The Major

R >> Ralph Connor >> The Major


"Well, that seems fairly good evidence."

"And he is coming up here to-night when we bring him his good clothes."

"Oh, you are to bring him his good clothes, are you?"

"Yes, Mrs. Gwynne and I are taking them down in the carriage."

"Oh, in the carriage--Mrs. Gwynne--"

"Yes, you know--Oh, here's Nora at the door. Excuse me, Papa. I am sure
it is important."

She ran to the door and in a moment or two returned with a note. "It's
for you, Papa, and I know it's about the carriage." She watched her
father somewhat anxiously as he read the note.

"Umm-um. Very good, very nice and proper. Certainly. Just say to
Mrs. Gwynne that we are very pleased to be able to serve her with the
carriage, and that we hope Larry will do us the honour of coming to us."

Jane nodded delightedly. "I know, Papa. I told her that already. But
I'll tell her this is the answer to the note."

Under Jane's direction and care they made their visit to the car, but on
their return no Larry was with them. He would come after the picnic
and baseball game tomorrow, perhaps, but not to-night. His mother was
plainly disappointed, and indeed a little hurt. She could not understand
her son. It was not his clothes after all as she had thought. She
pondered over his last words spoken as he bade her farewell at the car
door, and was even more mystified.

"I'll be glad when we get to our own place again," he said. "I hate
to be beholden to anybody. We're as good as any of them anyway." The
bitterness in his tone mystified her still more.

It was little Jane who supplied the key to the mystery. "I don't think
he likes Tom very much," said the little girl. "He likes Hazel, though.
But he might have come to our house; I did not laugh." And then the
mother thought she understood.

That sudden intensity of bitterness in her boy's voice startled her a
little, but deep down in her heart she was conscious of a queer feeling
of satisfaction, almost of pride. "He's just like his father," she said
to herself. "He likes to be independent." Strict honesty in thought made
her add, "And like me, too, I fear."

The picnic day was one of those intensely hot June days when the whole
world seems to stand quivering and breathlessly attent while Nature
works out one of her miracles over fields of grain, over prairie
flowers, over umbrageous trees and all things borne upon the bosom
of Mother Earth, checking the succulence of precocious overgrowths,
hardening fibre, turning plant energy away from selfish exuberance in
mere stalk building into the altruistic sacrament of ripening fruit and
hardening grain. A wise old alchemist is Mother Earth, working in time
but ever for eternity.

The picnickers who went out to the park early in the day were driven for
refuge from the blazing sun to the trees and bushes, where prostrated by
the heat they lay limp and flaccid upon the grass. Miss Hazel Sleighter,
who for some reason which she could not explain to herself had joined
the first contingent of picnickers, was cross, distinctly and obviously
cross. The heat was trying to her nerves, but worse, it made her face
red--red all over. Her pink parasol intensified the glow upon her face.

"What a fool I was to come, in this awful heat," she said to herself.
"They won't be here for hours, and I will be just like a wash-rag."

Nor was Larry enjoying the picnic. The material comforts in the form of
sandwiches, cakes and pies, gloriously culminating in lemonade and ice
cream, while contributing a temporary pleasure, could not obliterate a
sense of misery wrought in him by Miss Hazel's chilly indifference. That
young lady, whose smiles so lavishly bestowed only yesterday had made
for him a new heaven and a new earth, had to-day merely thrown him
a passing glance and a careless "Hello," as she floated by intent on
bigger game.

In addition, the boy was conscious of an overpowering lassitude that
increased as the day wore on. His misery and its chief cause had not
escaped the observing eyes of the little maid, Jane Brown, whose clear
and incisive voice was distinctly audible as she confided to her friend
Nora her disappointment in Miss Hazel.

"She won't look at him to-day," she said. "She's just waiting for the
boys to come. She'll be nicer then."

There was no animus in the voice, only surprise and disappointment. To
Larry, however, the fact that the secret tragedy of his soul was thus
laid bare, filled him with a sudden rage. He cast a wrathful eye upon
the little maid. She met his glance with a placid smile, volunteering
the cheerful remark, "They won't be long now."

A fury possessed the boy. "Oh shut your mouth, will you?" he said,
glaring at her.

For a moment little Jane looked at him, surprise, dismay, finally pity
succeeding each other in the deep blue eyes. Hastily she glanced about
to see if the others had heard the awful outburst. She was relieved
to note that only Joe and Nora were near enough to hear. She settled
herself down in a position of greater comfort and confided to her friend
Nora with an air of almost maternal solicitude, "I believe he has a
pain. I am sure he has a pain."

