It was an evil day for Hughie when he made friends with Foxy and became his partner in the store business, for Hughie's hoardings were never large, and after buying a Christmas present for his mother, according to his unfailing custom, they were reduced to a very few pennies indeed. The opportunities for investment in his new position were many and alluring. But all Hughie's soul went out in longing for a pistol which Foxy had among his goods, and which would fire not only caps, but powder and ball, and his longing was sensibly increased by Foxy generously allowing him to try the pistol, first at a mark, which Hughie hit, and then at a red squirrel, which he missed. By day Hughie yearned for this pistol, by night he dreamed of it, but how he might secure it for his own he did not know.
Upon this point he felt he could not consult his mother, his usual counselor, for he had an instinctive feeling that she would not approve of his having a pistol in his possession; and as for his father, Hughie knew he would soon make “short work of any such folly.” What would a child like Hughie do with a pistol? He had never had a pistol in all his life. It was difficult for the minister to realize that young Canada was a new type, and he would have been more than surprised had any one told him that already Hughie, although only twelve, was an expert with a gun, having for many a Saturday during the long, sunny fall roamed the woods, at first in company with Don, and afterwards with Don's gun alone, or followed by Fusie or Davie Scotch. There was thus no help for Hughie at home. The price of the pistol reduced to the lowest possible sum, was two dollars and a half, which Foxy declared was only half what he would charge any one else but his partner.
“How much have you got altogether?” he asked Hughie one day, when Hughie was groaning over his poverty.
“Six pennies and two dimes,” was Hughie's disconsolate reply. He had often counted them over. “Of course,” he went on, “there's my XL knife. That's worth a lot, only the point of the big blade's broken.”
“Huh!” grunted Foxy, “there's jist the stub left.”
“It's not!” said Hughie, indignantly. “It's more than half, then. And it's bully good stuff, too. It'll nick any knife in the school”; and Hughie dived into his pocket and pulled out his knife with a handful of boy's treasures.
“Hullo!” said Foxy, snatching a half-dollar from Hughie's hand, “whose is that?”
“Here, you, give me that! That's not mine,” cried Hughie.
“Whose is it, then?”
“I don't know. I guess it's mother's. I found it on the kitchen floor, and I know it's mother's.”
“How do you know?”
“I know well enough. She often puts money on the window, and it fell down. Give me that, I tell you!” Hughie's eyes were blazing dangerously, and Foxy handed back the half-dollar.
“O, all right. You're a pretty big fool,” he said, indifferently. “'Losers seekers, finders keepers.' That's my rule.”
Hughie was silent, holding his precious half-dollar in his hand, deep in his pocket.
“Say,” said Foxy, changing the subject, “I guess you had better pay up for your powder and caps you've been firing.”
“I haven't been firing much,” said Hughie, confidently.
“Well, you've been firing pretty steady for three weeks.”
“Three weeks! It isn't three weeks.”
“It is. There's this week, and last week when the ink-bottle bust too soon and burnt Fusie's eyebrows, and the week before when you shot Aleck Dan, and it was the week before that you began, and that'll make it four.”
“How much?” asked Hughie, desperately, resolved to know the worst.
Foxy had been preparing for this. He took down a slate-pencil box with a sliding lid, and drew out a bundle of crumbled slips which Hughie, with sinking heart, recognized as his own vouchers.
“Sixteen pennies.” Foxy had taken care of this part of the business.
“Sixteen!” exclaimed Hughie, snatching up the bunch.
“Count them yourself,” said Foxy, calmly, knowing well he could count on Hughie's honesty.
“Seventeen,” said Hughie, hopelessly.
“But one of those I didn't count,” said Foxy, generously. “That's the one I gave you to try at the first. Now, I tell you,” went on Foxy, insinuatingly, “you have got how much at home?” he inquired.
“Six pennies and two dimes.” Hughie's tone indicated despair.
“You've got six pennies and two dimes. Six pennies and two dimes. That's twenty—that's thirty-two cents. Now if you paid me that thirty-two cents, and if you could get a half-dollar anywhere, that would be eighty-two. I tell you what I would do. I would let you have that pistol for only one dollar more. That ain't much,” he said.
“Only a dollar more,” said Hughie, calculating rapidly. “But where would I get the fifty cents?” The dollar seemed at that moment to Hughie quite a possible thing, if only the fifty cents could be got. The dollar was more remote, and therefore less pressing.
Foxy had an inspiration.
“I tell you what. You borrow that fifty cents you found, and then you can pay me eighty-two cents, and—and—” he hesitated—“perhaps you will find some more, or something.”
Hughie's eyes were blazing with great fierceness.
Foxy hastened to add, “And I'll let you have the pistol right off, and you'll pay me again some time when you can, the other dollar.”
Hughie checked the indignant answer that was at his lips. To have the pistol as his own, to take home with him at night, and to keep all Saturday—the temptation was great, and coming suddenly upon Hughie, was too much for him. He would surely, somehow, soon pay back the fifty cents, he argued, and Foxy would wait for the dollar. And yet that half-dollar was not his, but his mother's, and more than that, if he asked her for it, he was pretty sure she would refuse. But then, he doubted his mother's judgment as to his ability to use firearms, and besides, this pistol at that price was a great bargain, and any of the boys might pick it up. Poor Hughie! He did not know how ancient was that argument, nor how frequently it had done duty in smoothing the descent to the lower regions. The pistol was good to look at, the opportunity of securing it was such as might not occur again, and as for the half-dollar, there could be no harm in borrowing that for a little while.
That was Foxy's day of triumph, but to Hughie it was the beginning of many woeful days and nights. And his misery came upon him swift and sure, in the very moment that he turned in from the road at the manse gate, for he knew that at the end of the lane would be his mother, and his winged feet, upon which he usually flew from the gate home, dragged heavily.
He found his mother, not at the door, but in the large, pleasant living-room, which did for all kinds of rooms in the manse. It was dining-room and sewing-room, nursery and playroom, but it was always a good room to enter, and in spite of playthings strewn about, or snippings of cloth, or other stour, it was always a place of brightness and of peace, for it was there the mother was most frequently to be found. This evening she was at the sewing-machine busy with Hughie's Sunday clothes, with the baby asleep in the cradle beside her in spite of the din of the flying wheels, and little Robbie helping to pull through the long seam. Hughie shrank from the warm, bright, loving atmosphere that seemed to fill the room, hating to go in, but in a moment he realized that he must “make believe” with his mother, and the pain of it and the shame of it startled and amazed him. He was glad that his mother did not notice him enter, and by the time he had put away his books he had braced himself to meet her bright smile and her welcome kiss.
