CHAPTER XII
"ALL THE BLUE BONNETS ARE OVER THE BORDER!"
One day early in the Winter, when the boys' English letters had begun to arrive regularly, Auntie Elspie Grant came over the hills on her snowshoes, to pay a visit of sympathy to Mrs. Lindsay. She brought a bottle of the liniment they made every Fall from the herbs of the Craig-Ellachie garden, a stone jar of their best raspberry cordial, a pot of mincemeat, and a piece of Christmas cake.
She spent a long afternoon while they both knitted socks and read the boys' letters and heard the latest news of Allister and Ellen and Mary and discussed at great length the never-failing virtues of Gavin. John drove the guest home in the cutter round by the road, for Mrs. Lindsay could not bear the sight of Elspie walking away over the drifts, though as a matter of fact, Elspie in her youthful spirits enjoyed it immensely.
"Elspie Grant's worryin' about Gavin," said Mrs. Lindsay, when the guest had gone and the early supper was being cleared away.
"What's the matter with him?" asked Christina with that feeling of self condemnation that any thought of Gavin always brought.
"She doesn't quite know. That's the trouble. He's not been eating and he doesn't seem to want to go anywhere. I wonder what can be wrong with the lad? Such a comfort as Gavin will be to the girls!"
Christina did not suggest an explanation. She had no self-conceit, and could not imagine that Gavin was grieving over her to the extent of loss of appetite. But she could not help wondering if she contributed in any measure to his trouble. For now that the matter was drawn to her attention she remembered that Gavin was not taking the part in the life of the young people of the village which he had once taken. Since the Red Cross Society had brought about a reunion of the divided forces of Orchard Glen, social activities had become very popular, but Gavin was not one of the reunited company. He did not come to the Temperance meetings any more and had dropped Choir Practice. He had even left the choir of his own church and he had deserted on the very day when he was most needed, the day they unveiled the Honour Roll with the names of the boys who had gone overseas. And in spite of all Tremendous K.'s scolding and pleadings he would not return.
"Gavin Grant's queer," grumbled Jimmie. "We were depending on him to give something the next night the boys have to give the programme, but he won't even help with the singing."
"Did you ask him what was the matter?" asked Christina, interested. "Auntie Elspie told Mother that he is acting as if he were sick."
"I think he's acting just plain mean," declared Jimmie, who had been taking Sandy's place with Gavin lately and was disappointed in him. "Maybe he's in love," he added with a grin and went off whistling.
But it was not that altogether that troubled Gavin, for there was certainly something very badly wrong with the lad. It was love and war combined that ailed him, and the war had become a burden too heavy for his strong young shoulders.
For quiet, shy, gentle Gavin was burning to be up and away into the struggle. His daily tasks of peace had become a galling joke scarcely to be borne. And the more he yearned to be gone the more bitterly he blamed himself for what he called his ingratitude and faithlessness. He loved his three foster-mothers with all the power of his loyal young heart. They had rescued him from a miserable starved childhood and had lavished all the wealth of their loving hearts upon him. And now he had grown to manhood, and every year they looked more and more to him for support. Their declining years had come and he dared not face the possibility of leaving them. He argued the matter out with himself by day in field and barnyard, and by night as he tossed on his sleepless bed. Why should he yearn to go when his duty plainly declared that he should stay? Many of the young farmers about Orchard Glen, boys he had grown up with and who could easily be spared, never thought for a moment of the war as their task. And why should he, who was so sadly needed at home?
But it was inevitable that Gavin should be unhappy in the safety of home while the world was in agony. Without realising it the Grant Girls had raised their boy to be a soldier, they so gentle and so peace loving. Life had not been narrow, even away back at Craig-Ellachie, where the grass grew in the middle of the corduroy road. Gavin had been nurtured on songs and tales of noble deeds and deathless devotion. He had been reared in a home where each one vied with the other in forgetting self and serving the other. The best books had been his daily reading. And, greatest of all, he had been trained to take as his life's pattern the One whose sole purpose had been not to be ministered unto, but to minister.
Night after night as he was growing into manhood, Auntie Flora would seat herself at the little old organ, and together they would all sail happily over a sea of song, thrilling ballads of the old days when men went gaily to death, singing
"So what care I though Death be nigh,
I live for love or die!"
Then Auntie Elspie would put aside her spinning and Auntie Janet her knitting and they would tell him tales from the glorious history of the clan Grant. And he was never tired of hearing that story of the Indian Mutiny, told the Grant Girls by their grandfather; how a Highland regiment held a shot torn position till help came, held against overwhelming odds while men fell on every side, held, crying to each other all up and down the sore-pressed line, "Stand fast, Craig-Ellachie!"
And so Gavin could not but grow up filled with great aspirations. He could no more help being chivalrous and self-forgetful than he could help having the slow, soft accent of his Aunties.
And then into his high-purposed life came the Great Occasion! It seemed as if he had been trained just for this. It called to him and him alone. The greatest struggle of history; a death-struggle of sore-pressed Freedom against hideous Oppression was shaking the earth, and the smoke of the conflict was blackening the heavens—and through it all Gavin Grant remained at peace in his home! Every old Belgian woman of whom he read, driven from her ruined home, was Auntie Elspie. Every Belgian girl, suffering unspeakable wrong, was Christina. And they were crying night and day to him for help and crying in vain.
Many a night, after he had read a flaming page of Belgium's and Armenia's fearful history, he sat, sleepless, by the dying kitchen fire until dawn, and the day that the name of Edith Cavell was written in letters of fire across the sides of civilisation, Gavin went off into the woods alone with his axe, and tried to put some of the fury that was burning him up into savage blows against the unoffending timber.
And then the Orchard Glen boys began to answer the call, one by one; Burke and Trooper, and Christina's brothers. Tommy Holmes and Charlie Henderson, and Bruce McKenzie, and he was like Gareth in the story Auntie Flora had so often told him, Gareth who had to work in the kitchen, while his brother-knights rode clanking past him through the doorway, out into the world of mighty deeds, out to meet Death on the Field of Glory. Those were the days when he had to repeat "Stand fast, Craig-Ellachie" over and over again as he went about his peaceful tasks. It brought him little comfort, for it was not to stand fast that he wanted, but to spring forward in answer to the call to the hazardous task, to death itself, the call which through the ages has always summoned the high heart. Sometimes the acutest misery would seize him at the thought that persistently haunted him, the fear that if he had been really a Grant he would have seen his duty more clearly and would already be in the battle line. Perhaps there was some necessary spirit left out of him, some saving quality which his degraded parents could not hand down to him. If he had been of better blood might he not have paid no attention to tears and partings but have thrown away everything in the glorious chance of dying in the greatest cause for which the world had ever struggled?
