"And now," cried Captain Herbert, rising with an expression of relief, "that's over. It's been an abominable tangle all through, a perfect mess, with everyone in the family mixed up in it, and it's a relief to have it settled. Come along, let's go out and breathe some fresh air and look at the dogs!"
Out of the strife of conflict,Out of the nightmare wild,Thou bringest me, spent and broken,Like the life of a little child.
Like the spume of a far-spent wave,Or a wreck cast up from the sea,Out of the pride of being,My soul returns to Thee.—WILLIAM WILFRED CAMPBELL.
Raye & Hemming, managers of that branch of the Great Lake Lumber Company that had its headquarters in the town of Barbay, soon learned that their new clerk was a young man of no mean parts. For beside an unusual ability, young Stanwell brought to his work that tenacity of purpose and tendency to unremitting toil which is the product of the farm.
Scotty found himself treated with every consideration by his chiefs. Captain Herbert's protégé was evidently a person of some importance, and he guessed that his generous salary was largely due to his patron's influence. Though his feelings towards his benefactor were naturally somewhat mixed, since hearing how he had defrauded him of his birthright, nevertheless Scotty could find small room in his heart for any ill-will against Isabel's uncle. He had ill-used him, no doubt, but he was making reparation, and what more could any man do? And, indeed, Scotty's affairs were turning out so much better than his fondest hopes had pictured, that he could not wish the past different. A few years with Raye & Hemming, he felt assured, would open the golden gates of college to him, and there he would vindicate himself.
For the young man was in happy ignorance of the fact that his present good fortune depended upon his separation from Isabel. Monteith had not seen fit to apprise him of that item in Captain Herbert's bargain. The shrewd schoolmaster had a suspicion that the foolish young man might throw up his hopeful prospects in a fit of romantic gallantry, and determined to run no risks until all danger was past.
So the boy did not know how hopeless was the love he and his golden-haired sweetheart had pledged beneath the pines at Kirsty's gate. Miss Herbert strongly objected to him, he knew, but she could be overcome in time. They must be separated for a time, but Captain Herbert was his friend, surely, and Isabel—well, he was certain of her, anyway—Isabel would never forget, for had she not promised that she would think of him always, no matter how far apart they might be, and how could anyone doubt Isabel?
His life in the town was beneficial in many ways. Socially he learned as much as he did in the office of Raye & Hemming, knowledge which he knew would stand him in good stead when that longed-for day would come when he would be permitted to visit Isabel in her home. He was received in Barbay society in spite of his rural training, for was he not Captain Herbert's friend, and the only son of that dashing Captain Stanwell whom the best people knew in the early days. And was there not the chance that he might be a young man of property some day?
And so, though Isabel and home were far away, Scotty worked away blithely, determined to show Captain Herbert that he was worthy of the trust reposed in him, and resolved to win in spite of all odds.
But as he grew more accustomed to the business, and more intimate with the inner workings of Raye & Hemming's office, there slowly spread over his rosy hopes a shadow of misgiving. He found it impossible to shut his eyes to the fact that the men with whom he was employed, and from whom he was to learn, were adepts at many of the small, sharp practices which he had been taught to despise. Scotty had been brought up with no hazy ideas of right and wrong. Though Big Malcolm had left the boy's training almost entirely to his wife, still, as much by example as precept, he had instilled into his grandson's very soul a proud contempt for anything resembling a lie. Any form of deceit, sharp dealing or trickery came under one despised category, and within Scotty's earliest memory had been looked upon by all his household with supreme scorn.
And now in his new environment he found himself a daily witness of a dozen little petty transactions such as he had been taught to loathe. Sometimes, when he was compelled to assist in the sharp tricks of his employers and received afterwards their laughing congratulations upon his success, he turned away from them with a feeling of nausea. He tried to picture his grandfather in similar circumstances, but could not. Well he knew Big Malcolm would not stoop from his lofty height to touch the business of Raye & Hemming with his finger-tips.
And yet they were not absolutely dishonest; perhaps this was only what the world considered being "sharp" in business, he argued. But he could not quite convince himself, and in his perplexity hinted at his troubles in a letter to Monteith.
The schoolmaster's answer did not succeed in putting his mind at rest. "I know those fellows have the name of doing some slippery things," he wrote, "and personally I wish you had hit upon men who had a better reputation, but there's no denying they know how to make money, and the shareholders are naturally rather fond of them. You must just learn to shut your eyes to little things that don't exactly suit you and go ahead. Your chance in life depends upon your ability to please those fellows. Don't lose it, my boy, it means everything."
Scotty was rather bewildered by this advice, coming from one whom he had long regarded as an infallible authority. In his backwoods simplicity he felt himself at sea. Was there, then, a different code of honour in the country from that which was adhered to in the town?
