Duncan Polite Part 21

Donald turned away; he felt guilty of the worst brutality. He put on his overcoat silently, and then came back to the old armchair. "I've been nothing but a burden and a trouble to you all my life," he said bitterly.

"Wheesh, wheesht, laddie!" cried Duncan Polite. "What would my life be without you? You must not be saying such things, child, for you would be a credit to us all, indeed. And I will jist be praying that the Shepherd will be leading you to the fold."

Donald went away, humble and heart-sore. His home-coming had been a double grief to him. His faint hopes of a reconciliation with Jessie had been crushed, and now he was wounding most cruelly his best friend.

He took no thought of another Friend, still kinder, whom he was wounding. And indeed had Donald been able, by an effort of his will, to be at that moment all his uncle desired, he would have done so. But he had cast away his anchor, in a moment of self-sufficiency and it would be hard to find it again. He could not know that a season was coming swiftly upon him, a season of storm and stress, when that discarded anchor would be his only stay, and the nearness with which he came to missing his hold upon it forever changed his whole future life.

XV

THE SACRIFICE

If Donald could have guessed that someone in Glenoro was watching and waiting for him in alternate hope and fear, he might not have been in such haste to get away. But he remained only one day at home, and then, without even visiting the village, set off to join Sandy at the camp.

He found the men ensconced in a rough shanty in the woods north of Lake Oro. A large belt of timber in that region belonged to the Neil boys and Sandy had taken the contract of supplying the Glenoro mill with logs for the coming season. But he found that commanding such an enterprise was no easy task, and he handed over the responsibility with much relief to Donald. The cutting and hauling had been almost completed, and now all that was needed was an open lake to float the logs across to the river and thence down to the village. The Oro was already free of ice, rus.h.i.+ng along, high and swollen with the melting snow. A few days more of sun and wind would clear the lake also, and send its winter fetters cras.h.i.+ng up on the sh.o.r.e.

So when Donald arrived the camp was not very busy, though it was exceedingly lively. The men had plenty of leisure, and they spent it and their winter's wages at a little old tavern, a remnant of earlier and rougher days, which stood where the river left Lake Oro. Under any other circ.u.mstances Donald would have exercised a restraining influence upon Sandy and the boys of his acquaintance, but just now his heart was angry and reckless. So the wild revelry suffered no abatement because of his presence.

Duncan Polite waited anxiously for the boys' return, the dread of impending disaster hanging over his spirit. The weather changed to sudden warmth, however, and brought to the old man a renewal of strength and the hope that Donald would soon be with him. He was well enough to go to church the next Sabbath, the first time in many months.

Andrew Johnstone was so pleased to have his old friend with him again that his stick never moved from its peaceful position in the rear, and he even forbore to make any caustic remarks about the minister.

His spirits were only in keeping with the day. Spring had descended upon the world with a sudden dazzling rush. The air was clear and intoxicatingly fresh; blinding white clouds raced joyously across the radiant blue. As Duncan pa.s.sed through the gate an early robin, swinging in the tall elm, poured out his ecstatic little heart in hysterical song. Everywhere was water, water, rus.h.i.+ng down the hills in a thousand mad rivulets, flas.h.i.+ng in the sunlight like chains of diamonds and filling the air with their song of wild freedom. And through the valley came the river, a monster now, roaring down its narrow channel and swirling out past the church as if it would carry away the village.

As the two old men walked slowly up the hill on the way home they heard the news for which Duncan had been anxiously waiting: the ice on the lake had broken, and the boys intended to bring down their lumber on the morrow.

The next day pa.s.sed, warm and suns.h.i.+ny, but Donald Neil's logs did not appear in the Glenoro millpond. Duncan sat at his window in the dusk of the evening, expecting every moment to see Donald coming up the path to tell him their work was finished. But the night was descending, and Donald had not come. A great dread had taken hold of the old man's heart, a dread he could not explain. He knew that both Donald and Sandy were expert river drivers, but he could not reason himself out of the fear that the crisis had come. This sacrifice towards which he had been looking for so many months, was it near? And what would it be?

He had set his door open, owing to the warmth of the night, and through it came the sound of ceaseless pouring of water. Sitting with his face pressed against the pane, thinking of his high hopes of just one year ago, he mournfully shook his head.

"The sacrifice," he murmured, "it must come, but, oh, my Father, must it be Donal'? 'Bind ye the sacrifice with cords even unto the horns of the altar.' Ah, it would be a message, a message--and will it be Donal'? must I give him up, oh, my Father?" His hands clasped and unclasped, his face stood out from the darkness of the room, white with pain.