The mother did not apparently notice his hesitation.
“Well, my boy, home again?” she cried, holding out her hand to him with the air of good comradeship she always wore with him. “Are you very hungry?”
“You bet!” said Hughie, kissing her, and glad of the chance to get away.
“Well, you will find something pretty nice in the pantry we saved for you. Guess what.”
“Don't know.”
“I know,” shouted Robbie. “Pie! It's muzzie's pie. Muzzie tept it for 'oo.”
“Now, Robbie, you were not to tell,” said his mother, shaking her finger at him.
“O-o-o, I fordot,” said Robbie, horrified at his failure to keep his promise.
“Never mind. That's a lesson you will have to learn many times, how to keep those little lips shut. And the pie will be just as good.”
“Thank you, mother,” said Hughie. “But I don't want your pie.”
“My pie!” said the mother. “Pie isn't good for old women.”
“Old women!” said Hughie, indignantly. “You're the youngest and prettiest woman in the congregation,” he cried, and forgetting for the moment his sense of meanness, he threw his arms round his mother.
“Oh, Hughie, shame on you! What a dreadful flatterer you are!” said his mother. “Now, run away to your pie, and then to your evening work, my boy, and we will have a good lesson together after supper.”
Hughie ran away, glad to get out of her presence, and seizing the pie, carried it out to the barn and hurled it far into the snow. He felt sure that a single bite of it would choke him.
If he could only have seen Foxy any time for the next hour, how gladly would he have given him back his pistol, but by the time he had fed his cow and the horses, split the wood and carried it in, and prepared kindling for the morning's fires, he had become accustomed to his new self, and had learned his first lesson in keeping his emotions out of his face. But from that night, and through all the long weeks of the breaking winter, when games in the woods were impossible by reason of the snow and water, and when the roads were deep with mud, Hughie carried his burden with him, till life was one long weariness and dread.
And through these days he was Foxy's slave. A pistol without ammunition was quite useless. Foxy's stock was near at hand. It was easy to write a voucher for a penny's worth of powder or caps, and consequently the pile in Foxy's pencil-box steadily mounted till Hughie was afraid to look at it. His chance of being free from his own conscience was still remote enough.
During these days, too, Foxy reveled in his power over his rival, and ground his slave in bitter bondage, subjecting him to such humiliation as made the school wonder and Hughie writhe; and if ever Hughie showed any sign of resentment or rebellion, Foxy could tame him to groveling submission by a single word. “Well, I guess I'll go down to-night to see your mother,” was all he needed to say to make Hughie grovel again. For with Hughie it was not the fear of his father's wrath and heavy punishment, though that was terrible enough, but the dread that his mother should know, that made him grovel before his tyrant, and wake at night in a cold sweat. His mother's tender anxiety for his pale face and gloomy looks only added to the misery of his heart.
He had no one in whom he could confide. He could not tell any of the boys, for he was unwilling to lose their esteem, besides, it was none of their business; he was terrified of his father's wrath, and from his mother, his usual and unfailing resort in every trouble of his whole life, he was now separated by his terrible secret.
Then Foxy began to insist upon payment of his debts. Spring was at hand, the store would soon be closed up, for business was slack in the summer, and besides, Foxy had other use for his money.
“Haven't you got any money at all in your house?” Foxy sneered one day, when Hughie was declaring his inability to meet his debts.
“Of course we have,” cried Hughie, indignantly.
“Don't believe it,” said Foxy, contemptuously.
“Father's drawer is sometimes full of dimes and half-dimes. At least, there's an awful lot on Mondays, from the collections, you know,” said Hughie.
“Well, then, you had better get some for me, somehow,” said Foxy. “You might borrow some from the drawer for a little while.”
“That would be stealing,” said Hughie.
“You wouldn't mean to keep it,” said Foxy. “You would only take it for a while. It would just be borrowing.”
“It wouldn't,” said Hughie, firmly. “It's taking out of his drawer. It's stealing, and I won't steal.”
“Huh! you're mighty good all at once. What about that half-dollar?”
“You said yourself that wasn't stealing,” said Hughie, passionately.
“Well, what's the difference? You said it was your mother's, and this is your father's. It's all the same, except that you're afraid to take your father's.”
“I'm not afraid. At least it isn't that. But it's different to take money out of a drawer, that isn't your own.”
“Huh! Mighty lot of difference! Money's money, wherever it is. Besides, if you borrowed this from your father, you could pay back your mother and me. You would pay the whole thing right off.”
Once more Hughie argued with himself. To be free from Foxy's hateful tyranny, and to be clear again with his mother—for that he would be willing to suffer almost anything. But to take money out of that drawer was awfully like stealing. Of course he would pay it back, and after all it would only be borrowing. Besides, it would enable him to repay what he owed to his mother and to Foxy. Through all the mazes of specious argument Hughie worked his way, arriving at no conclusion, except that he carried with him a feeling that if he could by some means get that money out of the drawer in a way that would not be stealing, it would be a vast relief, greater than words could tell.
That night brought him the opportunity. His father and mother were away at the prayer meeting. There was only Jessie left in the house, and she was busy with the younger children. With the firm resolve that he would not take a single half-dime from his father's drawer, he went into the study. He would like to see if the drawer were open. Yes, it was open, and the Sabbath's collection lay there with all its shining invitation. He tried making up the dollar and a half out of the dimes and half-dimes. What a lot of half-dimes it took! But when he used the quarters and dimes, how much smaller the piles were. Only two quarters and five dimes made up the dollar, and the pile in the drawer looked pretty much the same as before. Another quarter-dollar withdrawn from the drawer made little difference. He looked at the little heaps on the table. He believed he could make Foxy take that for his whole debt, though he was sure he owed him more. Perhaps he had better make certain. He transferred two more dimes and a half-dime from the drawer to the table. It was an insignificant little heap. That would certainly clear off his whole indebtedness and make him a free man.