Not since the days when Granny had had to chide him for childish naughtiness had he been greatly troubled over the vexed question of right and wrong. Looking back now, he could see that he had been hedged about by what he chose to call circumstances. First there had been the influences of that home beneath the Silver Maple, and the strong, gentle control of his grandmother. And when his high spirits had been in danger of taking him beyond the "borderland dim," Monteith had come, and there had been no more trouble. Monteith's training had been quite different from that which he had received at home. The schoolmaster despised as a fool anyone who did not walk the straight and narrow path. Wrong-doing was idiotic, he declared; it didn't "pay." But Monteith's creed did not hold here. It did pay, as far as Scotty could see. And here he was with no hedging circumstances to keep him in the right path, standing at the parting of the ways.
And yet he did not for a moment consider the possibility of drawing back. There was too much at stake. As Monteith had said, everything depended upon his faithfully filling his post. To lose the favour of Raye & Hemming meant to lose everything he had set his heart upon, Captain Herbert's friendship, his education, Isabel herself.
No, he could not dream of giving up. And so he took Monteith's advice and went forward doggedly. But all the enjoyment in his new work was soon gone, his happy, sanguine days gradually changed to a season of worry and humiliation; until he sometimes longed with all his soul to fling all the unclean business aside, take an axe and go back to the bush.
He struggled on through the winter, morose and plodding, until the spring came with scented breezes and the songs of birds calling him to come away. Barbay was situated picturesquely on an arm of Lake Simcoe. From the office window he could catch enchanting glimpses of sapphire lake and emerald hill, and he was seized with an intense longing to return to his outdoor life. If he could only get back to his old environment for even a day, he felt he could readjust his ideas and see things more clearly. The 24th of May, the birthday of the good Queen, brought him the longed-for holiday. The office claimed him for a few hours in the morning, but early in the afternoon he hired a canoe, and, supplied with a gun and rod, a blanket and plenty of bread and meat, he paddled away into the blue expanse. He would go on until he came to the forest, he determined, and there he would camp for the night.
His spirits rose like a freed bird as, with long, steady strokes, hour after hour, he glided smoothly up the low, green shore. He was some distance from any human habitation when the steady dip, dip of his paddle echoed farther inland than usual. He paused and peered into the woods. He was on the edge of a forest whose tangled fringe of birch and elm hung over the greening water. But just behind this fringe was a little clearing, all smothered in riotous undergrowth. Scotty ran his canoe up on the sandy beach, her bow sweeping aside the drooping elm branches, and leaped ashore. He plunged into the little tangled circle of undergrowth, and at the first sight gave a boyish whoop of delight.
In the centre of the space, facing the water, stood an old log shanty, a temporary structure erected in the lumbering days. It contained bunks filled with straw. Here was the very place to spend the night; it seemed waiting for him. He set to work to make camp with the skill of a lifelong practice. A splendid black bass that responded hungrily to his bait made a fine addition to his larder. He soon had a merry fire in front of the cabin, sending a blue column of smoke straight into the treetops, and when it burned down to a bed of coals he cooked his fish. Supper was soon over, the canoe stowed safely high up on the shore, and he had nothing to do but enjoy the silence and peace of the wild, lonely spot. He built up his fire again, partly because the May night was cool and partly to keep off the mosquitoes, and stretched himself full length upon the ground before it. It was the first time in months that he had been absolutely at peace. Around him was the encircling forest, which bulked largely in his earliest memories, and always gave him the sensation of being at home. The sweet pungent odour of burning evergreens filled the air, mingling with the scents of the forest. Above the dark ring of wild, luxuriant growth the sky shone a clear transparent crystal, with faint illusive suggestions of rose and orange, for out there in the wide world the sun was setting, and Lake Simcoe glinted between the tree trunks flushed and smiling. The little breeze of the afternoon had died away, and not a leaf stirred; only where the subsiding waves disturbed the shells and pebbles on the beach could be heard a soft whispering rustle.
But as the night fell, from the darkening forest there arose the evening chorus of the birds. Each tall pine tree, silhouetted sharply against the crystal sky, was soon ringing with the transporting vespers of the veery. Away back on a hill, far above the little clearing, a whip-poor-will stationed himself in a treetop to complain over and over of the darkness and loneliness of the world. Just at Scotty's right hand, from behind a screen of scented basswood, came a sudden discordant sound, the rasping "meyow" of the cat-bird; a moment's silence followed and then arose a burst of delirious, bubbling melody, as though the naughty songster, hidden within his aromatic curtains, were laughing impudently at having deceived his hearers into thinking he was only a cat. A loon arose with a splash from the reedy shore of an island opposite and sailed away through the amber air; his wild, derisive laugh echoed back from the glimmering sunset bay where he had joined his comrades. Far above, the "scree-ak, scree-ak" of the night-hawks whirling in the heavens echoed away into the green depths; up the long dark aisles came the sweet "hoo, hoo" of the owl, and the clear ringing notes of the whitethroat "calling across the dusk." The frogs, down by the whispering water's edge, joined their chorus to the night music; and on every side, keeping at a respectful distance from the smoke of the fire, the mosquitoes "all in a wailful choir" uttered their little, thin, doleful tunes. And always, far up in the dark pinetops, like bells in a cathedral tower, rang out the clear, enchanting, metallic notes; the long liquid carol of the veery.
