The Major

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THE MAJOR

By Ralph Connor




CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I THE COWARD

II A FIGHT FOR FREEDOM

III THE ESCUTCHEON CLEARED

IV SALVAGE

V WESTWARD HO!

VI JANE BROWN

VII THE GIRL OF THE WOOD LOT

VIII YOU FORGOT ME

IX EXCEPT HE STRIVE LAWFULLY

X THE SPIRIT OF CANADA

XI THE SHADOW OF WAR

XII MEN AND A MINE

XIII A DAY IN SEPTEMBER

XIV AN EXTRAORDINARY NURSE

XV THE COMING OF JANE

XVI HOSPITALITY WITHOUT GRUDGING

XVII THE TRAGEDIES OF LOVE

XVIII THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS

XIX THE CLOSING OF THE DOOR

XX THE GERMAN TYPE OF CITIZENSHIP

XXI WAR

XXII THE TUCK OF DRUM

XXIII A NEUTRAL NATION

XXIV THE MAJOR AND THE MAJOR'S WIFE




THE MAJOR



CHAPTER I

THE COWARD


Spring had come. Despite the many wet and gusty days which April
had thrust in rude challenge upon reluctant May, in the glory of the
triumphant sun which flooded the concave blue of heaven and the myriad
shaded green of earth, the whole world knew to-day, the whole world
proclaimed that spring had come. The yearly miracle had been performed.
The leaves of the maple trees lining the village street unbound from
their winter casings, the violets that lifted brave blue eyes from the
vivid grass carpeting the roadside banks, the cherry and plum blossoms
in the orchards decking the still leafless trees with their pink and
white favours, the timid grain tingeing with green the brown fields that
ran up to the village street on every side--all shouted in chorus that
spring had come. And all the things with new blood running wild in their
veins, the lambs of a few days still wobbly on ridiculous legs skipping
over and upon the huge boulders in farmer Martin's meadow, the birds
thronging the orchard trees, the humming insects rioting in the
genial sun, all of them gave token of strange new impulses calling for
something more than mere living because spring had come.

Upon the topmost tip of the taller of the twin poplars that flanked the
picket gate opening upon the Gwynnes' little garden sat a robin, his
head thrown back to give full throat to the song that was like to burst
his heart, monotonous, unceasing, rapturous. On the door step of the
Gwynnes' house, arrested on the threshold by the robin's song, stood the
Gwynne boy of ten years, his eager face uplifted, himself poised like a
bird for flight.

"Law-r-ence," clear as a bird call came the voice from within.

"Mo-th-er," rang the boy's voice in reply, high, joyous and shrill.

"Ear-ly! Remember!"

"Ri-ght a-way af-ter school. Good-bye, mo-ther, dear," called the boy.

"W-a-i-t," came the clear, birdlike call again, and in a moment the
mother came running, stood beside the boy, and followed his eye to the
robin on the poplar tree. "A brave little bird," she said. "That is
the way to meet the day, with a brave heart and a bright song. Goodbye,
boy." She kissed him as she spoke, giving him a slight pat on the
shoulder. "Away you go."

But the boy stood fascinated by the bird so gallantly facing his day.
His mother's words awoke in him a strange feeling. "A brave heart and a
bright song"--so the knights in the brave days of old, according to his
Stories of the Round Table, were wont to go forth. In imitation of the
bird, the boy threw back his head, and with another cheery good-bye to
his mother, sprang clear of the steps and ran down the grass edged path,
through the gate and out onto the village street. There he stood first
looking up the country road which in the village became a street. There
was nothing to be seen except that in the Martin orchard "Ol' Martin"
was working with his team under the trees which came in rows down to
the road. Finding nothing to interest him there, he turned toward the
village and his eyes searched the street. Opposite the Gwynnes' gate,
Dr. Bush's house stood back among the trees, but there was no sign of
life about it. Further down on the same side of the street, the Widow
Martin's cottage, with porch vine covered and windows bright with
flowers, hid itself under a great spreading maple. In front of the
cottage the Widow Martin herself was busy in the garden. He liked the
Widow Martin but found her not sufficiently exciting to hold him this
spring morning. A vacant lot or two and still on the same side came the
blacksmith's shop just at the crossroads, and across the street from
it his father's store. But neither at the blacksmith's shop nor at
the store across from it was there anything to awaken even a passing
interest. Some farmers' teams and dogs, Pat Larkin's milk wagon with
its load of great cans on its way to the cheese factory and some stray
villagers here and there upon the street intent upon their business. Up
the street his eye travelled beyond the crossroads where stood on the
left Cheatley's butcher shop and on the right McKenny's hotel with
attached sheds and outhouses. Over the bridge and up the hill the street
went straight away, past the stone built Episcopal Church whose spire
lifted itself above the maple trees, past the Rectory, solid, square and
built of stone, past the mill standing on the right back from the street
beside the dam, over the hill, and so disappeared. The whole village
seemed asleep and dreaming among its maple trees in the bright sunlight.