He slipped the little heaps of money from the table into his pocket, and then suddenly he realized that he had never decided to take the money. The last resolve he could remember making was simply to see how the dollar and a half looked. Without noticing, he had passed the point of final decision. Alas! like many another, Hughie found the going easy and the slipping smooth upon the down incline. Unconsciously he had slipped into being a thief.
Now he could not go back. His absorbing purpose was concealment. Quietly shutting the drawer, he was slipping hurriedly up to his own room, when on the stairway he met Jessie.
“What are you doing here, Jessie?” he asked, sharply.
“Putting Robbie off to bed,” said Jessie, in surprise. “What's the matter with you?”
“What's the matter?” echoed Hughie, smitten with horrible fear that perhaps she knew. “I just wanted to know,” he said, weakly.
He slipped past her, holding his pocket tight lest the coins should rattle. When he reached his room he stood listening in the dark to Jessie going down the stairs. He was sure she suspected something. He would go back and put the money in the drawer again, whenever she reached the kitchen. He stood there with his heart-beats filling his ears, waiting for the kitchen door to slam.
Then he resolved he would wrap the money up in paper and put it safely away, and go down and see if Jessie knew. He found one of his old copybooks, and began tearing out a leaf. What a noise it made! Robbie would surely wake up, and then Jessie would come back with the light. He put the copy-book under the quilt, and holding it down firmly with one hand, removed the leaf with the other. With great care he wrapped up the dimes and half-dimes by themselves. They fitted better together. Then he took up the quarters, and was proceeding to fold them in a similar parcel, when he heard Jessie's voice from below.
“Hughie, what are you doing?” She was coming up the stair.
He jumped from the bed to go to meet her. A quarter fell on the floor and rolled under the bed. It seemed to Hughie as if it would never stop rolling, and as if Jessie must hear it. Wildly he scrambled on the floor in the dark, seeking for the quarter, while Jessie came nearer and nearer.
“Are you going to bed already, Hughie?” she asked.
Quickly Hughie went out to the hall to meet her.
“Yes,” he yawned, gratefully seizing upon her suggestion. “I'm awfully sleepy. Give me the candle, Jessie,” he said, snatching it from her hand. “I want to go downstairs.”
“Hughie, you are very rude. What would your mother say? Let me have the candle immediately, I want to get Robbie's stockings.”
Hughie's heart stood still.
“I'll throw them down, Jessie. I want the candle downstairs just a minute.”
“Leave that candle with me,” insisted Jessie. “There's another on the dining-room table you can get.”
“I'll not be a minute,” said Hughie, hurrying downstairs. “You come down, Jessie, I want to ask you something. I'll throw you Robbie's stockings.”
“Come back here, the rude boy that you are,” said Jessie, crossly, “and bring me that candle.”
There was no reply. Hughie was standing, pale and shaking, in the dining-room, listening intently for Jessie's step. Would she go into his room, or would she come down? Every moment increased the agony of his fear.
At length, with a happy inspiration, he went to the cupboard, opened the door noisily, and began rattling the dishes.
“Mercy me!” he heard Jessie exclaim at the top of the stair. “That boy will be my death. Hughie,” she called, “just shut that cupboard! You know your mother doesn't like you to go in there.”
“I only want a little,” called out Hughie, still moving the dishes, and hearing, to his great relief, Jessie's descending step. In desperation he seized a dish of black currant preserves which he found on the cupboard shelf, and spilled it over the dishes and upon the floor just as Jessie entered the room.
“Land sakes alive, boy! Will you never be done your mischief?” she cried, rushing toward him.
“Oh!” he said, “I spilt it.”
“Spilt it!” echoed Jessie, indignantly, “you needn't be telling me that. Bring me a cloth from the kitchen.”
“I don't know where it is, Jessie,” cried Hughie, slipping upstairs again with his candle.
To his great relief he saw that Jessie's attention was so entirely taken up with removing the stains of the preserves from the cupboard shelves and dishes, that she for the moment forgot everything else, Robbie's stockings included.
Hurrying to his room, and shading the candle with his hand lest the light should waken his little brother, he hastily seized the money upon the bed quilt, and after a few moments' searching under the bed, found the strayed quarter.
With these in his hand he passed into his mother's room. Leaving the candle there, he came back to the head of the stairs and listened for a moment, with great satisfaction, to Jessie muttering to herself while she cleaned up the mess he had made. Then he turned, and with trembling fingers he swiftly made up the quarter-dollars into another parcel. With a great sigh of relief he put the two parcels in his pocket, and seizing his candle turned to leave the room. As he did so, he caught sight of himself in the glass. With a great shock of surprise he stood gazing at the terrified, white face, with the staring eyes.
“What a fool I am!” he said, looking at himself in the glass. “Nobody will know, and I'll pay this back soon.”
His eyes wandered to a picture which stood on a little shelf beside the glass. It was a picture of his mother, the one he loved best of all he had ever seen of her.
There was a sudden stab of pain at his heart, his breath came in a great sob. For a moment he looked into the eyes that looked back at him so full of love and reproach.
“I won't do it,” he said, grinding his teeth hard, and forthwith turned to go to his father's study.
But as he left the room he saw Jessie half-way up the stairs.
“What are you doing now?” she cried, wrathfully. “Up to some mischief, I doubt.”
With a sudden, inexplicable rage, Hughie turned toward her.
“It's none of your business! You mind your own business, will you, and leave me alone.” The terrible emotions of the last few minutes were at the back of his rage.
“Just wait, you,” said Jessie, “till your mother comes. Then you'll hear it.”
“You shut your mouth!” cried Hughie, his passion sweeping his whole being like a tempest. “You shut your mouth, you old cat, or I'll throw this candle at you.” He raised the candle high in his hand as he spoke, and altogether looked so desperate that Jessie stood in terror lest he should make good his threat.
“Stop, now, Hughie,” she entreated. “You will be setting the house on fire.”
Hughie hesitated a moment, and then turned from her, and going into his room, banged the door in her face, and Jessie, not knowing what to make of it all, went slowly downstairs again, forgetting once more Robbie's stockings.
“The old cat!” said Hughie to himself. “She just stopped me. I was going to put it back.”
The memory that he had resolved to undo his wrong brought him a curious sense of relief.
“I was just going to put it back,” he said, “when she had to interfere.”
He was conscious of a sense of injury against Jessie. It was not his fault that that money was not now in the drawer.
