Corporal Cameron of the North West Mounted Police Part 44

"Harp!" said Mack. "I am going home. I am quite useless."

"And me, too," said Cameron. "I shall go with you, Mack."

"What?" cried Fatty in consternation. "Look here, boys! Is this a square deal? G.o.d knows I am nearly all in myself. I've had enough to keep this thing from going to pieces. Don't you go back on me now!"

"That is so!" said Mack slowly. "Cameron, you must stay. You are needed.

I will spoil things more by staying than by going. I would be forever seeing that hammer crus.h.i.+ng down--" He covered his face with his hands and shuddered.

"All right, Mack! I will stay," said Cameron. "But what about you?"

"Oh," said Black Duncan, "Mack and I will walk about and have a smoke for a little."

"Thanks, boys, you are the stuff!" said Fatty fervently. "Once more you have saved the day. Come then, Cameron! Get your pipes. Old Sutherland is waiting for you."

But before he set off Mack called Cameron to him.

"You will see Isa," he said, "and tell her why I could not stay. And you will take her home." His face was still pallid, his voice unsteady.

"I will take care of her, Mack, never fear. But could you not remain? It might help you."

But Mack only shook his head. His fervent Highland soul had too recently pa.s.sed through the valley of death and its shadows were still upon him.

Four hours later Fatty looked in upon Mack at his own home. He found him sitting in the moonlight in the open door of the big new barn, with his new-made friend, Duncan Ross, at one door post and old Piper Sutherland at the other, while up and down the floor in the shadow within Cameron marched, droning the wild melody of the "Maccrimmon Lament." Mournful and weird it sounded through the gloom, but upon the hearts of these Highlanders it fell like a soothing balm. With a wave of his hand Mack indicated a seat, which Fatty took without a word. Irrepressible though he was, he had all the instincts of a true gentleman. He knew it was the time for silence, and silent he stood till the Lament had run through its "doubling" and its "trebling," ending with the simple stately movement of its original theme. To Fatty it was a mere mad and unmelodious noise, but, reading the faces of the three men before him in the moonlight, he had sense enough to recognise his own limitations.

At length the Lament was finished and Cameron came forward into the light.

"Ah! That iss good for the soul," said old piper Sutherland. "Do you know what your pipes have been saying to me in yon Lament?

'Yea, though I walk through Death's dark vale, Yet will I fear none ill; For Thou art with me, and Thy rod And staff me comfort still.'

And we have been in the valley thiss day."

Mack rose to his feet.

"I could not have said it myself, but, as true as death, that is the word for me."

"Well," said Fatty, rising briskly, "I guess you are all right, Mack. I confess I was a bit anxious about you, but--"

"There is no need," said Mack gravely. "I can sleep now."

"Good-night, then," replied Fatty, turning to go. "Cameron, I owe you a whole lot. I won't forget it." He set his hat upon the back of his head, sticking his hands into his pockets and surveying the group before him.

"Say! You Highlanders are a great bunch. I do not pretend to understand you, but I want to say that between you you have saved the day." And with that the cheery, frisky, irrepressible, but kindly little man faded into the moonlight and was gone.

For the fourth time the day had been saved.

CHAPTER VI

A SABBATH DAY IN LATE AUGUST

It was a Sabbath day in late August, and in no month of the year does a Sabbath day so chime with the time. For the Sabbath day is a day for rest and holy thought, and the late August is the rest time of the year, when the woods and fields are all asleep in a slumberous blue haze; the sacred time, too, for in late August old Mother Earth is breathing her holiest aspirations heavenward, having made offering of her best in the full fruitage of the year. Hence a Sabbath day in late August chimes marvellously well with the time.

And this particular Sabbath day was perfect of its kind, a dreamy, drowsy day, a day when genial suns and hazy cool airs mingle in excellent harmony, and the tired worker, freed from his week's toil, basks and stretches, yawns and revels in rest under the orchard trees; unless, indeed, he goes to morning church. And to morning church Cameron went as a rule, but to-day, owing to a dull ache in his head and a general sense of languor pervading his limbs, he had chosen instead, as likely to be more healing to his aching head and his languid limbs, the genial sun, tempered with cool and lazy airs under the orchard trees.

