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The Man from Glengarry: A Tale of the Ottawa

by Ralph Connor · English · Gutenberg #3287 · 663,554 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Man from Glengarry: A Tale of the Ottawa

Author: Ralph Connor


        
Release date: June 3, 2006 [eBook #3287]
                Most recently updated: March 5, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3287

Credits: Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN FROM GLENGARRY: A TALE OF THE OTTAWA ***




Produced by Donald Lainson





THE MAN FROM GLENGARRY

A TALE OF THE OTTAWA


By Ralph Connor




DEDICATION

TO THE MEN OF GLENGARRY WHO IN PATIENCE, IN COURAGE AND IN THE FEAR OF
GOD ARE HELPING TO BUILD THE EMPIRE OF THE CANADIAN WEST THIS BOOK IS
HUMBLY DEDICATED




PREFACE


The solid forests of Glengarry have vanished, and with the forests the
men who conquered them. The manner of life and the type of character to
be seen in those early days have gone too, and forever. It is part of
the purpose of this book to so picture these men and their times that
they may not drop quite out of mind. The men are worth remembering.
They carried the marks of their blood in their fierce passions, their
courage, their loyalty; and of the forest in their patience, their
resourcefulness, their self-reliance. But deeper than all, the mark that
reached down to their hearts' core was that of their faith, for in
them dwelt the fear of God. Their religion may have been narrow, but
no narrower than the moulds of their lives. It was the biggest thing in
them. It may have taken a somber hue from their gloomy forests, but
by reason of a sweet, gracious presence dwelling among them it grew in
grace and sweetness day by day.

In the Canada beyond the Lakes, where men are making empire, the sons
of these Glengarry men are found. And there such men are needed. For
not wealth, not enterprise, not energy, can build a nation into sure
greatness, but men, and only men with the fear of God in their hearts,
and with no other. And to make this clear is also a part of the purpose
of this book.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

I     THE OPEN RIVER

II    VENGEANCE IS MINE

III   THE MANSE IN THE BUSH

IV    THE RIDE FOR LIFE

V     FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS

VI    A NEW FRIEND

VII   MAIMIE

VIII  THE SUGARING-OFF

IX    A SABBATH DAY'S WORK

X     THE HOME-COMING OF THE SHANTYMEN

XI    THE WAKE

XII   SEED-TIME

XIII  THE LOGGING BEE

XIV   SHE WILL NOT FORGET

XV    THE REVIVAL

XVI   AND THE GLORY

XVII  LENOIR'S NEW MASTER

XVIII HE IS NOT OF MY KIND

XIX   ONE GAME AT A TIME

XX    HER CLINGING ARMS

XXI   I WILL REMEMBER

XXII  FORGET THAT I LOVED YOU

XXIII A GOOD, TRUE FRIEND

XXIV  THE WEST

XXV   GLENGARRY FOREVER




THE MAN FROM GLENGARRY


CHAPTER I

THE OPEN RIVER


The winter had broken early and the Scotch River was running ice-free
and full from bank to bank. There was still snow in the woods, and with
good sleighing and open rivers every day was golden to the lumbermen
who had stuff to get down to the big water. A day gained now might save
weeks at a chute farther down, where the rafts would crowd one another
and strive for right of way.

Dan Murphy was mightily pleased with himself and with the bit of the
world about him, for there lay his winter's cut of logs in the river
below him snug and secure and held tight by a boom across the mouth,
just where it flowed into the Nation. In a few days he would have his
crib made, and his outfit ready to start for the Ottawa mills. He was
sure to be ahead of the big timber rafts that took up so much space,
and whose crews with unbearable effrontery considered themselves the
aristocrats of the river.

Yes, it was a pleasant and satisfying sight, some three solid miles of
logs boomed at the head of the big water. Suddenly Murphy turned his
face up the river.

“What's that now, d'ye think, LeNware?” he asked.

LeNoir, or “LeNware,” as they all called it in that country, was Dan
Murphy's foreman, and as he himself said, “for haxe, for hit (eat),
for fight de boss on de reever Hottawa! by Gar!” Louis LeNoir was a
French-Canadian, handsome, active, hardy, and powerfully built. He had
come from the New Brunswick woods some three years ago, and had wrought
and fought his way, as he thought, against all rivals to the proud
position of “boss on de reever,” the topmost pinnacle of a lumberman's
ambition. It was something to see LeNoir “run a log” across the river
and back; that is, he would balance himself upon a floating log, and by
spinning it round, would send it whither he would. At Murphy's question
LeNoir stood listening with bent head and open mouth. Down the river
came the sound of singing. “Don-no me! Ah oui! be dam! Das Macdonald
gang for sure! De men from Glengarrie, les diables! Dey not hout de
reever yet.” His boss went off into a volley of oaths--

“They'll be wanting the river now, an' they're divils to fight.”

“We give em de full belly, heh? Bon!” said LeNoir, throwing back his
head. His only unconquered rival on the river was the boss of the
Macdonald gang.


     Ho ro, mo nighean donn bhoidheach,
     Hi-ri, mo nighean donn bhoidheach,
     Mo chaileag, laghach, bhoidheach,
        Cha phosainn ach thu.


Down the river came the strong, clear chorus of men's voices, and soon a
“pointer” pulled by six stalwart men with a lad in the stern swung round
the bend into view. A single voice took up the song--


     'S ann tha mo run's na beanntaibh,
     Far bheil mo ribhinn ghreannar,
     Mar ros am fasach shamhraidh
        An gleann fad o shuil.


After the verse the full chorus broke forth again--


     Ho ro, mo nighean, etc.


Swiftly the pointer shot down the current, the swaying bodies and
swinging oars in perfect rhythm with the song that rose and fell with
melancholy but musical cadence. The men on the high bank stood looking
down upon the approaching singers. “You know dem fellers?” said LeNoir.
Murphy nodded. “Ivery divil iv thim--Big Mack Cameron, Dannie Ross,
Finlay Campbell--the redheaded one--the next I don't know, and yes! be
dad! there's that blanked Yankee, Yankee Jim, they call him, an' bad
luck till him. The divil will have to take the poker till him, for he'll
bate him wid his fists, and so he will--and that big black divil is
Black Hugh, the brother iv the boss Macdonald. He'll be up in the camp
beyant, and a mighty lucky thing for you, LeNoir, he is.”

“Bah!” spat LeNoir, “Dat beeg Macdonald I mak heem run like one leetle
sheep, one tam at de long Sault, bah! No good!” LeNoir's contempt for
Macdonald was genuine and complete. For two years he had tried to meet
the boss Macdonald, but his rival had always avoided him.

Meantime, the pointer came swinging along. As it turned the point
the boy uttered an exclamation--“Look there!” The song and the rowing
stopped abruptly; the big, dark man stood up and gazed down the river,
packed from bank to bank with the brown saw-logs; deep curses broke from
him. Then he caught sight of the men on the bank. A word of command and
the pointer shot into the shore, and the next moment Macdonald Dubh,
or Black Hugh, as he was sometimes called, followed by his men, was
climbing up the steep bank.

“What the blank, blank, do these logs mean, Murphy?” he demanded,
without pause for salutation.

“Tis a foine avenin' Misther Macdonald,” said Murphy, blandly offering
his hand, “an' Hiven bliss ye.”

Macdonald checked himself with an effort and reluctantly shook hands
with Murphy and LeNoir, whom he slightly knew. “It is a fery goot
evening, indeed,” he said, in as quiet a voice as he could command, “but
I am inquiring about these logs.”

“Shure, an' it is a dhry night, and onpolite to kape yez talking here.
Come in wid yez,” and much against his will Black Hugh followed Murphy
to the tavern, the most pretentious of a group of log buildings--once
a lumber camp--which stood back a little distance from the river, and
about which Murphy's men, some sixty of them, were now camped.

The tavern was full of Murphy's gang, a motley crew, mostly French
Canadians and Irish, just out of the woods and ready for any devilment
that promised excitement. Most of them knew by sight, and all by
reputation, Macdonald and his gang, for from the farthest reaches of the
Ottawa down the St. Lawrence to Quebec the Macdonald gang of Glengarry
men was famous. They came, most of them, from that strip of country
running back from the St. Lawrence through Glengarry County, known as
the Indian Lands--once an Indian reservation. They were sons of the men
who had come from the highlands and islands of Scotland in the early
years of the last century. Driven from homes in the land of their
fathers, they had set themselves with indomitable faith and courage to
hew from the solid forest, homes for themselves and their children that
none might take from them. These pioneers were bound together by ties of
blood, but also by bonds stronger than those of blood. Their loneliness,
their triumphs, their sorrows, born of their common life-long conflict
with the forest and its fierce beasts, knit them in bonds close and
enduring. The sons born to them and reared in the heart of the pine
forests grew up to witness that heroic struggle with stern nature and to
take their part in it. And mighty men they were. Their life bred in
them hardiness of frame, alertness of sense, readiness of resource,
endurance, superb self-reliance, a courage that grew with peril, and
withal a certain wildness which at times deepened into ferocity. By
their fathers the forest was dreaded and hated, but the sons, with
rifles in hand, trod its pathless stretches without fear, and with their
broad-axes they took toll of their ancient foe. For while in spring and
summer they farmed their narrow fields, and rescued new lands from the
brule; in winter they sought the forest, and back on their own farms or
in “the shanties” they cut sawlogs, or made square timber, their only
source of wealth. The shanty life of the early fifties of last century
was not the luxurious thing of to-day. It was full of privation, for
the men were poorly housed and fed, and of peril, for the making of the
timber and the getting it down the smaller rivers to the big water was
a work of hardship and danger. Remote from the restraints of law and
of society, and living in wild surroundings and in hourly touch with
danger, small wonder that often the shanty-men were wild and reckless.
So that many a poor fellow in a single wild carouse in Quebec, or more
frequently in some river town, would fling into the hands of sharks
and harlots and tavern-keepers, with whom the bosses were sometimes in
league, the earnings of his long winter's work, and would wake to find
himself sick and penniless, far from home and broken in spirit.

Of all the shanty-men of the Ottawa the men of Glengarry, and of
Glengarry men Macdonald's gang were easily first, and of the gang Donald
Bhain Macdonald, or Macdonald More, or the Big Macdonald, for he was
variously known, was not only the “boss” but best and chief. There was
none like him. A giant in size and strength, a prince of broad-axe men,
at home in the woods, sure-footed and daring on the water, free with
his wages, and always ready to drink with friend or fight with foe, the
whole river admired, feared, or hated him, while his own men followed
him into the woods, on to a jam, or into a fight with equal joyousness
and devotion. Fighting was like wine to him, when the fight was worth
while, and he went into the fights his admirers were always arranging
for him with the easiest good humor and with a smile on his face. But
Macdonald Bhain's carousing, fighting days came to an abrupt stop about
three years before the opening of this tale, for on one of his summer
visits to his home, “The word of the Lord in the mouth of his servant
Alexander Murray,” as he was wont to say, “found him and he was a new
man.” He went into his new life with the same whole-souled joyousness as
had marked the old, and he announced that with the shanty and the river
he was “done for ever more.” But after the summer's work was done, and
the logging over, and when the snap of the first frost nipped the leaves
from the trees, Macdonald became restless. He took down his broad-axe
and spent hours polishing it and bringing it to an edge, then he put it
in its wooden sheath and laid it away. But the fever was upon him, ten
thousand voices from the forest were shouting for him. He went away
troubled to his minister. In an hour he came back with the old good
humor in his face, took down the broad-axe again, and retouched it,
lovingly, humming the while the old river song of the Glengarry men--


     Ho ro mo nighean, etc.


He was going back to the bush and to the biggest fight of his life. No
wonder he was glad. Then his good little wife began to get ready his
long, heavy stockings, his thick mits, his homespun smock, and other
gear, for she knew well that soon she would be alone for another
winter. Before long the word went round that Macdonald Bhain was for the
shanties again, and his men came to him for their orders.

But it was not to the old life that Macdonald was going, and he gravely
told those that came to him that he would take no man who could not
handle his axe and hand-spike, and who could not behave himself.
“Behaving himself” meant taking no more whiskey than a man could carry,
and refusing all invitations to fight unless “necessity was laid upon
him.” The only man to object was his own brother, Macdonald Dubh, whose
temper was swift to blaze, and with whom the blow was quicker than the
word. But after the second year of the new order even Black Hugh fell
into line. Macdonald soon became famous on the Ottawa. He picked only
the best men, he fed them well, paid them the highest wages, and cared
for their comfort, but held them in strictest discipline. They would
drink but kept sober, they would spend money but knew how much was
coming to them. They feared no men even of “twice their own heavy and
big,” but would never fight except under necessity. Contracts began to
come their way. They made money, and what was better, they brought it
home. The best men sought to join them, but by rival gangs and by men
rejected from their ranks they were hated with deepest heart hatred. But
the men from Glengarry knew no fear and sought no favor. They asked only
a good belt of pine and an open river. As a rule they got both, and it
was peculiarly maddening to Black Hugh to find two or three miles of
solid logs between his timber and the open water of the Nation. Black
Hugh had a temper fierce and quick, and when in full flame he was a man
to avoid, for from neither man nor devil would he turn. The only man
who could hold him was his brother Macdonald Bhain, for strong man as
he was, Black Hugh knew well that his brother could with a single swift
grip bring him to his knees.

It was unfortunate that the command of the party this day should have
been Macdonald Dubh's. Unfortunate, too, that it was Dan Murphy and his
men that happened to be blocking the river mouth. For the Glengarry men,
who handled only square timber, despised the Murphy gang as sawlog-men;
“log-rollers” or “mushrats” they called them, and hated them as Irish
“Papishes” and French “Crapeaux,” while between Dan Murphy and Macdonald
Dubh there was an ancient personal grudge, and to-day Murphy thought he
had found his time. There were only six of the enemy, he had ten times
the number with him, many of them eager to pay off old scores; and
besides there was Louis LeNoir as the “Boss Bully” of the river. The
Frenchman was not only a powerful man, active with hands and feet, but
he was an adept in all kinds of fighting tricks. Since coming to the
Ottawa he had heard of the big Macdonald, and he sought to meet him. But
Macdonald avoided him once and again till LeNoir, having never known
any one avoiding a fight for any reason other than fear, proclaimed
Macdonald a coward, and himself “de boss on de reever.” Now there was
a chance of meeting his rival and of forcing a fight, for the Glengarry
camp could not be far away where the big Macdonald himself would be.
So Dan Murphy, backed up with numbers, and the boss bully LeNoir,
determined that for these Macdonald men the day of settlement had
come. But they were dangerous men, and it would be well to take all
precautions, and hence his friendly invitation to the tavern for drinks.

Macdonald Dubh, scorning to show hesitation, though he suspected
treachery, strode after Murphy to the tavern door and through the crowd
of shanty-men filling the room. They were as ferocious looking a lot
of men as could well be got together, even in that country and in those
days--shaggy of hair and beard, dressed out in red and blue and green
jerseys, with knitted sashes about their waists, and red and blue and
green tuques on their heads. Drunken rows were their delight, and fights
so fierce that many a man came out battered and bruised to death or to
life-long decrepitude. They were sitting on the benches that ran round
the room, or lounging against the bar singing, talking, blaspheming. At
the sight of Macdonald Dubh and his men there fell a dead silence, and
then growls of recognition, but Murphy was not yet ready, and roaring
out “Dh-r-r-i-n-k-s,” he seized a couple of his men leaning against the
bar, and hurling them to right and left, cried, “Ma-a-ke room for yer
betthers, be the powers! Sthand up, bhoys, and fill yirsilves!”

Black Hugh and his men lined up gravely to the bar and were straightway
surrounded by the crowd yelling hideously. But if Murphy and his gang
thought to intimidate those grave Highlanders with noise, they were
greatly mistaken, for they stood quietly waiting for their glasses to
be filled, alert, but with an air of perfect indifference. Some eight or
ten glasses were set down and filled, when Murphy, snatching a couple
of bottles from the shelf behind the bar, handed them out to his men,
crying, “Here, ye bluddy thaves, lave the glasses to the gintlemen!”

There was no mistaking the insolence in his tone, and the chorus of
derisive yells that answered him showed that his remark had gone to the
spot.

Yankee Jim, who had kept close to Black Hugh, saw the veins in his
neck beginning to swell, and face to grow dark. He was longing to be
at Murphy's throat. “Speak him fair,” he said, in a low tone, “there's
rather a good string of 'em raound.” Macdonald Dubh glanced about him.
His eye fell on his boy, and for the first time his face became anxious.
“Ranald,” he said, angrily, “take yourself out of this. It is no place
for you whatever.” The boy, a slight lad of seventeen, but tall and
well-knit, and with his father's fierce, wild, dark face, hesitated.

“Go,” said his father, giving him a slight cuff.

“Here, boy!” yelled LeNoir, catching him by the arm and holding the
bottle to his mouth, “drink.” The boy took a gulp, choked, and spat
it out. LeNoir and his men roared. “Dat good whiskey,” he cried, still
holding the boy. “You not lak dat, hey?”

“No,” said the boy, “it is not good at all.”

“Try heem some more,” said LeNoir, thrusting the bottle at him again.

“I will not,” said Ranald, looking at LeNoir straight and fearless.

“Ho-ho! mon brave enfant! But you have not de good mannere. Come,
drink!” He caught the boy by the back of the neck, and made as if to
pour the whiskey down his throat. Black Hugh, who had been kept back by
Yankee Jim all this time, started forward, but before he could take a
second step Ranald, squirming round like a cat, had sunk his teeth into
LeNoir's wrist. With a cry of rage and pain LeNoir raised the bottle and
was bringing it down on Ranald's head, when Black Hugh, with one hand,
caught the falling blow, and with the other seized Ranald, and crying,
“Get out of this!” he flung him towards the door. Then turning to
LeNoir, he said, with surprising self-control, “It is myself that is
sorry that a boy of mine should be guilty of biting like a dog.”

“Sa-c-r-re le chien!” yelled LeNoir, shaking off Macdonald Dubh; “he is
one dog, and the son of a dog!” He turned and started for the boy. But
Yankee Jim had got Ranald to the door and was whispering to him. “Run!”
 cried Yankee Jim, pushing him out of the door, and the boy was off like
the wind. LeNoir pursued him a short way and returned raging.

Yankee Jim, or Yankee, as he was called for short, came back to
Macdonald Dubh's side, and whispering to the other Highlanders, “Keep
your backs clear,” sat up coolly on the counter. The fight was sure to
come and there were seven to one against them in the room. If he could
only gain time. Every minute was precious. It would take the boy fifteen
minutes to run the two miles to camp. It would be half an hour before
the rest of the Glengarry men could arrive, and much fighting may be
done in that time. He must avert attention from Macdonald Dubh, who was
waiting to cram LeNoir's insult down his throat. Yankee Jim had not
only all the cool courage but also the shrewd, calculating spirit of
his race. He was ready to fight, and if need be against odds, but he
preferred to fight on as even terms as possible.

Soon LeNoir came back, wild with fury, and yelling curses at the top of
his voice. He hurled himself into the room, the crowd falling back from
him on either hand.

“Hola!” he yelled, “Sacre bleu!” He took two quick steps, and springing
up into the air he kicked the stovepipe that ran along some seven feet
above the floor.

“Purty good kicking,” called out Yankee, sliding down from his seat.
“Used to kick some myself. Excuse ME.” He stood for a moment looking up
at the stovepipe, then without apparent effort he sprang into the air,
shot up his long legs, and knocked the stovepipe with a bang against the
ceiling. There was a shout of admiration.

“My damages,” he said to Pat Murphy, who stood behind the counter. “Good
thing there ain't no fire. Thought it was higher. Wouldn't care to kick
for the drinks, would ye?” he added to LeNoir.

LeNoir was too furious to enter into any contest so peaceful, but as he
specially prided himself on his high kick, he paused a moment and was
about to agree when Black Hugh broke in, harshly, spoiling all Yankee's
plans.

“There is no time for such foolishness,” he said, turning to Dan Murphy.
“I want to know when we can get our timber out.”

“Depinds intoirly on yirsilf,” said Murphy.

“When will your logs be out of the way?”

“Indade an' that's a ha-r-r-d one,” laughed Murphy.

“And will you tell me what right hev you to close up the river?” Black
Hugh's wrath was rising.

“You wud think now it wuz yirsilf that owned the river. An' bedad it's
the thought of yir mind, it is. An' it's not the river only, but the
whole creation ye an yir brother think is yours.” Dan Murphy was close up
to Macdonald Dubh by this time. “Yis, blank, blank, yir faces, an' ye'd
like to turn better than yirsilves from aff the river, so ye wud, ye
black-hearted thaves that ye are.”

This, of course, was beyond all endurance. For answer Black Hugh smote
him sudden and fierce on the mouth, and Murphy went down.

“Purty one,” sang out Yankee, cheerily. “Now, boys, back to the wall.”

Before Murphy could rise, LeNoir sprang over him and lit upon Macdonald
like a cat, but Macdonald shook himself free and sprang back to the
Glengarry line at the wall.

“Mac an' Diabboil,” he roared, “Glengarry forever!”

“Glengarry!” yelled the four Highlanders beside him, wild with the
delight of battle. It was a plain necessity, and they went into it with
free consciences and happy hearts.

“Let me at him,” cried Murphy, struggling past LeNoir towards Macdonald.

“Non! He is to me!” yelled LeNoir, dancing in front of Macdonald.

“Here, Murphy,” called out Yankee, obligingly, “help yourself this way.”
 Murphy dashed at him, but Yankee's long arm shot out to meet him, and
Murphy again found the floor.

“Come on, boys,” cried Pat Murphy, Dan's brother, and followed by half a
dozen others, he flung himself at Yankee and the line of men standing up
against the wall. But Yankee's arms flashed out once, twice, thrice, and
Pat Murphy fell back over his brother; two others staggered across and
checked the oncoming rush, while Dannie Ross and big Mack Cameron had
each beaten back their man, and the Glengarry line stood unbroken.
Man for man they were far more than a match for their opponents, and
standing shoulder to shoulder, with their backs to the wall, they
taunted Murphy and his gang with all the wealth of gibes and oaths at
their command.

