"Never saw what?"
"A man that could take a glass and leave it alone. He always took it."
Mr. Crofter went back into the hotel with something of the feeling of a baseball player who has made a mighty swing with his bat and missed.
And Jock informed Dr. Leslie the next day that he had intended all along to vote for Local Option, but had omitted to say so earlier. The case of Father Tracy had brought even greater joy. One day Mike Cassidy came raging into Lawyer Ed's office with the tale of another fight with his enemies the Duffys, and the information that he was going to court with it this time if he died for it. Roderick was out, and on the pretence that he must consult his young partner, Lawyer Ed managed to get Mike to consider the matter for an hour, and in the interval he went to see Father Tracy.
The Catholic priest and the Presbyterian elder were good friends, for his reverence was a jolly Irishman, very proud of his title of the "Protestant Priest." It was whispered that he was not in favour in ecclesiastical circles, but little cared he, for he was in the highest favour with everybody in Algonquin, especially those in need, and the hero of every boy who could wave a lacrosse stick.
"Good mornin', Father O'Flynn," cried Lawyer Ed, as, swinging his cane, he was ushered into the priest's sanctum. "Sure and I suppose it's yer owld job ye're at—
"Checkin' the crazy ones, urgin' the aisy ones,Helpin' the lazy ones on wid a stick."
"It is that, then," said Father Tracy, his blue eyes dancing. "And here's wan o' the crazy ones. Sit ye down, man, till I finish this note, and I'll be checkin' ye all right. I'll not be a minute."
Lawyer Ed of course could not sit down, but wandered about the room examining the pictures on the wall, a few photographs of popes and cardinals.
"Sure this is a terrible place for a heretic like me to be in, Father," he exclaimed. "Oi'm getting clane narvous. If it wasn't called a Presbytry, I'd niver dare venture. It's got a good name. By the way, I don't see John Knox here," he added, anxiously examining the cardinals again.
Father Tracy's pen signed his name with a flourish. "You'll see John Knox soon enough if ye don't mend your ways, Edward Brians," he said. "Now, what do ye want of me this morning?" But the two Irishmen could not let such a good joke pass unnoticed; when they had laughed over it duly, the business was stated.
"He'll go to no law," said the shepherd of this wayward sheep. "I'll see him to-night, and it's grateful I am to you, Edward, for your interest. I hear the boys are getting together to see about a junior league. Algonquin ought to get the championship this year—"
But Lawyer Ed knew better than to let Father Tracy get off onto the subject of lacrosse. "I wish Algonquin would take the championship vote for Local Option next January, Father," he said tentatively. He waited, but Father Tracy said nothing. He was not so much noted for his leanings towards teetotalism as towards lacrosse.
"It would keep Mike Cassidy straight," ventured the visitor again.
"I can keep Mike Cassidy straight without the aid of any such heretic props," said Father Tracy, looking decidedly grim.
Lawyer Ed burst out laughing. "'Pon me word you're right," he exclaimed. "Man, I wish sometimes that our Protestant priests had the power that you have. But I'm not here to urge you, mind that. I'm not such a fool as to go down to the Rainy Rapids and try to turn them back with a pebble. But I just thought I might as well ask you what your opinion was, when I was here. A great many people of your flock tell me they will vote just as the Father tells them." He glanced back at his host as he moved to the door.
"Yes, and they'd better," said the Father. "So you'd like to know what to say to them, eh?"
"I certainly would." He waited anxiously.
Father Tracy stood watching him go down the steps, his portly figure filling up the doorway, his good-natured face beaming. "And if it's news ye're after I suppose ye'll rest neither day nor night till ye get it."
"Not likely."
"Well—" Father Tracy was enjoying the other's anxiety and was as deliberate as Jock McPherson—"well, if you meet any of my stray sheep that look as if they were goin' to vote for the whiskey, ye can tell them for me that I'd say mass for a dead dog before I'd meddle wid their lost souls."
Lawyer Ed went down the street, half a block at a stride, in the direction of J. P.'s office.
Archie Blair's horse and buggy were standing in front of a house next to the Catholic church. The temptation, combined with his desperate hurry, was too much. He leaped in and, without so much as "By your leave," he tore down the street and never drew rein until he fairly fell out of the vehicle in front of J. P.'s office. He burst in with the glorious news: "I've got four hundred new votes promised me for local option. Hurrah! That's better than going to the Holy Land any day in the year!"
But when the day came at last that was to take Roderick from him, even Lawyer Ed's love of battle failed him. It was a dreary day, with Nature in accord with his gloom. A chill wind had blown all night from the north, lashing Lake Algonquin into foam and making the pines along the Jericho Road moan sadly. Early in the day the snow began to drive down from the north and by afternoon the roads were drifted.
Roderick was to leave on the afternoon train for Toronto, and there take the night express for Montreal and he came into Algonquin in the morning, to bid his friends good-bye. The sudden change in the weather had, as usual, been accompanied by the return of the old pain in his arm. It had been more frequent this autumn, but he had paid little heed to it. But to-day it added just the last burden required to make him thoroughly miserable. Lawyer Ed was stamping about, complaining loudly of the cold, blowing his nose, and talking about everything and anything but Roderick's pending departure. The Lad's drooping spirits went lower at the sight of him.
As he went about saying farewell he realised that he had not known how many friends he had made. Alexander Graham was full of expressions of congratulation and good-will.
"You must make good, Rod, my boy," he said. "We'll be watching you, you know, and of course the blame will fall on me if you don't. But I have no fears." He laughed in a patronising way that made Roderick feel very small indeed.
