repeating this conviction of his over and over again like a parrot; but,
as the parson took not a bit of notice, he shut up for a bit and dozed
off to sleep--much to our relief. We were getting a bit fed up with him.
Then it was 'Mister' Parson made a darned bad break. He began fumbling
in his pockets for something--a penknife, if I remember--to cut the
leaves of a magazine. Well, his gloves seemed to hamper him, so he took
them off and I got a good look at his hands. They--like his mug--didn't
fit in with his dress at all. Pretty rough-looking mitts, that it was
very evident had recently done heavy manual work--all grimed up, with
black broken nails and hard callosities on the palms.
"Still I hung fire--for _his_ cloth always demands a certain amount of
respect. He _might_ have been working in his garden, I argued to myself.
I didn't want to make any fool break by humiliating a, p'r'aps,
perfectly innocent man and a gentleman on mere suspicion, and without
any positive proof. While I was twisting things over in my mind, the
brakeman came through, calling: 'Baker's Lake! Baker's Lake!' And
presently the train began to slow down. Parson began to gather all his
belongings together as if he was going to get off there. I was 'between
the devil and the deep sea'--properly. For it was a case of 'Going!
going!' and the next minute it'd be 'Gone!' with me, p'r'aps, for the
goat instead of him.
"But just then Providence, in the shape of the drunk, settled all my
doubts for me at the eleventh hour. The brakeman calling out the name of
the station, and the parson rustling around with his traps, had combined
to wake this beggar up, and he started in to sing again. He quite
brightened up at the sound of his own music--takes another swig at his
bottle and, squinting at our reverend friend, starts in again with his
old parrot squawk:
"'_I_ don't believe in Heaven, mister! _I_ don't believe in Heaven!'
"Parson stands up and reaches for his bag off the rack.
"'Don't you?' he says, showing his teeth in a nasty sort of grin. 'Don't
you? Well, then--you can go to H--l!'
"That fixed it--absolutely. I jumped up and followed my 'wolf in sheep's
clothing' down the aisle and out onto the platform.
"'Just a minute, please,' I said. 'I'm a sergeant of the Mounted Police.
I don't think there's any doubt about _you_.' And I collared him.
"For answer, he dropped his bag on the instant and closed with
me--desperate--tried to trip me up. Oh, I tell you, he sure _was_ some
handful. Well, he wouldn't give in, quiet, and I began to get mad at the
way he was scuffling with me, so I let go of him and broke away for a
second. Then I came in on him quick and flopped him out with an uppercut
and a back-heel--and as he keeled over his hat flew off and I saw the
scar on the top of his bald block. Regular entertainment for the people
on the train and the platform. They were wondering what the deuce was up
when they saw us scrapping and rolling around there. I shoved the steels
on him and took him back next train."
Mary laughed heartily at the conclusion of this episode.
"Wherever had he got the parson's clothes from?" she queried.
"Oh," said Ellis, with a grin, "when I landed back to the Post with him
I heard the city police'd received a report from the Reverend
Seccombe--the Baptist minister--to the effect that his house had been
broken into the night before and some of his clothes pinched. We got him
to come down to the guardroom right away, and he immediately identified
the clothes the prisoner was wearing as his--and the bag, too. He and
the other gink were just about the same build and height. Oh, his
understudy pleaded guilty to burgling this house then and there, when he
saw a bluff wouldn't go. Made a statement and told us the whole
business.
"It appears he'd broken into a shack when he first made his get-away
from the 'pen,' and stolen some workman's clothes. He was kind enough to
leave these behind him when he exchanged with Seccombe. Oh, he sure was
some 'Holy Roller,' this Mr. Arthur Forbes. _Just_ such another
flim-flammer as that Jabez Balfour, who put that smooth 'Liberator gold
brick come-on' over a lot of the smug Nonconformist fraternity in the
Old Country many years back, and then skipped out to Buenos Ayres. This
beauty was doing eight years for a somewhat similar fake--a big oil well
'salting' swindle. He'd defrauded the public out of something like four
hundred thousand dollars."
He rolled and lit a cigarette and, after carefully extinguishing the
match, gazed dreamily awhile across at the mountains, behind which the
sun was gradually disappearing. Presently, looking up at his companion
with a faint, whimsical smile playing over his stern features, he said
quietly:
"Now it's _your_ turn to be Scherazerade. So far, I've been in the role
of Sinbad--completely monopolizing this 'Arabian Nights' entertainment
in a very one-sided manner. Won't you tell me something of _your_
life--in return?"
She shrugged her broad, gracefully rounded shoulders with a queer little
hopeless gesture, all the life seeming to have gone suddenly out of her
mobile face as she regarded him now with grave introspection.
"I'll tell you a little," she said slowly. "But I'm afraid you won't
find it very interesting."
What she related was a very fair corroboration of the facts previously
told him by Trainor; and though in their narration she strove to appear
indifferent to the changing fortunes of her family, and to gloss over
her father's improvidence and selfishness, reading between the lines it
was very apparent to Ellis what sacrifices she had made willingly for
those same young brothers of whom she spoke with such loving solicitude.
"So ye see, me frind," she wound up with a kind of forced gaiety:
Fwat ups an' down an' changes there be
E'en in the lives av th' loikes av me.
Four years ago the fortunes av the House of O'Malley were in the
ascendant; today they are shtrictly on th' wane."
She threw up her head and smiled gamely in a forlorn sort of way; but
the quivering lips belied the careless, inconsequent tones, and he,
guessing that the tears were not far from the surface, dimly sensed
something of the bitter struggle that that brave heart must have been
forced to make at times to keep up appearances in past periods of
adversity. With this in his mind, he impulsively held up his hand to the
girl, and she, choking back a little sob in her throat, reached out and
clasped it warmly in hers.
"Eyah!" he said; "I guess we've both had our ups and downs, all right,
but there's one consolation about our respective lots--they might have
fallen in worse places, though there's little _real_ peace in the lives
of us who are comparatively poor and have to earn our own livings
forever dependent on the whims and fancies of the powers that be, set in
authority above us.
"Take the life of the average non-com, or 'buck,' in this Force, for
instance. It may seem rot to get harping on grievances at such a time
and place as this, I know," (he made a sweeping gesture to the landscape
with outflung arm) "but there's no lasting peace of mind or future in
it. People see us patrolling around in a smart uniform, and riding the
pick of the country in horseflesh, thinking, I suppose, what a fine time
we have of it. They little guess it's one continual round of worry and
trouble. All the way from murder and robbery to settling neighbors'
trivial squabbles over dogging each other's cattle, paying the cost of
divisional fences, and all those kind of petty disturbances. Either
that, or being chased around from one detachment to another, though in
that respect I must say this Division isn't as bad as some of 'em.
Couldn't have a better O.C. or Inspectors'n we've got in L. As long as
you're onto your job and do your work right, they let you pretty well
alone. But it's the confounded office work that we have to do in
addition to our ordinary police duty that _we_ get fed up on. Talk about
red tape! This outfit's sure the home of it! Every report, every little
voucher for p'r'aps fifty cents' expenditure--four, and sometimes five,
copies of each. Statistics for this, and statistics for that; monthly
returns, mileage reports, and the copy of your daily diary. Oh, Lord!
you should just see what we have to get through. Most of us use
typewriters, of course, or we'd _never_ make the grade at all. It's much
easier and handier. Guess you saw that one of mine in the detachment.
"Office work or not, though, this job's away ahead of being stuck in the
Post. The daily round of a 'straight duty buck' doing prisoners' escort
about Barracks is, without doubt, _the_ most demoralizing existence
goin'. The monotony's something fierce. And a non-com's isn't much
better, either. Sent out on every little rotten job that turns up,
hanging around stables and the orderly-room, always expected to be on
hand and within call. Taking charge of grousing fatigue parties, etc.
Thank goodness! I never had much of it to do. I was only in the Post a
month when I first took on. Been on detachment ever since, barring six
weeks I once put in as Acting Provo' in charge of the guardroom, while
Hopgood was sick."
He rolled another cigarette and, inhaling and expelling a whiff of
smoke, continued reflectively: "This is a good outfit--this Force--no
doubt about it. I guess as regards its system, discipline, and results,
it's out and away the best Military Police Force in the world--with the
exception, p'r'aps, of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Good men take on
and serve their time. Some reengage, and some quit. But just as good men
take their place and the work goes on. But, as I said before, there's no
rest, or future in it for the average non-com, or buck. You never know
when your day's work's done.