“Where's the rest of your outfit, Murphy?” drawled Yankee. “Don't seem's
if you'd counted right.”

“It is a cold day for the parley voos,” laughed Big Mack Cameron. “Come
up, lads, and take a taste of something hot.”

Then the Murphy men, clearing away the fallen, rushed again. They strove
to bring the Highlanders to a clinch, but Yankee's voice was high and
clear in command.

“Keep the line, boys! Don't let 'em draw you!” And the Glengarry men
waited till they could strike, and when they struck men went down and
were pulled back by their friends.

“Intil them, bhoys!” yelled Dan Murphy, keeping out of range himself.
“Intil the divils!” And again and again his men crowded down upon the
line against the wall, but again and again they were beaten down or
hurled back bruised and bleeding.

Meantime LeNoir was devoting himself to Black Hugh at one end of the
line, dancing in upon him and away again, but without much result. Black
Hugh refused to be drawn out, and fought warily on defense, knowing the
odds were great and waiting his chance to deliver one good blow, which
was all he asked.

The Glengarry men were enjoying themselves hugely, and when not shouting
their battle-cry, “Glengarry forever!” or taunting their foes, they were
joking each other on the fortunes of war. Big Mack Cameron, who held the
center, drew most of the sallies. He was easy-tempered and good-natured,
and took his knocks with the utmost good humor.

“That was a good one, Mack,” said Dannie Ross, his special chum, as a
sounding whack came in on Big Mack's face. “As true as death I will be
telling it to Bella Peter. Bella, the daughter of Peter McGregor, was
supposed to be dear to Big Mack's heart.

“What a peety she could not see him the now,” said Finlay Campbell. “Man
alive, she would say the word queeck!”

“'Tis more than she will do to you whatever, if you cannot keep off that
crapeau yonder a little better,” said Big Mack, reaching for a Frenchman
who kept dodging in upon him with annoying persistence. Then Mack began
to swear Gaelic oaths.

“'Tain't fair, Mack!” called out Yankee from his end of the line, “bad
language in English is bad enough, but in Gaelic it must be uncommon
rough.” So they gibed each other. But the tactics of the enemy were
exceedingly irritating, and were beginning to tell upon the tempers of
the Highlanders.

“Come to me, ye cowardly little devil,” roared Mack to his persisting
assailant. “No one will hurt you! Come away, man! A-a-ah-ouch!” His cry
of satisfaction at having grabbed his man ended in a howl of pain, for
the Frenchman had got Mack's thumb between his teeth, and was chewing it
vigorously.

“Ye would, would you, ye dog?” roared Big Mack. He closed his fingers
into the Frenchman's gullet, and drew him up to strike, but on every
side hands reached for him and stayed his blow. Then he lost himself.
With a yell of rage he jambed his man back into the crowd, sinking his
fingers deeper and deeper into his enemy's throat till his face grew
black and his head fell over on one side. But it was a fatal move
for Mack, and overcome by numbers that crowded upon him, he went down
fighting wildly and bearing the Frenchman beneath him. The Glengarry
line was broken. Black Hugh saw Mack's peril, and knew that it
meant destruction to all. With a wilder cry than usual, “Glengarry!
Glengarry!” he dashed straight into LeNoir, who gave back swiftly,
caught two men who were beating Big Mack's life out, and hurled them
aside, and grasping his friend's collar, hauled him to his feet, and
threw him back against the wall and into the line again with his grip
still upon his Frenchman's throat.

“Let dead men go, Mack,” he cried, but even as he spoke LeNoir, seeing
his opportunity, sprang at him and with a backward kick caught Macdonald
fair in the face and lashed him hard against the wall. It was the
terrible French 'lash' and was one of LeNoir's special tricks. Black
Hugh, stunned and dazed, leaned back against the wall, spreading out his
hands weakly before his face. LeNoir, seeing victory within his grasp,
rushed in to finish off his special foe. But Yankee Jim, who, while
engaged in cheerfully knocking back the two Murphys and others who took
their turn at him, had been keeping an eye on the line of battle, saw
Macdonald's danger, and knowing that the crisis had come, dashed across
the line, crying “Follow me, boys.” His long arms swung round his head
like the sails of a wind-mill, and men fell back from him as if they had
been made of wood. As LeNoir sprang, Yankee shot fiercely at him, but
the Frenchman, too quick for him, ducked and leaped upon Black Hugh, who
was still swaying against the wall, bore him down and jumped with his
heavy “corked” boots on his breast and face. Again the Glengarry line
was broken. At once the crowd surged about the Glengarry men, who now
stood back to back, beating off the men leaping at them from every side,
as a stag beats off dogs, and still chanting high their dauntless cry,
“Glengarry forever,” to which Big Mack added at intervals, “To hell with
the Papishes!” Yankee, failing to check LeNoir's attack upon Black Hugh,
fought off the men crowding upon him, and made his way to the corner
where the Frenchman was still engaged in kicking the prostrate
Highlander to death.

“Take that, you blamed cuss,” he said, catching LeNoir in the jaw and
knocking his head with a thud against the wall. Before he could strike
again he was thrown against his enemy, who clutched him and held like a
vice.



CHAPTER II

VENGEANCE IS MINE


The Glengarry men had fought their fight, and it only remained for their
foes to wreak their vengeance upon them and wipe out old scores. One
minute more would have done for them, but in that minute the door came
crashing in. There was a mighty roar, “Glengarry! Glengarry!” and the
great Macdonald himself, with the boy Ranald and some half-dozen of
his men behind him, stood among them. On all hands the fight stopped. A
moment he stood, his great head and shoulders towering above the crowd,
his tawny hair and beard falling around his face like a great mane, his
blue eyes gleaming from under his shaggy eyebrows like livid lightning.
A single glance around the room, and again raising his battle-cry,
“Glengarry!” he seized the nearest shrinking Frenchman, lifted him high,
and hurled him smashing into the bottles behind the counter. His men,
following him, bounded like tigers on their prey. A few minutes of
fierce, eager fighting, and the Glengarry men were all freed and on
their feet, all except Black Hugh, who lay groaning in his corner.
“Hold, lads!” Macdonald Bhain cried, in his mighty voice. “Stop, I'm
telling you.” The fighting ceased.

“Dan Murphy!” he cried, casting his eye round the room, “where are you,
ye son of Belial?”

Murphy, crouching at the back of the crowd near the door, sought to
escape.

“Ah! there you are!” cried Macdonald, and reaching through the crowd
with his great, long arm, he caught Murphy by the hair of the head and
dragged him forward.

“R-r-r-a-a-t! R-r-r-a-a-t! R-r-r-a-a-t!” he snarled, shaking him till
his teeth rattled. “It is yourself that is the cause of this wickedness.
Now, may the Lord have mercy on your soul.” With one hand he gripped
Murphy by the throat, holding him at arm's length, and raised his huge
fist to strike. But before the blow fell he paused.

“No!” he muttered, in a disappointed tone, “it is not good enough. I
will not be demeaning myself. Hence, you r-r-a-a-t!” As he spoke he
lifted the shaking wretch as if he had been a bundle of clothes, swung
him half round and hurled him crashing through the window.

“Is there no goot man here at all who will stand before me?” he raged
in a wild, joyous fury. “Will not two of you come forth, then?” No one
moved. “Come to me!” he suddenly cried, and snatching two of the enemy,
he dashed their heads together, and threw them insensible on the floor.

Then he caught sight of his brother for the first time lying in the
corner with Big Mack supporting his head, and LeNoir standing near.

“What is this? What is this?” he cried, striding toward LeNoir. “And is
it you that has done this work?” he asked, in a voice of subdued rage.

“Oui!” cried LeNoir, stepping back and putting up his hands, “das me;
Louis LeNoir! by Gar!” He struck himself on the breast as he spoke.

“Out of my way!” cried Macdonald, swinging his open hand on the
Frenchman's ear. With a swift sweep he brushed LeNoir aside from his
place, and ignoring him stooped over his brother. But LeNoir was no
coward, and besides his boasted reputation was at stake. He thought
he saw his chance, and rushing at Macdonald as he was bending over his
brother, delivered his terrible 'lash'. But Macdonald had not lived with
and fought with Frenchmen all these years without knowing their tricks
and ways. He saw LeNoir's 'lash' coming, and quickly turning his head,
avoided the blow.

“Ah! would ye? Take that, then, and be quate!” and so saying, he caught
LeNoir on the side of the head and sent him to the floor.

“Keep him off a while, Yankee!” said Macdonald, for LeNoir was up again,
and coming at him.

Then kneeling beside his brother he wiped the bloody froth that was
oozing from his lips, and said in a low, anxious tone:

“Hugh, bhodaich (old man), are ye hurted? Can ye not speak to me, Hugh?”

“Oich-oh,” Black Hugh groaned. “It was a necessity--Donald man--and--he
took me--unawares--with his--keeck.”

“Indeed, and I'll warrant you!” agreed his brother, “but I will be
attending to him, never you fear.”

Macdonald was about to rise, when his brother caught his arm.

“You will--not be--killing him,” he urged, between his painful gasps,
“because I will be doing that myself some day, by God's help.”

His words and the eager hate in his face seemed to quiet Macdonald.

“Alas! alas!” he said, sadly, “it is not allowed me to smite him as
he deserves--'Vengeance is mine saith the Lord,' and I have solemnly
promised the minister not to smite for glory or for revenge! Alas!
alas!”

Then turning to LeNoir, he said, gravely: “It is not given me to punish
you for your coward's blow. Go from me!” But LeNoir misjudged him.

“Bah!” he cried, contemptuously, “you tink me one baby, you strike me on
de head side like one little boy. Bon! Louis LeNware, de bes bully on de
Hottawa, he's not 'fraid for hany man, by Gar!” He pranced up and down
before Macdonald, working himself into a great rage, as Macdonald grew
more and more controlled.

Macdonald turned to his men with a kind of appeal--“I hev given my
promise, and Macdonald will not break his word.”

“Bah!” cried LeNoir, spitting at him.

“Now may the Lord give me grace to withstand the enemy,” said Macdonald,
gravely, “for I am greatly moved to take vengeance upon you.”

“Bah!” cried LeNoir again, mistaking Macdonald's quietness and
self-control for fear. “You no good! Your brother is no good! Beeg
sheep! Beeg sheep! Bah!”

“God help me,” said Macdonald as if to himself. “I am a man of grace!
But must this dog go unpunished?”

LeNoir continued striding up and down, now and then springing high in
the air and knocking his heels together with blood-curdling yells.
He seemed to feel that Macdonald would not fight, and his courage and
desire for blood grew accordingly.

“Will you not be quate?” said Macdonald, rising after a few moments from
his brother's side, where he had been wiping his lips and giving him
water to drink. “You will be better outside.”

“Oui! you strike me on the head side. Bon! I strike you de same way! By
Gar!” so saying he approached Macdonald lightly, and struck him a slight
blow on the cheek.

“Ay,” said Macdonald, growing white and rigid. “I struck you twice,
LeNoir. Here!” he offered the other side of his face. LeNoir danced up
carefully, made a slight pass, and struck the offered cheek.

“Now, that is done, will it please you to do it again?” said Macdonald,
with earnest entreaty in his voice. LeNoir must have been mad with his
rage and vanity, else he had caught the glitter in the blue eyes looking
through the shaggy hair. Again LeNoir approached, this time with greater
confidence, and dealt Macdonald a stinging blow on the side of the head.

“Now the Lord be praised,” he cried, joy breaking out in his face. “He
has delivered my enemy into my hand. For it is the third time he has
smitten me, and that is beyond the limit appointed by Himself.” With
this he advanced upon LeNoir with a glad heart. His conscience was clear
at last.

LeNoir stood up against his antagonist. He well knew he was about to
make the fight of his life. He had beaten men as big as Macdonald, but
he knew that his hope lay in keeping out of the enemy's reach. So he
danced around warily. Macdonald followed him slowly. LeNoir opened with
a swift and savage reach for Macdonald's neck, but failed to break the
guard and danced out again, Macdonald still pressing on him. Again
and again LeNoir rushed, but the guard was impregnable, and steadily
Macdonald advanced. That steady, relentless advance began to tell on the
Frenchman's nerves. The sweat gathered in big drops on his forehead and
ran down his face. He prepared for a supreme effort. Swiftly retreating,
he lured Macdonald to a more rapid advance, then with a yell he doubled
himself into a ball and delivered himself head, hands, and feet into
Macdonald's stomach. It is a trick that sometimes avails to break an
unsteady guard and to secure a clinch with an unwary opponent. But
Macdonald had been waiting for that trick. Stopping short, he leaned
over to one side, and stooping slightly, caught LeNoir low and tossed
him clear over his head. LeNoir fell with a terrible thud on his back,
but was on his feet again like a cat and ready for the ever-advancing
Macdonald. But though he had not been struck a single blow he knew that
he had met his master. That unbreakable guard, the smiling face with the
gleaming, unsmiling eyes, that awful unwavering advance, were too much
for him. He was pale, his breath came in quick gasps, and his eyes
showed the fear of a hunted beast. He prepared for a final effort.
Feigning a greater distress than he felt, he yielded weakly to
Macdonald's advance, then suddenly gathering his full strength he sprang
into the air and lashed out backward at that hated, smiling face. His
boot found its mark, not on Macdonald's face, but fair on his neck. The
effect was terrific. Macdonald staggered back two or three paces, but
before LeNoir could be at him, he had recovered sufficiently to maintain
his guard, and shake off his foe. At the yell that went up from Murphy's
men, the big Highlander's face lost its smile and became keen and cruel,
his eyes glittered with the flash of steel and he came forward once more
with a quick, light tread. His great body seemed to lose both size and
weight, so lightly did he step on tiptoe. There was no more pause, but
lightly, swiftly, and eagerly he glided upon LeNoir. There was something
terrifying in that swift, cat-like movement. In vain the Frenchman
backed and dodged and tried to guard. Once, twice, Macdonald's fists
fell. LeNoir's right arm hung limp by his side and he staggered back to
the wall helpless. Without an instant's delay, Macdonald had him by the
throat, and gripping him fiercely, began to slowly bend him backward
over his knee. Then for the first time Macdonald spoke:

“LeNoir,” he said, solemnly, “the days of your boasting are over. You
will no longer glory in your strength, for now I will break your back to
you.”

LeNoir tried to speak, but his voice came in horrible gurgles. His face
was a ghastly greenish hue, lined with purple and swollen veins, his
eyes were standing out of his head, and his breath sobbing in raucous
gasps. Slowly the head went back. The crowd stood in horror-stricken
silence waiting for the sickening snap. Yankee, unable to stand it any
longer, stepped up to his chief, and in a most matter of fact voice
drawled out, “About an inch more that way I guess 'll do the trick, if
he ain't double-jointed.”

“Aye,” said Macdonald, holding grimly on.

“Tonald,”--Black Hugh's voice sounded faint but clear in the awful
silence--“Tonald--you will not--be killing--him. Remember that now. I
will--never--forgive you--if you will--take that--from my hands.”

The cry for vengeance smote Macdonald to the heart, and recalled him to
himself. He paused, threw back his locks from his eyes, then relaxing
his grip, stood up.

“God preserve me!” he groaned, “what am I about?”

For some time he remained standing silent, with head down as if not
quite sure of himself. He was recalled by a grip of his arm. He turned
and saw his nephew, Ranald, at his side. The boy's dark face was pale
with passion.

“And is that all you are going to do to him?” he demanded. Macdonald
gazed at him.

“Do you not see what he has done?” he continued, pointing to his father,
who was still lying propped up on some coats. “Why did you not break his
back? You said you would! The brute, beast!”

He hurled out the words in hot hate. His voice pierced the noise of the
room. Macdonald stood still, gazing at the fierce, dark face in solemn
silence. Then he sadly shook his head.

“My lad, 'Vengeance is mine saith the Lord.' It would have pleased me
well, but the hand of the Lord was laid upon me and I could not kill
him.”

“Then it is myself will kill him,” he shrieked, springing like a wildcat
at LeNoir. But his uncle wound his arms around him and held him fast.
For a minute and more he struggled fiercely, crying to be set free,
till recognizing the uselessness of his efforts he grew calm, and said
quietly, “Let me loose, uncle; I will be quiet.” And his uncle set him
free. The boy shook himself, and then standing up before LeNoir said, in
a high, clear voice:

“Will you hear me, LeNoir? The day will come when I will do to you what
you have done to my father, and if my father will die, then by the life
of God [a common oath among the shanty-men] I will have your life for
it.” His voice had an unearthly shrillness in it, and LeNoir shrank
back.

“Whist, whist, lad! be quate!” said his uncle; “these are not goot
words.” The lad heeded him not, but sank down beside his father on the
floor. Black Hugh raised himself on his elbow with a grim smile on his
face.

“It is a goot lad whatever, but please God he will not need to keep his
word.” He laid his hand in a momentary caress upon his boy's shoulder,
and sank back again, saying, “Take me out of this.”

Then Macdonald Bhain turned to Dan Murphy and gravely addressed him:

“Dan Murphy, it is an ungodly and cowardly work you have done this day,
and the curse of God will be on you if you will not repent.” Then he
turned away, and with Big Mack's help bore his brother to the pointer,
followed by his men, bloody, bruised, but unconquered. But before he
left the room LeNoir stepped forward, and offering his hand, said, “You
mak friends wit' me. You de boss bully on de reever Hottawa.”

Macdonald neither answered nor looked his way, but passed out in grave
silence.

Then Yankee Jim remarked to Dan Murphy, “I guess you'd better git them
logs out purty mighty quick. We'll want the river in about two days.”
 Dan Murphy said not a word, but when the Glengarry men wanted the river
they found it open.

But for Macdonald the fight was not yet over, for as he sat beside his
brother, listening to his groans, his men could see him wreathing his
hands and chanting in an undertone the words, “Vengeance is mine saith
the Lord.” And as he sat by the camp-fire that night listening to
Yankee's account of the beginning of the trouble, and heard how his
brother had kept himself in hand, and how at last he had been foully
smitten, Macdonald's conflict deepened, and he rose up and cried aloud:

“God help me! Is this to go unpunished? I will seek him to-morrow.” And
he passed out into the dark woods.

After a few moments the boy Ranald slipped away after him to beg that he
might be allowed to go with him to-morrow. Stealing silently through the
bushes he came to where he could see the kneeling figure of his uncle
swaying up and down, and caught the sounds of words broken with groans:

“Let me go, O Lord! Let me go!” He pled now in Gaelic and again in
English. “Let not the man be escaping his just punishment. Grant me
this, O, Lord! Let me smite but once!” Then after a pause came the
words, “'Vengeance is mine saith the Lord!' Vengeance is mine! Ay, it
is the true word! But, Lord, let not this man of Belial, this Papish,
escape!” Then again, like a refrain would come the words, “Vengeance is
mine. Vengeance is mine,” in ever-deeper agony, till throwing himself on
his face, he lay silent a long time.

Suddenly he rose to his knees and so remained, looking steadfastly
before him into the woods. The wind came sighing through the pines with
a wail and a sob. Macdonald shuddered and then fell on his face again.
The Vision was upon him. “Ah, Lord, it is the bloody hands and feet
I see. It is enough.” At this Ranald slipped back awe-stricken to the
camp. When, after an hour, Macdonald came back into the firelight, his
face was pale and wet, but calm, and there was an exalted look in his
eyes. His men gazed at him with wonder and awe in their faces.

“Mercy on us! He will be seeing something,” said Big Mack to Yankee Jim.

“Seein' somethin'? What? A bar?” inquired Yankee.

“Whist now!” said Big Mack, in a low voice. “He has the sight. Be quate
now, will you? He will be speaking.”

For a short time Macdonald sat gazing into the fire in silence, then
turning his face toward the men who were waiting, he said: “There will
be no more of this. 'Vengeance is mine saith the Lord!' It is not for
me. The Lord will do His own work. It is the will of the Lord.” And
the men knew that the last word had been said on that subject, and that
LeNoir was safe.



CHAPTER III

THE MANSE IN THE BUSH


Straight north from the St. Lawrence runs the road through the Indian
Lands. At first its way lies through open country, from which the forest
has been driven far back to the horizon on either side, for along the
great river these many years villages have clustered, with open fields
about them stretching far away. But when once the road leaves the
Front, with its towns and villages and open fields, and passes beyond
Martintown and over the North Branch, it reaches a country where the
forest is more a feature of the landscape. And when some dozen or more
of the crossroads marking the concessions which lead off to east and
west have been passed, the road seems to strike into a different world.
The forest loses its conquered appearance, and dominates everything.
There is forest everywhere. It lines up close and thick along the road,
and here and there quite overshadows it. It crowds in upon the little
farms and shuts them off from one another and from the world outside,
and peers in through the little windows of the log houses looking
so small and lonely, but so beautiful in their forest frames. At the
nineteenth cross-road the forest gives ground a little, for here the
road runs right past the new brick church, which is almost finished, and
which will be opened in a few weeks. Beyond the cross, the road leads
along the glebe, and about a quarter of a mile beyond the corner there
opens upon it the big, heavy gate that the members of the Rev. Alexander
Murray's congregation must swing when they wish to visit the manse. The
opening of this gate, made of upright poles held by auger-holes in a
frame of bigger poles, was almost too great a task for the minister's
seven-year-old son Hughie, who always rode down, standing on the hind
axle of the buggy, to open it for his father. It was a great relief
to him when Long John Cameron, who had the knack of doing things for
people's comfort, brought his ax and big auger one day and made a kind
of cradle on the projecting end of the top bar, which he then weighted
with heavy stones, so that the gate, when once the pin was pulled out
of the post, would swing back itself with Hughie straddled on the top of
it.

