CHAPTER VIII
ARCHIE’S PLAN
Agnes was right in charging Archie with doing a deal of thinking, for, ever since the meeting-house had become an assured fact, his yearning for the ministry had increased, and he thought of it day and night. In vain did he tell himself that his father needed him; in vain did he call himself unfit, that tugging at his heartstrings would not cease, and at last the lad took his trouble to the minister himself. “It is a call, lad,” said the good man, after he had heard Archie’s hesitating account of himself. “If there’s a way open to you, take it, for the laborers are few.”
“There’d be a way open if my grandfather knew,” said Archie, slowly. “He’s been aye ready to urge me to the step since I was a bit of a lad, and he would help me.”
“Then go and ask your father’s blessing and start forth, and may the Lord of Hosts go with you.”
Archie went home with so serious a face that his father noticed it as the boy came into the workshop and stood before him.
“What fashes ye, lad?” he asked. “Are ye in trouble?”
“No trouble now, father. I’ve been to see the meenister.”
“Ay, and what then?”
“He thinks I have a call. I’ve felt it this long while, and—father, shall I go?”
Joseph M’Clean was silent for a moment. Archie was the apple of his eye; to part from the lad would be such pain as he could scarcely bring himself to face; but the ministry—Like Abraham of old, if the Lord demanded the sacrifice, he was ready to give it, so on the altar of his affections he laid his first-born, saying in a broken voice, “The Lord be with you, my son; if it is his will, I cannot deny ye to Him.” And the undemonstrative Scot drew the boy close and folded his arms about him. “I’ll not deny it’s hard to part from ye, Archie, my lad,” he said in a shaking voice.
“But it’ll not be for always, father. I beeta to come back here, maybe.”
“Ay, maybe.”
“Grandfather will help me.”
“He will, and be proud to do it. He was ever at me to encourage ye in the notion. Ye’ll go straight to him, Archie, and tell him I sent ye. Now go tell your mither.”
Between her pride in the prospect of her boy’s becoming a minister and her sorrow at parting with him,Mrs. M’Clean had many tears to shed, but she said nothing to dissuade him from his purpose, and he went forth from her presence comforted.
It was of Agnes that he next thought, and that evening he took his way to her home. It was late when he reached there for the winter days were still short. A golden light gleamed coldly through the trees, and shone through the door striking Agnes’s auburn hair with a glory as she opened to the lad’s knock. “Ah, come in,” she said, pleased at sight of him. “I’m glad of company, for Polly is doing the milking, father and Mr. Willett are off hunting, and the bairns and I are all alone. Draw up by the fire.”
Archie followed her to the fireside and seated himself on the settle. He looked around the bare, homely little room, at the children playing about the floor, and lastly at Agnes herself. When would he be seeing all this again? What changes would take place before he should return to this country, raw and new and full of dangers and makeshifts? A lump arose in his throat, and he turned his eyes to the fire, gazing into its glowing centre till he should recover his speech.
Agnes felt that something unusual was in the wind. She watched him for a few minutes before she said, saucily, “You’ve lost your tongue, Archie, the little you have.”
He started and faced her, blurting out: “I’m going away. I’m going back to Carlisle.”
“Back to Carlisle?” Agnes looked at him wonderingly. “Oh, Archie, you will see mother and the bairns. I wish I were going with you.”
“I wish in my heart you were,” he said unsteadily. “Will you come there to me after a while, Agnes, if I don’t come back? I’m going to be a meenister.”
“A meenister!” Agnes broke into a laugh. “Then it was no joke when we called you the dominie.” Then her face clouded. “I’ll be missing you, Archie,” she said simply.
“Ah, will ye, Agnes? I’m fain glad to have ye say so. Couldn’t ye go back there now to your mother, you and your father?”
“Oh, no, no; we’ve come here and settled, and there will be enough for them now. Tell them so. I have written them, but who knows if they have the letter, and you will be going straight there, Archie. Tell them they can come now, they must come, and we’ll manage somehow. There’ll need to be more room, and oh, Archie, you’ll not be here to help us build.” The thought of this made the girl’s eyes moist, and she said again, “I’ll be missing ye sorely, Archie.”