"No, it's just one continual round of listening to, and settling other
people's troubles. Seems nonsense, I know, to get talking like this for,
after all, it's only what we're paid for. Somebody's got to do it. But
there it is--trouble, trouble, trouble, the whole time. All my life,
with the exception of the time I deliberately struck into the fighting
game, I've wanted to live peaceably; but it seems to have been my luck,
somehow, to always get the reverse. Especially on this job. No matter
how quiet and easy-going you try to rub along there are always some
nasty, bullying, ignorant, cunning beggars who, just because you're a
bit decent to them, take it for granted you're easy and try to impose on
you. Anyway, that was _my_ experience on the first two or three
detachments I struck. Not on _this_ one, though! Didn't give 'em a
chance. Fellow that was before me, corporal named Williamson--decent
head, all right--but he tried that 'live, and let live' stunt and it
didn't work a bit. No, _sir_! They just took advantage of him every turn
and corner. Oh, I tell you, Miss O'Malley, it sure was some tough
district--this--when I took it over."
His brows contracted loweringly, and a menacing light gleamed in his
deep-set eyes.
"I soaked it to 'em, though, the dirty dogs!" he muttered, with a savage
snap of his strong white teeth. "They wanted to be _shown_.... I've sure
_shown_ some of 'em, all right. The inside of a 'Pen',' at that. Kept
'em on the high jump ever since. It's the only way _to_ deal with that
class. Treat 'em like the scum they are, and they'll be good then and
eat out of your hand. They're too ignorant and cunning to appreciate any
civility or kindness."
He smoked thoughtfully on awhile after this slight outburst of
bitterness, amidst a silence that was presently broken by Mary.
"You're fond of reading, aren't you?" she inquired. "And music?"
His moody face cleared instantly, like the sun coming from behind a
cloud.
"Aye! you just bet I am!" he said fervently. "I've read, and played, and
sung every chance I've got--wherever I've been. Fond!--well, I should
say I am. I fancy if it hadn't been for _that_, I'd have gone to the
devil long ago."
He was sitting up on the grass, with his elbows on his knees and his
face buried in his hands. Neither of them spoke for a time and he, still
gazing across at the distant "Rockies," muttered, half unconsciously, to
himself:
"No, just _peace_--that's all I feel I want now. To have some steady job
to work at, with a future, and a home ahead of it. Neither molesting, or
being molested by any one."
The girl leaned forward, listening wonderingly, as she watched the hard,
clean-cut profile of his faraway, moody face, surprised to hear him
ramble on so. He appeared to be entirely oblivious of her presence. He
made a very long pause and then, when she thought he was thinking of
something quite different, he suddenly said:
"I'm getting older now, and I've got more patience than I used to have
but, all the same--I'll take no abuse, back-lip, or stand for being
imposed upon by any man. It's been a word and a blow with me all my
life, and I guess that's the reason why I'm only a poor man today. For
many's the jackpot it's landed me into. Aye! and many's the good job
I've had to quit through the same thing.
"Just _peace_!" he repeated again, dreamily. "You realize it in some of
George Eliot's tales of old-fashioned English country life, in Gray's
'Elegy,' in Marie Corelli's song of 'The Lotus Lily.' Ah, yes! she felt
it when she wrote that beautiful thing in her Egyptian tale of 'Ziska':
"'Oh, for the passionless peace of the Lotus-Lily!
It floats in a waking dream on the waters chilly,
With its leaves unfurled
To the wondering world,
Knowing naught of the sorrow and restless pain
That burns and tortures the human brain;
Oh, for the passionless peace of the Lotus-Lily!'"
He ceased, and sunk his face in his hands again. The breeze stirred the
grizzled-brown hair on his temples, and he remained still for so long
that she thought he had fallen asleep; but presently he seemed to rouse
himself a little, and said idly, in a low voice:
"Men like me don't _have_ to care what people say, or think, about us.
Ever since Mother died, I've been practically alone in the world, and
steered my course as I saw fit--just gone ahead and done what I thought
was right. Am I the worse man for being poor, I wonder? I've never
crawled to hold a job--or for money, anyway! Badly though I've always
wanted it. For it makes all the difference in the world--money. I've
kept my self-respect as far as _that_ goes--poor consolation though it
may be now--just when I need it most."
The girl flicked him with her quirt.
"Don't you think we'd better be going?" she said gently. "It's getting
late. The sun's gone down a long time now."
At the touch, and the sound of her voice, he roused himself with a start
and regarded her absently.
"By George!" he muttered. "I must have been dreaming. Sorry, Miss
O'Malley." He pulled out his watch. "Sure _is_ late," he said. "Why
didn't you give me a good slap and wake me up before? Letting me go to
sleep like that. Well, I guess we'll toddle on down to the horses."
"You _haven't_ been asleep," she said, with a faint smile. "But you've
been sitting there talking away to yourself like a man in a dream."
He flushed, and laughed a little, shamefacedly.
"Have I?" he answered. "I sure must be getting as 'nutty' as a sheep
herder! What was I talking about?"
"Oh, all sorts of things," she said evasively. "I'll tell you sometime."
He laughed again and, after eyeing her incredulously for an instant,
turned and strode down the declivity to where the patient horses still
waited. The girl gazed wistfully for a moment or two after his
retreating form, with its slim waist and square, splendidly-drilled
shoulders; then, with a little weary sigh, she arose and, mechanically
putting on her hat and dusting her dress, followed him.
Catching up Johnny, who nickered at her approach and picked up his
forefoot for sugar, she mounted with the lithe agility of the expert
horsewoman. Ellis swung up on Billy, and in silence they set out at a
brisk lope for home.
CHAPTER XIX
For, immune from scoff of bachelor chum,
Into his kingdom he had come;
A rose-strewn path he would henceforth tread
Through the generous will of the kindly dead.
--_The Legatee_
"Go on! you're only fooling! Is that straight now, Hop? What
pipe-dream's all this?"
Dr. Musgrave's incredulous remarks were addressed to Provost-Sergeant
Hopgood, the non-com. in charge of the guardroom, who, reclining in an
easy chair in the former's combined study and consulting-room on this
September evening, was regarding his host somewhat lugubriously through
a blue haze of cigar smoke.
"No pipe-dream at all ... kind of wish it was," he answered, with a
slight trace of bitterness in his tones. "'Twas Churchill wised _me_ up.
He was in from Sabbano today. Appears Ben's been rushing this girl--or
woman, I should say--she's near thirty, I understand--for quite a time,
now."
Musgrave's air of surprise was slowly succeeded by one of unwilling
conviction.
"Well, I'll be----!" he muttered. "I might have tumbled, too!"
"Why, what's up?" said Hopgood eagerly, staring at him now with
wide-eyed wonder. "You knew about it all the time, eh? Did Ben tell you?
Have you seen her? What's she like?"
Musgrave knocked the ash off his cigar and gazed reflectively out of the
open window.
"Think I have," he said. "I was walking down Eighth Avenue with him--day
he was in town, last month. 'Hello!' he says, pulling up suddenly.
'Here's somebody I know from my district!' And, in that happy, casual,
easy way he's got, he introduced me to a female acquaintance of his,
who'd just come out of Black's jewelry store. She was a great big tall
dark girl--finest figure of a woman I think I've ever seen. Regular
whopper--not fat with it, either. Made you think of Boadicea, or
Brittania, somehow, to look at her. She didn't strike me as being a
beauty, exactly, but she'd got a nice kind face. Lots of fun in her,
too, and a lady, unmistakably. I rather liked her. We stood there
chatting a few minutes, and I remember she told me she was in town for a
day or two, shopping. Never a peep from that old fox, Ben, though. You'd
never have dreamt there was anything doing from the way he acted then.
Everything was as casual as you please. Begad! I'll soak it to him for
putting it over on me like this! That's if it _is_ right," he added,
with a dubious smile. "Somehow, I can't credit it, though. Why, he's the
very last man I'd have expected to go dangling after a woman!"
"Bet he don't do much dangling," remarked the Provost sagely. "Not if I
know him. He ain't that kind. More'n likely it's the other way round.