Scotty drew a great sigh of content; he was home again. The magic spirit of the woods, with its sense of peace and freedom, enfolded his very soul. Those things of earth, the sordid meannesses of his everyday life, faded away; they were as far removed as that diamond star he was watching twinkling on the sharp peak of a dark fir. He lay on his back, his hands clasped beneath his head, and gazed up into the tender blue of heaven until the night began to deepen. The crackling embers of the fire slowly smouldered down, the chorus in the treetops began to subside. Gradually a great stillness settled over the velvet darkness of the woods, and still lying motionless and content he could hear only the soft stir of a leaf or the occasional "hush, hush!" that the waters and the shells whispered, as though they were telling each other that the world was going to sleep.
Scotty forgot his bed in the shanty, a soft balsam limb made a fragrant pillow, and mother earth was the best couch. His senses floated away.
He was at home, lying under the Silver Maple; the sound of Granny's spinning-wheel came drowsily through the doorway. The pathway across the swamp to Kirsty's clearing was blue with violets; a white figure was flitting down it,—coming to him with the sunshine on her golden hair and the violets at her feet.
Suddenly he was wide awake; not startled, but with all his keen, woodsman senses alert. Instinctively he reached for his gun. Something strange in his surroundings had aroused him, he knew. What was it? He lay listening intently.
And then out of the depths of the darkness came the answer,—a sound, dim and far off, but echoing melodiously through the leafy arches, a voice as of an angel, singing:
"The Lord thee keeps, the Lord thy shadeOn thy right hand doth stay:The moon by night thee shall not smite,Nor yet the sun by day."
Scotty raised himself upon his elbow; the sound of the old psalm, coming without warning out of the uninhabited darkness, struck him with awe. Had the forest taken voice, or was it all but a part of his dream? He listened breathlessly until the psalm was finished and the silence had again fallen. There seemed something too sweetly mysterious about the singing to come from a human source. There was an intense silence for a few moments, then the voice rose again, this time nearer and more distinct,
"The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want,He makes me down to lieIn pastures green, He leadeth meThe quiet waters by."
Scotty was overwhelmed with a sudden rush of memory. He was reminded of that day so long ago when the awesome shadows of the winter woods had terrified him with the first conception of death, and sent him with unerring instinct to the true refuge.
Who could be wandering in this wild, lonely place at night singing,—singing the very things calculated to touch the depths of his soul?
The sound was coming nearer, growing in power, as though the singer felt the sublime confidence of the words.
"Yea, though I walk through death's dark vale,Yet will I fear no ill,For Thou art with me and Thy rodAnd staff me comfort still."
And then Scotty recognised the voice. It was one which, once heard, was not easily forgotten. It belonged to the great preacher, Mr. McAlpine, the man who years before had come to the Glen, and with his message from the Eternal roused the place to a better life. But he was an old man now, and retired from his labours, and how came he to be wandering in this trackless wilderness after nightfall?
The voice had ceased, and now the sound of footsteps in the crackling underbrush could be heard. Scotty could discern a dim figure coming towards his fire. He stood up as it approached. The old man with his long white beard, his bare silver head, for he carried his hat reverently, his tall, gaunt figure and piercing eye gave the young man the impression of one of the great men of Bible times, Isaiah, or that one who preached in the wilderness beyond Jordan and called to his hearers to make straight the paths for the coming of the Messiah.
With the mutual feeling of friendship that arises between men in the lonely places of the earth, the two met with outstretched hands.
A smile of pleasure at the open face and fine physique of his unexpected host flashed over the old man's face.
"Big Malcolm MacDonald's grandson!" he cried, when Scotty had introduced himself. "Oh, yes, indeed, I know Big Malcolm well,"—he shook the young man's hand once more: "Ah yes, it was his eldest son's funeral that first took me to the Oa. God moves in a mysterious way, indeed. And you were but a child then, and now you are a man. And it is a good thing to be standing upon the threshold of life, is it not?"
A good thing? Scotty would have given a most emphatic affirmative in response some months before, but now he was doubtful.
"Yes," he said hesitatingly, "in some ways. But how do you happen to be away back here alone, Mr. McAlpine?"