He had not noticed a little figure making its way rapidly down the road; but his eye caught it as it entered the gate. His heart stood still as he saw Archie, his sister's youngest boy, come running up the path. "What will you be wanting, laddie?" he asked, almost in a whisper, as the little fellow paused in the doorway.

"Oh, are you there, Uncle Duncan!" cried the child, groping his way across the room. "It's so awful dark here. Jimmie Archie's folks is sugarin' off to-night in the bush down alongside the river, and I want to go over, an' mother she wouldn't let me go alone. Now, ain't that mean, Uncle Duncan?"

Duncan breathed a great sigh of relief. "Will the boys not be down with the logs yet?"

"Nop; Jimmie Archie said all the fellows Sandy and Don had was drunk at the tavern to-day, an' the logs was all ready to bring out into the river, mind ye, an' Crummie Bailey--it was at school, you know--an'

Crummie said he'd bet Don an' Sandy was drunker than 'em all; an' I thumped him good, you bet, uncle, an' he's eleven an' I'm only ten an'

a half!"

Duncan put his hand upon the child's head with a feeling of helpless woe. "Yes, yes, laddie," he said absently.

"Mother said I couldn't go to the sugar bush without somebody with me,"

Archie broke out again. "Aw, shucks, I ain't a kid!" The dignity of ten years and a half was being sadly ruffled. He leaned upon the arm of Duncan's chair and looked up coaxingly.

"I guess I'll have to stay away, 'cause there's n.o.body to go with me, an' mother said I wasn't to ask you, 'cause it would make your cold worse."

He sighed prodigiously over this self-denial, and with his characteristic self-forgetfulness Duncan put aside his own trouble.

"Oh, indeed it is a great man you will be some day," he said. "But what if I would be going with you?"

"Oh, man! but I wish you could! Only I ain't such a baby as to have somebody luggin' me 'round."

Duncan patted his head lovingly. "Hoots, toots, but you surely won't leave a poor old man like your uncle to find his way alone," he said, with great tact. "I will not be at Jimmie Archie's sugar bush for many a year, and you will jist be showing me the road."

Archie's pride was somewhat mollified by this aspect of the case, and being further soothed by a huge slab of bread and jam, he set off with his uncle in high glee. Duncan put on his bonnet and plaid and with Collie bounding in front, half mad with joy at this unexpected excursion, they stepped out upon the road. The moon was s.h.i.+ning, but its rays were obscured by the mild night mists. A soft, suffused light shrouded the landscape, giving an unreal and weird appearance to all objects. A rising wind s.h.i.+fted the ghostly clouds here and there; it was a strangely uncanny night.

Jimmie Archie McDonald's farm lay up the river, next to Andrew Johnstone's. But the belt of maples with the sugar camp was quite near. So when Duncan Polite and the child had gone a short distance up the road they climbed a fence and crossed the soft, yielding fields until they reached the line of timber that bordered the stream.

"There's a path jist along by the river that goes straight to Jimmie Archie's bush," explained Archie importantly, strutting ahead. "Ain't you glad I called for you, Uncle Duncan?" He dashed into the woods whooping and yelling, with Collie circling about him in noisy delight, and darted back again at short intervals to ask a dozen unanswerable questions. "What made the moon look so queer? And what was the moon made of, anyhow? Sandy said it was made of green cheese; but Don said if that was true they must have got a chunk of the moon to make Sandy's head. And Don ought to know, since he'd been to college. And what made the moon s.h.i.+ne? The master told the Fourth Cla.s.s that the moon didn't have any light of its own. And Crummie Bailey said that was a howlin' lie, 'cause any fool could see it. And the master heard him saying it at recess, and he licked Crummie good for it, too. And was the shadow on the moon really a man?"

Duncan replied at random. Ordinarily he was Archie's most interesting chum, but to-night he was silent and absent. The boy concluded it was because his uncle had been sick all winter. He was too excited over the prospect of a visit to the sugar bush and unlimited taffy to care very much, however, and went dancing along over the ghostly patches of snow and through the weird, s.h.i.+fting mists, his tongue keeping pace with his feet.

"Don't you wish there was tagers and lions in the bush here, Uncle? I bet I'd shoot them if there was. Sandy says there's lions down in the river bed, but I bet he jist said that to see if I'd get scared. He can't scare me, though. What kind of a noise does a lion make. Uncle Dune? Listen, do you hear that funny noise ahead?" He drew closer to his uncle. "Is that the kind of a noise a lion makes?"

"It will jist be the river you hear, child," said Duncan rea.s.suringly.