I've known quite a few women get struck on him. Queer beggar! he's never
aloof, rude, or cold, but somehow--he just doesn't seem to _notice_ 'em
at all. P'r'aps that's what gets 'em. Besides, he's a proper man to look
at, and when he's penned in a corner with a woman with no chance of
escape, he talks in that kind, simple way of his--you know his way,
Charley."
Musgrave nodded.
There was a long silence, the two men puffing thoughtfully at their
cigars and gazing with owlish abstraction at each other.
"Didn't you tell me once that he was engaged to some girl in Jo'burg?
When he was with the Chartered Company?" pursued Hopgood.
"Yes," answered Musgrave moodily, "he was." He paused, and an
unfathomable, far-away look crept into his eyes as he gazed absently
across at a window in the opposite block that the last rays of the dying
sun transformed into a flaming shield of fire. "Beautiful Irish girl
named Eileen Regan. She'd a face like a Madonna, I remember. She was a
Roman Catholic, and a very devout one at that. They _might_ have been
happy together.... I don't know. It's hard to predict how these mixed
religions'll turn out. Poor things never got the chance to see, anyway.
For she died--died of enteric, just before the war started."
Hopgood eyed the other tentatively for a second or two. "_This_ one's
Irish, too, I understand?" he remarked. "Irish-American, anyway.... He
seems mighty partial to the Irish. Her name's O'Malley. They'll be able
to keep a pig and 'live pretty,' what?"
And, overcome by the thought, he made a comical grimace of despair and
sank back into the depths of his luxurious chair, while the roar of the
busy street below floated up to their ears.
Musgrave cleared his throat. "Mother was an Irishwoman," he said
presently. "Probably that accounts for it. She was a Miss Fitzgerald, of
Dublin--sister of that brave, splendid chap, Captain Fitzgerald, who was
killed along with poor Fred Burnaby and many others of Stewart's column,
when the square was broken in the fight near the wells at Abou Klea, in
the Soudan War of 'eighty-four and five."
He smoked on silently for a space. "Oh, h--l!" he burst out, with a
sudden incredulous bitterness that startled even the cynical Hopgood.
"Why, that beggar's _always_ come to me before with his troubles. Guess
I'm the only one he ever _does_ confide in. Many's the time I've acted
as Father-confessor and mentor to him. Surely he'd never have passed me
up in such a momentous business as this? What saith the poet:
"You may carve it on his tombstone,
You may cut it on his card
That a young man married is a young man marred."
The Provost emitted a noisy, snorting laugh.
"Yes," he remarked, with the jeering familiarity of old acquaintance,
"and I must say you're a nice blooming old Gamaliel to act as mentor to
anybody, Charley, especially if you expect him to embrace _your_
self-constituted creed of morality and philosophy. Oh, you're some
Father-confessor, all right, what? Besides, he _ain't_ young. That is,
unless you call thirty-nine unsophisticated youth. 'Bout time he _was_
making the break. There's no fun in getting married when you're old, all
same Pope's 'January and May.' He happened to mention it was his
birthday to a bunch of us down town when he came in last month. I
remember him saying it was his thirty-ninth, because I and Berkley, Mac,
and Port stuck him for the drinks on the strength of it. We rushed him
into the Alberta bar right away and--"
"How about the way he used to hand it out about non-coms and bucks
getting married in your Force, too?" interrupted Musgrave, grinning.
"'Look at Beckstall,' he would say. 'Look at Corbett,' and lots of
others. 'Big families--always broke--dragging out their miserable lives
in rotten little line detachments--can never afford to send their poor
wives away for a change anywhere--they don't _live_--they just _exist_,
from one year's end to another. That's all there's to it! D'you think
I'd let myself in for a purgatory like _that_?' and so on. You've heard
him, Hop, too--lots of times, what?"
Hopgood held up his hands appealingly.
"Don't shoot, Colonel!" he said. "I'll come down! _I'm_ not holding any
particular brief for him. Guess he's pretty well able to conduct his own
defense. _Ish ga bibble!_--it ain't _our_ funeral."
It was worse than useless to argue with Musgrave. All his opponent's
best hits were turned aside by the target of his cynicism and unbelief,
while his repartee and sarcasms often came home.
"Funny chap!" he resumed musingly. "I think he is just about _the_ most
interesting and complex character I've ever come across. He's very much
of a man, but at the same time--he's as simple as a kid in some things.
Beggar reads a lot, and he's as rum in his tastes in that as he is in
everything else. Fond of all this old-fashioned stuff. The heighth of
his imagination in humor he finds in Balzac's and Rabelais' yarns, or
Boccaccio's 'Decameron,' and his ideals of pathos in George Eliot's or
Dickens's tales. Whatever can you do with a man like that?"
"Oh, what's the use of talking?" broke out Hopgood testily:
"A fool there was, and he made his prayer--"
he quoted, with a low, bitter laugh. "And by gum! it's me that knows
it."
The doctor silently eyed him in cynical abstraction awhile after this
outburst, then his grim mouth relaxed into a faint sympathetic grin, and
he held out his hand.
"Aye!... 'Even as you and I,'" he finished softly. "Shake!... Is _that_
why you chucked up your commission in India?... I and Ben always thought
so," he continued, as the Provost nodded wearily to his query. "None of
our business to get making inquisitions, though.... Well! this sad news
has been quite a shock to our nervous systems. Kind of breaks up us
'Three Musketeers,' eh?... Looks very much as if we're going to lose our
D'Artagnan. The old chum of your bachelor days is, somehow, never the
same again to you after he gets married. S'pose an all-wise Providence
has ordained things so for some unfathomable reason. Think we need a
little drink to console us."
And he got up with a dreary sighing yawn and, unlocking a small mahogany
liquor cellaret, produced a splendid silver and cut-glass "Tantalus."
"What's yours, Hop?" he inquired. "Brandy, or 'Scotch'?"
Leaving these two well-meaning, if cynical, worthies to console each
other with the bitter philosophy which retrospection of past irremedial
misfortunes has caused many better, and worse, men than them to revert
to, let us return to the detachment at Cherry Creek, where at this
particular moment the object of their commiseration is leaning back in
his favorite chair, with his head resting in its customary position
against the leopard-skin kaross. Tired out by a long and uneventful four
days' patrol, Ellis lit a pipe and gazed wearily out through the open
door into the gathering dusk. Gradually, his mind, still obsessed with
the vague memories of brands of missing cattle and horses and the usual
round of more or less petty complaints, strayed back to the Trainors'
establishment.
He found himself wondering how Mary was, and what had caused her to be
so strangely silent and abstracted during that last homeward ride
together from Lone Butte. At supper time, too, he mused, she had been in
the same mood ... had hardly spoken to him at all? Could it be that--?
And, not unmixed with an unfamiliar, slightly self-conscious, feeling of
shame, came the sudden thought that she _might_ have grown to regard his
attentions in a more serious light than mere frank camaraderie. And, if
that was so--well--she sure _must_ be thinking him a proper "laggard in
love." Not much of the "Young Lochinvar" about him, he reflected
bitterly. Anyway, it certainly didn't seem very gentlemanly behavior on
his part, or the right thing, exactly, to run around after a girl--like
he undoubtedly had, to a certain extent--with Mary, and then keep her
"hanging on the fence" indefinitely, as it were, like that. Surely the
Trainors must be wondering not a little, too. How the deuce was it that
he had never thought of his conduct in that light before? What a simple
fool he had been not to have "tumbled" to all this earlier? Should he
chance it? She could but "turn him down" like she had the rest--some of
whose very palpable discomfiture he had been a casual and not altogether
disinterested witness on more than one occasion.
And then, on the other hand, was he _justified_ in asking _any_ woman to
share the lot that he had so often bitterly inveighed against as being
utterly insufficient, unsuitable, and contrary to all his ideals of
conjugal happiness?
His somewhat gloomy reflections were suddenly disturbed by the sounds of
an approaching rider, who presently drew up outside the open door.
"Oh, Sargint!" came the gruff bark of Gallagher; "yu're back, eh? Bin
down for me mail, so I brung yores along."
"Good man! much obliged. Come on in, Barney!" Ellis called out.
And the rancher, swinging down from the saddle, dropped his lines and
slouched in with a packet of letters in his hand.
"Nothin' doin', an' nobody around for yu' while yu' was away," he
remarked, dropping into a chair and lighting his pipe. "Gosh, but it's a
warm night for this time o' year!"
The Sergeant reached out for, and began leisurely to open up his mail.
