The End Of The Rainbow Part 28

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 fool Owre 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 pa.s.s 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 Nazareth Each 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 b.u.t.tons 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?"