Daughters of the Dominion: A Story of the Canadian Frontier
by Bessie Marchant · English · Gutenberg #48265 · 536,004 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Daughters of the Dominion: A Story of the Canadian Frontier
Author: Bessie Marchant
Illustrator: W. Rainey
Release date: February 15, 2015 [eBook #48265]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAUGHTERS OF THE DOMINION: A STORY OF THE CANADIAN FRONTIER ***
Daughters of the Dominion
[Illustration: NELL NURSES THE STRANGER]
=D a u g h t e r s o f t h e=
=D o m i n i o n=
A Story of the Canadian Frontier
BY
=BESSIE MARCHANT=
AUTHOR OF “SISTERS OF SILVER CREEK,” “A HEROINE OF THE SEA,”
“HOPE’S TRYST” ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY WILLIAM RAINEY, R.I.
TORONTO
T H E M U S S O N B O O K C O M P A N Y
L I M I T E D
CANADA is a great mother; there is room in her heart
not merely for her own children, but for the needy of
every nation. They may all come to her and find a home,
if only they will work to earn it.
CONTENTS
I. THE LONE HOUSE AT BLUE BIRD RIDGE
II. NELL’S DILEMMA
III. THE OLD COAT
IV. WHAT THE NEW DAY BROUGHT
V. SUMMONED HOME
VI. A STRANGE WELCOME
VII. A NEW VOCATION
VIII. MOVED ON
IX. A FRIEND IN NEED
X. TO FILL THE BREACH
XI. THE RECOGNITION OF MRS. NICHOLS
XII. NELL LEARNS HER FAMILY HISTORY
XIII. ON THE LIST
XIV. PROMOTED
XV. THE NEW RESIDENT
XVI. CAMP’S GULCH
XVII. ONE-SIDED CONFIDENCES
XVIII. THE DEAD CHINAMAN
XIX. TO THE RESCUE
XX. FAIRLY CAUGHT
XXI. A PATIENT FOR MRS. NICHOLS
XXII. THE FATE OF THE PRISONER
XXIII. HONOURING THE HEROINE
XXIV. A SISTER BY ADOPTION
XXV. THE HUMOURS OF TRADING
XXVI. A WOMAN OF BUSINESS
XXVII. AN EARLY CUSTOMER
XXVIII. DOSS UMPEY’S EXCUSES
XXIX. THE ARRIVAL
XXX. AN ADVENTURE
XXXI. DIVIDING THE FAMILY
ILLUSTRATIONS
NELL NURSES THE STRANGER
“COME RIGHT IN, WILL YOU, PLEASE, MISS?”
“NELL FOUND THAT SHE WAS BY FAR THE MORE EXPERT ON SNOW-SHOES”
“FOR ME? BUT I DON’T EXPECT ANY PARCEL!”
THE RESCUE-PARTY DISCOVER NELL ON THE RAILWAY TRACK
“I HEARD A LITTLE ABOUT A FRIEND OF YOURS AWAY DOWN IN THE CITY,” HE SAID.
CHAPTER I
The Lone House at Blue Bird Ridge
“NELL, Nell, where are you? I want you to give an eye to the dog; the
creature has had a dreadful mauling,” shouted Doss Umpey, in petulant
tones. He had thrust his head in at the open door, and seemed quite
angry to find that there was no one moving about in the houseplace.
“I’m coming, granfer,” cried a voice, somewhere out of sight. Then there
was a shaking of the rickety ladder which stood in the far corner of the
dark little room, and a thin girl in very shabby clothes came slowly
into view.
No one would have called Nell, otherwise Eleanor Hamblyn, at this period
of her life, a pretty girl. Two good points, however, she possessed: one
a sweet, low voice, that excellent thing in woman; the other a pair of
beautiful luminous eyes, which made those who saw them forget the
defects of her face and figure.
“You never are on hand when you are wanted. What you find to do in that
old loft all the time just about passes my comprehension,” growled the
old man, whose temper was none of the sweetest.
“Well, I ain’t far off when I’m wanted, anyhow,” replied Nell,
good-humouredly. Then she asked in an anxious tone, “What’s the matter
with Pip?”
“Got mauled pretty badly; must have been having a turn with a wolf, I
should say, only it’s early for wolves to be getting troublesome. So
p’r’aps he’s been fighting a wild dog.”
“There ain’t no wild dogs round here,” objected Nell, with a shake of
her head.
“I’m not so sure of that. Last time I was over to Button End, Job Lipton
said he’d seen a buff-coloured beast hunting rabbits on the ridges, and
that there’d been a talk of sheep being killed out Lewisville way,” the
old man said, as he turned from the door. Nell followed him to inspect
the dog, which lay helpless on the edge of the forest.
The house, a wooden one, old and weather-beaten, was perched on a high
woody ridge in the great forests stretching along the American side of
the Canadian frontier. A mighty Valparaiso oak grew on one side of the
house, giving shade in summer and shelter in winter, but the forest had
been pushed back on either side, to make room for a small orchard of
wind-twisted apple-trees.
It was a lovely day in late September, but the fall of the summer could
be seen in the changing hues of the maples, which flamed into crimson
and gold, lighting up the sombre green of the other trees.
Pip was a big deerhound, fierce of aspect, and the creature lay at the
edge of the clearing, where it had fallen, exhausted in its effort to
get home after the fray, in which it had plainly come off second best.
It was covered with blood and wounds, one ear being torn in a ghastly
fashion.
“Oh, you poor dear thing! Good old Pip, you have been having a rough
time!” exclaimed Nell, dropping on her knees beside the dog, and
touching it gently here and there.
The creature wagged its tail feebly, as if it understood and appreciated
her sympathy; then uttered a whining cry.
“Thirsty, are you? I’ll get you drink, and rig up a little curtain to
keep the flies from bothering,” she said in the soothing tone one would
use towards a child that had been injured.
“Couldn’t you help me to carry Pip indoors, granfer? I could look after
it so much better there,” she said, when she had brought the water,
which the creature feebly lapped.
“The dog will be cooler out here, and we can bring it in at nightfall.
I’ve got some work to do down beyond now, and can’t be bothered.”
It was characteristic of Doss Umpey that he had always work to do down
beyond whenever Nell wanted any assistance from him, so she made up her
mind that when he was safely out of the way she would manage somehow to
get poor Pip into more comfortable quarters.
Despite the work he had spoken of, the old man seemed in no hurry to go,
but stood leaning at ease against the bole of a great redwood tree,
talking in the dreamy fashion which always seemed to suit him much
better than hard work.
He was not a really old man, being only about sixty-five, strong and
hearty, but with a constitutional aversion to sustained effort of any
sort.
“There’s no mistake but you are right-down handy at tending critters
that are ill. A first-class nurse you’d make, Nell, if only you’d got
the chance,” he said, watching her active ministrations to the dog with
lazy admiration.
“Why don’t you give me the chance, then?” she retorted quickly. “I’d
love to be a nurse, or to be anything that would help me to get on. Just
look at me, granfer. I’m seventeen to-day, and I’m just good for
nothing. I can’t even keep house properly, because I ain’t got the
things to do it with.”
“I’m a poor man, or maybe I’d have done a better part by you; though, as
folks are always telling me, it isn’t every lone man like me that would
have been bothered with bringing up a child as didn’t really belong to
him,” Doss Umpey said, puffing out his chest with an air of
satisfaction. He always prided himself a great deal on this, the one
charitable act of his life, but it is open to doubt whether Nell would
not have been better off if she had been left to the tender mercies of
some orphan asylum when her father died, than she was in the care of a
grandfather who troubled himself so little about her interests.
“If only I’d crossed the border and settled in Canada when I was a young
man, it would have been a deal better for me all round,” he said,
leaning his head back against the redwood and gazing pensively up into
the sky.
“Why didn’t you?” demanded Nell, as she gently bathed Pip’s torn ear in
cool water.
“Circumstances were against me. Most things have been against me
somehow,” he said, with a reflective sigh.
“Look here, granfer, couldn’t we go now?” she asked eagerly. “We
couldn’t be poorer than we are here, and if we lived where there were
more people, I could get work to do at helping, that would bring in
money.”
“We’ll see about it, girl, in a few weeks, maybe, but it would be an
undertaking, I can tell you, to go such a long way.”
“How far is it to the frontier, granfer?” asked Nell, who as ever was
athirst for information.
“Oh, a good few miles. Why, you can walk for thirty miles on this trail,
without coming to anything bigger than a woodcutter’s hut, and when
you’ve done the thirty miles you are still a goodish distance from the
border. But if anything ever happens to me, you’d best make tracks over
the border as fast as you can go.”
“Why?” she asked, throwing back her head to get a better look at him,
then blinking like an owl, because the sun came into her eyes.
“For ever so many reasons. Canada is a land of promise for young people.
Then, English law, by which, of course, I mean Canadian law, is kinder
to lone women and girls than American. But I must be stirring, or that
bit o’ work down beyond won’t get done by sundown.” And the old man
prepared to shuffle off at a slow, comfortable crawl, which was his
usual rate of travel.
But there was a request Nell had to prefer before he went, and she rose
up hurriedly to intercept his going.
“Granfer, I’m seventeen to-day; mayn’t I have the box of mother’s things
that father left for you to take care of? He said I was to have them
when I was seventeen.”
“So he did, only I’d forgotten all about it, and, now I come to think of
it, I lost the key a good few years back, so you’ll just have to wait
till I come home again, then I’ll get out my tools and prise the lid
open.”
Doss Umpey quickened his pace then, as if anxious not to be recalled,
and was soon out of sight, hidden from view by the trees.
Nell heaved an impatient sigh, but busied herself with the dog; then,
when she had made the poor creature as comfortable as she could, she
went back to her secret avocations in the loft.
This loft was her refuge, the one place where she was secure from
interruption. The roof was open to the shingles, so above, below, and at
the sides it was all bare brown wood, without any attempt at adornment
of any kind. Window proper there was none, but a hinged shutter in the
western gable let in sunshine and fresh air, and, weather permitting,
this stood open night and day.
There were no small prettinesses such as may be found in many a chamber
belonging to girls who are poor. But, all the same, it did not lack
individuality. It was scrupulously clean and well kept, while on a
packing-case, standing near the open shutter, were arranged a small pile
of books, a bigger heap of newspapers, a bottle of ink, a pen, and a few
stumps of pencils.
Here every day Nell did her best to carry on her education, reading
everything she could get hold of, and writing extracts from her scanty
library on the margins of the newspapers, because she had no
writing-paper or exercise books.
She had been hard at work here when her grandfather called her down to
attend to the dog, and she went back to her occupation when he had gone
away, and she had left Pip as comfortable as circumstances permitted.
But now her attention wandered; the talk about Canada had excited her,
while the disappointment about the box was depressing.
Presently she pushed her work aside, and went down the ladder to the
lower room. The box containing the things which had belonged to her dead
mother stood there. It was only a small box, but strongly made and
clamped with iron. Nell had not seen inside it since her father died,
but she knew what it contained. There were frocks and coats belonging to
her mother, a gold watch and chain, a gold bracelet, and some brooches.
The jewelry was of no great value from a monetary point of view, but it
was precious beyond price to the girl, whose memory of her mother grew
every day more faint and indistinct.
“Just to think that granfer should lose the key, when I wanted it so
badly!” she murmured to herself, as she leaned over the box, touching it
with caressing fingers.
At that moment the sound of a deep-drawn sigh caught her ear, and
lifting her head she saw a strange man standing on the threshold and
clinging to the door-frame.
CHAPTER II
Nell’s Dilemma
A TURN in the trail revealed steeply rising ground, which caused Dick
Bronson, spent as he was, to stand still and groan.
It was two days since he had lost his horse in a swamp. The poor
creature had been sucked under by the treacherous mud, and as he was
unable to extricate it, he had shot the animal with his revolver to end
its sufferings.
Since then he had walked and walked, following this mysterious trail
which appeared to lead to nowhere, yet which was sufficiently open and
well defined to make him certain that he must in time arrive at some
habitation, if only he kept on long enough.
But a big forest is an awkward place for a man on foot to get lost in;
and Dick Bronson was well aware that the trail might meander on for
another thirty miles without passing a human habitation, only he had
come to the limit of his endurance, and could go no farther.
As he leaned against the trunk of a mighty cedar, wondering if death
from starvation and exhaustion were a long pain, or whether merciful
stupor would soon claim him, his weary gaze swept earth and sky in mute
farewell.
Then he was suddenly roused to new life and energy by perceiving a thin
column of smoke rising against the clear blue of the sky, immediately on
the top of the high ground, where the trees grew with wide, open spaces
between.
Smoke meant fire, and fire meant people, which in turn meant food of
some sort. And the man who had been fasting so long felt that it
mattered little what kind of food it was, if only it could stay the
gnawing pangs of hunger and give him back his strength once more.
Slowly and painfully he breasted the sharp ascent, only to find that
another and longer slope lay before him. But at the top of this second
hill stood a wooden house in plain view, with a hospitably open door,
and smoke rising from the chimney.
He could not be said to quicken his steps, for he was too worn out for
that. But the sight of the open door and the chimney smoke revived his
flagging hopes and turned his thoughts from death to life again.
As he came nearer to the house he saw something which, at first sight,
he took for a baby’s cradle, with a little awning over it, just at the
edge of the forest. Coming nearer, he saw it was no cradle, but a huge
dog lying under a tent made of muslin or mosquito netting.
The creature lifted its head feebly, and uttered a low, warning growl at
the approach of the stranger; but as it did not move, and was apparently
sick or wounded, Dick Bronson came on without hesitation, and, passing
the little tent, walked with feeble, uncertain steps towards the open
door.
He caught at the door-frame to keep himself from lurching forward into
the house, and then found himself confronted by a tall, thin girl in
nondescript attire, of which the only details he could remember were a
scanty skirt, deplorably shabby, and a man’s holland jacket.
“Will you give me food and shelter for a day or two? I am done up with
wandering, and my horse died the day before yesterday.”
Dick’s voice was shaken and unsteady from all that he had gone through,
and he looked even more an object of pity than he supposed.
The girl’s eyes were mournful, but she only shook her head, answering
regretfully—
“I’m very sorry for you, but this isn’t a hotel, and we don’t cater for
strangers.”
“You will surely let me have some food. I can pay you; and can’t you see
that I am starving?”
His voice was hoarse and urgent now, and again he had to lay fast hold
of the door-frame to keep himself from falling.
“I will give you some food, though I’m afraid you won’t think it is very
nice. But you can’t stop here, because granfer wouldn’t let you. Button
End, where Joe Lipton lives, isn’t more than ten miles away. He’ll take
you in for certain, and make you comfortable too. They often have people
there,” the girl answered.
Dick laughed harshly. “A quarter of a mile I might manage by crawling;
but ten miles is as much out of the question as a journey to the moon.”
The girl looked troubled, then said, in a soothing tone—
“Come in and sit down, while I get you something to eat. Perhaps if you
have a good rest you may——”
But the sentence was not finished, for at that moment Dick swayed
towards her, and would have gone crash on the floor at her feet had she
not caught him in her strong young arms, and so broken his fall. Only
staying to thrust an old coat of her grandfather’s under his head for a
pillow, she darted to the fireplace, where a pot of broth was being kept
warm in the embers, and, pouring some of it into a cup, came back with
it, and kneeling by the stranger’s side tried to put some of it in his
mouth with a spoon.
The broth was some that she had made for the sick dog, but it was strong
and nourishing, and it was all she had. When a few spoonfuls had
trickled down his neck, Dick came back to his senses again, and, being
supported by the girl, was able to drink the rest of the broth in feeble
gulps.
“Ah, you were nearly done for that time, you poor thing!” she said, in
kindly tones, her lustrous eyes shining with a beautiful womanly pity.
“Yes, very nearly. If it had not been for you, I think I must have gone
under,” he murmured weakly.
His senses were reeling still, but the broth was doing him good. Yet
even now he failed to understand how low down in his strength he had
come, until, making an effort to rise and stand on his feet, he sank
helpless to the ground again.
There was anxiety mingled with the pity on the girl’s face. It was plain
to her that the stranger would not be able to continue his journey for
hours, probably days, and it was the thought of what Doss Umpey would
say to this tax on his hospitality, that was troubling her so sorely
now.
“If only you’d been at Joe Lipton’s place, now, instead of here, they
could have made you ever so comfortable,” she said, with a sigh of
regret, as she hovered about him in anxious wonder as to how she was to
get him on to the settle, where he could lie more comfortably than on
the floor.
“I am all right here, or should be if I could have some more broth,” he
said, with a wistful look at the empty cup in Nell’s hand.
But she shook her head with a decided air. “To over-feed starved things
is to kill them outright, so if you want to get better you must just
trust yourself to me.”
“Sorry to give you so much trouble,” he murmured weakly.
“Oh, tending sick things isn’t trouble. I just love nursing, only I
haven’t had any one to nurse since father died, except a dog or a horse
now and then. This is such a lone house, you see, and there are no
people here to want helping. I should be just perfectly happy to have
you here to take care of till you are well, only granfer will hate it
so, that he won’t be even common pleasant to you, I’m afraid.”
“Never mind; I must risk the unpleasantness, as I can’t get any further.
It is beginning to rain, too, so it is a mercy I reached shelter when I
did,” Dick said drowsily, for a pleasant feeling of languor was stealing
over him.
“Rain? So it does. I must get you on the settle somehow, and then go out
and bring in Pip—that is our dog, you know. He’s a big, savage creature
at ordinary times, but he got fighting last night, and is so dreadfully
mauled that there ain’t much life left in him. Now, put your arms round
my neck, and I will pull you up.”
Wrapping her thin muscular arms about the stranger, Nell succeeded in
getting him on to his feet, and, supporting him as best she could, got
him across the floor, dumping him unceremoniously on to a long low
settle, which stood beside the great open fireplace. Then she went out
for the dog, for by this time the rain was coming down heavily.
The creature must have been a considerable weight, but she staggered
into the house with it, laid it tenderly down by the side of the fire
opposite to Dick, and ministered to its wants with as much affection as
if it had been a child.
The man on the settle watched her in silence, marvelling at the womanly
tenderness, which was in such sharp contrast to her appearance; then
presently, growing more drowsy, he fell asleep.
Once or twice he was conscious of being roused, and made to swallow
something, but the disturbance seemed only like a part of his dreams,
and it was hours before he was fully awake again.
Sounds of rather heated argument assailed his ears now. A man’s voice,
raised in fretful complaint, was saying—
“I’ve told you often enough that I wouldn’t have a lot o’ strange folk
clutterin’ round, pokin’ their noses into what doesn’t belong to ’em,
and when I says a thing I mostly means it, as you ought fer to know.”
“Oh, I know it well enough, and I wouldn’t have kept him here if I could
have sent him on. But, granfer, he dropped like dead at my feet, and at
first I thought he was gone.”
“Not much loss if he had died that I can see. I expect he will be no end
of expense to us,” grumbled the man’s voice; and at this Dick considered
it high time to make them aware that he was awake and listening.
“I can pay you for all I need, thank you. Although I’m afraid no money
can really recompense your granddaughter for her great kindness to me.”
The room was in heavy shadow, and the wood fire gave only a dull red
glow, so that Dick Bronson could not see clearly the face of the old
man, who turned round with a note of snarling query in his thin voice.
“What are you, anyway? A sheriff’s officer?”
“Nothing half so important. Only just a hard-working man, taking a
holiday in the forest; but my horse got stranded in a soft spot, and I
had to shoot the poor beast. Then I lost my bearings, and had come
almost to the end of my endurance, when I reached this house.”
There was such a ring of sincerity in the simple statement, that Doss
Umpey’s suspicions about the good faith of the unknown were allayed to a
certain extent, and he asked, in a grudging tone—
“Well, what do you want, anyhow?”
“I don’t quite know what you mean,” said Dick, in a bewildered manner.
“How long do you want to stop, and what do you want us to do for you?”
asked the old man, impatiently.
“I want to lie here only until I am strong enough to get on to the
nearest hotel. I will pay you for the accommodation, and for the food I
eat. I am really very hungry now; may I have something more to eat?”
Dick asked, turning his head to look at Nell, who stood by the side of
the settle, her face a study of vexation and worry.
“Can you pay for it, I want to know?” Doss Umpey began, but Nell
silenced him in an imperious fashion.
“It won’t make any difference, anyhow, granfer, for we ain’t going to
let him starve, and if you ain’t willing for him to have supper, you
won’t get any yourself.”
“Of course I’m willing he should eat. Only a poor man like me, with
others depending on him, has got to be careful,” grumbled the old man,
climbing down with so much haste that Dick would have laughed if he had
not been so angry.
He was about to fumble for his pocket-book in order to hurl some money
at his inhospitable host; but Nell, divining his intention, stopped him
with an authoritative gesture, then spoke to the old man with quiet
decision in her manner.
“If you are so anxious to get rid of the gentleman, granfer, you had
best give Blossom a good supper to-night; then by to-morrow morning the
horse could take him to Button End. They’d be able to house him
comfortable at Joe Lipton’s.”
“That’s a good idea, Nell. What a pity you didn’t think of it sooner!