“I'll put it back in the morning, anyhow,” he said, firmly. But even as he spoke he was conscious of an infinality in his determination, while he refused to acknowledge to himself a secret purpose to leave the question open till the morning. But this determination, inconclusive though it was, brought him a certain calm of mind, so that when his mother came into his room she found him sound asleep.
She stood beside his bed looking down upon him for a few moments, with face full of anxious sadness.
“There's something wrong with the boy,” she said to herself, stooping to kiss him. “There's something wrong with him,” she repeated, as she left the room. “He's not the same.”
During these weeks she had been conscious that Hughie had changed in some way to her. The old, full, frank confidence was gone. There was a constraint in his manner she could not explain. “He is no longer a child,” she would say to herself, seeking to allay the pain in her heart. “A boy must have his secrets. It is foolish in me to think anything else. Besides, he is not well. He is growing too fast.” And indeed, Hughie's pale, miserable face gave ground enough for this opinion.
“That boy is not well,” she said to her husband.
“Which boy?”
“Hughie,” she replied. “He is looking miserable, and somehow he is different.”
“Oh, nonsense! He eats well enough, and sleeps well enough,” said her husband, making light of her fears.
“There's something wrong,” repeated his wife. “And he hates his school.”
“Well, I don't wonder at that,” said her husband, sharply. “I don't see how any boy of spirit could take much pleasure in that kind of a school. The boys are just wasting their time, and worse than that, they have lost all the old spirit. I must see to it that the policy of those close-fisted trustees is changed. I am not going to put up with those chits of girls teaching any longer.”
“There may be something in what you say,” said his wife, sadly, “but certainly Hughie is always begging to stay at home from school.”
“And indeed, he might as well stay home,” answered her husband, “for all the good he gets.”
“I do wish we had a good man in charge,” replied his wife, with a great sigh. “It is very important that these boys should have a good, strong man over them. How much it means to a boy at Hughie's time of life! But so few are willing to come away into the backwoods here for so small a salary.”
Suddenly her husband laid down his pipe.
“I have it!” he exclaimed. “The very thing! Wouldn't this be the very thing for young Craven. You remember, the young man that Professor MacLauchlan was writing about.”
His wife shook her head very decidedly.
“Not at all,” she said. “Didn't Professor MacLauchlan say he was dissipated?”
“O, just a little wild. Got going with some loose companions. Out here there would be no temptation.”
“I am not at all sure of that,” said his wife, “and I would not like Hughie to be under his influence.”
“MacLauchlan says he is a young man of fine disposition and of fine parts,” argued her husband, “and if temptation were removed from him he believes he would turn out a good man.”
Mrs. Murray shook her head doubtfully. “He is not the man to put Hughie under just now.”
“What are we to do with Hughie?” replied her husband. “He is getting no good in the school as it is, and we cannot send him away yet.”
“Send him away!” exclaimed his wife. “No, no, not a child like that.”
“Craven might be a very good man,” continued her husband. “He might perhaps live with us. I know you have more than enough to do now,” he added, answering her look of dismay, “but he would be a great help to Hughie with his lessons, and might start him in his classics. And then, who knows what you might make of the young man.”
Mrs. Murray did not respond to her husband's smile, but only replied, “I am sure I wish I knew what is the matter with the boy, and I wish he could leave school for a while.”
“O, the boy is all right,” said her husband, impatiently. “Only a little less noisy, as far as I can see.”
“No, he is not the same,” replied his wife. “He is different to me.” There was almost a cry of pain in her voice.
“Now, now, don't imagine things. Boys are full of notions at Hughie's age. He may need a change, but that is all.”
With this the mother tried to quiet the tumult of anxious fear and pain she found rising in her heart, but long after the house was still, and while both her boy and his father lay asleep, she kept pouring forth that ancient sacrifice of self-effacing love before the feet of God.
Hughie rose late next morning, and the hurry and rush of getting off to school in time left him no opportunity to get rid of the little packages in his pocket, that seemed to burn and sting him through his clothes. He determined to keep them safe in his pocket all day and put them back in the drawer at night. His mother's face, white with her long watching, and sad and anxious in spite of its brave smile, filled him with such an agony of remorse that, hurrying through his breakfast, he snatched a farewell kiss, and then tore away down the lane lest he should be forced to confess all his terrible secret.
The first person who met him in the school-yard was Foxy.
“Have you got that?” was his salutation.
A sudden fury possessed Hughie.
“Yes, you red-headed, sneaking fox,” he answered, “and I hope it will bring you the curse of luck, anyway.”
Foxy hurried him cautiously behind the school, with difficulty concealing his delight while Hughie unrolled his little bundles and counted out the quarters and dimes and half dimes into his hand.
“There's a dollar, and there's a quarter, and—and—there's another,” he added, desperately, “and God may kill me on the spot if I give you any more!”
“All right, Hughie,” said Foxy, soothingly, putting the money into his pocket. “You needn't be so mad about it. You bought the pistol and the rest right enough, didn't you?”
“I know I did, but—but you made me, you big, sneaking thief—and then you—” Hughie's voice broke in his rage. His face was pale, and his black eyes were glittering with fierce fury, and in his heart he was conscious of a wild longing to fall upon Foxy and tear him to pieces. And Foxy, big and tall as he was, glanced at Hughie's face, and saying not a word, turned and fled to the front of the school where the other boys were.
Hughie followed slowly, his heart still swelling with furious rage, and full of an eager desire to be at Foxy's smiling, fat face.
At the school door stood Miss Morrison, the teacher, smiling down upon Foxy, who was looking up at her with an expression of such sweet innocence that Hughie groaned out between his clenched teeth, “Oh, you red-headed devil, you! Some day I'll make you smile out of the other side of your big, fat mouth.”
“Who are you swearing at?” It was Fusie.
“Oh, Fusie,” cried Hughie, “let's get Davie and get into the woods. I'm not going in to-day. I hate the beastly place, and the whole gang of them.”
Fusie, the little, harum-scarum French waif was ready for anything in the way of adventure. To him anything was better than the even monotony of the school routine. True, it might mean a whipping both from the teacher and from Mrs. McLeod; but as to the teacher's whipping, Fusie was prepared to stand that for a free day in the woods, and as to the other, Fusie declared that Mrs. McLeod's whipping “wouldn't hurt a skeeter.”