He argued the question from every point, and yet he could not find it in his soul to leave his Aunts. He watched them intently to see if they would drop any hint of their opinion in the matter. But while they highly admired Trooper and commended the Lindsay boys, saying that not even the ministry should keep Neil at home, he could not elicit from them the smallest hint that they thought he was called to enlist. And so he set his teeth, determined to Stand Fast though his heart should break. But he was ashamed to be seen in public and he grew more shy and reticent as the hard days dragged on. Gradually he dropped out of all the activities that used to take him to the village. When he went he always saw Christina and Wallace Sutherland together, and that sight added to his misery. And finally he could not bear to hear himself sing. He looked down at his big brawny hands and arms and felt ashamed that he should be standing in a safe and peaceful place, singing! He choked at the thought. He sometimes wished he were not so big and strong. If he were small and weak like Willie Brown or even had one leg like Duke it would be easier to bear.
He gave no reason when he suddenly left the choir the day the Honour Roll was unveiled. He could not confess that he found it intolerable to sit up there right next to that list of heroes. His Aunts remonstrated gently, but though he answered as gently he was unyielding. So he went back to the family pew and sat beside Auntie Elspie. To be sure the growing Honour Roll faced him there, every name written in letters of flame that leaped out and scorched him, but at least he did not have to sing back there and could bear his shame better.
His Aunts worried themselves almost ill over him. Auntie Janet dosed him with medicine and compelled him to wear heavier underwear. Auntie Flora was so fearful that his spiritual condition was languishing that she spoke to Mr. Sinclair and he promised to see Gavin and talk to him. Auntie Elspie said nothing but she watched him, and finally her keen mother-heart divined his malady.
Auntie Flora had always been Gavin's instructor, and had led him along the way of good books and into a slight knowledge of music, Auntie Janet had been his playmate and confidante, the one with whom he had always shared his secrets and to whom he had confessed his boyish scrapes. But Auntie Elspie had been his mother, and she knew her boy. At first she thought the trouble arose over Christina and was bitterly disappointed when the handsome young man from town had stepped in and ruined all Gavin's hopes. But she knew he was too proud to grieve long, and he had laughed one night when Auntie Flora read him "The Manly Heart," "Shall I, wasting in despair, die because a lady's fair? If she be not fair to me, what care I how fair she be?" and asked that she read it again. It was just right, he declared, and went around whistling that evening. There must be something more than Christina troubling him she concluded. And then she began to suspect the truth. Many little incidents helped to confirm her suspicions, and at last she realised it beyond a doubt. Gavin was craving to be up and away into the death struggle of the trenches!
The truth broke upon her with a thrill of mingled exultation and dismay. For the three gentle ladies who could not bear to contemplate the possibility of Gavin's leaving them, were each secretly cherishing a longing to hear him express a desire to be away to the war, the desire which he was so painfully smothering for their sakes.
Hughie Reid, who was next of kin to the Grant girls, lived on the farm just below Craig-Ellachie on the road to the village. He was a distant cousin, and a kindly man and the Aunties were always giving his wife a hand with her work and practically kept his boys in socks and mittens. His oldest boys were almost grown to manhood, and Hughie had often said to Auntie Elspie,
"If Gavin ever wants to quit farming, Elspie, I'll take Craig-Ellachie on shares. I need a bit more land for my stock." And Auntie Elspie had always laughed at him, saying there was little fear of his ever getting it, for Gavie would never think of anything but the farm. But the night when Gavin's heart was laid bare before her, Auntie Elspie remembered Hughie's oft repeated wish and made a great and noble resolve.
She came to her dismaying conclusion concerning Gavin one evening after he had been to town. He was all unconscious of her loving espionage and had no idea that he was betraying himself. A Highland Battalion was being raised in the County, called the Blue Bonnets. Recruiting agents were going all through the country, and at concert and tea meeting the young people sang a gallant old Scottish song transcribed to suit the locality.
"March, March! Dalton and Anondell!
Why my lads, dinna ye march forward in order?
March, March! Greenwood and Orchard Glen,
All the Blue Bonnets are over the Border!"
Gavin had been to Algonquin and had heard it on every side, had seen boys in khaki marching down the street, and worse still, lads in kilts swinging along, laughing and light-hearted. And he had fled home, in terror lest some one accost him and ask him to join them. The lilting lines had set themselves to the jingle of his bells as he drove homeward, and mile by mile he could hear nothing but
"Trumpets are sounding, war steeds are bounding,
Stand to your arms and march in good order.
Germans shall many a day tell of the bloody fray
When all the Blue Bonnets came over the Border!"
"March! March!"...
He was very silent at supper that evening. He made an effort to be especially kind and attentive, but he could not be merry. He could not chat about his visit to town and the doings there which the Aunties were all eager to hear. For he had seen nothing but boys in kilts, swinging laughingly down the street, had heard nothing but the pipes and drums lilting "All the Blue Bonnets are over the Border!"
And all the while Auntie Elspie watched him closely, her heart sinking.
When supper was over and they sat around the sitting room stove, Auntie Flora seated herself at the organ, thinking to cheer him.
"Come away, Gavie dear," she cried. "It's a long time since we had some music and I'm afraid you'll be forgettin' the fiddle altogether. Come away and we'll have a good old sing."
He could not refuse, but said he would play if she would sing, and then he passed over all the old war-like favourites, "A Warrior Bold" and "Scots Wha Hae," and asked instead for songs of peace, "Caller Herrin'," "Ye Banks and Braes," "Silver Threads Among the Gold."
"Sing 'A Warrior Bold' Gavie," cried Auntie Janet, looking up from the sock she was knitting for Burke Wright, "Ye've no sung it for such a long, long time."
He made an excuse about not being able to sing it; it was too high for him.
"Ye haven't got a cold, have you, hinny?" she asked anxiously, and he answered no, that he was quite well.
Then Auntie Flora, all unconscious, opened all the stops of the little organ and burst into Bruce's deathless "Battle Hymn," the welcome to all gallant souls to a gory bed or to victory.
"Play it and sing it both, Gavie!" cried Auntie Janet joining her voice in, "Now's the day, and now's the hour!" But Gavin made a hurried excuse about seeing to the cattle, and hastily putting down his violin went out quickly. Auntie Elspie saw his face as he passed and all her doubts and with them her hopes vanished. She had suspected before; now she knew!
"I thought Gavie did all the chores," said Auntie Flora, looking up as she finished only the first stanza of the song. Auntie Elspie said nothing. She bent over the hospital shirt she was sewing, as though to look for a flaw in her work. She was winking away the tears that her sisters must not see.