"I'm so sorry you couldn't come up again. The wife and Leslie took a sudden notion that they must go to Toronto for a month—or Leslie took it rather, and made her mother and aunt go with her. I'm sorry they are not here—but they are in Toronto and you might—" he paused knowingly,—"I guess I don't need to tell you where they are staying. Miss Leslie probably left her address." He laughed in such an insinuating way that Roderick's face grew crimson.
"No, Miss Graham did not give me her address," he said, so stiffly that the man looked at him in wonder, then laughed again. This was some of Leslie's nonsense, as usual, just to tease him. She had forced a little lover's quarrel probably and gone without saying good-bye. But he knew Leslie could make it all right just when she chose.
He parted from Roderick in quite a fatherly manner, but the young man went away feeling more uncomfortable and downhearted than ever.
There was one person who seemed frankly glad to see him go. Mr. Fred Hamilton did not actually express his joy, but he looked it, and Roderick felt something of the same feeling when they said good-bye. Dr. Leslie and several other old friends came next. Archie Blair had gone to the city to a medical congress, and he missed him. But he had bidden almost every one else in Algonquin farewell when at last he sent his trunk to the station, and taking Lawyer Ed's horse and cutter, drove out to the farm for the severest ordeal of that hard day.
As he passed the school, the children came storming out to their afternoon recess, pelting each other with snowballs. Roderick hesitated a moment before the gate, but the wild onslaught of some fifty shrieking youngsters frightened the horse, and it dashed away down the road, so he decided to leave his farewell with her to the last.
The bleak wind was sweeping down from the lake and the old board fence and the frail houses on Willow Lane creaked before it. The water roared up on the beach as he passed along the Pine Road, and the snow drove into his eyes and half blinded him. The McDuff home was deserted. There was no track to the door through the snow, no smoke from the old broken chimney. Peter Fiddle was either out at the farm or down in the warm tavern on Willow Lane singing and playing.
The dull pain in Roderick's arm had increased to a steady ache that did not help to make the soreness of his heart any easier. The bare trees along the way; creaked and moaned, cold grey clouds gathered and spread across the sky.
Hitherto Roderick had felt nothing but impatience at the thought of staying in Algonquin all his life to watch Old Peter and Eddie Perkins and Mike Cassidy and their like, but now that the day had come for him to leave, it seemed as though everything was calling upon him to stay, every finger post pointing towards home. Doctor Leslie's farewell, a warning to again consider. Lawyer Ed's patient, cheery acceptance of the situation, J. P. Thornton's open disapproval, Helen Murray's smile the other evening at the door of Rosemount, his father's love and confidence in him, all pulled him back with strong hands. The rainbow gold shone but dimly that day, and he would fain have turned his back upon it for the sure chance of a life like his father's in Algonquin.
He found Old Angus watching for him at the window. His brave attempts at cheerfulness made Roderick's trial doubly hard. He bustled about, even trying to hum a tune, his old battle song, "My Love, be on thy guard."
"I'll be back before you know I'm gone, Auntie," said the Lad, when Aunt Kirsty appeared and burst into tears at the sight of him. He tried to laugh as he said it, but he made but a feeble attempt. They sat by the fire, the Lad trying to talk naturally of his trip, his father making pathetic attempts to help him, and Aunt Kirsty crying silently over her knitting. At last, as Roderick glanced at the clock. Old Angus took out the tattered Bible from the cup-board drawer. It had always been the farewell ceremony in all the Lad's coming and going, the reading of a few words of comfort and courage and a final prayer. Old Angus read, as he so often did when his son was leaving, the one hundred and thirty-ninth psalm, the great assurance that no matter how far one might go from home and loved ones, one might never go away from the presence of God.
"If I ascend up into Heaven thou art there. If I make my bed in hell behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall uphold me."
The prayer was simple and direct, as were all Old Angus's communions with his Father. He had come to-day to a place where the way was very puzzling, and Roderick, knowing him so well, understood why he prayed for himself, that he might not be troubled with the why of it all, but that he might know that God was guiding them all aright. But there was an anguished note in his voice new to the Lad, and one that made the pain in his heart grow almost unbearable. He had heard that sound in his father's voice once before; and was puzzled to remember when. And then there came vividly to his heart's ear, the cry that had rung out over the dark waters to him the night the little boy was lost. "Roderick, my son, where are you?" The father's heart was uttering that cry now, and the son's heart heard it. There were tears in the eyes of both men when they arose from their knees.
Aunt Kirsty came to him for her farewell with a big bundle in her arms. It was done up carefully in a newspaper and tied with yarn, and contained a huge lunch, composed of all the good things she had been able to cook in a day's baking. Roderick felt as if he could not eat anything between home and Montreal, but he took the bulky parcel gratefully and tenderly. She put her arms about him, the tears streaming down her face, then fled from the room as fast as her ample size would permit, and gave vent to her grief in loud sobs and wails. Old Angus followed his son out to the cutter in the shed. He stumbled a little. He seemed to have suddenly become aged and decrepit. It was not the physical parting that was weighing him down so heavily. Had Roderick been called to go as a missionary to some far-off land, as his father had so often dreamed in his younger days that he might, Old Angus would have sent him away with none of the foreboding which filled his heart to-day when he saw his boy leave to take a high position in the work of the world.
Roderick caught the blanket off the horse, and as he did so his arm gave a sudden, sharp twinge. His face twisted.
"Is it the old pain in your arm, Roderick, my son?" his father asked anxiously.
"It's nothing," said the Lad lightly. "It'll be all right to-morrow."
"You should see a doctor," admonished his father. "There will be great doctors in Montreal."
"Perhaps I shall," said the boy. "Now, Father, don't stand there in the cold!" He caught the old man's hand in both his. "Father!" he cried sharply. "I—oh—I feel I shouldn't leave you!"