Throwing another glance at the robin still singing on the treetop
overhead, the boy took from his pocket a mouth-organ, threw back his
head, squared his elbows out from his sides to give him the lung room he
needed, and in obedience to a sharp word of command after a preliminary
tum, tum, tum, struck up the ancient triumph hymn in memory of that
hero of the underground railroad by which so many slaves of the South in
bygone days made their escape "up No'th" to Canada and to freedom.

"Glory, glory, hallelujah, his soul goes marching on." By means of
"double-tongueing," a recently acquired accomplishment, he was able to
give a full brass band effect to his hymn of freedom. Many villagers
from door or window cast a kindly and admiring eye upon the gallant
little figure stepping to his own music down the street. He was brass
band, conductor, brigadier general all in one, and behind him marched
an army of heroes off for war and deathless glory, invisible and
invincible. To the Widow Martin as he swung past the leader flung a wave
of his hand. With a tender light in her old eyes the Widow Martin waved
back at him. "God bless his bright face," she murmured, pausing in
her work to watch the upright little figure as he passed along. At the
blacksmith's shop the band paused.


Tink, tink, tink, tink,
Tink, tink-a-tink-tink-tink.
Tink tink, tink, tink,
Tink, tink-a-tink-tink-tink.


The conductor graduated the tempo so as to include the rhythmic beat
of the hammer with the other instruments in his band. The blacksmith
looked, smiled and let his hammer fall in consonance with the beat of
the boy's hand, and for some moments there was glorious harmony between
anvil and mouth organ and the band invisible. At the store door across
the street the band paused long enough simply to give and receive an
answering salute from the storekeeper, who smiled upon his boy as he
marched past. At the crossroads the band paused, marking time. There was
evidently a momentary uncertainty in the leader's mind as to direction.
The road to the right led straight, direct, but treeless, dusty,
uninviting, to the school. It held no lure for the leader and his
knightly following. Further on a path led in a curve under shady trees
and away from the street. It made the way to school longer, but the lure
of the curving, shady path was irresistible. Still stepping bravely to
the old abolitionist hymn, the procession moved along, swung into the
path under the trees and suddenly came to a halt. With a magnificent
flourish the band concluded its triumphant hymn and with the conductor
and brigadier the whole brigade stood rigidly at attention. The cause
of this sudden halt was to be seen at the foot of a maple tree in the
person of a fat lump of good natured boy flesh supine upon the ground.

"Hello, Joe; coming to school?"

"Ugh," grunted Joe, from the repose of limitless calm.

"Come on, then, quick, march." Once more the band struck up its hymn.

"Hol' on, Larry, it's plenty tam again," said Joe. The band came to a
stop. "I don' lak dat school me," he continued, still immersed in calm.

Joe's struggles with an English education were indeed tragically
pathetic. His attempts with aspirates were a continual humiliation to
himself and a joy to the whole school. No wonder he "no lak dat school."
Besides, Joe was a creature of the open fields. His French Canadian
father, Joe Gagneau, "Ol' Joe," was a survival of a bygone age, the
glorious golden age of the river and the bush, of the shanty and the
raft, of the axe and the gun, the age of Canadian romance, of daring
deed, of wild adventure.

"An' it ees half-hour too queek," persisted Joe. "Come on hup to de
dam." A little worn path invited their feet from the curving road, and
following their feet, they found themselves upon a steep embankment
which dammed the waters into a pond that formed the driving power for
the grist mill standing near. At the farther end of the pond a cedar
bush interposed a barrier to the sight and suggested mysterious things
beyond. Back of the cedar barrier a woods of great trees, spruce,
balsam, with tall elms and maples on the higher ground beyond, offered
deeper mysteries and delights unutterable. They knew well the cedar
swamp and the woods beyond. Partridges drummed there, rabbits darted
along their beaten runways, and Joe had seen a woodcock, that shyest of
all shy birds, disappear in glancing, shadowy flight, a ghostly, silent
denizen of the ghostly, silent spaces of the forest. Even as they
gazed upon that inviting line of woods, the boys could see and hear the
bluejays flash in swift flight from tree to tree and scream their joy of
rage and love. From the farther side of the pond two boys put out in a
flat-bottomed boat.