She put on an old coat of Gavin's and slipped out after him to the barn.
She found there was little to do. He had recovered his composure, and scolded her lovingly for coming out in the cold. He had a momentary picture of his Aunts' going out to the stable on sharp nights like these to feed the cattle and bed the horses, and he tried to believe he was glad he was not going.
The next day at dinner Auntie Elspie remarked casually that she thought she would take a run over to Hughie's and see if little Elspie was better of her cold, and have a cup of tea with Hughie's wife.
Gavin had an errand to Orchard Glen Mill, and on his way drove her over in the old box sleigh, promising to call for her early on his return. Auntie Janet had a few purchases she wanted him to make at the store in Orchard Glen, and when he had come back from the mill, Gavin tied his horse and ran into the store.
Marmaduke was sitting tilted back on a chair behind the stove making love to Tilly. Life had been but a dreary business for Duke since Trooper went to the war. Old Tory Brown and old Willie Henderson, who had been bitter enemies ever since the disastrous day the Piper took his music to the wrong meeting, were sitting waiting for the mail on opposite sides of the stove. Mr. Holmes was slowly and carefully putting the letters and papers into their proper compartments, at the back of the store, looking up over his spectacles as each newcomer entered.
"Hello, Gavin," called Marmaduke, "Cold day. Reg'lar Tory weather we're gettin' these days."
"It'd be hot enough times if yous folks and Quebec was runnin' the country," remarked old Tory Brown, while Mrs. Holmes, who had come in to give a hand at distributing the mail, gave a warning before her departure into the house, "Now, Pa, don't let the folks talk politics. It's bad enough to have our boys goin' to the war without havin' war at home."
Tilly ran forward and took Gavin's list and began to put up his parcels. She stopped to stare out of the frosty window as a smart cutter dashed up to the store veranda. A portly gentleman in the uniform of a Major stepped out of it. He was not an unfamiliar figure in the locality, having been through the country for some time raising recruits for The Blue Bonnets. Major Harrison was not very successful in his dealings with men, but if he had little influence at home he had plenty at Ottawa and was sure of his position.
"Here comes Lord Kitchener," remarked Marmaduke. "Better take a good look at him, Tilly. He'll maybe be goin' to the Front in a year or so, and you won't see him for a while."
Mr. Holmes looked over his glasses, a flash of appreciation in his eyes. Since Tommy had gone to the Front his father was on the lookout for any one who stayed behind under the shelter of a khaki uniform and Major Harrison was said to belong to that rapidly growing unit.
"Look out, Duke," he warned. "He's a great persuader, he'll have you in The Blue Bonnets before you know what's happened you."
A joyous resolution suddenly shone in Marmaduke's eyes. He quickly concealed his peg leg behind a barrel, and leaning back, the picture of idleness, he drummed on the floor with his one good foot and whistled, "It's a Long Way to Tipperary."
The Major swung open the door and marched in, followed by his bat man. He had been but an indifferent business man on a small salary before he fell upon the fat days of war, but now he had a servant and a position of authority.
"Good-day, Mr. Holmes," he cried heartily. "Good-day, Miss Tilly, you're looking as lovely as ever, I see."
Tilly gasped and giggled and took refuge in questioning Gavin as to whether it was number forty or fifty white spool his Aunt wanted.
"Good-day, sir," cried Marmaduke heartily, suspending his musical performance for a moment. "Glad to see you. Heard you were gone to the Front. Glad to see it's a false alarm again."
"But my heart's right there," he added tunefully, keeping time on the top of a barrel with his fingers.
"How's things going in the Army, Major Harrison?" put in Mr. Holmes, seeing the Major looking slightly annoyed.
"The Army's growing," answered the officer, pulling off his gloves and spreading his cold hands over the stove.
"We just need a few more young fellows like you've got hanging round this corner, and we'll have the Germans driven back to Berlin in another month or so."
He looked around him sharply. "This is a war where no young chap that's got red blood in his veins can stay at home." He glanced meaningly from Gavin to Marmaduke.
Gavin was one of Marmaduke's warmest friends and he did not enjoy the thought of the Major worrying him. He attempted to draw the fire to himself.
"Some folks round here claims to have blue blood, though," he remarked with a guilelessness that would have misled a German Spy. He accomplished his object; the Major looked down at him.
"If their claims are true they won't be here long, my friend," he said emphatically, but he turned to Gavin again.
"Come along, young man, and let me put you down for The Blue Bonnets. It's the finest Battalion that's going overseas, and we've room for only a few more. I believe you're Scotch, aren't you? What's your name?"
"Grant, Gavin Grant."
"Grant! Why, you're the very fellow I'm looking for! Come along and get into a kilt, man. What's a fellow by the name of Grant doing at home when there's a war on? Wouldn't you like to go over and smash the Germans, now?"
Gavin looked at him dumbly. It was as if a lost soul were being asked if it would like to enter Paradise.
"Well, what's keeping you?" asked the Major impatiently.
"I—I can't leave the farm and my Aunts," he stammered.
"Pshaw, you're not tied to your Auntie's apron string, are you? Every fellow I ask to enlist in this part of the country has got either an aunt or a grandmother or a second cousin——"
"I'm worse off than that," interrupted Marmaduke, seeing that Gavin was in misery, "I've got a—" His voice dropped to a confidential whisper,—"A girl!"
The Major looked at him sharply, but Marmaduke was a perfect picture of rural simplicity.
"You're not married are you?" he asked shortly, glancing at Tilly, who had forgotten all about Gavin's purchases and was staring at the smart officer in open-mouthed admiration.
"Well, not,—that is," Duke hesitated in evident painful embarrassment, "well, we're not married yet, but we expect very soon,—" He turned a languishing look upon Tilly, and indicated her to the Major with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder. "You wouldn't have a fellow go and leave his girl now, would you?"
Tilly went off into a spasm of hysterical giggles and denials, and the shoulders of the two old men beside the stove began to heave with suppressed laughter.
"Oh, well, you're not married yet," cried the Major briskly. "You come along and enlist in our Highland Battalion. What's your name?"
"Timothy O'Toole," said Marmaduke shamelessly, "and I'll go in no Highland gang, I'd nivir do at all at all among them outlandish spalpeens with their bare legs; Tilly wouldn't like it," he added modestly.
"Pshaw! Everybody knows that half the Highland regiments in the British Army are Irish. Enlist first and you can get married after. Every girl admires the khaki, eh, Miss Holmes?"
Tilly was hanging on to the counter by this time, too far gone to be able to enlighten the Major as to the truth, while her father was standing with a bunch of letters in his hand, a pleased smile on his face. Nobody minded Duke's nonsense and he dearly loved to see these city fellows taken down a button hole or two.