It was his favorite post of observation when waiting for his mother to
come home from one of her many meetings. And on this particular March
evening he had been waiting long and impatiently.

Suddenly he shouted: “Horo, mamma! Horo!” He had caught sight of the
little black pony away up at the church hill, and had become so wildly
excited that he was now standing on the top bar frantically waving his
Scotch bonnet by the tails. Down the slope came the pony on the gallop,
for she knew well that soon Lambert would have her saddle off, and that
her nose would be deep into bran mash within five minutes more. But her
rider sat her firmly and brought her down to a gentle trot by the time
the gate was reached.

“Horo, mamma!” shouted Hughie, clambering down to open the gate.

“Well, my darling! have you been a good boy all afternoon?”

“Huh-huh! Guess who's come back from the shanties!”

“I'm sure I can't guess. Who is it?” It was a very bright and very
sweet face, with large, serious, gray-brown eyes that looked down on the
little boy.

“Guess, mamma!”

“Why, who can it be? Big Mack?”

“No!” Hughie danced delightedly. “Try again. He's not big.”

“I am sure I can never guess. Whoa, Pony!” Pony was most unwilling to
get in close enough to the gate-post to let Hughie spring on behind his
mother.

“You'll have to be quick, Hughie, when I get near again. There now!
Whoa, Pony! Take care, child!”

Hughie had sprung clean off the post, and lighting on Pony's back just
behind the saddle, had clutched his mother round the waist, while the
pony started off full gallop for the stable.

“Now, mother, who is it?” insisted Hughie, as Lambert, the
French-Canadian man-of-all-work, lifted him from his place.

“You'll have to tell me, Hughie!”

“Ranald!”

“Ranald?”

“Yes, Ranald and his father, Macdonald Dubh, and he's hurted awful bad,
and--”

“Hurt, Hughie,” interposed the mother, gently.

“Huh-huh! Ranald said he was hurted.”

“Hurt, you mean, Hughie. Who was hurt? Ranald?”

“No; his father was hurted--hurt--awful bad. He was lying down in the
sleigh, and Yankee Jim--”

“Mr. Latham, you mean, Hughie.”

“Huh-huh,” went on Hughie, breathlessly, “and Yankee--Mr. Latham asked
if the minister was home, and I said 'No,' and then they went away.”

“What was the matter? Did you see them, Lambert?”

“Oui” (“Way,” Lambert pronounced it), “but dey not tell me what he's
hurt.”

The minister's wife went toward the house, with a shadow on her face.
She shared with her husband his people's sorrows. She knew even better
than he the life-history of every family in the congregation. Macdonald
Dubh had long been classed among the wild and careless in the community,
and it weighed upon her heart that his life might be in danger.

“I shall see him to-morrow,” she said to herself.

For a few moments she stood on the doorstep looking at the glow in the
sky over the dark forest, which on the west side came quite up to the
house and barn.

“Look, Hughie, at the beautiful tints in the clouds, and see the dark
shadows pointing out toward us from the bush.” Hughie glanced a moment.

“Mamma,” he said, “I am just dead for supper.”

“Oh, not quite, I hope, Hughie. But look, I want you to notice those
clouds and the sky behind them. How lovely! Oh, how wonderful!”

Her enthusiasm caught the boy, and for a few moment she forgot even his
hunger, and holding his mother's hand, gazed up at the western sky. It
was a picture of rare beauty that lay stretched out from the manse back
door. Close to the barn came the pasture-field dotted with huge stumps,
then the brule where the trees lay fallen across one another, over
which the fire had run, and then the solid wall of forest here and there
overtopped by the lofty crest of a white pine. Into the forest in the
west the sun was descending in gorgeous robes of glory. The treetops
caught the yellow light, and gleamed like the golden spires of some
great and fabled city.

“Oh, mamma, see that big pine top! Doesn't it look like windows?” cried
Hughie, pointing to one of the lofty pine crests through which the sky
quivered like molten gold.

“And the streets of the city are pure gold,” said the mother, softly.

“Yes, I know,” said Hughie, confidently, for to him all the scenes and
stories of the Bible had long been familiar. “Is it like that, mamma?”

“Much better, ever so much better than you can think.”

“Oh, mamma, I'm just awful hungry!”

“Come away, then; so am I. What have you got, Jessie, for two very
hungry people?”

“Porridge and pancakes,” said Jessie, the minister's “girl,” who not
only ruled in the kitchen, but using the kitchen as a base, controlled
the interior economy of the manse.

“Oh, goody!” yelled Hughie; “just what I like.” And from the plates of
porridge and the piles of pancakes that vanished from his plate no one
could doubt his word.

Their reading that night was about the city whose streets were of pure
gold, and after a little talk, Hughie and his baby brother were tucked
away safely for the night, and the mother sat down to her never-ending
task of making and mending.

The minister was away at Presbytery meeting in Montreal, and for ten
days his wife would stand in the breach. Of course the elders would take
the meeting on the Sabbath day and on the Wednesday evening, but for all
other ministerial duties when the minister was absent the congregation
looked to the minister's wife. And soon it came that the sick and the
sorrowing and the sin-burdened found in the minister's wife such help
and comfort and guidance as made the absence of the minister seem no
great trial after all. Eight years ago the minister had brought his wife
from a home of gentle culture, from a life of intellectual and artistic
pursuits, and from a circle of loving friends of which she was the pride
and joy, to this home in the forest. There, isolated from all congenial
companionship with her own kind, deprived of all the luxuries and of
many of the comforts of her young days, and of the mental stimulus of
that contact of minds without which few can maintain intellectual life,
she gave herself without stint to her husband's people, with never a
thought of self-pity or self-praise. By day and by night she labored for
her husband and family and for her people, for she thought them hers.
She taught the women how to adorn their rude homes, gathered them into
Bible classes and sewing circles, where she read and talked and wrought
and prayed with them till they grew to adore her as a saint, and to
trust her as a leader and friend, and to be a little like her. And not
the women only, but the men, too, loved and trusted her, and the big
boys found it easier to talk to the minister's wife than to the minister
or to any of his session. She made her own and her children's clothes,
collars, hats, and caps, her husband's shirts and neckties, toiling late
into the morning hours, and all without frown or shadow of complaint,
and indeed without suspicion that any but the happiest lot was hers, or
that she was, as her sisters said, “just buried alive in the backwoods.”
 Not she! She lived to serve, and the where and how were not hers to
determine. So, with bright face and brave heart, she met her days and
faced the battle. And scores of women and men are living better and
braver lives because they had her for their minister's wife.

But the day had been long, and the struggle with the March wind pulls
hard upon the strength, and outside the pines were crooning softly,
and gradually the brave head drooped till between the stitches she
fell asleep. But not for many minutes, for a knock at the kitchen door
startled her, and before long she heard Jessie's voice rise wrathful.

“Indeed, I'll do no such thing. This is no time to come to the
minister's house.”

For answer there was a mumble of words.

“Well, then, you can just wait until morning. She can go in the
morning.”

“What is it, Jessie?” The minister's wife came into the kitchen.

“Oh, Ranald, I'm glad to see you back. Hughie told me you had come. But
your father is ill, he said. How is he?”

Ranald shook hands shyly, feeling much ashamed under Jessie's sharp
reproof.

“Indeed, it was Aunt Kirsty that sent me,” said Ranald, apologetically.

“Then she ought to have known better,” said Jessie, sharply.

“Never mind, Jessie. Ranald, tell me about your father.”

“He is very bad indeed, and my aunt is afraid that--” The boy's lip
trembled. Then he went on: “And she thought perhaps you might have some
medicine, and--”

“But what is the matter, Ranald?”

“He was hurted bad--and he is not right wise in his head.”

“But how was he hurt?”

Ranald hesitated.

“I was not there--I am thinking it was something that struck him.”

“Ah, a tree! But where did the tree strike him?”

“Here,” pointing to his breast; “and it is sore in his breathing.”

“Well, Ranald, if you put the saddle on Pony, I shall be ready in a
minute.”

Jessie was indignant.

“You will not stir a foot this night. You will send some medicine, and
then you can go in the morning.”

But the minister's wife heeded her not.

“You are not walking, Ranald?”

“No, I have the colt.”

“Oh, that's splendid. We'll have a fine gallop--that is, if the moon is
up.”

“Yes, it is just coming up,” said Ranald, hurrying away to the stable
that he might escape Jessie's wrath and get the pony ready.

It was no unusual thing for the minister and his wife to be called upon
to do duty for doctor and nurse. The doctor was twenty miles away. So
Mrs. Murray got into her riding-habit, threw her knitted hood over her
head, put some simple medicines into her hand-bag, and in ten minutes
was waiting for Ranald at the door.



CHAPTER IV

THE RIDE FOR LIFE


The night was clear, with a touch of frost in the air, yet with the
feeling in it of approaching spring. A dim light fell over the forest
from the half-moon and the stars, and seemed to fill up the little
clearing in which the manse stood, with a weird and mysterious radiance.
Far away in the forest the long-drawn howl of a wolf rose and fell, and
in a moment sharp and clear came an answer from the bush just at hand.
Mrs. Murray dreaded the wolves, but she was no coward and scorned to
show fear.

“The wolves are out, Ranald,” she said, carelessly, as Ranald came up
with the pony.

“They are not many, I think,” answered the boy as carelessly; “but--are
you--do you think--perhaps I could just take the medicine--and you will
come--”

“Nonsense, Ranald! bring up the pony. Do you think I have lived all this
time in Indian Lands to be afraid of a wolf?”

“Indeed, you are not afraid, I know that well!” Ranald shrank from
laying the crime of being afraid at the door of the minister's wife,
whose fearlessness was proverbial in the community; “but maybe--” The
truth was, Ranald would rather be alone if the wolves came out.

But Mrs. Murray was in the saddle, and the pony was impatient to be off.

“We will go by the Camerons' clearing, and then take their wood track.
It is a better road,” said Ranald, after they had got through the big
gate.

“Now, Ranald, you think I am afraid of the swamp, and by the Camerons'
is much longer.”

“Indeed, I hear them say that you are not afraid of the--of anything,”
 said Ranald, quickly, “but this road is better for the horses.”

“Come on, then, with your colt”; and the pony darted away on her
quick-springing gallop, followed by the colt going with a long, easy,
loping stride. For a mile they kept side by side till they reached the
Camerons' lane, when Ranald held in the colt and allowed the pony to
lead. As they passed through the Camerons' yard the big black dogs,
famous bear-hunters, came baying at them. The pony regarded them with
indifference, but the colt shied and plunged.

“Whoa, Liz!” Liz was Ranald's contraction for Lizette, the name of the
French horse-trainer and breeder, Jules La Rocque, gave to her mother,
who in her day was queen of the ice at L'Original Christmas races.

“Be quate, Nigger, will you!” The dogs, who knew Ranald well, ceased
their clamor, but not before the kitchen door opened and Don Cameron
came out.

Don was about a year older than Ranald and was his friend and comrade.

“It's me, Don--and Mrs. Murray there.”

Don gazed speechless.

“And what--” he began.

“Father is not well. He is hurted, and Mrs. Murray is going to see him,
and we must go.”

Ranald hurried through his story, impatient to get on.

“But are you going up through the bush?” asked Don.

“Yes, what else, Don?” asked Mrs. Murray. “It is a good road, isn't it?”

“Oh, yes, I suppose it is good enough,” said Don, doubtfully, “but I
heard--”

“We will come out at our own clearing at the back, you know,” Ranald
hurried to say, giving Don a kick. “Whist, man! She is set upon going.”
 At that moment away off toward the swamp, which they were avoiding, the
long, heart-chilling cry of a mother wolf quavered on the still night
air. In spite of herself, Mrs. Murray shivered, and the boys looked at
each other.

“There is only one,” said Ranald in a low voice to Don, but they both
knew that where the she wolf is there is a pack not far off. “And we
will be through the bush in five minutes.”

“Come, Ranald! Come away, you can talk to Don any time. Good night,
Don.” And so saying she headed her pony toward the clearing and was off
at a gallop, and Ranald, shaking his head at his friend, ejaculated:

“Man alive! what do you think of that?” and was off after the pony.

Together they entered the bush. The road was well beaten and the horses
were keen to go, so that before many minutes were over they were half
through the bush. Ranald's spirits rose and he began to take some
interest in his companion's observations upon the beauty of the lights
and shadows falling across their path.

“Look at that very dark shadow from the spruce there, Ranald,” she
cried, pointing to a deep, black turn in the road. For answer there came
from behind them the long, mournful hunting-cry of the wolf. He was on
their track. Immediately it was answered by a chorus of howls from
the bush on the swamp side, but still far away. There was no need of
command; the pony sprang forward with a snort and the colt followed, and
after a few minutes' running, passed her.

“Whow-oo-oo-oo-ow” rose the long cry of the pursuer, summoning help, and
drawing nearer.

“Wow-ee-wow,” came the shorter, sharper answer from the swamp, but much
nearer than before and more in front. They were trying to head off their
prey.

Ranald tugged at his colt till he got him back with the pony.

“It is a good road,” he said, quietly; “you can let the pony go. I will
follow you.” He swung in behind the pony, who was now running for dear
life and snorting with terror at every jump.

“God preserve us!” said Ranald to himself. He had caught sight of a dark
form as it darted through the gleam of light in front.

“What did you say, Ranald?” The voice was quiet and clear.

“It is a great pony to run whatever,” said Ranald, ashamed of himself.

“Is she not?”

Ranald glanced over his shoulder. Down the road, running with silent,
awful swiftness, he saw the long, low body of the leading wolf flashing
through the bars of moonlight across the road, and the pack following
hard.

“Let her go, Mrs. Murray,” cried Ranald. “Whip her and never stop.” But
there was no need; the pony was wild with fear, and was doing her best
running.

Ranald meantime was gradually holding in the colt, and the pony drew
away rapidly. But as rapidly the wolves were closing in behind him.
They were not more than a hundred yards away, and gaining every second.
Ranald, remembering the suspicious nature of the brutes, loosened his
coat and dropped it on the road; with a chorus of yelps they paused,
then threw themselves upon it, and in another minute took up the chase.

But now the clearing was in sight. The pony was far ahead, and Ranald
shook out his colt with a yell. He was none too soon, for the pursuing
pack, now uttering short, shrill yelps, were close at the colt's heels.
Lizette, fleet as the wind, could not shake them off. Closer and ever
closer they came, snapping and snarling. Ranald could see them over his
shoulder. A hundred yards more and he would reach his own back lane. The
leader of the pack seemed to feel that his chances were slipping swiftly
away. With a spurt he gained upon Lizette, reached the saddle-girths,
gathered himself in two short jumps, and sprang for the colt's throat.
Instinctively Ranald stood up in his stirrups, and kicking his foot
free, caught the wolf under the jaw. The brute fell with a howl under
the colt's feet, and next moment they were in the lane and safe.

The savage brutes, discouraged by their leader's fall, slowed down
their fierce pursuit, and hearing the deep bay of the Macdonalds' great
deerhound, Bugle, up at the house, they paused, sniffed the air a
few minutes, then turned and swiftly and silently slid into the dark
shadows. Ranald, knowing that they would hardly dare enter the lane,
checked the colt, and wheeling, watched them disappear.

“I'll have some of your hides some day,” he cried, shaking his fist
after them. He hated to be made to run.

He had hardly set the colt's face homeward when he heard something
tearing down the lane to meet him. The colt snorted, swerved, and then
dropping his ears, stood still. It was Bugle, and after him came Mrs.
Murray on the pony.

“Oh, Ranald!” she panted, “thank God you are safe. I was afraid
you--you--” Her voice broke in sobs. Her hood had fallen back from her
white face, and her eyes were shining like two stars. She laid her hand
on Ranald's arm, and her voice grew steady as she said: “Thank God, my
boy, and thank you with all my heart. You risked your life for mine. You
are a brave fellow! I can never forget this!”

“Oh, pshaw!” said Ranald, awkwardly. “You are better stuff than I am.
You came back with Bugle. And I knew Liz could beat the pony whatever.”
 Then they walked their horses quietly to the stable, and nothing more
was said by either of them; but from that hour Ranald had a friend ready
to offer life for him, though he did not know it then nor till years
afterward.



CHAPTER V

FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS


Macdonald Dubh's farm lay about three miles north and west from the
manse, and the house stood far back from the cross-road in a small
clearing encircled by thick bush. It was a hard farm to clear, the
timber was heavy, the land lay low, and Macdonald Dubh did not make as
much progress as his neighbors in his conflict with the forest. Not but
that he was a hard worker and a good man with the ax, but somehow he did
not succeed as a farmer. It may have been that his heart was more in the
forest than in the farm. He was a famous hunter, and in the deer season
was never to be found at home, but was ever ranging the woods with his
rifle and his great deerhound, Bugle.

He made money at the shanties, but money would not stick to his fingers,
and by the time the summer was over most of his money would be gone,
with the government mortgage on his farm still unlifted. His habits
of life wrought a kind of wildness in him which set him apart from the
thrifty, steady-going people among whom he lived. True, the shanty-men
were his stanch friends and admirers, but then the shanty-men, though
well-doing, could hardly be called steady, except the boss of the
Macdonald gang, Macdonald Bhain, who was a regular attendant and stanch
supporter of the church, and indeed had been spoken of for an elder. But
from the church Macdonald Dubh held aloof. He belonged distinctly to the
“careless,” though he could not be called irreligious. He had all the
reverence for “the Word of God, and the Sabbath day, and the church”
 that characterized his people. All these held a high place in his
esteem; and though he would not presume to “take the books,” not being a
member of the church, yet on the Sabbath day when he was at home it was
the custom of the household to gather for the reading of the Word before
breakfast. He would never take his rifle with him through the woods on
the Sabbath, and even when absent from home on a hunting expedition,
when the Sabbath day came round, he religiously kept camp. It is true,
he did not often go to church, and when the minister spoke to him about
this, he always agreed that it was a good thing to go to church. When he
had no better excuse, he would apologize for his absence upon the ground
“that he had not the clothes.” The greater part of the trouble was
that he was shy and proud, and felt himself to be different from the
church-going people of the community, and shrank from the surprised
looks of members, and even from the words of approving welcome that
often greeted his presence in church.

It was not according to his desire that Ranald was sent to the manse.
That was the doing of his sister, Kirsty, who for the last ten years
had kept house for him. Not that there was much housekeeping skill about
Kirsty, as indeed any one might see even without entering Macdonald
Dubh's house. Kirsty was big and strong and willing, but she had not
the most elemental ideas of tidiness. Her red, bushy hair hung in wisps
about her face, after the greater part of it had been gathered into a
tight knob at the back of her head. She was a martyr to the “neuralagy,”
 and suffered from a perennial cold in the head, which made it necessary
for her to wear a cloud, which was only removed when it could be
replaced by her nightcap. Her face always bore the marks of her labors,
and from it one could gather whether she was among the pots or busy with
the baking. But she was kindhearted, and, up to her light, sought to
fill the place left empty by the death of the wife and mother in that
home, ten years before.

When the minister's wife opened the door, a hot, close, foul smell
rushed forth to meet her. Upon the kitchen stove a large pot of
pig's food was boiling, and the steam and smell from the pot made
the atmosphere of the room overpoweringly fetid. Off the kitchen or
living-room were two small bedrooms, in one of which lay Macdonald Dubh.

Kirsty met the minister's wife with a warm welcome. She helped her
off with her hood and coat, patting her on the shoulder the while, and
murmuring words of endearment.

“Ah, M'eudail! M'eudail bheg! and did you come through the night all the
way, and it is ashamed that I am to have sent for you, but he was very
bad and I was afraid. Come away! come away! I will make you a cup of
tea.” But the minister's wife assured Kirsty that she was glad to come,
and declining the cup of tea, went to the room where Macdonald Dubh lay
tossing and moaning with the delirium of fever upon him. It was not long
before she knew what was required.

With hot fomentations she proceeded to allay the pain, and in half an
hour Macdonald Dubh grew quiet. His tossings and mutterings ceased and
he fell into a sleep.

Kirsty stood by admiring.

“Mercy me! Look at that now; and it is yourself that is the great
doctor!”

“Now, Kirsty,” said Mrs. Murray, in a very matter-of-fact tone, “we will
just make him a little more comfortable.”

“Yes,” said Kirsty, not quite sure how the feat was to be achieved. “A
little hot something for his inside will be good, but indeed, many's the
drink I have given him,” she suggested.

“What have you been giving him, Kirsty?”

“Senny and dandylion, and a little whisky. They will be telling me it is
ferry good whatever for the stomach and bow'ls.”

“I don't think I would give him any more of that; but we will try and
make him feel a little more comfortable.”

Mrs. Murray knew she was treading on delicate ground. The Highland pride
is quick to take offense.

“Sick people, you see,” she proceeded carefully, “need very frequent
changes--sheets and clothing, you understand.”

“Aye,” said Kirsty, suspiciously.

“I am sure you have plenty of beautiful sheets, and we will change these
when he wakes from his sleep.”

“Indeed, they are very clean, for there is no one but myself has slept
in them since he went away last fall to the shanties.”

Mrs. Murray felt the delicacy of the position to be sensibly increased.

“Indeed, that is right, Kirsty; one can never tell just what sort of
people are traveling about nowadays.”

“Indeed, and it's true,” said Kirsty, heartily, “but I never let them in
here. I just keep them to the bunk.”

“But,” pursued Mrs. Murray, returning to the subject in hand, “it is
very important that for sick people the sheets should be thoroughly
aired and warmed. Why, in the hospital in Montreal they take the very
greatest care to air and change the sheets every day. You see so much
poison comes through the pores of the skin.”

“Do you hear that now?” said Kirsty, amazed. “Indeed, I would be often
hearing that those French people are just full of poison and such, and
indeed, it is no wonder, for the food they put inside of them.”

