“And they saw by the red flashes of the lightning against the violet
fog at six paces behind the governor, a man clothed in black and masked
by a visor of polished steel, soldered to a helmet of the same nature,
which altogether enveloped him....
“‘Come, monsieur,’ said Saint Mars sharply to the prisoner--‘Monsieur,
come on.’
“‘Say, “Monseigneur,”’ cried Athos from his corner, with a voice so
terrible that the governor trembled from head to foot. Athos insisted
upon respect being paid to fallen majesty. The prisoner turned around.
“‘Who spoke?’ said Saint Mars.
“‘It was I,’ said D’Artagnan.
“‘Call me neither “monsieur” nor “monseigneur,”’ said the
prisoner--‘Call me “Accursed.”’
“He passed on, and the iron door creaked after him.”
“Ten o’clock!”
“Oh-h!”
“It’s not--not quite ten. Your watch’s slow.”
“Ten minutes after,” declared Cheerio, hiding a smile as he glanced at
his watch in the slightly waning light.
A murmur of protest from Hilda, and a growl from Sandy, ready to argue
the point. It seemed as if they always reached the most thrilling part
of the narrative when “ten o’clock” the limit hour set for the end of
the reading would come and Cheerio would, with seeming reluctance,
close the enthralling book.
The readings had been substituted for the daily riding trips. The
adventures of “The Three Musketeers” were proving of even more
enthralling interest to Sandy than the fossilized bones of the early
inhabitants of the North American continent. No dime novel of the most
lurid sort had had the power to fascinate or appeal to the imagination
of the young McPhersons as this masterpiece of the elder Dumas. They
were literally transplanted in thought into the France of the Grande
Monarche.
Hilda indeed so lost herself each night in the chronicle that she
forgot her grudge against the reader, and sat on one side of him almost
as closely, peering over his arm at the page, as Sandy on the other
side. Of course, the steps were not wide and barely accommodated the
three and Hilda’s place was next to the wall. Cheerio sat between the
two.
After the readings there would follow an excited discussion of the
story that was almost as interesting as the tale itself. It was
astonishing how much this Englishman knew about France in the time of
Louis the XIV. Sandy would pepper him with questions, and sometimes
sought to entrap him into returning to the tale.
“What was Aramis doing at that time? I betchu he had a finger in it all
the time. Was he a regular priest?
“If I’d a been D’Artagnan you bet I’d ’ve stood up for the Man in the
Iron Mask. I betchu he’d ’ve made a better king than Louis. Couldn’t
you read just as far as where they take the mask off? Did they ever
take it off? Say, if you set your watch by Chum Lee’s clock, he’s eight
minutes and----”
“The clock’s all right, old man. To-morrow’ll be here soon. It’s
getting pretty dark now anyway.”
“Oh, that don’t mean it’s late, and I c’d get a lantern if you like.
Days are shorter now in Alberta. Before long we won’t have any night
light at all, ’cept the star and moon kind.”
Hilda was as concerned in the fortunes of the Musketeers as her
brother, but she was obliged to curb her curiosity. With the ending
of the reading, her diffidence and restraint would gradually creep
back upon her. She was not going to let this man know how throbbingly
interested she was. She did not wish him to know how limited had been
her reading up to this time. That was a family skeleton that was none
of his business, and she could have given Sandy a hard shaking when he
disclosed to Cheerio the type of literature that he and Hilda had been
“raised on.” Cheerio, with intense seriousness, assured them that their
father was “dead right.” That sort of reading, as P. D. had declared,
was “truck.”
“Well, it’s all there is anyway,” defended Sandy.
“Not by a jugful, old man. There’s no limit to the amount of books in
this good old world of ours--fine stuff, like this, Sandy. Some day
you’ll look upon them as friends--living friends.”
“Gee! I wisht I knew where I could get ’em then.”
“Why you can get all the books you want in the public library and in
the b-book stores.”
“That’s easy enough to say,” burst from Hilda, “but Dad never gives us
time when we go to Calgary to get anywhere near a library, and he’d
have a fit if we were to buy books. He says that he’ll choose all that
we need to read, and he doesn’t believe in stories or fiction and books
like that. He says it’s all made-up stuff and what we want to read--to
study, he says--is Truth.”
“Hmph!” from Sandy. “Yes, Mister Darwin and Mister Huxley and a lot
of for’n stuff. He’s got a heap of French and German books, but a lot
of good they do us, since we can’t read ’em. He’s got five volumes of
chess alone, and books and books ’bout cattle and pigs and horses. Just
s’f any boy wanted to read that sort of bunk. It’s a doggone shame.
If it wasn’t for the bunkhouse Hilda and I never would ’ve had no
ejucation at all.”
Cheerio laughed. He could not help himself, though he quickly repressed
it, as he felt the girl beside him stiffening.
“Well, old man, the stuff from the bunkhouse will do you more harm
than good. I wouldn’t touch it with a stick. Tell you what we’ll do.