"No sir," cried Duke firmly, "no Highland Battalion for me. I'm goin' over wearin' o' the Grane or nothing at all. Besides my Bittalion ain't goin' yet for a while. I was askin' some of them high-up officers in Algonquin and they were tellin' me not to be in any hurry. You see," he added confidingly, "it's this way. You can get transferred. If you're in a Bittalion that's goin' over you get transferred to another, and when it goes you get transferred again. I can let you in on the thing if you'd like to know how they do it," he added with ingratiating generosity.
The Major's face flamed hot. It was no secret that he had been going through the transferring process. Red anger leaped into his eyes.
"Aw, what's the matter with you?" he asked, dropping his suave manner and becoming abusive. "Are you one of those yellow-livered chaps that's got chronic cold feet?"
"Well," said Marmaduke ingenuously, "it ain't quite so bad as that. I've got one cold foot though, but I s'pose that wouldn't keep me out. I guess a wooden leg wouldn't matter any more than a wooden head would it?" And straight in the air he held his peg leg up to view.
The long pent up amusement of the audience burst forth. The two old enemies across the stove broke into a simultaneous upheaval, a disturbance that filled up the breach between them with the loose earth of laughter. Mr. Holmes dropped his letters and chuckled loudly, and as for Tilly, she was past giggling, she fairly shouted.
The Major turned and walked out, his face white with anger.
"He's gone to get transferred to the Five-Hundredth," declared Timothy O'Toole joyfully. "I hear that Canada's goin' to send over Five Hundred Battalions and he'll be all ready for the last one."
"Ah, Duke, Duke, you're a rascal," said Mr. Holmes reprovingly.
"It's the only fun I can get out o' this business of stayin' at home," declared Duke, his face growing grave, "and I guess I need all that's comin' to me with Trooper and the other fellows away fightin' for me!"
Gavin could not join the laughter. He was too deeply hurt. He gathered up his parcels and hurried away; and once more the bells set themselves to the tune of "Blue Bonnets" and played "March, March, Why, ma lads, dinna' ye March Forward in Order?" as he drove home.
Auntie Elspie was talking to Hughie Reid in deep conference when Gavin arrived at the farm, and on the way home she was so silent, that he was worried over her.
"You're not cold, are you, Auntie Elspie?" he asked for the third time, as he tucked the old sheep skin robe around her.
"No, no, lad, I'm not cold," she said, but she shivered as she said it. It was not the blustering February wind that chilled, but the cold hand that seemed closing round her heart, the knowledge that now it was possible for Gavin to go and that soon she must tell him. She put off the evil day. She could not tell him to-night, she felt, but perhaps on the morrow.
As they were sitting down to their early supper and the February sunset was turning all the white fields to a glory of rose and gold, a big sleigh-load of merry young folk came jingling down the glittering road and swept past the house with a storm of bell-music. There was a good Winter road here across their sheltered valley and through the swamp to Dalton's Corners and the Orchard Glen Choir was taking its musical way thither. They were singing "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," and Auntie Janet, young as any of them, ran to the door and waved to them, while Bruce and Wallace and Prince and Bonnie bounded out barking madly. But Gavin did not go near the door nor look after them. He suspected Christina would be there, and most likely Wallace Sutherland and their gay company was not for him.
"You ought to be going with them, Gavie, lad," cried Auntie Janet, coming in with a rush of fresh air. "Listen, they're singin': 'All the Blue Bonnets are over the Border!' now! Eh, isn't it bonnie?"
Auntie Elspie's loving eyes were watching Gavin, and her sinking heart told her she must soon do something to put an end to his misery.
He went to his bed early that night, before they could ask him to sing, but he could not sleep. He heard Auntie Janet and Auntie Flora come up the creaking old stairs together, talking in whispers lest they disturb him. They shared a room at the end of the hall and Auntie Elspie's room was opposite his. It was quite late when finally he heard her come up to bed. But yet he could not sleep. His window-blind was rolled to the top and the moonlight flooded his room. Outside the diamond-spangled earth lay still and frost bound. Craig-Ellachie stood out white, silver-crowned, against the blue of the forest. Gavin raised himself on his elbow and looked out at the silent beauty of the night. The great white expanse seemed calling to him to come away and do as his fellow heroes were doing. He ought to be lying in a freezing trench, grasping a rifle instead of skulking in a feather bed wrapped in warm blankets. But indeed the bed had become a very rack to poor Gavin, the blankets smothered him. He tossed from side to side, vainly seeking relief.
Suddenly he sat up in bed, holding his breath to listen. The great glittering space of the outdoor world had taken voice and was crying out against him for not playing the man. From far across the silver sheen of the fields, clear and piercing, came the words,
"By oppression's woes and pains,
By our sons in servile chains,
We will drain our dearest veins
But they shall be free!
Lay the proud usurper low;
Tyrants fall in every foe;
Liberty's in every blow;
Let us do—or die!"
Gavin sprang from his bed and flung on his clothes madly. He had a wild notion that he must run out to the road and shout aloud to the world that he was coming, coming to the battle-front! When he was dressed he ran to the window and threw it up and his madness departed from him. It was only the gay sleigh-load returning from the Dalton tea-meeting. They swept past the house, setting his dogs barking madly, and the song died away as they disappeared down the glittering silver road. Gavin leaned far out of the window; his burning face stung by the cold air.
"Stand fast, Craig-Ellachie!" he whispered through his clenched teeth. The hot tears came smarting to his eyes, and he suddenly drew back, ashamed of his weakness. He closed the window, remembering even in his misery to do it quietly so as not to disturb the dear ones who were sleeping. He still knelt on at the window watching the shining track where the song of deathless liberty was fading away.
But there was a pair of loving ears near, that had heard all Gavin's movements. Auntie Elspie slept in the room opposite his, and ever since the night he had developed the whooping cough she had kept her door ajar and that was the reason she knew that her boy had not been sleeping well for many a night. And to-night she lay awake listening to the incessant creak of his old roped bed, and sharing his misery. She knew she could not bear it much longer, she must rise and tell him he was free. And then she heard him bounding from his bed, and the notes of the song as it swept gloriously past and died away.
She rose from her bed and lit the lamp. She dressed herself fully, for she knew there was no more sleep for her that night. She was trembling from head to foot, and praying for strength to carry out her heavy task. She had something of the feeling of the patriarch when the imperative Voice called, "Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and offer him for a burnt offering." She dropped on her knees before her bed. She knelt a long time, and then, strengthened, obedient to the Voice that summons all great souls, she rose and walked into Gavin's room.