Then I’d have saddled the beast and taken him over to-night. We should
have been able to be quit of him the sooner.”
“Oh, he wouldn’t have been fit to go to-night,” she answered.
“Well, he shall go bright and early to-morrow morning, anyhow,” said the
old man; then departed, slamming the door behind him.
When he had gone, Nell stirred the dull fire into a cheerful blaze, then
brought a bowl of some savoury stew to the settle where Dick was lying.
“You’d best sit up and take your supper now, while you can have it in
peace. Granfer is a bit trying sometimes, and he just hates strangers
like poison,” Nell said, as she arranged the bowl and the iron spoon so
that her guest, by turning on his elbow, could sup comfortably without
rising.
“I should think he just is trying. Why, he is about the most
disagreeable old man that it has ever been my ill fortune to meet. Why
do you stay and put up with it? If I were in your place I should run
away,” Dick said.
“Where should I run to? And who would take me in? A girl isn’t able to
shift for herself and defy the world like a man. Besides, I don’t know
how to do things properly. I can saw wood, do rough cooking, and such
work, but nothing nicer, so no one would want me,” Nell responded
wistfully.
“The stew is good, anyhow, if it is only rough cooking, and I suppose
you could learn to do other things if you had the chance,” Dick went on,
as he ate his supper with slow enjoyment, covertly studying Nell the
while as she sat in the light of the fire.
“I can learn anything if only I get the chance. I’ve got an old
dictionary upstairs, and I’ve taught myself to spell every word there is
in it. I know I talk rough, but that is only because I haven’t had a
chance of being with educated people and hearing how they sound their
words.”
“A whole dictionary? Why, you must be a perfect prodigy of learning!”
exclaimed Dick, smothering a laugh, as he looked at the thin girl in her
shabby attire.
“That means something out of the ordinary course of nature,” she said
quickly, evidently quoting from her much-studied dictionary. “No, I
don’t think I’m out of the ordinary, only, you see, I do have such a lot
of time to myself when granfer is working down beyond, that I just have
to do something.”
“I see. Have you got any more books?” asked Dick, who was finding Nell
decidedly interesting to talk to.
“Only a few. There is a Bible, an old geography with a great many leaves
gone, Longfellow’s poetical works, and Bacon’s essays. I wanted some of
father’s books, only granfer said they must be sold to pay for my board,
so he let the schoolmaster have the lot for ten dollars.”
“What a shame!” There was a thrill of boyish indignation in Dick’s voice
that brought a flush of pleasure to Nell’s thin cheek. Then he asked,
“Are your father and mother dead?”
Nell nodded, rose abruptly from her seat, and going over to the opposite
side of the fire, stooped down to do something to Pip. When she came
back there was only a strained something in her tone to show that he had
touched on a sore subject.
“Mother died ever so long ago, when I was only three years old. But I
was eleven when father died, and I came up here to live with granfer.”
The door opened at this minute, and the old man came in, the water
dripping from his garments, and his mood even more unpleasant than
before.
But Dick Bronson, soothed by his supper and weak from his long fasting,
fell asleep very soon, and so escaped the constant complaints of his
unwilling host, who grumbled as long as he was awake, then, betaking
himself to a hammock, snored loudly until the morning. Nell did not
close her eyes, however, but, sitting on the floor of her loft, kept
vigil from reasons best known to herself.
CHAPTER III
The Old Coat
THE next morning broke gloriously fine, and the brilliant sunshine put
fresh vigour into Dick Bronson. He had spent a rather unrestful night,
his slumber being often broken by hideous dreams.
He had even got off the settle and hobbled out into the sunshine,
searching for some place where he might wash his face, before Nell
descended the shaky ladder from her loft.
Doss Umpey was also up and out betimes, looking after his horse, which
was stabled in a lean-to behind the wooden house. A sorry beast it was,
with knock-knees, and a general air of being worn out, but it had energy
enough to try to bite the old man when he endeavoured to put the bit in
its mouth.
“Nell, Nell, come here; I want you,” the old man called, in querulous
tones. And presently Nell came running round the corner of the house, in
response to his call, looking jaded from her night of watching, but with
an evident intention to be cheerful, and to keep the peace if she could.
“It is this old hoss again. I can’t think what has come to the creature;
it shows its teeth every time I get near it,” he said, handing the
bridle to Nell with an air of resignation.
“Want to bite, do you, Blossom? Oh, fie! you must not give way to
tempers like these. Don’t you know that bits and bridles mean apples and
bread to horses that are good?” she inquired, in coaxing tones, as she
drew one hand out of her pocket, gave the horse a glimpse of something
eatable in her palm, then dived it out of sight again.
Blossom became instantly docile, opened its mouth for the insertion of
the bit, but without showing any desire to bite, then began nosing round
Nell’s pockets, in anticipation of the coveted reward.
“You old varmint!” began Doss Umpey, with the evident intention of
bestowing a kick on the obstinate old horse; but Nell stopped him with a
quick gesture.
“No, you are not to kick the poor old thing. If you do, I will take the
bit out of its mouth again and go away, then you will have to manage as
best you can,” she said, in a decided tone. And because he knew she
would be as good as her word, he desisted from hostilities, and instead
proceeded to strap a ragged saddle on to the lean old horse.
Nell gave her guest the best breakfast that she could contrive, but her
resources were painfully limited. However, even dandelion coffee,
maize-bread, and stringy bacon are better than nothing. So, with
yesterday’s starvation fresh in his memory, Dick Bronson ate what was
set before him, and was thankful.
Then he pressed payment upon Nell, but she would not take it, even
turning away with an air of offence when he endeavoured to persuade her
that he would rather pay than be indebted to her for hospitality.
“If you are so anxious to pay for what is done for you, give granfer a
little money, but only a little, please, for taking you over to Button
End,” she said, with a touch of disdain.
“Of course I shall do that. But I should like to compensate you also,
for all the trouble I have been,” he said eagerly.
“There is no need; I like trouble,” she answered. And then, as Doss
Umpey at this moment led Blossom up to the door, Dick had to go out and
mount, with the burden of his indebtedness hanging heavily upon him.
“You’ll be coming home by sundown to-day, granfer?” Nell asked, a little
anxiously.
“Mos’ likely,” he answered, busying himself with the off stirrup, and
not looking at her.
“You must,” she said sharply. “Pip is very bad this morning, and so
stiff he can hardly wag his tail. I don’t mind being left alone when the
dog is all right, but it is another matter now he can’t even growl at
anything.”
“All right,” the old man replied, with a touch of impatience, and then
asked the stranger if he were ready to mount.
“I can’t ride that poor old bag of bones; I shall break its back!”
exclaimed Dick.
“Blossom is ever so strong. You need not be afraid,” Nell said, with a
reassuring smile.
At this Dick tried to mount, but he was weak and stiff from his painful
experience, and was, moreover, harassed by the active attempts of
Blossom to bite him.
“Wait a minute. If you will stand on that bench by the door, I will lead
Blossom up, and you can get on. The horse will think it is a sack of
meal and won’t take any notice,” Nell said, briskly coming to the rescue
in her usual prompt fashion.
Dick did as he was bidden, but laughing in an embarrassed fashion, for
it was rather mortifying to have to be mistaken for a bag of meal.
When the mounting was accomplished, Doss Umpey led the horse away by the
opposite trail to that by which Dick had arrived on the previous day.
Dick took off his hat to Nell with the utmost courtesy of which he was
capable, and she waved her hand in return, colouring high with pleasure.
“No one ever treated me so nicely before,” she murmured. Then she stood
watching until the man on horseback, with the shambling figure of Doss
Umpey at his side, passed out of sight.
Never had a day seemed so long to Nell as that one. Her usual avocations
had no power to beguile her, and when, secure in her solitude, she
brought her beloved books downstairs, she found that even reading had
lost a great deal of its charm.
She was actively anxious, too, about the dog, for the poor creature
seemed to grow worse as the hours went on, and in the afternoon Nell
began to realize that Pip had fought his last fight, and was preparing
to make his exit from a world of strife.
The knowledge moved her to real grief, for the dog, though savage and
surly to other people, had been her friend and companion, the only
playmate she possessed. Many and many were the solitary days they had
spent together, and there had been not a few nights when the fierce
deerhound had been her only companion at the Lone House on Blue Bird
Ridge.
If Pip were dying, then she would not leave him alone; so, bringing some
sewing, she came to sit on a little stool near the fire, where the
languid eyes of the poor animal could see her to the last.
The afternoon was gorgeously fine, and Nell would have taken her work
into the sunshine but for the dog. As it was, she sat in the dark
cheerless room by the fire, administering broth at intervals to her dumb
patient, and talking to it in a low crooning tone, which seemed to
soothe the poor creature.
Her sewing was of a very uninteresting character, and consisted in
mending up the worst rents in an old coat of her grandfather’s, a
garment so patched and worn that it would have been difficult for an
outsider to tell of what it was originally made.
Nell sighed a little over her task, but kept steadily on until, mending
a great rent in the lining, her fingers encountered some stiff letter
paper.
Thrusting her hand into the pocket she found there was a hole at the
bottom which had let quite a store of articles through, these being
caught between the lining and the cloth at the bottom of the coat.
She drew them out one by one, a nail, a screw, half a pocket-comb, a
small key, and a letter which had been through the post, and was
directed to her grandfather in his proper name, Mr. Theodosius Humphrey,
The Lone House, Blue Bird Ridge, Lewisville, and the date was just ten
days old.
“Why, granfer must have got the letter the last time he went over to
Button End,” she remarked, talking aloud, as is the common way of lonely
people. “Yet when I asked him if there was any mail for us he said no
directly. I remember, though, how cross he was that night, and how low
down in his spirits he has been ever since.”
She studied the outside of the letter for some time, admired the
firmness of the handwriting, but did not attempt to read the contents.
Then she took up the key, and looked at it critically. It was small and
bright as if from being constantly carried, and a sudden idea occurred
to her.
“Why, I do believe it is the key of my box. Granfer said he had lost it
somehow, and of course he would not know it had slipped right through
there. I will go and see if it fits, then I can open the box myself.”
Throwing down her work, with the needle still sticking in the rent, Nell
was about to move with hasty steps across the floor, but paused first to
look at Pip.
The dog’s eyes were closed now, and it was breathing regularly; so, with
the hope that it was sleeping, she stole softly away to try the key in
the lock of her box.
It fitted easily, and turned without any trouble; then, with a
palpitating heart, she lifted the lid and peered inside.
There seemed to be only a few things in it, although she had supposed it
would be quite full. A feeling of apprehension seized her then, and,
dragging the box across the floor nearer to the open door, she knelt
down beside it, sorting out the contents.
A dark blue merino dress, made in the fashion of fifteen years before; a
black silk cape, the worse for wear, trimmed with beaded gimp; a black
bonnet, with dark blue ribbon strings, and a bunch of pink roses under
the coal-scuttle front;—these, with an armful of nondescript underwear,
were all the box contained, saving a big stone wrapped in paper that lay
at the bottom, and made it seem heavy.
Just at first indignation kept Nell’s grief in check. There had been
good clothing in the box, she knew, and her mother’s little stock of
jewelry, with a few odd remnants from her childhood’s home, of little
worth to any one else, but of priceless value to her.
Feeling dazed and bewildered by the shock, Nell sat on the floor, with
the heap of clothing in her lap, staring stupidly into the empty box.
Then a fragment of paper with writing on it caught her attention, and,
leaning forward, she picked it up.
The piece had been torn from a letter, and only a part of the sentence
remained.
“Unless the money is paid within a week, I will give
information, which will lead to your speedy arrest, and you
will——”
Nell stood straight up, letting the lapful of garments drop unheeded on
the floor.
She had seen that handwriting before, but where?
It was a habit of hers to stand up when any problem hard to solve forced
itself upon her attention.
As she stood erect, staring straight before her, she saw the letter
which a little while before she had found in the lining of her
grandfather’s old coat, and at once she remembered that the writing on
the envelope was identical with that on the slip she held in her hand.
With a bound she reached the table, and, seizing the envelope, dragged
out the enclosure it contained.
She had felt no interest in it before, and no desire to pry into
business which did not concern her. Now, however, all this was altered,
and she deemed it her right to know what the letter contained.
Like the slip of paper in the box, it was curt and threatening, with no
beginning in the usual way, but signed at the bottom with a great
flourish.
“If I receive no money from you within a week, I will send some
one to look you up. If you do not pay then, well, I will let the
police know, and then you will soon see the inside of a prison,
which may bring you to your senses and make you keep up your
payments better.
“R. D. BRUNSEN.”
Nell gasped in her astonishment, for the man who had arrived at the Lone
House yesterday in such a condition of exhaustion, had told her that his
name was Bronson, Dick Bronson.
Was it possible that he had come to spy on her grandfather? Of course
the story that he was travelling through the great forest on a pleasure
jaunt might have been a fiction, only, somehow, her late visitor had
struck her as being truthful and honest in his statements, and it was
very disappointing to find herself mistaken in him. The names Bronson
and Brunsen were so much alike that they might be the same, the
difference lying only in pronunciation, for Mr. Bronson had only told
her his name, he had not spelled it for her.
A long time she stood pondering over the matter, but quite unable to
arrive at any definite conclusion concerning it. Then, warned by the
slanting rays of the sun, she set to work preparing supper, in readiness
for her grandfather’s return.
The letter she put in a prominent position on the supper-table. He would
be sure to ask her where she had found it, then she would tell him all
about it, and ask him why he had tampered with her property, which was
contained in the box.
The sunset faded out in splendours of crimson and gold; then a cold wind
stole across the ridge, rustling the millions of crisping leaves on the
great forest trees, and night came brooding down.
Never during the years of her life at the Lone House had Nell felt so
solitary as on this night. Hitherto, when her grandfather had remained
away, she had had Pip for companionship and defence. But now the dog was
breathing its last, no longer able to recognize her when she stooped to
pat it, or to wag its tail in response to her voice.
The night was weird in its silence; she had no watch or clock to beguile
her with its ticking, or to let her know how the slow hours were
passing.
To-night she did not go upstairs to her loft, because she could not
leave the dog. So, keeping the fire burning for the sake of
companionship, she wrapped herself in the coat she had been mending, and
lay down on the settle to rest.
But she had kept vigil on the previous night, from a fanciful dread lest
harm should befall the stranger guest beneath their roof. She knew her
grandfather’s disposition well, and that the old man would be quite
capable of turning the stranger out in the night if the idea came into
his head, so she had kept awake, in order to frustrate any design of the
kind.
On this second night she also decided to keep watch, to see that Pip
wanted for nothing. But healthy girls of seventeen cannot keep awake
always.
Very soon the Lone House grew more silent still, the fire sank to a bed
of red coals, which turned by slow degrees to white ashes. The laboured
respiration of the dog grew intermittent and feeble, finally ceasing
entirely. But Nell slumbered on in blissful unconsciousness until the
morning sun threw broad beams of light across the uncleared
supper-table, the spent fire, and the dead dog; then, with a little cry,
she started into wakefulness.
CHAPTER IV
What the New Day brought
NELL sobbed and cried in a childish abandonment of grief when she found
that Pip had died whilst she slept. But as no tears could restore the
animal to life, the womanliness in her presently re-asserted itself, and
she set to work to make the house clean and tidy, pending her
grandfather’s return. After that she would dig a deep grave for poor
faithful old Pip, in which she would lay the creature in readiness for
burial, when Doss Umpey returned.
The exercise did her good, and as the sun was shining more brightly than
ever, her mood grew almost cheerful as the day went on.
While sweeping under the settle, her broom—a home-made affair,
consisting of rushes bound together—brushed out from under the settle a
little leather case, which she had certainly never seen before.
Picking it up, she brushed the dust from it with her sleeve, then opened
it to examine the contents.
At first sight it seemed to be quite empty, and the leaves of the
memorandum book inside were innocent of pencil marks or writing of any
description. There was a pocket in the case behind the book, however,
and from this Nell drew out the photograph of a middle-aged lady, with
the sweetest face she had ever seen. Something else the pocket contained
also, and this was a packet of three clean ten-dollar notes.
“Oh, how could the case have come there?” she cried, peering under the
settle to see that no more treasure-trove was lurking in the obscurity
there.
But nothing else remained, not even dust, so effectually had the
rush-broom done its work.
“Mr. Bronson must have dropped it from his pocket in the night. He was a
bit restless some of the time,” she muttered, shivering a little as she
thought of her uncomfortable vigil, sitting on the floor of the loft.
Then she wondered how she could possibly restore his property to him
without the knowledge of her grandfather. There was an uncomfortable
feeling in her heart that, if her grandfather knew of the money, he
would want to keep it, and that course of procedure did not march with
her ideas of honesty.
So she resolved for the present to hide the money. Perhaps Mr. Bronson
would write to her. He had spoken of doing so, and of sending her some
books, in which case she would be able to write to him in return, and
send the packet.
“Only I’ll post the letter myself, even if I have to walk to Button End
and back,” she said, with great decision. Then she returned to her work
with a will, being anxious to have the house as clean and tidy as hands
could make it before the old man’s return.
She had dragged the mat, with Pip’s dead body resting on it, to the cool
shade at the back of the house; and there, in the hot noontide, she dug
the grave, perspiring a great deal, but working with great energy, to
get her task completed.
The hole was ready at last, and she climbed out of it with a sigh of
relief, dropping on to the ground for a brief rest.
Then she heard sounds of talking—a woman’s voice high-pitched and
complaining, children’s tones eager and excited, and the tramp of
horses’ feet.
With a fluttering at her heart, she ran round to the front of the house.
As a rule, hardly one person in a month passed along the trail, except
in winter, when lumbering was being carried on—even then it was only
men and boys who came; but these arrivals, by the sound of their voices,
were plainly womenfolk, or at least there was one woman.
When she turned the corner of the house she saw a little procession of
three horses, just halting under the big Valparaiso oak. A woman, lean
and shrewish of aspect, was mounted on the first animal, in company with
many bags and bundles, among which a fryingpan and two new tin saucepans
showed conspicuously.
Two children—a boy and a girl—shared the next horse, their steed also
being hung round with trappings of the same description; while the third
horse was heavily laden with more household stuff.
A man and a big boy completed the party, which looked hot and tired, as
well they might after the ten miles’ journey from Button End, for in
this glowing September noontide the forest trail was hot as a furnace.
Nell approached with a bewildered look on her face, and some dismay in
her heart, wondering how she could contrive to offer hospitality to so
many people. Her household stores were at a painfully low ebb at the
present moment—indeed, she had neither tea, sugar, nor coffee to offer
them, and the remaining flour in her barrel had been made into bread
that morning—two small loaves, which would not half suffice to feed
this party of five.
Then she remembered the great basket of berries which she had gathered
two hours before, and that the early apples were already quite eatable,
so she quickened her steps to greet the arrivals, a little comforted on
the score of hospitality.
“Are you Doss Umpey’s gal?” called out the woman, in high-pitched,
querulous tones.
“I am his granddaughter,” Nell answered, with as much dignity as she
could muster, yet all the while conscious that her dreadful old clothes
detracted very much from the cold aloofness of her bearing.
“It’s about the same thing in the end, I guess,” rejoined the woman,
with a cackle of harsh laughter. “Well, there’s a letter from the old
man to tell you why we’ve come, and are going to stop.”
And she tossed a smudged envelope to the ground, directed in Doss
Umpey’s straggling writing, to “Miss Nell Umpey, at Blue Bird Ridge.”
It was really too bad, and poor Nell could have cried with vexation,
that her grandfather, who was too lazy to spell his own name properly,
should call her by it also. But when she had read the letter, she was
thankful indeed that he had not addressed her by her right name.
“DEAR NELL (so ran the letter),
“You will be surprised to hear that I have sold the Lone House
and the furniter to Joe Gunnage and his wife, and they are going
to live there. Mrs. G. says you can stop on as hired gal if you
like. But if you are wise and have got enuff pluck, you’ll just
git over the border into Canada as quick as you can; you are
safe to do better there than in the States. I’d have sent you
some money if I could, but the fac is I’m desperate hard-up all
along of harbouring wipers in my buzzom as have warmed up and
stung me. But I’m hopin’ to get on to something good soon, then
I’ll look you up and help you. Meanwhile don’t you let on to no
one what I’ve told you, nor nothin’ about me, as I don’t want
the perlice to get interested in what I’m doing.
“DOSS UMPEY.”
Nell was so long in getting at the sense of the old man’s badly written
letter that by the time she had done, the three horses had all been
unladen and hobbled so that they could feed in the open space before the
house, and the woman was carrying the bundles in at the door, assisted
by the children.
“Have you come here to live?” asked Nell, in a bewildered tone.
Although she had read the letter, she could not yet comprehend its
meaning, or realize that the old life was gone, and that she was
suddenly thrust upon her own resources, with no one to care what became
of her.
“It looks like it, don’t you think?” said the woman, with another
cackling laugh. “Now then, girl, what’s your name—Nell? Don’t stand
there staring as if you was short-witted; stir round lively, and help me
get these things inside.”