When we’re through with the Musketeers, we’ll have a regular course of
reading.”
“You said there were three sequels to the Musketeers.”
“So there are, and we’ll read them too; but we want to vary our
reading. Now we’ll tackle a bit of Scott and then there’s some poetry I
want you to read and----”
“Poetry! Slush-mush! Gee, we don’t want any poetry.”
“Oh, yes, you do. Wait till you hear the kind of poetry I’m going to
read to you. Wait till we get into the ‘Idylls of the King.’”
“Idols! You mean gods like the savages worship?”
“No--but never mind. You’ll see when we get to them.”
Hilda said, with some pride:
“First time we go to Calgary, I’m going to buy some books for myself.”
“Where you going to get the money from?” demanded Sandy.
“I suppose Lady Bug won’t take the first prize at the Fall Horse
Show--Oh, no, of course not.”
“Ye-eh, and he’ll make you put the prize money in the bank.”
“He won’t.”
“How won’t he?”
“Because,” said Hilda, with dignity, “I happen to be eighteen years
old. That’s of age. He can’t. Of course, you----”
Sandy groaned. Hilda had on more than one occasion rubbed in to him the
sore matter of his infernal youth and her own advantage of being of
age--the extraordinary powers that descended upon her in consequence of
those eighteen years.
“I betchu,” said Sandy, “that Dad’ll whirl us through the town, in and
out for the Fair, and we won’t get anywhere near a book-store or the
libry, and we won’t get a hopping chance to do any shopping. And if we
do, he’ll go along to choose for us. Besides he’ll make you give him
a list of the things you buy, and you won’t dare to put books on that
list. He calls it systematic, scientific, mathmatical training of the
mind. Oh, my God--frey!”
“I don’t care,” said Hilda bitterly. “I intend to buy what I choose
with my own money. I’m going to get that book ‘The Sheik.’ I saw it in
the movies, with Valentino, and it was just lovely. Dad was playing
chess at the Palliser and left me in the car, and I got out and went
to the movies, and I just loved it, and I’m going every time I get a
chance. You just watch me.”
Something in the eager, hungry way in which the girl spoke touched
Cheerio and caused him suddenly to put his hand over the small one
resting on her lap. His touch had an electrical effect upon the girl.
She started to rise, catching her breath in almost a sob. She stood
hesitating, trembling, her hand still held in that warm, comforting
grasp. At that moment Cheerio would have given much to be alone with
the girl. A few moments only of this thrilling possession of the little
hand. Then it was wrenched passionately free. Hilda was regaining
possession of her senses. The dusk had fallen deeply about them and
he could not see her face, but he felt the quick, throbbing breath. A
moment only she stayed, and then there was only the blur of her fleeing
shadow in the night. Yet despite her going Cheerio felt strangely
warmed and most intensely happy. He was acquiring a better knowledge
and understanding of Hilda. Her odd moods, her chilling almost hostile
attitude and speech no longer distressed him. Perhaps this might
have been due to an amazing and most delicious explanation that her
red-haired brother had vouchsafed:
“I guess my sister’s stuck on you,” had volunteered Sandy carelessly,
whittling away at a stick, and utterly unconscious of the effect of his
words on the alert Cheerio. “’Cause she swipes you to your face and
throws a fit if anyone says a word about you behind your back.”
Little did that freckled-faced boy realize the amazing effects of his
words. No further information in fact might have come from him at this
juncture had not Cheerio flagrantly bribed him with “two bits.”
“Go on Sandy----”
“Go on with what?”
“About what you were saying about your sister.”
“Wa-al--” Sandy scratched his chin after the manner of his father,
as he tried to recall some specific instance to prove his sister’s
interest in the briber. “I said myself that you were a poor stiff
and she says: ‘You judge everyone by yourself, don’t you?’ And then
I heard her give Hello to Bully Bill, ’cause he said that Holy Smoke
was the best rider at O Bar O and Hilda says: ‘Why, Cheerio can ride
all around him and back again. He’s just a big piece of cheese.’ And
I heard Ho himself makin’ fun of you ’bout takin’ baths every day and
’bout your boiled Sunday shirts, and Hilda says to him: ‘’Twouldn’t be
a bad idea if you took a leaf or two out of his book yourself; only
you’ll need to stay in the river when you do get there, though it’ll
be hard on the river.’ And another time I heard her say to Bully Bill
when he was referrin’ to you as a vodeveel act, that time they put you
to breakin’ Spitfire, she says: ‘Wonder what you’d look like yourself
on his back? Wonder if you’d stay on. Spitfire’s pretty slippery, you
know, and you’re no featherweight,’ and Bully Bill says: ‘Hell, I ain’t
no tenderfoot,’ and she says: ‘’Course not. You’re a hard-boiled pig’s
foot,’ and before he could sass her back--if he dared and he don’t
dare, neither, she was off into the house and had banged the door on
him. You know Hilda. Gee!”
Yes, he was beginning to know Hilda!