"Hoots, toots, Lad!" The man clapped him upon the back comfortingly. "You must not be saying that whatever. Indeed it's a poor father I would be to want you always by me. No, no, you must go, but Roderick—"
"Yes, Father."
The old man's face was pale and intense. "You will not be leaving the Heavenly Father. Oh mind, mind and hold to Him!"
Roderick pressed his hand, and felt for the first time something of the utter bitterness of that road to success. "I'll try, Father," he faltered. "Oh, I will!"
He sprang into the cutter and took the lines, the old man put his hands for a moment on the Lad's bowed head praying for a blessing upon him, and then the horse dashed out of the gate and away down the lane. At the turn Roderick looked back. His father was standing on the snowy threshold where he had left him, waving his cap. A yellow gleam of wintry sunlight through ragged clouds lit up his face, the wind fluttered his old coat and his silver hair, and, standing there in his loneliness, he was making a desperate attempt at a smile that had more anguish in it than a rain of tears.
Roderick drove swiftly down the snowy road, his eyes blinded. For one moment he hated success and money and fame and would have thrown them all away to be able to go back to his father. Well he knew the parting was more, far more than a temporal leave-taking. It was a departure from the old paths where his father had taught him to walk.
As he sped along, his head down, he did not see a figure on the road ahead of him. He was almost upon it when he suddenly jerked his horse out of the way. It was Old Peter. Evidently he had drunk just enough to make him tremendously polite. He stepped to the side of the road and bowed profoundly.
Roderick made an attempt to pull up his horse and say good-bye. A sudden impulse to take Peter home to his father seized him. Old Angus would be so comforted to think that his boy's last act was giving a helping hand on the Jericho Road. But his horse was impatient, and Peter had already turned in at his own gate and was plunging through the snow to his house. A bottle was sticking out of his pocket. Evidently he intended to make a night of it. The sight of it made the young man change his mind. There was no use, as he had so often said, bothering with Peter Fiddle. He was determined to drink himself to death and he would.
Roderick let his horse go and went spinning down the road. Then he realised that he had given his arm a wrench, when he had pulled his horse out of Peter's way. The pain in it grew intense for a few moments. He resolved that as soon as he was settled at his new work he would have it attended to. It was the relic of his old rainbow expedition and though it had annoyed him only at intervals it had never ceased to remind him that there was trouble there for him some future day.
He had another hard parting to face, but one with hope in it for the future. When he tied his horse at the school gate and went in he was wondering how he would tell Helen how much the farewell meant to him. For he was determined that she must know. The school was quiet, for the hour for dismissing had not come. As he entered the hall, Madame came swaying out of Miss Murray's room with a group of cherubs peeping from behind her. "Now you, Johnnie Pickett," she was saying, "you just come and tell me if anybody's bad and I'll fix them." Then she saw Roderick, and greeted him with a rapturous smile.
"There's a dear boy," she cried, "to come and say good-bye to your old teacher. Now, you Johnnie Pickett, what are you following me out here for? Aren't you to watch the room for Miss Murray? Go on back. Well, and you are really going this afternoon?" she said, turning to her visitor again. "And how is your father standing it? What's the matter now?"
A small youngster with blazing eyes shot from the room and launched himself upon her.
"Please, teacher," he cried, his voice shrill with wrath, "them kids, they won't mind me at all. Dutchy Scott's makin' faces, and the girls is talkin', an' Pie-face Hurd he's calling names. He said I was a nigger!" His blue eyes and white hair belied the accusation, but his voice rose to a scream at the indignity. Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby marched the deposed monitor hack to the room to restore order, explaining volubly that it was quite as wicked a crime to call a boy Pie-face as for that boy to call one a nigger.
"I've got Miss Murray's room in charge," she said, returning to Roderick smiling and breathless. "Go on back there, now! I see you looking out there, you, Jimmie Hurd. Just wait till I catch you!"
"She isn't sick, is she?" asked Roderick dismayed.
"No. Oh, no! She went with a crowd of young folks to a tea-meeting at Arrow Head. They started early, and I made her run home an hour before the time to bundle up. Now, Johnnie Pickett, leave that chalk alone! You don't need to think I don't see you—"
Roderick went on his journey miserably disappointed. She had gone on a sleigh ride and she must have known, indeed she did know, he intended to call and say good-bye to her. Each farewell had been harder than the last and now this absence of farewell was the hardest of all. There was one more—Lawyer Ed's. Like Old Angus, he was making an attempt at cheerfulness that was heartbreaking. He tramped about, singing loudly, scolding every one who came near him, and proclaiming his joy over the Lad's going in a manner that drove poor Roderick's sore heart to desperation. He drove with him to the station, carried his bag on board, loaded him with books and magazines and bade him a joyful farewell, with not a word of regret. But he gave way as the train moved out and Roderick saw him hastily wipe his eyes and as he looked back for one last glimpse of his beloved figure, the Lad saw Lawyer Ed move slowly away, showing for the first time in his life the signs of approaching age.
That night Old Angus sat late over his kitchen fire. He was mentally following the Lad. He was in Toronto now; later, on the way to Montreal, lying asleep in his berth probably. Old Angus's faith forbade his doubting that God's hand was in his boy's departure. But the remembrance of all his joyous plans on the day the Lad started in Algonquin persisted in coming up to haunt him. He sat far into the night trying to reason himself back into his former cheerfulness. The storm had risen anew, and gusts of wind came tearing up from the lake, lashing the trees and shaking the old house. The snow beat with a soft, quick pad-pad upon the window-pane. Occasionally the jingle of bells came to him muffled in the snow. Finally, he heard a new sound, some one singing. It was probably a sleigh-load of young folk returning from a country tea-meeting, he reflected. Then he suddenly sat up straight. Something familiar in the fitful sounds made him slip out to the door and listen. The wind was lulled for a moment, and he could dimly discern a figure going along the road. And he could hear a voice raised loud and discordant in the 103rd psalm! Old Angus came back into the house swiftly. He caught up his coat and cap. Peter had fallen among thieves once more! And he would probably be left by the road-side to freeze were he not rescued. He hastily lit a lantern and carefully closed up the stove. Then, softly opening the door, he hurried out into the storm.