To Davie Scotch, however, playing truant was a serious matter. He had been reared in an atmosphere of reverence for established law and order, but when Hughie gave command, to Davie there seemed nothing for it but to obey.
The three boys watched till the school was called, and then crawling along on their stomachs behind the heavy cedar-log fence, they slipped into the balsam thicket at the edge of the woods and were safe. Here they flung down their schoolbags, and lying prone upon the fragrant bed of pine-needles strewn thickly upon the moss, they peered out through the balsam boughs at the house of their bondage with an exultant sense of freedom and a feeling of pity, if not of contempt, for the unhappy and spiritless creatures who were content to be penned inside any house on such a day as this, and with such a world outside.
For some minutes they rolled about upon the soft moss and balsam-needles and the brown leaves of last year, till their hearts were running over with a deep and satisfying delight. It is hard to resist the ministry of the woods. The sympathetic silence of the trees, the aromatic airs that breathe through the shady spaces, the soft mingling of broken lights—these all combine to lay upon the spirit a soothing balm, and bring to the heart peace. And Hughie, sensitive at every pore to that soothing ministry, before long forgot for a time even Foxy, with his fat, white face and smiling mouth, and lying on the broad of his back, and looking up at the far-away blue sky through the interlacing branches and leaves, he began to feel again that it was good to be alive, and that with all his misery there were compensations.
But any lengthened period of peaceful calm is not for boys of the age and spirit of Hughie and his companions.
“What are you going to do?” asked Fusie, the man of adventure.
“Do nothing,” said Hughie from his supine position. “This is good enough for me.”
“Not me,” said Fusie, starting to climb a tall, lithe birch, while Hughie lazily watched him. Soon Fusie was at the top of the birch, which began to sway dangerously.
“Try to fly into that balsam,” cried Hughie.
“No, sir!”
“Yes, go on.”
“Can't do it.”
“Oh, pshaw! you can.”
“No, nor you either. That's a mighty big jump.”
“Come on down, then, and let me try,” said Hughie, in scorn. His laziness was gone in the presence of a possible achievement.
In a few minutes he had taken Fusie's place a the top of the swaying birch. It did not look so easy from the top of the birch as from the ground to swing into the balsam-tree. However, he could not go back now.
“Dinna try it, Hughie!” cried Davie to him. “Ye'll no mak it, and ye'll come an awfu' cropper, as sure as deith.” But Hughie, swaying gently back and forth, was measuring the distance of his drop. It was not a feat so very difficult, but it called for good judgment and steady nerve. A moment too soon or a moment too late in letting go, would mean a nasty fall of twenty feet or more upon the solid ground, and one never knew just how one would light.
“I wudna dae it, Hughie,” urged Davie, anxiously.
But Hughie, swaying high in the birch, heeded not the warning, and suddenly swinging out from the slender trunk and holding by his hands, he described a parabola, and releasing the birch dropped on to the balsam top. But balsam-trees are of uncertain fiber, and not to be relied upon, and this particular balsam, breaking off short in Hughie's hands, allowed him to go crashing through the branches to the earth.
“Man! man!” cried Davie Scotch, bending over Hughie as he lay white and still upon the ground. “Are ye deid? Maircy me! he's deid,” sobbed Davie, wringing his hands. “Fusie, Fusie, ye gowk! where are ye gone?”
In a moment or two Fusie reappeared through the branches with a capful of water, and dashed it into Hughie's face, with the result that the lad opened his eyes, and after a gasp or two, sat up and looked about him.
“Och, laddie, laddie, are ye no deid?” said Davie Scotch.
“What's the matter with you, Scottie?” asked Hughie, with a bewildered look about him. “And who's been throwing water all over me?” he added, wrathfully, as full consciousness returned.
“Man! I'm glad to see ye mad. Gang on wi' ye,” shouted Davie, joyously. “Ye were deid the noo. Ay, clean deid. Was he no, Fusie?” Fusie nodded.
“I guess not,” said Hughie. “It was that rotten balsam top,” looking vengefully at the broken tree.
“Lie doon, man,” said Davie, still anxiously hovering about him. “Dinna rise yet awhile.”
“Oh, pshaw!” said Hughie, and he struggled to his feet; “I'm all right.” But as he spoke he sank down upon the moss, saying, “I feel kind of queer, though.”
“Lie still, then, will ye,” said Davie, angrily. “Ye're fair obstinate.”
“Get me some water, Fusie,” said Hughie, rather weakly.
“Run, Fusie, ye gomeril, ye!”
In a minute Fusie was back with a capful of water.
“That's better. I'm all right now,” said Hughie, sitting up.
“Hear him!” said Davie. “Lie ye doon there, or I'll gie ye a crack that'll mak ye glad tae keep still.”
For half an hour the boys lay on the moss discussing the accident fully in all its varying aspects and possibilities, till the sound of wheels came up the road.
“Who's that, Fusie?” asked Hughie, lazily.
“Dunno me,” said Fusie, peering through the trees.
“Do you, Scotty?”
“No, not I.”
Hughie crawled over to the edge of the brush.
“Why, you idiots! it's Thomas Finch. Thomas!” he called, but Thomas drove straight on. In a moment Hughie sprang up, forgetting all about his weakness, and ran out to the roadside.
“Hello, Thomas!” he cried, waving his hand. Thomas saw him, stopped, and looked at him, doubtfully. He, with all the Section, knew how the school was going, and he easily guessed what took Hughie there.
“I'm not going to school to-day,” said Hughie, answering Thomas's look.
Thomas nodded, and sat silent, waiting. He was not a man to waste his words.
“I hate the whole thing!” exclaimed Hughie.
“Foxy, eh?” said Thomas, to whom on other occasions Hughie had confided his grievances, and especially those he suffered at the hands of Foxy.
“Yes, Foxy,” cried Hughie, in a sudden rage. “He's a fat-faced sneak! And the teacher just makes me sick!”
Thomas still waited.
“She just smiles and smiles at him, and he smiles at her. Ugh! I can't stand him.”
“Not much harm in smiling,” said Thomas, solemnly.
“Oh, Thomas, I hate the school. I'm not going to go any more.”
Thomas looked gravely down upon Hughie's passionate face for a few moments, and then said, “You will do what your mother wants you, I guess.”
Hughie said nothing in reply, while Thomas sat pondering.
Finally he said, with a sudden inspiration, “Hughie, come along with me, and help me with the potatoes.”