The minister explained his presence. He had been asked to go to Barbay to assist with the sacrament on the following Sabbath, and had intended to spend the night with a friend and take the stage out in the morning.
"But I could not wait," he concluded, "I was constrained to come on." There was that strange gleam in his eye which had always so filled Scotty with awe in his childhood. The young man understood. Mr. McAlpine's burning restlessness, his erratic way of making arrangements to be driven to certain places, and then suddenly setting out in the dead of night to walk prodigious distances had been the wondering talk of the Oa since he was a child. For this man carried a burden of souls that gave him no rest day or night, and that even now, when he was broken and aged, sometimes drove him to stupendous labour.
"But you will surely stay here to-night!" cried Scotty, feeling in the capacity of host even in this wild tangle of forest growth. "I am camping, but there is plenty of room in the shanty, and I can cook you some supper."
The old man accepted the hospitality gratefully. He appeared worn and exhausted, and seemed to have suddenly lost his restless energy, as though the spur which had driven him forth in the night had been removed.
Scotty made a comfortable seat for him of cedar boughs placed against a large tree trunk, and stirred up the fire to a blaze. Its rays danced forth, lighting up the worn face and white hair of the old man seated before it, and the strong frame of the young one standing erect in splendid contrast. The light made the log walls of the old shanty stand forth, touched here and there the fantastic heaps of dead brushwood and misshapen stumps, illumined the underside of the adjacent trees and danced away down the dim avenues to be lost among the ghostly shadows.
And while his host prepared supper, the minister beguiled the time by asking after all his friends in the Oa and the Glen, especially the Highlanders, for Mr. McAlpine was not above possessing a little weakness for anyone who spoke the Gaelic. And then he must know what the young man was doing, and how he came to be there.
Scotty answered his questions in the distantly respectful manner that all the Glenoro youth had been wont to show this man. He explained his sudden excursion to the woods as merely a natural desire to be out of doors. He told something too of his life with Raye & Hemming in Barbay, but he had all the reticence of his class and kin, and the minister learned little from what he said.
And while they conversed the elder man was watching the younger with the keen eye of a detective. For to old John McAlpine every soul with whom he came in contact was a burden to be carried until it was laid safely at the foot of the cross, and he was yearning to know if this young man, so respectful and kindly of manner, had yet had his heart touched by Divine love.
He tried to read the dark, young face in the light of the dancing flames, noting every feature—the intellectual brow, the kind, bright eyes, the mouth, still boyish, and showing some wilfulness and impatience of rule; the resolute chin. A good face, the man concluded, with rare possibilities. But he was convinced before the conversation closed that its owner was not a follower of the meek and lowly One.
For the minister was a marvellous reader of character, and in spite of Scotty's reserve, before the evening was gone he had allowed his guest to discover that he intended to carve out his own destiny as he desired, fearless of consequences.
When everything was in readiness for the night, and the young man had returned from making up a second bed in the shanty, the minister drew up close to the fire and took from his pocket a Bible.
He slowly turned over the leaves, praying earnestly that he might be guided in his choice to something that would touch this young man's soul. The 139th Psalm caught his eye, and the deep voice slowly and solemnly read:
"O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thoughts afar off.... Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? 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 hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me."
Leaning back against a fallen tree trunk, his face partially hidden in shadow, Scotty listened intently. Had this man been sent out of the darkness of the forest to show him how foolhardy were his attempts to escape from God? For had he not been saying to himself all these past months that surely the darkness of secrecy would cover his wrongdoing; that somehow he would escape from God.
He had not read the Bible since he left home, and the old familiar words, coming like a long-lost friend, struck him with their inevitable truth. His rest in the lap of nature had brought him to himself; he saw things with a clearer vision, and he realised now that the fierce yearning to be away which had driven him to the forest had been really the desire to escape the Eye that never sleeps. The longing to take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea had been upon him, and here God's messenger had met him, and he stood like a hunted animal at bay.
The minister read on without pause almost to the end, and then stopped.
There were two more verses, Scotty well knew; he and Isabel had learned that Psalm years ago at Granny's knee. "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." He looked up half-inquiringly as the voice ceased. The minister smiled comprehendingly.
"I see you know what follows," he said; "it is a great thing to be grounded in the Scriptures in youth. Do you know why I stopped?"
"No," said Scotty, in a whisper.
"Because the next is a verse I hardly dare to read. It is a fearful thing to ask the Almighty God to search the heart, for there are wicked ways in us, many and deep." He began slowly turning over the leaves again, and Scotty waited with a strange dread of what was coming.
The passage was from the challenging words that came to Job out of the whirlwind, and like a whirlwind they swept over the young man's soul.
"Who is this that darkeneth counsel, by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins, like a man, for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me."
He paused a moment and his listener held his breath. To him the words did not seem to be spoken by man, but seemed to come out of the whispering darkness of the great forest.