He found the lane and the road beyond badly drifted, but he plunged along, his swaying lantern making a faint yellow star in the swirling white mists of the storm. He reached the road. Peter's voice came to him fitfully on the wind. He had probably started out to come to him and had lost his bearings. There was nothing to do but follow and bring him back. He plunged into the road and staggered forward in the direction of the voice.
The snow had stopped falling but the wind that was driving it into drifts was growing bitterly cold. Old Angus needed all his strength to battle with it, as he forced his way forward, sinking sometimes almost to his waist. He struggled on. Peter was somewhere there ahead, perhaps fallen to freeze by the roadside, and the Good Samaritan must not give in till he found him. But his own strength was going fast. In his thought for Peter he had forgotten that he was not able to battle with such a wind. He fell again and again, and each time he rose it was with an added sense of weakness. He kept calling to Peter, but the roar of the lake on the one hand and the answering roar of the pines on the other drowned his voice. He was almost exhausted when he stumbled over a dark object half buried in snow in the middle of the road. He staggered to his feet and turned his lantern upon it. It was Peter, lain down in a drunken stupor to die of cold.
"Peter! Peter!" Angus McRae tried to speak his name, but his benumbed lips refused to make an articulate sound. He dropped the lantern beside him and tried to raise the prostrate figure. As he did so he felt the light of the lantern grow dim. It faded away, and the Good Samaritan and the man who had fallen among thieves lay side by side in the snow.
When Roderick stepped on board the night train for Montreal he was surprised and pleased to find Doctor Archie Blair bustling into the opposite compartment. That delightful person, with a suit-case, a pile of medical journals, a copy of Burns, and a new book of poems, had left Algonquin the day before, and was now setting out on a tremendous journey all the way to Halifax, to attend a great medical congress. He welcomed his young fellow-townsman hilariously, pulled him into his seat, jammed him into a corner, and scowling fiercely, with his fists brandished in the young man's face and his eyes flashing, he spent an hour demonstrating to Roderick that he had just discovered a young Canadian singer of the spirit if not the power of his great Scottish bard. The other occupants of the sleeping-car watched the violent big man with the terrible eye, nervously expecting him every moment to spring upon his young victim and throttle him. But to those who were within earshot, the sternest thing he said was,
"Then gently scan thy brother man,Still gentler sister woman,Though they may gang a keenin' wrang,To step aside is human."
The charm of the doctor's conversation, drove away much of Roderick's homesickness and despondency, but it could not make him forget the pain in his arm, which was hourly growing more insistent.
"And so you're leaving Algonquin for good," said Archie Blair at last, when the black porter sent them to the smoker while he made up their berths. "Well, there's a great future ahead of you in that firm. Not many young fellows have such a chance as that. I wish Ed could have gone away before you left, though, to Jericho, or Sodom and Gomorrah, or wherever it is he and J. P. Thornton are heading for."
Archie Blair, as every one in Algonquin knew, lived as near to the rules of life set forth in the Bible as any man in the town. But he delighted in being known as a wicked and irreligious person, and always made a fine pretence at being at sea when speaking of anything Scriptural.
"Yes, sir, it's rather hard on old Ed; and there's J. P. too. He's been waiting for Ed ever since the Holy Land was discovered, as faithfully as Ruth waited for Jacob or whoever it was. I can't remember when those two chaps weren't planning to take that trip, and it looks as if they'd get to the New Jerusalem first. Cracky, now, I believe you were the one that stopped their first trip and here you're interrupting another one!" He laughed delightedly.
"I?" inquired Roderick. "How was that?"
"Oh, Ed wouldn't say so. He'd be sure it was the hand of Providence. It was the time you went off hunting the rainbow and got lost, don't you remember? and your father got sick on the head of it. Ed stayed home that time."
"But it was Jock McPherson who came to poor father's rescue that time," said Roderick. "Lawyer Ed told me himself."
Doctor Blair made a grimace.
"Roderick McRae," he said, after a moment, "I have a fatal weakness. I suppose it's the poet in me. I like to think it is. I'm forever pouring out the thoughts of my inmost heart which I really ought to keep to myself. That was the way with Bobby ye mind:
'Is there a whim-inspired foolOwre fast for thought, owe hot for rule.'
And here I've been telling tales I should keep tae ma'sel!"
"Well, you've got to finish, now that you've started," cried Roderick. "Do you mean to tell me that Lawyer Ed—"
"No, I don't mean to tell you anything, but I've done it, and I might as well make a full confession. Of course it was Lawyer Ed did it. He always does things like that, he's got them scattered all over the country."
"But—why didn't I know?" cried Roderick sharply. "And what did he do?"
"Because he didn't want it. I'm the only person in Algonquin that knows, except J. P., of course. J. P. knows the innermost thoughts that pass through Ed's mind. There's another secret between us three." He smiled half-sadly. "I suppose, though, your father knows this one—that Ed was to have married J. P.'s only sister. She was tall and willowy and just like a flower, and she died a week before the wedding day. They buried her in her white satin wedding dress with her veil and orange blossoms." Archie Blair's voice had sunk to a tender whisper. "I saw her in her coffin, with a white lily in her hand."