“They won't let me,” grumbled Hughie. “At least father won't. I don't like to ask mother.”
Thomas's eyes opened in surprise. This was a new thing in Hughie.
“I'll ask your mother,” he said, at length. “Get in with me here.”
Still Hughie hesitated. To get away from school was joy enough, to go with Thomas to the potato planting was more than could be hoped for. But still he stood making pictures in the dust with his bare toes.
“There's Fusie,” he said, “and Davie Scotch.”
“Well,” said Thomas, catching sight of those worthies through the trees, “let them come, too.”
Fusie was promptly willing, but Davie was doubtful. He certainly would not go to the manse, where he might meet the minister, and meeting the minister's wife under the present circumstances was a little worse.
“Well, you can wait at the gate with Fusie,” suggested Hughie, and so the matter was settled.
Fortunately for Hughie, his father was not at home. But not Thomas's earnest entreaties nor Hughie's eager pleading would have availed with the mother, for attendance at school was a sacred duty in her eyes, had it not been that her boy's face, paler than usual, and with the dawning of a new defiance in it, startled her, and confirmed in her the fear that all was not well with him.
“Well, Thomas, he may go with you to the Cameron's for the potatoes, but as to going with you to the planting, that is another thing. Your mother is not fit to be troubled with another boy, and especially a boy like Hughie. And how is she to-day, Thomas?” continued Mrs. Murray, as Thomas stood in dull silence before her.
“She's better,” said Thomas, answering more quickly than usual, and with a certain eagerness in his voice. “She's a great deal better, and Hughie will do her no harm, but good.”
Mrs. Murray looked at Thomas as he spoke, wondering at the change in his voice and manner. The heavy, stolid face had changed since she had last seen it. It was finer, keener, than before. The eyes, so often dull, were lighted up with a new, strange fire.
“She's much better,” said Thomas again, as if insisting against Mrs. Murray's unbelief.
“I am glad to hear it, Thomas,” she said, gently. “She will soon be quite well again, I hope, for she has had a long, long time of suffering.”
“Yes, a long, long time,” replied Thomas. His face was pale, and in his eyes was a look of pain, almost of fear.
“And you will come to see her soon?” he added. There was almost a piteous entreaty in his tone.
“Yes, Thomas, surely next week. And meantime, I shall let Hughie go with you.”
A look of such utter devotion poured itself into Thomas's eyes that Mrs. Murray was greatly moved, and putting her hand on his shoulder, she said, gently, “'He will give His angels charge.' Don't be afraid, Thomas.”
“Afraid!” said Thomas, with a kind of gasp, his face going white. “Afraid! No. Why?” But Mrs. Murray turned from him to hide the tears that she could not keep out of her eyes, for she knew what was before Thomas and them all.
Meantime Hughie was busy putting into his little carpet-bag what he considered the necessary equipment for his visit.
“You must wear your shoes, Hughie.”
“Oh, mother, shoes are such an awful bother planting potatoes. They get full of ground and everything.”
“Well, put them in your bag, at any rate, and your stockings, too. You may need them.”
By degrees Hughie's very moderate necessities were satisfied, and with a hurried farewell to his mother he went off with Thomas. At the gate they picked up Fusie and Davie Scotch, and went off to the Cameron's for the seed potatoes, Hughie's heart lighter than it had been for many a day. And all through the afternoon, and as he drove home with Thomas on the loaded bags, his heart kept singing back to the birds in the trees overhead.
It was late in the afternoon when they drove into the yard, for the roads were still bad in the swamp, where the corduroy had been broken up by the spring floods.
Thomas hurried through unhitching, and without waiting to unharness he stood the horses in their stalls, saying, “We may need them this afternoon again,” and took Hughie off to the house straight-way.
The usual beautiful order pervaded the house and its surroundings. The back yard, through which the boys came from the barn, was free of litter; the chips were raked into neat little piles close to the wood-pile, for summer use. On a bench beside the “stoop” door was a row of milk-pans, lapping each other like scales on a fish, glittering in the sun. The large summer kitchen, with its spotless floor and white-washed walls, stood with both its doors open to the sweet air that came in from the fields above, and was as pleasant a room to look in upon as one could desire. On the sill of the open window stood a sweet-scented geranium and a tall fuschia with white and crimson blossoms hanging in clusters. Bunches of wild flowers stood on the table, on the dresser, and up beside the clock, and the whole room breathed of sweet scents of fields and flowers, and “the name of the chamber was peace.”
Beside the open window sat the little mother in an arm-chair, the embodiment of all the peaceful beauty and sweet fragrance of the room.
“Well, mother,” said Thomas, crossing the floor to her and laying his hand upon her shoulder, “have I been long away? I have brought Hughie back with me, you see.”
“Not so very long, Thomas,” said the mother, her dark face lighting with a look of love as she glanced up at her big son. “And I am glad to see Hughie. He will excuse me from rising,” she added, with fine courtesy.
Hughie hurried toward her.
“Yes, indeed, Mrs. Finch. Don't think of rising.” But he could get no further. Boy as he was, and at the age when boys are most heartless and regardless, he found it hard to keep his lip and his voice steady and to swallow the lump in his throat, and in spite of all he could do his eyes were filling up with tears as he looked into the little woman's face, so worn and weary, so pathetically bright.
It was months since he had seen her, and during these months a great change had come to her and to the Finch household. After suffering long in secret, the mother had been forced to confess to a severe pain in her breast and under her arm. Upon examination the doctor pronounced the case to be malignant cancer, and there was nothing for it but removal. It was what Dr. Grant called “a very beautiful operation, indeed,” and now she was recovering her strength, but only slowly, so slowly that Thomas at times found his heart sink with a vague fear. But it was not the pain of the wound that had wrought that sweet, pathetic look into the little woman's face, but the deeper pain she carried in her heart for those she loved better than herself.