Larry sprang to his feet, and without a glance at his anxious tormentor
said, "Come on, Joe, let's go for a hunt in the woods."

Jane looked wistfully after the departing boys. "I wish they would ask
us, Nora. Don't you? I think he is nice when he isn't mad," she said. To
which Nora firmly assented.

A breeze from the west and the arrival of the High School team,
resplendent in their new baseball uniforms, brought to the limp
loiterers under the trees a reviving life and interest in the day's
doings.

It was due to Jane that Sam got into the game, for when young Frank
Smart was searching for a suitable left fielder to complete the All
Comers team, he spied seated among the boys the little girl.

"Hello, Jane; in your usual place, I see!" he called out to her as he
passed.

"Hello, Frank!" she called to him brightly. "Frank! Frank!" she cried,
after the young man had passed, springing up and running after him.

"I am in a hurry, Jane; I must get a man for left field."

"But, Frank," she said, catching his arm, for young Smart was a great
friend of hers and of her father's. "I want to tell you. You see that
funny boy under the tree," she continued, lowering her voice. "Well,
he's a splendid player. Tom doesn't want him to play, and I don't
either, because I want the High School to beat. But it would not be fair
not to tell you, would it?"

Young Smart looked at her curiously. "Say, little girl, you're a sport.
And is he a good player?"

"Oh, he's splendid, but he's queer--I mean he looks queer. He's awfully
funny. But that doesn't matter, does it?"

"Not a hair, if he can play ball. What's his name?"

"Sam--something."

"Sam Something? That is a funny name."

"Oh, you know, Sam. I don't know his other name."

"Well, I'll try him, Jane," said young Smart, moving toward the boy and
followed by the eager eyes of the little girl.

"I say, Sam," said Smart, "we want a man for left field. Will you take a
go at it?"

"Too hot," grunted Sam.

"Oh, you won't find it too hot when you get started. Rip off your coat
and get into the game. You can play, can't you?"

"Aw, what yer givin' us. I guess I can give them ginks a few pointers."

"Well, come on."

"Too hot," said Sam.

Jane pulled young Smart by the sleeve. "Tell him you will give him a
jersey," she said in a low voice. "His shirt is torn."

Again young Smart looked at Jane with scrutinising eyes. "You're a
wonder," he said.

"Come along, Sam. You haven't got your sweater with you, but I will get
one for you. Get into the bush there and change."

With apparent reluctance, but with a gleam in his little red eyes, Sam
slouched into the woods to make the change, and in a few moments came
forth and ran to take his position at left field.

The baseball match turned out to be a mere setting for the display
of the eccentricities and superior baseball qualities of Sam, which
apparently quite outclassed those of his teammates in the match. After
three disastrous innings, Sam caused himself to be moved first to the
position of short stop, and later to the pitcher's box, to the immense
advantage of his side. But although, owing to the lead obtained by the
enemy, his prowess was unable to ward off defeat from All Comers, yet
under his inspiration and skilful generalship, the team made such a
brilliant recovery of form and came so near victory that Sam was carried
from the field in triumph shoulder high and departed with his new and
enthusiastically grateful comrades to a celebration.

Larry, however, was much too miserable and much too unhappy for anything
like a celebration. The boy was oppressed with a feeling of loneliness,
and was conscious chiefly of a desire to reach his car and crawl into
his bed there among the straw. Stumbling blindly along the dusty road; a
cheery voice hailed him.

"Hello, Larry!" It was Jane seated beside her father in his car.

"Hello!" he answered faintly and just glanced at her as the car passed.

But soon the car pulled up. "Come on, Larry, we'll take you home," said
Jane.

"Oh, I'm all right," said Larry, forcing his lips into his old smile and
resolutely plodding on.

"Better come up, my boy," said the doctor.

"I don't mind walking, sir," replied Larry, stubbornly determined to go
his lonely way.

"Come here, boy," said the doctor, regarding him keenly. Larry came over
to the wheel. "Why, boy, what is the matter?" The doctor took hold of
his hand.

Larry gripped the wheel hard. He was feeling desperately ill and
unsteady on his legs, but still his lips twisted themselves into a
smile. "I'm all right, sir," he said; "I've got a headache and it was
pretty hot out there."

But even as he spoke his face grew white and he swayed on his feet.
In an instant the doctor was out of his car. "Get in, lad," he said
briefly, and Larry, surrendering, climbed into the back seat, fighting
fiercely meanwhile to prevent the tears from showing in his eyes.
Keeping up a brisk and cheerful conversation with Jane in regard to the
game, the doctor drove rapidly toward his home.