“O, no, “ said Mrs. Murray, “it is the same with all people, but
especially so with sick people.”

Kirsty looked as doubtful as was consistent with her respect for the
minister's wife, and Mrs. Murray went on.

“So you will just get the sheets ready to change, and, Kirsty, a clean
night-shirt.”

“Night-shirt! and indeed, he has not such a thing to his name.” Kirsty's
tone betrayed her thankfulness that her brother was free from the
effeminacy of a night-shirt; but noting the dismay and confusion on Mrs.
Murray's face, she suggested, hesitatingly, “He might have one of my
own, but I am thinking it will be small for him across the back.”

“I am afraid so, Kirsty,” said the minister's wife, struggling hard
with a smile. “We will just use one of his own white shirts.” But this
scandalized Kirsty as an unnecessary and wasteful luxury.

“Indeed, there is plenty of them in the chist, but he will be keeping
them for the communion season, and the funerals, and such. He will not
be wearing them in his bed, for no one will be seeing him there at all.”

“But he will feel so much better,” said Mrs. Murray, and her smile was
so sweet and winning that Kirsty's opposition collapsed, and without
more words both sheets and shirt were produced.

As Kirsty laid them out she observed with a sigh: “Aye, aye, she was
the clever woman--the wife, I mean. She was good with the needle, and
indeed, at anything she tried to do.”

“I did not know her,” said Mrs. Murray, softly, “but every one tells me
she was a good housekeeper and a good woman.”

“She was that,” said Kirsty, emphatically, “and she was the light of his
eyes, and it was a bad day for Hugh when she went away.”

“Now, Kirsty,” said Mrs. Murray, after a pause, “before we put on these
clean things, we will just give him a sponge bath.”

Kirsty gasped.

“Mercy sakes! He will not be needing that in the winter, and he will be
getting a cold from it. In the summer-time he will be going to the river
himself. And how will you be giving him a bath whatever?”

Mrs. Murray carefully explained the process, again fortifying her
position by referring to the practices of the Montreal hospital, till,
as a result of her persuasions and instructions, in an hour after
Macdonald had awakened from his sleep he was lying in his Sabbath white
shirt and between fresh sheets, and feeling cleaner and more comfortable
than he had for many a day. The fever was much reduced, and he fell
again into a deep sleep.

The two women watched beside him, for neither would leave the other
to watch alone. And Ranald, who could not be persuaded to go up to
his loft, lay on the bunk in the kitchen and dozed. After an hour had
passed, Mrs. Murray inquired as to the nourishment Kirsty had given her
brother.

“Indeed, he will not be taking anything whatever,” said Kirsty, in a
vexed tone. “And it is no matter what I will be giving him.”

“And what does he like, Kirsty?”

“Indeed, he will be taking anything when he is not seek, and he is that
fond of buckwheat pancakes and pork gravy with maple syrup over them,
but would he look at it! And I made him new porridge to-night, but he
would not touch them.”

“Did you try him with gruel, Kirsty?”

“Mercy me, and is it Macdonald Dubh and gruel? He would be flinging the
'feushionless' stuff out of the window.”

“But I am sure it would be good for him if he could be persuaded to try
it. I should like to try him.”

“Indeed, and you may try. It will be easy enough, for the porridge are
still in the pot.”

Kirsty took the pot from the bench, with the remains of the porridge
that had been made for supper still in it, set it on the fire, and
pouring some water in it, began to stir it vigorously. It was thick and
slimy, and altogether a most repulsive-looking mixture, and Mrs. Murray
no longer wondered at Macdonald Dubh's distaste for gruel.

“I think I will make some fresh, if you will let me, Kirsty--in the way
I make it for the minister, you know.”

Kirsty, by this time, had completely surrendered to Mrs. Murray's
guidance, and producing the oatmeal, allowed her to have her way; so
that when Macdonald awoke he found Mrs. Murray standing beside him with
a bowl of the nicest gruel and a slice of thin dry toast.

He greeted the minister's wife with grave courtesy, drank the gruel, and
then lay down again to sleep.

“Will you look at that now?” said Kirsty, amazed at Macdonald Dubh's
forbearance. “He would not like to be offending you.”

Then Mrs. Murray besought Kirsty to go and lie down for an hour, which
Kirsty very unwillingly agreed to do.

It was not long before Macdonald began to toss and mutter in his sleep,
breaking forth now and then into wild cries and curses. He was fighting
once more his great fight in the Glengarry line, and beating back
LeNoir.

“Back, ye devil! Would ye? Take that, then. Come back, Mack!” Then
followed a cry so wild that Ranald awoke and came into the room.

“Bring in some snow, Ranald,” said the minister's wife; “we will lay
some on his head.”

She bathed the hot face and hands with ice-cold water, and then laid a
snow compress on the sick man's head, speaking to him in quiet, gentle
tones, till he was soothed again to sleep.

When the gray light of the morning came in through the little window,
Macdonald woke sane and quiet.

“You are better,” said Mrs. Murray to him.

“Yes,” he said, “I am very well, thank you, except for the pain here.”
 He pointed to his chest.

“You have been badly hurt, Ranald tells me. How did it happen?”

“Well,” said Macdonald, slowly, “it is very hard to say.”

“Did the tree fall on you?” asked Mrs. Murray.

Macdonald glanced at her quickly, and then answered: “It is very
dangerous work with the trees. It is wonderful how quick they will
fall.”

“Your face and breast seem very badly bruised and cut.”

“Aye, yes,” said Macdonald. “The breast is bad whatever.”

“I think you had better send for Doctor Grant,” Mrs. Murray said. “There
may be some internal injury.”

“No, no,” said Macdonald, decidedly. “I will have no doctor at me, and
I will soon be round again, if the Lord will. When will the minister be
home?”

But Mrs. Murray, ignoring his attempt to escape the subject, went on:
“Yes, but, Mr. Macdonald, I am anxious to have Doctor Grant see you, and
I wish you would send for him to-morrow.”

“Ah, well,” said Macdonald, not committing himself, “we will be seeing
about that. But the doctor has not been in this house for many a day.”
 Then, after a pause, he added, in a low voice, “Not since the day she
was taken from me.”

“Was she ill long?”

“Indeed, no. It was just one night. There was no doctor, and the women
could not help her, and she was very bad--and when it came it was a
girl--and it was dead--and then the doctor arrived, but he was too
late.” Macdonald Dubh finished with a great sigh, and the minister's
wife said gently to him:

“That was a very sad day, and a great loss to you and Ranald.”

“Aye, you may say it; she was a bonnie woman whatever, and grand at the
spinning and the butter. And, oich-hone, it was a sad day for us.”

The minister's wife sat silent, knowing that such grief cannot be
comforted, and pitying from her heart the lonely man. After a time she
said gently, “She is better off.”

A look of doubt and pain and fear came into Macdonald's eyes.

“She never came forward,” he said, hesitatingly. “She was afraid to
come.”

“I have heard of her often, Mr. Macdonald, and I have heard that she was
a good and gentle woman.”

“Aye, she was that.”

“And kind to the sick.”

“You may believe it.”

“And she loved the house of God.”

“Aye, and neither rain nor snow nor mud would be keeping her from it,
but she would be going every Sabbath day, bringing her stockings with
her.”

“Her stockings?”

“Aye, to change her feet in the church. What else? Her stockings would
be wet with the snow and water.”

Mrs. Murray nodded. “And she loved her Saviour, Mr. Macdonald.”

“Indeed, I believe it well, but she was afraid she would not be having
'the marks.'”

“Never you fear, Mr. Macdonald,” said Mrs. Murray. “If she loved her
Saviour she is with him now.”

He turned around to her and lifted himself eagerly on his elbow. “And do
you really think that?” he said, in a voice subdued and anxious.

“Indeed I do,” said Mrs. Murray, in a tone of certain conviction.

Macdonald sank back on his pillow, and after a moment's silence, said,
in a voice of pain: “Oh, but it is a peety she did not know! It is a
peety she did not know. For many's the time before--before--her hour
came on her, she would be afraid.”

“But she was not afraid at the last, Mr. Macdonald?”

“Indeed, no. I wondered at her. She was like a babe in its mother's
arms. There was a light on her face, and I mind well what she said.”
 Macdonald paused. There was a stir in the kitchen, and Mrs. Murray,
glancing behind her, saw Ranald standing near the door intently
listening. Then Macdonald went on. “I mind well the words, as if it was
yesterday. 'Hugh, my man,' she said, 'am no feared' (she was from the
Lowlands, but she was a fine woman); 'I haena the marks, but 'm no
feared but He'll ken me. Ye'll tak' care o' Ranald, for, oh, Hugh! I ha'
gi'en him to the Lord. The Lord help you to mak' a guid man o' him.'”
 Macdonald's voice faltered into silence, then, after a few moments, he
cried, “And oh! Mistress Murra', I cannot tell you the often these words
do keep coming to me; and it is myself that has not kept the promise I
made to her, and may the Lord forgive me.”

The look of misery in the dark eyes touched Mrs. Murray to the heart.
She laid her hand on Macdonald's arm, but she could not find words to
speak. Suddenly Macdonald recalled himself.

“You will forgive me,” he said; “and you will not be telling any one.”

By this time the tears were streaming down her face, and Mrs. Murray
could only say, brokenly, “You know I will not.”

“Aye, I do,” said Macdonald, with a sigh of content, and he turned his
face away from her to the wall.

“And now you let me read to you,” she said, softly, and taking from her
bag the Gaelic Bible, which with much toil she had learned to read since
coming to this Highland congregation, she read to him from the old Psalm
those words, brave, tender, and beautiful, that have so often comforted
the weary and wandering children of men, “The Lord is my Shepherd,” and
so on to the end. Then from psalm to psalm she passed, selecting such
parts as suited her purpose, until Macdonald turned to her again and
said, admiringly:

“It is yourself that has the bonnie Gaelic.”

“I am afraid,” she said, with a smile, “it is not really good, but it is
the best a south country woman can do.”

“Indeed, it is very pretty,” he said, earnestly.

Then the minister's wife said, timidly, “I cannot pray in the Gaelic.”

“Oh, the English will be very good,” said Macdonald, and she knelt down
and in simple words poured out her heart in prayer. Before she rose from
her knees she opened the Gaelic Bible, and turned to the words of the
Lord's Prayer.

“We will say this prayer together,” she said, gently.

Macdonald, bowing his head gravely, answered: “It is what she would
often be doing with me.”

There was still only one woman to this lonely hearted man, and with
a sudden rush of pity that showed itself in her breaking voice, the
minister's wife began in Gaelic, “Our Father which art in heaven.”

Macdonald followed her in a whisper through the petitions until they
came to the words, “And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,”
 when he paused and would say no more. Mrs. Murray repeated the words of
the petition, but still there was no response. Then the minister's wife
knew that she had her finger upon a sore spot, and she finished the
prayer alone.

For a time she sat silent, unwilling to probe the wound, and yet too
brave to flinch from what she felt to be duty.

“We have much to be forgiven,” she said, gently. “More than we can ever
forgive.” Still there was silence.

“And the heart that cannot forgive an injury is closed to the
forgiveness of God.”

The morning sun was gleaming through the treetops, and Mrs. Murray was
worn with her night's vigil, and anxious to get home. She rose, and
offering Macdonald her hand, smiled down into his face, and said: “Good
by! We must try to forgive.”

As he took her hand, Macdonald's dark face began to work, and he broke
forth into a bitter cry.

“He took me unawares! And it was a coward's blow! and I will not forgive
him until I have given him what he deserves, if the Lord spares me!” And
then he poured forth, in hot and bitter words, the story of the great
fight. By the time he had finished his tale Ranald had come in from the
kitchen, and was standing with clenched fists and face pale with passion
at the foot of the bed.

As Mrs. Murray listened to this story her eyes began to burn, and when
it was over, she burst forth: “Oh, it was a cruel and cowardly and
brutal thing for men to do! And did you beat them off?” she asked.

“Aye, and that we did,” burst in Ranald. And in breathless haste and
with flashing eye he told them of Macdonald Bhain's part in the fight.

“Splendid!” cried the minister's wife, forgetting herself for the
moment.

“But he let him go,” said Ranald, sadly. “He would not strike him, but
just let him go.”

Then the minister's wife cried again: “Ah, he is a great man, your
uncle! And a great Christian. Greater than I could have been, for I
would have slain him then and there.” Her eyes flashed, and the color
flamed in her face as she uttered these words.

“Aye,” said Macdonald Dubh, regarding her with deep satisfaction. His
tone and look recalled the minister's wife, and turning to Ranald, she
added, sadly:

“But your uncle was right, Ranald, and we must forgive even as he did.”

“That,” cried Ranald, with fierce emphasis, “I will never do, until once
I will be having my hands on his throat.”

“Hush, Ranald!” said the minister's wife. “I know it is hard, but we
must forgive. You see we MUST forgive. And we must ask Him to help us,
who has more to forgive than any other.”

But she said no more to Macdonald Dubh on that subject that morning. The
fire of the battle was in her heart, and she felt she could more easily
sympathize with his desire for vengeance than with the Christian grace
of forgiveness. But as they rode home together through the bush, where
death had trailed them so closely the night before, the sweet sunlight
and the crisp, fresh air, and all the still beauty of the morning,
working with the memory of their saving, rebuked and soothed and
comforted her, and when Ranald turned back from the manse door, she said
softly: “Our Father in heaven was very good to us, Ranald, and we should
be like him. He forgives and loves, and we should, too.”

And Ranald, looking into the sweet face, pale with the long night's
trials, but tinged now with the faintest touch of color from the
morning, felt somehow that it might be possible to forgive.

But many days had to come and go, and many waters flow over the souls
of Macdonald Dubh and his son Ranald, before they were able to say,
“Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”



CHAPTER VI

A NEW FRIEND


The night race with the wolves began a new phase of life for Ranald, for
in that hour he gained a friend such as it falls to few lads to have.
Mrs. Murray's high courage in the bush, her skill in the sick-room, and
that fine spiritual air she carried with her made for her a place in his
imagination where men set their divinities. The hero and the saint in
her stirred his poetic and fervent soul and set it aglow with a feeling
near to adoration. To Mrs. Murray also the events of that night set
forth Ranald in a new light. In the shy, awkward, almost sullen lad
there had suddenly been revealed in those moments of peril the cool,
daring man, full of resource and capable of self-sacrifice. Her heart
went out toward him, and she set herself to win his confidence and to
establish a firm friendship with him; but this was no easy matter.

Macdonald Dubh and his son, living a half-savage life in their lonely
back clearing, were regarded by their neighbors with a certain degree of
distrust and fear. They were not like other people. They seldom mingled
in the social festivities of the community, and consequently were
more or less excluded from friendship and free intercourse with their
neighbors. Ranald, shy, proud, and sensitive, felt this exclusion, and
in return kept himself aloof even from the boys, and especially from the
girls, of his own age. His attendance at school was of a fragmentary and
spasmodic nature, and he never really came to be on friendly terms with
his fellow-pupils. His one friend was Don Cameron, whom the boys called
“Wobbles,” from his gait in running, whose father's farm backed that
of Macdonald Dubh. And though Don was a year older, he gave to Ranald a
homage almost amounting to worship, for in all those qualities that
go to establish leadership among boys, Ranald was easily first. In the
sport that called for speed, courage, and endurance Ranald was chief
of all. Fleet of foot, there was no runner from the Twelfth to the
Twentieth that could keep him in sight, and when he stood up to fight,
the mere blaze of his eyes often won him victory before a blow was
struck. To Don, Ranald opened his heart more than to any one else; all
others he kept at a distance.

It was in vain that Mrs. Murray, in her daily visits to Macdonald Dubh,
sought to find out Ranald and to come to speech with him. Aunt Kirsty
never knew where he was, and to her calls, long and loud, from the back
door and from the front, no response ever came. It was Hughie Murray who
finally brought Ranald once more into touch with the minister's wife.

They had come one early morning, Hughie with Fido “hitched” in a sled
driving over the “crust” on the snow banks by the roadside, and his
mother on the pony, to make their call upon the sick man. As they drew
near the house they heard a sound of hammering.

“That's Ranald, mother!” exclaimed Hughie. “Let me go and find him. I
don't want to go in.”

“Be sure you don't go far away, then, Hughie; you know we must hurry
home to-day”; and Hughie faithfully promised. But alas for Hughie's
promises! when his mother came out of the house with Kirsty, he was
within neither sight nor hearing.

“They will just be at the camp,” said Kirsty.

“The camp?”

“Aye, the sugaring camp down yonder in the sugar bush. It is not far off
from the wood road. I will be going with you.”

“Not at all, Kirsty,” said the minister's wife. “I think I know where
it is, and I can go home that way quite well. Besides, I want to see
Ranald.” She did not say she would rather see him alone.

“Indeed, he is the quare lad, and he is worse since coming back from the
shanties.” Kirsty was evidently much worried about Ranald.

“Never mind,” said the minister's wife, kindly; “we must just be
patient. Ranald is going on fast toward manhood, and he can be held only
by the heart.”

“Aye,” said Kirsty, with a sigh, “I doubt his father will never be able
any more to take a strap to him.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Murray, smiling, “I'm afraid he is far beyond that.”

“Beyond it!” exclaimed Kirsty, astonished at such a doctrine. “Indeed,
and his father and his uncle would be getting it then, when they were as
beeg as they will ever be, and much the better were they for it.”

“I don't think it would do for Ranald,” said the minister's wife,
smiling again as she said good by to Kirsty. Then she took her way down
the wood road into the bush. She found the camp road easily, and after
a quarter of an hour's ride, she heard the sound of an ax, and soon
came upon the sugar camp. Ranald was putting the finishing touches to a
little shanty of cedar poles and interwoven balsam brush, and Hughie was
looking on in admiration and blissful delight.

“Why, that's beautiful,” said Mrs. Murray; “I should like to live in a
house like that myself.”

“Oh, mother!” shouted Hughie, “isn't it splendid? Ranald and Don are
going to live in it all the sugaring time, and Ranald wants me to come,
too. Mayn't I, mother? Aw, do let me.”

The mother looked down upon the eager face, smiled, and shook her head.
“What about the night, Hughie?” she said. “It will be very dark in the
woods here, and very cold, too. Ranald and Don are big boys and strong,
but I'm afraid my little boy would not be very comfortable sleeping
outside.”

“Oh, mother, we'll be inside, and it'll be awful warm--and oh, you might
let me!” Hughie's tears were restrained only by the shame of weeping
before his hero, Ranald.

“Well, we will see what your father says when he comes home.”

“Oh, mother, he will just say 'no' right off, and--”

A shadow crossed his mother's face, but she only answered quietly,
“Never mind just now, Hughie; we will think of it. Besides,” she added,
“I don't know how much Ranald wants to be bothered with a wee boy like
you.”

Ranald gave her a quick, shy glance and answered:

“He will be no trouble, Mrs. Murray”; and then, noticing Hughie's
imploring face, he ventured to add, “and indeed, I hope you will let him
come. I will take good care of him.”

Mrs. Murray hesitated.

“Oh, mother!” cried Hughie, seeing her hesitation, “just one night; I
won't be a bit afraid.”

“No, I don't believe you would,” looking down into the brave young face.
“But what about your mother, Hughie?”

“Oh, pshaw! you wouldn't be afraid.” Hughie's confidence in his mother's
courage was unbounded.

“I don't know about that,” she replied; and then turning to Ranald,
“How about our friends of the other night?” she said. “Will they not be
about?” Hughie had not heard about the wolves.

“Oh, there is no fear of them. We will keep a big fire all night, and
besides, we will have our guns and the dogs.”

“Guns!” cried Mrs. Murray. This was a new terror for her boy. “I'm
afraid I cannot trust Hughie where there are guns. He might--”

“Indeed, let me catch him touching a gun!” said Ranald, quickly, and
from his tone and the look in his face, Mrs. Murray felt sure that
Hughie would be safe from self-destruction by the guns.

“Well, well, come away, Hughie, and we will see,” said Mrs. Murray; but
Hughie hung back sulking, unwilling to move till he had got his mother's
promise.

“Come, Hughie. Get Fido ready. We must hurry,” said his mother again.

Still Hughie hesitated. Then Ranald turned swiftly on him. “Did ye
hear your mother? Come, get out of this.” His manner was so fierce that
Hughie started immediately for his dog, and without another word of
entreaty made ready to go. The mother noted his quick obedience, and
smiling at Ranald, said: “I think I might trust him with you for a night
or two, Ranald. When do you think you could come for him?”

“We will finish the tapping to-morrow, and I could come the day after
with the jumper,” said Ranald, pointing to the stout, home-made sleigh
used for gathering the sap and the wood for the fire.

“Oh, I see you have begun tapping,” said Mrs. Murray; “and do you do it
yourself?”

“Why, yes, mother; don't you see all those trees?” cried Hughie,
pointing to a number of maples that stood behind the shanty. “Ranald and
Don did all those, and made the spiles, too. See!” He caught up a spile
from a heap lying near the door. “Ranald made all these.”

“Why, that's fine, Ranald. How do you make them? I have never seen one
made.”

“Oh, mother!” Hughie's voice was full of pity for her ignorance. He had
seen his first that afternoon.

“And I have never seen the tapping of a tree. I believe I shall learn
just now, if Ranald will only show me, from the very beginning.”

Her eager interest in his work won Ranald from his reserve. “There is
not much to see,” he said, apologetically. “You just cut a natch in the
tree, and drive in the spile, and--”

“Oh, but wait,” she cried. “That's just what I wanted to see. How do you
make the spile?”

“Oh, that is easy,” said Ranald. He took up a slightly concave chisel or
gouge, and slit a slim slab from off a block of cedar about a foot long.

“This is a spile,” he exclaimed. “We drive it into the tree, and the sap
runs down into the trough, you see.”