He was silent so long that Roderick brought him back to the starting point. "But you haven't told me yet how he helped Father."
So Archie Blair began at the beginning and told him all, happily unconscious of how he was harrowing Roderick's feelings in the telling. It was the old story of his father's mortgage, his own hunt for the rainbow, which, the doctor declared, argued that he should have been a poet, his father's illness, and Lawyer Ed's postponement of his trip, and greatest of all, his setting aside of the chance to leave Algonquin as partner with his old chum, William Graham, now millionaire.
"Your father sort of brought Ed up, you know, Rod, made him walk the straight and narrow way as he has done with many a man. I want to take my hat off every time I see that father of yours." He saw the distress in Roderick's face and was rather disconcerted. "Your father paid him every cent with interest, of course, Lad, you know that," he added hurriedly. "But there are some things can't be paid in money. Well, well—where did I start? Oh, at Jerusalem, and I've wandered from Dan to Beersheba and haven't got anywhere yet. Well, that was how Ed got started on the habit of staying home from the Holy Land, and he doesn't seem to be able to get out of it. You know it's a good thing. I'm always sorry Wordsworth ever went to Yarrow. It's a hundred times better to keep your dream-country a dream.
'Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown!It must, or we shall rue it.'
And if he ever goes, it'll never be what he thinks. His dreams of Galilee and the Rose of Sharon and Mount Carmel will vanish when he sees the poor reality. You see, in his Palestine, the Lord is always there." He dropped his voice—
"'And in those little lanes of NazarethEach morn His holy feet would come and go.'"
Roderick was not listening. He sat with downcast eyes and burning cheek. Lawyer Ed had done all this for his father, for him,—and this was his reward! The man had given up his chance in life for his father and then the son had come and done this abominable thing. Surely the gleam of the rainbow-gold was beginning to mock him already. And yet, as he sat there, overcome with humiliation, his mind was busy arranging swift compromises, as it had always done. He would pay Lawyer Ed, oh, five fold, and send him away for a year's travel. And yet when all his generous schemes had been exhausted, he knew they were not what Lawyer Ed wanted. It was the love and devotion of his friend's son he preferred above all worldly gain.
He came to a knowledge of his surroundings, called back by a sudden exclamation from the doctor.
"I believe you're sick, Rod! You look like an advanced and violent case of sea-sickness."
Roderick became conscious that his arm was paining him severely and said so. He could have said quite truthfully that the pain in his heart was quite as bad.
"That old arm," cried Archie Blair in distress. "I tell you, Lad, you've got to have that thing looked after. Here, get to bed and I'll have a look at it when you're undressed."
He came into Roderick's berth later and with rough kindness handled the swollen, aching limb. "I always told you something would come of this," he grumbled. "And like everybody, you won't listen till it's too late. There's some serious trouble there, Rod, or I'm very badly mistaken. Now, look here, you promise me on your word and honour you'll go straight to a doctor when you get to Montreal—to Doctor Nicholls. Here, I'll give you his address. Now, will you promise to go to-morrow morning, or must I stop off and miss my train to Halifax to see you do it?"
Roderick promised and lay down in his berth, but not to sleep. The pain in his arm was severe enough to keep him awake, but it was no worse than his heartache. It was a tender heart, not yet calloused by constant pursuit of selfish aims. That state would certainly be arrived at, on the road he was travelling, but he was still young and his very soul was longing to go back to his father and Lawyer Ed. Again and again he tried to comfort himself with the promise that he would make up to them for all they had done, oh, many times over, and in the end, they would both realise that the course he had pursued was for the best.
As he made this firm resolution, for the tenth time, the train drew up at a little station in the woods. Roderick looked out at the steam hissing from beneath his window and the dim light in the little station. He recognised it as the junction, where a branch line ran from the main road, across the country, through forest and by lake shore, straight to Algonquin. The home train was approaching now. He could hear its rumbling wheels and its clanging bell far down the curving track, and the next moment, with a flare of light upon the snow, it came tearing up out of the forest and roared into the little station. Its brilliant windows flashed past his dazzled eyes. It stopped with a great exhaled breath of relief and stood panting and puffing after its long run. Roderick knew that if he chose he could slip out, leap on that train and go speeding away up through the forest and be in Algonquin before morning. He felt for a moment an almost irresistible impulse to do it, to fling away everything and go back. But he would look like a fool, and the people would laugh at him, and quite rightly. He could not go back now.
There was a gentle movement, and slowly and smoothly he began to glide past those home-going lights. In a moment more he was speeding eastward into the white night.
When he reached Montreal he went immediately to the hotel. He was to meet Mr. Graham and the head of the firm there that evening, when everything regarding his immediate duties was to be settled. He registered, and found a room awaiting him, a luxurious room, finer than any he could afford. It was the beginning of his new life. He went down to breakfast, but could eat nothing, for the pain in his arm. He was not at all averse to obeying Dr. Blair's injunction, and as soon as he went back to his room, he telephoned the doctor whose address he had been given. He felt a strange dizziness and, fearing to go out, he asked if the doctor would call. When Roderick gave the name of the firm he represented, there was an immediate rise in the temperature at the other end of the telephone. Evidently the young lady in charge of Doctor Nicholls's office knew her business. All uncertainty as to the physician's movements immediately vanished.
Doctor Nicholls would call in the course of half an hour if convenient to Mr. McRae, he was just about to visit the Bellevue House in any case.
Roderick felt again the advantages of his new position. The sensation of power was very pleasant, but it could not keep his arm from aching. The pain grew steadily worse, until at last he lay on the bed waiting impatiently.