Gavin was still kneeling by the window when she entered. His hair, touched by the moonlight, was soft and wavy, he looked very young and grief-stricken. For a moment the vision of him lying wounded and helpless in a trench, uncared for, shook her brave resolve. A great lump rose in her throat. She braced herself and said softly, "Gavin, Laddie!"
Gavin leaped to his feet. "Auntie Elspie!" he cried in amazement, his eyes dazzled by the light, "why, you are dressed! You're not sick?" he cried anxiously, taking the lamp from her hand.
"No, no," she said; "I'm jist all right. Put the lamp down, hinny, I want to talk with you." She sat down on the edge of his bed and he placed the lamp on his high old dresser and came and sat beside her wonderingly.
"I couldn't help hearing you tossing about. You're not sleepin', Gavie, you're worryin', lad."
"No, no, Auntie Elspie," he cried hastily, "I'm all right, I'm not sick. You go back to bed, do. You'll catch cold."
But the woman only gazed at him mournfully. "Eh, eh, hinny, I ken all about it," she whispered, lapsing into broader Scotch in her agitation. "Ye can't hide things from your Auntie Elspie. Ye're wearyin' to be away to the war, I ken as well as if ye telled me."
There was a wail in her voice that wrung Gavin's heart. "Oh, Auntie Elspie," he cried, "oh, no, no! I'll never leave you. I'll not be going. I'm not wearying. I know what my duty is; and it's here at home with you." He was repeating his assurance incoherently, when she stopped him.
"Gavie, there's no need to tell your Auntie Elspie that you would do all that is in your power for us. I ken you've kept silence all these months for fear of giving us pain. But I've been watching you, and I guessed what ailed you. And it is what we would have, Gavie. We would not have you want to stay at home while others go to die for us to save our homes and lives. And indeed it's proud I am this night, even if my heart is sore—sore——"
She broke down a moment, and again Gavin firmly declared his decision. He could not deny he wanted to go to the Front he confessed, but maybe it was just a foolish love of adventure and it did not interfere with the fact that he was needed at home.
"So I'll jist stay here, Auntie Elspie," he repeated, "I am needed here, and I would be ashamed to turn my back on you. I couldn't be happy knowing you needed me, and I wasn't here to take care of you all."
And so they argued the matter far into the night, Auntie Elspie insisting that he should go, and the boy declaring that he would not. She was reinforced shortly by her sisters. Auntie Flora had heard the low rumble of voices and had seen the light in Gavin's room. She wakened Janet, and fearing that Gavin's strange conduct had culminated in an attack of some real illness, the two anxious old ladies hurriedly flung on some clothes and went down the hall to Gavin's room. And there they found a strange scene, Elspie urging Gavin to enlist, and Gavin holding back and declaring that nothing would induce him to go to the war!
It was the look in his two younger Aunts' eyes, when the case was explained to them, that first shook Gavin's resolution. Auntie Flora stood up tall and stately, and her face flushed proudly as she turned to Janet. "What did I tell ye!" she cried triumphantly, "I knew he wanted to go!" And Auntie Janet burst into tears, and hiding her face in the old shawl she had thrown round her shoulders she sobbed, "Aye, and I said it, too. I knew ye couldn't be the kind that would want to stay at home, Gavie." And Gavin comforted them in a state of speechless wonder. It appeared that after all they had been waiting for him to express a desire to go and that their pride was quite equal to their grief!
CHAPTER XIII
"THE PLIGHTED RING"
Jimmie came home from school on Friday evening bounding in full of news.
"Say, who do you s'pose's gone and enlisted from Orchard Glen now?" he demanded indignantly of Christina, who was preparing supper in the bright, warm kitchen.
"Mrs. Johnnie Dunn," suggested his sister. But Jimmie was in no mood for a joke. Each new enlistment from the community was to him a personal injury.
"More unlikely than that!" he growled, throwing his heavy bag of books in the corner, and his wet mittens behind the stove, "it's Gavin Grant, that's who it is."
Christina stopped in the operation of taking a pan of hot biscuits from the oven. "Gavin Grant! Why! Are you sure, Jimmie?"
"Course I'm sure. I saw him in town to-day. He's joined the Blue Bonnets, and they're going to Camp Borden, and I tell you it just makes a fellow sick, that's what it does!"
Jimmie did not explain just why Gavin's joining the army should have such an effect upon his health and Christina paid no heed to his complaint. She was completely taken by surprise. If there was a young man in Orchard Glen who had a good excuse for staying at home surely that young man was Gavin. And yet he was going, when it would be so easy to remain. She was not long left to wonder over him. Her mother brought home the whole story of Gavin's struggle from his proud and grief-stricken Aunts the very next day. Elspie Grant had come over to offer sympathy when her sons left her for the battle-field and Mary Lindsay could not rest until she had done the same for her old friend. So as next day was Saturday, Jimmie took her over to Craig-Ellachie in the cutter.
She came home filled with the story of the long time Gavin had been yearning to go, but had remained silent for his Aunts' sake, how he was making every preparation for their comfort in his absence, how brave he was, and how proud they were of him, even though it was breaking their three old hearts to see him go.
Christina listened to the recital in ever-deepening humiliation. She remembered how she had been disgusted with Gavin when he fled from before Piper Lauchie's wrath, and how full of admiration she had been for Wallace Sutherland's courage. She had played the part of a silly girl who could not see the character under the thin covering of appearances. Her humiliation was not made lighter by the remembrance that Wallace had given no smallest hint of a desire to enlist.
There was nothing else talked of at the Red Cross rooms the next day. Mrs. Sutherland was quite severe in her condemnation of Gavin for going and leaving a farm and three helpless women who had brought him up and given him his chance in the world.
"It is his plain duty to stay at home," she said distinctly. "It is nothing but a desire for adventure that is taking many of our young men away, when they are needed here to work the land. No young man with a farm should be allowed to enlist."
This was too much for Mrs. Johnnie Dunn, of course, and she proceeded to rid herself of the burden of it.
"Well, my stars!" she declared loudly, her needle flying in and out in time to her words, "I would rather get down on my marrow bones and scrub for my living if I was the Grant Girls than keep a young man at home. Gavin Grant's duty ain't at home any more than Trooper's is. The Grant Girls'll never want. Hughie Reid is just a brother to them, and he's to work the farm. And the Grant Girls are as well fixed as any folks in this Hall. And let me ask yous folks what good our farms'll be to us when the Germans gets here. Just tell me that, now?"
As usual, the Prime Minister had silenced the Monarch, and the latter took refuge in a royal and dignified silence that ignored the noisy usurper.