"There's big Ben and Mop," cried Larry eagerly. "Hello, Ben," he called
across the pond. "Goin' to school?"

"Yap," cried Mop, so denominated from the quantity and cut of the hair
that crowned his head. Ben was at the oars which creaked and thumped
between the pins, but were steadily driving the snub-nosed craft on its
toilsome way past the boys.

"Hello, Ben," cried Larry. "Take us in too."

"All right," said Ben, heading the boat for the bank. "Let me take an
oar, Ben," said Larry, whose experience upon the world of waters was not
any too wide.

"Here, where you goin'," cried Mop, as the boat slowly but surely
pointed toward the cedars. "You stop pulling, Ben. Now, Larry, pull
around again. There now, she's right. Pull, Ben." But Ben sat rigid with
his eyes intent upon the cedars.

"What's the matter, Ben?" said Larry. Still Ben sat with fixed gaze.

"By gum, he's in, boys," said Ben in a low voice. "I thought he had his
nest in one of them stubs."

"What is it--in what stub?" inquired Larry, his voice shrill with
excitement.

"That big middle stub, there," said Ben. "It's a woodpecker. Say, let's
pull down and see it." Under Mop's direction the old scow gradually made
its way toward the big stub.

They explored the stub, finding in it a hole and in the hole a nest, the
mother and father woodpeckers meanwhile flying in wild agitation from
stub to stub and protesting with shrill cries against the intruders.
Then they each must climb up and feel the eggs lying soft and snug in
their comfy cavity. After that they all must discuss the probable time
of hatching, the likelihood of there being other nests in other stubs
which they proceeded to visit. So the eager moments gaily passed into
minutes all unheeded, till inevitable recollection dragged them back
from the world of adventure and romance to that of stern duty and dull
toil.

"Say, boys, we'll be late," cried Larry, in sudden panic, seizing his
oar. "Come on, Ben, let's go."

"I guess it's pretty late now," replied Ben, slowly taking up his oar.

"Dat bell, I hear him long tam," said Joe placidly. "Oh, Joe!" cried
Larry in distress. "Why didn't you tell us?"

Joe shrugged his shoulders. He was his own master and superbly
indifferent to the flight of time. With him attendance at school was a
thing of more or less incidental obligation.

"We'll catch it all right," said Mop with dark foreboding. "He was awful
mad last time and said he'd lick any one who came late again and keep
him in for noon too."

The prospect was sufficiently gloomy.

"Aw, let's hurry up anyway," cried Larry, who during his school career
had achieved a perfect record for prompt and punctual attendance.

In ever deepening dejection the discussion proceeded until at length Mop
came forward with a daring suggestion.

"Say, boys, let's wait until noon. He won't notice anything. We can
easily fool him."

This brought no comfort to Larry, however, whose previous virtues would
only render this lapse the more conspicuous. A suggestion of Joe's
turned the scale.

"Dat woodchuck," he said, "he's got one hole on de hill by dere. He's
big feller. We dron heem out."

"Come on, let's," cried Mop. "It will be awful fun to drown the beggar
out."

"Guess we can't do much this morning, anyway," said Ben, philosophically
making the best of a bad job. "Let's go, Larry." And much against his
will, but seeing no way out of the dilemma, Larry agreed.

They explored the woodchuck hole, failing to drown out that cunning
subterranean architect who apparently had provided lines of retreat for
just such emergencies as confronted him now. Wearied of the woodchuck,
they ranged the bush seeking and finding the nests of bluejays and of
woodpeckers, and in a gravel pit those of the sand martens. Joe led them
to the haunts of the woodcock, but that shy bird they failed to glimpse.
Long before the noon hour they felt the need of sustenance and found
that Larry's lunch divided among the four went but a small way in
satisfying their pangs of hunger. The other three, carefree and
unconcerned for what the future might hold, roamed the woods during the
afternoon, but to Larry what in other circumstances would have been a
day of unalloyed joy, brought him only a present misery and a dread for
the future. The question of school for the afternoon was only mentioned
to be dismissed. They were too dirty and muddy to venture into the
presence of the master. Consequently the obvious course was to wait
until four o'clock when joining the other children they might slip home
unnoticed.