"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.... Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the cornerstone thereof; when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"
Scotty's heart suddenly swelled. This great Jehovah was speaking directly to him; the Jehovah whose inexorable laws were written in man's very being, as well as in His Book. And he, His creature, was about to set them aside, declaring that he would walk as seemed right in his own eyes.
But the minister was still reading. "Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the day-spring to know his place?... Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?... Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?"
Scotty listened with heart and ears, and when the minister came at last to Job's confession, he felt he could echo the words, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes."
The amber column of smoke rising straight to the circle of sky was suddenly touched with a silver radiance. Up from behind the dark island the moon had arisen, radiant and burnished, and was sending a long shimmering pathway across the deep blue of Lake Simcoe. Scotty's eyes followed its glint between the tree trunks and the words came over him again, "Now mine eye seeth thee." But when the minister paused he came back to realities. Another picture rose before him, the sweet face of the girl he loved, the one whom he was to win by keeping in the path wherein he now walked. A look of defiance flitted across his face. No. He would go on. He could never give up now!
But the leaves had rustled again, and now the minister had resumed his word pictures. This time they were not of the mighty Jehovah, just, unapproachable, omnipotent; but of the lonely Man of Nazareth standing by the lakeside and calling the fishermen to Him, and then on to Calvary when He said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
The elder man's keen eyes saw the tokens of a conflict in the other's face, and he was too wise to address him directly. His occasional remarks had the effect of soliloquies, but they plunged Scotty's soul in the valley of shadows.
He was thinking how all his life he had been compassed about. He knew now that what he had called hedging circumstances had been God's very Hand. His grandmother's faithful teachings had guided his careless boyish feet; his grandfather's falls from the high position he had set himself were graphic object-lessons to teach the value of righteousness; Monteith's influence had kept him in the right way, and now how dared he turn aside of his own will?
But what was the minister reading now? What but the story of a young man, one so goodly and commendable in person and character that the Master had regarded him with an especial feeling of comradeship; but there was one thing he refused to give up, and he turned his back upon the Saviour of mankind and went away sorrowful, "for his possessions were very great." And Scotty's possessions were great also—those he was about to reach out and seize, infinitely beyond the value of gold and silver, and he wanted to turn away, too, but something held him.
The minister glanced at the young man's face, and knew his heart had been touched. He closed the Book. "Let us pray," he said, and rising, knelt by the side of a moss-grown log. But Scotty did not kneel; he sat erect, staring with desperate eyes into the fire, and striving with all the force of his will to harden his heart. To his relief the old man made no remark upon his strange conduct when he arose from his knees, but at once went to his bed in the shanty. Some subtle instinct told him the young man would be better alone.
Long after he had retired Scotty walked up and down before the fire, fighting out the old, weary battle; but now with a fury as if for life.
To go on with his work at Raye & Hemming's now in the light of what had come to him this night would be, he knew, to cast aside all the teachings of his lifetime—the teachings of Granny, of experience, yes, even of Monteith, for he realised now they had all come from God, and were one. He was down in the valley of the shadows, and the rod and staff were of no comfort to him, for they meant pain and renunciation.
He could not give up Captain Herbert's friendship and Isabel; he could not go on. The fire had died down to a red eye looking sullenly out of the smoky darkness, the moon had sunk behind the forest ring, and out of the blackness of night came a sensation of approaching change, a hint that the dawn was near. As Scotty, pale and haggard, stood looking into the dying fire, a step aroused him and the minister was by his side.
"Why, sir," he cried in surprise, "you will surely not be getting up yet. It is quite dark."
"I was not sleeping," said the old man. "I could not but watch you," he added gently, "for I cannot but see you are carrying a burden; one heavy for your time of life, my lad, and I wondered if I could be of any help."
All Scotty's mental attitude of defiance melted away before this gentle sympathy. He was silent, simply through the inability to speak, and the minister continued, "Do not speak of it if you would rather not. I would not force your confidence, but just come and we will pray about it, and you will tell the Father and He will be making it right."
Scotty turned with a gesture of defeat. To pray was the last thing he desired to do, it meant surrender; but this time he knelt obediently at the minister's side by the dying fire.
And as he bowed his head he was suddenly startled by the words that broke forth. It seemed as if all his own soul's struggle had been transferred to the man at his side. Old John McAlpine had a wondrous gift of prayer, one that never failed to cast a solemn spell over his hearers, and to-night he pleaded for the soul of this young man as if for his life. His big hands were knotted, the perspiration stood in beads on his white forehead, and his agonised voice rose and went ringing away into the forest. Scotty was awesomely reminded of One who prayed in a garden, quite unlike this one of nature's wild making, and sweat drops of blood because of the sin he was to bear. And before the minister had ceased it seemed as if that other One came to his side and took up the petition, for Scotty felt his worldly desires slip from him like a garment. The struggle was over. Henceforth there could be no indecision, for he was not his own, but had been bought with a price.