Nell came to assist in a half-mechanical fashion, still doubting the
evidence of her own senses. The man and the big boy had not spoken to
her, had hardly glanced in her direction indeed, but were absorbed in
looking round their new premises, grumbling loudly because the clearing
about the house was not so big as they had supposed.
The small boy and girl had likewise disappeared on a journey of
exploration, so Nell and Mrs. Gunnage were left alone.
“What! haven’t you got a cooking-stove?” cried the woman, in shrill
consternation.
“We did have one, but it dropped all to bits in the spring, and I’ve had
to bake bread in the ashes all summer. Granfer had said that he would
get a new one in the fall,” Nell answered.
“Well, it’s fall now, and I must have a stove, for I can’t bake bread in
the ashes, if you can. Joe will just have to go over to Button End
to-morrow, and get me one. What is up that ladder?” demanded Mrs.
Gunnage, sharply, having just caught sight of the rickety ladder in the
corner behind the door.
“It leads to my room,” Nell replied, then was instantly indignant
because Mrs. Gunnage prepared to mount and inspect the loft without
asking permission.
But the swaying, creaking ladder proved too much for the woman’s nerves.
“I will just have Joe make me a firmer ladder before I go up there, for
a fall would about shake me to bits. Is there any furniture up there?”
“An old camp bed and two boxes,” Nell answered, with characteristic
brevity. She had come to the conclusion that she simply detested Mrs.
Gunnage, and that nothing should induce her to remain at the Lone House
as hired girl to such a woman.
“I thought as much! But, my word! to hear Doss Umpey talk of his
furniture, a person might have looked to find marble-topped tables and
mahogany chairs. A downright swindle it is, to call this old truck
furniture.”
To this pronouncement Nell made no reply; she was quietly reserving
herself for what must come later, trying also, in some way, to shape and
plan her future, yet feeling all the time in such a whirling confusion
of mind as scarcely to be capable of meeting the needs of the moment.
“It is a puzzle to me where we are all going to sleep. Why, the house
isn’t big enough to swing a cat in!” exclaimed Mrs. Gunnage, scornfully;
and indeed the small interior did seem rather crowded, now that the
lading of the three horses had been brought in and dumped upon the
floor.
“For to-night the little girl can come to sleep with me in the loft. The
two boys would be very comfortable in the stable, for there is quite a
nice lot of hay there that I have been cutting and collecting for
Blossom in the winter, and the nights ain’t cold yet,” Nell answered,
with a desire to make things as pleasant as she could for these
interlopers, who had come into such sudden and unexpected possession of
her home.
Mrs. Gunnage turned upon her with an air of exasperation.
“To-night, indeed! Well, I’ve more than one night to think and plan for,
and I’m sure I don’t know how Miranda would manage to climb up that
shaking ladder. I shall keep her down here with us for to-night, and
after that we must see what can be done. I’m willing to keep you on
through the winter as hired girl, if you like to stay, for your board;
but, by the look of you, I shouldn’t say you’d be worth wages at
present.”
“Thank you, I could not stay for my board, and I will go away to-morrow
morning,” Nell said hurriedly.
“But where will you go? Your granfer said you hadn’t any friends, that
was why I sort of offered to take you out of charity,” the woman said,
measuring Nell’s lean length with her eye, and mentally resolving to
make her so-called charity a very paying investment indeed.
Nell flushed an angry red. To her, charity was the most hateful word she
knew, and synonymous with everything horrid and unkind.
“It is true that I have nowhere to go and no friends. But I am strong,
and can work, so that does not matter, and I have no need of charity,”
she answered, with her head held at a proud angle.
“Oh, stuck up, are you? Well, a little hard work will soon take that out
of you, I reckon. Where are you off to now?” demanded Mrs. Gunnage, as
Nell moved towards the door.
“I am going to finish burying our poor old dog, which died last night. I
was digging a grave for it when you came,” Nell answered.
“Dead, is it? I remember Doss Umpey told my Joe the creature was pretty
bad. Well, there ain’t no need for you to go out fussing about burying
it. The men folks can see to that, and do you just stay here and help me
get a bit straight. I could fancy a cup of coffee and a bit of food if
it was got ready for me.”
“I would rather bury the dog myself, thank you,” Nell remarked, and was
passing out of the door when a shrill scream from the woman arrested her
steps.
“Come back, I say, and do as I told you. When I speak, I expect to be
obeyed.”
“I will come and help you presently, if I have time, but I am not your
hired girl, please remember,” Nell rejoined, civilly still, but with her
head held at a dangerous angle, and her eyes shining with the light of
battle. Then she walked away, disappearing round the corner of the
house, and set to work at covering Pip in the grave she had dug,
shovelling with tremendous energy in order to get her task completed
before any one should disturb her.
No interruption came, however, and when she went back to the house Mrs.
Gunnage was sullen, but civil.
Nell made up the fire, boiled some water, and made the tired woman some
coffee. But the two loaves of bread which were her own she quietly
carried up to the loft and put with the clothes from her mother’s box.
She would need that bread for her long journey next day, and did not
mean that it should be taken from her, by accident or otherwise.
For the remainder of the day, until darkness fell, she did her best to
help Mrs. Gunnage. She cooked supper for the family, and served them all
as meekly as if she were in truth the hired girl. She even shared their
supper, feeling that she had certainly earned it. When darkness fell,
she mounted up the swaying ladder to the loft, and then set to work on
her own preparations for the future. The night was moonless, and she had
no lamp or candle, but one can do a great deal by feeling when the
occasion demands it.
Only two of her treasured books could be taken,—the Bible, which had
been her father’s, and Longfellow; the dictionary and Bacon’s essays
must be left. Perhaps Miranda Gunnage or one of the boys would like to
have them.
When her preparations were quite complete, and, by the sense of touch,
she had taken leave of the few treasures she must leave behind, Nell lay
down on the broken camp-bed for the last time and fell asleep.
No dreams came to disturb her repose. No fears of her future stuck
thorns of unrest in her pillow that night, and when the first of a
family of blue birds came to twitter and stir in the great oak outside
her open shutter, Nell started up broad awake, quite prepared for her
plunge into the Unknown.
It was not daylight yet, for that was the western world, and the
towering heights of the Rocky Mountains blocked out the earliest
splendours of the rising sun. But morning would soon be here, and
meanwhile there was her toilet to consider; a great affair this, for she
had resolved to cast off her rags and clothe herself in the attire found
in her mother’s box.
Very softly she moved, through fear of waking the sleepers down below.
Yet she could not avoid little gasps and gurgles of delight as she
arrayed herself in the flowing, old-fashioned skirts, and buttoned the
blue bodice across her thin chest.
She had rolled her hair into a big knot at the back of her head, and
when the bonnet, with its bunch of pink roses, was tied on her head,
Nell felt that her appearance left nothing to be desired, and could not
possibly be improved.
By this time daylight had fully come, and she was able to survey herself
in the cracked piece of looking-glass, which was all the mirror she
possessed. The black silk cape she had packed in with the few garments
she had to carry. Her cast-off clothing was folded into a neat little
heap, and Nell was wondering how soon she might venture down the ladder,
to make her start out into the wide world, when a harsh voice called up
from below—
“Now then, gal; when are you going to bestir yourself, or do you mean to
lie there all day?”
It was the voice of Mrs. Gunnage, and, screwing her face into lines of
stern resolution, Nell picked up the old canvas bag containing her
clothes and the two books, then came slowly down the swaying ladder, her
blue skirt folded closely round her, and the pink roses nodding in her
bonnet.
“Well, you do look a figure of fun! What sort of game are you up to
now?” demanded the woman, sharply; but there was an anxious look in her
eyes, for she had counted rather considerably on retaining Nell as a
household drudge through the winter.
“I am going away. I told you last night that I shouldn’t stay here, now
that granfer has gone. And I’m obliged to start early because I’ve a
long way to go. It is going to be very hot presently, then walking will
be difficult.”
“You can’t go till you’ve had your breakfast.”
“Oh yes I can, thank you. I have two small loaves of bread, and I shan’t
want anything else,” Nell answered, moving towards the door.
“Look here, it shan’t be said I turned you adrift. You stay here all
winter, and I’ll give you a dollar a month for pocket money,” said Mrs.
Gunnage, spreading her hands out to emphasize the magnificence of her
offer.
“I can’t stay, thank you. I’d rather go. Good morning,” jerked out Nell.
Then, stepping across the threshold, she went out to face the future,
and all that it might bring.
CHAPTER V
Summoned Home
BRATLEY JUNCTION was a small depot on a branch line, and it was rather a
stretch of the imagination to call it a junction at all, since it ended
fifteen miles farther on at Camp’s Gulch, while the one little branch
was the bit of line running up five miles into the mountains to the
Roseneath Mines.
There were mines everywhere in that district. Down on the plains, up in
the hoary sides of the towering hills, and tucked away in gloomy cañons
the human family dug, delved, and toiled, wresting coal, iron, copper,
and even silver, from the covering earth.
Then, when man had done his best, or worst, in upheaving and making
desolate what Nature had intended should be wild and beautiful, another
sort of man—only sometimes it was a woman—set to work at bringing
order out of chaos, and levelling the heaps flung up by the human moles,
laid out little fields and fruitful gardens in the sunny hollows of the
western hills.
A very different class of settlers these from the dwellers in the middle
west, who till their ground, harvest their crops, and thresh their corn
by machinery. It was mostly hand work here, and, in many cases, very
hard work. No great fortunes were possible, but a living could be
wrested from the soil, and a race of boys and girls, self-reliant and
clever, were growing up to carve careers for themselves, and to win
honourable names among the powerful of the earth.
The Bratley depot was a long wooden shed divided into offices and
storerooms, while half a dozen houses, also of wood, clustered near.
The work of the girl telegraph clerk was not heavy, nor yet tremendously
important, so it was usually a beginner who was stationed there, and
very dull work most of the beginners found it.
Gertrude Lorimer was no exception, and she had groaned fully as much as
her predecessors in office over the boredom of life at Bratley.
But she was in her second year now, and hoping for speedy promotion,
more especially as her duty had been so thoroughly done, that she had
never been reprimanded for any sort of neglect.
She was leaning over the slab where her instrument was fixed, tidying
books and papers on the shelf above. The September morning was warm and
sunny, while Gertrude’s mood was of the happiest, for a holiday of a
very special sort was in prospect, and she was putting the office in
nice order for the deputy, who was to arrive by the noon train to supply
her place for a fortnight.
Her holiday was to be spent in New Westminster, and the thought of two
weeks in a real city with business blocks, river steamboats, trams, and
all the other luxuries of civilization compensated Gertrude for not
going home this fall.
Lorimer’s Clearing, where her people lived, was a lonely farmstead lying
almost close to the American frontier, a difficult journey from Bratley,
which took a whole day to perform.
Gertrude had suffered many a fit of home sickness since she had been at
Bratley, for she was one of those girls to whom home is everything, and
neither by nature nor training was she fitted to stand alone.
But one could not see the world at Lorimer’s Clearing, so the summer
holiday this year was to be spent in the city, with a view to enlarging
her understanding, and as she was to stay with a sister of her father’s
who lived at New Westminster, she would still be among her own kinsfolk.
Presently, in through the open door of the telegraph office came a
stout, bustling woman, with a cast in her eye, who held up her hands in
amazement at Gertrude’s activity.
“Well, Miss Lorimer, if you don’t just beat everything; turning the
place inside out, as if it was regular spring-cleaning time instead of a
fall holiday!”
“Oh, I’m only having a dust down, Mrs. Nichols. I could not leave the
place in a muddle for my deputy, or I should deserve that she, in her
turn, would leave it so for me,” Gertrude said, as she flourished her
duster along the high shelf, raising a great dust.
“Don’t flick your duster so, child; just pass it gently along, sort of
wrapping the dust into it as you go. What you are doing now is to set
all them atoms in active circulation for a few minutes, then back they
settles again thicker than ever,” expostulated Mrs. Nichols, who was a
notable housewife, and hated to see work done in an improper fashion.
“That is what my mother always says, but I’m afraid that I am not a
domestic genius; my ambitions don’t lie that way,” laughed Gertrude.
“It is of little use having ambitions, for you’ll never realize them if
you don’t set out to do everything first class as you go along,”
retorted Mrs. Nichols, with a wag of her head.
Gertrude was beginning a laughing reply when a call clicked out from her
instrument, and she dropped her duster to take down the message which
was arriving.
Mrs. Nichols waited until this was done, filling in the pause with an
active raid on the next shelf. As she stood with her back to Gertrude,
she did not know that anything was wrong, until she was startled by a
faint moaning cry, and turned quickly to find the girl’s face had turned
ghastly white.
“Law, child, whatever is the matter? Has bad news come over the wire?
Sure it ain’t another big fire in the city?” cried the good woman, in
alarm.
Her husband had lost his life in the great conflagration which had swept
over the city some years previously, and since then her main idea of
trouble had been some similar disaster.
“No, no, it is a message from home; there is great trouble, and I must
go. Oh, what a mercy it is that my deputy is coming to-day, because now
I can get away this evening!” Gertrude said, with panting breath.
“What sort of trouble?” demanded the widow.
“My eldest brother Percy, the one next to me, is not expected to live;
Arthur is very ill too. My poor mother must be nearly distracted, for
she just dotes on those two.”
“It won’t be any use your going to-night; you will just be dumped out at
Blakeson’s somewhere about midnight, and there you’ll have to stay till
morning. No, the only thing you can do is to send a message that you’ll
be home to-morrow afternoon; then they’ll send the wagon to meet you at
the depot, for you won’t want to walk seven miles when you get out of
the cars,” said Mrs. Nichols.
“Oh, I can’t wait; it will be dreadful! Think of the torture of lying
awake all night, and wondering what is going to happen to those poor
boys,” wailed Gertrude.
“You will be very foolish to lie awake. It is some one to help that your
mother will want, not a poor worn-out creature, only fit to be put to
bed and nursed like a baby. I only hope it ain’t nothing infectious, for
I’d just hate for you to go home and get sick.”
There was anxiety in the tone of Mrs. Nichols now, for she had grown
really attached to her young lodger in the months that Gertrude had
boarded with her.
“I don’t care if I do get sick; I don’t care what happens to me at all,
if only the boys get better!” wailed Gertrude. “Why, they are just the
life of the home—and so clever, too.”
“They will get better, don’t you fear. Boys can pull through anything;
it is girls that want most taking care of. Well, well, but this is a
damper for you, and you just starting off to the city for your holiday,
too!” sighed the stout woman, in kindly concern.
“I’m thankful I hadn’t started. Oh dear, how shall I get through the
hours until to-morrow morning?” And Gertrude’s sobs broke forth afresh
at the thought of the long wait in front of her.
“You’ll get through right enough; and, after all, it is only a minute at
a time, you know. But you had better send a message to your aunt to say
that you are not coming. Then, when your deputy comes, and you are off
duty, just you come right home and go to bed.”
“What, in the middle of the afternoon?” cried Gertrude, aghast.
“Why not? You have nothing else to do, and the more rest you get before
you start the more help you will be when you get home.”
The sound wisdom of this suggestion commended itself to Gertrude, who
knew her own limitations pretty thoroughly, and was perfectly well aware
that she would be of no use at home if she were worn out with worrying
and want of sleep.
The deputy arrived in due course. This time the operator was no raw
hand, but one who had somehow failed to get on, and was, in consequence,
thankful to get chance work for a time. This was a great comfort to
Gertrude, as probably the deputy would be willing to do duty longer than
the fortnight if required, and so the post would be kept open for her.
She had to leave Bratley by the first train, which was very early.
Several changes of cars were necessary, and there was a long wait of two
hours at Blakeson’s, where she had to change from main-line cars on to a
branch line again. It was the middle of the afternoon when she stepped
out of the cars at the depot nearest to her own home, and saw her father
waiting for her with the wagon.
Abe Lorimer, a meek, quiet-looking man of fifty years, had a bowed,
broken look that Gertrude had never noticed before. Her heart gave a
sudden throb of pain as she saw him, and when they stood face to face it
was her eyes, and not her tongue, which asked the question she could
not, from very fear, put into speech.
“He’s gone, poor lad; died this morning at the dawning,” jerked out the
stricken father.
“Dead—Percy?” gasped Gertrude, turning white to the lips, and reeling
as if she were about to faint.
“Get into the wagon, and let’s be off sharp; seems as if I can’t bear
the neighbours coming to tell me how sorry they are,” said Abe, with an
apprehensive look at a group of loungers, who had strolled up to see the
cars come in.
Gertrude gathered her various belongings up in blind haste, her father
lifted her trunk into the wagon, and the two were driving away from the
depot before the loungers had time to make any further comment to each
other than that Abe Lorimer looked pretty sick. But as he mostly had a
melancholy appearance, no one paid special heed to it on this occasion.
Gertrude, struggling with her sobs, was trying to steady her voice
enough to ask how it had all happened, yet she lacked the courage for
her question, because there was something in her father’s face which
warned her there might be still more ill news to follow.
They were out of sight of the railway track, and the two horses were
going at a steady trot up the long two mile rise to the village, where
the store and the saw-mills were, and then Abe broke into speech again—
“Arthur is very low down; the doctor doesn’t think there is much chance
of his pulling through, but if both the boys are taken, it will be my
death-blow. I’ve got a sort o’ feeling inside me, that I can’t stand up
against it nohows.”
Gertrude slid her arm through her father’s, and laid her cheek against
the rough sleeve of his jacket. There was no word of comfort that she
could say to him, but for the time her pity for his suffering was so
keen, that she had no opportunity of giving way to her own sorrow.
Mounting the rise, the horses broke into a quicker pace, went down the
hill through the village—the town, some people called it—tore round
the corner, and, dashing past the saw-mills, took the next rise at a
gallop.
“Father, how did the boys get sick?” Gertrude asked, after a long
silence. She was growing desperate now, for the line of trees right in
front of them marked the boundary-line of Lorimer’s Clearing, and she
must know about the trouble before she reached home and met her mother.
“There’s a sort o’ malarial fever going about; it don’t amount to much
if you stay in bed and keep warm when it’s on you. The boys took it, but
there was no keeping ’em in bed, and one day they went bathing in the
Black Cauldron—you know how cold the water is there—and that’s what
did the mischief. Patsey looks poorly this morning, and your mother is
keeping him in bed. It is a good thing harvest is over; if the sickness
had come two weeks ago, it would have been pretty near ruin.”
Gertrude nodded. Having been brought up on a farm, she understood very
well what a frightful disaster sickness in harvest time would be.
“Lots of folks are ill round about here,” Abe went on, as if he found it
a relief to talk, now that the ice was broken. “The doctor said this
morning that Giles Bailey’s aunt was very bad, so sick he didn’t think
she’d pull through, and there ain’t a woman to be got for love or money
to sit up with her o’ nights.”
“Giles Bailey’s aunt?” echoed Gertrude. “I don’t think I know them,
either nephew or aunt.”
“Very likely not. The aunt, Mrs. Munson, has got a farm about five miles
the other side of the boundary, and Giles works it for her. A good sort
of lad, but slow. He used to come over to singing-school last winter at
Pratt’s Corner, but the boys said school was mostly half over before
Giles turned up, and that he’d no more notion of singing than a raven.”
Gertrude smiled, but a sob came up in her throat, and had to be battled
with. Percy and Arthur sang so beautifully themselves, and had always
been regarded as the stars of the winter singing-school.
“Father, there’s Flossie coming to open the gate; poor little girl, how
lame she is!” Gertrude said, five minutes later, as the horses trotted
swiftly down the last stretch of cleared cornland toward the house,
which stood with its back to a forest-clad hill. Her eyes had caught
sight of a diminutive figure coming, with a series of bobbing jerks,
over the ground to open the field gate.
“She is lame, but she is uncommon useful, poor little maid, and has
taken baby off your mother’s hands entirely, ever since the boys got
sick,” Abe answered, with a sigh.
Flossie was nine, and suffered from some kind of hip trouble, which
prevented her from going to school, or sharing the sports and pleasures
of the other children, yet she was a very happy little maiden usually,
despite these drawbacks, and home owed more of its brightness to her
than any one would have suspected. But Flossie was under a shadow this
morning, and, seeing the mute distress on the little sister’s face,
Gertrude braced herself to a great effort of self-forgetfulness, and
determined to be as brave as she could, for the sake of the others.
CHAPTER VI
A Strange Welcome
NELL was very tired. Since early morning she had tramped steadily,
pursuing that apparently unending trail. Sometimes the way had been up
steep ascents, over high ridges, where big boulders stuck up among the
trees; then it would drop to lower ground, and skirt wide swamps, in one
of which Dick Bronson’s horse had come to its untimely end.
But from the open ground of the last ridge she had crossed, Nell had
caught sight of what looked like a cultivated field right ahead, and she
was walking on with more hope now that she might reach a house of some
kind before night fell, and so be saved the weird experience of spending
a night alone in the open.
Several times she had walked to Button End and back again to the Lone
House in a day, which was a distance of twenty miles, so her long
journey on this occasion had not been so tiring to her as it would have
been to any one less accustomed to very long tramps.