"No, I don't mean that squashy noise; it's that bangin' sound," he insisted anxiously. "Listen!"

They stood still, the child holding the man's fingers, and above the sighing of the bare treetops and the rus.h.i.+ng of the river there came the sound of dull, booming thuds.

"We will jist see," said Duncan, striving to hide his apprehension.

They hurried through the underbrush towards the river, where a few cedar clumps overhung its edge. Duncan seized one and, leaning over, looked down into the dark ravine. The pale moonlight touched the water and revealed the cause of the unusual sounds. Strange dark forms were hurrying along its glinting surface. Down the foaming tide they came, shooting past, swift and stealthy. As far up the river as Duncan's eye could pierce still they appeared, whirling silently forward. But farther down was a sight that made the old man's heart stand still. A few yards below him, and just at the turn in the river above the village were the "Narrows," where the most careful navigation of logs was necessary to prevent a jam. And there, wedged in the narrow channel, hurled together into fantastic shapes and augmented each moment by the oncoming logs which struck the heap with a resounding boom, was piled a wild jumbled ma.s.s of timber!

Like most of the early settlers of Glenoro, Duncan was an experienced river-driver, and instantly realised the gravity of the situation. If the jam of logs were permitted long to impede the progress of the river in its high, swollen condition, there would be a disastrous flood in the village. In a flash there pa.s.sed before his mind a picture of the havoc it would cause,--death and destruction swift and certain upon the unwarned inhabitants, men and women hurried into Eternity unprepared!

And Donald,--Donald would be held responsible! This jam must have resulted through his carelessness. Before the world he would be disgraced; before his Maker--the thought struck the old man with a paralysing fear. He stood for a moment motionless, watching the s.h.i.+fting, heaving, rumbling ma.s.s,--and then life seemed suddenly to return.

"Run to the Glen, Archie!" he cried to the frightened boy. "Run, laddie, and tell the folk at Peter McNabb's shop there will be a jam at the Narrows!"

Archie was off down a cross track like a hare, Collie after him.

Duncan stooped down, feeling among the underbrush, and caught up a stout pole. Grasping it he made his way hurriedly down the bank and along the water's edge to the quaking, seething ma.s.s. Cautiously he climbed out upon it, the water hissing about him in angry, spurting jets. He could feel the pile rising beneath him with fearful rapidity.

A swift examination convinced Duncan of two startling truths--first, the jam must be broken immediately, or it would be too late, and second, he might break it, even with the small pole he held, but he was neither young enough nor nimble enough to do it and save his own life.

And then, of a sudden, a thought struck him, as if a great light had broken over his soul, an illumination which chased away all the dark, weary shadows and fears of the past months. _The Sacrifice_! The trial he had been dreading! Was this it? Merely the giving of a poor, worn-out life, and the promised blessing would descend? He had failed to save Donald and his father's home from sin and worldliness; but now if he gave his life to save his boy from life-long regret and despair, and his friends from sudden death, would not the Father accept this and send the reward? A sense of overwhelming joy and hope seized the old man. He grasped his pole tightly and went resolutely forward.

With the skilled eye of an old river-driver he soon discovered the "key." Right beneath him lay the log that could unlock the huge, groaning gateway, and let the impeded tide sweep safely down the valley. Duncan leaned forward and pried at it with his pole, putting into the work a strange strength he had not felt for many a year. The ma.s.s creaked ominously. A gust of wind caught his old Scotch bonnet, sending it whirling away into the darkness and tossing his white hair.

He struggled on, throwing his whole weight upon the pole with a desperate energy, and praying with all the pa.s.sion of his soul that the High Priest would accept his humble sacrifice. The great hope that perhaps he would be considered worthy to imitate, even in the feeblest manner, the atonement that his Master had made was filling him and lending his arm an unnatural strength. Behind him the waters surged and the piling logs boomed threateningly. But to Duncan there was no menace in the sound. It brought to his mind the words of his favourite psalm, as Peter McNabb sang it in the little church by the river,

"The Lord's voice on the waters is; The G.o.d of Majesty Doth thunder--"

"Oh, my Father, my Father!" he was praying with pa.s.sionate fervour, as he struggled with the stubborn beam, "accept this poor sacrifice, and may Donal' and my father's Glen be saved!"

The answer came in a thunderous roar. Like a wild animal let loose, the wall of lumber leaped up and hurled itself forward. It caught the old man as if he had been a feather and flung him away into the whirling blackness. For an instant his white hair shone out like a snowflake on the dark river, for an instant only, and then the great billow of liberated water came roaring forward and swept over him on its way down the valley.