When they arose from their knees the darkness had suddenly become transparent. A mysterious rustle and whisper of awakening life was on all sides, the dawn was on the point of breaking. Scotty's fire, like his worldly hopes, had died down to pale ashes, but far out on the faintly grey bosom of Lake Simcoe, and away beyond its dark forest-ring, soon to put all lesser lights to shame in their triumphant blaze, were kindling the fires of Heaven.
Oh, the East is but the West, with the sun a little hotter;And the pine becomes a palm by the dark Egyptian water;And the Nile's like many a stream we know that fills its brimming cup;We'll think it is the Ottawa as we track the batteaux up!Pull, pull, pull! as we track the batteaux up!It's easy shooting homeward when we're at the top.—WILLIAM WYE SMITH.
The Imperial transport,Ocean King, had loosed from her moorings at Montreal and was swinging down with the tide of the mighty St. Lawrence, and on her deck, many leaning eagerly over the railing to get a last glimpse of home, stood some four hundred stalwart sons of the Maple Land. Great, strong fellows they were, all with the iron muscles and steady, clear eyes of the expert riverman. For these were the famous voyageurs, trained from childhood on the rapids and cataracts of Canadian streams and summoned now to the help of the mother country on the ancient river of Egypt.
When Lord Wolseley found himself face to face with the tremendous task of reaching Gordon far up the hostile Nile, he remembered the assistance he had received in an earlier expedition in a western land from the daring, untiring, cool-headed, warm-hearted Canadian boatmen. And he asked that once more they might give him aid. And here they were, the best the country could produce, a rollicking, light-hearted crew, ready for anything—adventure, hard work, danger, death.
Among those who stood longest gazing at the receding land were two who had begun their years of apprenticeship for this great day on the little, noisy, foaming stream that scolded its way into the Oro river. And one of them, looking at the fast-fading outline of Mount Royal, saw instead an old log house among the enfolding Ontario hills, with a Silver Maple spreading its protecting branches above the roof. His home!—and the dear home faces, how they rose up from the misty shore; and another face, the most beautiful in the world, as he had seen it that winter night in the sunset glow!
And he had left all, had turned his back upon friends and home, and love itself, for what? A mere sentiment? A mad notion born of that night in the wilderness the spring before? The man who had been his guide and instructor, his staunchest friend and truest adviser from boyhood, had called his new impulse by just such a name, and the loss of his esteem had been one of the bitterest drops in Scotty's cup of renunciation. Apparently he had done injury to himself in every quarter, by giving up his connection with Raye & Hemming. Captain Herbert had been disgusted and had declared he washed his hands of him, Monteith had been filled with righteous indignation over such blind folly, and his grandparents had been keenly disappointed. And Isabel? That was the hardest part. What would Isabel think? Perhaps she, too, was offended, and he had had no opportunity to vindicate himself. And yet, through disappointments, estrangements and doubts, he clung tenaciously to his purpose. He was done forever with Raye & Hemming, and no power on earth could drive him back. Before he left Barbay, Monteith had come down upon him to bring him to a more reasonable state of mind. The schoolmaster had scolded, entreated, and had even brought up arguments which Scotty was powerless to combat. In his perplexity and bewilderment he could answer nothing; only there had come vividly to his mind the reply of another young man in somewhat similar circumstances; a young man, who, when clever people argued that the Man who had opened his eyes was at fault, could only say, "One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see."
For that night in the wilderness had given this young man a clearer vision of right and wrong, the keen perception granted to those only who have passed by Calvary and seen the One who suffered there and conquered. And in that uplifting moment he had heard the voice of the Eternal say, "This is the way, walk ye in it"; and he could not but obey.
So Scotty had turned his back upon all his worldly prospects, because they had led from the way of integrity; and early in the summer had gone to seek employment amongst the lumbering centres of the Ottawa. And away back there he had been tracked and joined by his faithful henchman, Dan Murphy. This strange freak on Scotty's part had no effect on Danny's warm heart. What cared he that his chum preferred working in the bush to a college education? That mattered little, so long as they were together. For had Scotty turned Mohammedan and gone forth to convert the world to his beliefs, not one inch would his friend's loyalty have swerved.
And, while they worked on the upper Ottawa, the call for the Nile voyageurs had come. Here was an opportunity to see the world and serve the Empire, and the boys had gladly embraced it. And so Scotty was going down into Egypt, because the great Controller of Destiny had need of him there, as He had long before needed another young man in that same land to perfect His divine plans.