"Christina, my dear," Mrs. Sutherland said, "will you be so good as to fetch me another skein of this sweater-coat yarn from the storeroom?" Christina went obediently, inwardly hot and raging. She wanted to rush in by The Woman's side and stand up for Gavin and tell how chivalrous and brave he really was. But how ridiculous she would look speaking up to Wallace's mother in that fashion. And yet, it seemed as if some one had cast a reflection upon Sandy so much did it annoy her.
She was unpacking the desired article from a bale, hidden by a pile of supplies which The Woman had brought out the evening before, when voices from the other side of the barrier reached her.
"She won't stay President long, I bet." It was Tilly's voice and Tilly's giggle accompanied it. "She's started now to talk like the war was wrong and young men shouldn't go."
"Everybody knows it's all because Wallace won't go," answered Bell Brown. "Pa says Dr. McGarry won't speak at any more recruitin' meetings nor anything because he's so ashamed."
"I don't see how Christine Lindsay..." But Christina had tiptoed out of her ambush and escaped into the main room with the yarn, her cheeks burning, her eyes unnaturally bright.
Gavin went to camp at Niagara but was allowed to come back to work his farm for a month in the Summer. The Grant Girls were as happy to have him again as if he had returned from the war, and with youth's happy disregard of the future, they set themselves to have the gayest Summer that had ever shone down upon Craig-Ellachie, and folks who went there said there never was such fun as they had round the supper table with Gavin giving his Aunts' military orders and they obeying them with military precision.
Christina would have given much to be one of those guests. She wanted to show Gavin before he went that she admired his spirit, and was glad he wanted to go. But she felt diffident about going to Craig-Ellachie, and she shrewdly guessed that Gavin would never ask her.
She saw him only at church, and how proudly the Aunties walked down the aisle with Gavin in his Highland Uniform to show them to their seat and sit at the end of the pew. And indeed they could scarcely keep their eyes off him during the service, and a fine sight he was to be sure, in his trim khaki coat and his gay kilt. And the worry had all gone from his face and he was his old smiling kindly self. He was too busy to come to any of the village festivities and Christina had no opportunity to speak to him except as he came down the church aisle. And though the other girls crowded around him she stood aloof, so strangely shy she had become of Gavin.
Joanna and the other girls decided the young people must give Gavin a send-off such as had been given to all the boys and so they planned for a gathering on an evening when he came home for the last leave, and Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists once more joined amicably in a common cause. But Gavin was not to have the privilege of receiving a public farewell, a circumstance that suited him well, for he had dreaded anything that would drag him into public notice.
For one dark Autumn day, when the last blossom of the Grant Girls' garden had drooped before the frost, the Blue Bonnets were suddenly called to go overseas. Gavin had come home just the night before for a week-end leave, and a telegram summoned him to rejoin his Battalion at once. There was a great stir at Craig-Ellachie. Hughie Reid hurried over as soon as the news reached him, and he sent one of his boys to fetch Mrs. Johnnie Dunn to help the Aunties through their trial, and Hughie himself got out his Ford car to take Gavin to Algonquin to catch the midnight train for Toronto.
The weather seemed to be in accord with the hearts of the three bereaved old women, a cold rain came sweeping across the hills just as night fell and Gavin drove away from his old home and the loving arms that would have held him, into the storm and darkness, and the light of Craig-Ellachie went out with him.
Christina had not heard of Gavin's sudden call, and while he was driving away in the wind and rain, she was sitting by the fire winding a skein of yarn which Wallace Sutherland was holding.
The sitting room was warm and bright, and had many pretty feminine touches, and there were plenty of easy chairs and cushions that Mary had contributed from time to time. The soft-shaded lamp-light fell on Christina's bright hair as she bent over her yarn. Her mother had gone to bed early, they were alone and Wallace was watching Christina from his luxurious seat on the big deep sofa, in perfect content. The wind howled around the corners of the old house, and the rain lashed the window panes, but the comfort of the bright sitting-room and Christina's presence were only made more delightful by the contrast.
Wallace sank down deeper into the sofa. He was in his happiest mood. He had worked quite steadily all Summer and had been so successful in the process of "Showing Uncle William" that that unreasonable old person had written quite a reasonable letter to his brother, saying that, maybe there was something in the young cub after all, and that if he really succeeded in demonstrating that he was good for something, even if it was only feeding the pigs, he, Uncle William, might be inclined to pay him a visit, etc., etc. It was that etc. that so raised Wallace's spirits. He knew Uncle William, oh, right down to the ground, he declared, and had no hesitation in assuring Christina that if everything went all right with his stock this Winter, Uncle William was his to do as he pleased with. He was very happy, and expected Christina to rejoice with him. She was naturally gay and ready to follow a merry lead, and Wallace enjoyed her companionship more than any one he had known for that very reason. But he could not deny that for some time she had not been such a good comrade. She had to make an effort to-night to help him be gay over Uncle William's complete undoing. She tried to be interested as he told all his good fortune, but was just a little relieved when John came in for a few minutes and began talking politics.
She went to the kitchen for a plate of apples, leaving them discussing the Minister of Militia, and was taking down a plate from the high old cupboard in the kitchen, when she heard a sound as if some one were fumbling at the door. The big kitchen was empty, the damp day had been bad for Uncle Neil's rheumatism, and he had gone to bed early, it was almost too late for a visitor, and thinking it might be only the wind, Christina put down her plate and went to look if the outside porch door were slamming.
She threw open the door and the rain and wind whirled in her face, and out of the wet and the darkness emerged a tall figure in a long khaki overcoat and a Highland bonnet. The bonnet came off immediately, and the soldier said in a soft Highland accent, "Good evening, Christine."
"Oh, Gavin," she cried in surprise, and a sudden unreasonable joy. "Is it really you? Come away in. Are you wet?"
But Gavin still stood in the doorway. "No, I cannot come in," he said hurriedly; "Hughie is waiting for me at the gate. He is taking me into Algonquin."
Christina looked past him into the darkness. "To Algonquin! Oh, Gavin, you're not called away are you?"
"Yes, the Battalion is ordered to Halifax, we will likely be sailing at once. I did not know till this morning; and I—" his voice dropped to a whisper, "I just couldn't go away without saying good-bye to you, Christine."
A gust of wind swayed Christina's skirts, and Gavin stepped inside and closed the door, but stood holding the latch.
"And your poor Aunties!" cried Christina. She was angry with herself the moment she said it, for a look of anguish passed quickly over Gavin's face.
"They are very brave," he said simply. He paused, there was silence in the big warm kitchen.
"Won't you come in, just a minute, and say good-bye to John?" asked Christina. "Mother and Uncle Neil are gone to bed, but—"
"No, I have no time to-night, but I could not go without seeing you, just once, and saying good-bye," he whispered.