It was thirty miles from Blue Bird Ridge to the nearest settlement on
the long trail, Doss Umpey used to say; and Nell was beginning to wonder
how near she was to that settlement, when she came to a broader cross
trail, which showed recent wheel marks.
A few minutes she stood hesitating which way to take, then her quick eye
caught sight of a handful of straws caught on a bush.
“A cart carrying corn to the homestead, that is what it was, and this is
the way it went,” she said to herself, with the quick observation which
comes to dwellers in isolated spots, who have only Nature for their
companion.
Then, giving a jerk to the bundle in the canvas bag, which for greater
comfort she carried on her back, she went onward again, following now
the broader cross trail which showed wheel marks, and here and there
fluttering pennons of corn.
For a mile she tramped wearily on—a long, long mile this was—and she
would many times have yielded to her desire to sit down and rest but for
her fear that night might come, finding her still without a shelter for
the hours of darkness.
The trail ended suddenly in a gate that gave entrance to a fenced
enclosure, in which stood a barn, some smaller sheds, and a wooden
house.
A man was coming in at another gate on the lower side of the enclosure,
and he had with him two horses and a cart laden with wood, while a
scraggy dog of mongrel type circled round and round, barking wildly at
some pigs, which tried to make a rush through the opening.
Nell stood leaning against the bars of her gate hesitating to enter. A
fit of shyness had suddenly come upon her, and she was wondering what
these people would say to her, or how she could account satisfactorily
for rambling about the country alone, without betraying to curious
outsiders the fact of her grandfather’s desertion of her.
“Come right in, will you, please, miss? I’d come and open the gate for
you—it’s a bit awkward, I know—but I’m afraid of Spider bolting,”
shouted the man with the cart. And as one of the horses began at this
moment to plunge and rear, Nell understood which was Spider without
further introduction.
She opened the gate then, and walked boldly into the yard, and was going
across to the man when he shouted to her again—
“Go right in, will you, please, miss? The door is unfastened right
enough, only I had to shut it to keep the pigs out. Poor aunt is
desperate bad to-day, worse than she has been all along, and she’ll just
be downright glad to see you,” he called out. Then he had to give
instant attention to Spider, as the creature was endeavouring to walk on
its two hind legs, to the discomfort of the steady old animal to which
it was yoked.
Nell’s heart gave a great bound of relief. If some one were ill in the
house, they would be sure to let her stay and help, at least until
daylight came again. So, with a nod to the man, she turned away, and
walked up to the door of the house.
This opened straight into the family living-room, which was in a state
of confusion such as Nell had never seen equalled. Dirty crockery was
strewn on tables, chairs, and floor. Eatables of various sorts were also
lying about in the same disorder. One pair of boots and a hat stood on
the dresser, close to an untrimmed lamp and a basin half full of milk,
while a loaf of bread, with a knife sticking in it, lay on a coat which
had been flung down on a bench near the door.
“Oh, what a fearful muddle!” she murmured under her breath. And weary
though she was she would have laughed at the scene before her, only she
remembered there was a sick woman somewhere, and she had to find her
quickly.
Three doors led out of this room, but instinct guiding her she opened
the right one first, and walked into a stuffy chamber, the closeness of
which seemed almost to choke her, coming as she did from the sweet fresh
air of the forest.
A woman with a flushed face and tumbled grey hair lay on the bed,
moaning and muttering. She took no notice when Nell bent over and spoke
to her, but only moaned and muttered as before.
“She is delirious, that is what she is,” murmured Nell, pronouncing the
long word with the careful satisfaction which she always seemed to
derive from anything which came out of her much-studied dictionary.
“Well, the other room must wait, and I’ll see to her first.”
Years before, when she was a little girl of eleven, she had helped to
take care of her sick and dying father, so she was not so much at a
loss, as some girls might have been, if thrust suddenly into a
sick-room.
[Illustration: “COME RIGHT IN, WILL YOU, PLEASE, MISS?”]
Her first move was to the window, which she opened as wide as it would
go. Then she straightened the tumbled bedclothes, slipped a cool pillow
under the sick woman’s head, and gently sponged the hot face.
In this room, as in the other, plates, cups, basins, and jugs were
scattered about in confusion, most of them containing food in some shape
or form.
Nell gathered them up as best she could, carrying them to the outer
room, to be washed when she had leisure.
Finding a bucket of clean water standing in the little pantry, which
opened from the general living-room, she carried a cup of it for the
sick woman to drink.
“Ah, how good it is!” murmured the poor thing, opening her eyes and
looking at Nell. But there was no surprise in her glance—it was just as
if she had expected to see a girl in an old-fashioned blue frock waiting
upon her, and with a grateful “Thank you, my dear,” she lay back on the
cool pillow and closed her eyes again, only now she did not mutter or
moan so much as before.
Having done what was most necessary in the sick-room, Nell stepped out
to the other room, and attacked the confusion there. Having lighted the
fire, which had gone out from lack of tending, she put a kettle of water
on to boil, and then set to work to get the crockery ready for washing.
Absorbed in her work, she forgot how tired she was, and she was stepping
briskly to and fro, when the outer door opened, and the man who had
shouted to her entered with the dog at his heels.
He stopped short however then, and stared about him in genuine
amazement, not at Nell, but at the wonders her hands had wrought in the
matters of tidiness.
“My word, how you’ve slicked the place up, and you haven’t been long
about it, neither!” he said, in a tone of deep admiration.
He had a stupid, good-natured expression, with a round rosy face like a
schoolboy’s; but what puzzled Nell so much was that he talked as if he
had been expecting her all day.
“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming to-night, and I’d the
feeling that if poor aunt didn’t soon have a woman to tend her, she’d
not stand much chance of pulling through. How do you think she is now?”
he asked anxiously.
“She seems very ill, but she lay quieter after I had made her bed and
put her comfortable. Perhaps she will seem better in the morning. How
long has she been sick?” Nell asked.
“It’s a matter of a fortnight now since she was first took poorly, but
she has only kept her bed a week, and the doctor he’s been twice. It is
a desperate way, twelve miles for him to drive out and the same back.
Did you walk all the way?”
“Yes,” murmured Nell, faintly, as, with a flash, it dawned upon her that
the reason of her welcome was because she had been mistaken for some one
else, some one who had not come, and probably would not on this night at
least, for it was beginning to get quite dark.
But she could not tell this chubby-faced farmer about herself, not
to-night at least, and since the need of a woman to help was so urgent,
she was surely doing no harm in availing herself of the shelter of his
house, if she did her duty by the sick woman.
“Well, if you’ve walked all that twelve miles, you certainly ain’t fit
to be sitting up with poor aunt to-night,” he remarked, with a
disappointed air.
“Oh yes I am, and to-morrow night too, if there is a need for it. But
perhaps your aunt will be better in the morning. What did the doctor say
she was to have to eat?” Nell asked.
She was still moving about the kitchen, putting things in order, yet
going more slowly now because the work was almost done. The countryman,
however, had dropped on to a bench near the stove, and looked quite worn
out.
“Oh, gruel and milk, and messes like that. Poor aunt, she always did
hate spoon victuals; so, when I came in to my dinner to-day and found
she couldn’t eat the gruel I’d left for her at breakfast, I just fried
her an egg and a bit of bacon, and tried to get her to eat that.”
“But that wasn’t right. Why, it might have killed her!” exclaimed Nell,
in a horrified tone.
“Well, it didn’t, anyhow, for she couldn’t touch it, so I ate it myself.
Have you had any supper?” he asked, with a wide yawn.
“No; I really haven’t had time to think about it yet. But you will be
wanting yours, I should think; the kettle is almost boiling. Shall I
make you some coffee, or would you rather have tea?” said Nell, who,
despite her weariness, was rather enjoying the situation, because there
was lavish abundance of everything to eat and to use in this little
border farmhouse, compared with the pinching poverty of the Lone House
on Blue Bird Ridge.
“I don’t care. I’ll have just which is easiest to make, or what you like
the best; and there are bits of food littering round on plates that will
do for my supper. I’ve mostly cleared up what poor aunt couldn’t eat,
since she was took sick.”
“I put the bits all together on a dish, and set it in the pantry. I’ll
bring it out for you, and make some coffee, then you can get your supper
while I look after your aunt; and I expect you will be glad to go to bed
very soon, for you must have had some bad nights lately.”
“Well, to tell the truth, I haven’t been to bed for a week. I sleep in
the loft, you see, and when I’m up there with my head under the
bedclothes, I can’t hear what’s going on, so I stayed down here and got
what sleep I could on two chairs and a bench. It has been a hard time,”
he said, looking so tired as he sat with his head leaning against the
wall, that Nell felt quite sorry for him.
“You can sleep with a quiet mind to-night,” she answered, lifting the
coffee-pot from the stove and bringing it to pour him out a cup where he
sat. “If your aunt is taken worse, I will be sure to call you; and if
not, there won’t be any need for you to worry. I know quite a lot about
nursing, and I always used to help with my father when he was ill.”
“Abe never did look like a strong man,” said the countryman, sleepily,
and Nell darted a sudden look of alarm at him, wondering if he might be
on the verge of some awkward questioning; so, to stave off the evil
moment, she stepped into the next room, and busied herself looking after
the invalid.
The sick woman still tossed and moaned; but she had been made so much
more comfortable, that some at least of her suffering had been lessened,
whilst the water which Nell let her have in copious draughts, seemed to
refresh and cool her.
Before he went to his bed in the loft, the man came softly into the
sick-room, having left his boots at the door.
“How are you feeling now, aunt?” he asked, bending over the flushed face
on the pillow with lumbering tenderness.
She only muttered an incoherent something in reply, and moved her head
restlessly, as if it worried her to have him hanging over the bed.
“Don’t you know me, aunt—not know Giles?” the poor fellow asked in a
shocked tone, unconsciously raising his voice.
The sick woman only moaned and muttered; but Nell thought it high time
to interfere, and gently plucked at his sleeve.
“I wouldn’t worry her, if I were you. The quieter she is left the sooner
the fever will drop.”
“She’s worse than she has been all along,” he said, in a shocked
whisper. “She has always seemed to know me before.”
“Never mind. Go to bed now, and get a good sleep; perhaps she will have
come to her senses in the morning,” Nell said cheerfully; and Giles went
off with a drooping head, for he had a good heart, and was warmly
attached to the sick woman who had been like a mother to him.
Left alone, Nell made her preparations for keeping watch all night;
then, going into the sick-room, wrapped herself in a big shawl which she
had found lying on a chair, and gave herself up to the luxury of
thinking.
Events had marched so quickly, that, used as she was to a monotonous
life, the sudden plunge into change and activity really bewildered her.
It all began with the coming of the exhausted stranger to the Lone House
on the ridge, and Nell thought of the vigil she had kept through fear
lest Doss Umpey should turn him adrift at dead of night, steal his
money, or do him some other harm. Following this came the night she had
spent alone with poor dying Pip, and had fallen asleep to find when she
awoke that the poor dog was dead.
She thought of the letter she had found in her grandfather’s pocket,
with its mysterious threat, and she wondered again, as she had done so
many times previously, if Dick Bronson and R. D. Brunsen had any
connection with each other.
It bothered her a great deal, that she could not return to the stranger
the case with the dollar notes and the portrait. She felt like a thief,
to be carrying so much money about which did not belong to her; yet, by
some strange contrariness, it was at the same time a comfort to her,
since all the while it was in her possession she could not be said to be
utterly destitute.
Presently her thoughts wandered to Mrs. Gunnage, and she wondered
drowsily whether the good woman’s nerves had as yet permitted her to
climb the ladder, to inspect the property which she had been obliged to
leave behind when she came away.
Suddenly something different in the room struck Nell, causing her to be
instantly on the alert. The moaning and muttering of the sick woman had
ceased, and, bending over the bed, she found that the sufferer was lying
peacefully asleep.
CHAPTER VII
A New Vocation
DR. SHAW was not in exactly an amiable frame of mind that morning. To
begin with, there was more sickness in the district than he could very
well cope with single-handed, while the lack of good nursing for his
numerous patients was telling on his temper to quite a serious extent.
He had just come from a house where a patient, recovering from a rather
bad bout of the malarial fever, just then so prevalent in the district,
had been treated by an over-indulgent mother to roast goose and
apple-pie, with, of course, disastrous results.
The fever itself was a puzzle. Some had it very lightly, and soon
recovered, being no worse for the attack. Others had it so heavily that
it became a life-and-death struggle.
In some instances it seemed epidemic, for whole households would go down
with it; but mostly the cases were isolated, and had no connection with
each other. As the neighbourhood had always been so healthy, the fever
outbreak was all the more puzzling, and the overworked doctor had
irritably decided to put it down to the weather, which had been
unusually damp and hot through the latter part of the summer.
His practice lay on both sides of the frontier, and having looked after
his Canadian patients, he crossed the border, plunging into the wild
forest land that stretched for so many miles along the American side of
the boundary.
Little oases of civilization were dotted here and there in the timbered
wilderness, and it was to one of these lonely clearings that he turned
his horse’s head.
“A fine old journey for us both, Dobbin, and only to find a dead woman
at the end,” he said, in a grumpy tone, as his horse dropped into a walk
to climb the shoulder of a mountain spur.
But Dobbin only shook an impatient head, for the flies were troublesome,
and appeared in no way worried about the state of a patient more or
less.
Dr. Shaw was always angry when his patients died, and his meek little
wife had declared that he was quite dreadful to live with when, the
previous week, both of Abe Lorimer’s sick sons had slipped out of life
one after the other.
“Whew, but it is hot this morning!” he exclaimed, mopping his face with
a big red handkerchief, which would have shocked a city practitioner.
Dobbin’s glossy coat was dripping with perspiration when at length the
end of the journey was reached, at the very same gate where Nell’s tired
feet had halted on the previous afternoon.
“Why, the blinds are not down!” exclaimed the doctor, in an amazed tone,
as he rode in through the gate and saw the two front windows of the
house both open. The door was open too—a barrier made of an
ironing-board and two chairs serving to keep out pigs, ducks, and
similar intruders.
He was so struck by failing to find the signs of sorrow which he had
expected, that he sat still in his saddle staring at the house, until
Nell, who had heard his approach, came hurrying out to greet him.
The blue merino dress had been laid aside to-day for the sake of
coolness, and Nell appeared in a pink cotton skirt with a washed-out
holland blouse, which had short sleeves and no collar.
“A woman here!” exclaimed the doctor, staring at Nell as if he had never
seen anything like her before. “Pray, where did you spring from?”
“I came yesterday afternoon,” Nell answered, colouring vividly, her eyes
dropping before his steady gaze in an embarrassed fashion.
“Well, you came just right. How is Mrs. Munson?” he asked, descending
from his horse, which stood with a drooping head.
“You mean the sick woman?” she asked quickly.
“Of course. What! don’t you know her name even?” And he stared at Nell
harder than before.
“Mr. Giles only called her ‘poor aunt,’ so I did not know,” Nell said,
in apology. “Will you go right in and see her, if you please, sir? and I
will look after your horse.”
“How is she?” demanded the doctor.
“I think she is better. She has been asleep ever since about midnight,
only rousing up when I’ve given her food.”
A broad smile broke over the doctor’s rugged face, quite transforming
it, and he exclaimed, in a delighted tone—
“Well, that is good hearing! If she has slept so long she will pull
through now, with care.”
Nell led the horse away to the barn. Giles had gone with his two horses
and the wagon to fetch a last load of corn from a distant field; but he
had told her before he went where she could find a feed for the doctor’s
horse, and when she had done this, she stayed to give the heated animal
a rub down, just as she used to do for old Blossom.
When she entered the house, she found that the sick woman was awake, and
talking to the doctor in rational though feeble tones.
“So good of you, doctor, to find me such a kind nurse. I must have died
last night, if some one had not come to help me. Giles is a dear good
fellow, but he is clumsy when it comes to sickness, like most other
men.”
Nell walked into the room at this moment, and her dark eyes had a
wistful entreaty in them as she looked at the doctor. She was mutely
begging that he would not betray her just yet, and everything that was
chivalrous under that rugged exterior responded to the appeal.
“I am glad you like the nurse,” he said, with a nod of encouragement to
Nell, who stood where the woman on the bed could not see her. “I was
very worried myself when I found that Miss Lorimer could not come as she
had promised, but Miss—Miss——Let me see, what did you say your name
was?” And he jerked his head in Nell’s direction.
“Hamblyn—Eleanor Hamblyn,” she answered, in a low tone.
“Well, Miss Hamblyn has come at the right time to save your life, and if
you will pay attention and do as she says, without doubt you will soon
be well again,” Dr. Shaw said, talking now in a dictatorial fashion,
which meant that he was to be obeyed to the smallest detail.
“If she tells me to lie in bed and not worry, I’ll do that, thankful
enough,” Mrs. Munson replied, with a feeble laugh. Then she closed her
eyes, and lay as if asleep, while the doctor talked to Nell.
“I shall not come over again for three days; Mrs. Munson won’t need it,
and I’m badly wanted in other directions. Are you able to stay on and
take care of her until she is better?” he asked, with a sharp look at
Nell, whom he had beckoned to follow him to the other room, so that the
sick woman might not be disturbed.
“Oh yes; I can stay if you think they won’t mind having me,” she
faltered. “But I came without being asked, you know.”
“You came in the very nick of time, too. And as to your staying—well,
it is Mrs. Munson and Giles Bailey who are in your debt, not you in
theirs. Mrs. Munson will need careful nursing for the next few days, for
she is very low down; but with care she’ll do very well. Are you used to
sick folks, eh?” And again his sharp glance seemed as if it would read
her thoughts.
But Nell looked at him with honest, unembarrassed eyes which disarmed
all suspicion.
“Father was sick for a long time before he died; but that was years ago.
Since then I’ve only had dogs and horses to nurse when they weren’t
well, for nothing ever ailed granfer.”
“Except in temper, I suppose. I know the sort,” he said, with a grim
laugh at his own joke; then he asked quickly, “Is your mother dead too?”
“Yes. She died when I was a little girl,” Nell replied. Then she asked,
after a moment of hesitation, “Will you please tell me about the other
girl—Miss Lorimer, I mean—and why she did not come?”
“She ought to have come, or let me know that she couldn’t do as she had
promised,” the doctor said, with a frown. “But, seeing what trouble they
are in, it is not wonderful she lost her head and forgot. She is
Gertrude Lorimer, the eldest of Abe Lorimer’s children. Two of her
brothers, bright promising boys, were buried last Sunday. I had to go to
Lorimer’s Clearing the day before yesterday, and I asked Gertrude if she
could come and take care of Mrs. Munson for a few days, and she promised
that she would come over yesterday morning, so I rested easy in my mind
about my patient. But, to my dismay, when I got to Lorimer’s Clearing
this morning, I found that Mrs. Lorimer had been taken ill yesterday,
and was in bed, and that Gertrude had simply forgotten all about her
promise to come here.”
“Poor girl!” murmured Nell, sympathetically.
The doctor frowned, shook his head, but finally relented enough to admit
that Gertrude was deserving of some little pity, even although she had
forgotten her promise.
“I will admit that I should not have found it easy to forgive her, if
Mrs. Munson had died from want of nursing. On the other hand, if she had
sent me word, I don’t know where I could have found a woman who could be
spared to come here for the work.”
“You ought to be grateful to her for not letting you know then, because
now you have not had to worry about it so long,” Nell said, smiling, as
she prepared a hasty meal for the doctor.
But he was not disposed to admit so much, and shook his head a great
deal while he ate his lunch. He talked to Nell in a cheerful, friendly
fashion, but asked her no more questions about herself, rightly divining
that there was trouble behind, of which she did not find it easy to
speak. He was fearful, too, of scaring her away from a place where she
was so badly needed, so he took pains to reassure her.
When he was ready to go, she brought Dobbin from the barn for him; then,
as he was mounting, she asked, with wistful inquiry in her tone—
“Can you tell me, please, how far it is from here to the Canadian
border?”
He looked down at her with a friendly smile. “Nine or ten miles. Why do
you want to know?”
“I am going there when Mrs. Munson has done with me,” she answered
quietly.
“Going there? Where? It is a rather large order, don’t you know, to say
you are going to Canada, because, you see, it is so big.”
“I don’t know where, but I shall be sure to find work, shan’t I? Granfer
said there was work for everyone in Canada,” she said, a little
anxiously.
“Humph! well, I suppose there is, only the trouble is that people won’t
always do it. However, I don’t fancy there will be much trouble in your
case, either in the getting or the doing, when you come over the border;
and if you can’t get work, I will ask Mrs. Shaw to find you some if you
come to Nine Springs.”
“Nine Springs? What a pretty name! Is that where you live? If I can’t
get work, I will come, but I shan’t trouble you if I can help it,” Nell
said, while a bright flush of excitement kept coming and going in her
cheeks because of the kindness which was being shown to her by this
stranger.
“What sort of work can you do—I mean what sort do you like best?” the
doctor asked.
Nell’s brow clouded. “Oh, I like everything; but I don’t know how to do
any except rough work, what everyone can do, I mean.”
“If you like everything, and are willing to work, you won’t be long in
finding your vocation, I fancy. Meanwhile take care of Mrs. Munson, and
in three days I will come again,” he said, with a kindly nod. Then he
rode through the gate which Nell opened for him, and he was soon out of
sight round the bend in the trail.