The mother's sickness brought many changes into the household, but the most striking of all the changes was that wrought in the slow and stolid Thomas. The father and Billy Jack were busy with the farm matters outside, upon little Jessac, now a girl of twelve years, fell the care of the house, but it was Thomas that, with the assistance of a neighbor at first, but afterwards alone, waited on his mother, dressing the wound and nursing her. These weeks of watching and nursing had wrought in him the subtle change that stirred Mrs. Murray's heart as she looked at him that day, and that made even Hughie wonder. For one thing his tongue was loosed, and Thomas talked to his mother of all that he had seen and heard on the way to the Cameron's and back, making much of his little visit to the manse, and of Mrs. Murray's kindness, and enlarging upon her promised visit, and all with such brightness and picturesqueness of speech that Hughie listened amazed. For all the years he had known Thomas he had never heard from his lips so many words as in the last few minutes of talk with his mother. Then, too, Thomas seemed to have found his fingers, for no woman could have arranged more deftly and with gentler touch the cushions at his mother's back, and no nurse could have measured out the medicine and prepared her egg-nog with greater skill. Hughie could hardly believe his eyes and ears. Was this Thomas the stolid, the clumsy, the heavy-handed, this big fellow with the quick tongue and the clever, gentle hand?
Meantime Jessac had set upon the table a large pitcher of rich milk, with oat cakes and butter, and honey in the comb.
“Now, Hughie, lad, draw in and help yourself. You and Thomas will be too hungry to wait for supper,” said the mother. And Hughie, protesting politely that he was not very hungry, proceeded to establish the contrary, to the great satisfaction of himself and the others.
“Now, Thomas,” said the mother, “we had better cut the seed.”
“Indeed, and not a seed will you cut, mother,” said Thomas, emphatically. “You may boss the job, though. I'll bring the potatoes to the back door.” And this he did, thinking it no trouble to hitch up the team to draw the wagon into the back yard so that his mother might have a part in the cutting of the seed potatoes, as she had had every year of her life on the farm.
Very carefully, and in spite of her protests that she could walk quite well, Thomas carried his mother out to her chair in the shade of the house, arranging with tender solicitude the pillows at her back and the rug at her feet. Then they set to work at the potatoes.
“Mind you have two eyes in every seed, Hughie,” said Jessac, severely.
“Huh! I know. I've cut them often enough,” replied Hughie, scornfully.
“Well, look at that one, now,” said Jessac, picking up a seed that Hughie had let fall; “that's only got one eye.”
“There's two,” said Hughie, triumphantly.
“That's not an eye,” said Jessac, pointing to a mark on the potato; “that's where the top grew out of, isn't it, mother?”
“It is, isn't it?” appealed Hughie.
Mrs. Finch took the seed and looked at it.
“Well, there's one very good eye, and that will do.”
“But isn't that the mark of the top, mother?” insisted Jessac. But the mother only shook her head at her.
“That's right, Jessac,” said Thomas, driving off with his team; “you look after Hughie, and mother will look after you both till I get back, and there'll be a grand crop this year.”
It was a happy hour for them all. The slanting rays of the afternoon sun filled the air with a genial warmth. A little breeze bore from the orchard near by a fragrance of apple-blossoms. A matronly hen, tethered by the leg to her coop, raised indignant protest against the outrage on her personal liberty, or clucked and crooned her invitations, counsels, warnings, and encouragements, in as many different tones, to her independent, fluffy brood of chicks, while a huge gobbler strutted up and down, thrilling with pride in the glossy magnificence of his outspread tail and pompous, mighty chest.
Hughie was conscious of a deep and grateful content, but across his content lay a shadow. If only that would lift! As he watched Thomas with his mother, he realized how far he had drifted from his own mother, and he thought with regret of the happy days, which now seemed so far in the past, when his mother had shared his every secret. But for him those days could never come again.
At supper, Hughie was aware of some subtle difference in the spirit of the home. As to Thomas so to his father a change had come. The old man was as silent as ever, indeed more so, but there was no asperity in his silence. His critical, captious manner was gone. His silence was that of a great sorrow, and of a great fear. While there was more cheerful conversation than ever at the table, there was through all a new respect and a certain tender consideration shown toward the silent old man at the head, and all joined in an effort to draw him from his gloom. The past months of his wife's suffering had bowed him as with the weight of years. Even Hughie could note this.
After supper the old man “took the Books” as usual, but when, as High Priest, he “ascended the Mount of Ordinances to offer the evening sacrifice,” he was as a man walking in thick darkness bewildered and afraid. The prayer was largely a meditation on the heinousness of sin and the righteous judgments of God, and closed with an exaltation of the Cross, with an appeal that the innocent might be spared the punishment of the guilty. The conviction had settled in the old man's mind that “the Lord was visiting upon him and his family his sins, his pride, his censoriousness, his hardness of heart.” The words of his prayer fell meaningless upon Hughie's English ears, but the boy's heart quivered in response to the agony of entreaty in the pleading tones, and he rose from his knees awed and subdued.
There was no word spoken for some moments after the prayer. With people like the Finches it was considered to be an insult to the Almighty to depart from “the Presence” with any unseemly haste. Then Thomas came to help his mother to her room, but she, with her eyes upon her husband, quietly put Thomas aside and said, “Donald, will you tak me ben?”
Rarely had she called him by his name before the family, and all felt that this was a most unusual demonstration of tenderness on her part.
The old man glanced quickly at her from under his overhanging eyebrows, and met her bright upward look with an involuntary shake of the head and a slight sigh. Comfort was not for him, and he must not delude himself. But with a little laugh she put her hand on his arm, and as if administering reproof to a little child, she said some words in Gaelic.
“Oh, woman, woman!” said Donald in reply, “if it was yourself we had to deal with—”
“Whisht, man! Will you be putting me before your Father in heaven?” she said, as they disappeared into the other room.
There was no fiddle that evening. There was no heart for it with Thomas, neither was there time, for there was the milking to do, and the “sorting” of the pails and pans, and the preparing for churning in the morning, so that when all was done, the long evening had faded into the twilight and it was time for bed.
Before going upstairs, Thomas took Hughie into “the room” where his mother's bed had been placed. Thomas gave her her medicine and made her comfortable for the night.
“Is there nothing else now, mother?” he said, still lingering about her.
“No, Thomas, my man. How are the cows doing?”
“Grand; Blossom filled a pail to-night, and Spotty almost twice. She's a great milker, yon.”
“Yes, and so was her mother. I remember she used to fill two pails when the grass was good.”
“I remember her, too. Her horns curled right back, didn't they? And she always looked so fierce.”
“Yes, but she was a kindly cow. And will the churn be ready for the morning?”
“Yes, mother, we'll have buttermilk for our porridge, sure enough.”