“No, I don't see,” said the minister's wife. She was too thoroughgoing
to do things by halves. “How do you drive this into the tree, and how do
you get the sap to run down it?”

“I will show you,” he said, and taking with him a gouge and ax, he
approached a maple still untapped. “You first make a gash like this.” So
saying, with two or three blows of his ax, he made a slanting notch in
the tree. “And then you make a place for the spile this way.” With the
back of his ax he drove his gouge into the corner of the notch, and then
fitted his spile into the incision so made.

“Ah, now I see. And you put the trough under the drip from the spile.
But how do you make the troughs?”

“I did not make them,” said Ranald. “Some of them father made, and some
of them belong to the Camerons. But it is easy enough. You just take a
thick slab of basswood and hollow it out with the adze.”

Mrs. Murray was greatly pleased. “I'm very much obliged to you, Ranald,”
 she said, “and I am glad I came down to see your camp. Now, if you will
ask me, I should like to see you make the sugar.” Had her request been
made before the night of their famous ride, Ranald would have found
some polite reason for refusal, but now he was rather surprised to find
himself urging her to come to a sugaring-off at the close of the season.

“I shall be delighted to come,” cried Mrs. Murray, “and it is very good
of you to ask me, and I shall bring my niece, who is coming with Mr.
Murray from town to spend some weeks with me.”

Ranald's face fell, but his Highland courtesy forbade retreat. “If she
would care,” he said, doubtfully.

“Oh, I am sure she would be very glad! She has never been outside of the
city, and I want her to learn all she can of the country and the woods.
It is positively painful to see the ignorance of these city children in
regard to all living things--beasts and birds and plants. Why, many of
them couldn't tell a beech from a basswood.”

“Oh, mother!” protested Hughie, aghast at such ignorance.

“Yes, indeed, it is dreadful, I assure you,” said his mother, smiling.
“Why, I know a grown-up woman who didn't know till after she was married
the difference between a spruce and a pine.”

“But you know them all now,” said Hughie, a little anxious for his
mother's reputation.

“Yes, indeed,” said his mother, proudly; “every one, I think, at least
when the leaves are out. So I want Maimie to learn all she can.”

Ranald did not like the idea any too well, but after they had gone
his thoughts kept turning to the proposed visit of Mrs. Murray and her
niece.

“Maimie,” said Ranald to himself. “So that is her name.” It had
a musical sound, and was different from the names of the girls he
knew--Betsy and Kirsty and Jessie and Marget and Jinny. It was finer
somehow than these, and seemed to suit better a city girl. He wondered
if she would be nice, but he decided that doubtless she would be
“proud.” To be “proud” was the unpardonable sin with the Glengarry
boy. The boy or girl convicted of this crime earned the contempt of all
self-respecting people. On the whole, Ranald was sorry she was coming.
Even in school he was shy with the girls, and kept away from them. They
were always giggling and blushing and making one feel queer, and they
never meant what they said. He had no doubt Maimie would be like the
rest, and perhaps a little worse. Of course, being Mrs. Murray's niece,
she might be something like her. Still, that could hardly be. No girl
could ever be like the minister's wife. He resolved he would turn Maimie
over to Don. He remembered, with great relief, that Don did not mind
girls; indeed, he suspected Don rather enjoyed playing the “forfeit”
 games at school with them, in which the penalties were paid in kisses.
How often had he shuddered and admired from a distance, while Don and
the others played those daring games! Yes, Don would do the honors for
Maimie. Perhaps Don would even venture to play “forfeits” with her.
Ranald felt his face grow hot at this thought. Then, with sudden
self-detection, he cried, angrily, aloud: “I don't care; let him; he may
for all I care.”

“Who may what?” cried a voice behind him. It was Don himself.

“Nothing,” said Ranald, blushing shamefacedly.

“Why, what are you mad about?” asked Don, noticing his flushed face.

“Who is mad?” said Ranald. “I am not mad whatever.”

“Well, you look mighty like it,” said Don. “You look mad enough to
fight.”

But Ranald, ignoring him, simply said, “We will need to be gathering the
sap this evening, for the troughs will be full.”

“Huh-huh,” said Don. “I guess we can carry all there is to-day, but we
will have to get the colt to-morrow. Got the spiles ready?”

“Enough for to-day,” said Ranald, wondering how he could tell Don of
the proposed visit of Mrs. Murray and her niece. Taking each a bundle of
spiles and an ax, the boys set out for the part of the sugar bush as yet
untapped, and began their work.

“The minister's wife and Hughie were here just now,” began Ranald.

“Huh-huh, I met them down the road. Hughie said he was coming day after
to-morrow.”

“Did Mrs. Murray tell you--”

“Tell me what?”

“Did she tell you she would like to see a sugaring-off?”

“No; they didn't stop long enough to tell me anything. Hughie shouted at
me as they passed.”

“Well,” said Ranald, speaking slowly and with difficulty, “she wanted
bad to see the sugar-making, and I asked her to come.”

“You did, eh? I wonder at you.”

“And she wanted to bring her niece, and--and--I let her,” said Ranald.

“Her niece! Jee-roo-sa-LEM!” cried Don. “Do you know who her niece is?”

“Not I,” said Ranald, looking rather alarmed.

“Well, she is the daughter of the big lumberman, St. Clair, and she is a
great swell.”

Ranald stood speechless.

“That does beat all,” pursued Don; “and you asked her to our camp?”

Then Ranald grew angry. “And why not?” he said, defiantly. “What is
wrong about that?”

“O, nothing much,” laughed Don, “if I had done it, but for you, Ranald!
Why, what will you do with that swell young lady from the city?”

“I will just do nothing,” said Ranald. “There will be you and Mrs.
Murray, and--”

“Oh, I say,” burst in Don, “that's bully! Let's ask some of the boys,
and--your aunt, and--my mother, and--some of the girls.”

“Oh, shucks!” said Ranald, angrily. “You just want Marget Aird.”

“You get out!” cried Don, indignantly; “Marget Aird!” Then, after a
pause, he added, “All right, I don't want anybody else. I'll look after
Mrs. Murray, and you and Maimie can do what you like.”

This combination sounded so terrible to Ranald that he surrendered at
once; and it was arranged that there should be a grand sugaring-off, and
that others besides the minister's wife and her niece should be invited.

But Mrs. Murray had noticed the falling of Ranald's face at the mention
of Maimie's visit to the camp, and feeling that she had taken him at
a disadvantage, she determined that she would the very next day put
herself right with him. She was eager to follow up the advantage she had
gained the day before in establishing terms of friendship with Ranald,
for her heart went out to the boy, in whose deep, passionate nature she
saw vast possibilities for good or ill. On her return from her daily
visit to Macdonald Dubh, she took the camp road, and had the good
fortune to find Ranald alone, “rigging up” his kettles preparatory
to the boiling. But she had no time for kettles to-day, and she went
straight to her business.

“I came to see you, Ranald,” she said, after she had shaken hands with
him, “about our sugaring-off. I've been thinking that it would perhaps
be better to have no strangers, but just old friends, you and Don and
Hughie and me.”

Ranald at once caught her meaning, but found himself strangely unwilling
to be extricated from his predicament.

“I mean,” said Mrs. Murray, frankly, “we might enjoy it better without
my niece; and so, perhaps, we could have the sugaring when I come to
bring Hughie home on Friday. Maimie does not come till Saturday.”

Her frankness disarmed Ranald of his reserve. “I know well what you
mean,” he said, without his usual awkwardness, “but I do not mind now
at all having your niece come; and Don is going to have a party.” The
quiet, grave tone was that of a man, and Mrs. Murray looked at the boy
with new eyes. She did not know that it was her own frank confidence
that had won like confidence from him.

“How old are you, Ranald?” she said, in her wonder.

“I will be going on eighteen.”

“You will soon be a man, Ranald.” Ranald remained silent, and she went
on earnestly: “A strong, good, brave man, Ranald.”

The blood rushed to the boy's face with a sudden flood, but still he
stood silent.

“I'm going to give you Hughie for two days,” she continued, in the same
earnest voice; and leaning down over her pony's neck toward him: “I want
him to know strong and manly boys. He is very fond of you, Ranald. He
thinks you are better than any man in the world.” She paused, her lips
parting in a smile that made Ranald's heart beat quick. Then she went on
with a shy hesitancy: “Ranald, I know the boys sometimes drop words they
should not and tell stories unfit to hear”; the blood was beginning
to show in her cheek; “and I would not like my little boy--” Her voice
broke suddenly, but recovering quickly she went on in grave, sweet
tones: “I trust him to you, Ranald, for this time and afterward. He
looks up to you. I want him to be a good, brave man, and to keep his
heart pure.” Ranald could not speak, but he looked steadily into Mrs.
Murray's eyes as he took the hand she offered, and she knew he was
pledging himself to her.

“You'll come for him to-morrow,” she said, as she turned away. By this
time Ranald had found his voice.

“Yes, ma'am,” he replied. “And I will take good care of him.”

Once more Mrs. Murray found herself looking at Ranald as if seeing him
for the first time. He had the solemn voice and manner of a man making
oath of allegiance, and she rode away with her heart at rest concerning
her little boy. With Ranald, at least, he would be safe.

            *         *         *         *         *

Those two days had been for Hughie long and weary, but at last the great
day came for him, as all great days will come for those who can wait.
Ranald appeared at the manse before the breakfast was well begun, and
Hughie, with the unconscious egoism of childhood, was for rushing off
without thought of preparation for himself or of farewell for those left
behind. Indeed, he was for leaving his porridge untasted, declaring he
“wasn't a bit hungry,” but his mother brought him to his senses.

“No breakfast, no sugar bush to-day, Hughie,” she said; “we cannot send
men out to the woods that cannot eat breakfast, can we, Ranald?”

Hughie at once fell upon his porridge with vigor, while Ranald, who was
much too shy to eat at the minister's table, sat and waited.

After breakfast was over, Jessie was called in for the morning worship,
without which no day was ever begun in the manse. At worship in the
minister's house every one present took part. It was Hughie's special
joy to lead the singing of the psalm. His voice rose high and clear,
even above his mother's, for he loved to sing, and Ranald's presence
inspired him to do his best. Ranald had often heard the psalm sung in
the church--


      I to the hills will lift mine eyes,
      From whence doth come mine aid;


and the tune was the old, familiar “French,” but somehow it was all new
to him that day. The fresh voices and the crisp, prompt movement of the
tune made Ranald feel as if he had never heard the psalm sung before. In
the reading he took his verse with the others, stumbling a little, not
because the words were too big for him, but because they seemed to run
into one another. The chapter for the day contained Paul's injunction to
Timothy, urging him to fidelity and courage as a good soldier of Jesus
Christ.

When the reading was done, Mrs. Murray told them a story of a young man
who had shed his blood upon a Scottish moor because he was too brave to
be untrue to his lord, and then, in a few words, made them all see
that still some conflict was being waged, and that there was still
opportunity for each to display loyal courage and fidelity.

In the prayer that followed, the first thing that surprised Ranald was
the absence of the set forms and tones of prayer, with which he was
familiar. It was all so simple and real. The mother was telling the
great Father in heaven her cares and anxieties, and the day's needs
for them all, sure that he would understand and answer. Every one was
remembered--the absent head of the family and those present; the young
man worshiping with them, that he might be a true man and a good soldier
of Jesus Christ; and at the close, the little lad going away this
morning, that he might be kept from all harm and from all evil thoughts
and deeds. The simple beauty of the words, the music in the voice, and
the tender, trustful feeling that breathed through the prayer awakened
in Ranald's heart emotions and longings he had never known before, and
he rose from his knees feeling how wicked and how cruel a thing it would
be to cause one of these little ones to stumble.

After the worship was over, Hughie seized his Scotch bonnet and rushed
for the jumper, and in a few minutes his mother had all the space not
taken up by him and Ranald packed with blankets and baskets.

“Jessie thinks that even great shanty-men like you and Don and Hughie
will not object to something better than bread and pork.”

“Indeed, we will not,” said Ranald, heartily.

Then Hughie suddenly remembered that he was actually leaving home, and
climbing out of the jumper, he rushed at his mother.

“Oh, mother, good by!” he cried.

His mother stooped and put her arms about him. “Good by, my darling,”
 she said, in a low voice; “I trust you to be a good boy, and, Hughie,
don't forget your prayers.”

Then came to Hughie, for the first time, the thought that had been in
the mother's heart all the morning, that when night came he would lie
down to sleep, for the first time in his life, without the nightly story
and her good-night kiss.

“Mother,” whispered the little lad, holding her tight about the neck,
“won't you come, too? I don't think I like to go away.”

He could have said no more comforting word, and the mother, whose heart
had been sore enough with her first parting from her boy, was more than
glad to find that the pain was not all on her side; so she kissed him
again, and said, in a cheery voice: “Now have a good time. Don't trouble
Ranald too much, and bring me back some sugar.” Her last word braced the
lad as nothing else could.

“Oh, mother, I'll bring you heaps!” he cried, and with the vision of
what he would bring home again shining vividly before his eyes, he got
through the parting without tears, and was soon speeding down the lane
beside Ranald, in the jumper.

The mother stood and watched the little figure holding tight to Ranald
with one hand, and with the other waving frantically his bonnet by the
tails, till at last the bush hid him from her sight. Then she turned
back again to the house that seemed so empty, with her hand pressed hard
against her side and her lip quivering as with sharp pain.

“How foolish!” she said, impatiently to herself; “he will be home in two
days.” But in spite of herself she went again to the door, and looked
long at the spot where the bush swallowed up the road. Then she went
upstairs and shut her door, and when she came down again there was that
in her face that told that her heart had had its first touch of the
sword that, sooner or later, must pierce all mothers' hearts.



CHAPTER VII

MAIMIE


Before Hughie came back from the sugar camp, the minister had returned
from the presbytery, bringing with him his wife's niece, Maimie St.
Clair, who had come from her home in a Western city to meet him. Her
father, Eugene St. Clair, was president of Raymond and St. Clair Lumber
Company. Nineteen years before this time he had married Mrs. Murray's
eldest sister, and established his home with every prospect of a
prosperous and happy life, but after three short, bright years of almost
perfect joy, his young wife, his heart's idol, after two days' illness,
fluttered out from her beautiful home, leaving with her broken-hearted
husband her little boy and a baby girl two weeks old. Then Eugene St.
Clair besought his sister to come out from England and preside over his
home and care for his children; and that he might forget his grief, he
gave himself, heart and mind, to his business. Wealth came to him, and
under his sister's rule his home became a place of cultured elegance and
a center of fashionable pleasure.

Miss Frances St. Clair was a woman of the world, proud of her
family-tree, whose root disappeared in the depths of past centuries, and
devoted to the pursuit and cultivation of those graces and manners that
are supposed to distinguish people of birth and breeding from the common
sort. Indeed, from common men and things she shrank almost with horror.
The entrance of “trade” into the social sphere of her life she would
regard as an impertinent intrusion. It was as much as she could bear
to allow the approach of “commerce,” which her brother represented. She
supposed, of course, there must be people to carry on the trades and
industries of the country--very worthy people, too--but these were
people one could not be expected to know. Miss St. Clair thanked heaven
that she had had the advantages of an English education and up-bringing,
and she lamented the stubborn democratic opinions of her brother,
who insisted that Harry should attend the public school. She was not
surprised, therefore, though greatly grieved, that Harry chose his
friends in school with a fine disregard of “their people.” It was with
surprise amounting to pain that she found herself one day introduced by
her nephew to Billie Barclay, who turned out to be the son of Harry's
favorite confectioner. To his aunt's remonstrance it seemed to Harry a
sufficient reply that Billy was a “brick” and a shining “quarter” on the
school Rugby team.

“But, Harry, think of his people!” urged his aunt.

“Oh, rot!” replied her irreverent nephew; “I don't play with his
people.”

“Yes, but Harry, you don't expect to make him your friend?”

“But he is my friend, and I don't care what his people are. Besides, I
think his governor is a fine old boy, and I know he gives us jolly good
taffy.”

“But, Harry,” answered his aunt, in despair, “you are positively
dreadful. Why can't you make friends in your own set? There is Hubert
Evans and the Langford boys.”

“Evans!” snorted Harry, with contempt; “beastly snob, and the Langfords
are regular Mollies!” Whereupon Miss St. Clair gave up her nephew as
impossible. But Billie did not repeat his visit to his friend Harry's
home. Miss Frances St. Clair had a way of looking through her pince-nez
that even a boy could understand and would seek to avoid.

With Maimie, Miss St. Clair achieved better results. She was a gentle
girl, with an affectionate, yielding disposition, tending towards
indolence and self-indulgence. Her aunt's chief concern about her was
that she should be frocked and mannered as became her position. Her
education was committed to a very select young ladies' school, where
only the daughters of the first families ever entered. What or how they
were taught, her aunt never inquired. She felt quite sure that the lady
principal would resent, as indeed she ought, any such inquiry. Hence
Maimie came to have a smattering of the English poets, could talk in
conversation-book French, and could dash off most of the notes of a few
waltzes and marches from the best composers, her piece de resistance,
however, being “La Priere d'une Vierge.” She carried with her from
school a portfolio of crayons of apparently very ancient and very
battered castles; and water-colors of landscapes, where the water was
quite as solid as the land. True, she was quite unable to keep her own
small accounts, and when her father chanced to ask her one day to do for
him a simple addition, he was amazed to find that only after the third
attempt did she get it right; but, in the eyes of her aunt, these were
quite unimportant deficiencies, and for young ladies she was not sure
but that the keeping of accounts and the adding of figures were almost
vulgar accomplishments. Her father thought otherwise, but he was a busy
man, and besides, he shrank from entering into a region strange to him,
but where his sister moved with assured tread. He contented himself with
gratifying his daughter's fancies and indulging her in every way allowed
him by her system of training and education. The main marvel in the
result was that the girl did not grow more selfish, superficial, and
ignorant than she did. Something in her blood helped her, but more, it
was her aunt's touch upon her life. For every week a letter came from
the country manse, bringing with it some of the sweet simplicity of the
country and something like a breath of heaven.

She was nearing her fifteenth birthday, and though almost every letter
brought an invitation to visit the manse in the backwoods, it was only
when the girl's pale cheek and languid air awakened her father's anxiety
that she was allowed to accept the invitation to spend some weeks in the
country.

            *         *         *         *         *

When Ranald and Hughie drove up to the manse on Saturday evening in the
jumper the whole household rushed forth to see them. They were worth
seeing. Burned black with the sun and the March winds, they would have
easily passed for young Indians. Hughie's clothes were a melancholy and
fluttering ruin; and while Ranald's stout homespun smock and trousers
had successfully defied the bush, his dark face and unkempt hair, his
rough dress and heavy shanty boots, made him appear, to Maimie's eyes,
an uncouth, if not pitiable, object.

“Oh, mother!” cried Hughie, throwing himself upon her, “I'm home again,
and we've had a splendid time, and we made heaps of sugar, and I've
brought you a whole lot.” He drew out of his pockets three or four cakes
of maple sugar. “There is one for each,” he said, handing them to his
mother.

“Here, Hughie,” she replied, “speak to your cousin Maimie.”

Hughie went up shyly to his cousin and offered a grimy hand. Maimie,
looking at the ragged little figure, could hardly hide her disgust as
she took the dirty, sticky little hand very gingerly in her fingers. But
Hughie was determined to do his duty to the full, even though Ranald was
present, and shaking his cousin's hand with great heartiness, he held up
his face to be kissed. He was much surprised, and not a little relieved,
when Maimie refused to notice his offer and turned to look at Ranald.

She found him scanning her with a straight, searching look, as if
seeking to discover of what sort she was. She felt he had noticed her
shrinking from Hughie, and was annoyed to find herself blushing under
his keen gaze. But when Mrs. Murray presented Ranald to her niece,
it was his turn to blush and feel awkward, as he came forward with a
triangular sort of movement and offered his hand, saying, with an access
of his Highland accent, “It is a fine day, ma'am.” It required all
Maimie's good manners to keep back the laugh that fluttered upon her
lips.

Slight as it was, Ranald noticed the smile, and turning from her
abruptly to Mrs. Murray, said: “We were thinking that Friday would be a
good day for the sugaring-off, if that will do you.”

“Quite well, Ranald,” said the minister's wife; “and it is very good of
you to have us.”

She, too, had noted Maimie's smile, and seeing the dark flush on
Ranald's cheek, she knew well what it meant.

“Come and sit down a little, Ranald,” she said, kindly; “I have got some
books here for you and Don to read.”

But Ranald would not sit, nor would he wait a moment. “Thank you,
ma'am,” he said, “but I will need to be going.”

“Wait, Ranald, a moment,” cried Mrs. Murray. She ran into the next
room, and in a few moments returned with two or three books and some
magazines. “These,” she said, handing him the books, “are some of Walter
Scott's. They will be good for week-days; and these,” giving him the
magazines, “you can read after church on Sabbath.”

The boy's eyes lighted up as he thanked Mrs. Murray, and he shook hands
with her very warmly. Then, with a bow to the company, and without
looking at Maimie again, he left the room, with Hughie following at his
heels. In a short time Hughie came back full of enthusiastic praise of
his hero.

“Oh, mother!” he cried, “he is awful smart. He can just do anything.
He can make a splendid bed of balsam brush, and porridge, and pancakes,
and--and--and--everything.”

“A bed of balsam brush and porridge! What a wonderful boy he must be,
Hughie,” said Maimie, teasing him. “But isn't he just a little queer?”

“He's not a bit queer,” said Hughie, stoutly. “He is the best, best,
best boy in all the world.”

“Indeed! how extraordinary!” said Maimie; “you wouldn't think so to look
at him.”

“I think he is just splendid,” said Hughie; “don't you, mother?”

“Indeed, he is fery brown whatever,” mocked Maimie, mimicking Ranald's
Highland tongue, a trick at which she was very clever, “and--not just
fery clean.”