In a short time there came a tap on the door. Thinking it was the doctor, Roderick sprang up relieved. But it was only the boy in buttons with a telegram. He signed the paper indifferently. Even the most urgent business of Elliot & Kent could not arouse his interest, he was feeling so sick and miserable and down-hearted. He opened the yellow paper slowly, and then sprang up with a cry that made the boy stop in the hall and listen. Roderick stood in the middle of the room reading the terse message again and again:
"Father ill. Come at once." E. L. Brians.
He leaped to the telephone, then dropped the receiver at the sight of a railway guide he had left upon the table. The first train he could take for home left at fifteen minutes past three in the afternoon. And it was not yet ten o'clock! He sat down on the bed, a dread fear possessing his soul. Wild surmises rushed through his mind. What could have happened? It was not twenty-four hours since he had seen his father standing in the doorway waving him farewell, the sunlight on his face and that gallant, anguished attempt at a smile! Roderick groaned aloud as he remembered. He took up the telegram again, striving to extract from its cruelly brief words some inkling of what had preceded it, some hope for the future.
A second tap at the door sent him to open it with a bound. Before him stood a professional looking man, well-dressed and well-groomed, with a small leather bag.
"Are you my patient?" he asked briskly.
"Patient?" Roderick stared at him stupidly.
"Yes; Mr. McRae, I believe? I am Doctor Nicholls."
"Oh," said Roderick. "I had forgotten all about it. Yes, come in." He stepped back and the physician eyed him curiously. He looked desperately ill, sure enough.
Roderick answered briefly and absently all the doctor's questions. Beside this awful thing which threatened him, his arm seemed so trivial, that he was impatient at the attention he was compelled to give it. Evidently the physician was of another opinion as to its importance. His face was imperturbable, but after a careful examination he said very gravely:
"You'll have to have this attended to immediately, Mr. McRae. Immediately. It's a case, if my judgment is correct, that has been delayed much too long already. Could you come to the hospital—this morning?"'
"I have to leave here on the three-fifteen this afternoon," said Roderick. "I have just received a telegram that my father is very ill—I can't have anything done to-day."
"Ah, quite sad indeed. Not serious I hope?"
"I don't know," said Roderick dully.
"I must urge you especially to come to-day. We have Dr. Berger here, from New York. He is going to the congress at Halifax. You have heard of him, of course. He is coming to see some patients of mine this morning, and I should like him to see you too. Indeed, I feel I must urge you, Mr. McRae. You are trifling with your health, perhaps your life," he went on, puzzled by Roderick's indifference. "It is imperative that something be done at once. How about coming with me now? It leaves plenty of time for your train."
Roderick considered a moment. He could not meet Mr. Graham now in any case. He must leave a message for him that he had been called back to Algonquin and telegraph home for more specific news. That was all he could do until train time, so he decided he might as well obey the doctor.
When he had despatched a telegram and written a message for Mr. Graham he followed the doctor to his car. The professional man seemed eagerly delighted, as though Roderick were merely a wonderful new specimen he had found and upon which he intended to experiment. He chattered away happily on the way to the hospital.
"Yes, Berger will be very much interested. Yours is really a rare case, from a medical standpoint, Mr. McRae. Quite unique. You said you believed it was injured when you were only six years old?"
He seemed almost pleased, but Roderick did not care. The pain in his arm and that fiercer pain raging in his heart made him indifferent. "My father! My father!" he was repeating to himself in anguished inquiry. What had happened to his father? Perhaps he was dying, while his son lingered far away from him. And what an age he had to wait for that train, and what another age to wait till it crawled back to Algonquin! He remembered with wonder the strange wild impulse he had had the night before to leap across into the home-bound train and go back. He speculated upon what might have happened, until his brain reeled. And when would he get another telegram? And why had not Lawyer Ed told him more? He asked himself these futile questions over and over in wild impatience. The fever of the night before had returned, his head was hot, and ached as if it would burst.
He obeyed the doctor's orders mechanically. His mind was focussed on the time for the train to leave and in the interval he did not care what they did with him. So he let himself be put into a bare little white room, heavy with the smell of disinfectants, while a nurse in a blue uniform and a young house surgeon in white and a silent footed orderly moved about him.
The nurse's blue dress reminded him of another blue gown, one for which he used to watch at the office window on summer mornings. He followed it with his eyes, as the great surgeon took him in hand and examined and questioned him. He answered mechanically, his parched lips uttering things with which his fevered brain seemed to have no interest.
He listened in a detached way, as though the doctor were speaking of some one else as, with many technical terms, he diagnosed the case. Doctor Nicholls was there, and two young house surgeons, all eagerly listening, but the patient's mind was away in the old farm house on the shore of Lake Algonquin desperately seeking relief from its suspense.
He scarcely noticed when they left the room, but he came to himself completely when they returned, and Dr. Nicholls announced to him briskly and almost joyfully that Dr. Berger's ultimatum was an immediate operation.
"No, you won't," said the patient with sudden vigour. "I have to leave this afternoon for home on the three-fifteen."
The great man looked down at him. "Young man," he said quietly, and there was a still strength in his manner that carried conviction, "you will do as you please of course, but if you don't take my advice and have that limb attended to immediately, you'll go to your long home, and not much later than 3.15 either. Yours is a most critical case. If you refuse you are committing suicide. Now, Doctor Nicholls, I have just half-an-hour to see your other patients."
He walked out of the room. And Roderick sat up in the bed and stared after them stupefied. A young house-surgeon, who had been regarding the patient with eyes holding more than professional interest, came to his side. He tried to speak cheerfully.