The afternoon soon began to lag. The woods had lost their first glamour.
Their games grew to be burdensome. They were weary and hungry, and
becoming correspondingly brittle in temper. Already Nemesis was on their
trail. Sick at heart and weighted with forebodings, Larry listened
to the plans of the other boys by which they expected to elude the
consequences of their truancy. In the discussion of their plans Larry
took no part. They offered him no hope. He knew that if he were prepared
to lie, as they had cheerfully decided, his simple word would carry him
through at home. But there the difficulty arose. Was he willing to lie?
He had never lied to his mother in all his life. He visualised her face
as she listened to him recounting his falsified tale of the day's doings
and unconsciously he groaned aloud.

"What's the matter with you, Larry?" inquired Mop, noticing his pale
face.

"Oh, nothing; it's getting a little cold, I guess."

"Cold!" laughed Mop. "I guess you're getting scared all right."

To this Larry made no reply. He was too miserable, too tired to explain
his state of mind. He was doubtful whether he could explain to Mop or to
Joe his unwillingness to lie to his mother.

"It don't take much to scare you anyway," said Mop with an ugly grin.

The situation was not without its anxieties to Mop, for while he felt
fairly confident as to his ability to meet successfully his mother's
cross examination, there was always a possibility of his father's taking
a hand, and that filled him with a real dismay. For Mr. Sam Cheatley,
the village butcher, was a man of violent temper, hasty in his judgments
and merciless in his punishment. There was a possibility of unhappy
consequences for Mop in spite of his practiced ability in deception.
Hence his nerves were set a-jangling, and his temper, never very
certain, was rather on edge. The pale face of the little boy annoyed
him, and the little whimsical smile which never quite left his face
confronted him like an insult.

"You're scared," reiterated Mop with increasing contempt, "and you know
you're scared. You ain't got any spunk anyway. You ain't got the spunk
of a louse." With a quick grip he caught the boy by the collar (he was
almost twice Larry's size), and with a jerk landed him on his back in a
brush heap. The fall brought Larry no physical hurt, but the laughter of
Joe and especially of big Ben, who in his eyes was something of a hero,
wounded and humiliated him. The little smile, however, did not leave his
face and he picked himself up and settled his coat about his collar.

"You ain't no good anyway," continued Mop, with the native instinct of
the bully to worry his victim. "You can't play nothin' and you can't
lick nobody in the whole school."

Both of these charges Larry felt were true. He was not fond of games and
never had he experienced a desire to win fame as a fighter.

"Aw, let him alone, can't you, Mop?" said big Ben. "He ain't hurtin' you
none."

"Hurtin' me," cried Mop, who for some unaccountable reason had worked
himself into a rage. "He couldn't hurt me if he tried. I could lick him
on my knees with one hand behind my back. I believe Joe there could lick
him with one hand tied behind his back."

"I bet he can't," said Ben, measuring Larry with his eye and desiring to
defend him from this degrading accusation. "I bet he'd put up a pretty
fine scrap," continued Ben, "if he had to." Larry's heart warmed to his
champion.

"Yes, if he had to," replied Mop with a sneer. "But he would never have
to. He wouldn't fight a flea. Joe can lick him with one hand, can't you,
Joe?"

"I donno. I don' want fight me," said Joe.

"No, I know you don't want to, but you could, couldn't you?" persisted
Mop. Joe shrugged his shoulders. "Ha, I told you so. Hurrah for my man,"
cried Mop, clapping Joe on the back and pushing him toward Larry.

Ben began to scent sport. He was also conscious of a rising resentment
against Mop's exultant tone and manner.

"I bet you," he said, "if Larry wanted to, he could lick Joe even if he
had both hands, but if Joe's one hand is tied behind his back, why Larry
would just whale the tar out of him. But Larry does not want to fight."

"No," jeered Mop, "you bet he don't, he ain't got it in him. I bet you
he daren't knock a chip off Joe's shoulder, and I will tie Joe's hand
behind his back with his belt. Now there he is, bring your man on.
There's a chip on his shoulder too."

Larry looked at Joe, the little smile still on his face. "I don't want
to fight Joe. What would I fight Joe for?" he said.

"I told you so," cried Mop, dancing about. "He ain't got no fight in
him.


Take a dare,
Take a dare,
Chase a cat,
And hunt a hare."


Ben looked critically at Larry as if appraising the quality of his soul.
"Joe can't lick you with one hand tied behind his back, can he, Larry?"

"I don't want to fight Joe," persisted Larry still smiling.

"Ya, ya," persisted Mop. "Here, Joe, you knock this chip off Larry's
shoulder." Mop placed the gauge of battle on Larry's shoulder. "Go
ahead, Joe."

To Joe a fight with a friend or a foe was an event of common occurrence.
With even a more dangerous opponent than Larry he would not have
hesitated. For to decline a fight was with Joe utterly despicable. So
placing himself in readiness for the blow that should have been the
inevitable consequence, he knocked the chip off Larry's shoulder. Still
Larry smiled at him.