“Then if ye’ll not go back now, I’ll come for you. There’ll be other meeting-houses needed as the country fills up, and other meenisters for them, and I’ll no stay in the east.” Archie spoke eagerly.
But Agnes had recovered herself; her emotion was not so very deep. “Don’t be too sure. One can’ttell what a year may bring forth,” she remarked sagely.
“Will ye make me the promise, then?”
“The promise?”
“To wait till I come for you.”
Agnes shook her head. “I’ll make no promises, lad. I’m too foolish a creature for a meenister’s wife.”
“But ye’re so young; ye’ll sober down.”
“I don’t want to.”
Archie’s face fell, but he persisted. “Ye’ll be thinking that way now, but after a bit it’ll come easy.”
“The promises of girls and boys are of no account,” said Agnes, with more perspicuity than one would have credited her with. “Didn’t you promise a year ago that when you were twenty-one you would build a home out here?”
Archie looked troubled. “Ay, but circumstances—”
“Yes, that’s just it; circumstances, and who knows what circumstances will come about in another year? I’ll make no promises till I see my mother again, that I told you before, and I keep to it.”
“Then,” said Archie, with a little smile, “it behooves me to send your mother to you.”
“Ah, but; and if you do that, I will be pleased.”
“Then I will try to please ye. Don’t you think I am right, Agnes?”
“To try to please me? Yes.”
“I meant to follow the meenistry.”
“I suppose so. Tell me all about it.”
At this invitation, and with a hope for her dear sympathy to carry away as a memory, Archie poured forth his heart.
Agnes listened soberly enough, but as he came to an end of his speech, she gave a little giggle.
Archie frowned. “What is so funny?”
“You in blacks.” Then seeing he took it to heart, she added: “Ah, but now Archie dear, you see how trifling I am. You’ll find some good serious girl at home there in Carlisle, and you’d better turn to her. I commend you to Ailsie Bell; she’d be that proud to be a meenister’s wife.”
Archie got up and strode across the floor with something like temper. “I want no Ailsie Bell. You’ve no heart at all, Agnes, and I am going away so soon—next week it will be.”
“So soon as that?” Agnes was serious now. “Maybe I’ll not be seeing you again.”
“Maybe not.”
“Ah, I’m sorry, I am, Archie, and I’d promise if I could, but I’m not staid and good enough for a meenister, and—”
“You’re good enough for me.”
“But I’d not be for the congregation, and I’d be scared of them, so—”
“I’ll not give you up,” said Archie, firmly. “I’ll come back when I’m in orders, and you’ll be older then, andit will seem a holy, noble life to you to help the sinful and suffering.”
Agnes looked overpowered by this burst of enthusiasm, and held down her head, looking very meek, but she saw it was not worth while to try to argue the question. She was sorry to lose Archie, and she raised her blue eyes to him wistfully as she said: “You’ll bear a letter to my mother, won’t you, Archie? I’ll write it and bring it to you, so I’ll see you again.”
Archie promised and then Polly came in, and though she laughed and joked about Archie’s plan, she was more impressed by it than Agnes was. He had suddenly acquired a new dignity in Polly’s eyes, and she treated him with a deference born of the thought that he might one day come back and bring her to task in the matter of her children’s knowledge of the Shorter Catechism, a matter which Polly was likely to pass over slightingly.
Agnes wrote her letter, pouring out her full heart to her mother, and telling her that she must delay her coming no longer. With the letter safely hidden in her jacket she took her way over to the M’Cleans’, where every one was full of preparations for Archie’s departure, and where he was so in demand by this and that one that Agnes had not a chance to make her good-bys till she started for home, when Archie declared his intention of walking part way with her.
They were both rather silent till it came to the moment of parting. Along the path through the quietwoods they had spoken of commonplace things, of the weather, of the news of the neighborhood, but at the parting of their paths, Archie stopped suddenly, and caught Agnes’s hands in his. “Ye like no other lad so well as me, Agnes; tell me that for my comfort.”