"You will come in with us, my boy," said the doctor as they reached his
door.

By this time Larry was past all power of resistance and yielded himself
to the authority of the doctor, who had him upstairs and into bed within
a few minutes of his arrival. A single word Larry uttered during this
process, "Tell my mother," and then sank into a long nightmare, through
which there mingled dim shapes and quiet voices, followed by dreamless
sleep, and an awakening to weakness that made the lifting of his eyelids
an effort and the movement of his hand a weariness. The first object
that loomed intelligible through the fog in which he seemed to move was
a little plain face with great blue eyes carrying in them a cloud of
maternal anxiety. Suddenly the cloud broke and the sun burst through in
a joyous riot, for in a voice that seemed to him unfamiliar and remote
Larry uttered the single word, "Jane."

"Oh!" cried the little girl rapturously. "Oh, Larry, wait." She slipped
from the room and returned in a moment with his mother, who quickly came
to his side.

"You are rested, dear," she said, putting her hand under his head.
"Drink this. No, don't lift your head. Now then, go to sleep again,
darling," and, stooping down, she kissed him softly.

"Why--are--you--crying?" he asked faintly. "What's the--matter?"

"Nothing, darling; you are better. Just sleep."

"Better?--Have--I--been--sick?"

"Yes, you have been sick," said his mother.

"Awfully sick," said Jane solemnly. "A whole week sick. But you are all
right now," she added brightly, "and so is Joe, and Sam, and Rover and
Rosie. I saw them all this morning and you know we have been praying and
praying and--"

"Now he will sleep, Jane," said his mother, gently touching the little
girl's brown tangle of hair.

"Yes, he will sleep; oh, I'm just awful thankful," said Jane, suddenly
rushing out of the room.

"Dear little girl," said the mother. "She has been so anxious and so
helpful--a wonderful little nurse."

But Larry was fast asleep, and before he was interested enough to make
inquiry about his comrades in travel the car in charge of Joe and Sam,
with Mr. Gwynne in the caboose, was far on its way to Alberta. After
some days Jane was allowed to entertain the sick boy, as was her custom
with her father, by giving an account of her day's doings. These were
happy days for them both. Between the boy and the girl the beginnings of
a great friendship sprang up.

"Larry, I think you are queer," said Jane to him gravely one day. "You
are not a bit like you were in the car."

A quick flush appeared on the boy's face. "I guess I was queer that day,
Jane," he said. "I know I felt queer."

"Yes, that's it," said Jane, delighted by some sudden recollection. "You
were queer then, and now you're just ornary. My, you were sick and you
were cross, too, awful cross that day. I guess it was the headick. I get
awfully cross, too, when I have the headick. I don't think you will be
cross again ever, will you, Larry?"

Larry, smiling at her, replied, "I'll never be cross with you, Jane,
anyway, never again."



CHAPTER VII

THE GIRL OF THE WOOD LOT


June, and the sun flooding with a golden shimmer a land of tawny
prairie, billowy hills, wooded valleys and mountain peaks white with
eternal snows, touching with silver a stream which, glacier-born,
hurled itself down mountain sides in fairy films of mist, rushed through
canyons in a mad torrent, hurried between hills in a swollen flood,
meandered along wide valleys in a full-lipped tide, lingered in a placid
lake in a bit of lowland banked with poplar bluffs, and so onward past
ranch-stead and homestead to the great Saskatchewan and Father Ocean,
prairie and hills, valleys and mountains, river and lake, making a
wonder world of light and warmth and colour and joyous life.

Two riders on rangey bronchos, followed by two Russian boarhounds,
climbed the trail that went winding up among the hills towards a height
which broke abruptly into a ridge of bare rock. Upon the ridge they
paused.

"There! Can you beat that? If so, where?" The lady swept her gauntletted
hand toward the scene below. Mrs. Waring-Gaunt was tall, strongly made,
handsome with that comeliness which perfect health and out-of-doors life
combine to give, her dark hair, dark flashing eyes, straight nose,
wide, full-lipped curving mouth, and a chin whose chiselled firmness
was softened but not weakened by a dimple, making a picture good to look
upon.

"There!" she cried again, "tell me, can you beat it?"

"Glorious! Sybil, utterly and splendidly glorious!" said her brother,
his eyes sweeping the picture below. "And you too, Sybil," he said,
turning his eyes upon her. "This country has done you well. By jove,
what a transformation from the white-faced, willowy--"

"Weedy," said she.

"Well, as it's no longer true, weedy--woman that faded out of London,
how many--eight years ago!"