Most of it bore the regimental stamp of L Division. Returned crime
reports, with caustic, blue-pencilled marginal comments in the O.C.'s
caligraphy, requesting certain omitted particulars therein. Circulars
respecting stolen stock, descriptions of persons "wanted" for various
crimes, drastic orders emanating, primarily, from Headquarters at
Regina, regarding new innovations to be observed in certain phases of
detachment duty, etc., the monthly "General Orders," and so on. But
presently a somewhat large envelope, addressed in a clerk's hand and
bearing an English stamp and the London postmark, attracted his
attention. Whoever could be writing _him_ from the Old Country? he
wondered. The only letters he ever received from _there_ were mostly
from Major Carlton, and this wasn't _his_ handwriting.
With a vague feeling of uneasiness, he turned it over in his hand
irresolutely for a moment, then opened it. It contained a closed
envelope and a letter which bore the heading of a London legal firm.
Mechanically he smoothed this latter communication out and began to read
the epoch-making document that was destined later to create for him a
new world and to transform his desert into a paradise.
_Dear Sir_,--We are charged with the melancholy duty of breaking
to you the news of the death of your old friend, Major Gilbert
Carlton, on the 20th ult. Our late respected client, although
possessing all the outward appearances of being a hale, robust
old soldier, had for many years suffered from what physicians
term an "aortic aneurism," the origin of which was probably the
result of the privations and exposure endured by him in the
various campaigns that he had gone through. The final bursting
of this "aneurism" was the cause of his sudden death.
Suffering from such an ailment, it is therefore not surprising
that he apparently realized of late that his end might come upon
him unexpectedly at any moment of his advanced age. This
presentiment he recently confided to us, during one of his last
business visits. The enclosed letter he left in our care,
charging us--in case of his decease--to forward it immediately
to you.
For many years he frequently spoke of you to us with great
regard and feeling; referring to you always, as "The boy,
Ellis," or "_His_ boy," in tones which moved us not a little,
evincing as he did, such a kindly love and esteem for you. He
was seventy-five years of age, and, as you are of course aware,
a bachelor all his life, possessing only distant relatives.
Although not by any means a recluse, and enjoying life to its
full in his old-fashioned, cheery way at his estate--Biddlecombe
Hall, in Devonshire, surrounded by many of his old soldier
friends--he was not an extravagant man and the revenues of the
said estate have been steadily accumulating for many years. This
magnificent property, with all revenues thereof had been left to
him under the will of his cousin, the late Lord Baring, his
nearest relative.
We enclose a copy of the testament, by which you will see that
(with the exception of the estate, which, re a stipulated clause
in Lord Baring's will, has reverted at the death of the last
incumbent to the Morley Institute, to be used as a sanatorium
for tuberculosis patients, and a few bequests to old servants)
he has bequeathed to you the great bulk of his money. We hold at
your disposal, a sum (discounting probate dues) approximately
nearly ninety thousand pounds.
We beg to congratulate you on the acquisition of this
considerable fortune. Thinking that you might desire to
relinquish your present occupation at once, and not knowing how
you are financially situated, we enclose a credit for five
hundred pounds, for which please sign the accompanying receipt.
Kindly communicate with us at your earliest convenience.
We are, dear sir, yours truly,
_Eaton and Smith_.
Dazedly Ellis glanced through the attached copy of the will and reread
the letter through. Gallagher, who had been intently watching his face
throughout, vaguely aware from the Sergeant's unconcealed agitation that
some tidings of an unusual character had been received, inquired
casually:
"Why, what's up, Sargint? Hope yu' ain't bin a-gettin' bad news?"
Ellis regarded his interlocutor absently a moment or two, and then his
preoccupied gaze flickered away again through the open door into the
darkness of the night.
"It's both good _and_ bad, Barney," he answered slowly. "I'll tell
yu'--later."
Choking back many conflicting emotions, he now picked up the previously
mentioned closed letter which, he perceived, was addressed to him in his
old friend's handwriting. With a feeling almost of awed reverence, he
broke the heavy wax seal, stamped with the Major's own signet ring and,
drawing out the letter, began to read a communication that was to remain
indelibly in his memory forever:
_My Dear Lad_,--I take up my pen to write this--the last letter
you will ever receive from me--while I am still of clear mind,
and in possession of all my faculties. Life is very uncertain at
all times, and especially so in the case of an old fellow like
me. I have got what the doctors call an "aneurism," Ellis, and
have had it for many years now. A man cannot expect to come
through the hardships of such campaigns as the Afghan and
Soudan, unscathed. I was at Charasiah, Kabul, Maiwand, and
Tel-el-Kebir, my boy, and I tell you I have worked, bled,
starved and suffered above a bit in my time. My incubus has been
troubling me greatly of late and I cannot mistake its meaning.
Dr. Forsyth has warned me that it may burst at any time now.
Many thanks for granting my wish in sending me that photograph
of yourself in your Mounted Police uniform. I look at it often.
For though externally it depicts one whom I believe to be a
soldier, and a man in word, deed, and appearance, in it I seem
to see again the face of a boy that I once loved, because--he
had his mother's dear, dear eyes.
Yes, Ellis, my lad!... Now that I know my end is not far off, I
feel that I cannot die peaceably without telling you what has
been to me a sacred secret since I was in my thirties.
It must have been in 'sixty-two, or thereabouts, when I first
met your mother, in Dublin. The regiment that I and your father
were in lay at Athlone, then. I grew to love her. Loved her with
a passion that I fancy comes to few men, and my supreme desire
was to be able to call her my wife. I suppose the Almighty
willed it otherwise, though, and it was not to be.... For John
Benton, your father, came along, my boy, and he was a big man,
and a strong man, and a handsome man, with a bold masterful,
loving way with him that took her by storm, as it were, and I--I
faded into insignificance beside such a splendid personality as
his. He won her from me, but that fact could not kill my love;
all outward exhibition of which, though, I have guarded well. My
Dear Lad I have worn the willow decently, I hope, as an honest
English gentleman should, and have borne my cross patiently
through the long, weary years that have passed since then.
With the recollection of _such_ a woman as your mother lingering
still in my remembrance,--whose dear face--God grant, I may
behold again, shortly--can you wonder that none other has come
into my life to take her place, and that I have been true to the
memory of my first, and only love. You alone of your family have
_her_ eyes, and impulsive, loving ways, and for those reasons
were always my favorite--headstrong lad, though you were.
On the subject of your estrangement from your family, I have
nothing to say, beyond that I consider that it is a matter which
lies entirely between your own conscience--and God. You were
sorely tried, I know.
I am leaving to you the greater portion of my money. It is my
desire, as through it, I hope, your future path in life will be
smoothed considerably. May it ultimately bring you the happiness
of enabling you to marry a good, true, loving woman, and of
living henceforth, in that station of life to which you properly
belong.
Do not grieve for me my lad!... Best think of me just as a
kindly old soldier, at the end of his service, who was ready and
willing to go to his rest--only awaiting "The Last Post" to be
sounded. I have not lived altogether unhappily. I have drunk
deeply of the joys of life in my time, and I possess many good
and true friends. My days, thank God, have been, for the most
part, passed cleanly as a _man_--in the open, breathing His
fresh air. Through it I have had ever your dear mother's memory
to keep my conscience clear, and have striven steadfastly to
adhere and live up to, most all, I trust, of the precepts that
are embodied in the formula, "An officer, and a gentleman." As
in the sunset of my life I sit alone in my chair in the
twilight, dreaming of bygone days, it seems to me that I can see
the shining welcome of many long-lost and well-remembered faces.
They come and go, and I love them well enough, but
_one_--especially beloved above the rest is with me always.
But why speak of _her_?... Now that she is again so near to
me--now that I go, I hope, where _she_ has gone!... The
guiding-light of the soul of her true womanhood is shining
brighter and brighter in the gloom ahead of me still, and of
_her_ will my last thoughts be on this side of Eternity.
And now! ... Ellis, my boy! my boy! ... One last "Good-by!" ...
God bless you, and may your life be a long and happy one.
I am, believe me, to the last.
_Your old friend_,
_Gilbert Carlton_.
A smothered sob burst from Ellis, and the letter fluttered from his
grasp to the floor. Gallagher, still watching him curiously, repeated
his former query:
"What's up, Sargint? Hope nothin's--"
Ellis interrupted him huskily, but not unkindly.