“I like no other lad half so well,” said Agnes, steadily, “and I shall, oh, I believe I shall greet for you, Archie, when I come home from meeting next Sabbath.” The tears were in her eyes as she spoke.
“It will be very different when I come back,” said Archie, “and maybe there’ll be no Agnes Kennedy to greet for me then,” he added, unsteadily.
“No Agnes Kennedy? Do you think I am going to die young?” Agnes’s voice was awe-stricken.
“No, but I may hear that you have changed your name.”
“Oh, is that all? You scared me, Archie.”
“And though ye care naught for any other lad, you’ll no be giving me that promise to wait for me? If ye would but do that, Agnes, I would go away a happier lad.”
“I cannot make that promise.” He was still holding her hands, but now she drew them away. “Suppose you should forget me, Archie, and should like another girl better than me, I would be sitting here sorrowing for you and you would never come, or suppose I should see some one I liked better, then it would be a grief to us both, for I should hold to my promise and I should be false in doing it.”
Archie looked at her wonderingly. “How wise a lass is,” he sighed, “so much wiser than lads are about such things. Then will you make this promise? If neither you nor I shall see another that shall be liked better, we will wed each other when I come back to you?”
Agnes considered this for some time before she answered, “Yes, I think that is not too much to promise, for we are then both free to do as we choose, and if it makes you any happier for me to say it, Archie, I will say it.”
Archie’s face brightened. “My dear lassie, you do not know what dreams I shall have of this last evening.”
Agnes shook her head. “You will always be dreaming, Archie, of one thing or another.”
He smiled and took her hands in his again. “Will you take the half of a broken sixpence, Agnes, as a token?”
“It is what they do in story-books, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and it is a sign between lovers.”
“And are we lovers?” Agnes asked the question most innocently, and Archie gave a little sigh.
“We will be lovers when I see you again,” he replied. “And will you write to me sometimes, Agnes, and will you keep the half sixpence? I have it here.” He produced the bits of broken coin from his leathern pouch and gave her one of the pieces.
“I will keep it.”
“And you will not forget your promise? Say it again, Agnes.”
“What shall I say?”
“If I see no one I like better than you, Archie M’Clean, before you come to claim me, I will be your wife.”
Agnes hesitated. “It sounds so solemn.”
“But you promised.”
“So I did. I will say it.” And she repeated the words with due seriousness.
“And when I see you again, Agnes Kennedy, I will claim you for my wife, and I will promise to be a true and loving husband.”
“Oh, but you didn’t say anything about the other girl that you may like better!” Agnes exclaimed.
“There will be no other,” returned Archie.
“All the same you must say it just as I did, or I shall not be satisfied.” And Archie was compelled to make the concession.
“You wouldn’t—you wouldn’t kiss me good-by, I suppose,” said Archie, awkwardly.
Agnes shook her head.
“But I may kiss your cheek?”
For answer she turned her soft rosy cheek toward him and he touched it lightly with his lips. The color flew to the girl’s very forehead, and she turned away quickly, saying, “Good-by for the last time, Archie; Imust hurry on.” She did not look back, but Archie stood gazing after her till she was out of sight.
Just before she reached the edge of the woods she met Parker Willett, who, with gun on shoulder, was coming along the river path.
He carried a bunch of partridges in his hand. Seeing the girl, he stopped and waited for her.
“It’s getting late,” Agnes greeted him by saying. “I’ve been over to the M’Cleans’. Archie is going to-morrow, and he will see my mother. Think of it, Mr. Willett. Ah me, if I could but go to her instead of the letter I sent.”
“Why didn’t you tell her to come to you?”
Agnes looked at him for a moment before she asked, “Would you have done it?”
“I think so. Yes, I am sure I would.”
“That’s what I did, then; but don’t tell Polly.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, because. You see Polly has made a home for us, and one cannot tell whether her husband will ever come back. Do you think he will?”