"It's a most unusual thing to operate in such a hurry, but it's better for a patient, I think. It's all over quickly you know, and no long weary waiting."
"But my father!" cried Roderick. "My father is critically ill. I've got to go home! I've got to, I tell you! I can have this done—later—at home."
The fever flush deepened to a hot crimson. He got to his feet, then staggered back, dizzy with pain. The young physician laid him on the bed. "Look here, now, you mustn't get worked up like that, Roderick," he said.
Roderick looked up at him. The young man had come into the room with Dr. Berger, but not till this moment had he noticed him. He stared, and a light, brighter even than the fever had brought, leaped into his eyes.
"Wells!" he cried. "Is it Dick Wells?"
"Dick Wells, it is," said the other, smiling, pleased that he had created such a complete diversion. He took the patient's left hand and shook it with a cordiality that was not returned.
"I haven't seen you since old 'Varsity days, Rod. And 'pon my word I didn't know you for a minute. We'll see you through this all right; don't worry."
Roderick was staring at him in a disconcerting way.
"Where have you been since you graduated?" he asked.
That harsh unsmiling manner was not at all like the Roderick McRae he had known in college, but the young man laid the change to his fevered condition.
"Here, in Montreal. Next year I hope to go to Europe." He made a sign to the nurse who entered, and quietly began preparing the arm for its operation. Roderick did not pay any attention to even her blue uniform this time, his eyes were fixed with a fierce intentness upon the young doctor's face. Wells had always been known as a very handsome fellow, but his appearance had not improved; he had grown stouter and coarser. He was still good-looking, however, and his manner had the old easy kindness Roderick remembered. He was just going to ask him another abrupt question, when the young doctor slipped his finger over the patient's pulse, and began talking quietly and soothingly.
"And you went back to your old home town, didn't you? Let me see—" his casual air did not deceive his alert listener—"Algonquin's your home, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"You've been practising law there, haven't you?" He took out his watch and looked at it.
"Yes,—in Algonquin."
A smile passed over the young physician's face, as of pleasant reminiscence. "Algonquin," he repeated—"pretty name. You don't happen to know—er—a Miss Murray there, do you? A teacher."
"Yes," said Roderick, "I've met her," and held his breath for the next words.
"I've met her too—several times." He laughed, glancing at Roderick in a shamefaced manner. "I think when you go home, if you'll take me, I'll go along as travelling physician. I'd like most awfully well to see that town of yours."
Roderick involuntarily jerked his wrist from the other's grasp. Had he not done so, the doctor would have been amazed at the leap of the already bounding pulse.
"I thought—rumour had it at college—that your affections were in process of transition when you graduated." Roderick looked straight at him. It was impossible to keep from his voice something of the bitterness rising in his heart. He was risking his own secret. But he felt he must know.
Dick Wells' eyes dropped to his watch again. He was silent for a moment. The nurse left the room and he immediately spoke in a low tone.
"It a fellow plays the fool once in life," he said, "that's no reason why he should take it up as a steady profession. I've dropped it for good and all. And if you behave yourself and have this operation right away I'll come and take Christmas dinner—no, that's holiday time—I'll come and prescribe for you shortly after New Year's!" He laughed joyfully. "I hope you'll welcome me," he said, half-shyly. "For I've reason to believe I'm going to be welcomed in other quarters."
"Dr. Wells, you are wanted in the corridor," said the nurse, returning.
He left the room, and Roderick lay back and stared at the ceiling. He caught the word amputation, and he knew they were talking about his arm. They were going to cut it off, then. The knowledge did not seem to add anything to the overwhelming weight which had fallen upon him, and was crushing him. The whole structure of his life was tumbling about him, and he lay caught helpless in its fall. His new position was gone, for well he knew the company could not wait—indeed, would not wait—for so insignificant a servant as he. His father—perhaps his father was gone. And now the rosy hope that had steadily and surely arisen in his heart, since the day he had seen Helen Murray on board theInverness, until it had lighted up his whole life, had suddenly vanished in darkness. His fighting spirit rose against these odds. He shoved the deft hands of the nurse aside and sat up.
"I'm going home," he said hoarsely. Then the nurse, and the little white table by the bedside with the bottles on it, and the white uniformed man standing outside the doorway, swung up to the ceiling and became an indistinct blur. He recovered almost immediately. The nurse slipped a little thermometer under his tongue, and put a cool finger on his pulse.
"I must go home," mumbled Roderick. "Where's Dr. Wells?"
"Dr. Wells is wanted in the operating room," she said soothingly. "You will be glad to know he is going to assist. I understand you are old friends." She looked at him anxiously. He was in the worst possible condition mentally for an operation.
"If you'd just brace up, you know," she said encouragingly. "If you would get hold of yourself." She had prepared many a patient for the operating table, and had seen few so exercised as this one. "You must be courageous," she said. "The operation may not be serious. And it will be over soon."
Roderick looked at her uncomprehendingly. He cared not at all for the operation itself, but it was the trap that had caught him, and he was writhing to be free.
Her next words put a new face on it.
"If you have any message to send to your friends," she said gently, "I should be glad to have it attended to. Have you any—property or anything that should be settled. We hope this operation will be simple; but if not—you should be prepared, Mr. McRae."
"There's nothing," said Roderick. "Nothing."
Everything in the world was slipping from him. The props of life had given way one by one, and now perhaps life itself was going. He lay there on the small cot-bed, watching the nurse and orderly hurry to and fro, and looked squarely at the situation. It was desperate. Always he had taken hold of difficulties and wrenched them out of his path and gone proudly on his way. But here he was helpless. For the first time in his strong, successful youth he realised that which his father had striven all his years to teach him, man's utter impotence before God. He was bound hand and foot, helpless, just as the door of success had flung open at his touch. He had paddled out bravely into the open sea of life after the rainbow gold, only to find it vanish and leave him lost in a world of mists and shadows. He remembered Dr. Leslie's words: "If His love cannot draw us into the way, it meets us on the Damascus road and blinds us with its light."