“You're just a mean, mean, red-headed snip!” cried Hughie, in a rage,
“and I don't like you one bit.”

But Maimie was proud of her golden hair, so Hughie's shot fell harmless.

“And when will you be going to the sugaring-off, Mistress Murray?” went
on Maimie, mimicking Ranald so cleverly that in spite of herself Mrs.
Murray smiled.

It was his mother's smile that perfected Hughie's fury. Without a word
of threat or warning, he seized a dipper of water and threw it over
Maimie, soaking her pretty ribbons and collar, and was promptly sent
upstairs to repent.

“Poor Hughie!” said his mother, after he had disappeared; “Ranald is his
hero, and he cannot bear any criticism of him.”

“He doesn't look much of a hero, auntie,” said Maimie, drying her face
and curls.

“Very few heroes do,” said her aunt, quietly. “Ranald has noble
qualities, but he has had very few advantages.”

Then Mrs. Murray told her niece how Ranald had put himself between her
and the pursuing wolves. Maimie's blue eyes were wide with horror.

“But, auntie,” she cried, “why in the world do you go to such places?”

“What places, Maimie?” said the minister, who had come into the room.

“Why, those awful places where the wolves are.”

“Indeed, you may ask why,” said the minister, gravely. He had heard the
story from his wife the night before. “But it would need a man to be on
guard day and night to keep your aunt from 'those places.'”

“Yes, and your uncle, too,” said Mrs. Murray, shaking her head at her
husband. “You see, Maimie, we live in 'those places'; and after all,
they are as safe as any. We are in good keeping.”

“And was Hughie out all night with those two boys in those woods,
auntie?”

“Oh, there was no danger. The wolves will not come near a fire, and the
boys have their dogs and guns,” said Mrs. Murray; “besides, Ranald is to
be trusted.”

“Trusted?” said the minister; “indeed, I would not trust him too far. He
is just wild enough, like his father before him.”

“Oh, papa, you don't know Ranald,” said his wife, warmly; “nor his
father either, for that matter. I never did till this last week. They
have kept aloof from everything, and really--”

“And whose fault is that?” interrupted the minister. “Why should they
keep aloof from the means of grace? They are a godless lot, that's what
they are.” The minister's indignation was rising.

“But, my dear,” persisted Mrs. Murray, “I believe if they had a
chance--”

“Chance!” exclaimed the minister; “what more chance do they want? Have
they not all that other people have? Macdonald Dubh is rarely seen at
the services on the Lord's day, and as for Ranald, he comes and goes at
his own sweet will.”

“Let us hope,” said his wife, gently, “they will improve. I believe
Ranald would come to Bible class were he not so shy.”

“Shy!” laughed the minister, scornfully; “he is not too shy to stand up
on the table before a hundred men after a logging and dance the Highland
fling, and beautifully he does it, too,” he added.

“But for all that,” said his wife, “he is very shy.”

“I don't like shy people,” said Maimie; “they are so awkward and
dreadful to do with.”

“Well,” said her aunt, quietly, “I rather like people who are not too
sure of themselves, and I think all the more of Ranald for his shyness
and modesty.”

“Oh, Ranald's modesty won't disable him,” said the minister. “For my
part, I think he is a daring young rascal; and indeed, if there is any
mischief going in the countryside you may be sure Ranald is not far
away.”

“Oh, papa, I don't think Ranald is a BAD boy,” said his wife, almost
pleadingly.

“Bad? I'm sure I don't know what you call it. Who let off the dam last
year so that the saw-mill could not run for a week? Who abused poor
Duncie MacBain so that he was carried home groaning?”

“Duncie MacBain!” exclaimed his wife, contemptuously; “great, big, soft
lump, that he is. Why, he's a man, as big as ever he'll be.”

“Who broke the Little Church windows till there wasn't a pane left?”
 pursued the minister, unheeding his wife's interruption.

“It wasn't Ranald that broke the church windows, papa,” piped Hughie
from above.

“How do you know, sir? Who did it, then?” demanded his father.

“It wasn't Ranald, anyway,” said Hughie, stoutly.

“Who was it, then? Tell me that,” said his father again.

“Hughie, go to your room and stay there, as I told you,” said his
mother, fearing an investigation into the window-breaking episode,
of which Hughie had made full confession to her as his own particular
achievement, in revenge for a broken window in the new church.

“I think,” continued Mr. Murray, as if closing the discussion, “you'll
find that your Ranald is not the modest, shy, gentle young man you think
him to be, but a particularly bold young rascal.”

“Poor Ranald,” sighed his wife; “he has no mother, and his father has
just let him grow up wild.”

“Aye, that's true enough,” assented her husband, passing into his study.

But he could have adopted no better means of awakening Maimie's interest
in Ranald than by the recital of his various escapades. Women love good
men, but are interested in men whose goodness is more or less impaired.
So Maimie was determined that she would know more of Ranald, and hence
took every opportunity of encouraging Hughie to sing the praises of his
hero and recount his many adventures. She was glad, too, that her aunt
had fixed the sugaring-off for a time when she could be present. But
neither at church on Sunday nor during the week that followed did she
catch sight of his face, and though Hughie came in with excited reports
now and then of having seen or heard of Ranald, Maimie had to content
herself with these; and, indeed, were it not that the invitation had
already been given, and the day fixed for her visit to the camp, the
chances are that Maimie's acquaintance with Ranald would have ended
where it began, in which case both had been saved many bitter days.



CHAPTER VIII

THE SUGARING-OFF


The sugar time is, in many ways, the best of all the year. It is
the time of crisp mornings, when “the crust bears,” and the boys go
crunching over all the fields and through the woods; the time, too, of
sunny noons and chilly nights. Winter is still near, but he has lost
most of his grip, and all his terror. For the earth has heard the call
of spring from afar, and knows that soon she will be seen, dancing her
shy dances, in the sunny spaces of the leafless woods. Then, by and by,
from all the open fields the snow is driven back into the fence corners,
and lies there in soiled and sullen heaps. In the woods it still lies
deep; but there is everywhere the tinkle of running water, and it is not
long till the brown leaf carpet begins to show in patches through the
white. Then, overhead, the buds begin to swell and thrill with the new
life, and when it is broad noon, all through the woods a thousand voices
pass the glad word that winter's day is gone and that all living things
are free. But when night draws up over the treetops, and the shadows
steal down the forest aisles, the jubilant voices die down and a chill
fear creeps over all the gleeful, swelling buds that they have been
too sure and too happy; and all the more if, from the northeast, there
sweeps down, as often happens, a stinging storm of sleet and snow,
winter's last savage slap. But what matters that? The very next
day, when the bright, warm rays trickle down through the interlacing
branches, bathing the buds and twigs and limbs and trunks and flooding
all the woods, the world grows surer of its new joy. And so, in
alternating hope and fear, the days and nights go by, till an evening
falls when the air is languid and a soft rain comes up from the south,
falling all night long over the buds and trees like warm, loving
fingers. Then the buds break for very joy, and timid green things push
up through the leaf-mold; and from the swamps the little frogs begin
to pipe, at first in solo, but soon in exultant chorus, till the whole
moist night is vocal, and then every one knows that the sugar time is
over, and troughs and spiles are gathered up, and with sap-barrels and
kettles, are stored in the back shed for another year.

But no rain came before the night fixed for the sugaring-off. It was a
perfect sugar day, warm, bright, and still, following a night of sharp
frost. The long sunny afternoon was deepening into twilight when the
Camerons drove up to the sugar-camp in their big sleigh, bringing with
them the manse party. Ranald and Don, with Aunt Kirsty, were there to
receive them. It was one of those rare evenings of the early Canadian
spring. The bare woods were filled with the tangled rays of light from
the setting sun. Here and there a hillside facing the east lay in
shadow that grew black where the balsams and cedars stood in clumps. But
everywhere else the light fell sweet and silent about the bare trunks,
filling the long avenues under the arching maple limbs with a yellow
haze.

In front of the shanty the kettles hung over the fire on a long pole
which stood in an upright crutch at either end. Under the big kettle the
fire was roaring high, for the fresh sap needed much boiling before the
syrup and taffy could come. But under the little kettle the fire burned
low, for that must not be hurried.

Over the fire and the kettles Ranald presided, black, grimy, and silent,
and to Don fell the duty of doing the honors of the camp; and right
worthily did he do his part. He greeted his mother with reverence,
cuffed his young brother, kissed his little sister Jennie, tossing her
high, and welcomed with warm heartiness Mrs. Murray and her niece. The
Airds had not yet come, but all the rest were there. The Finlaysons and
the McKerachers, Dan Campbell's boys, and their sister Betsy, whom every
one called “Betsy Dan,” redheaded, freckled, and irrepressible; the
McGregors, and a dozen or more of the wildest youngsters that could be
found in all the Indian Lands. Depositing their baskets in the shanty,
for they had no thought of fasting, they crowded about the fire.

“Attention!” cried Don, who had a “gift of the gab,” as his mother
said. “Ladies and gentlemen, the program for this evening is as follows:
games, tea, and taffy, in the order mentioned. In the first, all MUST
take part; in the second, all MAY take part; but in the third, none NEED
take part.”

After the laughter and the chorus of “Ohs” had subsided, Don proceeded:
“The captains for the evening are, Elizabeth Campbell, better known
as 'Betsy Dan,' and John Finlayson, familiar to us all as 'Johnnie the
Widow,' two young people of excellent character, and I believe, slightly
known to each other.”

Again a shout went up from the company, but Betsy Dan, who cared not at
all for Don's banter, contented herself with pushing out her lower lip
at him with scorn, in that indescribable manner natural to girls, but to
boys impossible.

Then the choosing began. Betsy Dan, claiming first choice by virtue of
her sex, immediately called out, “Ranald Macdonald.”

But Ranald shook his head. “I cannot leave the fire,” he said, blushing;
“take Don there.”

But Betsy demurred. “I don't want Don,” she cried. “Come on, Ranald; the
fire will do quite well.” Betsy, as indeed did most of the school-girls,
adored Ranald in her secret heart, though she scorned to show it.

But Ranald still refused, till Don said, “It is too bad, Betsy, but
you'll have to take me.”

“Oh, come on, then!” laughed Betsy; “you will be better than nobody.”

Then it was Johnnie the Widow's choice: “Maimie St. Clair.”

Maimie hesitated and looked at her aunt, who said, “Yes, go, my dear, if
you would like.”

“Marget Aird!” cried Betsy, spying Marget and her brothers coming down
the road. “Come along, Marget; you are on my side--on Don's side, I
mean.” At which poor Marget, a tall, fair girl, with sweet face and shy
manner, blushed furiously, but, after greeting the minister's wife and
the rest of the older people, she took her place beside Don.

The choosing went on till every one present was taken, not even Aunt
Kirsty being allowed to remain neutral in the coming games. For an hour
the sports went on. Racing, jumping, bear, London bridge, crack the
whip, and lastly, forfeits.

Meantime Ranald superintended the sap-boiling, keeping on the opposite
side of the fire from the ladies, and answering in monosyllables any
questions addressed to him. But when it was time to make the tea, Mrs.
Cameron and Kirsty insisted on taking charge of this, and Mrs. Murray,
coming round to Ranald, said: “Now, Ranald, I came to learn all about
sugar-making, and while the others are making tea, I want you to teach
me how to make sugar.”

Ranald gladly agreed to show her all he knew. He had been feeling
awkward and miserable in the noisy crowd, but especially in the presence
of Maimie. He had not forgotten the smile of amusement with which
she had greeted him at the manse, and his wounded pride longed for an
opportunity to pour upon her the vials of his contempt. But somehow,
in her presence, contempt would not arise within him, and he was driven
into wretched silence and self-abasement. It was, therefore, with
peculiar gratitude that he turned to Mrs. Murray as to one who both
understood and trusted him.

“I thank you for the books, Mrs. Murray,” he began, in a low, hurried
voice. “They are just wonderful. That Rob Roy and Ivanhoe, oh! they are
the grand books.” His face was fairly blazing with enthusiasm. “I never
knew there were such books at all.”

“I am very glad you like them, Ranald,” said Mrs. Murray, in tones of
warm sympathy, “and I shall give you as many as you like.”

“I cannot thank you enough. I have not the words,” said the boy, looking
as if he might fall down at her feet. Mrs. Murray was greatly touched
both by his enthusiasm and his gratitude.

“It is a great pleasure to me, Ranald, that you like them,” she said,
earnestly. “I want you to love good books and good men and noble deeds.”

Ranald stood listening in silence.

“Then some day you will be a good and great man yourself,” she added,
“and you will do some noble work.”

The boy stood looking far away into the woods, his black eyes filled
with a mysterious fire. Suddenly he threw back his head and said, as
if he had forgotten Mrs. Murray's presence, “Yes, some day I will be a
great man. I know it well.”

“And good,” softly added Mrs. Murray.

He turned and looked at her a moment as if in a dream. Then, recalling
himself, he answered, “I suppose that is the best.”

“Yes, it is the best, Ranald,” she replied. “No man is great who is not
good. But come now and give me my lesson.”

Ranald stepped out into the bush, and from a tree near by he lifted a
trough of sap and emptied it into the big kettle.

“That's the first thing you do with the sap,” he said.

“How? Carry every trough to the kettle?”

“Oh, I see,” laughed Ranald. “You must have every step.”

“Yes, indeed,” she replied, with determination.

“Well, here it is.”

He seized a bucket, went to another tree, emptied the sap from the
trough into the bucket, and thence into the barrel, and from the barrel
into the big kettle.

“Then from the big kettle into the little one,” he said, catching up a
big dipper tied to a long pole, and transferring the boiling sap as he
spoke from one kettle to another.

“But how can you tell when it is ready?” asked Mrs. Murray.

“Only by tasting. When it is very sweet it must go into the little
kettle.”

“And then?”

Her eager determination to know all the details delighted him beyond
measure.

“Then you must be very careful indeed, or you will lose all your day's
work, and your sugar besides, for it is very easy to burn.”

“But how can you tell when it is ready?”

“Oh, you must just keep tasting every few minutes till you think you
have the syrup, and then for the sugar you must just boil it a little
longer.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Murray, “when it is ready what do you do?”

“Then,” he said, “you must quickly knock the fire from under it, and
pour it into the pans, stirring it till it gets nearly cool.”

“And why do you stir it?” she asked.

“Oh, to keep it from getting too hard.”

“Now I have learned something I never knew before,” said the minister's
wife, delightedly, “and I am very grateful to you. We must help each
other, Ranald.”

“Indeed, it is little I can do for you,” he said, shyly.

“You do not know how much I am going to ask you to do,” she said,
lightly. “Wait and see.”

At that moment a series of shrieks rose high above the shouting and
laughter of the games, and Maimie came flying down toward the camp,
pursued by Don, with the others following.

“Oh, auntie!” she panted, “he's going to--going to--” she paused, with
cheeks burning.

“It's forfeits, Mrs. Murray,” explained Don.

“Hoot, lassie,” said Mrs. Cameron; “it will not much hurt you, anyway.
They that kiss in the light will not kiss in the dark.”

“She played, and lost her forfeit,” said Don, unwilling to be jeered at
by the others for faint-heartedness. “She ought to pay.”

“I'm afraid, Don, she does not understand our ways,” said Mrs. Murray,
apologetically.

“Be off, Don,” said his mother. “Kiss Marget there, if you can--it will
not hurt her--and leave the young lady alone.”

“It's just horrid of them, auntie,” said Maimie, indignantly, as the
others went back to their games.

“Indeed,” said Mrs. Cameron, warmly, “if you will never do worse than
kiss a laddie in a game, it's little harm will be coming to you.”

But Maimie ignored her.

“Is it not horrid, auntie?” she said.

“Well, my dear, if you think so, it is. But not for these girls, who
play the game with never a thought of impropriety and with no shock to
their modesty. Much depends on how you think about these things.”

But Maimie was not satisfied. She was indignant at Don for offering
to kiss her, but as she stood and watched the games going on under the
trees--the tag, the chase, the catch, and the kiss--she somehow began to
feel as if it were not so terrible after all, and to think that perhaps
these girls might play the game and still be nice enough. But she had
no thought of going back to them, and so she turned her attention to
the preparations for tea, now almost complete. Her aunt and Ranald were
toasting slices of bread at the big blazing fire, on forks made out of
long switches.

“Let me try, auntie,” she said, pushing up to the fire between her aunt
and Ranald. “I am sure I can do that.”

“Be careful of that fire,” said Ranald, sharply, pulling back her skirt,
that had blown dangerously near the blaze. “Stand back further,” he
commanded.

Mamie looked at him, surprise, indignation, and fear struggling for the
mastery. Was this the awkward boy that had blushed and stammered before
her a week ago?

“It's very dangerous,” he explained to Mrs. Murray, “the wind blows out
the flames.”

As he spoke he handed Maimie his toasting stick and retired to the other
side of the fire, and began to attend to the boiling sap.

“He needn't be such a bear,” pouted Maimie.

“My dear,” replied her aunt, “what Ranald says is quite true. You cannot
be too careful in moving about the fire.”

“Well, he needn't be so cross about it,” said Maimie. She had never been
ordered about before in her life, and she did not enjoy the experience,
and all the more at the hands of an uncouth country boy. She watched
Ranald attending to the fire and the kettles, however, with a new
respect. He certainly had no fear of the fire, but moved about it and
handled it with the utmost sang-froid. He had a certain grace, too, in
his movements that caught her eye, and she wished he would come nearer
so that she could speak to him. She had considerable confidence in her
powers of attraction. As if to answer her wish, Ranald came straight to
where her aunt and she were standing.

“I think it will be time for tea now,” he said, with a sudden return of
his awkward manner, that made Maimie wonder why she had ever been afraid
of him. “I will tell Don,” he added, striding off toward the group of
boys and girls, still busy with their games under the trees.

Soon Don's shout was heard: “Tea, ladies and gentlemen; take your seats
at the tables.” And speedily there was a rush and scramble, and in a few
moments the great heaps of green balsam boughs arranged around the fire
were full of boys and girls pulling, pinching, and tumbling over one
another in wild glee.

The toast stood in brown heaps on birch-bark plates beside the fire, and
baskets were carried out of the shanty bulging with cakes; the tea
was bubbling in the big tin tea-pail, and everything was ready for the
feast. But Ranald had caught Mrs. Murray's eye, and at a sign from her,
stood waiting with the tea-pail in his hand.

“Come on with the tea, Ranald,” cried Don, seizing a plate of toast.

“Wait a minute, Don,” said Ranald, in a low tone.

“What's the matter?”

But Ranald stood still, looking silently at the minister's wife. Then,
as all eyes turned toward her, she said, in a gentle, sweet voice,
“I think we ought to give thanks to our Father in heaven for all this
beauty about us and for all our joy.”

At once Ranald took off his hat, and as the boys followed his example,
Mrs. Murray bowed her head and in a few, simple words lifted up the
hearts of all with her own in thanksgiving for the beauty of the woods
and sky above them, and all the many gifts that came to fill their lives
with joy.

It was not the first time that Ranald had heard her voice in prayer, but
somehow it sounded different in the open air under the trees and in the
midst of all the jollity of the sugaring-off. With all other people
that Ranald knew religion seemed to be something apart from common days,
common people, and common things, and seemed, besides, a solemn and
terrible experience; but with the minister's wife, religion was a part
of her every-day living, and seemed to be as easily associated with her
pleasure as with anything else about her. It was so easy, so simple, so
natural, that Ranald could not help wondering if, after all, it was the
right kind. It was so unlike the religion of the elders and all the good
people in the congregation. It was a great puzzle to Ranald, as to many
others, both before and since his time.

After tea was over the great business of the evening came on. Ranald
announced that the taffy was ready, and Don, as master of ceremonies,
immediately cried out: “The gentlemen will provide the ladies with
plates.”

“Plates!” echoed the boys, with a laugh of derision.

“Plates,” repeated Don, stepping back to a great snowbank, near a balsam
clump, and returning with a piece of “crust.” At once there was a scurry
to the snowbank, and soon every one had a snow plate ready. Then Ranald
and Don slid the little kettle along the pole off the fire, and with
tin dippers began to pour the hot syrup upon the snow plates, where it
immediately hardened into taffy. Then the pulling began. What fun there
was, what larks, what shrieks, what romping and tumbling, till all were
heartily tired, both of the taffy and the fun.

Then followed the sugar-molding. The little kettle was set back on the
fire and kept carefully stirred, while tin dishes of all sorts, shapes,
and sizes--milk-pans, pattie-pans, mugs, and cups--well greased with
pork rind, were set out in order, imbedded in snow.

The last act of all was the making of “hens' nests.” A dozen or so of
hens' eggs, blown empty, and three goose eggs for the grown-ups, were
set in snow nests, and carefully filled from the little kettle. In a few
minutes the nests were filled with sugar eggs, and the sugaring-off was
over.

There remained still a goose egg provided against any mishap.

“Who wants the goose egg?” cried Don, holding it up.

“Me!” “me!” “me!” coaxed the girls on every side.

“Will you give it to me, Don, for the minister?” said Mrs. Murray.

“Oh, yes!” cried Maimie, “and let me fill it.”

As she spoke, she seized the dipper, and ran for the kettle.

“Look out for that fire,” cried Don, dropping the egg into its snowbed.
He was too late. A little tongue of flame leaped out from under the
kettle, nipped hold of her frock, and in a moment she was in a blaze.
With a wild scream she sprang back and turned to fly, but before she had
gone more than a single step Ranald, dashing the crowd right and left,
had seized and flung her headlong into the snow, beating out the flames
with his bare hands. In a moment all danger was over, and Ranald lifted
her up. Still screaming, she clung to him, while the women all ran to
her. Her aunt reached her first.

“Hush, Maimie; hush, dear. You are quite safe now. Let me see your face.
There now, be quiet, child. The danger is all over.”

Still Maimie kept screaming. She was thoroughly terrified.