“I am afraid not.”
“That’s what all think but Polly, and you see the house is small, and there’s not room for all us if mother and the children come.”
“We can easily add more rooms or build another cabin if that is all.”
“Yes, but will there be enough for everybody?”
“No doubt we can manage. Have you any brothers?”
“Yes, and Sandy is a big boy now; he can help.”
“And your mother would give a hand, too, I know, from what you have told us of her. We want in this country willing, skilful, helpful workers more than anything else. It is easy to get food if there are those to help us raise and prepare it. So you’ll not starve, Nancy, when your mother comes.”
“You are very good to tell me that.” She looked up at him with a beaming face. “I think, after all,” she added after a pause, “that it was a providence that sent you to us. It would be nice,” she added after a moment’s reflection, “if you would marry Polly, and then she would be provided for.”
Her companion laughed. “But suppose, after all, her husband should return.”
“That would make a mess of it.” She looked him over thoughtfully. “Do you know,” she said suddenly, “now I come to think of it, I wonder why you don’t get married and have your own home.”
He smiled indulgently. “Because I like to stay with Polly and you,” he answered lightly.
“Is that it? No, I don’t believe it is exactly,” she said thoughtfully. “I believe at first you thought you had done us a wrong by trying to take our clearing from us, and you wanted to make up for it, and now you—you feel sorry for us and you are staying becauseyou know we need you. We do need you.” She nodded her head decidedly. “Everything has gone so well since you took hold, and soon we’ll be having as good a clearing as the M’Cleans’.”
The young man made no answer. She had followed his own thought, and he wondered that so thoughtless a little creature as she had always appeared to be should have so good an insight into his motives. “Agnes, how old are you?” he asked after a silence in which they kept the path together.
“I am sixteen. I shall be seventeen next spring.”
“And I am twenty-five.”
“That is quite old,” returned Agnes, dubiously. “I shall have been many years married when I am that old, I suppose.”
“Girls do marry young hereabouts, I have noticed. It is the need of homes, and the fact that it is not good for man to be alone. You’ll make a fine woman, I’m thinking.”
Agnes blushed at the unwonted praise. She had more than once been conscious that she was looked upon with critical eyes by this young man, and that it was often to her disadvantage that she appeared to him. If he thought she would make a fine woman, then maybe—She had just parted from Archie, and out of the fullness of her heart she spoke, “Do you think I’d ever make a proper wife for a minister?”
Her companion turned and looked at her sharply.The anxious little face in the evening’s glow looked wonderfully sweet and innocent. He read her thought. “No,” he answered shortly. Then he quickened his pace and strode on ahead of her, leaving her feeling half indignant, half overcome with humility.
They found Jerry Hunter established by the fireside, and Polly chaffing him and joining in his big laugh. Somehow, the boisterousness jarred on Agnes. She wished that she might be alone, or that it was her mother—her mother—who would be there to give her a gentle greeting, and who would listen so patiently and sympathetically to all her doubts and perplexities. Then her conscience smote her; for whatever her faults, who was kinder than Polly? Who more lenient, more ready to cheer and comfort? Even now as the girl entered, Polly’s eyes sought her, and the loud laugh upon her lips died away.
“Come, lass,” she said, “Jerry has fetched us a fine haunch of venison. Go you out and bring in some of that fox-grape jelly we made, and we’ll be having a feast to-night. The child’s sad at parting from Archie,” she said to the others as Agnes went out; “we must try to cheer her up a bit.” And indeed, Agnes did seem depressed and silent more than was her wont.
And so it was that Archie M’Clean went back to Carlisle, and Agnes missed him more than she liked to confess. The youths of the settlement had taken it as a matter of course that Agnes would be escortedeverywhere by Archie, and in consequence they had sought other partners, so she felt herself suddenly bereft of those pleasant attentions which every girl likes. She prepared rather soberly for the church the next Sabbath, and was surprised upon coming out to join Polly and her father to find Parker Willett waiting for her. “Will you ride to church with me?” he asked with a magnificent bow.