Nell walked back to the house in a thoughtful mood; her fancy was busy
with that other girl who had promised to come, but had forgotten through
stress of other things.
“Suppose she had come, what should I have done?” she murmured with a
sudden catch of her breath, for her plight had been a very desperate
one; then, because she was by nature unselfish, she quickly thought of
the other side of the question, “What would Mrs. Munson have done if no
one had come?”
As she paused on the threshold, looking round at the glory of the
outdoor world before entering the house, some words of her dead father,
spoken in the last days of his life, came into her mind.
“We are all a part of God’s great plan, and there is a niche for every
one of us to fill, so let us see that neither by discontent nor fear we
spoil the Creator’s purpose concerning us.”
CHAPTER VIII
Moved on
THE next three days were filled with much hard work, heavy nursing, and
considerable anxiety for Nell.
Mrs. Munson was slowly mending, but now that she was on the high-road to
recovery, she was quite positive that she was on the point of dying, and
harassed her long-suffering nurse accordingly.
Since his aunt was getting better, Giles Bailey was able to turn his
attention to the outdoor work, which had been neglected before Nell’s
arrival, and he was abroad in his fields from dawn to dark, only coming
into the house to eat and to sleep.
This was a great comfort to Nell, who felt she could easily have too
much of his society, for on the brief occasions when he was in the
house, he would sit with his chubby round face propped on one hand,
silently gazing at her, until she became so nervous that she did not
know what to do with herself.
It never occurred to her that his silent gazing was prompted by deep
admiration for her active movements and resourceful ways, or she would
have been more uncomfortable still. But, as it was, she was thankful his
farm work kept him so busy that it left him scanty leisure for sitting
in the house.
The day before Nell expected the doctor to pay his second visit, she had
a scare which made her heart beat furiously.
She was looking out of the window in the afternoon, thinking how she
would love to go berry-gathering in the forest, if she could have left
her invalid, when a man on horseback rode in at the gate shutting off
the forest trail, and she instantly recognized him to be Joe Gunnage,
who had come to live on Blue Bird Ridge.
Giles Bailey, who was in the yard, came up and spoke to the man, and
talked to him for perhaps ten minutes; then, without dismounting, Joe
Gunnage rode back by the way he had come, and Giles came on towards the
house with news writ large across his fat round face.
Nell fled at his approach, taking refuge in the sick-room, where she
dropped into a chair on the far side of the bed, and, picking up a
half-darned stocking, worked away as if her whole attention were
absorbed in the effort to get the holes filled in with the utmost
dispatch.
Mrs. Munson was sitting up in bed, propped up with pillows and swathed
in shawls, for the day was cool, with a brisk wind blowing.
“It’ll be a warning to me if I pull through this, Miss Hamblyn, not to
let Giles get so short of socks and stockings,” she was saying, in a
plaintive tone. “It always seemed so prudent and economical to be just
doing with the three pairs, two off and one on, but a fit of sickness is
a regular eye-opener, I can tell you, and the poor lad would have gone
barefoot in a few days more if it had not been for you.”
“I say, aunt, here is news! May I come in? But I mustn’t stay more than
two minutes, for I’ve left the hosses hitched to the field gate, and
there ain’t much telling what mischief they will be up to if I ain’t
there to look after ’em. Whom do you think I’ve been talking to here,
just outside the window?”
“Not the President, I suppose, though I don’t know as you could look
more bursting with news if it had been him and half the senators from
Washington to keep him company,” Mrs. Munson replied, in a caustic
manner.
Her manner to her nephew was, as a rule, severely repressive. She
believed that he, in common with all other young people, required a
great deal of keeping in order.
“It was Joe Gunnage as we used to know at Lewisville ever so long ago,
and he has come to live at Blue Bird Ridge,” said Giles, taking off his
straw hat and rumpling his hair wildly, which had the effect of making
him look more foolish than before.
“Where’s that? I can’t remember that I’ve ever heard of the place,” Mrs.
Munson said feebly, for she was very weak still, and neither able to
speak nor think with her accustomed vigour.
“Why, you remember the Lone House on the long trail, where old Doss
Umpey used to live!” exclaimed Giles.
Mrs. Munson gave a start of surprise, but Nell sat like a figure carved
in stone—only her needle moved in and out of the stocking with a
mechanical, almost unconscious, action.
“If you’d said the Lone House, I should have knowed before; but Joe
Gunnage won’t be such a very near neighbour, for it’s a good thirty
miles from here, I should say. What has become of Doss Umpey? Is he
dead?”
“No; he has had to flit in a hurry, that’s all. It’s the inside of a
prison he ought to see, only Joe says it’s doubtful whether they’ll
catch him, because he’s such a slippery old rascal,” Giles remarked,
with an air of such intense enjoyment, that Nell, writhing in her secret
shame and misery, felt that she hated him.
“Oh! Has he been doing anything fresh, or was it the old business up
again?” Mrs. Munson asked, with eager interest.
“A bit of both so far as I could make out. It seems that Brunsen has
been talking a good deal, and that has stirred the police up. Then Joe
has been grubbing out a hole at the back of the Lone House, and he has
come on some things as had best be reported to the border police; that
is what made him ride this way.”
“Why didn’t you ask him to come in and see me?” demanded Mrs. Munson.
“I did; but when I told him you were sick with fever, he said he’d
rather not, for it was hard enough for well folks to get on at the Lone
House, but sick ones would have no sort of a chance at all.”
“That Joe Gunnage always were a regular downright coward,” replied Mrs.
Munson, with a snort of disgust. Then she lay back on her pillows,
looking so white and spent with the brief excitement, that Nell nodded
an emphatic command to Giles to go away and leave the invalid quiet.
In her own heart a storm of fear and misery was raging. What was this
old business connected with her grandfather and the man named Brunsen,
about which Giles Bailey and his aunt talked so glibly? Was there some
law-breaking connected with his life, concerning which she knew nothing?
A vague unreasoning terror seized upon her then, and she quailed at
heart as nothing had ever made her quail before.
Ever since she could remember she had had to face hard, grinding
poverty, but there had been no shame in that. The father whose memory
she cherished so fondly had been a preacher, a scholar, and a gentleman;
and although Doss Umpey had been none of these, she had always supposed
him to be a straight man according to his lights.
How intensely thankful she felt that she had so carefully hidden the
secret of her identity from these people, among whom she had been flung
by accident! Of course, the fact might leak out yet; indeed, it must, if
Joe Gunnage called at the farm on his way back from the frontier.
Then she thought of the strange manner in which her secret had been so
far protected. Both Giles and his aunt had at first supposed her to be
Gertrude Lorimer, the other girl; then when the doctor came and
explained why the other girl had not been able to come, they had still
looked upon the stranger nurse as having come from the neighbourhood of
Nine Springs, some one sent by the doctor.
“If only I can get away from here quickly, and hide myself in some place
where no one has ever heard of Doss Umpey or the Lone House on the long
trail, how thankful I shall be!” Nell exclaimed to herself, and little
thought how hard she was to find the task of escaping from this
unenviable notoriety.
When Dr. Shaw appeared on the next day, he was greatly pleased with Mrs.
Munson’s progress, and said so many complimentary things about Nell,
that her cheeks flamed and burned at the unaccustomed praise.
“How is the other girl, if you please?” she asked shyly, when she
brought the doctor’s horse for him to mount.
“Gertrude Lorimer? Oh, I was there to-day, and I don’t like the look of
her. I never saw a girl who tried harder to do what was expected of her,
and to rise to the needs of the occasion; but she hasn’t got it in her,
and she can’t do it. Mrs. Lorimer is in bed, and her husband ought to
be; the boy Patsey has got a bad chill and is in bed too. Those children
will go bathing when they are hot, in the icy cold springs on the
clearing, and they always are getting chills,” he answered, with a
disapproving shake of his head, and was about to ride away. But Nell had
not done with him yet.
“Could you—would you mind looking round for some work for me to do?
Mrs. Munson will soon be well enough to spare me now, and I have nowhere
to go. I am very strong, and I can do outdoor work, or anything rough,”
she said, flushing from sheer nervousness, lest he should ask her
questions difficult to answer.
“I will see what I can do. Don’t they treat you kindly here?” he asked,
with a jerk of his head towards the house.
“Oh yes; it isn’t that. But I came without being asked, and so, as soon
as I can be spared, I would rather move on. Can’t you see that I must?”
she said earnestly.
He laughed at this; then said in a graver tone, “Well, have patience
until I come again; I shall be this way in a week, I dare say.
Meanwhile, I will talk to Mrs. Shaw, and we will see what can be done
for you. In any case, you can’t be spared from here until Mrs. Munson is
able to leave her bed, you know.”
“That won’t be very long, for she talks of getting up to-morrow,” Nell
replied, drawing down the corners of her mouth, for she was clear
sighted enough to see that Mrs. Munson, able to get about the house,
would be a person to be reckoned with.
“Ah, I shouldn’t be surprised if she does, for she is one of the very
tough sort. You must humour her as much as possible, and she will get
better all the sooner.”
Nell went back to the house with a flutter of hope at her heart. Perhaps
when the doctor came again he would be able to tell her of some one in
need of a strong girl who was rather ignorant. Her thirst for knowledge
of all sorts made her value her own attainments at a very low figure,
although in reality she was not nearly so ignorant in matters domestic
as she supposed.
The next morning she commenced a very thorough cleaning of the
farmhouse. Starting with the loft where Giles slept, she routed out the
dust, scrubbing and scouring with such zeal and energy that Mrs. Munson
held up her hands in amazement, and the silent Mr. Bailey stared at her
more admiringly than ever.
When the house had been cleaned to her mind, and the clothes all washed,
she made a great batch of bread, and was taking the last loaf from the
oven when the doctor arrived, two days before he was expected.
He was not riding this time, but driving Dobbin in a high two-wheeled
cart, very light and strong, as indeed any vehicle would need to be that
was used on those forest trails.
Mrs. Munson was sitting in a rocking-chair by the stove, giving Nell a
great deal of advice on the baking of bread. But she held up her hands
in dismay at the sight of the doctor, and exclaimed about the length of
the bill which she would have to pay.
“You have no need to trouble yourself on that score, Mrs. Munson; I have
not come to see you this morning, but to fetch Miss Hamblyn away,” he
said gravely.
“What for?” demanded the invalid, in surprise, her tone resentful,
although an hour before she had been quietly planning to get rid of her
nurse as soon as possible, because it cost more to keep three people
than two.
“Because some one needs her even more than you do now,” he replied. Then
turning to Nell, who was standing mute with surprise, he went on, “I
have been over to Lorimer’s Clearing this morning, and find they are in
a terrible plight. Mrs. Lorimer is still in bed and unable to move,
although she is suffering more from the shock of losing her sons than
anything else. Abe Lorimer is ill this morning, only just able to creep
from one room to another, and Gertrude, poor child, can’t lift her head
from her pillow. There isn’t a soul to do anything except Flossie, the
little lame girl, and she has the baby to look after. Will you go and
help them, as you have helped Mrs. Munson?”
“Thank you; yes, I shall be pleased to go,” replied Nell, with a radiant
face, for her heart was strangely stirred to think that it was the other
girl whom she was going to help. Numberless were the fancies she had
cherished concerning that other girl, and she had greatly longed to see
her.
“I don’t know how I shall get on without you,” Mrs. Munson said, in a
grudging tone; and the radiance on Nell’s face faded out.
“I think you can manage now, if you don’t try to do too much,” she said
gently. “The house is all clean, you know; the washing is done up, and
I’ve baked enough bread to last a week.”
“I’ll have to do, I suppose, since you are so set on going, though Giles
will seem but a clumsy cook after you.”
“Go and get your bonnet on, and pack your things; I can’t wait more than
half an hour, and if you’ve got more than one trunk, you will have to
leave it behind,” Dr. Shaw said, with a nod of kindly dismissal to Nell.
She disappeared into Mrs. Munson’s room, donned her blue merino dress
and the bonnet with the pink roses; then, because there was a stiff
breeze blowing, and she was hot from her labours at bread-making, she
flung the black silk cape with the bead trimming round her shoulders,
and fairly held her breath with awe at the grandeur of her own
appearance.
A little sigh escaped her because her shoes were so worn, but they were
very black and shiny, which hid their shabbiness a little.
When her toilet was completed, she took up her bundle and went back to
the outer room, where Dr. Shaw sat talking to Mrs. Munson.
“Well, of all the surprising things! Why, what made you turn yourself
into such an old woman?” he asked, with a disapproving look at the
bonnet and cloak, which were better fitted in point of age for Mrs.
Munson.
“Don’t I look right? I’m very sorry, but I haven’t got anything else to
wear,” Nell said; then added, with a ripple of laughter, “But perhaps
the folks will like me all the better if I look old. They will think I’m
the more able to do things.”
“They will soon find that out without any telling,” the doctor said, as
he pushed back his chair and rose to go.
Mrs. Munson, who had all this time been fumbling with a yellow canvas
money-bag now asked, in a rather acid tone—
“How much am I in your debt, Miss Hamblyn, for the work you’ve done?”
An astonished look came into Nell’s dark eyes, and she answered
impulsively—
“Why, you are not in my debt at all, of course; and I am very much
obliged to you for letting me stay.”
“That is all nonsense!” broke in the doctor, as he shook his head at
Nell. “You must give Miss Hamblyn what you think fit, Mrs. Munson. She
has got her living to earn, and cannot afford to do her work for
nothing.”
“She has had her living, and good living too, for we don’t stint food in
this house,” Mrs. Munson said grudgingly, for she was very much disposed
to take Nell’s view of the matter, and restore the yellow canvas bag to
her pocket with its contents undisturbed.
But this the doctor would not permit. “Something you must pay, Mrs.
Munson, if only as a thank-offering, for, remember, it is the nursing
you have had which has saved your life,” he said, sticking to his point
with so much pertinacity that in the end Mrs. Munson produced two
dollars from the yellow bag, which she bestowed upon Nell with the air
of one who confers a very great favour indeed.
“It will help towards buying you a pair of boots, and it won’t be before
you need them either,” she said, in such pointed allusion to the worn
state of Nell’s footgear that the poor girl crimsoned with
mortification.
“Now that little ceremony is over, we will be moving,” said the doctor,
with an air of relief.
And in a very few minutes more Nell had taken leave of Mrs. Munson, and,
with her bundle, was mounting the step of the doctor’s high two-wheeled
cart.
Giles Bailey came up just as they were driving off, and protested
vigorously against Nell being spirited away in such a hurried fashion.
But the doctor only laughed at him. “If you are so anxious to provide
your aunt with a permanent nurse and helper, friend Giles, you should
get married, and bring your wife home to look after things.”
“She’d have a rather bad time of it, I’m afraid, shut up with aunt and
me,” he replied stolidly, and, as usual, staring hard at Nell.
“I’m afraid she would,” commented the doctor. Then he told Dobbin to
start; so the journey was commenced, and Nell was moved on further into
the wide world.
“I did not like to take that two dollars, but it is lovely to have some
money of my own,” she said, drawing deep breaths of satisfaction, as the
cart swayed and bumped over the inequalities of the trail.
“What! had you no money at all?” demanded the doctor, in a shocked tone.
“Not of my own. I have got thirty dollars with me, but it isn’t mine,”
she answered.
“Why have you got it, then?” he asked bluntly.
“I found it after the person had gone away to whom it belongs; and I
can’t send it to him, because I don’t know where he is,” she replied,
with disarming candour.
“I suppose, then, you feel entitled to keep it. Quite a lucky find for
you,” he said, darting a sharp glance at her, which made her flush in a
hot, uncomfortable fashion.
“Of course I should not keep what is not my own,” she answered, with a
gentle dignity. “I might have been forced to borrow a little of it if I
had been compelled to pay for my board at Mrs. Munson’s, but now there
will be no need to touch it.”
“I hope not,” said the doctor, gravely; then he began talking about
different things, showing Nell the big boulders of ironstone which stood
up among the tree growths like the ruins of some ancient castle. “The
Indians have a legend about those rocks,” he said. “When the frontier
was decided upon, the two nations agreed to build a wall, twice the
height of a man, from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic, and they
started here, where material was abundant. But the wind spirit and the
water spirit arose in their might, beating down the puny beginnings of
the great undertaking, and killing those who had planned it.”
CHAPTER IX
A Friend in Need
DR. SHAW put Nell down at the gate of the house at Lorimer’s Clearing,
but he did not stay to take her in and introduce her, because a man had
stopped him five minutes before, begging him to go to an urgent case two
miles in another direction.
“That is what comes of being a doctor; a man is the servant of every
one, and has not a moment to call his own,” he grumbled, as he urged his
horse to a better pace.
“But it must be lovely to help people, and to know how to do things,”
Nell said, with a sigh of envy.
“Oh, ignorance is bliss sometimes, I can assure you,” he answered, with
a laugh. Then, having arrived at the gate, he got down and helped her to
dismount with more courtesy than he was in the habit of showing towards
the people who shared his rides.
A bad fit of shyness seized upon Nell as she passed through the gate and
walked up to the house.
It was years since she had approached so grand a residence. There were
white curtains to the windows, and plants growing in bright red pots,
while the door was painted green and the door-frame white.
She stood hesitating a moment, wondering if there were not some humbler
entrance at which she could apply for admission, when from the open
window came the sound of a child’s wailing cry, and then a pain-wrung
voice in fretful complaint.
“Oh, Flossie, do take baby up and keep him quiet, my head is so bad!”
“I will as soon as I can, but I’ve got to take Patsey some broth, and it
is such hard work to carry baby about with me,” a tired little voice
answered meekly.
Nell drew a quick breath and straightway forgot her shyness. She even
forgot to knock at the door, but, pushing it open, marched into the
house, dumped her bundle on the nearest chair, and whisking off the
black silk cape, said cheerfully—
“I will take the broth to Patsey if you show me which room, then you can
look after baby until I come back again.”
The small lame girl, who was warming broth in a saucepan at the stove,
faced round in amazement, while a girl lying on the settle by the
window, covered up in a rug, lifted her head from the cushion with a
start of surprise, and even the baby in the cradle in the corner left
off wailing, attracted by the nodding pink roses in the new-comer’s
old-fashioned bonnet.
But Nell had no idea of the attention she had attracted. Elbowing the
lame girl gently aside, she got possession of the saucepan, and having
decided that the broth was warm enough, poured it into the basin which
stood on the table, then said brightly—
“Now show me where Patsey is, or can I find him myself?”
“He is in there,” answered Flossie, pointing a small, rather grimy
finger in the direction of an open door at the end of the room; then she
added with a gasp, “But he doesn’t like strangers.”
“Oh, he will like me,” replied Nell, in a confident tone, making the
pink roses nod up and down as she nodded her head; then, carrying the
broth, she walked across the kitchen and into the room where Patsey, a
freckled-faced boy of twelve years old, was lying in bed.
“Who are you?” he asked in great surprise, attracted as the baby had
been by the pink roses which adorned the stranger’s bonnet.
“Oh, just now I’m the broth-woman, and you’ve got to sit up in bed and
drink it every drop. Then I may change into the bed-making woman—that
is, if any one wants to have a bed made, and after that—well, you just
see about drinking this broth, while I think about what I will be next,”
she said coaxingly, reading signs of rebellion in Patsey’s eye.
“I don’t like broth,” he whined.
“Call it soup, then, and you know every one likes soup,” she said, with
a low merry laugh.
He sat up in bed without further demur, and commenced on the broth,
taking it with slow reluctance as if he had no appetite. Then his eyes
suddenly brightened, and he exclaimed—
“I know who you are; you are Mrs. Munson’s fairy that Dr. Shaw talked
about, and he said he was going to borrow you to come and help us until
we all get better.”
Nell coloured high with pleasure, because of the good reputation which
had preceded her; then she said laughingly—
“Well, if I’m a fairy, you will have to make haste and get better before
I have to go. There are not many flowers left, you know, and the leaves
are falling fast, so when they are all gone the fairies have to go too.”
“Where do they go?” demanded Patsey, wrinkling his freckled face into a
grin of amusement.
“I don’t know; that is one of the things I shall have to find out. Lie
down now, laddie, and I will come back presently to make your bed, only
first of all I want to see what I can do for your sister.”
Carrying the empty basin back to the other room, Nell found the girl who
had been lying down was sitting up, and holding by one hand to the
table.
“Don’t you think that you would feel better if you were in bed?” she
asked, in a pitiful tone.
“I dare say I should, but I daren’t give up, because there’s no one else
to do anything, except poor little Flossie, and she is lame,” the girl
said, lifting her pale face and heavy eyes to look at Nell with wistful
entreaty.
“I can do the work now I’ve come. Flossie will show me where to find
things, or I can ask Patsey to tell me. He is getting better, by the
look of him, and he took all his broth,” Nell said, as she untied and
laid aside her bonnet. Then she pulled an apron from her bundle of
clothes, and, having tied it on, proceeded to roll up her sleeves in
readiness for work.