"Aw, your man's no good. He won't fight," cried Mop with unspeakable
disgust. "I told you he wouldn't fight. Do you know why he won't fight?
His mother belongs to that people, them Quakers, that won't fight for
anything. He's a coward an' his mother's a coward before him."

The smile faded from Larry's lips. His face which had been pale flamed
a quick red, then as quickly became dead white. He turned from Joe and
looked at the boy who was tormenting him. Mop was at least four years
older, strongly and heavily built. For a moment Larry stood as though
estimating Mop's fighting qualities. Then apparently making up his mind
that on ordinary terms, owing to his lack in size and in strength, he
was quite unequal to his foe, he looked quickly about him and his
eye fell upon a stout and serviceable beechwood stake. With quiet
deliberation he seized the club and began walking slowly toward Mop, his
eyes glittering as if with madness, his face white as that of the dead.
So terrifying was his appearance that Mop began to back away. "Here you,
look out," he cried, "I will smash you." But Larry still moved steadily
upon him. His white face, his burning eyes, his steady advance was more
than Mop could endure. His courage broke. He turned and incontinently
fled. Whirling the stick over his head, Larry flung the club with all
his might after him. The club caught the fleeing Mop fairly between the
shoulders. At the same time his foot caught a root. Down he went upon
his face, uttering cries of deadly terror.

"Keep him off, keep him off. He will kill me, he will kill me."

But Larry having shot his bolt ignored his fallen enemy, and without a
glance at him, or at either of the other boys, or without a word to
any of them, he walked away through the wood, and deaf to their calling
disappeared through the cedar swamp and made straight for home and
to his mother. With even, passionless voice, with almost no sign of
penitence, he told her the story of the day's truancy.

As her discriminating eye was quick in discerning his penitence, so her
forgiveness was quick in meeting his sin. But though her forgiveness
brought the boy a certain measure of relief he seemed almost to take it
for granted, and there still remained on his face a look of pain and
of more than pain that puzzled his mother. He seemed to be in a maze
of uncertainty and doubt and fear. His mother could not understand his
distress, for Larry had told her nothing of his encounter with Mop.
Throughout the evening there pounded through the boy's memory the
terrible words, "He is a coward and his mother is a coward before him."
Through his father's prayer at evening worship those words continued to
beat upon his brain. He tried to prepare his school lessons for the day
following, but upon the page before his eyes the same words took shape.
He could not analyse his unutterable sense of shame. He had been afraid
to fight. He knew he was a coward, but there was a deeper shame in which
his mother was involved. She was a Quaker, he knew, and he had a more
or less vague idea that Quakers would not fight. Was she then a coward?
That any reflection should be made upon his mother stabbed him to the
heart. Again and again Mop's sneering, grinning face appeared before
his eyes. He felt that he could have gladly killed him in the woods, but
after all, the paralysing thought ever recurred that what Mop said was
true. His mother was a coward! He put his head down upon his books and
groaned aloud.

"What is it, dear?" inquired his mother.

"I am going to bed, mother," he said.

"Is your head bad?" she asked.

"No, no, mother. It is nothing. I am tired," he said, and went upstairs.

Before she went to sleep the mother, as was her custom, looked in upon
him. The boy was lying upon his face with his arms flung over his head,
and when she turned him over to an easier position, on the pillow and
on his cheeks were the marks of tears. Gently she pushed back the thick,
black, wavy locks from his forehead, and kissed him once and again. The
boy turned his face toward her. A long sobbing sigh came from his parted
lips. He opened his eyes.

"That you, mother?" he asked, the old whimsical smile at his lips.
"Good-night."

He settled down into the clothes and in a moment was fast asleep. The
mother stood looking down upon her boy. He had not told her his trouble,
but her touch had brought him comfort, and for the rest she was content
to wait.



CHAPTER II

A FIGHT FOR FREEDOM


The village schoolhouse was packed to the door. Over the crowded forms
there fell a murky light from the smoky swinging lamp that left
dark unexplored depths in the corners of the room. On the walls hung
dilapidated maps at angles suggesting the interior of a ship's cabin
during a storm, or a party of revellers, returning homeward, after
the night before, gravely hilarious. Behind the platform a blackboard,
cracked into irregular spaces, preserved the mental processes of the
pupils during their working hours, and in sharp contrast to these the
terribly depressing perfection of the teacher's exemplar in penmanship,
which reminded the self-complacent slacker that "Eternal vigilance is
the price of freedom."