The Canadians commenced active work at a station on the Nile a few miles from Wady Halfa. The busy little trains, that came puffing up from Cairo, landed this latest addition to Britain's forces amid all the bustle and stir of the departing army. Here the naval detachment of the River Column was preparing to embark. The steel-keeled whaleboats, the especial care of the voyageurs, were being fitted up with masts and oars. As soon as ready they were filled with soldiers or Dongolese boatmen, the Canadian bowman and helmsman took their places, and out they shot up the swift, brown current.
Scotty and his chum found that their turn to embark was not likely to come for some time, and they employed their first day of leisure in looking about them. To their unaccustomed Western eyes the place presented endless interest. It was full of the noise and display of a military camp, and alive with potent signs of war. Trains loaded with ammunition went puffing out; bands of baggage-mules, driven by scantily-dressed natives, came down to the water's edge to drink; and stately camels swayed past.
Now and then a detachment of a regiment swung out desertward, whether on hostile acts intent or for exercise, only the initiated could tell. The boys stood watching them with absorbed interest. First came the Coldstream Guards, then the Grenadiers, and finally the Black Watch stepping out splendidly to the rousing scream of the pipers. Scotty had been taking in all the sights calmly, but this last was too much for his Highland blood; and, in spite of Dan's jeers, he leaped to his feet with a cheer, as they whirled past.
But even such spectacles as these began to pall. The Canadians soon discovered that an army is an unwieldy monster, and that even a flying column moves slowly. When the third day came and they still awaited their call to the boats, Dan became restless. This period of enforced idleness acted upon him like firewater upon a wild Indian, and his friend soon had his hands full keeping him from disaster.
On the last afternoon of their waiting Scotty composed himself under a gum acacia tree near the river to write home. They expected to go at any moment and he must leave a last message for Granny. With the aid of an old box for a writing desk and the battered lid of a tin can for an inkbottle he managed his task fairly well. The sun was blazing down on rock and sand and river, but the breeze from the north blew up cool and grateful, reminding him of the June zephyrs that came up from Lake Oro to stir the boughs of the Silver Maple.
Near him, stretched full length upon the ground, lay Dan, striving to be as cross as his light-hearted Irish spirits would permit. Scotty had just a moment before forcibly rescued him from a row with some idle, poker-playing Tommies, and the wild Irishman felt small gratitude towards his preserver. He rolled about restlessly, pronouncing serio-comic denunciations upon everything in Egypt from Lord Wolseley to the baggage-mules, and informing his inexorable keeper at short intervals, that if something didn't hurry up and happen, glory be, but he'd commit high treason—a crime of which Dan had only the vaguest notion, but one which he imagined immeasureably transcended all other forms of iniquity.
Scotty paid no attention to these threats; he finished his letter, packed his writing materials into his kit bag, and stood up to stretch his limbs. Over near the officers' quarters a couple of Tommies were making strenuous efforts to hold down a reluctant and evil-minded camel long enough to permit a fat and pompous Colonel to mount.
"That brute must be some relation to you, Dan," said Scotty laughingly, "he seems to have got up a mighty objection to everything in the way of common sense."
Dan did not reply; he had raised himself upon his elbow and was listening eagerly to something else. His attention had been caught by the conversation of a couple of officers who were coming up from the water-side. One was a young army subaltern, fresh from home, very innocent and well-meaning, but belonging to that class of youth who, because of a serene consciousness of vast inward resources, is certain to fall a prey to circumstances. His companion was slightly older, a young officer of the Naval Brigade under Lord Beresford. He was squarely-set, with a frank, good-humoured face.
The subaltern was evidently showing his newly-arrived friend the sights. "Those are the American Indians we've brought out to pilot the boats," he explained, with a nod in the direction of a group of French Canadians standing at the boat-slip; "rather a fine looking lot o' beggars, aren't they?"
His companion laughed. "Indians be hanged!" he exclaimed merrily. "More than half those fellows are no more Indians than you are. Jove, it does a fellow's eyes good to see something from home. I'm going to have a chat with them."
"Pshaw, you don't expect to find friends there, I hope. 'Pon honour, they're red Indians, every one of them. Wolseley got 'em. And Harcourt says they're the aboriginal thing."
"Your Colonel's an insular baa-lamb, Bobby; you can bet Wolseley never said it. Surely, as I was born and brought up in Canada I'm likely to know a red Indian from myself now, am I not?"
The subaltern looked annoyed. "I think you're mistaken this time," he said with some dignity; "perhaps an odd one or so may be white, but the majority are the real thing. Look at that big fellow there, now. I'll bet two to one he's a full blood, anyway."
The other glanced at the man indicated. Scotty's face and arms, always brown, had become almost copper-coloured in even his short exposure to the Egyptian sun, and his lithe, muscular figure, leaning easily against the tree, was not unlike that of the stalwart Caughnawagas from the St. Lawrence, but as the young naval officer looked at him he laughed derisively.