“It would be lovely to lie down and have no care. I think it is the
worry of everything that has made me bad,” said the poor white-faced
girl.
“Worry always makes people sick, if they have too much of it,” rejoined
Nell. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, she asked, “You are the other
girl, ain’t you?”
“What do you mean?” inquired Gertrude, in surprise.
“I mean, you are the girl who was to have gone and stayed with Mrs.
Munson, and didn’t,” explained Nell.
Gertrude frowned, then said, in a petulant tone, “Oh, why am I to be
reminded of that miserable business at every turn? Surely other people
forget sometimes; and just think what our troubles have been of late!”
“Please forgive me, I did not mean to make you cross. I only wanted to
say ‘thank you,’ because you did forget, and so left room for me,” said
Nell, in a contrite tone.
“I’m cross all the time now,” admitted Gertrude. “But I can’t help it,
and oh, I am so glad you have come; only I’m afraid you won’t be
comfortable, and I don’t know where you can sleep.”
“Don’t trouble about me, and it isn’t bedtime yet. Just let me make you
comfortable, and then I’ll go and see what I can do for your mother; she
is sick, too, isn’t she?”
“Yes. Poor mother! she is just broken-hearted about losing Percy and
Arthur, and it makes her seem as if she doesn’t care about anything
else,” Gertrude said, with quivering lips.
Nell helped her to get to bed, waiting upon her with so much
understanding and skill that Gertrude exclaimed presently, in amazed
wonder—
“How kind you are! Where did you learn it all?”
“I don’t know. But I am so sorry for you,” replied Nell, looking rather
abashed, but speaking with such evident sincerity, that Gertrude began
to think there was some good left in life after all, and a ray of hope
stole into her heart.
“Go to mother now, will you, please? I think father is lying down in
there too; but you won’t mind, will you? It will be such a comfort to
them to know that some one has come to help us.”
Nell went off then to the darkened room at the end of the house, where
the mother lay sick with misery and broken hopes. It was such a grand
chamber, too, with a flowery paper on the walls, a flowery carpet on the
floor, and curtains to the bed, as well as the window. The new-comer
stood still on the threshold, quite amazed at so much magnificence, and
scarcely liking to walk across the carpet to the bed, through fear of
spoiling it with her worn old boots.
Abe Lorimer was not in bed, but sitting in a rocking-chair, looking very
ill and wretched.
“Come in,” he said, in his slow, quiet tones, looking at Nell with vague
curiosity, as if he wondered who she was, yet did not care very much
about the matter at all.
“Who’s that?” demanded a querulous voice from the bed.
Whereupon Nell ventured across the carpet on tiptoe, and stood where
Mrs. Lorimer could see her.
“If you please I’ve come to help,” she said, finding it difficult to
repress a shiver, for the woman on the bed reminded her in a roundabout
fashion of Mrs. Gunnage, and it was a reminder which brought no pleasure
with it.
“Who are you?” asked Mrs. Lorimer, surveying Nell with measuring eyes,
which took in every detail of her appearance, from the masses of dark,
rather untidy hair crowning her head, down to the worn boots, which were
her private mortification just then.
“Dr. Shaw brought me over from Mrs. Munson’s place, on the American
side,” explained Nell, who was so secretly elated with having realized
her ambition in having crossed the frontier, that some of it had to come
out in her speech.
“You can stay and help a bit, if Gertrude likes to have you. Have you
seen her?” asked Mrs. Lorimer.
“Yes; I’ve just put her to bed. She is ill. I’m afraid she has got the
fever, the same as Mrs. Munson had,” Nell said gravely, deciding, with
quick intuition, that Mrs. Lorimer needed rousing more than medicine.
“Gertrude bad! Whatever shall we do? Abe, do you hear, or can’t you
rouse yourself?” she said, lifting herself on her pillow to look at the
man, who sat leaning back in the rocking-chair.
“Hush! don’t bother him, he looks so bad,” Nell whispered. “Do you
think, if I made the other room comfortable, you could get up for an
hour or two and sit by the fire? I could manage the others so much
better if you were up. There would be nothing for you to do, only to
lean back in a rocking-chair and be comfortable.”
“I don’t know if I could sit up. I’ll try. Oh dear! there never seems
any chance for me to be ill in peace,” sighed the poor harassed woman,
then shed a rain of self-pitying tears.
Nell did not stay to condole with her, but hurried back to the family
sitting-room, where Flossie was doing her best with the baby, a lusty
young gentleman of sixteen or seventeen months, while another boy, of
perhaps four or five years, had just come in from somewhere with some
hens’ eggs in a basket, which he held up in triumph for his sister to
see.
“Oh, Teddy, what a nice lot! Where did you find them?” cried Flossie,
excitedly.
But Teddy, overawed by the sight of a stranger, merely put his finger in
his mouth, drooped his head shyly to one side, and said nothing.
The sun was shining so brightly that Nell had a sudden inspiration.
“Have you a little cart to draw the baby about in? Wouldn’t you like to
go out in the sunshine for awhile, dear?” she asked. Then, struck by the
paleness of Flossie’s face, she added hastily, “Or are you too tired?”
“I’m not too tired to go out; I’d love to go, but won’t you want me to
help?” Flossie asked wistfully.
So much help had been required from her lately that life had become a
rather wearisome business.
“I think I can manage. Don’t go out of sight of the door, then I can
call you if I want to know anything,” Nell said, as she wrapped Master
Baby in the first shawl which came handy, while Teddy ran to bring the
little cart, which had served all the young Lorimers in turn.
For the next hour Nell was as busy as she could be. She swept and tidied
the sitting-room, and put the fire into cheerful burning order; then,
wrapping Mrs. Lorimer in a few loose easy garments, she helped her out
to the sitting-room, and put her into the most comfortable chair by the
fire. That done, she went back to the bedroom, made the bed, and tried
to persuade Abe to lie down upon it.
But he only shook his head, saying that he would rather be left alone,
so she had to go away hoping that he would change his mind later.
There was much to be done with such a houseful of invalids, and the day
wore to evening without Nell realizing how time had flown. Then the
hired man, who had been helping Abe Lorimer since the deaths of the two
boys, came in for the pail before going to milk the cows, and she at
once applied to him for help.
“Mr. Lorimer is ill. I can’t persuade him to go to bed, and every hour
he is staying up now will make a day’s difference in his getting better,
only of course he’s too sick to know that, or he’d get into bed as
quickly as he could. Can’t you go and persuade him? You might even help
him to undress.”
The hired man, who was fresh out from England, and had been an assistant
in a chemist’s shop before coming West as a farm labourer, promised to
do what he could, and disappeared into the bedroom. Nell shuddered to
think of his heavy, dirty boots on that flowery carpet, but there was no
help for it, for she had not liked to ask him to remove them, and he
probably had not thought anything about the matter.
He was a long time gone, and when he came back, he announced that he had
succeeded in getting Mr. Lorimer into bed, but believed him to be very
ill indeed.
“Some one ought to sit up with him to-night,” said the young man, as he
took the pail and went out to milk the cows.
“I wonder what we shall do?” said Nell to Flossie, when later the little
girl came in with the baby, while Teddy dragged the baby-cart away to
the wood-shed. “Does the hired man sleep in the house? What is his name?
And is he any good?”
“What a lot of questions! I can’t answer them all at a gulp,” Flossie
said, with a quavering laugh. “His name is George Miller, he sleeps in
the loft, and he is so kind that I just love him,” she cried with
enthusiasm, but added, with a grave shake of her head, “I’m afraid he
does not know much about farm work.”
“What he doesn’t know he will have to find out then, somehow,” Nell said
rather grimly, for she did not know much of farm work herself; and she
could have wept because of her own ignorance, as she looked about the
house and the dairy, and thought of all the work which wanted doing, but
must, for the present, be neglected, because of her want of knowledge.
“But I can tell George lots of things, and mother can tell him too,”
Flossie said confidently. Then she showed Nell how to get the separator
ready for the evening milk to be passed through, told her where the
cream would have to go, and generally instructed her in the first
principles of dairy management.
Mrs. Lorimer was much better that evening, and declared herself quite
equal to looking after her husband through the night, which was a great
comfort to them all.
George Miller went off early to his night’s rest in the loft, after
volunteering to sit up if he were needed, and when he was gone, Nell was
able to make her arrangements for the night.
There were only two downstairs bedrooms at Lorimer’s; but there was a
small, very smart best parlour, and in this a bed had been placed, on
which Gertrude was lying.
Nell fairly held her breath when she had leisure to examine the
splendours of this apartment, which, however, had a close fusty smell
that half choked her, accustomed as she was to fresh air in unlimited
quantities. There was a looking-glass over the mantel-shelf which was
festooned with green tissue paper. Stiffly starched antimacassars hung
over every chair-back, one table had a bright red cloth, and another had
a green one, while the vases on the mantelpiece were blue. It was very
grand, of course; but, on the whole, she felt more at home in the family
sitting-room, which was also dining-room, kitchen, and scullery rolled
into one.
Gertrude’s bed stood against the wall on the side farthest from the
window, and by pushing the table with the green cloth farther into the
corner, Nell decided that she could get a very good night’s rest lying
on the rug in the middle of the room, and could look after Gertrude at
the same time.
Flossie and the baby slept for that night in a bed standing in Patsey’s
room, while Teddy curled down in Patsey’s bed, sleeping all night rolled
up in a tight little ball like a kitten. Nell went in to look at them
once or twice, and was so charmed with their peaceful sleeping faces
that she could have lingered looking, forgetful of her own need of rest.
But Gertrude’s moaning drew her back each time she went away, and kept
her awake a great part of the night as well.
“So many children, I can’t take care of them all; so much work, mother,
I can’t get it done!” muttered the sick girl, over and over, as the
weary hours went by, until at last, despairing of sleep, Nell rose from
her hard bed on the floor, and sat down on one of the smart chairs to
wait for daylight, when active work must begin again.
“Dear, dear, poor girl; how it all must have worried her!” said Nell to
herself, as she listened to Gertrude’s distressful plaint. “Now, I
should just love to have a lot of people of my own like this. If only
the four in the other room were my brothers and sister, I should be so
happy, that there would seem nothing in life left to wish for. What a
puzzle life is! Here is the other girl, broken down and sick, because
she has got too many helpless folks to look after, while I am just about
breaking my heart because I’ve no one to love or care for. I hope
they’ll be obliged to keep me here for ever so long, then I can
make-believe they are all my own people, especially Flossie and the
baby.”
Nell’s thoughts merged into dreams at this point, so slipping and
swaying, drooping forward and recovering herself, she dozed and waked,
then dozed again in fitful unrestful slumber, until the cocks began to
crow shrilly, and she heard George Miller, the hired man, come creeping
with slow, cautious steps down from the loft chamber overhead.
“Time to get up now,” she said to herself, with a little laugh of
amusement, as she rose from the chair and stretched her weary limbs;
then going out to the kitchen, she plunged her face into a bowl of cold
water, and so prepared for a day of toil.
CHAPTER X
To Fill the Breach
THE leaves had all fallen, and been hidden inches deep under the first
snow of the season; but Nell was still at Lorimer’s Clearing, working at
all sorts of tasks, and striving with all her might to lighten the heavy
burdens resting on the household.
Patsey was well again, and getting into mischief as often as possible.
But as he went to school every day, his opportunities for mischief at
home were rather limited.
Mrs. Lorimer was also well—at least she said so, but there was a
broken, crushed look about her, as if life had lost its zest and charm.
Very hard to please Nell found her, a grudging nature which would accept
service, but give no love in return; so silent, too, that whole days
would pass in which she spoke—only to complain.
The coming of the first snow found Abe Lorimer only able to leave his
bed and creep out to sit in the big chair by the stove, while Gertrude
was not even able to do that.
The doctor did not come very often. Mrs. Lorimer told him not to,
declaring that it was as much as they could do to buy food for such a
big household, without piling up a long doctor’s bill as well.
“But I should come all the same, if I thought there was any chance of
their pulling up any the quicker,” Dr. Shaw said confidentially to Nell.
“There are some cures that only Nature can work, and she is a very slow
physician. However, time does wonders, and Gertrude will be sound enough
again some day, but I have my doubts about the father.”
So Nell stayed on doing the work of the house while Mrs. Lorimer looked
after the invalids. Patsey slept with George Miller in the loft, so that
Nell could share the children’s room, but Gertrude still lay in the
smart best parlour.
Washing, baking, sweeping, scrubbing, the days passed like a dream to
Nell, and she was happier than she had been in all the years since her
father died. At last she had love enough to satisfy her, for the
children were devoted to her, and the big fat baby, who was so slow in
learning to walk, always preferring other people’s feet to his own, had
struck up a violent friendship with Nell, and thought there was no
pleasure in life equal to riding round on her back, while she swept,
dusted, and did many other similar household tasks with the child
clinging to her shoulders.
She would have been happy enough to stay on indefinitely, working for
her board, her only wages being love. But she was quick to see that Mrs.
Lorimer would be glad to get her out of the house, and as soon as
Gertrude could get up there would no longer be any excuse for her
remaining at Lorimer’s Clearing.
The thought of the future worried her a great deal in the quiet nights,
when the children were all sleeping round her, and she had nothing to do
save lie still puzzling out the problem which loomed every day so much
nearer to her.
It was dead of winter; the sickness which had been so prevalent in the
neighbourhood had entirely disappeared, with the exception of the two
cases at Lorimer’s Clearing. Nell had ventured to ask Dr. Shaw one day
if he knew of work which she could go to next, but he only shook his
head, and told her to be content where she was, for no one needed her so
badly as the Lorimers.
But she was very sensitive, and very proud too, and the thought of being
where she was not wanted made a misery for her which tormented all day
long.
At last Gertrude was able to leave her room, and to creep feebly about
the house. Then Mrs. Lorimer spoke plainly to Nell, not with the
thankful gratitude which she ought to have shown, but with the brutal
directness of one who has no consideration for anything outside her own
narrow circle of interest.
Nell had been out-of-doors, hanging the week’s wash up to dry, in a
cutting wind which rushed down from snow-covered mountain tops and
howled through the valleys. Coming in, numbed and trembling from
exposure to the bitter cold, she said, with a brave attempt at
cheerfulness—
“There! the hanging-out is done for this week, and I hope by the time
next Monday comes the weather will be warmer.”
“Perhaps you won’t be here then, so it won’t matter to you whether it is
cold or not,” Mrs. Lorimer said, going on with her sewing, and never
glancing at Nell, who turned very pale, and winced as if some one had
struck her a blow.
She was only pale for a moment, though; then her colour came back with a
rush, and she asked, in a tone which she vainly tried to keep steady—
“How soon do you wish me to go?”
Mrs. Lorimer looked up then, scanning the girl’s face with a cold gaze.
“You can suit yourself about that; I don’t mind whether it is this week
or next. I’m not denying that you’ve worked hard, and done your best for
us all round. But we have had heavy expenses since harvest, so even an
extra mouth to feed is a consideration, and I’m bound to cut down
expenses where I can.”
Nell drew a long breath and set her teeth hard, then turned away without
a word. But there was hot revolt in her heart all the same, and a wild
protest against the bitter injustice of Mrs. Lorimer’s treatment.
“Why won’t people be kind to me?” she moaned under her breath, as she
scrubbed out the children’s bedroom with the hot soapsuds left over from
washing, and a few salt tears blinded her eyes, then dropped on to the
wet floor.
Her grandfather had gone away, leaving her to face the world as best she
might. Mrs. Munson had been glad to get rid of her because of the
expense of her board, and now Mrs. Lorimer, for whom she had toiled so
hard, was simply telling her to go.
Nell caught her breath in a sudden sob, and then a pair of arms came
stealing round her neck, gripping her in such a loving hug that she was
nearly choked.
“Nell, dear Nell, I heard all that mother said just now, and it has made
me feel so bad that I don’t know what to do. But don’t judge her too
hardly, for the deaths of Percy and Arthur seem to have changed her
entirely. I have to keep telling myself that all the time, for very
often I am tempted to wonder if she has left off loving me,” said
Gertrude, whose face was pale and drawn, her eyes red with weeping.
Nell choked back another sob. “I wouldn’t mind so much if I had anywhere
else to go. But, being winter, it is hard to find work. There isn’t much
out-of-doors just now that a girl can do, and there are women enough
about here for all the indoor work, now that the sickness has all gone,”
she said, in a worried tone.
“You must not go—you must stay here with us,” answered Gertrude,
impulsively.
“I can’t—not a day longer than I can help, that is—for your mother
says my keep is a consideration; and oh, Gertrude, it is just awful to
be beholden to charity for your food!” Nell said vehemently; and then
she scrubbed a section of the floor with tremendous vigour.
Gertrude laughed in a weak, mirthless fashion. “Charity, did you say?
Why, Nell, has it never occurred to you how tremendously indebted we are
to you? Apart from the loving-kindness you have shown to us all, and
which no money could ever pay for, the actual work you have done should
have earned you a considerable salary anywhere else. Why, at Bratley,
where I am telegraph clerk, a woman would charge half a dollar a day,
and then not do half the work that you do. Oh, I know; and I will tell
mother just what I think about it all. I should have gone to her then,
and said just everything that was in my mind, only father came in,
looking so worn and sad that I had no heart nor courage left to make a
scene.”
“Gertrude, don’t say anything to her at all about it,” implored Nell,
whose misery had been effectually routed by this sweet sympathy and
championship. “I don’t mind half so much now I know that you feel sorry
I’ve got to go. Only, just at first, it seemed as if nobody cared what
became of me, and I felt so dreadfully lonely and outside of
everything.”
“Poor Nell! and yet you are not outside at all, if only you knew it,”
murmured Gertrude. Then, after a moment of hesitation, she went on, “I’m
going to tell you something now that seems too sacred to put into
speech, only perhaps you will feel better if you know. Always, when I
was lying in bed in the parlour, I could hear what any one was saying in
father’s room, and every night when he was keeping his bed too, I could
hear him saying his prayers. You know what a quiet, slow-of-speech man
he is—but when he is praying it is so different—and it became a
positive comfort to me to hear him. He used to pray for us all by name,
and every night he thanked God for having sent you to help us, and he
used to pray so earnestly for you that you might be repaid for your
goodness, and that your future might be taken care of, that I am quite
sure you won’t be left unprovided for; and if you do go away, it will be
to take higher and better work.”
A glow of happiness came into Nell’s face, the trouble of Mrs. Lorimer’s
unkindness faded into an unimportant detail, and she said cheerfully—
“Well, I shan’t trouble anymore about it to-day, and by to-morrow,
perhaps, things will look different, or I shall see better about what
I’ve got to do next.”
But, as it happened, before to-morrow came, she found what it was she
could do next, and it came about in this wise. When Patsey came home
from school that afternoon he brought with him a letter for Gertrude,
which filled her with consternation.
It was from her deputy at the Bratley depot, who wrote that she could
hold the post for only two weeks longer, as she had been offered a
clerkship in Nelson, a permanent post with a good salary.
“Oh, mother, do you think I could get strong enough in a fortnight to go
back to work?” cried Gertrude, dismayed at the thought of losing her
position at Bratley.
“I don’t think anything about it, for I know you can’t,” Mrs. Lorimer
replied gloomily.
“Oh dear, what shall I do? Every one says the Bratley clerks are sure of
promotion, and I had such a clean record, too; now I shall have to
resign, and all my previous work and waiting will go for nothing.”
Nell, who was busy at the stove with preparations for supper, turned
quickly with an eager question—
“Could I fill the place for you, do you think?”
“But you don’t know anything about telegraphy,” interposed Mrs. Lorimer.
“I do, a little. For four months before father died, after he was too
ill to preach, we boarded with Mrs. Chapman, at Poll’s End. Their
daughter Sally was the depot operator, and she taught me a lot; I could
send and receive messages for her, and I often used to be in her office
for hours alone, while she went walking with her friends,” Nell said, a
little breathlessly, while she looked from Mrs. Lorimer to Gertrude, and
then back again.
“Oh, mother, if only it could be done, how happy I should be!” exclaimed
Gertrude, with clasped hands, and an eager look in her eyes.
“I should think it might; there is a fortnight yet, you see, and you
could spend that time in coaching Nell up. If she is as quick at
telegraphy as she is at other things, she is bound to do.” And as she
spoke, Mrs. Lorimer turned to Nell with a strangely softened glance.
“Then I’ll write to-day to say that I will send another deputy in two
weeks’ time, and Nell can stay at Bratley until the doctor says that I
may go back to my work again,” Gertrude said gleefully.
That night, when Nell was in the dairy doing the last of her work for
the evening, Mrs. Lorimer came softly in and stood beside her as she
wiped down the shelves, and cleared away the empty pans.
“Nell, will you forgive me for telling you to go this morning?” she said
slowly, her voice quivering in spite of her efforts to keep it steady.
“Why, yes, of course,” said Nell, quickly, adding, with a nervous laugh,
“I had been so happy here, with such a lot of folks to love, that it was
hard work even to think of tearing myself away, though I would have gone
sooner if I could have found anywhere to go, or if I had known that I
was not needed here.”