“Well, you'll need to be up early for that, too early, Thomas, lad, for a boy like you.”
“A boy like me!” said Thomas, feigning indignation, and stretching himself to his full height. “Where would you be getting your men, mother?”
“You are man enough, laddie,” said his mother, “and a good one you will come to be, I doubt. And you, too, Hughie, lad,” she added, turning to him. “You will be like your father.”
“I dunno,” said Hughie, his face flushing scarlet. He was weary and sick of his secret, and the sight of the loving comradeship between Thomas and his mother made his burden all the heavier.
“What's wrong with yon laddie?” asked Mrs. Finch, when Hughie had gone away to bed.
“Now, mother, you're too sharp altogether. And how do you know anything is wrong with him?”
“I warrant you his mother sees it. Something is on his mind. Hughie is not the lad he used to be. He will not look at you straight, and that is not like Hughie.”
“Oh, mother, you're a sharp one,” said Thomas. “I thought no one had seen that but myself. Yes, there is something wrong with him. It's something in the school. It's a poor place nowadays, anyway, and I wish Hughie were done with it.”
“He must keep at the school, Thomas, and I only wish you could do the same.” His mother sighed. She had her own secret ambition for Thomas, and though she never opened her heart to her son, or indeed to any one, Thomas somehow knew that it was her heart's desire to see him “in the pulpit.”
“Never you mind, mother,” he said, brightly. “It'll all come right. Aren't you always the one preaching faith to me?”
“Yes, laddie, and it is needed, and sorely at times.”
“Now, mither,” said Thomas, dropping into her native speech, “ye mauna be fashin' yersel. Ye'll jist say 'Now I lay me,' and gang to sleep like a bairnie.”
“Ay, that's a guid word, laddie, an' a'll tak it. Ye may kiss me guid nicht. A'll tak it.”
Thomas bent over her and whispered in her ear, “Ay, mither, mither, ye're an angel, and that ye are.”
“Hoots, laddie, gang awa wi' ye,” said his mother, but she held her arms about his neck and kissed him once and again. There was no one to see, and why should they not give and take their heart's fill of love.
But when Thomas stood outside the room door, he folded his arms tight across his breast and whispered with lips that quivered, “Ay, mither, mither, mither, there's nane like ye. There's nane like ye.” And he was glad that when he went upstairs, he found Hughie unwilling to talk.
The next three days they were all busy with the planting of the potatoes, and nothing could have been better for Hughie. The sweet, sunny air, and the kindly, wholesome earth and honest hard work were life and health to mind and heart and body. It is wonderful how the touch of the kindly mother earth cleanses the soul from its unwholesome humors. The hours that Hughie spent in working with the clean, red earth seemed somehow to breathe virtue into him. He remembered the past months like a bad dream. They seemed to him a hideous unreality, and he could not think of Foxy and his schemes, nor of his own weakness in yielding to temptation, without a horrible self-loathing. He became aware of a strange feeling of sympathy and kinship with old Donald Finch. He seemed to understand his gloom. During those days their work brought those two together, for Billy Jack had the running of the drills, and to Thomas was intrusted the responsibility of “dropping” the potatoes, so Hughie and the old man undertook to “cover” after Thomas.
Side by side they hoed together, speaking not a word for an hour at a time, but before long the old man appeared to feel the lad's sympathy. Hughie was quick to save him steps, and eager in many ways to anticipate his wishes. He was quick, too, with the hoe, and ambitious to do his full share of the work, and this won the old man's respect, so that by the end of the first day there was established between them a solid basis of friendship.
Old Donald Finch was no cheerful companion for Hughie, but it was to Hughie a relief, more than anything else, that he was not much with either Thomas or Billy Jack.
“You're tired,” he ventured, in answer to a deep sigh from the old man, toward the close of the day.
“No, laddie,” replied the old man, “I know not that I am working. The burden of toil is the least of all our burdens.” And then, after a pause, he added, “It is a terrible thing, is sin.”
To an equal in age the old man would never have ventured this confidence, but to Hughie, to his own surprise, he found it easy to talk.
“A terrible thing,” he repeated, “and it will always be finding you out.”
Hughie listened to him with a fearful sinking of heart, thinking of himself and his sin.
“Yes,” repeated the old man, with awful solemnity, “it will come up with you at last.”
“But,” ventured Hughie, timidly, “won't God forgive? Won't he ever forget?”
The old man looked at him, leaning upon his hoe.
“Yes, he will forgive. But for those who have had great privileges, and who have sinned against light—I will not say.”
The fear deepened in Hughie's heart.
“Do you mean that God will not forgive a man who has had a good chance, an elder, or a minister, or—or—a minister's son, say, like me?”
There was something in Hughie's tone that startled the old man. He glanced at Hughie's face.
“What am I saying?” he cried. “It is of myself I am thinking, boy, and of no minister or minister's son.”
But Hughie stood looking at him, his face showing his terrible anxiety. God and sin were vivid realities to him.
“Yes, yes,” said the old man to himself, “it is a great gospel. 'As far as the east is distant from the west.' 'And plenteous redemption is ever found with him.'”
“But, do you think,” said Hughie, in a low voice, “God will tell all our sins? Will he make them known?”
“God forbid!” cried the old man. “'And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.' 'The depths of the sea.' No, no, boy, he will surely forget, and he will not be proclaiming them.”
It was a strange picture. The old man leaning upon the top of his hoe looking over at the lad, the gloom of his face irradiated with a momentary gleam of hope, and the boy looking back at him with almost breathless eagerness.
“It would be great,” said Hughie, at last, “if he would forget.”
“Yes,” said the old man, the gleam in his face growing brighter, “'If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us,' and forgiving with him is forgetting. Ah, yes, it is a great gospel,” he continued, and standing there he lifted up his hand and broke into a kind of chant in Gaelic, of which Hughie could catch no meaning, but the exalted look on the old man's face was translation enough.
“Must we always tell?” said Hughie, after the old man had ceased.
“What are you saying, laddie?”
“I say must we always tell our sins—I mean to people?”
The old man thought a moment. “It is not always good to be talking about our sins to people. That is for God to hear. But we must be ready to make right what is wrong.”
“Yes, yes,” said Hughie, eagerly, “of course one would be glad to do that.”
The old man gave him one keen glance, and began hoeing again.
“Ye'd better be asking ye're mother about that. She will know.”