"Get out, Barney!" he said. "Don't talk to me just now! I'll tell
yu'--sometime! Beat it! there's a good chap. I just wanta be alone."
And, with one last lingering look of silent, wondering sympathy, the
rancher arose and departed slowly into the night.
Overcome with his thoughts, Ellis sat for a long time motionless; then,
mechanically groping for the letter again, he reread it. Its simple
pathos touched him strangely as the awe-inspiring significance of the
long, patient struggle of that faithful old heart--stilled now, alas,
forever--began to creep into his dazed brain. He raised his swimming
eyes to the portrait of the gentle woman, the memory of whose beauty and
kind, sweet personality had been the good angel alike to poor old Major
Carlton and himself throughout both their strenuous and sin-tempted
lives.
Not in vain had been her early teachings and loving, self-sacrificing
patience and forbearance, while he was yet a wilful, headstrong
youngster. As, gently, and with a mother's tact, she strove to curb his
faults and instil into him--through love, and love alone--truth,
honesty, and the main principles of right and wrong.
Not in vain had she entered into her rest and, as an angel in the stead
of a beautiful, pure, true-hearted woman, interceded for the souls of
both men in their tempestuous journey through life.
Long and wistfully the Sergeant gazed into the grave, sweet eyes and
proud, clean-cut features--so like his own--and his stern bronzed face
became softened and glorified with a wave of ineffable filial devotion
too sacred for words.
"Mother!" he whispered brokenly. "Mother! Oh, Mother!" and dropped his
head upon his outstretched arms across the table.
But grief--no matter however sincere and true--to the average healthy
man is but a transient emotion. Ellis was no dissembler, and sadly
though he mourned the loss of his old friend, as the first transports of
his sorrow subsided and he became calmer, a slow, dim realization of the
tremendous possibilities of his good fortune began to flood his mind.
For to him it meant--freedom, at last, from all the unavoidable, petty,
sordid worries connected with the calling that he followed. No more
gloomy outlooks upon life in general, or pessimistic forebodings arising
from the consciousness of straightened means. Free at last to wander
around the earth at will and visit all its beauty spots that he had read
or heard about. Free to enjoy all the pleasures of the world that money
can command. He was still only a comparatively young man, strong and
active far beyond the average.
And, above all, it meant--and the very thought of his presumption
stirred him strangely and caused a mighty wave of long-pent-up love to
surge through his heart--perhaps also it meant--Mary.
So the joy of life filled him and transfigured his scarred, somber face
with a dreamy expression of happiness that lies beyond the power of mere
words to adequately describe. No more was the ideal life that he had so
often--ah! how often?--pictured longingly to himself in his fits of
morbid, spiritless depression, only a monotonous repetition of hopeless
empty dreams. It actually lay now within his power to gratify his
heart's desires to their fullest extent.
And then--to the weary man in that humble abode, which was,
nevertheless, all that he could call "Home," there appeared a wondrous
fantasy which, in its awe-inspiring, majestic grandeur, might have been
likened, almost, unto some allegory, or a scene in the Revelation. With
mind absolutely, utterly detached from all things material, he sat there
motionless, as if in a dream, and it began to float before his far-away
eyes like a filmy roseate mirage.
For, in his exalted imagination, it seemed to him that he was standing
upon the shores of a great sparkling crystal sea, as it were, in the
first faint flush of a radiant dawn. Purple, crimson, saffron-yellow and
turquoise, the morning lights stole in succession across the sleeping
world, and slowly--slowly, in the mystic East--the flashing rays of a
magnificent sunrise began to creep over the rim of the horizon,
transforming the gleaming waste of waters into a vast expanse of golden
flame.
And, as he gazed entranced at this gorgeous spectacle, suddenly he grew
conscious that he was not alone. Turning, he became aware of the figure
of a woman kneeling on the ground hard by, with her head bowed in an
attitude suggestive of sorrowful abandon. Her form, though the face was
turned from him and partly shrouded by her huge masses of dark,
disordered hair, seemed vaguely familiar; and he found himself engaged
in idle speculation as to her identity. Something in her posture of
dejection instinctively stirred in him a fleeting memory of Thomas
Moore's beautiful poem. "Paradise and the Peri," the poor Peri humbly,
yet vainly, craving admission into Paradise. Vaguely and disconnectedly,
some of the lines wandered into his mind:
One morn a Peri at the gate
Of Eden stood, disconsolate;
The glorious Angel who was keeping
The Gates of Light beheld her weeping;
Awhile he contemplated the woman with a great pity in his heart, and was
about to draw nigh and comfort her when all at once his impulse was
checked and he remained spellbound in mute amazement.
For, seemingly from _nowhere_, a transcendentally glorious voice--_that
sounded not of this earth_--suddenly arose in the stillness around them.
Pure, peaceful, unutterably sweet, far beyond this world and its works,
the golden notes floated forth into the hush of the opal dawn, uplifting
the hearts of the listeners on the wings of sound--verily to Heaven's
gate:
"O Rest in the Lord! wait patiently for Him!
And He shall give thee--He shall give thee--
O He shall give thee thy heart's desire!"
The eternal solace of the weary and heavy-laden, the Divine appeal to
all poor struggling souls rose and fell, finally melting away into
nothingness, save where the deep, cloister-like silence flung back a
faint far echo. Beside the bowed female figure there became visible a
vague shimmering _something_ which, almost imperceptibly, began to
assume the outlines of a human form. Disturbed strangely at what he knew
not, the wayward, reckless soul of Ellis Benton became filled with a
great and reverential awe.
He sank to his knees and bowed his head. When, fearfully, he dared to
raise it again, his eyes beheld _one_ clad in shining raiment, about
whom there clung a halo of radiance. Slowly the glistening form turned
and a cry of wonderment and adoration burst from his lips. For, lo!--it
seemed to him that _once more_ he looked upon the face of his long-dead
love--Eileen Regan.
Motionless, she gazed down upon him long and earnestly, with gravely
sweet, kind eyes; then, stooping low, she embraced the sorrowing woman
tenderly, and kissed her on the brow, bidding her be of good cheer and
calling her "Sister." Presently, drawing herself erect, she uplifted her
heavenly voice again, and there rang forth--as he well remembered her
singing it in _life_, one never-to-be-forgotten Christmas morn, in that
little Catholic Church in far-off Johannesburg--"In Excelsis Gloria":
"Glory to God in the Highest!
And on earth peace, goodwill towards men!"
She bent and kissed the woman a last farewell. Then, raising her arms in
holy benediction, she slowly became a _shade_, as before, unfolding her
wings and floating away diaphonously into the silvery mists of the early
morn.
The kneeling woman then arose and, turning, came towards him swiftly. A
tall, stately figure of a woman, with a kind, strong, sweet face; the
tumbled masses of her glossy, raven-hued hair all floating and rippling
about her regal shoulders and white columnar throat.
Near she drew to him--nearer. She stretched out her bare rounded arms to
him with a little happy loving cry as she smiled into his eyes, and he
saw the splendor and glory of the world in hers.
While, far away in his ears, rang the echo of his own voice calling upon
a woman's name--wonderingly, passionately--"Mary!... Mary!... Mary!..."
The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky,
The deer to the wholesome wold,
And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid
As it was in the days of old.
The heart of a man to the heart of a maid--
Light of my tents, be fleet!
Morning waits at the end of the world;
And the world is all at our feet.
--_Kipling_
"Wake up, Johnny, yu' old fool!... don't yu' start in to lazy on me or
I'll--"
Here Ellis shrewdly pinched his mount's withers, causing that animal to
flatten his ears and nip playfully at his rider's knee.
"Look out, doggone it! If _I_ happen to get a bit absent-minded at
times, yu' needn't follow suit!" he exclaimed sharply, as he jerked his
horse away from the edge of a small, but wicked muskeg, around which the
trail that led to the Trainors' ranch circled. "I sure don't want to be
getting in the soup like Jim McCloud did that time, on _this_ day of all
days. I'll hand yu' over to Mary, begad!... she'll teach yu' to
'soldier,' yu' old sucker!"