Christina's eyes suddenly stung with tears. "Oh, Gavin," she faltered, "I—I don't deserve it."
He shook his head to indicate that she was wrong, and again silence fell. Gavin glanced at his wrist watch. She noticed that his awkwardness had disappeared under his military training, he held himself with a new dignified bearing. "I must not be keeping you," he said, but it seemed as if he could not go. He stood looking down at her and she could not mistake the look in Gavin's eyes. Her own fell before them.
"Oh," she managed to whisper, "I have always wanted to tell you that I think it is so brave and so grand of you to go, and, ... oh, I hope you'll come back safe," she ended, faltering, and Gavin still stood unable to speak and looked at her as if he could never take his eyes away.
The loud, slow tick of the old clock marked off the minutes.
Suddenly Gavin put his fingers under the collar of his coat. "Could you—would you mind taking this as a little keepsake?" he whispered, handing her the regimental pin of the Blue Bonnets. She took it with grateful thanks.
And then a sudden impulse came to her.
"But, I ought to give you something in return."
She looked up and down her dress. She wore no ornament but an old-fashioned brooch of her mother's fastening the throat of her soft blue dress. "I haven't anything," she said helplessly. She followed Gavin's eyes that were fastened on her left hand.
"Could you spare me that?" he whispered. It was a little old ring, one that Allister had sent her before he came home for his first visit, just plain gold with her initials carved on it. Christina slipped it off her finger eagerly.
"Oh, it's just a poor little, old thing, Gavin, but I'd be so proud to have it go to the war," she cried. He took it, his face radiant.
"Oh," he cried, "I ought not to have asked you. I was too bold, perhaps, I shouldn't—perhaps—he,—wouldn't like it?"
Christina's face flamed. "There is no one who has any right to say what I should do," she said with sudden boldness.
Gavin's face lit up. He slipped the ring on his little finger. It would hardly go on, but he managed it. A line of the old song he had sung flashed through Christina's mind as he did it, something about the plighted ring the warrior wore, being crushed and wet with gore.
"Oh, Gavin," she whispered, the tears welling up into her eyes, "God bless you, and bring you home safe again."
A sharp whistle sounded from the gate where Hughie Reid was waiting impatiently in the rain. Gavin started as if from a dream. He held out his hand. "Good-bye, Christine," he whispered, "you won't forget me, will you?"
Christina put her hand into his. She shook her head; she could not answer. He was going away, perhaps to his death, and she had not a word for him, and yet he was leaving her deliberately to another at the call of duty. Her heart was in a tumult of grief and self-abasement. She could only stand and look up at him, her eyes filled with tears, her lips trembling, and the next moment, Gavin had stooped, with the sudden boldness of a shy man, and kissed her.
And then the door was flung open and shut again, and he was gone into the storm and darkness, and Christina was left standing motionless, gazing at the closed door.
It was a long time before she found courage to return to the sitting-room. Her heart was throbbing with grief and at the same time a wild exultation that she could not understand and had no time to analyze. She did not even attempt to answer Wallace's raillery as to the length of time she had been away, or John's as to why she had stayed in the cellar long enough to eat all the apples which she found she had forgotten to bring. The event had been too stupendous for her to come down to the commonplace. And at last Wallace grew just a little piqued over her absent-minded air and went home early very much to Christina's relief.
It was the week after Gavin had gone out into the storm and Christina was still going about in a sort of daze, with feelings still unanalyzed, when she remembered that Friday would be Jimmie's eighteenth birthday. Jimmie should have been through school, but he had done that disgraceful thing that, so far, no Lindsay had ever done; he had failed in his examinations the Summer before. Had it not been for the boys' going to war, the great event that absorbed the mind of the family, Jimmie might have fared badly. As it was he received a solemn warning from John, and went back to school in the Fall very unwillingly.
"Life is so queer," Christina was constrained to say. "I was always dying to go to school and couldn't, and Jimmie is dying to stay out of it and can't."
"It's Allister's money that's spoiled the silly kid," grumbled John. "That and the war. I tell you, Christina, we always thought it was a dreadful misfortune to be poor, and wished we had money, but I am beginning to think that we ought to thank the Lord that we have had to do without. Jimmie has never done very well at school just because it has been made easy for him to there."
"I'm afraid Allister's money is not likely to do any of us much more harm, anyway," Christina said to herself, remembering another rather despondent letter from him. She could not quite agree with John that money was not a very good thing to have. It would have opened for her the road to the college halls, but it had been denied. And yet she was not unhappy. Something sang in her heart these days, the memory of a certain farewell at the back door in the wind and the rain and darkness, a memory that was all light and glory.
But Jimmie was still unsettled and dissatisfied with school, and Christina said that she would please him by making him a birthday cake. She would ice it with plenty of thick almond paste, his favourite, and put his initials on it and the date. It was a very handsome and tempting confection indeed, when she put it on the pantry shelf in a secluded spot where he would not see it until the right moment arrived.
The kitchen was still filled with its spicy fragrance when there came a quick footfall in the porch and a knock at the door. Christina opened it to meet a slim young soldier who strode into the room and saluted smartly. She stood looking at him in stupefied silence for a moment, and then she dropped upon a chair and put her head down on the kitchen table.
"Oh, Jimmie! Oh, Jimmie!" she sobbed. "How could you?"
But the new recruit caught her round the waist and waltzed her across the room, and then, snatching the butcher-knife from the table, he presented arms and saluted and posed all in such an absurd fashion that in spite of her grief she smiled.
"Go right back into the shed till I tell mother," she exclaimed, "she mustn't see you till she has had warning."
Jimmie went out and hid himself, just a little subdued. Evidently his gallant act, the thing that everybody had admired in Trooper, had taken on a different colour when performed by him.
He had little opportunity to reflect upon his act. There was hardly time for sorrow before Jimmie was gone; he had been put in a draft for a Battalion already in England and to his huge delight he was sent overseas almost immediately. It seemed as if this, her baby's going, was almost more than Mrs. Lindsay could bear, and Christina was more and more called upon to be a comforter and a bearer of burdens.
It was not the fear of gas nor bomb nor German bullet that kept Jimmie's mother wakeful at night, but the pestilence that walked in darkness, waylaying the souls of young men. Terrible tales of brave boys falling before an enemy more to be dreaded than all the frightfulness of the Hun came back to Canada. It was this living Death that stalked through the camps of England, and behind the lines in France and Flanders, that made the mother's heart sick with fear.
As she watched her mother's silent suffering, Christina's soul began, again, to ask questions. What was the meaning of that psalm that Grandpa had read when Sandy and Neil went way, and, later, when Jimmie left? Did it mean anything? And if it did, why could it not bring comfort to her mother's sorely-tried heart?
