for dinner. Old Caleb's in rather bad shape mentally and
physically, and I tried to cheer him up. Nan sang for me--quite like
old times."
"I saw Nan Brent on the beach the other day. Quite a remarkable young
woman. Attractive, I should say," the old man answered craftily.
"It's a pity, dad. She's every inch a woman. Hard on a girl with
brains and character to find herself in such a sorry tangle."
The Laird's heavy heart was somewhat lightened by the frankness and
lack of suspicion with which his son had met his blunt query as to
where he had been spending his time. For the space of a minute, he
appeared to be devoting his thoughts to a consideration of Donald's
last remark; presently he sighed, faced his son, and took the plunge.
"Have you heard anything about a fight down near the Sawdust Pile
last night, my son?" he demanded.
His son's eyes opened with interest and astonishment.
"No; I did not, dad. And I was there until nearly ten o'clock."
"Yes; I was aware of that, and of your visit there to-day and this
evening. Thank God, you're frank with me! That yellow scoundrel and
two Greeks followed you there to do for you. After you roughed the
Greek at the railroad station, it occurred to me that you had an enemy
and might hold him cheaply; so, just before I boarded the train, I
telephoned Daney to tell Dirty Dan to shadow you and guard you. So
well did he follow orders that he lies in the company hospital now at
the point of death. As near as I can make out the affair, Dirty Dan
inculcated in those bushwhackers the idea that he was the man they
were after; he went to meet them and took the fight off your hands."
"Good old Dirty Dan! I'll wager a stiff sum he did a thorough job."
The young laird of Tyee rose and ruffled his father's gray head
affectionately. "Thoughtful, canny old fox!" he continued. "I swear
I'm all puffed up with conceit when I consider the kind of father I
selected for myself."
"Those scoundrels would have killed you," old Hector reminded him,
with just a trace of emotion in his voice. "And if they'd done that,
sonny, your old father'd never held up his head again. There are two
things I could not stand up under--your death and"--he sighed, as if
what he was about to say hurt him cruelly--"the wrong kind of a
daughter-in-law."
"We will not fence with each other," his son answered soberly. "There
has never been a lack of confidence between us, and I shall not
withhold anything from you. You are referring to Nan, are you not?'"
"I am, my son."
"Well?"
"I am not a cat, and it hurts me to be an old dog, but--I saw Nan
Brent recently, and we had a bit of talk together. She's a bonny lass,
Donald, and I'm thinking 'twould be better for your peace of mind--and
the peace of mind of all of us--if you saw less of her."
"You think, then, father, that I'm playing with fire."
"You're sitting on an open barrel of gunpowder with a lighted torch in
your hand."
Donald returned to his chair and faced his father.
"Let us suppose," he suggested, "that the present unhappy situation in
which Nan finds herself did not exist. Would you still prefer that I
limit my visits to, say, Christmas and Easter?"
The Laird scratched the back of his head in perplexity.
"I'm inclined to think I wouldn't," he replied. "I'd consider your
best interests always. If you married a fine girl from Chicago or New
York, she might not be content to dwell with you in Port Agnew."
"Then Nan's poverty--the lowliness of her social position, even in
Port Agnew, would not constitute a serious bar?"
"I was as poor as Job's turkey once myself--and your mother's people
were poorer. But we came of good blood."
"Well, Nan's mother was a gentlewoman; her grandfather was an
admiral; her great-grandfather a commodore, her great-great-granduncle
a Revolutionary colonel, and her grandmother an F.F.V. Old Caleb's
ancestors always followed the sea. His father and his grandfather were
sturdy old Yankee shipmasters. He holds the Congressional medal of
honor for conspicuous gallantry in action over and above the call of
duty. The Brent blood may not be good enough for some, but it's a kind
that's good enough for me!"
"All that is quite beside the question, Donald. The fact remains that
Nan Brent loves you."
"May I inquire on what grounds you base that statement, dad?"
"On Saturday night, when you held her in your arms at parting, she
kissed you." Donald was startled, and his features gave indubitable
indication of the fact. His father's cool gray eyes were bent upon him
kindly but unflinchingly. "Of course," he continued, in even tones,
"you would not have accepted that caress were you not head over heels
in love with the girl. You are not low enough to seek her favor for
another reason."
"Yes; I love her," Donald maintained manfully. "I have loved her for
years--since I was a boy of sixteen,--only, I didn't realize it until
my return to Port Agnew. I can't very well help loving Nan, can I,
dad?"
To his amazement, his father smiled at him sympathetically.
"No; I do not see how you could very well help yourself, son," he
replied. "She's an extraordinary young woman. After my brief and
accidental interview with her recently, I made up my mind that there
would be something radically wrong with you if you didn't fall in
love with her."
His son grinned back at him.
"Proceed, old lumberjack!" he begged. "Your candor is soothing to my
bruised spirit."
"No; you cannot help loving her, I suppose. Since you admit being in
love with her, the fact admits of no argument. It has happened, and I
do not condemn you for it. Both of you have merely demonstrated in the
natural, human way that you are natural human beings. And I'm grateful
to Nan for loving you. I think I should have resented her not doing
so, for it would demonstrate her total lack of taste and appreciation
of my son. She informed me, in so many words, that she wouldn't marry
you."