It was a glorious sunshiny afternoon, and the light cool breeze sent the
occasional little tufts of fleecy-white clouds scudding across the
turquoise-blue sky, and waved and brushed the surface of the long
prairie grass as if with an invisible hand. To the gait of his horse
Ellis whistled to himself--happily--half dreamily, as if he voiced some
inner thought--an old, long-forgotten air, presently breaking into its
words:
"Sae kind, kind and gentle it she,
Kind is my Mary;
The tender blossom on the tree,
Cannot compare wi' Mary."
Duly arriving at the ranch, he dropped his lines, and leisurely
sauntering up to the familiar dwelling where he perceived the owner and
his wife sitting in the shade of the veranda, he hailed them cheerily.
Trainor looked up at the other's approach and, lowering the paper that
he was reading, nodded to him nonchalantly; his spouse gave no
salutation whatever, and appeared engrossed in her sewing.
Ellis halted irresolutely, sensing something strange and apathetic in
the manner in which he was received--something _distant_, as it
were--and he became slowly conscious of a presentiment that his
forebodings had not been without reason, and that all was not well as
heretofore, when their usual welcome had been so genuine and
unrestrained. With a feeling of vague uneasiness at his heart, he
regarded them blankly a moment or two, glancing from one to the other
inquiringly; then he said:
"Is anything the matter? What's wrong?"
Trainor fidgeted nervously in his chair awhile, and then raising his
self-conscious eyes to the level of his questioner's breast, blurted
out:
"Well, you see, Benton, it's like this ... er--"
But words seemed to fail him, and he left the sentence unfinished,
relapsing into silence and gazing miserably at his wife, as if seeking
her assistance in his explanation. The latter, now for the first time,
raised her head and, gravely contemplating the troubled, anxious face of
the Sergeant, addressed her husband.
"Best tell him, Dave," she said, with an inflection of slightly frigid
hostility in her tones. "If you won't, _I will_!"
Thus adjured, Trainor coughed awkwardly and began afresh:
"Well, now, see here; look! I'll tell you, Sergeant. It's about that
girl, Mary--Miss O'Malley, I mean. You know how I and Mrs. Trainor love
and regard that girl? ... known her since she was a little kiddie, and
think as much of her as we do of our own children--"
He stopped, and Ellis nodded silently.
"For over a week now," continued the rancher, "that girl's been acting
queerly--seems worried--won't talk, and she's not looking at all well.
This afternoon we simply couldn't stand it any longer--she was looking
miserable, and it made _us_ miserable, too, seeing her like that. We
were right here on the veranda, and she came out of the door to go
riding. I caught hold of her by the shoulders--half joshingly--'Mary, my
dear!' I said; 'what's wrong? You're not looking yourself. There's
something the matter--won't you tell us? You're not afraid to tell _us_,
are you, my girl?' She struggled a bit when I had her cornered like
that, and tried to get away from me--then she raised those beautiful
honest eyes of hers and looked me squarely in the face. She tried to
speak, but somehow the words wouldn't seem to come, and--"
"And _then_," broke in Mrs. Trainor, taking up the tale, "she flung away
from him and threw her arms around my neck and hid her face against my
shoulder. You know, Mr. Benton, she's the very soul of honesty ...
candid and unafraid to a degree--she doesn't know what evasion or
subterfuge means--she's like a brave, simple child in that respect. She
clung to me for a bit, and then she breaks out into that quaint Irish
brogue of hers--like she often does when she's agitated or excited:
"'Och! 'tis waithin I am for a man to speak!' she wails out. 'And, oh,
my dear! ... weary waithin 'tis, ochone!' And then she burst out crying,
with great shaking sobs--oh! _how_ that girl _did_ cry--as if her heart
was breaking. I talked to her and soothed her the best I could, and by
and by she became quieter, dried her eyes, kissed me, and went away to
her horse. She didn't say any more than that and I didn't ask
her--didn't need to ... for there! ... isn't that admission enough?
D'you think _we_ looking on at this play all this time don't know _who_
she meant?" Mrs. Trainor continued, eyeing Benton severely. "Haven't you
been coming here regularly, paying her marked attention, taking her out
for rides, and all that? D'you think it's possible to deceive _us_. If
you've only been amusing yourself at her expense all these months with
no serious intentions, I tell you plainly, Mr. Benton ... I don't think
you're acting in a proper manner at all. That girl is one in a thousand.
Besides--she has refused many good offers of marriage--and all for your
sake, too--from men who were in the position to give her a downright
good home and all the comforts of life. You may think it's not our
business, but I tell you it _is_!" she ended, with sparkling eyes. "And
we've made up our minds this sort of thing shan't go on any longer--that
is, unless you can give us your positive assurance that your intentions
are really sincere.... No! you needn't look at me in that idiotic way!"
she cried, arising and stamping her foot angrily. "I mean what I say,
and I--"
Benton, with a flash of white teeth, and a broad and rather foolish grin
on his--now happy--face, suddenly stepped forward and gripped the
indignant lady gently by the shoulders.
"_Mrs._ Trainor!" he said, with a daring earnestness that almost took
the breath away from that scandalized dame as she struggled to free
herself. "If you open your mouth to say one word more, I'll--as sure as
you're the wife of your husband--I'll kiss you bang in front of him!"
And, releasing her, he continued: "What you've just told me's made me
the happiest man alive.... I know where I get off at, now ... and I'll
proceed to tell _you_ something!"
And rapidly he acquainted the astonished pair with the news of his
unexpected good fortune, apologizing for his seemingly callous conduct
with a deep, sincere contrition that impressed them in no little degree
and dispelled all their lingering doubts.
Trainor reached out a massive hand. "Sergeant," he said, with great
feeling. "Shake! I'm in wrong! I take it all back how I've misjudged
you! I might have known you weren't _that_ kind!"
Ellis, swallowing a little, grasped the offered hand warmly.
"Dave!" he blurted out, "it's _me_ that's to blame, all right. It's
mighty good of you and Mrs. Trainor to condone that sure questionable
simplicity of mine in the way you have. I should have put myself right
with both of you at the start."
But Mrs. Trainor outdid her husband in impulsive warmth.
"You threatened to kiss me," she began archly. "Now, I'm going to do
more than threaten. There, sir!"
And, suiting the action to the word, she kissed him heartily. Then,
womanlike, as the reaction to her happiness--she began to cry. At which
Trainor guffawed and caught hold of her teasingly. But, dragging herself
away from him, she pushed Ellis towards the path.
"Now you go!" she sobbed, "after her--straightway. And don't you dare
bring her back here until you've kissed her tears away and she's her own
happy self again. That is, if you can find her," she added, with wet,
smiling eyes. "I don't know exactly which way she went."
"Oh, I'll find her, all right," said Ellis cheerfully. "I think I know
where she'll be."
And, turning, he strode off to the waiting Johnny, mounted, and set off
at a brisk lope towards "Lone Butte," that reared its head in the hazy
distance. For it was _there_ that he guessed instinctively she had
betaken herself.
Purposely making a wide detour to escape her possible observation,
thirty minutes' brisk riding brought him into a small coulee, dotted
with a young growth of Balm o' Gilead trees and alder bushes, which lay
to the rear of the butte and exactly opposite to the side where the
regular path to the summit began. Here he dismounted and, leading
Johnny, to save a later descent for that animal, commenced to slowly
make the ascent.
Pausing to take breath within a few yards of the top, the breeze brought
to his ears the unmistakable sounds of somebody whistling carelessly to
herself. Yes, that was her whistle, all right, he reflected; so she
couldn't be so _very_ unhappy. Intending to steal up to her unobserved,
and calculating from his memory of the position of the big stone, that
she would have her back turned towards him, he crept warily to the
summit.
Soon, not thirty feet distant on the small plateau, he beheld her seated
on the stone and, as he had surmised, facing the West. But her attitude
of dejected abandon sobered him somewhat, and the low, monotonous
whistle sounded doleful in the extreme. Noiselessly the Sergeant
decreased the distance between them, and when within a few feet halted,
not wishing to startle her too badly. On account of her wide-brimmed
Stetson hat tipped back on the nape of her neck, and the breeze blowing
in her ears, she had not thus far been aware of his close approach, the
thick, "old-bottom" prairie grass effectually deadening the ring of
Johnny's steel-shod hoofs.
Long and earnestly, with a great love not unmixed with a pang of remorse
in his heart, Ellis gazed on the still unconscious girl. Then all at
once he gave a violent start, which almost betrayed his presence to her.