“Listen to me,” her aunt said, in an even, firm voice. “Do not be
foolish. Let me look at you.”

The quiet, firm voice soothed her, and Maimie's screams ceased. Her aunt
examined her face, neck, and arms for any signs of fire, but could find
none. She was hardly touched, so swift had been her rescue. Then Mrs.
Murray, suddenly putting her arms round about her niece, and holding her
tight, cried: “Thank God, my darling, for his great kindness to you and
to us all. Thank God! thank God!”

Her voice broke, but in a moment, recovering herself, she went on, “And
Ranald, too! noble fellow!”

Ranald was standing at the back of the crowd, looking pale, disturbed,
and awkward. Mrs. Murray, knowing how hateful to him would be any
demonstrations of feeling, went to him, and quietly held out her hand,
saying: “It was bravely done, Ranald. From my heart, I thank you.”

For a moment or two she looked steadily into his face with tears
streaming down her cheeks. Then putting her hands upon his shoulders,
she said, softly:

“For her dear, dead mother's sake, I thank you.”

Then Maimie, who had been standing in a kind of stupor all this while,
seemed suddenly to awake, and running swiftly toward Ranald, she put out
both hands, crying: “Oh, Ranald, I can never thank you enough!”

He took her hands in an agony of embarrassment, not knowing what to do
or say. Then Maimie suddenly dropped his hands, and throwing her arms
about his neck, kissed him, and ran back to her aunt's side.

“I thought you didn't play forfeits, Maimie,” said Don, in a grieved
voice. And every one was glad to laugh.

Then the minister's wife, looking round upon them all, said: “Dear
children, God has been very good to us, and I think we ought to give him
thanks.”

And standing there by the fire, they bowed their heads in a new
thanksgiving to Him whose keeping never fails by day or night. And then,
with hearts and voices subdued, and with quiet good nights, they went
their ways home.

But as the Cameron sleigh drove off with its load, Maimie looked back,
and seeing Ranald standing by the fire, she whispered to her aunt: “Oh,
auntie! Isn't he just splendid?”

But her aunt made no reply, seeing a new danger for them both, greater
than that they had escaped.



CHAPTER IX

A SABBATH DAY'S WORK


The Sabbath that followed the sugaring-off was to Maimie the most
remarkable Sabbath of her life up to that day. It was totally unlike the
Sabbath of her home, which, after the formal “church parade,” as
Harry called it, in the morning, her father spent in lounging with his
magazine and pipe, her aunt in sleeping or in social gossip with such
friends as might drop in, and Harry and Maimie as best they could.

The Sabbath in the minister's house, as in the homes of his people, was
a day so set apart from other days that it had to be approached. The
Saturday afternoon and evening caught something of its atmosphere. No
frivolity, indeed no light amusement, was proper on the evening that put
a period to the worldly occupations and engagements of the week. That
evening was one of preparation. The house, and especially the kitchen,
was thoroughly “redd up.” Wood, water, and kindlings were brought in,
clothes were brushed, boots greased or polished, dinner prepared, and
in every way possible the whole house, its dwellers, and its belongings,
made ready for the morrow. So, when the Sabbath morning dawned, people
awoke with a feeling that old things had passed away and that the whole
world was new. The sun shone with a radiance not known on other days. He
was shining upon holy things, and lighting men and women to holy duties.
Through all the farms the fields lay bathed in his genial glow, at rest,
and the very trees stood in silent worship of the bending heavens. Up
from stable and from kitchen came no sounds of work. The horses knew
that no wheel would turn that day in labor, and the dogs lay sleeping in
sunny nooks, knowing as well as any that there was to be no hunting or
roaming for them that day, unless they chose to go on a free hunt; which
none but light-headed puppies or dissipated and reprobate dogs would
care to do.

Over all things rest brooded, and out of the rest grew holy thoughts
and hopes. It was a day of beginnings. For the past, broken and stained,
there was a new offer of oblivion and healing, and the heart was
summoned to look forward to new life and to hope for better things, and
to drink in all those soothing, healing influences that memory and faith
combine to give; so that when the day was done, weary and discouraged
men and women began to feel that, perhaps after all they might be able
to endure and even to hope for victory.

The minister rose earlier on Sabbath than on other days, the
responsibility of his office pressing hard upon him. Breakfast was more
silent than usual, ordinary subjects of conversation being discouraged.
The minister was preoccupied and impatient of any interruption of his
thoughts. But his wife came to the table with a sweeter serenity than
usual, and a calm upon her face that told of hidden strength. Even
Maimie could notice the difference, but she could only wonder. The
secret of it was hidden from her. Her aunt was like no other woman that
she knew, and there were many things about her too deep for Maimie's
understanding.

After worship, which was brief but solemn and intense, Lambert hurried
to bring round to the front the big black horse, hitched up in the
carryall, and they all made speed to pack themselves in, Maimie and her
aunt in front, and Hughie on the floor behind with his legs under the
seat; for when once the minister was himself quite ready, and had got
his great meerschaum pipe going, it was unsafe for any one to delay him
a single instant.

The drive to the church was an experience hardly in keeping with the
spirit of the day. It was more exciting than restful. Black was a horse
with a single aim, which was to devour the space that stretched out
before him, with a fine disregard of consequence. The first part of the
road up to the church hill and down again to the swamp was to Black, as
to the others, an unmixed joy, for he was fresh from his oats and eager
to go, and his driver was as eager to let him have his will.

But when the swamp was reached, and the buggy began to leap from log
to log of the corduroy, Black began to chafe in impatience of the rein
which commanded caution. Indeed, the passage of the swamp was always
more or less of an adventure, the result of which no one could foretell,
and it took all Mrs. Murray's steadiness of nerve to repress an
exclamation of terror at critical moments. The corduroy was Black's
abomination. He longed to dash through and be done with it; but, however
much the minister sympathized with Black's desire, prudence forbade that
his method should be adopted. So from log to log, and from hole to hole,
Black plunged and stepped with all the care he could be persuaded to
exercise, every lurch of the carryall bringing a scream from Maimie in
front and a delighted chuckle from Hughie behind. His delight in the
adventure was materially increased by his cousin's terror.

But once the swamp was crossed, and Black found himself on the firm
road that wound over the sand-hills and through the open pine woods, he
tossed his great mane back from his eyes, and getting his head set off
at a pace that foreboded disaster to anything trying to keep before him,
and in a short time drew up at the church gates, his flanks steaming and
his great chest white with foam.

“My!” said Maimie, when she had recovered her breath sufficiently to
speak, “is that the church?” She pointed to a huge wooden building about
whose door a group of men were standing.

“Huh-huh, that's it,” said Hughie; “but we will soon be done with the
ugly old thing.”

The most enthusiastic member of the congregation could scarcely call the
old church beautiful, and to Maimie's eyes it was positively hideous.
No steeple or tower gave any hint of its sacred character. Its
weather-beaten clapboard exterior, spotted with black knots, as if
stricken with some disfiguring disease, had nothing but its row of
uncurtained windows to distinguish it from an ordinary barn.

They entered by the door at the end of the church, and proceeded down
the long aisle that ran the full length of the building, till they came
to a cross aisle that led them to the minister's pew at the left side
of the pulpit, and commanding a view of the whole congregation. The main
body of the church was seated with long box pews with hinged doors. But
the gallery that ran round three sides was fitted with simple benches.
Immediately in front of the pulpit was a square pew which was set apart
for the use of the elders, and close up to the pulpit, and indeed as
part of this structure, was a precentor's desk. The pulpit was, to
Maimie's eyes, a wonder. It was an octagonal box placed high on one
side of the church on a level with the gallery, and reached by a spiral
staircase. Above it hung the highly ornate and altogether extraordinary
sounding-board and canopy. There was no sign of paint anywhere, but
the yellow pine, of which seats, gallery, and pulpit were all made, had
deepened with age into a rich brown, not unpleasant to the eye.

The church was full, for the Indian Lands people believed in going
to church, and there was not a house for many miles around but was
represented in the church that day. There they sat, row upon row of men,
brawny and brown with wind and sun, a notable company, worthy of their
ancestry and worthy of their heritage. Beside them sat their wives,
brown, too, and weather-beaten, but strong, deep-bosomed, and with faces
of calm content, worthy to be mothers of their husbands' sons. The girls
and younger children sat with their parents, modest, shy, and reverent,
but the young men, for the most part, filled the back seats under
the gallery. And a hardy lot they were, as brown and brawny as their
fathers, but tingling with life to their finger-tips, ready for
anything, and impossible of control except by one whom they feared as
well as reverenced. And such a man was Alexander Murray, for they knew
well that, lithe and brawny as they were, there was not a man of them
but he could fling out of the door and over the fence if he so wished;
and they knew, too, that he would be prompt to do it if occasion arose.
Hence they waited for the word of God with all due reverence and fear.

In the square pew in front of the pulpit sat the elders, hoary, massive,
and venerable. The Indian Lands Session were worth seeing. Great men
they were, every one of them, excepting, perhaps, Kenneth Campbell,
“Kenny Crubach,” as he was called, from his halting step. Kenny was
neither hoary nor massive nor venerable. He was a short, grizzled man
with snapping black eyes and a tongue for clever, biting speech;
and while he bore a stainless character, no one thought of him as
an eminently godly man. In public prayer he never attained any great
length, nor did he employ that tone of unction deemed suitable in this
sacred exercise. He seldom “spoke to the question,” but when he did
people leaned forward to listen, and more especially the rows of the
careless and ungodly under the gallery. Kenny had not the look of an
elder, and indeed, many wondered how he had ever come to be chosen for
the office. But the others all had the look of elders, and carried with
them the full respect and affection of the congregation. Even the young
men under the gallery regarded them with reverence for their godly
character, but for other things as well; for these old men had been
famous in their day, and tales were still told about the firesides of
the people of their prowess in the woods and on the river.

There was, for instance, Finlay McEwen, or McKeowen, as they all
pronounced it in that country, who, for a wager, had carried a
four-hundred-pound barrel upon each hip across the long bridge over the
Scotch River. And next him sat Donald Ross, whose very face, with its
halo of white hair, bore benediction with it wherever he went. What a
man he must have been in his day! Six feet four inches he stood in his
stocking soles, and with “a back like a barn door,” as his son Danny,
or “Curly,” now in the shanty with Macdonald Bhain, used to say, in
affectionate pride. Then there was Farquhar McNaughton, big, kindly, and
good-natured, a mighty man with the ax in his time. “Kirsty's Farquhar”
 they called him, for obvious reasons. And a good thing for Farquhar it
was that he had had Kirsty at his side during these years to make his
bargains for him and to keep him and all others to them, else he would
never have become the substantial man he was.

Next to Farquhar was Peter McRae, the chief of a large clan of
respectable, and none too respectable, families, whom all alike held
in fear, for Peter ruled with a rod of iron, and his word ran as law
throughout the clan. Then there was Ian More Macgregor, or “Big John
Macgregor,” as the younger generation called him, almost as big as
Donald Ross and quite as kindly, but with a darker, sadder face.
Something from his wilder youth had cast its shadow over his life. No
one but his minister and two others knew that story, but the old man
knew it himself, and that was enough. One of those who shared his secret
was his neighbor and crony, Donald Ross, and it was worth a journey of
some length to see these two great old men, one with the sad and the
other with the sunny face, stride off together, staff in hand, at the
close of the Gaelic service, to Donald's home, where the afternoon would
be spent in discourse fitting the Lord's day and in prayer.

The only other elder was Roderick McCuiag, who sat, not in the elders'
pew, but in the precentor's box, for he was the Leader of Psalmody.
“Straight Rory,” as he was called by the irreverent, was tall, spare,
and straight as a ramrod. He was devoted to his office, jealous of
its dignity, and strenuous in his opposition to all innovations in
connection with the Service of Praise. He was especially opposed to
the introduction of those “new-fangled ranting” tunes which were
being taught the young people by John “Alec” Fraser in the weekly
singing-school in the Nineteenth, and which were sung at Mrs. Murray's
Sabbath evening Bible class in the Little Church. Straight Rory had been
educated for a teacher in Scotland, and was something of a scholar.
He loved school examinations, where he was the terror of pupils and
teachers alike. His acute mind reveled in the metaphysics of theology,
which made him the dread of all candidates who appeared before the
session desiring “to come forward.” It was to many an impressive sight
to see Straight Rory rise in the precentor's box, feel round, with much
facial contortion, for the pitch--he despised a tuning-fork--and then,
straightening himself up till he bent over backwards, raise the chant
that introduced the tune to the congregation. But to the young men under
the gallery he was more humorous than impressive, and it is to be feared
that they waited for the precentor's weekly performance with a delighted
expectation that never flagged and that was never disappointed. It was
only the flash of the minister's blue eye that held their faces rigid
in preternatural solemnity, and forced them to content themselves with
winks and nudges for the expression of their delight.

As Maimie's eye went wandering shyly over the rows of brown faces that
turned in solemn and steadfast regard to the minister's pew, Hughie
nudged her and whispered: “There's Don. See, in the back seat by the
window, next to Peter Ruagh yonder; the red-headed fellow.”

He pointed to Peter McRae, grandson of “Peter the Elder.” There was no
mistaking that landmark.

“Look,” cried Hughie, eagerly, pointing with terrible directness
straight at Don, to Maimie's confusion.

“Whisht, Hughie,” said his mother softly.

“There's Ranald, mother,” said the diplomatic Hughie, knowing well that
his mother would rejoice to hear that bit of news. “See, mother, just in
front of Don, there.”

Again Hughie's terrible finger pointed straight into the face of the
gazing congregation.

“Hush, Hughie,” said his mother, severely.

Maimie knew a hundred eyes were looking straight at the minister's pew,
but for the life of her she could not prevent her eye following the
pointing finger, till it found the steady gaze of Ranald fastened upon
her. It was only for a moment, but in that moment she felt her heart
jump and her face grow hot, and it did not help her that she knew that
the people were all wondering at her furious blushes. Of course the
story of the sugaring-off had gone the length of the land and had formed
the subject of conversation at the church door that morning, where
Ranald had to bear a good deal of chaff about the young lady, and her
dislike of forfeits, till he was ready to fight if a chance should but
offer. With unspeakable rage and confusion, he noticed Hughie's pointing
finger. He caught, too, Maimie's quick look, with the vivid blush that
followed. Unfortunately, others besides himself had noticed this, and
Don and Peter Ruagh, in the seat behind him, made it the subject of
congratulatory remarks to Ranald.

At this point the minister rose in the pulpit, and all waited with
earnest and reverent mien for the announcing of the psalm.

The Rev. Alexander Murray was a man to be regarded in any company and
under any circumstances, but when he stood up in his pulpit and faced
his congregation he was truly superb. He was above the average height,
of faultless form and bearing, athletic, active, and with a “spring in
every muscle.” He had coal-black hair and beard, and a flashing blue eye
that held his people in utter subjection and put the fear of death upon
evil-doers under the gallery. In every movement, tone, and glance there
breathed imperial command.

“Let us worship God by singing to His praise in the one hundred and
twenty-first psalm:


     'I to the hills will lift mine eyes,
      From whence doth come mine aid.'”


His voice rang out over the congregation like a silver bell, and Maimie
thought she had never seen a man of such noble presence.

After the reading of the psalm the minister sat down, and Straight Rory
rose in his box, and after his manner, began feeling about for the first
note of the chant that would introduce the noble old tune “St. Paul's.”
 A few moments he spent twisting his face and shoulders in a manner that
threatened to ruin the solemnity of the worshipers under the gallery,
till finally he seemed to hit upon the pitch desired, and throwing back
his head and closing one eye, he proceeded on his way. Each line he
chanted alone, after the ancient Scottish custom, after which the
congregation joined with him in the tune. The custom survived from the
time when psalm-books were in the hands of but few and the “lining” of
the psalm was therefore necessary.

There was no haste to be done with the psalm. Why should there be? They
had only one Sabbath in the week, and the whole day was before them.
The people surrendered themselves to the lead of Straight Rory with
unmistakable delight in that part of “the exercises” of the day in which
they were permitted to audibly join. But of all the congregation, none
enjoyed the singing more than the dear old women who sat in the front
seats near the pulpit, their quiet old faces looking so sweet and pure
under their snow-white “mutches.” There they sat and sang and quavered,
swaying their bodies with the tune in an ecstasy of restful joy.

Maimie had often heard St. Paul's before, but never as it was chanted
by Straight Rory and sung by the Indian Lands congregation that day.
The extraordinary slides and slurs almost obliterated the notes of the
original tune, and the “little kick,” as Maimie called it, at the end of
the second line, gave her a little start.

“Auntie,” she whispered, “isn't it awfully queer?”

“Isn't it beautiful?” her aunt answered, with an uncertain smile. She
was remembering how these winding, sliding, slurring old tunes had
affected her when first she heard them in her husband's church years
ago. The stately movement, the weird quavers, and the pathetic cadences
had in some mysterious way reached the deep places in her heart, and
before she knew, she had found the tears coursing down her cheeks and
her breath catching in sobs. Indeed, as she listened to-day, remembering
these old impressions, the tears began to flow, till Hughie, not
understanding, crept over to his mother, and to comfort her, slipped
his hand into hers, looking fiercely at Maimie as if she were to
blame. Maimie, too, noticed the tears and sat wondering, and as the
congregation swung on through the verses of the grand old psalm there
crept into her heart a new and deeper emotion than she had ever known.

“Listen to the words, Maimie dear,” whispered her aunt. And as Maimie
listened, the noble words, borne on the mighty swing of St. Paul's,
lifted up by six hundred voices--for men, women, and children were
singing with all their hearts--awakened echoes from great deeps within
her as yet unsounded. The days for such singing are, alas! long gone.
The noble rhythm, the stately movement, the continuous curving stream of
melody, that once marked the praise service of the old Scottish church,
have given place to the light, staccato tinkle of the revival chorus, or
the shorn and mutilated skeleton of the ancient psalm tune.

But while the psalm had been moving on in its solemn and stately way,
Ranald had been enduring agony at the hands of Peter Ruagh sitting just
behind him. Peter, whose huge, clumsy body was a fitting tabernacle for
the soul within, labored under the impression that he was a humorist,
and indulged a habit of ponderous joking, trying enough to most people,
but to one of Ranald's temperament exasperating to a high degree. His
theme was Ranald's rescue of Maimie, and the pauses of the singing he
filled in with humorous comments that, outside, would have produced only
weariness, but in the church, owing to the strange perversity of human
nature, sent a snicker along the seat. Unfortunately for him, Ranald's
face was so turned that he could not see it, and so he had no hint of
the wrath that was steadily boiling up to the point of overflow.

They were nearing the close of the last verse of the psalm, when Hughie,
whose eyes never wandered long from Ranald's direction, uttered a sharp
“Oh, my!” There was a shuffling confusion under the gallery, and when
Maimie and her aunt looked, Peter Ruagh's place was vacant.

By this time the minister was standing up for prayer. His eye, too,
caught the movement in the back seat.

“Young men,” he said, sternly, “remember you are in God's house. Let me
not have to mention your names before the congregation. Let us pray.”

As the congregation rose for prayer, Mrs. Murray noticed Peter Ruagh
appear from beneath the book-board and quietly slip out by the back door
with his hand to his face and the blood streaming between his fingers;
and though Ranald was standing up straight and stiff in his place, Mrs.
Murray could read from his rigid look the explanation of Peter's bloody
face. She gave her mind to the prayer with a sore heart, for she had
learned enough of those wild, hot-headed youths to know that before
Peter Ruagh's face would be healed more blood would have to flow.

The prayer proceeded in its leisurely way, indulging here and there
in quiet reverie, or in exultant jubilation over the “attributes,”
 embracing in its worldwide sweep “the interests of the kingdom” far and
near, and of that part of humanity included therein present and to come,
and buttressing its petitions with theological argument, systematic and
unassailable. Before the close, however, the minister came to deal with
the needs of his own people. Old and young, absent and present, the
sick, the weary, the sin-burdened--all were remembered with a warmth
of sympathy, with a directness of petition, and with an earnestness of
appeal that thrilled and subdued the hearts of all, and made even the
boys, who had borne with difficulty the last half-hour of the long
prayer, forget their weariness.

The reading of Scripture followed the prayer. In this the minister
excelled. His fine voice and his dramatic instinct combined to make this
an impressive and beautiful portion of the service. But to-day much of
the beauty and impressiveness of the reading was lost by the frequent
interruptions caused by the entrance of late comers, of whom, owing to
the bad roads, there were a larger number than usual. The minister was
evidently annoyed, not so much by the opening and shutting of the door
as by the inattention of his hearers, who kept turning round their heads
to see who the new arrivals were. At length the minister could bear it
no longer.

“My dear people,” he said, pausing in the reading, “never mind those
coming in. Give you heed to the reading of God's Word, and if you must
know who are entering, I will tell you. Yes,” he added, deliberately,
“give you heed to me, and I will let you know who these late comers
are.”

With that startling declaration, he proceeded with the reading, but had
not gone more than a few verses when “click” went the door-latch. Not
a head turned. It was Malcolm Monroe, slow-going and good-natured, with
his quiet little wife following him.

The minister paused, looking toward the door, and announced: “My dear
people, here comes our friend Malcolm Monroe, and his good wife with
him, and a long walk they have had. Come away, Malcolm; come away; we
will just wait for you.”

Malcolm's face was a picture. Surprise, astonishment, and confusion
followed each other across his stolid countenance; and with quicker pace
than he was ever known to use in his life before, he made his way to
his seat. No sooner had the reading began again when once more the
door clicked. True to his promise, the minister paused and cheerfully
announced to his people: “This, my friends, is John Campbell, whom
you all know as 'Johnnie Sarah,' and we are very glad to see him, for,
indeed, he has not been here for some time. Come away, John; come away,
man,” he added, impatiently, “for we are all waiting for you.”