"Ten years, ten long, glorious, splendid years."

"Ten years! Surely not ten!"

"Yes, ten beautiful years."

"I wish to God I had come with you then. I might have been--well, I
should have been saved some bumps and a ghastly cropper at last."

"'Cut it out,' Jack, as the boys say here. En avant! We never look back
in this land, but ever forward. Oh, now isn't this worth while?" Again
she swept her hand toward the scene below her. "Look at that waving
line in the east, that broad sweep; and here at our left, those great,
majestic things. I love them. I love every scar in their old grey faces.
They have been good friends to me. But for them some days might have
been hard to live through, but they were always there like friends,
watching, understanding. They kept me steady."

"You must have had some difficult days, old girl, in this awful land.
Yes, yes, I know it's glorious, especially on a day like this and in a
light like this; but after all, you are away from the world, away from
everybody, and shut off from everything, from life, art--how could you
stick it?"

"Jack are you sympathising with me? Let me tell you your sympathy is
wasted. I have had lonely days in this land, of course. When Tom was
off on business--Oh! that man has been perfectly splendid. Jack! He's
been--well, I can't tell you all he has been to me--father, mother,
husband, chum, he's been to me, and more. And he's made good in the
country, too. Now look again at this view. We always stop to look at it,
Tom and I, from this point. Tell me if you have ever seen anything quite
as wonderful!"

"Yes, it's glorious, a little like the veldt, with, of course, the
mountains extra, and they do rather finish the thing in the grand
style."

"Grand style, well, rather! A great traveller who has seen most of the
world's beautiful spots told me he had never looked on anything quite so
splendid as the view from here--so spacious, so varied, so majestic. Ah,
I love it, and the country has been good to me!

"I don't mean physically only, but in every way--in body, soul and mind.
And for Tom, too, the country has done much. In England, you know, he
was just loafing, filling in time with one useless thing after another,
and on the way to get fat and lazy. Here he is doing things, things
worth while. His ranch is quite a success. Then he is always busy
organising various sorts of industries in the country--dairying,
lumbering and that sort of thing. He has introduced thoroughbred stock.
He helps with the schools, the churches, the Agricultural Institutes. In
short, he is doing his part to bring this country to its best. And this,
you know, is the finest bit of all Canada!"

Her brother laughed. "Pardon me," he said, "there are so many of these
'finest bits.' In Nova Scotia, in Quebec, I have found them. The people
of Ontario are certain that the 'finest bit' is in their province, while
in British Columbia they are ready to fight if one suggests anything to
the contrary."

"I know. I know. It is perfectly splendid of them. You know we Canadians
are quite foolish about our country."

"WE Canadians!"

"Yes. WE Canadians. What else? We are quite mad about the future of our
country. And that is why I wanted you to come out here, Jack. There is
so much a man like you might do with your brains and training. Yes. Your
Oxford training is none too good for this country, and your brain
none too clever for this big work of laying the foundations of a great
Empire. This is big enough for the biggest of you. Bigger, even, than
the thing you were doing at home, Jack. Oh, I heard all about it!"

"You heard all about it? I hope not. I hope you have not heard of the
awful mess I made of things."

"Nonsense, Jack! 'Forward' is the word here. Here is an Empire in
the making, another Britain, greater, finer, and without the hideous
inequalities, injustices and foolish class distinctions of the old."

"My God! Sybil, you sound like Lloyd George himself! Please don't recall
that ghastly radicalism to me."

"Never mind what it sounds like. You will get it too. We all catch it
here, especially Old Country folk. For instance, look away to the left
there. See that little clump of buildings beside the lake just through
the poplars. There is a family of Canadians typical of the best, the
Gwynnes, our closest neighbours. Good Irish stock, they are. They came
two years after we came. Lost their little bit of money. Suffered, my!
how they must have suffered! though they were too proud to tell any of
us. The father is a gentleman, finely educated, but with no business
ability. The mother all gold and grit, heroic little woman who kept the
family together. The eldest boy of fifteen or sixteen, rather delicate
when he came, but fearfully plucky, has helped amazingly. He taught the
school, putting his money into the farm year after year. While teaching
the school he somehow managed to grip hold of the social life of this
community in a wonderful way, preached for Mr. Rhye, taught a
Bible Class for him, quite unique in its way; organised a kind of
Literary-Social-Choral-Minstrel Club and has added tremendously to the
life and gaiety of the neighbourhood. What we shall do when he leaves,
I know not. You will like them, I am sure. We shall drop in there on our
way, if you like."