For, suddenly, and with the clarity that the great king saw the writing
on the wall, again he seemed to behold, and comprehend fully now, the
significance of the strange fantasy which had appeared to him in the
detachment the previous night.
The dreary whistle ceased, and with her chin resting in her hands she
began to idly croon to herself an old-fashioned time-worn ballad, which
he vaguely recognized as Whittier's "Maud Muller." Lord! what a time it
seemed since he'd heard _that!_ he reflected. It took him right back to
the scenes of his boyhood again at Shrewsbury--peaceful, gray-spired
old-world Shrewsbury. Verse by verse, came the monotonous refrain of the
antiquated poem to his ears--just as a little girl will sometimes drone
to herself as she sits plaiting her hair in the sun:
Maud Muller looked and sighed. "Ah me!
That I the Judge's bride might be!
He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine."
How the air of a long-forgotten song, a chance phrase in a book, the
scent of new-mown hay and of certain flowers, the splendor of a tropical
sunrise, the glory of a flaming crimson and gold sunset, or the calm
beauty of a moonlight night will ofttimes awaken in us strange old
longing memories of other--and, perchance--happier days. Harking back
now through all the years came to him, dimly, the recollection that the
_very last_ time he had heard _that_ was at a gathering of young hearts
held in his old school town, when he was a bright-eyed young sinner of
thirteen or thereabouts--"soirees," as they were called then. Yes, it
was at Dr. Pennington's, and saucy, yet tender-eyed, little Darthea
Pennington had recited it. She had cried, too, at its conclusion, he
remembered; which spectacle of girlish emotion had prompted him to start
in tormenting her with some youthful nonsense, in a well-meant effort to
revive her natural gaiety. True, she'd slapped his face as the reward
for his impudence, but didn't she relent later to the extent of allowing
him to kiss "friends," and afterwards take her in to supper?
"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor,
And all should bless me who left our door."
The Judge looked back at he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still.
With bowed head the listener stood there motionless, whilst a wave of
emotion surged through his heart, awakening all the sentiment which,
through long years of iron self-repression, had lain dormant in his deep
nature.
Whatever had possessed her to hark back to this memory of her girlhood?
he mused. Under ordinary circumstances he would no doubt have resorted
as heretofore, to his customary badinage--chaffed her about "grinding
out Whittier by the yard," or mimicked her in a mincing falsetto. But
now--as he heard it _now_--the element of absurdity was distinctly
lacking ... nay! it was pitiful--almost tragic ... how like a simple
child again she seemed, in her unhappiness?
With pathetic, monotonous regularity--as if she were seeking to distract
her thoughts from her trouble by repeating some orison--the interminable
stanzas rose and fell, with a quavering cadence:
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only. "It might have been."
Choking back a lump in his throat, Ellis now dropped his horse's lines
and stepped forward.
"Mary!" he called softly.
And, at the sound of his voice the girl, with a slight start and
exclamation, turned and looked up at him. With a feeling of deep
contrition he remarked her pale, tear-stained face, and the dark shadows
under her splendid eyes, denoting mental worry and sleepless nights. Her
first surprise over, she settled listlessly back again to her old
dejected attitude, but never taking her great weary eyes off his face.
Never a word had she uttered yet, but continued to gaze silently on the
man before her with a forlorn, wistful expression that cut him to the
very heart. Suddenly she began to speak, but her voice seemed to ring
strangely lifeless and far away in his ears.
"Oh! ... and are you back again?" came the toneless accents, "to mock me
with that handsome, cold face of yours? I was happy enough till _you_
came into my life ... you who've laid yourself out to make me love
you--for nothing, p'r'aps, except your own amusement ... 'tis through I
am with happiness now, I guess ... would to God we'd never known each
other.... Oh, go! ... go away, please!... I--I just can't bear it...."
Before the infinite pathos of her hopeless look and bitter words the
strong man shook with his emotion until speech seemed beyond him. For,
remorse-stricken though he was, beneath her reproach he glimpsed the
evidence of so great a love that he could only stand and regard her with
awed amazement. Aye!--well he knew now, that come what would or could,
all that love was his, and would be his forever. Suddenly he leaned
forward with outstretched arms and struggling, heart-wrung words burst
from his lips; a golden gleam from the sinking sun, just then, lighting
up and intensifying the manly beauty of his strong, clean-cut features.
"Mary!" he cried hoarsely. "Oh, Mary, my girl. I've been thoughtless--I
didn't know!... forget--forgive!..."
Dazedly the girl stared for a moment at the imploring face of the man
she loved, her misery-benumbed brain failing at first to grasp the
significance of his impassioned appeal. Then a quick, joyful light of
comprehension dilated her great weary eyes, and with an unsteady
movement she arose from her seat on the stone and swayed towards him,
sobbing in her throat. The next minute her round arms were about his
neck, her eager lips sought his--and they were quite alone.
Long he held the overstrung girl in his arms, kissing and soothing her
with every endearment that a man's love can command in such ecstasies;
smoothing her glorious hair and pressing his cheek to hers with
whispered, broken words of affection until she became calmer, and her
happy tears ceased.
Then, gently, he told her the news of his changed fortunes and, drawing
forth the lawyer's letter, bade the astonished girl read its contents.
"And now, my dear, I want you to read this, too," he said. "You have the
right to."
And reverently he handed her the letter of his old dead benefactor,
silently watching her face as she perused its contents. He saw the light
gradually fade from her eyes, which commenced to fill with tears. Her
lips quivered and she began to sob again softly, as she read on, rocking
herself to and fro and making no attempt to hide her emotion. Presently
she ended the missive and looked across at her lover with glistening
eyes.
"Oh! ... the poor old fellow ... that poor old soldier ... oh! this is
_too_ pitiful for anything!... How he must have suffered when he lost
her--waiting patiently all those years!..."
She continued to gaze silently at him awhile. Then suddenly, with her
wet eyes blazing with her great love, she leaned forward and flung her
arms around his neck again with passionate abandon, still clutching the
letters.
"Fwas ut for money ye waithed, ye foolish man?" she cried, relapsing
into her soft Hibernian brogue as she patted his shoulder caressingly.
"Och, glory be! but 'tis glad I am ye didn't tell me--or show me thim
letthers till--till afther!... 'Tis little ye must know av th' heart av
a woman loike me!... Och, me bhoy! me bhoy! ... a pauper I'd have
married ye ... an' loved ye still ... for yersilf alane!"
For answer, Ellis tipped her head back on his arm and kissed her fondly.
"Aye!... I guess you would!" he returned, with a grim chuckle. "And then
p'r'aps both of us 'ud have been sorry forever after!... No, my dear!
... when Poverty knocks on the door, Love 'beats it' out of the
window!... I've seen too many of these 'Love in a shack' businesses ...
everything's all hunkadory at first ... but it don't last.... You and
I've worked long enough for the powers that be.... Now that's all
changed.... You shall never know sorrow or worry again--if I can help
it, Mary, my girl!"
Cheek to cheek, they were silent awhile, gazing dreamily across at the
distant "Rockies." Then he continued quietly. "First thing I must get my
discharge from the Force. I'll forward an application to 'purchase'
tomorrow! Special case ... under the circumstances, I think the O.C.'ll
recommend it all right, though as a rule he's dead against this
'purchasing' business ... don't know but what he isn't about right, too
... anyway, 'Isch ga bibble!'... I'll work it somehow within a month.
Then we'll hit for Europe, Mary. A downright good long easy-going trip
... taking our time and lazying around in all the beautiful old places
we've read or heard about, and never seen.... Rome, Venice, and some of
those old Moorish places in Spain. Then when we're tired of them and
want some amusement and change of scene we'll go to Paris, or
London--see all the best plays and hear all the best singers. Later
we'll go on down through the Mediterranean to the north coast of Africa,
and see Tunis and Algiers and Cairo. By and by, when we're tired of
running around, we'll 'beat it' for this country again and settle down
on a place of our own. It won't be a 'rawnch,' like the Honorable
Percy's, either.... Guess I know how to run one as it _should_ be run. I
know of a peach of a place--sou'west of here--right on the Elbow ...
pretty place, too--bush all round it and all kinds of good feed range
and shelter. It's an ideal place for either horses or cattle--horses
especially. Belongs to old J. G. Robinson. He's getting on in years now
and wants to quit the game. I know he'd sell out to me--I know him well.