And hence he lay watching the democrat down the lane driven off to church by Perkins, with Mandy beside him in the front seat, the seat of authority and of activity, and Mr. Haley alone in the back seat, the seat of honour and of retirement. Mrs. Haley was too overborne by the heat and rush of the busy week to adventure the heat and dust of the road, and to sustain the somewhat strenuous discourse of the Reverend Harper Freeman, to whose flock the Haleys belonged. This, however, was not Mrs. Haley's invariable custom. In the cooler weather it was her habit to drive on a Sunday morning to church, sitting in the back seat beside her husband, with Tim and Mandy occupying the front seat beside the hired man, but during the heat and hurry of the harvest time she would take advantage of the quietness of the house and of the two or three hours' respite from the burden of household duties to make up arrears of sleep acc.u.mulated during the preceding week, salving her conscience, for she had a conscience in the matter, with a promise that she might go in the evening when it was cooler and when she was more rested. This promise, however, having served its turn, was never fulfilled, for by the evening the wheels of household toil began once more to turn, and Mrs. Haley found it easier to wors.h.i.+p vicariously, sending Mandy and Tim to the evening service. And to this service the young people were by no means loath to go, for it was held on fair evenings in MacBurney's woods, two miles away by the road, one mile by the path through the woods. On occasion Perkins would hitch up in the single buggy Dexter, the fiery young colt, too fiery for any other to drive, and, as a special attention to his employer's daughter, would drive her to the service. But since the coming of Cameron, Mandy had allowed this custom to fall into disuse, at first somewhat to Perkins'

relief, for the colt was restless and fretted against the tie rein; and, besides, Perkins was not as yet quite prepared to acknowledge any special relations.h.i.+p between himself and the young lady in question before the a.s.sembled congregation, preferring to regard himself and to be regarded by others as a free lance. Later, however, as Mandy's preference for a walk through the woods became more marked, Perkins, much to his disgust, found himself reduced to the att.i.tude of a suppliant, urging the superior attraction of a swift drive behind Dexter as against a weary walk to the service. Mandy, however, with the directness of her simple nature, had no compunction in frankly maintaining her preference for a walk with Tim and Cameron through the woods; indeed, more than once she allowed Perkins to drive off with his fiery colt, alone in his glory.

But this Sabbath morning, as Cameron lay under the orchard trees, he was firmly resolved that he would give the whole day to the nursing of the ache in his head and the painful languor in his body. And so lying he allowed his mind to wander uncontrolled over the happenings of the past months, troubled by a lazy consciousness of a sore spot somewhere in his life. Gradually there grew into clearness the realisation of the cause of this sore spot.

"What is the matter with Perkins?" he asked of Tim, who had declined to go to church, and who had strolled into the orchard to be near his friend.

"What is the matter with Perkins?" Cameron asked a second time, for Tim was apparently too much engaged with a late harvest apple to answer.

"How?" said the boy at length.

"He is so infernally grumpy with me."

"Grumpy? He's sore, I guess."

"Sore?"

"You bet! Ever since I beat him in the turnips that day."

"Ever since YOU beat him?" asked Cameron in amazement. "Why should he be sore against me?"

"He knows it was you done it," said Tim.

"Nonsense, Tim! Besides, Perkins isn't a baby. He surely doesn't hold that against me."

"Huh, huh," said Tim, "everybody's pokin' fun at him, and he hates that, and ever since the picnic, too, he hates you."

"But why in the world?"

"Oh, shucks!" said Tim, impatient at Cameron's density. "I guess you know all right."

"Know? Not I!"

"Git out?"

"Honor bright, Tim," replied Cameron, sitting up. "Now, honestly, tell me, Tim, why in the world Perkins should hate me."

"You put his nose out of joint, I guess," said Tim with a grin.

"Oh, rot, Tim! How?"

"Every how," said Tim, proceeding to elaborate. "First when you came here you were no good--I mean--" Tim checked himself hastily.

"I know what you mean, Tim. Go on. You are quite right. I couldn't do anything on the farm."