The End Of The Rainbow Part 26

"Tra-la-la-la, Mr. Roderick McRae," she sang out in her merriest voice.

"Why don't you come round and say good-bye to your friends? Are you going to fold your tent like the Arabs and silently steal away?"

Roderick began to stammer out an explanation, but she cut him off gaily.

"Don't apologise, you are going to be punished for your sins," she called laughingly. "For you can't come now. I am off to-day to Toronto with Aunt Annabel. We took a sudden notion we wanted to go to the city. We're going to spend a whole month in a riotous purchasing of autumn hats. So, as I am a good meek and forgiving person and as you'll be gone before we get back I just thought I'd say 'Bon Voyage'

to you before I leave."

She talked so fast that Roderick had scarcely any chance to reply. He tried to stammer out his thanks to her for her kindness, but she laughingly interrupted him. It was quite too bad they couldn't say good-bye, Daddy would do that for her. But Mamma was coming to Toronto with them. They were both dreadfully sorry and Mamma sent her best regards. They all hoped he'd have a lovely time, and come home very rich; and before he could answer, she had called a gay "Good-bye and good-luck," and had rung off.

Roderick was conscious of a slight feeling of surprise, and a decided feeling of relief.

"She's a great girl," he said to himself admiringly. "She's just a splendid good friend and a brick, and I'll write and tell her so!"

And he had no idea of how very much she merited his praise.

As the time for leaving approached, Roderick grew busier every day. It was hard to get Lawyer Ed in the office long enough to settle things.

He was striving to take up the burden of his old work again cheerfully, but the new civic and social and church duties he had a.s.sumed in the year were hard to drop. Then the Local Option campaign was at its height and demanded his attention.

To Roderick, and to most of the town people, he seemed to be shouldering all his old burdens with his usual energy and light-heartedness, but J. P. missed a familiar note of joyousness in his tone, and Archie Blair noticed that Ed did not go up the steps of his office in one leap now as he had always done, but walked up like other people. But to the casual observer, Lawyer Ed was the same. He was here, there and everywhere, making sure that this one and that was going to vote the right way. And Roderick, watching him, remembered how anxious he had been over the effect the campaign would have upon his business. And now that he was not required to enter it, he often longed to plunge in and help his friend to victory.

On the whole, the campaign helped Lawyer Ed materially, in the hard days preceding the parting with his boy. After all, there was nothing so dear to his Irish heart as a fight, and the rounding up of his troops before the battle kept him busy and happy. And everything was pointing to victory. Father Tracy had promised to see to it that his flock voted the right way, and Jock McPherson had declared himself on the side of the temperance cause. Whatever Lawyer Ed may have had to do with influencing his fellow Irishmen, he could take no credit for Jock's conversion. He had set out to interview the McPherson one night after a session meeting, but fortunately J. P. Thornton prevented his impetuous friend making the mistake of approaching the elder on that difficult subject. Jock was still feeling a little dour over the temperance question and the wise Englishman knew that whichever side of the cause was presented first that was the side to which the McPherson was most likely to object.

"Leave him to the other fellows, Ed," advised his friend. "They are almost certain to work their own destruction."

He was right; for not a week later Lawyer Ed came up the steps of the Thornton home, staggering with laughter, to report that Jock was as staunch on the temperance question as Dr. Leslie himself, and to explain how it came about.

As J. P. had prophesied, Jock had come over to their side because a particularly offensive person interested in the liquor business, had claimed him as a friend. It had happened on the Sat.u.r.day afternoon before. Jock was down town, standing on the sidewalk in front of Crofter's hotel discussing the bad state of the roads with a farmer friend, when Mr. Crofter came forth, and after introducing the subject of Local Option in a friendly fas.h.i.+on, said:

"Well, sir, I'm glad to see one good Presbyterian who hasn't gone off his head over this tom-foolery." Here he made the fatal mistake of slapping Mr. McPherson on the shoulder. "It does me good to see a man who isn't a fanatic, but can take a gla.s.s and leave it alone, and give every other fellow the same privilege."

"Yus." Jock drew in his breath with a peculiar snuffing sound that would have warned any one who knew him well that there was danger in the air. "Yus," he repeated the word very slowly, "and take another gla.s.s, and leave it alone."

"What did you say?" enquired Mr. Crofter, a little puzzled. "I don't think I quite caught you, Mr. McPherson."

"I would be thinking," said Jock with dreadful deliberation, "that it must be a grand sight, but I nuffer saw one."

"Never saw what?"

"A man that could take a gla.s.s 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 Ca.s.sidy 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 t.i.tle 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 pa.s.s 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 champions.h.i.+p 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 champions.h.i.+p 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 Ca.s.sidy straight," ventured the visitor again.

"I can keep Mike Ca.s.sidy 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 ma.s.s 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, las.h.i.+ng 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.