It's the open range and the foothills of 'Sunny Alberta' for me and you,
Mary dear--somewhere in the West, anyway ... where we can look across at
the 'Rockies'--like we're doing now. We'd never be happy anywhere else.
Of course ... you won't be cooped up on this precious
ranch-in-perspective _all_ the year round ... neither of us, for that
matter. It won't be necessary, for I'm going to try and get Barney
Gallagher to come to me as my manager. I fancy I can fix things with
him."
The girl, smiling at his enthusiasm with a little happy ejaculation,
shook him impulsively.
"Oh, let's wake up!" she cried. "Are we only dreaming? ... are you
_sure_ this isn't only just a beautiful dream, from which we'll wake up
presently? I can't realize it's all true, yet!"
He tilted her chin up and gazed into the glorious hazel eyes lovingly.
"No, my dear," he murmured, the hard lines of his somber face softened
into an expression of dreamy, quiet peace. "It's no dream this time. I'm
done with my hopeless, empty dreams now! I'm a poor man no longer! Oh,
Mary, my girl! My great big splendid-looking wife-to-be! ... how I
surely do love you! Promise me you're going to be very, very happy now,
and give me another kiss! We'll have to be getting back. I don't want to
be getting into Mrs. T's bad books again," he added, grinning. "She gave
me orders ... very peremptory orders ... but I think I can report that
I've carried 'em out! Now give that kiss!"
What a wonderful change--spiritually and physically--a little love can
effect! Gone were all poor Mary's dark shadows, pallor, and weary
despondency. Once again her laughing long-lashed hazel eyes shone with
the happy lights of yore. Locked in each other's arms, for the time
being, in a rose-tinted world of their own and completely oblivious to
their surroundings, they happened to sway up against Johnny who, turning
his head, with a mildly inquiring eye, tucked up his nigh fetlock and
nibbled at them for sugar, nickering softly the while.
And Mary's horse, down on the flat below, whinnied back a responsive
"All's Well."
Footnote:
GLOSSARY
_Aasvogel_--(_Dutch Taal_) A species of South African vulture.
(_Carrion._)
_Allemachtig_--(_Dutch Taal_) Almighty!
_Adios_--(_Spanish_) Good-by!
_Dekho_--(_Hindustani_) Look.
_Disselboom_--(_Dutch Taal_) Wagon-tongue.
_Dopper_--(_Dutch Taal_) A term generally applied to the Boers in S. A.
_Doed_--(_Dutch Taal_) Dead.
_Dorp_--(_Dutch Taal_) A small town.
_Drink hael_--(_Dutch Taal_) Signifying "Drink hearty!"
_Dronk_--(_Dutch Taal_) Drunk.
_Eyck! Eyck! Azi-wan-n! Ari-tsemah! Hamba-ke!_--(_Kaffir expressions,
urging on horse, oxen, or mule_) Literally--"Get up there! Go on!"
_Inspanning_--(_Dutch Taal_) Harnessing up horse, oxen, or mule teams.
_Indaba_--(_Zulu_) Talk, language.
_I Korner_--(_Dutch Taal_) An expression of incredulity, "understand!"
_Intombi_--(_Zulu_) Young woman.
_Isch Ga Bibble!_--(_Yiddish_) "I should worry!"
_Ja_--(_Dutch Taal_) Yes!
_Kinders_--(_Dutch Taal_) Children.
_Kopje_--(_Dutch Taal_) Small hill, or butte.
_Krantzes_--(_Dutch Taal_) Rocky precipices.
_Laager_--(_Dutch Taal_) Camp, abode.
_Leugenaar_--(_Dutch Taal_) Liar.
_Meerkat_--(_Dutch Taal_) A species of animal like a gigantic gopher
which burrows on the veldt.
_Myjnheer_--(_Dutch_) Mr.
_N'dipe Manzi_--(_Kaffir_) "Give me some water!"
_Nee-moyee_--(_Cree_) "No!" (Pronounced "Naz-mo-yer.")
_Outspan_--(_Dutch Taal_) Unharnessing horse, oxen, or mule teams.
_Paseur_--(_Spanish_) Walk.
_Pronto!_--(_Spanish_) "Quick! Look sharp!"
_Salue!_--(_Signifying_) "Here's luck!"
_Saku Bona N'kos!_--(_Kaffir_) "Good day, Chief."
_Saku Bona, Umlungu_--(_Kaffir_) "Good day, White Man!"
_Sjambok_--(_Dutch Taal_) Rawhide whip.
"_Skiet die Verdoe Schepsel!_"--(_Dutch Taal_) "Shoot the damned
rascal!"
_Soor_--(_Hindustani_) Swine.
_Taal_--South African Dutch language.
_Trek_--(_Dutch Taal_) March, travel.
_Tronk_--(_Dutch Taal_) Gaol.
_Uitlander_--(_Dutch Taal_) Outlander. Unfranchised by the S. A.
Republic.
"_Umbagi!_"--(_Kaffir_) Signifying "Move on there!" "Get along!"
_Umfundusi_--(_Kaffir_) Preacher.
_Umlungu_--(_Kaffir_) "White man!"
_Vierkleur_--(_Dutch Taal_) The flag of the late South African
Republics.
"_Voertsek, Du Verdomde Schelm!_"--(_Dutch Taal_) "Get out, you damned
rascal!"
_Vrouw_--(_Dutch Taal_) Wife.
"_Wacht-een-bietje!_"--(_Dutch Taal_) "Wait a bit!"
"_Wana!_"--(_Kaffir_) "Stop!" "Halt there!"
RALPH CONNOR'S STORIES OF THE NORTHWEST
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
_THE SKY PILOT IN NO MAN'S LAND_
The clean-hearted, strong-limbed man of the West leaves his hills and
forests to fight the battle for freedom in the old world.
_BLACK ROCK_
A story of strong men in the mountains of the West.
_THE SKY PILOT_
A story of cowboy life, abounding in the freshest humor, the truest
tenderness and the finest courage.
_THE PROSPECTOR_
A tale of the foothills and of the man who came to them to lend a hand
to the lonely men and women who needed a protector.
_THE MAN FROM GLENGARRY_
This narrative brings us into contact with elemental and volcanic human
nature and with a hero whose power breathes from every word.
_GLENGARRY SCHOOL DAYS_
In this rough country of Glengarry, Ralph Connor has found human nature
in the rough.
_THE DOCTOR_
The story of a "preacher-doctor" whom big men and reckless men loved for
his unselfish life among them.
_THE FOREIGNER_
A tale of the Saskatchewan and of a "foreigner" who made a brave and
winning fight for manhood and love.
_CORPORAL CAMERON_
This splendid type of the upright, out-of-door man about which Ralph
Connor builds all his stories, appears again in this book.
Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York
NOVELS OF FRONTIER LIFE BY
WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE
May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
_MAVERICKS_
A tale of the western frontier, where the "rustler" abounds. One of the
sweetest love stories ever told.
_A TEXAS RANGER_
How a member of the border police saved the life of an innocent man,
followed a fugitive to Wyoming, and then passed through deadly peril to
ultimate happiness.
_WYOMING_
In this vivid story the author brings out the turbid life of the
frontier with all its engaging dash and vigor.
_RIDGWAY OF MONTANA_
The scene is laid in the mining centers of Montana, where politics and
mining industries are the religion of the country.
_BUCKY O'CONNOR_
Every chapter teems with wholesome, stirring adventures, replete with
the dashing spirit of the border.
_CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT_
A story of Arizona; of swift-riding men and daring outlaws; of a bitter
feud between cattle-men and sheep-herders.
_BRAND BLOTTERS_
A story of the turbid life of the frontier with a charming love interest
running through its pages.
_STEVE YEAGER_
A story brimful of excitement, with enough gun-play and adventure to
suit anyone.
_A DAUGHTER OF THE DONS_
A Western story of romance and adventure, comprising a vivacious and
stirring tale.
_THE HIGHGRADER_
A breezy, pleasant and amusing love Story of Western mining life.
_THE PIRATE OF PANAMA_
A tale of old-time pirates and of modern love, hate and adventure.
_THE YUKON TRAIL_
A crisply entertaining love story in the land where might makes right.
_THE VISION SPLENDID_
In which two cousins are contestants for the same prizes; political
honors and the hand of a girl.
_THE SHERIFF'S SON_
The hero finally conquers both himself and his enemies and wins the love
of a wonderful girl.
Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers, New York