Through all the days of Christina's loneliness and anxiety there was no one so kind to her as Wallace's mother. Mrs. Sutherland made a point of selecting Christina for her special helper at Red Cross meetings, and Christina could not but notice the significance of her attentions.
"You are such a comfort, Christine," she declared one day when the girl handed her back a sock with a dropped stitch deftly picked up. "Your mother is a fortunate woman. I wish I had a daughter like you!"
Christina's cheeks grew scarlet, and she was thankful that the clatter of sewing machines and the noise of Mrs. Johnnie Dunn's orders secured them from being overheard.
But indeed, she could not shut her eyes to the fact that all events pointed in the direction so prettily indicated, again and again, by Wallace's mother. Wallace was succeeding beyond his own expectations, and Uncle William was growing more lamb-like every day. The road to success had surely opened out for Christina. Her Dream Knight had ridden up to her very door. He was possessed of a fine house, and broad acres, and had prospects of great wealth. He was handsome and gay and debonair, and what more could any human girl ask?
And in the face of all this grand good fortune that unreasonable Christina Lindsay was more dissatisfied and restless than she had ever been in all her life. She reasoned with herself and scolded herself all to no avail. That foolish heart of hers, that had always got in the way of her worldly prospects, was standing stubbornly right in the very highway of success.
Here was the great opportunity of her life, such prospects as might dazzle any Orchard Glen girl, and its glory was all blotted out by the memory of a tall figure in a khaki coat, coming suddenly out of the wind and rain of a dark night. Wallace had sat by Christina's side that night in the warmth and shelter of the fireside, but though Christina did not quite realise it yet, her heart had gone out into the storm after Gavin, and could never come back. It was still following him over the perils of the high seas and into the blood and carnage of the battlefield, and it valued farms and stock and fine houses less than the dust.
And so Christina was more dissatisfied than she had ever been in her life, and she lay awake nights wondering what she should do, and how she could possibly extricate herself from the impossible position in which she found herself.
And to make matters worse or better, she did not know which, Gavin wrote to her, and she wrote him long letters in reply. And she grew into the habit of running over the hills to Craig-Ellachie to cheer the Grant Girls, and, of course, they talked of their soldier-hero all the time, and of nothing else.
The Aunties literally lived by his letters. Everything was dated by them.
"We started yon crock o' butter jist the day Gavie's first letter came from France," Auntie Janet would say. "It's time it was finished."
"Gavie's letter was a bit late this week," they announced at another time, "so we didn't start the ironin' till it came. It jist seemed as if we couldn't settle down."
Gavin's letters were certainly worth waiting for, Christina had to confess. He wrote much easier than he spoke, and his happiness in being permitted to write to her at all filled them with a quiet humour. Christina's eyes searched them just a little wistfully for any hint of the feeling he had displayed in his farewell. But there was none. Gavin was too much the true gentleman to presume on that parting. He told her he had the little ring safe, and that it was his most precious possession, but beyond that he did not refer to that last evening. There was never a hint of hardship, even after he reached the Front, and was in many a desperate encounter. It was only all joy that he was able to be in the struggle for right. He had just one anxiety and that was lest his Aunts be lonely, and he wondered if she would be so good as to comfort them just a little when she could.
And Christina wrote him long letters in return and felt like a criminal in her double dealing. She knew she was wrong but she could not make a decision. On the one hand was all that she could hope this world could offer, and on the other nothing but a true and gallant heart. She was angry and ashamed of herself and very restless, and withal, in spite of herself, quite unreasonably happy.
Mary had been writing all Winter urging her to come for a little visit, and see Hughie Junior, who was a marvellous baby, with wonderful feats to his credit that no human baby had ever yet performed. But Christina put the tempting invitations aside, feeling she must not leave her mother in her deep anxiety.
And then there came letters from overseas that brought a wonderful relief from her mother's worry, and lightened greatly the burdens of the night.
For many and many a night her mother sat sleepless by her window, looking up at the stars that hung above her home and that also watched above her soldier sons. She had no fears for Neil, a thousand might fall at his side and ten thousand at his right hand, but it would not come nigh him. And Sandy,—Sandy was honest, and true, and as fine a lad as marched in the Canadian Army, but he was young and careless and gay, and how did she know what temptations might assail him? And there was Jimmie! Night after night she lay awake, thinking of Jimmie, praying and agonising for him. He was so young, such a big overgrown baby, how could he come through unscathed?
And then there came from France this great relief from her dread. Jimmie's draft had reached England and Neil had managed to get himself transferred to Jimmie's Battalion. It was going to France immediately, and France was safer than England, Neil wrote, from certain kinds of dangers. And his mother was not to worry, for he had Jimmie right beside him and he would look after the boy and see that no harm could come to him. And Sandy wrote that Neil had refused a chance to take the officer's course and a Commission, because he would not leave Jimmie.
Full of joy and gratitude, Christina watched her mother's eyes grow bright again, and so she left Mitty in charge of her many affairs and took the train for a week's visit to Port Stewart.
Mary's house was as pretty as ever, but had lost much of its immaculate tidiness. For Hughie Lindsay MacGillivray's wardrobe and appointments overflowed into every room. But Hughie himself was all he had been reported and more, and Christina fell down and worshipped his apple blossom face and his dimples at the first sight.
"And tell me all about Wallace Sutherland," demanded Mary, between raptures. "Isn't it grand that he's doing such fine things with the Ford place. Why, Christine, you'll be a wealthy woman some day!"
"Oh, hush!" cried Christina in distress. "Why, Mary, I haven't even been asked to live at the Ford place yet, and it's positively shameless to talk about, about anything, yet!"
"Nonsense!" laughed the practical Mary. "You know perfectly well that Wallace is in love with you, and that you are as good as engaged."
"He is not! I am not!" denied Christina excitedly. "Don't you talk like that, Mary, I—I can't bear it—"
"Why, Christine, why, mercy! I didn't mean anything!" cried Mary, alarmed and amazed at the sight of tears in Christina's eyes. "Why, what's the matter, dear? You haven't quarrelled with Wallace, have you?"
"Oh, no, of course not," said Christina dolefully, regaining her composure.
"And his mother's just lovely to you now, isn't she?"
"Yes."
"And, well, what's wrong? Why, any girl I know, even here in town, would give anything for your prospects!"
But Christina could not explain her sudden outburst. It had astonished herself as much as Mary. She knew that now was the great opportunity to confess to Mary that Wallace had fallen far below her high standard, but the memory of the Ford place and all it meant closed her lips. It seemed too much to give up, and she went home with the battle between her heart and her head still raging.