"Done with you," he cried gaily. "Go and ask him."
The subaltern marched up promptly to the voyageur. "I say, Canadian," he said somewhat stiffly, "here's a gentleman who says you're not an Indian. Just tell him politely that he's mistaken, please."
Scotty turned from his contemplation of the camel to find, to his surprise, that he was being addressed. But before he could reply, Dan had forestalled him. That young man, whose red hair and Hibernian features could have left no doubt even in the subaltern's mind as to his nationality, had been listening, with huge enjoyment, to the conversation. He had risen to his feet and was saluting with grave respect.
"Sure it's yourself that's right, sir," he said with an apologetic air. "Anybody can see he's an Indian. He belongs to one of our worst tribes—the Blood-drinkers, they call themselves. His name's Big Scalper. And sure," he added, lowering his voice fearfully, "it's the bloodthirsty brute he is, an' no mistake!"
The young naval officer came forward and gazed fixedly into the speaker's meek and innocent countenance, but could detect there no smallest sign of deceit. The subaltern looked solemn.
"Is that all true he's telling us, Big Scalper?" he asked dubiously.
"Sure, there's no use talkin' to him, sir," broke in Dan, with patient surprise; "he can't spake a word but his own outlandish jabber. The cratur was jist runnin' wild in the bush when Colonel Denison caught him an' brought him out here." The young man's air of kindly anxiety, mingled with innocent seriousness, was too much for mortal gravity. Big Scalper turned his back with strange suddenness and stared fixedly out upon the hot, grey glint of the river.
A little group of idle Canadians had begun to gravitate towards them. Dan Murphy had already earned a reputation among them as a source of entertainment, and was particularly interesting whenever anyone evinced a desire to learn anything of his native land. The officers were wont to question the voyageurs, and Dan played upon their ignorance of the western half of their Empire, which was deep enough to begin with, and made it abysmal.
"I told you," cried the subaltern triumphantly. "I've won my bet, old fellow!"
"Strange how he's going to pilot a boat-load of men up the river without the use of the English language," suggested the young naval officer, with a slightly sarcastic drawl.
"Aw, ye don't know him," cried Mr. Murphy in a tone expressive of fear, "he'll find a way to make them mind or he'll bash all their heads in. Sure, he's the Divil himself, sir. Jist look at the wicked eye o' him now, will ye?"
This was going too far for safety, and Big Scalper turned upon his loquacious showman. He was too much an artist to spoil the play by proclaiming it a sham, so he spoke a few rapid words in Gaelic. The Murphy's knowledge of that language was naturally limited, but there was never a boy in Glenoro school, be his nationality what it might, who did not pick up much of the war-vocabulary of the Fighting MacDonalds, and Dan had no difficulty in gathering from Scotty's remark that he was being strongly advised to immediately shut his mouth.
"What's he sayin'?" inquired the subaltern interestedly.
Dan's face was a study in pained and polite anxiety.
"I'm askin' yer pardon, sir," he said nervously, "but I think it would be safer if ye wouldn't be lookin' at him anny longer. He's askin' me which o' yer scalps I think would look best danglin' from his belt!"
There was a shout of long-suppressed laughter from the on-looking Canadians, and the young officer's face flamed up angrily.
"I shall report you for this insolence!" he cried, suddenly awakening to his ignominious position.
But his friend caught his arm and drew him away.
"Come out of this, Bob!" he cried in a choking voice. "You'll report nothing! You'd better not monkey with those fellows. That young Irish ruffian was improvising as he went along. And I'm awfully sorry, Bobby dear, but I'm afraid I've won my bet," he added, allowing his laughter to overcome him, "because—because—oh, Holy Maria, hold me up, I'm going to die!—because Big Scalper speaks a language that's amazingly like the stuff the pipers of the Black Watch jabber to one another!"
As Scotty moved down to the landing he gave his tormentor a good-humoured shaking. "It's lots of fun, I know, Dan; but you'd better keep that long, Irish tongue of yours still before the officers, or you'll get into trouble. I don't know what that fellow's going to do."
"Be jabers, it would be worth pickin' oakum for a year jist to take down his blamed consate. Did ye iver see such a banty rooster as the young wasp was? The little sailor chap wasn't half bad. And, say, Scot, did ye hear him say he was a Canadian or from Canady, or somethin' like that? It accounts for his good manners."
"Who, the bluejacket?" Scotty looked with interest after the young man's retreating form. There was something in his trim, straight figure that somehow seemed familiar.
"What's his name, I wonder?" he began, when a peremptory order interrupted. "Stanwell, into number 150!" cried the sharp voice of the overseer, and Scotty sprang into the stern of the boat and was off for his first battle with the cataracts of the Nile.