Johnnie Sarah stood paralyzed with amazement and seemed uncertain
whether to advance or to turn and flee. The minister's impatient
command, however, decided him, and he dropped into the nearest seat with
all speed, and gazed about him as if to discover where he was. He had
no sooner taken his seat than the door opened again, and some half-dozen
people entered. The minister stood looking at them for some moments and
then said, in a voice of resignation: “Friends, these are some of our
people from the Island, and there are some strangers with them. But
if you want to know who they are, you will just have to look at them
yourselves, for I must get on with the reading.”

Needless to say, not a soul of the congregation, however consumed with
curiosity, dared to look around, and the reading of the chapter went
gravely on to the close. To say that Maimie sat in utter astonishment
during this extraordinary proceeding would give but a faint idea of her
state of mind. Even Mrs. Murray herself, who had become accustomed to
her husband's eccentricities, sat in a state of utter bewilderment, not
knowing what might happen next; nor did she feel quite safe until the
text was announced and the sermon fairly begun.

Important as were the exercises of reading, praise, and prayer, they
were only the “opening services,” and merely led up to the event of the
day, which was the sermon. And it was the event, not only of the day,
but of the week. It would form the theme of conversation and afford food
for discussion in every gathering of the people until another came to
take its place. To-day it lasted a full hour and a half, and was an
extraordinary production. Calm, deliberate reasoning, flights of vivid
imagination, passionate denunciation, and fervid appeal, marked its
course. Its subject was the great doctrine of Justification by Faith,
and it contained a complete system of theology arranged with reference
to that doctrine. Ancient heresies were attacked and exposed with
completeness amounting to annihilation. Modern errors, into which our
“friends” of the different denominations had fallen, were deplored and
corrected, and all possible misapplications of the doctrine to practical
life guarded against. On the positive side the need, the ground, the
means, the method, the agent, the results, of Justification, were fully
set forth and illustrated. There were no anecdotes and no poetry.
The subject was much too massive and tremendous to permit of any such
trifling.

As the sermon rolled on its majestic course, the congregation listened
with an attentive and discriminating appreciation that testified to
their earnestness and intelligence. True, one here and there dropped
into a momentary doze, but his slumber was never easy, for he was
harassed by the terrible fear of a sudden summons by name from the
pulpit to “awake and give heed to the message,” which for the next few
minutes would have an application so personal and pungent that it would
effectually prevent sleep for that and some successive Sabbaths. The
only apparent lapse of attention occurred when Donald Ross opened his
horn snuff-box, and after tapping solemnly upon its lid, drew forth a
huge pinch of snuff and passed it to his neighbor, who, after helping
himself in like manner, passed the box on. That the lapse was only
apparent was made evident by the air of abstraction with which this
operation was carried on, the snuff being held between the thumb and
forefinger for some moments, until a suitable resting-place in the
sermon was reached.

When the minister had arrived at the middle of the second head, he made
the discovery, as was not frequently the case, that the remotest limits
of the alloted time had been passed, and announcing that the subject
would be concluded on the following Sabbath, he summarily brought the
English service to a close, and dismissed the congregation with a brief
prayer, two verses of a psalm, and the benediction.

When Maimie realized that the service was really over, she felt as
if she had been in church for a week. After the benediction the
congregation passed out into the churchyard and disposed themselves in
groups about the gate and along the fences discussing the sermon and
making brief inquiries as to the “weal and ill” of the members of their
families. Mrs. Murray, leaving Hughie and Maimie to wander at will,
passed from group to group, welcomed by all with equal respect and
affection. Young men and old men, women and girls alike, were glad to
get her word. To-day, however, the young men were not at first to be
seen, but Mrs. Murray knew them well enough to suspect that they would
be found at the back of the church, so she passed slowly around the
church, greeting the people as she went, and upon turning the corner she
saw a crowd under the big maple, the rendezvous for the younger portion
of the congregation before “church went in.” In the center of the
group stood Ranald and Don, with Murdie, Don's eldest brother, a huge,
good-natured man, beside them, and Peter Ruagh, with his cousin Aleck,
and others of the clan. Ranald was standing, pale and silent, with his
head thrown back, as his manner was when in passion. The talk was mainly
between Aleck and Murdie, the others crowding eagerly about and putting
in a word as they could. Murdie was reasoning good-humoredly, Aleck
replying fiercely.

“It was good enough for him,” Mrs. Murray heard Don interject, in a
triumphant tone, to Murdie. But Murdie shut him off sternly.

“Whisht, Don, you are not talking just now.”

Don was about to reply when he caught sight of Mrs. Murray. “Here's the
minister's wife,” he said, in a low tone, and at once the group parted
in shamefaced confusion. But Murdie kept his face unmoved, and as Mrs.
Murray drew slowly near, said, in a quiet voice of easy good-humor, to
Aleck, who was standing with a face like that of a detected criminal:
“Well, we will see about it to-morrow night, Aleck, at the post-office,”
 and he faced about to meet Mrs. Murray with an easy smile, while Aleck
turned away. But Mrs. Murray was not deceived, and she went straight to
the point.

“Murdie,” she said, quietly, when she had answered his greeting, “will
you just come with me a little; I want to ask you about something.”
 And Murdie walked away with her, followed by the winks and nods of the
others.

What she said Murdie never told, but he came back to them more
determined upon peace than ever. The difficulty lay, not with the
good-natured Peter, who was ready enough to settle with Ranald, but with
the fiery Aleck, who represented the non-respectable section of the
clan McRae, who lived south of the Sixteenth, and had a reputation for
wildness. Fighting was their glory, and no one cared to enter upon a
feud with any one of them. Murdie had interfered on Ranald's behalf,
chiefly because he was Don's friend, but also because he was unwilling
that Ranald should be involved in a quarrel with the McRaes, which he
knew would be a serious affair for him. But now his strongest reason for
desiring peace was that he had pledged himself to the minister's wife
to bring it about in some way or other. So he took Peter off by himself,
and without much difficulty, persuaded him to act the magnanimous part
and drop the quarrel.

With Ranald he had a harder task. That young man was prepared to see his
quarrel through at whatever consequences to himself. He knew the McRaes,
and knew well their reputation, but that only made it more impossible
for him to retreat. But Murdie knew better than to argue with him, so
he turned away from him with an indifferent air, saying: “Oh, very well.
Peter is willing to let it drop. You can do as you please, only I know
the minister's wife expects you to make it up.”

“What did she say to you, then?” asked Ranald, fiercely.

“She said a number of things that you don't need to know, but she said
this, whatever, 'He will make it up for my sake, I know.'”

Ranald stood a moment silent, then said, suddenly: “I will, too,” and
walking straight over to Peter, he offered his hand, saying, “I was too
quick, Peter, and I am willing to take as much as I gave. You can go
on.”

But Peter was far too soft-hearted to accept that invitation, and
seizing Ranald's hand, said, heartily: “Never mind, Ranald, it was my
own fault. We will just say nothing more about it.”

“There is the singing, boys,” said Murdie. “Come away. Let us go in.”

He was all the more anxious to get the boys into the church when he saw
Aleck making toward them. He hurried Peter in before him, well pleased
with himself and his success as peacemaker, but especially delighted
that he could now turn his face toward the minister's pew, without
shame. And as he took his place in the back seat, with Peter Ruagh
beside him, the glance of pride and gratitude that flashed across the
congregation to him from the gray-brown eyes made Murdie feel more
than ever pleased at what he had been able to do. But he was somewhat
disturbed to notice that neither Ranald nor Don nor Aleck had followed
him into the church, and he waited uneasily for their coming.

In the meantime Straight Rory was winding his sinuous way through
Coleshill, the Gaelic rhythm of the psalm allowing of quavers and turns
impossible in the English.

In the pause following the second verse, Murdie was startled at the
sound of angry voices from without. More than Murdie heard that sound.
As Murdie glanced toward the pulpit he saw that the minister had risen
and was listening intently.

“Behold--the--sparrow--findeth--out--” chanted the precentor.

“You are a liar!” The words, in Aleck's fiery voice outside, fell
distinctly upon Murdie's ear, though few in the congregation seemed to
have heard. But while Murdie was making up his mind to slip out, the
minister was before him. Quickly he stepped down the pulpit stairs,
psalm-book in hand, and singing as he went, walked quietly to the back
door, and leaving his book on the window-sill, passed out. The singing
went calmly on, for the congregation were never surprised at anything
their minister did.

The next verse was nearly through, when the door opened, and in came
Don, followed by Aleck, looking somewhat disheveled and shaken up,
and two or three more. In a few moments the minister came in, took his
psalm-book from the window-sill, and striking up with the congregation,
“Blest is the man whose strength thou art,” marched up to the pulpit
again, with only an added flash in his blue eyes and a little more
triumphant swing to his coat-tails to indicate that anything had taken
place. But Murdie looked in vain for Ranald to appear, and waited,
uncertain what to do. He had a wholesome fear of the minister, more
especially in his present mood. Instinctively he turned toward the
minister's pew, and reading the look of anxious entreaty from the pale
face there, he waited till the congregation rose for prayer and then
slipped out, and was seen no more in church that day.

On the way home not a word was said about the disturbance. But after the
evening worship, when the minister had gone to his study for a smoke,
Hughie, who had heard the whole story from Don, told it to his mother
and Maimie in his most graphic manner.

“It was not Ranald's fault, mother,” he declared. “You know Peter would
not let him alone, and Ranald hit him in the nose, and served him right,
too. But they made it all up, and they were just going into the church
again, when that Aleck McRae pulled Ranald back, and Ranald did not want
to fight at all, but he called Ranald a liar, and he could not help it,
but just hit him.”

“Who hit who?” said Maimie. “You're not making it very clear, Hughie.”

“Why, Ranald, of course, hit Aleck, and knocked him over, too,” said
Hughie, with much satisfaction; “and then Aleck--he is an awful fighter,
you know--jumped on Ranald and was pounding him just awful, the great
big brute, when out came papa. He stepped up and caught Aleck by the
neck and shook him just like a baby, saying, all the time, 'Would ye? I
will teach you to fight on the Sabbath day! Here! in with you, every
one of you!' and he threw him nearly into the door, and then they all
skedaddled into the church, I tell you, Don said. They were pretty badly
scart, too, but Don did not know what papa did to Ranald, and he did not
know where Ranald went, but he is pretty badly hurted, I am sure. That
great big Aleck McRae is old enough to be his father. Wasn't it mean of
him, mother?”

Poor Hughie was almost in tears, and his mother, who sat listening too
eagerly to correct her little boy's ethics or grammar, was as nearly
overcome as he. She wished she knew where Ranald was. He had not
appeared at the evening Bible class, and Murdie had reported that he
could not find him anywhere.

She put Hughie to bed, and then saw Maimie to her room. But Maimie was
very unwilling to go to bed.

“Oh, auntie,” she whispered, as her aunt kissed her good night, “I
cannot go to sleep!” And then, after a pause, she said, shyly, “Do you
think he is badly hurt?”

Then the minister's wife, looking keenly into the girl's face, made
light of Ranald's misfortune.

“Oh, he will be all right,” she said, “as far as his hurt is concerned.
That is the least part of his trouble. You need not worry about that.
Good night, my dear.” And Maimie, relieved by her aunt's tone, said
“good night” with her heart at rest.

Then Mrs. Murray went into the study, determined to find out what had
passed between her husband and Ranald. She found him lying on his couch,
luxuriating in the satisfaction of a good day's work behind him, and
his first pipe nearly done. She at once ventured upon the thing that lay
heavy upon her heart. She began by telling all she knew of the trouble
from its beginning in the church, and then waited for her husband's
story.

For some moments he lay silently smoking.

“Ah, well,” he said, at length, knocking out his pipe, “perhaps I was a
little severe with the lad. He may not have been so much to blame.”

“Oh, papa! What did you do?” said his wife, in an anxious voice.

“Well,” said the minister, hesitating, “I found that the young
rascal had struck Aleck McRae first, and a very bad blow it was. So I
administered a pretty severe rebuke and sent him home.”

“Oh, what a shame!” cried his wife, in indignant tears. “It was far more
the fault of Peter and Aleck and the rest. Poor Ranald!”

“Now, my dear,” said the minister, “you need not fear for Ranald. I do
not suppose he cares much. Besides, his face was not fit to be seen, so
I sent him home. Well, it--”

“Yes,” burst in his wife, “great, brutal fellow, to strike a boy like
that!”

“Boy?” said her husband. “Well, he may be, but not many men would
dare to face him.” Then he added, “I wish I had known--I fear I
spoke--perhaps the boy may feel unjustly treated. He is as proud as
Lucifer.”

“Oh, papa!” said his wife, “what did you say?”

“Nothing but what was true. I just told him that a boy who would break
the Lord's Day by fighting, and in the very shadow of the Lord's house,
when Christian people were worshiping God, was acting like a savage, and
was not fit for the company of decent folk.”

To this his wife made no reply, but went out of the study, leaving the
minister feeling very uncomfortable indeed. But by the end of the second
pipe he began to feel that, after all, Ranald had got no more than
was good for him, and that he would be none the worse of it; in which
comforting conviction he went to rest, and soon fell into the sleep
which is supposed to be the right of the just.

Not so his wife. Wearied though she was with the long day, its
excitements and its toils, sleep would not come. Anxious thoughts about
the lad she had come to love as if he were her own son or brother kept
crowding in upon her. The vision of his fierce, dark, stormy face held
her eyes awake and at length drew her from her bed. She went into the
study and fell upon her knees. The burden had grown too heavy for her to
bear alone. She would share it with Him who knew what it meant to bear
the sorrows and the sins of others.

As she rose, she heard Fido bark and whine in the yard below, and going
to the window, she saw a man standing at the back door, and Fido fawning
upon him. Startled, she was about to waken her husband, when the man
turned his face so that the moonlight fell upon it, and she saw Ranald.
Hastily she threw on her dressing-gown, put on her warm bedroom slippers
and cloak, ran down to the door, and in another moment was standing
before him, holding him by the shoulders.

“Ranald!” she cried, breathlessly, “what is it?”

“I am going away,” he said, simply. “And I was just passing by--and--”
 he could not go on.

“Oh, Ranald!” she cried, “I am glad you came this way. Now tell me
where you are going.”

The boy looked at her as if she had started a new idea in his mind, and
then said, “I do not know.”

“And what are you going to do, Ranald?”

“Work. There is plenty to do. No fear of that.”

“But your father, Ranald?”

The boy was silent for a little, and then said, “He will soon be well,
and he will not be needing me, and he said I could go.” His voice broke
with the remembrance of the parting with his father.

“And why are you going, Ranald?” she said, looking into his eyes.

Again the boy stood silent.

“Why do you go away from your home and your father, and--and--all of us
who love you?”

“Indeed, there is no one,” he replied, bitterly; “and I am not for
decent people. I am not for decent people. I know that well enough.
There is no one that will care much.”

“No one, Ranald?” she asked, sadly. “I thought--” she paused, looking
steadily into his face.

Suddenly the boy turned to her, and putting out both his hands, burst
forth, his voice coming in dry sobs: “Oh, yes, yes! I do believe you.
I do believe you. And that is why I came this way. I wanted to see your
door again before I went. Oh, I will never forget you! Never, never, and
I am glad I am seeing you, for now you will know--how much--” The boy
was unable to proceed. His sobs were shaking his whole frame, and to his
shy Highland Scotch nature, words of love and admiration were not easy.
“You will not be sending me back home again?” he pleaded, anticipating
her. “Indeed, I cannot stay in this place after to-day.”

But the minister's wife kept her eyes steadily upon his face without a
word, trying in vain to find her voice, and the right words to say. She
had no need of words, for in her face, pale, wet with her flowing tears,
and illumined with her gray-brown eyes, Ranald read her heart.

“Oh!” he cried again, “you are wanting me to stay, and I will be ashamed
before them all, and the minister, too. I cannot stay. I cannot stay.”

“And I cannot let you go, Ranald, my boy,” she said, commanding her
voice to speech. “I want you to be a brave man. I don't want you to be
afraid of them.”

“Afraid of them!” said the boy, in scornful surprise. “Not if they were
twice as more and twice as beeg.”

Mrs. Murray saw her advantage, and followed it up.

“And the minister did not know the whole truth, Ranald, and he was sorry
he spoke to you as he did.”

“Did he say that?” said Ranald, in surprise. It was to him, as to any
one in that community, a terrible thing to fall under the displeasure of
the minister and to be disgraced in his eyes.

“Yes, indeed, Ranald, and he would be sorry if you should go away. I am
sure he would blame himself.”

This was quite a new idea to the boy. That the minister should think
himself to be in the wrong was hardly credible.

“And how glad we would be,” she continued, earnestly, “to see you prove
yourself a man before them all.”

Ranald shook his head. “I would rather go away.”

“Perhaps, but it's braver to stay, and to do your work like a man.” And
then, allowing him no time for words, she pictured to him the selfish,
cowardly part the man plays who marches bravely enough in the front
ranks until the battle begins, but who shrinks back and seeks an easy
place when the fight comes on, till his face fell before her in shame.
And then she showed him what she would like him to do, and what she
would like him to be in patience and in courage, till he stood once more
erect and steady.

“Now, Ranald,” she said, noting the effect of her words upon him, “what
is it to be?”

“I will go back,” he said, simply; and turning with a single word of
farewell, he sprang over the fence and disappeared in the woods. The
minister's wife stood looking the way he went long after he had passed
out of sight, and then, lifting her eyes to the radiant sky with its
shining lights, “He made the stars also,” she whispered, and went up to
her bed and laid her down and slept in peace. Her Sabbath day's work was
done.



CHAPTER X

THE HOME-COMING OF THE SHANTYMEN


For some weeks Ranald was not seen by any one belonging to the manse.
Hughie reported that he was not at church, nor at Bible class, and
although this was not in itself an extraordinary thing, still
Mrs. Murray was uneasy, and Hughie felt that church was a great
disappointment when Ranald was not there.

In their visits to Macdonald Dubh the minister and his wife never
could see Ranald. His Aunt Kirsty could not understand or explain his
reluctance to attend the public services, nor his unwillingness to
appear in the house on the occasion of the minister's visits. “He is
busy with the fences and about the stables preparing for the spring's
work,” she said; “but, indeed, he is very queer whatever, and I cannot
make him out at all.” Macdonald Dubh himself said nothing. But the books
and magazines brought by the minister's wife were always read. “Indeed,
when once he gets down to his book,” his aunt complained, “neither his
bed nor his dinner will move him.”

The minister thought little of the boy's “vagaries,” but to his wife
came many an anxious thought about Ranald and his doings. She was more
disappointed than she cared to confess, even to herself, that the boy
seemed to be quite indifferent to the steadily deepening interest in
spiritual things that marked the members of her Bible class.

While she was planning how to reach him once more, an event occurred
which brought him nearer to her than he had ever been before. As they
were sitting one evening at tea, the door unexpectedly opened, and
without announcement, in walked Ranald, splashed with hard riding, pale,
and dazed. Without a word of reply to the greetings that met him from
all at the table, he went straight to the minister's wife, handed her
an opened letter, and stood waiting. It was addressed to Ranald himself,
and was the first he had ever received in his life. It was from Yankee
Jim, and read as follows:


Dear Ranald--The Boss aint feelin like ritin much and the rest of the
boys is all broke up, and so he told me to rite to you and to tell you
some purty bad news. I don't know how to go about it, but the fact is,
Mack Cameron got drownded yesterday tryin to pull a little fool of a
Frenchman out of the river just below the Lachine. We'd just got through
the rough water and were lyin nice and quiet, gettin things together
again when that ijit Frenchman got tite and got tryin some fool trick or
other walking a timber stick and got upsot into the wet. I'd a let him
go, you bet, but Mack cudn't stand to see him bobbin up and down so he
ripped off and in after him. He got him too, but somehow the varmint
gripped him round the neck. They went down but we got em out purty
quick and the Frenchman come round all right, but somehow Mack wouldn't,
choked appearinly by that tarnel little fool who aint worth one of
Mack's fingers, and if killin him wud do any good, then he wudn't be
livin long. We are all feelin purty bad. We are comin' home on Thursday
by Cornwall, eight or ten of us. The rest will go on with the rafts. The
Boss says, better have rigs to meet us and Mack. That's all. I haint
no good at weepin', never was, wish I cud somehow, it might ease off a
feller a little, but tell you what, Ranald, I haint felt so queer since
I was a boy lookin at my mother in her coffin. There was nothin mean
about Mack. He was good to the heart. He wud do his work slick and never
a growl or a groan, and when you wanted a feller to your back, Mack was
there. I know there aint no use goin on like this. All I say is, ther's
a purty big hole in the world for us to-night. Boss says you'd better
tell the minister. He says he's good stuff and he'll know what to do at
Mack's home. No more at present. Good-bye. Yours truely,

J. LATHAM.


The minister's wife began reading the letter, wondering not a little
at Ranald's manner, but when she came to the words, “Mack Cameron got
drownded,” she laid the letter down with a little cry. Her husband came
quickly to her, took up the letter, and read it to the end.

“I will go at once,” he said, and rang the bell. “Tell Lambert to
put Black in the buggy immediately, Jessie,” he said, when the maid
appeared. “Do you think you ought to go, my dear?”

“Yes, yes, I shall be ready in a moment; but, oh, what can we do or
say?”

“Perhaps you had better not go. It will be very trying,” said the
minister.

“Oh, yes, I must go. I must. The poor mother!” Then she turned to Ranald
as the minister left the room. “You are going home, Ranald, I suppose,”
 she said.

“No, I was thinking I would go to tell the people. Donald Ross will
go, and the Campbells, and Farquhar McNaughton's light wagon would be
best--for the--for Mack. And then I will go round by the McGregors.”

Ranald had been thinking things out and making his plans.

“But that will be a long round for you,” said Mrs. Murray. “Could not we
go by the Campbells', and they will send word to Donald Ross?”

“I think it would be better for me to go, to

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