Agnes swept him quite as elegant a courtesy. “An’ it please you, kind sir, I will accompany you,” she replied. And then they both laughed.
“I thought perhaps you’d miss your swain, the knight of the rueful countenance, and it will seem like old times to me when I used to take my little sister to church,” he said, as he lifted her up.
“Oh, have you a little sister?”
“Yes, or rather she is quite a big sister now.”
“Tell me about her.”
He took his place with an easy grace, and as they started off he said, “She’s back there in Virginia, married these two or three years.”
“Was that why you left home—because she married?”
“Partly that. We were great comrades before that, although it wasn’t altogether pleasant after we had a stepfather who made ducks and drakes of the property our own father left, and as my sister had what was left of her patrimony when she was married, I took what was mine and came away to seek a better fortune thanseemed to await me at home. It is not a very romantic story, you see.”
“I know something about step relatives,” said Agnes. “My father has some stepbrothers, and that is why he had to leave home. My grandfather Kennedy didn’t make a will, and his sons all came in for a share of the property; and they had had such a lot given to them, too, so it wasn’t fair. Grandfather always meant that father should have the home farm, and they knew it, but they just grabbed all they could get, and that, too, after father had lived there all his life and had helped to make the farm what it was.”
“That was pretty mean. Your grandfathers don’t seem to be given to making wills.”
“I shall always believe that Grandfather Muirhead made his. I wish I knew more about how Humphrey Muirhead came to have that place.”
“How much do you know about it?”
“Not very much. Grandfather lived there, and cleared the land, so it is a good farm. One time while grandfather was on a journey farther off, he with his companions fell into the hands of the Indians, and we always supposed he was killed. It was several years ago, and none of the party ever came back. Do you suppose Humphrey Muirhead could have found a will and that he destroyed it?”
“It is difficult to say. I should judge that he was not a man of very much principle, and it is quite possiblethat he would do a thing like that. Do you remember your grandfather Muirhead?”
“Oh, yes. He came to see us several times. He was a great one to travel about, and thought nothing of making the journey over the mountains. He told mother about this place the last time he came, and gave her the deeds to keep for him, and he told her the place was to be hers, but that’s all the good it did.”
“Well, I wouldn’t grieve over it. In time you will have as good a place as that.”
“It will take years, for grandfather had spent so much time and strength on his clearing; it enrages me when I think of it.”
“You mustn’t be enraged on your way to church,” said Parker, half teasingly; but Agnes answered gravely, “That is quite true.”
“We will talk of something else,” Parker went on. “Polly assured me last night that her husband would soon be back.”
“Why, what reason has she to think so?”
“I don’t know. She has had some sort of dream or vision or something, a sign she says, and she puts great faith in it. Polly’s signs are something that I cannot keep track of.”
“But there are signs,” returned Agnes, gravely.
“Oh, are there?”
“Of course. The Indians have a great many, and all people do.”
“I suppose they do, come to think of it; but I wasn’t thinking of natural consequences, I was thinking of the supernatural.”
“Oh, you mean uncanny things like ghosts and noises from nowhere, and visions. We Scots believe in visions and second sight and all that.”
“Yes, I know you do. But are you still Scots? Why not Americans?”
“Of course Americans, but the Scotch still clings to us.”
“Like a burr, or like a true Scotch thistle. I have noticed that, and that some of you keep the Scotch pronunciation much more than others, yet every one of you say meenister.”
Agnes laughed at his pronunciation of the word. “And any one would know you for a Virginian, and you are proud of it; so are we proud of our Scotch-Irish. Polly is more Irish than Scotch, and that shows plainly, too.”
“It surely does.” And they both laughed at the memory of some of Polly’s expressions.
And when she looked back upon it Agnes found that riding to church with Parker Willett was not quite so serious an affair as Archie made it. She turned the matter over in her mind as she sat very still in church, but she gave a little sigh as she tried to fix her attention upon the long sermon. How was it faring with Archie that day? Was he thinking of her as he made his journey over the mountains?