Mrs. Lorimer put a shaking hand on her arm. “I’ve had a black, bitter
mood on me for a long while past, and I’ve said and done things that a
happier person might well be ashamed of. But it took your generous offer
to fill Gertrude’s place at Bratley to make me see how really mean I
was.”
“Don’t talk about it any more, please; it hurts me,” whispered Nell,
turning rather pale, for there was a look in Mrs. Lorimer’s face which
frightened her.
“It had better be said out now and done with, then there will be no need
to put it into words again. I haven’t been fair to you in my mind ever
since you came, and yet at every turn you have given me good for evil.
That is what has made me come to you now to say straight out that I’ve
been wrong, and to ask forgiveness.”
Nell dropped her dish-cloth, and, with a sudden impulse, put her arms
round the cold, unresponsive woman in an affectionate hug.
“You are not to say another word, do you hear? Or, if you do,
I’ll—I’ll—let me see, what will I do? Oh, I’ll go to bed before my
work is done, and I won’t learn to be a telegraph operator, so there!”
The effect of these threats was rather diminished by the merry laugh
that accompanied them.
There was an unwonted moisture in Mrs. Lorimer’s eyes as she turned
away. She was not a woman given to tears, or to laughter, or to any
other sort of emotion, but there were strange depths in her character
that few people even guessed at, and Nell’s forbearance and generosity
had moved her mightily.
They were busy days which followed. Nell rose early, and worked at
household tasks until Gertrude was able to leave her room. Then the two
spent a couple of hours busy with rule books and a dummy sounder. It
might have been as puzzling as Greek to Nell but for her remembrance of
the instruction given her by Sally Chapman. Young as she was, she had
been quite a skilful operator then, and it took only a little effort to
bring it all back.
One day, before the fortnight was up, Abe Lorimer took her over to Nine
Springs in the morning, and left her there until the evening, in the
telegraph office at the depot, where the operator, a merry-faced girl of
twenty, let her send and receive the messages as they came in, telling
her that, with practice, she would make a very good operator indeed.
It was raining fast when Abe Lorimer drove to Nine Springs to fetch her
home that night, while the melting snow gave a raw coldness to the
atmosphere that was dismal and depressing.
But Nell was too happy for the weather to have any effect upon her, and
it seemed to her, as the horses splashed along through the mud and the
slush, that she had nothing in the world left to wish for, unless,
indeed, it was, that she might be able to restore to Mr. Bronson the
thirty dollars which lay such a heavy burden upon her heart.
Her own two dollars, which Mrs. Munson had given her, had gone to buy
her a pair of boots. But Abe Lorimer had given her five dollars that
morning, so she had money of her own again.
There had been additions to her wardrobe, too, which filled her with
profound satisfaction. A long brown coat of Gertrude’s had been bestowed
upon her, and Mrs. Lorimer, who was clever with her needle, had made a
little brown cloth cap to match it; while Patsey had shot a pheasant in
the top pasture, bringing home the wings as a special adornment for the
brown hat.
The black silk cape had been made into a blouse for best occasions, the
blue merino had been altered into a more youthful shape, and Nell
surveyed her improved appearance in the looking-glass with an amazement
which was comical in the extreme.
“Oh, what a difference clothes do make!” she exclaimed. “It isn’t only
the outside look of them, it is the inside feel. I’m not Nell any more
when I’ve these things on; I’m Eleanor Hamblyn, or perhaps Miss Hamblyn,
which is grander still.”
“What nonsense! You will always be Nell to us, even if you are dressed
up in silk velvet and diamonds, with lace frills,” laughed Gertrude, who
had been assisting at the transformation scene. Then she asked gently,
“Haven’t you ever had pretty, or even suitable, clothes before?”
“I don’t know; I suppose not, or at least, I never looked pretty in
them. You see, my mother died when I was so very small, and my father
did not know much about clothes, though everyone said he preached
beautiful sermons.”
“But afterwards—for you say your father died ever so long ago—wasn’t
there anyone to see that you had a nice frock once in a while?” Gertrude
persisted, with natural girlish curiosity about Nell’s past.
“It was worse and worse afterwards; for granfer not merely didn’t know
about what sort of clothes a girl ought to wear, he didn’t care,” she
answered bitterly. Then she abruptly changed the conversation, for,
mindful of her grandfather’s caution, she never talked of her life at
the Lone House, and was extremely reticent upon the subject of her
immediate past.
She often thought of Joe Gunnage’s errand to fetch the Canadian police
to inspect the find at the Lone House. But she had not dared to ask any
questions, or set on foot inquiries concerning it, through fear lest it
should in any way harm her grandfather.
So she hid the past as carefully as she could, comforting herself that
now she was on Canadian soil she was safe from any reminders of that old
bad time. But it was only hidden, not forgotten, after all.
CHAPTER XI
The Recognition of Mrs. Nichols
NELL stepped off the little platform at the rear of the cars with a
dazed sensation of utter unreality all about her.
Only once before, since she could remember, had she ridden in a train,
and that was more than a year before her father died.
Now it seemed to her that she had been whirling along for days,
weeks—or was it years since Abe Lorimer had put her on the cars at Nine
Springs?
“This morning, of course, at nine o’clock, and now it is nearly four
o’clock; and oh, I wonder if the baby misses me very much, and what they
are all doing at home?” she sighed to herself, feeling strangely
desolate and forlorn, as she stood beside the small box containing her
belongings, and looked at the towering hills and gloomy pine-clothed
slopes about Bratley.
Then a stout woman, with a shawl over her head, came through a small
wicket gate by the side of the track, and, advancing straight towards
Nell, asked in a rather wheezy tone—
“Are you Miss Lorimer’s new deputy?”
“Yes,” replied Nell, with a sudden terror lest she should be found
wanting in some unexpected place, and the fear made her feel for the
moment like an interloper, or an impostor, until she remembered the
words of the merry, good-natured operator at Nine Springs; then her
courage came back, and she was able to smile at Mrs. Nichols, whom she
recognized by her appalling squint, according to the description given
by Gertrude.
“Well, I’m Mrs. Nichols. You’ve got to board with me, and I’ll make you
as comfortable as I can, though, between you and me, I’m getting more
than a little tired of deputies, and I’d give a good deal to have Miss
Lorimer back again, bless her kind little heart. How is she now, poor
lamb?”
“She is getting stronger every day now, and the doctor says she will be
able to come back directly the winter is over,” Nell replied cheerfully.
Now there was some one to greet her, she did not feel quite so desolate
and forlorn.
“Well, it ain’t over yet by a long way,” sighed the stout woman, “and I
can only hope you will not be so faddy in your food as the deputy who is
leaving. What I’ve had to bear with that young woman’s appetite these
weeks past no one but myself can ever understand. She can’t, or she
won’t, eat potatoes, nor turnips, nor carrots; she turns up her snubby
nose at leek pie and Irish stew, and as for a bit of pudding, she won’t
touch it. All her cry is for new-laid eggs, bread and butter, toasted
cheese, and such like. Just think what that means to a poor widow woman,
with butter at twenty-five cents a pound, and new-laid eggs at five
cents apiece.”
“As dear as that, are they? Well, it is good for the people that have
got them to sell, but we will live on potatoes, Irish stews, and that
sort of thing, until butter and eggs get cheaper,” replied Nell, with a
smile.
“Ah, you are one of Miss Lorimer’s sort, I can see, only you have got a
stronger will and more purpose. But you can’t have a kinder heart; I
will say that for her. But come along, my dear, and I will get you a
nice early cup of tea, for you must want it after a long day of knocking
about on the cars,” said Mrs. Nichols, who was a fairly shrewd reader of
human nature, and had taken the measure of Nell’s stronger character at
the first glance.
“Is this the office? Would you mind if I went in and had a look round
first? I’m not very hungry, but I do want to get used to things, and the
other deputy goes away to-night, I believe,” said Nell, who was in
secret terribly afraid of her new responsibilities, and anxious to
reassure herself on the subject of her own capability.
“Yes, that is the office, and Miss Simpson goes away by the
eight-o’clock cars, and the office shuts down then for the night,”
explained Mrs. Nichols.
“Would you mind, then, if I didn’t come in until after eight o’clock? I
want to have as much time to get used to things as I can,” Nell said
nervously.
“Do just as you like, my dear. I might as well step in and introduce you
to Miss Simpson, then she will treat you properly. Let me see, what is
your name—Miss Hammond?”
“No; Hamblyn, Eleanor Hamblyn,” explained Nell; whereat a puzzled look
came over the face of Mrs. Nichols, and she treated Nell to a look of
the keenest scrutiny, then marched into the dingy little telegraph
office, and promptly introduced her to the dyspeptic-looking girl who
had been acting as Gertrude’s deputy for so long.
Miss Simpson chose to be very affable, greeted Nell warmly, and declared
herself utterly thankful that she was going to leave a dead-alive hole
like Bratley.
“I never saw such a place; not a solitary individual to talk to, except
the miners that go backwards and forwards to Camp’s Gulch and Roseneath,
and they are a mixed lot, I can tell you,” Miss Simpson said, with a
toss of her head, and an air of knowing a great deal on all sorts of
subjects.
“But the work, is that very heavy?” asked Nell, who was not interested
in this aspect of the drawbacks of Bratley. “I mean, does it come with a
great rush at certain times of the day?”
“Oh no, there is never a rush of any sort; I wish there were, if only
for the sake of keeping one in practice. I’m a twenty-five-word operator
myself, and ought to have been promoted long ago, instead of which I
have just had to hang round, doing deputy work while waiting for my
chance. An eighteen-word operator would manage very well here; what do
you scale?”
“I can do twenty words comfortably,” replied Nell, modestly; then added,
with deprecating candour, “but I’m not on the list yet, so I can only do
deputy work.”
“Get yourself put on the list, then, the very first time the inspector
comes this way; he’ll be glad enough to get a twenty-word operator, I
can tell you, for some of the beginners are a fearfully slow lot.”
Nell began to feel reassured, and when, a few minutes later, the
clicking call of the sounder gave warning of a message coming, she took
her place at the table and wrote the words down as they came through.
“Stop Roseneath cars for twenty minutes; supplies on to Camp’s
Gulch got wrong.”
“What does it mean?” asked Nell, in a bewildered tone, as she stared at
the message she had written down.
“You’ve got to stop the cars, of course; run, or you will be too late,”
said Miss Simpson, pointing to the door with a hasty gesture.
Nell made haste to obey, returning five minutes later very much out of
breath, and rather curious concerning the message.
“Did it mean that the supplies for Camp’s Gulch had got on to the
Roseneath cars by mistake? or what did it mean?” she asked, panting
still from the haste she had made.
“I don’t know, and as it is not my business, I don’t care,” returned
Miss Simpson, languidly.
“But I care; I want to know what everything means, or else how can I do
my work properly?” Nell asked, with an inflection of dismay in her tone.
“Oh, a few months’ work as an operator will soon cure you of any
tendency to curiosity, and take away some of your superfluous energy as
well,” replied Miss Simpson, with a superior air. “But here comes
another message; look sharp!”
Nell turned to the sounder, writing down the words as the machine ticked
them out, and when the message was all through, she heaved a great sigh
of relief.
“There is my mystery explained, and I am so very glad,” she said, with a
laugh.
The conductor of the Roseneath train came into the office at this
moment, anxious to know why his train had been prevented from starting,
and she read the message to him.
“Three cases tinned meats, four boxes marked fragile, seven bags
rice, all marked W. H. P., put on Roseneath train here by
mistake.”
“I said it was a mistake when they were put on, only no one would
believe me,” said the conductor, wrathfully, as he turned to go and take
the misladen freight from his cars, shouting loudly for the baggage
clerk to come and help him, and so shorten the delay in starting.
But the baggage clerk, who was also pointsman and a good many other
things as well, had already gone off to some other duty, and was not
available.
“I will help you,” said Nell, impulsively, running after the harassed
conductor, who was fuming and irritable with the delay.
He stared at her for a moment in astonishment; then his face cleared as
if by magic.
“Thank you, miss; it will make five minutes’ difference, perhaps more,
and it all counts in the day’s work,” he said. But he lifted his hat to
her with a ready chivalry that showed he respected her none the less for
her offer of help.
Five minutes of really hustling work, then the packages were all off the
train, the whistle sounded, and the cars moved off towards Roseneath,
just as the baggage clerk came running back to see what was amiss.
Nell explained the situation to him, putting the freight in his care for
loading on to the next Camp’s Gulch cars, then returned to the office,
very warm and rather untidy from that spirited wrestling with rice bags
and boxes marked “fragile.”
“Oh, how could you do such a thing?” cried Miss Simpson, holding up her
hands in horror.
“There was no one else to help, and it didn’t hurt me, only I’m rather
dusty,” Nell said, with a rueful look at her brown coat.
“The cars might have waited until to-morrow morning before I would have
soiled my fingers by helping to take off freight. Such a fearfully
unladylike thing to do,” rejoined Miss Simpson, severely, pursing her
thin lips, and looking very prim and proper.
“Was it unladylike?” asked Nell, opening her eyes very widely. “I’m very
sorry; but, if the same thing happened again, I expect I should do just
the same.”
“I expect you would. Some people are made so,” rejoined Miss Simpson,
slightingly. Then, with a change of tone, she said briskly, “As you are
here and settled in so comfortably, there is no reason why I shouldn’t
go off duty at once. I shall have time to dress myself nicely before the
cars come in.”
Nell looked a little blank. She had expected to have Miss Simpson’s help
all the evening, especially as her own actual coming on duty was not
supposed to begin until the next morning. However, it was of no use to
protest, as the young lady had so plainly made up her mind to do no more
work at Bratley.
The evening was a busy one. So many calls from the instrument, some of
which had to be answered, others merely going through to other places.
Nell’s breakfast, and the luncheon she had taken on the cars, had become
dim memories, and she was feeling tired and faint when, about six
o’clock, Mrs. Nichols came puffing and wheezing into the office, laden
with a basket and a small tin can.
“Feelin’ half starved, ain’t you? If not, you ought to by this time. A
burning shame, I call it, to leave you here in charge, while she is
curling and frizzing her front hair, and you with no chance to feed
comfortably all day, while your duty properly doesn’t begin until
to-morrow morning. But I’ve brought you a drop of tea and a doughnut, so
that you shan’t starve outright before supper.”
“It is very kind of you,” said Nell, gratefully, as she sipped her tea
and nibbled the doughnut. Then, remembering a problem which had been
bothering her several times that evening, she said rather anxiously,
“Now that you are here, will you tell me how I am to find your house? It
will be quite dark at eight o’clock, for the moon does not rise until
nearly midnight.”
“I’ll come and fetch you myself. It is lucky that the weather is frosty
to-day, or a nice time I should have had of it tramping through the mud.
There is that telegraph again. What a nuisance the thing is!” Mrs.
Nichols said, as the warning machine ticked out its third summons while
Nell drank her tea.
“There is a clerk at Lytton who seems to find time hang heavy on her
hands to-night, for she keeps calling me up, and asking me if I won’t
talk; but I don’t know what to say to her,” replied Nell.
“Tell her so, then, and she will soon leave off. Well, I must go now and
see if Miss Simpson is through with her frizzing and curling. If she
goes on torturing her poor hair like this for another ten years she
won’t have any left;” and away went Mrs. Nichols, puffing and wheezing
like a laden locomotive on an up-grade track.
“I wonder why she stares at me so much?” Nell said to herself, when the
stout woman had gone, for the scrutiny of Mrs. Nichols had been very
close and keen, making her feel vaguely uncomfortable.
Just then there was a call from the sounder. Nell had to take down a
list of instructions from Camp’s Gulch, then send a message to
Roseneath. After that Lytton called her up again, and so the evening
went on.
Ten minutes before the cars for Lytton came in, Miss Simpson sailed into
the office in all the glory of her frizzed hair, her best hat, and smart
new winter coat.
“Thought I’d just look in and see how you are getting on, though it is
rather a shame to come and make you envious,” she said, with a laugh at
her own wit.
“Why envious?” asked Nell, simply, thinking the envy was to be called
forth by the splendours of Miss Simpson’s array.
“Because I’m going away, of course, and you have got to stay on here in
this dull hole. Wait until this time next week and see if you don’t find
yourself longing to be in my shoes.”
“Perhaps I shall if that tiresome Lytton girl keeps calling me up and
wanting to talk, only I’m afraid your shoes would pinch me rather badly,
they are so much smaller than mine,” Nell answered, with a merry laugh,
looking from her own stout footgear, bought from the store at Nine
Springs, and eminently suitable for country wear, to the high-heeled,
pointed-toed shoes with great steel buckles which Miss Simpson was
wearing.
“That isn’t a girl at Lytton; but Claude Hale, a friend of mine. I
didn’t tell him I was going away to-day, so, of course, he wonders why I
am so unresponsive. Pray don’t tell him I am gone, then he’ll be puzzled
to death at my coldness,” giggled Miss Simpson, in a high state of glee.
“I shall not tell him anything, but I hope he will soon leave off
worrying,” replied Nell; then, as the cars came rumbling down the
valley, she went to the door of her office to see Miss Simpson get on
board.
“If nothing is harder than to-night has been, I shall be able to manage
all right, and I will write to Gertrude to-morrow and tell her so,”
murmured Nell to herself, as she stood at the door watching the
retreating figure of Miss Simpson.
A wave of homesick longing came over her as, with a screech, a roar, and
a clatter, the train of cars moved on out of the station. Lorimer’s
Clearing was not her home, but it was the only place in the wide world
which had given her a home feeling, and she yearned to go back to the
toil and the drudgery, if only with these she could have the love which
had surrounded her there.
In her generous heart she had quite overlooked and forgotten Mrs.
Lorimer’s first hard treatment of her, and although it was quite
possible that she would never feel the same warm love for the mistress
of the house as she had felt for all the others, there was no danger of
her remembering, as a grudge, that Mrs. Lorimer had been unfair, nay,
positively unkind.
Punctually on the stroke of eight came puffing, wheezing Mrs. Nichols,
who subsided on the one chair which the office contained, to wait while
Nell shut everything up safely for the night.
Even in the pauses of her work she was conscious again of that same
close scrutiny which had bothered her so much before.
“Perhaps it is her way, or her squint,” she said to herself, with a
shrug, as she locked the office door and put the key in her pocket, then
plunged with her guide into the frosty dark.
The baggage clerk had taken her box earlier in the evening, and in a
very few minutes Nell found herself in a warm, cosy sitting-room, in
darkness at present save for a ruddy glow from the half-open door of the
stove.
“You stay right there while I light the lamp, then you won’t fall over
anything,” said Mrs. Nichols; and Nell did as she was told, feeling very
thankful that the long exciting day was over at last, and that she had
nothing more to do but to sit still and rest.
The lamp, when lighted, revealed a well-spread supper-table, and a most
inviting armchair, into which Nell was promptly hustled, and ordered to
take her boots off.
“What a nice room!” she exclaimed, her attention being immediately
attracted by a row of books on a long shelf in the farther recess.
“It is comfortable; but then, I’ve been used to being comfortable all my
life,” Mrs. Nichols said, with a laugh, as she poked up the fire, drew
the coffee-pot nearer to boil up again, and then, opening the oven door,
lifted out a dish of delicately-browned sausages, surrounded by a
rampart of mashed potato.
Nell enjoyed her supper, and the unaccustomed sensation of being waited
upon; but she was conscious all the time of being held in close scrutiny
by her hostess, who kept dropping into strange silence.
“You said your name was Eleanor Hamblyn, didn’t you? Was your father a
preacher on the American side years ago?” the good woman asked
presently.
“Yes,” replied Nell, but with a sudden shrinking, for with her
grandfather’s injunction to secrecy fresh in her mind, it was rather
embarrassing that this woman should recognize her.
“I was sure of it, for you are just your mother over again; poor Nell
Gwynne, with her great dark eyes and her sweet low voice,” said Mrs.
Nichols, then burst into a fit of hearty crying.
CHAPTER XII
Nell Learns her Family History
NELL jumped up in great consternation at this unexpected emotion on the
part of her hostess.
“Oh, please, I am so sorry; but I think there is a mistake. My mother’s
name couldn’t have been Gwynne, because her father’s name was Humphrey,
Doss Umpey he always called himself.”
“Of course, of course, I knew I couldn’t be mistaken,” cried Mrs.
Nichols, with a gurgling gasp which threatened to choke her. “But your
mother’s name was Gwynne, my dear, though you might not have known it,
and Doss Umpey was not her father at all, but only her mother’s second
husband.”
“Are you sure, quite sure of that?” asked Nell, eagerly, going rather
white, and standing with one hand clutching at the mantelpiece, as if
she were afraid of falling.
“Quite sure, and I ought to know if any one did, seeing that I was your
mother’s greatest friend until she married the preacher, and went away
with him to her new home. She dropped her old friends a bit then—felt
she didn’t want any one but her husband, I expect, which is natural, but
not always wise.” And Mrs. Nichols heaved a heavy sigh.
“Tell me about my mother, please,” said Nell, her colour coming and
going, while she tried to realize what it would mean to her not to have
Doss Umpey for her grandfather.
“Your mother was a sweet, pretty creature, my dear, much prettier than
you, for she was plumper, and had more colour; but you’ve got her eyes
and her voice, and that brown hat and coat do suit you amazingly well.