"Nan has the capacity, somewhat rare in a woman, of keeping her own
counsel. That is news to me, dad. However, if you had waited about two
minutes, I would have informed you that I do not intend to marry
Nan--" He paused for an infinitesimal space and added, "yet."
The Laird elevated his eyebrows.
"'Yet?'" he repeated.
Donald flushed a little as he reiterated his statement with an
emphatic nod.
"Why that reservation, my son?"
"Because, some day, Nan may be in position to prove herself that which
I know her to be--a virtuous woman--and when that time comes, I'll
marry her in spite of hell and high water."
Old Hector sighed. He was quite familiar with the fact that, while the
records of the county clerk of Santa Clara County, California,
indicated that a marriage license had been issued on a certain date
to a certain man and one Nan Brent, of Port Agnew, Washington, there
was no official record of a marriage between the two. The Reverend Mr.
Tingley's wife had sorrowfully imparted that information to Mrs.
McKaye, who had, in turn, informed old Hector, who had received the
news with casual interest, little dreaming that he would ever have
cause to remember it in later years. And The Laird was an old man,
worldly-wise and of mature judgment. His soul wore the scars of human
perfidy, and, because he could understand the weakness of the flesh,
he had little confidence in its strength. Consequently, he dismissed
now, with a wave of his hand, consideration of the possibility that
Nan Brent would ever make a fitting mate for his son.
"It's nice of you to believe that, Donald. I would not destroy your
faith in human nature, for human nature will destroy your faith in
time, as it has destroyed mine. I'm afraid I'm a sort of doubting
Thomas. I must see in order to believe; I must thrust my finger into
the wound. I wonder if you realize that, even if this poor girl
should, at some future time, be enabled to demonstrate her innocence
of illicit love, she has been hopelessly smeared and will never,
never, be quite able to clean herself."
"It matters not if _I_ know she's a good woman. That is all
sufficient. To hell with what the world thinks! I'm going to take my
happiness where I find it."
"It may be a long wait, my son."
"I will be patient, sir."
"And, in the meantime, I shall be a doddering old man, without a
grandson to sweeten the afternoon of my life, without a hope for
seeing perpetuated all those things that I have considered worth
while because I created them. Ah, Donald, lad, I'm afraid you're going
to be cruel to your old father!"
"I have suffered with the thought that I might appear to be, dad. I
have considered every phase of the situation; I was certain of the
attitude you would take, and I feel no resentment because you have
taken it. Neither Nan nor I had contemplated the condition which
confronts us. It happened--like that," and Donald snapped his fingers.
"Now the knowledge of what we mean to each other makes the obstacles
all the more heart-breaking. I have tried to wish, for your sake, that
I hadn't spoken--that I had controlled myself, but, for some
unfathomable reason, I cannot seem to work up a very healthy
contrition. And I think, dad, this is going to cause me more suffering
than it will you."
A faint smile flitted across old Hector's stern face. Youth! Youth! It
always thinks it knows!
"This affair is beyond consideration by the McKayes, Donald. It is
utterly impossible! You must cease calling on the girl."
"Why, father?"
"To give you my real reason would lead to endless argument in which
you would oppose me with more or less sophistry that would be
difficult to combat. In the end, we might lose our tempers. Let us
say, therefore, that you must cease calling on the lass because I
desire it."
"I'll never admit that I'm ashamed of her, for I am not!" his son
burst forth passionately.
"But people are watching you now--talking about you. Man, do ye not
ken you're your father's son?" A faint note of passion had crept into
The Laird's tones; under the stress of it, his faint Scotch brogue
increased perceptibly. He had tried gentle argument, and he knew he
had failed; in his desperation, he decided to invoke his authority as
the head of his clan. "I forbid you!" he cried firmly, and slapped the
huge leather arm of his chair. "I charge you, by the blood that's in
you, not to bring disgrace upon my house!"
A slight mistiness which Donald, with swelling heart, had noted in his
father's eyes a few moments before was now gone. They flashed like
naked claymores in the glance that Andrew Daney once had so aptly
described to his wife.
For the space of ten seconds, father and son looked into each other's
soul and therein each read the other's answer. There could be no
surrender.
"You have bred a man, sir, not a mollycoddle," said the young laird
quietly. "I think we understand each other." He rose, drew the old man
out of his chair, and threw a great arm across the latter's shoulders.
"Good-night, sir," he murmured humbly, and squeezed the old shoulders
a little.
The Laird bowed his head but did not answer. He dared not trust
himself to do so. Thus Donald left him, standing in the middle of the
room, with bowed head a trifle to one side, as if old Hector listened
for advice from some unseen presence. The Laird of Tyee had thought he
had long since plumbed the heights and depths of the joys and sorrows
of fatherhood. The tears came presently.
A streak of moonlight filtered into the room as the moon sank in the
sea and augmented the silver in a head that rested on two clasped
hands, while Hector McKaye, kneeling beside his chair, prayed to his
stern Presbyterian God once more to save his son from the folly of his
love.