He lay there for what seemed an interminable time. He was clinging to one faint hope. Lawyer Ed would surely answer his telegram. But the nurse returned with the word that there had been no message, and that the doctors were preparing. He was to go down to the operating room in ten minutes.
It seemed as if with that word the last feeble support gave way, and then Roderick McRae's soul went down to the black brink of despair. He was utterly alone, without help or friend. Everything, his success, his health, his father, his love, had been snatched from him in one moment.
There was even no God for him. He had been so long dependent entirely upon himself, that God had become a meaningless word. And now, if God were real, His cruel Hand was behind that fearful black mist that was closing about him shutting him off from hope. He lay like a log, staring at the white ceiling of the little hospital room. The nurse and the orderly were bidding him brace up and were shaking their heads over him. He paid no more attention to them than to the strong odour of drugs or the soft click-click of heels on the hardwood floor of the corridor. Some subtle trick of memory had taken him back to the one other time of despair in his experience. He was back again in that night, years ago, when he was lost on the lake, drifting away in the darkness to unknown terrors; and just as he had cried out that night, his whole soul rose in one desperate demand upon his Father for help.
"Oh, God!" he groaned, starting up, "oh, God, help me!"
And then it happened; the great wonder. The light from his Father's boat! The sound of his Father's voice! Just as, long ago, lost in mists and darkness, a prey to every terror, his father's voice, calling down the shaft of light, had caught him up from despair to the heights of joy, so it was now. Suddenly, without reason, there fell upon the young man's writhing soul a great calm. He lay back on his pillow, perfectly still, his whole being held in awe of what had happened. For there, in the common light of day, within the bare walls of the hospital room, not visible to the human eye, but plain to the eye of the soul, staring beyond the things that are seen for a gleam of hope, a Presence was quietly standing. Serene, omnipotent, all-calming, the gracious One stood, close to his side, and fear and pain fled before Him.
Roderick was conscious of no feeling of surprise or wonder. He felt only a great serenity, and an absolute safety. He asked no questions, felt no desire to ask any. There had been another young man once, who had met this same One in a like headlong career, planned by his own strong right hand, and he had cried out in fear, "Who art thou, Lord?" But Roderick knew just as well as he had known his father's voice that night coming out of the mists and darkness. His Eternal Father was at his side. That was all he knew now. It was all he cared to know. He lay there in perfect peace and, close to his side, silent and strong, stood the Presence.
The orderly pushed up the little wheeled conveyance to the bedside, the nurse took his wrist in her hand again. She beamed happily. "Good for you," she said, as she placed her hand upon his forehead. "Why, you're splendid. You've got your nerve all right," and she stared in amazement when Roderick smiled at her. He did not answer, though, he was listening to something. All the old promises he had learned at his father's knee and that had meant nothing to him for so long, were flooding over his peaceful soul, coming serenely and softly from the Presence standing by his pillow.
"When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee... Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness."
"Now, sir," said the orderly, "we'll just move you onto this truck." But Roderick rose up strongly. "Why can't I walk down?" he asked. The nurse stared and again felt the patient's pulse for some explanation of this transformation. The quiet steady beat in the wrist was the strangest part of it all.
"Well," she cried admiringly, "I never saw anything like you. You're perfectly able to walk; but you'd better save your strength. Just lie down on this. You'll be all over your operation in no time!" Roderick obeyed, and the orderly wheeled him away to the elevator; and along the bare hospital corridor moved with him that strong Presence. And he went with a perfect faith and as little fear as if he had been going along the Pine Road to his home. What did it matter as to the result, or what did it matter that his father back in Algonquin did not know? He and his father were safe, upheld by the everlasting arms. It was well, no matter what the outcome. When he reached the operating room the Presence was there, just as real as the muffled doctors standing ready to do their work, and when he was stretched upon the table taking the anaesthetic, he felt as peaceful as on that night when he sank asleep in his father's arms and was borne safely homeward.
It seemed that the next moment he awoke in the room he had so recently left. Dr. Nicholls was at his side. "A normal pulse," he said, smiling into Rod's enquiring face. "You're a wonder. What do you think of that, nurse?"
"I expected that," she said, smiling.
"You've behaved so well," continued the doctor, "that I believe you're able to receive two pieces of good news."
"My father," whispered Roderick. The doctor nodded happily. "A telegram came half-an-hour ago. It reads, 'Out of danger, no need to come, will write. E. Brians.'" Roderick felt the tears slipping over his cheek. The nurse wiped them away. He was remembering it all now. The Presence had been with his father too.
"You haven't asked about my other news," said the doctor.
Roderick looked at him enquiringly. He was thinking of Helen, and had forgotten all about the operation.
"Berger saved your arm. And it will be as fit as ever in a few months. It was the most delicate kind of operation, and one of the finest he ever did. I shall tell you more about it later, you must be quiet now. But I must give you Dr. Berger's message. He had to leave for Halifax, but he said he wished he could congratulate you on your nerve. I don't know what you did to get hold of yourself in such a hurry, but you saved your own life. Now, I've told you enough. You must neither speak nor be spoken to until I see you again."
He smiled again, radiant with the true scientist's joy over such a triumph of skill as Roderick's arm presented, and left the room.
And Roderick, who knew so much more about it all than mere science could ever teach, closed his eyes and lay still, his whole soul raising to its new-found God one inarticulate note of thanksgiving.