Doss Umpey drove the stage then between George Creek and Mutley town,
and his wife—that was your grandmother—kept a store at Mutley with
Nell to help her.”
“Was mother called Nell too? Father spoke of her always as Eleanor,”
said Nell, doubtfully.
“I know he did, and I expect your husband, when you have one, will call
you Eleanor too, for it is a fine, stately name, well suited for
grown-up folks; but it isn’t fitted for children, so I suppose that is
why they don’t get called by it.”
“Was granfer kind to my mother?” asked Nell.
“I don’t think he was unkind; but your mother couldn’t bear him, and it
was when he tried to make her marry Dick Brunsen that she revolted
openly, and wouldn’t stay at the store when Doss came home, but always
used to come over and sleep at our house, where she met the preacher,
your father.”
“Dick Brunsen?” said Nell, faintly. She was thinking of the man who came
to the Lone House for succour the day that Pip got hurt, and who had
said that his name was Dick Bronson.
“Yes; Dick Brunsen was a widower with one child, a boy of five or six,
and he was called Dick too. Brunsen was very thick with Doss Umpey at
the time; they two and Ned Logan were inseparables, until that scandal
about robbing the stage, then, of course, Logan had to go to prison, and
the other two quarrelled, though, if strict justice had been done, the
three of them would have gone to penal servitude together.”
“Tell me about it,” murmured Nell; and there was a throb of pleasure at
her heart because Doss Umpey had been only stepfather to her mother.
“It was believed, only it couldn’t be proved, that Brunsen planned the
robberies, and paid Logan to carry them out, Doss Umpey being, of
course, a consenting party. This is how it was done. Brunsen, who lived
in a big house at Mutley, pretending to be a rich man, used to order all
sorts of expensive goods from the city to be paid for on delivery; then
they would be sent on from the depot at George Creek by the stage, and
always on those occasions the stage was held up and robbed when crossing
the iron plains, which was a desperately lonely bit of high ground
between George Creek and Mutley.”
“But didn’t any one suspect?” asked Nell.
“Naturally they did after the first time or two, but it was difficult to
get proof, for they could not catch the thieves, you see; but a watch
was set, and Logan was caught in the act, tried, convicted, and sent to
penal servitude. He died in prison, I believe, and did not give
information as to where he had hidden a lot of the stuff he had stolen,
and which Brunsen was, of course, anxious to get hold of, since he had
paid Logan to steal it for him. Then Brunsen forced Doss to give up
driving the stage. That was just about the time that your mother was
married, and her mother died a few months after.”
Nell nodded. “Yes, I know; I’ve heard father talk about that, because it
made mother so ill, and he used to do the cooking,” she said, with a
little laugh.
“I dare say he did, for Parson Hamblyn was a good husband, and a good
Christian, too. Ah, my dear, you have a lot to be thankful for in your
father, even though he was cut off, as it were, in his prime, and I dare
say you can’t remember much about him.”
“Oh, I remember a great deal; I was eleven when he died, and I was with
him so much, you know. We boarded with Mrs. Chapman at Lewisville then,
and he was ill so long.”
“I heard of his death, and that the child—that is, you—had been taken
by relatives, but I knew nothing beyond the bare facts. Who were the
relatives, child? Where have you been living since? And how did it come
about that you are here, doing deputy for that nice Miss Lorimer?”
Nell’s head dropped a little. It hurt her pride a great deal to have to
speak of those years she had spent at the Lone House on Blue Bird Ridge,
in the home of Doss Umpey.
“I’ve lived with granfer ever since; that is, until last fall,” she
said, in a low tone.
“With Doss Umpey? It isn’t possible, surely!” Mrs. Nichols held up her
hands in very real amazement. “Why, he was a horrid, vulgar old man, and
you are a lady, only your hands are so rough.”
Nell laughed. “I don’t think it matters whom you live with—if you can’t
help it, that is. Father meant me to stay with Mrs. Chapman until I was
old enough to earn my living, and he thought there would be enough money
to do it; but when he died it was found there wasn’t any. Then granfer
offered to take care of me, and so I had to go.”
“Where did you live?” asked Mrs. Nichols; but when Nell told her of the
isolated house in the wide forest, she held up her hands in fresh
dismay, declaring that such a life was too dreadful even to think about.
“I didn’t mind the loneliness so much, not after the first, for there
were mostly horses and dogs for company, but it did worry me because I
could not get to know things, and every year made it worse,” Nell said,
with a sigh, remembering her limitations.
“Where is Doss Umpey now—dead?” demanded Mrs. Nichols, with a sharper
note coming into her voice.
“He went away. I don’t know where he is now,” Nell replied briefly.
“Leaving you to shift for yourself?” cried the good woman, wrathfully.
“I have done very well, and learned a great many things—not
book-learning, you know; I have had no time for that, but perhaps I
shall have now. You have a fine lot of books here; would you mind if I
read them in the evenings and on Sundays?” she asked, with a wistful
look towards the shelf in the corner.
“You can take one with you to the office every day, to read in your
waiting spells. I’m only afraid that they’re not educating sort of
books, being mostly interesting reading. But here have I been talking,
talking, talking, and you so tired that you look fit to drop. Come away
to bed directly, child,” said Mrs. Nichols, getting up in a great hurry
on discovering how late it was.
“Shall I clear supper for you first?” asked Nell, who was unaccustomed
to be waited upon.
“Did any one ever hear the like? You are not my hired girl, remember,
but a young lady boarder; and I’ve got to make you comfortable, or
there’ll be ructions somewhere.” And Mrs. Nichols laughed at her own
cheerful wit, as she piloted Nell into the bedroom prepared for her.
Such a cosy, cheerful little chamber it was, with wooden walls, wooden
ceiling, and wooden floor; and there was a white curtain drawn over the
window, and a red-and-white spread on the bed.
Nell fell asleep directly her head touched the pillow, for she was just
worn out with the manifold excitements of the day, and she did not wake
again until Mrs. Nichols called her at half-past six o’clock the next
morning.
Snow had fallen during the night, and Nell had to wade ankle-deep
through the soft whiteness on her way to the depot; but it was only a
short distance, and she was vigorous from her long night of deep,
untroubled slumber.
There was a new zest in her life this morning, which made all things
look different. Her limitations in the matters of training and education
were as apparent to her as ever; but a great burden had been taken from
her shoulders by the revelations of her hostess last night. It was
something to know that Doss Umpey was not her mother’s father, and that
she owed him neither love nor duty on the score of kinship. Some
gratitude might be due to him for those years in which he had given her
the semblance of a home; but Nell had quite sufficient common sense to
see that the old man would not have taken her if he had not seen that
she would be no expense to him, and he had not hesitated to leave her at
the mercy of the cold world when it suited his purpose to go into
hiding.
“But the past is past, and I’ll get on now,” she said to herself, in a
gleeful tone, as she raked out the ashes from the office stove and
kindled the fire. “I’ll get some education too, as soon as I can afford
to have lessons. Meanwhile I’ll just learn everything that comes my way,
and every little helps.”
Her heart was singing the same blithe song all the morning, while she
swept and dusted the office, which Miss Simpson had not troubled to
leave tidy on quitting the post.
“Every little helps,” she murmured, as she responded to insistent calls
from Lytton, from Camp’s Gulch, and Roseneath, sending back the proper
replies, or calling them up when she had tidings to send through.
It was a busy morning over the wires. Sometimes she became confused,
even a little uncertain of herself, in the strange newness of it all;
but on the whole she managed very well, her natural quickness and
adaptability standing her in good stead, while her determination to
succeed was a great factor in her success. Noon had passed before there
was a sufficient lull in the business of the day for her to find time
even to open the book which she had taken at random from Mrs. Nichols’s
bookshelf that morning.
But the rest of the day was comparatively easy. There were long spells
of quiet time in which she read peacefully, sitting in luxurious comfort
by the office fire.
The man in charge of the depot was elderly and taciturn, while the
baggage-clerk, owing to the varied character of his duties, was rarely
visible, save when the cars came in. But this state of things suited
Nell perfectly; and if she had not missed the Lorimer children so badly,
that first day at Bratley would have been marked in her memory as a
red-letter day, ushering in, as it did, a new era for her.
Her book was interesting, too, being a record of the growth and
greatness of the Dominion whose daughter she had become. So few new
books had come her way in these last six years, and she had previously
no knowledge of the big young land which, like some giant baby, was
stretching its limbs and making its influence felt among the weary old
nations of the world.
“I’d no idea books could be as interesting as that. It beats the
dictionary,” she said to herself, with a little laugh. “But perhaps if I
hadn’t been shut up to the dictionary first, I shouldn’t have been so
well able to understand other books now,” she added, as a conviction
came to her that perhaps those years at the Lone House had not been
quite lost, after all.
“Fond of reading, are you, miss? Would you like to see a paper?” asked
the conductor of the Roseneath cars, who had benefited by her kindly
offices on the previous day.
He had looked in at the half-open door as he passed Nell’s business
sanctum, and seeing her absorbed in a book, had sought, by the offer of
a paper, to show his appreciation of her helpful kindness.
“Thank you; I should like to see it,” she answered.
But just then came a call from Lytton, and she had to take down a lot of
instructions about the lading of some freight cars, which were to go
right through to New Westminster.
By the time this was done there came other demands on her attention, and
it was not until Mrs. Nichols had brought her tea and gone again that
Nell remembered the paper left for her by the friendly conductor.
For a time she sat turning it over, amused by the advertisements, and
wondering if the person offering boots and shoes at half their cost
price were a philanthropist or a rogue, but inclining strongly to the
latter view, even deciding in her own mind that he must have stolen the
goods, since he could afford to sell them so much under their value.
Then her attention was caught and held by a paragraph in an obscure
corner of the paper, and she sat staring at it for a long time with
frightened eyes, only recalled to the present and its needs by the loud
clicking call of the sounder.
Putting the paper aside with a quick movement of distaste, as if it were
something to be afraid of, she went to the sounder, and began, half
mechanically, to take down the message which was coming through.
It was a long message; but before it was half down on paper she had
become quite painfully alert, waiting for the next word with every sense
on the strain.
But for the paragraph in the paper it might have conveyed no meaning to
her. As it was, the whole fitted together with the accuracy of a child’s
puzzle, to which one has obtained the clue.
This was the paragraph—
“STRANGE FIND OF LONG-LOST PROPERTY.”
“A miscellaneous hoard of stolen goods has been unearthed at a
lonely house on some high ground, known as Blue Bird Ridge,
about forty miles from the frontier on the American side. The
find comprises, among other things, valuable watches, chains,
silver dishes, spoons, forks, and other articles for table use,
invoiced from tradesmen in Victoria, Vancouver Island, and also
from firms doing business in New Westminster. Apparently the
things have lain hidden for years, and were only discovered by
accident, the present occupier of the house, in excavating for a
root cellar, having brought to light the chest in which the
hoard was stored. It appears that the house was, until recently,
occupied by an old man and a young girl, both of whom have
mysteriously disappeared. The property was invoiced to a
gentleman living at Mutley, and must have been stolen _en
route_.”
So it was this find that Joe Gunnage was riding to acquaint the Canadian
police with, on the day when he halted at Mrs. Munson’s farm, but
refused to enter the house through fear of catching the fever. If he had
crossed the threshold and had seen Nell, it is very probable that he
would have reported her to the police also, when she might have found it
an extremely difficult and unpleasant task to establish her complete
innocence and ignorance of the whole business.
She felt quite sure that Doss Umpey knew nothing concerning the buried
treasure, or he would most certainly have dug it up and disposed of it.
Her thoughts went back to the story told by Mrs. Nichols, on the
previous evening, of the stolen things hidden by the man Logan, which no
one had been able to find, and she was wondering if this might not have
been the very hoard, when the sounder bell aroused her, and she had to
take down this message—
“Look out for stout, elderly man, dressed as miner, but has been
gentleman, talks with lisp, heavily marked smallpox, may be
accompanied by young man, his son, also gentleman, tall, fair,
good-looking, and an old man, grey-haired, bent, but very
active. The party are to be watched, and their movements
reported to the nearest police centre.”
Perhaps, if she had not heard the story told by Mrs. Nichols so
recently, and had not seen the newspaper paragraph just before taking
down the long telegraphic message, Nell would not have been able to
understand the whole situation so completely; even now there were blanks
that her imagination could not fill, but in the main the matter shaped
itself somehow after this fashion.
Brunsen, the elder, who had written the threatening letter to Doss
Umpey, which she had found at the Lone House, must have somehow come to
poverty or had to go into hiding. Perhaps this find at the Lone House
had had something to do with his downfall; or it might have been, in
betraying his old confederate to the police he had been implicated
himself, and so had to fly. With him would go his son, who was the child
of whom Mrs. Nichols had spoken.
Nell shivered as she thought of him. It was so dreadful that a pleasant
and courteous gentleman like the stranger who had come exhausted to the
Lone House, should be mixed up in trouble of this kind. Sometimes she
thought there must be a mistake somewhere, in the identity of that
exhausted stranger, and yet he fitted in to the story so completely that
there seemed no possibility of his being other than the son of R. D.
Brunsen.
The third man mentioned in the telegraphic message was, without doubt,
Doss Umpey himself, although why he should be on friendly terms with a
man who had systematically blackmailed him was a mystery that Nell’s
imagination could not fathom.
A great shrinking and fear came upon her, as she thought of the old man
coming into the neighbourhood and discovering where she was living. He
had deserted her, going off and leaving her destitute to get on as best
she could. But if he came back into her life now, it would be to drag
her down to his own level again, from the little height of
respectability to which she had so laboriously climbed.
What should she do? What could she do?
For a brief space, wild visions came to her of throwing up her work and
going off somewhere out of reach of any chance encounter with Doss
Umpey.
Then wiser thoughts prevailed. To begin with, she was in honour bound to
remain at her post for Gertrude’s sake; while to turn coward and run
away from duty could bring nothing but shame and trouble to her.
So she resolved to stay where she was, and not anticipate trouble. Only,
to no one could she speak of her knowledge; that must be a secret buried
in her own heart.
She showed the telegram to the people about the depot, as she was bound
to do, then hung it up on a nail in the office, for further reference if
required; but she hung another paper in front of it as if accidentally.
Then, folding the newspaper carefully, she put that away also, wishing
she could fold her knowledge away into forgetfulness likewise.
CHAPTER XIII
On the List
BUT for the secret care she carried, the weeks which followed Nell’s
coming to Bratley would have been the pleasantest she had ever known.
After the isolation of Blue Bird Ridge, Bratley Junction was quite a gay
and bustling place. It was true there were only about half a score of
houses, scattered about in the vicinity of the depot, and the trains
which went through were chiefly freight wagons or cars laden with
miners, on their way to or from the mines at Camp’s Gulch and Roseneath.
But there were life and movement; she saw faces and heard voices;
moreover, she was learning new things, and becoming every day more
conscious of the strength that was in her—the power to work, to think,
and to act as she had never done before.
At first the strangeness of having no hard drudging toil was very great,
but it soon wore off, the sooner perhaps because she worked so very hard
at the new duties which had come to fill her days, while her energy in
the acquirement of all sorts of knowledge appeared to increase with her
opportunities for learning.
By the time she had been at Bratley a month she had raised her time
qualification to twenty-two words a minute, and had been put on the list
of candidates for permanent posts by the inspector when he came his
round.
It was a nervous moment for Nell when the inspector walked into her
office one morning, accompanied by his assistant, for he was a big man
with a dictatorial manner, and her courage oozed out at her finger-tips
when he began to question her about her work, and to find fault with
some irregularity in transmission between her office and Roseneath,
concerning which complaints had been made at headquarters.
“The train men say that the trouble is owing to snow-laden branches of
some spruce trees, that grow near the track, resting on the wires. It is
only when there is fresh snow that we find irregularity,” Nell said
quietly, though inwardly she quaked from fear lest this much-dreaded
official should lay the blame on her, which would re-act upon Gertrude,
whose deputy she was.
“How far is this place?” asked the inspector.
“About two miles up the valley,” replied Nell, promptly.
The big man opened his notebook, consulted it carefully, then spoke in a
pleasanter tone.
“Yes; according to the reading of the galvanometer at Lytton, that would
be about the distance. Now, how am I to get there?”
“Some freight cars go up in about two hours,” suggested Nell.
He shook his head. “Too long to wait; anything else to suggest?”
“Snow-shoes, if you can use them; the snow is fairly firm to-day,” she
answered, with a look at the pair in the corner which the baggage-clerk
had hunted out for her recreation.
“The very thing. Do you know anything about snow-shoes?” asked the
inspector, turning to his assistant, a sickly-looking youth, who, like
Nell, was a deputy.
“I have seen them,” replied the lad, with a nervous look at the pair in
the corner.
“That is no answer. Can you use them?” asked the inspector, brusquely.
“I have never tried,” said the lad, in a tone of deprecating apology.
Then he coughed so long and badly, that all Nell’s pity was stirred on
his behalf.
“If your assistant could operate for me, I would go with you, sir; and I
can ask the baggage-clerk to find you a pair of snow-shoes,” she said
eagerly, for the prospect of a few miles’ run on snow-shoes was alluring
to her, after her long days of imprisonment in the warm, stuffy little
office.
The inspector’s face, which had been gathering a frown of portentous
blackness, instantly relaxed into a more genial expression.
“That will do very well. Robertson is quite capable of looking after
your office, but it is plain that he would be of no use at all on
snow-shoes. Can you be ready soon?”
“At once,” replied Nell, slipping on her coat and cap. Then, running
out, she found the baggage-clerk, and asked him to bring a pair of
snow-shoes for the inspector’s use.
In less than ten minutes they were off, speeding up the narrow valley by
the side of the Roseneath track, and before they had gone a quarter of a
mile, Nell found that she was by far the more expert on snow-shoes, and
exulted accordingly.
“I suppose you are a country girl, Miss Hamblyn?” remarked the
inspector, in a tone of query, as he succeeded in overhauling her again,
after she had stood still to permit him to overtake her.
“Yes, or I might not have known how to use snow-shoes at all,” she
replied, with a laugh. She was a little breathless from the sharp
exercise in the keen air, and her cheeks were flushed to a bright red
from the same cause.
“I would always rather have to do with young people brought up in the
country. It is not merely that physically they are more vigorous, but
mentally they have more grasp and capacity,” he said, as they went side
by side up a long slope, in a part of the valley which ran like a deep
crease between the wooded heights on either side.
“Town children have more advantages,” replied Nell, thinking of those
empty years on Blue Bird Ridge, when no part of her seemed to grow
except her body.
“Advantages, so called, are not everything, and sometimes one is better
off without them. Look at that assistant of mine, brought up in a town,
and coddled mentally and physically ever since he was born, the
consequence of which is that he has not a scrap of originality or even
initiative in his composition,” said the inspector, who had lost his
official majesty of bearing under the influence of vigorous exercise,
and was just simply genial and friendly.
“To me his great lack appeared to be in bodily strength, poor boy,” Nell
said, in a tone of pity.
“He certainly isn’t very fit,” remarked the inspector.
Then for a few minutes no conversation was possible, for, with Nell
going in front, they were speeding down a slope to a corner where the
track wound with a sharp curve round a great cliff of ironstone.
Tremendously valuable that cliff would be some day, for here and there
on the bare precipitous sides, the ore showed in great red stains and
patches.
The cutting running through this part of the valley was so narrow that
the telegraph wires had been carried over the cliff, and it was upon
this height that the interruption to proper transmission must have
occurred.
“It will be a stiff climb,” remarked the inspector, in a dubious tone.
“We had better go up that way; the trees are thinner, and we shall not
have to take off our snow-shoes so soon,” said Nell, pointing to an
opening which promised a long round.
The inspector followed her without a word, and presently, after ten
minutes of pretty stiff exertion, they found themselves on the top of
the cliff, with the railway track far below.
[Illustration: “NELL FOUND THAT SHE WAS BY FAR
THE MORE EXPERT ON SNOW-SHOES”]
But the telegraph wires were high above them, carried here on some dead
spruce trees of which the branches had been lopped clean away, leaving
only naked stems standing.
There were young trees growing beside these old dead stems, and their
snow-laden branches sagging downward had wrought the mischief on the
wires.
The inspector had brought a small handsaw with his other tools, and,
mounting the post, he speedily cut away the encumbrance, while Nell
watched him from below, dodging the debris as it came down.
“Another day of this kind of thing, and the wire would have been
broken,” said the inspector.
“Then no messages could have gone through, which would have been
awkward,” Nell remarked. She had been busy tying various articles to the
string which had been lowered by her companion for the purpose, thus
saving him the trouble and loss of time of a descent from his lofty
perch.
“No message could have been sent unless the two ends were held in
contact so that the current could pass. But if the wire were broken or
cut here, I could send without an instrument,” he replied. Being by
nature a teacher, and only by training an inspector, he instinctively
sowed information wherever the soil seemed fertile.
“Could you? How?” Nell’s face, as she stood looking up, was tense and
eager, so that, despite his official brusqueness, the inspector smiled
as he glan
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