"Ah, well, perhaps sometime later. They all sound rather terribly
industrious and efficient for a mere slacker like myself."

Along the trail they galloped, following the dogs for a mile or so until
checked by a full flowing stream.

"I say, Willow Creek is really quite in flood," said his sister. "The
hot sun has brought down the snows, you know. The logs are running, too.
We will have to go a bit carefully. Hold well up to the stream and watch
the logs. Keep your eye on the bank opposite. No, no, keep up, follow
me. Look out, or you will get into deep water. Keep to the right. There,
that's better."

"I say," said her brother, as his horse clambered out of the swollen
stream. "That's rather a close thing to a ducking. Awfully like the
veldt streams, you know. Ice cold, too, I fancy."

"Ice cold, indeed, glacier water, you know, and these logs make it very
awkward. The Gwynnes must be running down their timber and firewood. We
might just run up and look in on them. It's only a mile or so. Nora will
be there. She will be 'bossing the job,' as she says. It will be rather
interesting."

"Well, I hope it is not too far, for I assure you I am getting quite
ravenous."

"No, come along, there's a good trail here."

A smart canter brought them to a rather pretentious homestead with
considerable barns and outbuildings attached. "This is the Switzers'
place," said Mrs. Waring-Gaunt. "German-Americans, old settlers and
quite well off. The father owned the land on which Wolf Willow village
stands. He made quite a lot of money in real estate--village lots and
farm lands, you know. He is an excellent farmer and ambitious for his
family--one son and one daughter. They are quite plain people. They live
like--well, like Germans, you know. The mother is a regular hausfrau;
the daughter, quite nice, plays the violin beautifully. It was from her
young Gwynne got his violining. The son went to college in the States,
then to Germany for a couple of years. He came back here a year ago,
terribly German and terribly military, heel clicking, ram-rod back, and
all that sort of thing. Musical, too, awfully clever; rather think he
has political ambitions. We'll not go in to-day. Some day, perhaps.
Indeed, we must be neighbourly in this country. But the Switzers are a
little trying."

"Why know them at all?"

"There you are!" cried his sister. "Fancy living beside people in this
country and not knowing them. Can't you see that we must not let things
get awry that way? We must all pull together. Tom is fearfully strong on
that, and he is right, too, I suppose, although it is trying at times.
Now we begin to climb a bit here. Then there are good stretches further
along where we can hurry."

But it seemed to her brother that the good stretches were rather fewer
and shorter than the others, for the sun was overhead when they pulled
up their horses, steaming and ready enough to halt, in a small clearing
in the midst of a thick bit of forest. The timber was for the main part
of soft woods, poplar, yellow and black, cottonwood, and further up
among hills spruce and red pine. In the centre of the clearing stood a
rough log cabin with a wide porch running around two sides. Upon this
porch a young girl was to be seen busy over a cook stove. At the noise
of the approaching horses the girl turned from her work and looked
across the clearing at them.

"Heavens above! who is that, Sybil?" gasped her brother.

Mrs. Waring-Gaunt gave a delighted little cry. "Oh, my dear, you are
really back." In a moment she was off her horse and rushing toward the
girl with her arms outstretched. "Kathleen, darling! Is it you? And you
have really grown, I believe! Or is it your hair? Come let me introduce
you to my brother."

Jack Romayne was a young man with thirty years of experience of the
normal life of the well-born Englishman, during which time he had often
known what it was to have his senses stirred and his pulses quickened by
the sight of one of England's fair women, than whom none of fresher and
fairer beauty are to be found in all the world; yet never had he found
himself anything but master of his speech and behaviour. But to-day,
when, in obedience to his sister's call, he moved across the little
clearing toward the girl standing at her side, he seemed to lose
consciousness of himself and control of his powers of action. He was
instead faintly conscious that a girl of tall and slender grace, with
an aura of golden hair about a face lovelier than he had ever known, was
looking at him out of eyes as blue as the prairie crocus and as shy
and sweet, that she laid her hand in his as if giving him something of
herself, that holding her hand how long he knew not, he found himself
gazing through those eyes of translucent blue into a soul of unstained
purity as one might gaze into a shrine, and that he continued gazing
until the blue eyes clouded and the fair face flushed crimson, that
then, without a word, he turned from her, thrilling with a new gladness
which seemed to fill not only his soul but the whole world as well.
When he came to himself he found his trembling fingers fumbling with the
bridle of his horse. For a few moments he became aware of a blind rage
possessing him and he cursed deeply his stupidity and the gaucherie of
his manner. But soon he forgot his rage for thinking of her eyes and of
what he had seen behind their translucent blue.