In Orchard Glen Part 7

"Ellen won't have to get married so soon then," remarked Christina with some feeling of comfort, for Ellen's presence at home made her leaving easier. "But oh, Sandy, if only----"

"Come along," cried Sandy jumping up. "It's time we were going.

There's Tremendous K. pa.s.sing now."

Christina went back to the house to see if her mother needed anything before she left, and if Grandpa was comfortable in bed, and returned to the veranda where Sandy stood waiting for her. Bruce and Ellen were there ready to start, and Mary and young Mr. MacGillivray were already strolling down the lane.

"Well, Christina," cried Ellen, her cheeks pink with excitement, "how would you like to have Bruce for a doctor if you were sick?"

More than a year before Bruce McKenzie had been prepared for college, but lack of money had stood in his way and every one had thought that he and Ellen had given up the idea and had decided to settle on the farm.

"Why, Bruce!" cried Christina, forgetting her own trouble for the moment. "Isn't that too grand for anything?"

"Ellen here says I've got to keep up with the family, you see," said Bruce, standing in the midst of the admiring circle, half proud, half embarra.s.sed. "Everybody in Orchard Glen seems to be getting the college fever, and Dr. McGarry's been at me all summer, so I guess I'll try it anyway."

If Sandy had been going Christina would have been rapturously happy over this. Ellen's approaching marriage had always hung like a cloud on the horizon, but if Ellen were going to be left at home until Bruce became a doctor, what a joy that would be. But nothing could be a joy now that Sandy's hopes had been blighted.

"It's just bully," Sandy was saying generously, "I'm sorry that"---- He was interrupted by Christina's pinching his arm, and stopped suddenly. No one noticed in the dusk of the veranda, and when they were out in the lane, Sandy asked an explanation. "I might as well tell everybody first as last," he said, "it's decided now. And I'd rather tell and get it over."

"Oh, don't," pleaded Christina, "wait for a little while. You don't know what may happen. Don't say anything about it for a few days, anyway. I--I want to think about it. Promise me you won't, Sandy, till I let you."

Sandy promised reluctantly, saying she was a silly kid. Thinking for a month, day and night, wouldn't double his bank account, but he promised; and Christina proceeded to think about it as she had said, and to think very hard and very seriously all the way down to the village.

The old Temperance Hall was open and already several had arrived.

Burke Wright, with his little wife, Mitty, her face s.h.i.+ning at being out alone with her husband, were sitting on the steps and Joanna was there laughing and chatting with Trooper Tom and, of course, Marmaduke Simms, with a crowd of girls. For Marmaduke was a sort of lover-at-large and made love openly and impartially to all the girls of the village.

The McKenzie girls had proudly announced that Bruce was going away to learn to be a doctor, and this piece of news was the chief topic of conversation. The girls all half envied Ellen, half pitied her. It took a deal of study and a dreadful long time to become a doctor, Joanna explained, and as none of the McKenzies were very smart, Ellen would be an old maid before Bruce was through. But Ellen seemed radiantly happy, and no subject for commiseration, and every one agreed that it was just the way with all the Lindsays, there was no end to their luck.

The crowd gathered inside the hall, where a number of the boys were bunched in a corner preparing the programme with much anxiety.

After the business of the evening which was never very heavy, there was always a programme rendered by the boys and girls on alternate evenings. To-night was the boys' turn to perform, which always meant a great deal of fun for the girls. John Lindsay was President of the Society, and was down on the programme for a speech on Reciprocity, and there was to be a male chorus, both sure to be good numbers, for John had some fame as a political speaker, and the boys of Orchard Glen could always put up a fine chorus with Tremendous K. to beat time and Gavin Grant's splendid voice to hold them all to the right tune.

So the programme opened auspiciously with the chorus. The only trouble was the organist. Sam Henderson, a brother of Tremendous K., was the only young man in Orchard Glen who could play anything more complex than a mouth organ, and Sam always seemed to have too many fingers.

And he pumped the air into the bellows so hard that the organ's gasps could be heard far above its strains.

Then three of the boys played a rousing trio on mouth organs, and young Willie Brown played a long piece on the violin. Tommy Holmes, Tilly's brother, who worked in Algonquin and came home week-ends, then gave a recitation, a comic selection which cheered everybody up after the wails of Willie's fiddle.

Tremendous K. sang a solo, a splendid roaring sea song that fairly made the roof rock, and then John delivered his speech and Christina sat and twisted her handkerchief and fidgeted every minute of it, in silent fear lest John make a mistake or anybody laugh at him. But John's speech was loudly applauded, though Tremendous K. said afterwards there was to be no politics brought into the Temperance Society, for Tremendous K. was not of the same political party as the President and was not going to run any risks of the liberals getting ahead.

When John had sat down there arose from the back of the hall among the young men a great deal of shoving and pus.h.i.+ng and exhorting to "go to it," and Gavin Grant came forward very reluctant, very red in the face, and looking very scared, to sing his first formal solo in public.

Gavin was a tall fellow and well built, but his clothes, the majority of which his Aunties still fas.h.i.+oned, were always too small and very ill-fitting. They seemed to have a tendency to work up to his neck and they were all crowding to the top when he lurched forward and took his place beside the organ.

"Gavin always looks as if some one had just carried him in by the back of the neck and set him down with a thud," said Joanna, loud enough for all the girls to hear. Every one laughed except Christina. She had not been able to laugh at Gavin since she had been so unkind to his birthday gift. Her heart always smote her for the waste of that wonderful basket of blooms. Now that she knew she was going away she felt she might at least have acknowledged them.

Meanwhile Gavin had brought out his Auntie Flora's oldest song book, "The Casket of Gems," from its wrapping of newspaper, and Sam Henderson had once more mounted the tread-mill of the organ, and was trampling out the opening bars of the solo. Tilly and a few of her companions were in convulsions of giggles by this time, but when Gavin's rich voice burst into the first notes, every one was hushed and attentive.

He sang without the slightest effort, pouring out the melodious sounds as a robin sings after rain.

"In days of old when knights were bold, And barons held their sway, A warrior bold with spurs of gold Sang merrily his lay, Sang merrily his lay

'My love is young and fair, My love has golden hair, And eyes so blue And heart so true That none with her compare; So, what care I though death be nigh, I live for love or die!

So, what care I though death be nigh, I live for love or die!'"

It was a gallant lay of love and war and deathless devotion but only one as unsophisticated as Gavin could have sung it. For while it was held quite proper for a young man to sing of war in a public way, no one with a sense of the fitness of things would dare to raise his voice in a love song, alone, before an audience of his fellows. But Gavin's voice brought the warrior's gallant presence so vividly before them that not even Tilly felt like smiling, and there was a sober hush as the song went on to tell how the brave knight

"Went gaily to the fray.

He fought the fight But ere the night His soul had pa.s.sed away.

The plighted ring he wore Was crushed and wet with gore, But ere he died He bravely cried, 'I've kept the vow I swore!

So what care I though death be nigh, I live for love or die.

I've fought for love, for love I die!'"

The singer put all the valour of his brave young heart into the song, all its pent up feeling. For Gavin Hume had been born a real diamond in a dark mine of poverty and ill-usage; he had been dug up, and polished and smoothed by the loving hands of the three Grant Girls and his character was beginning to s.h.i.+ne with the l.u.s.tre that comes only from the real jewel. But very few people knew this, he was too shy to give expression to the high aspirations that thrilled his heart, and only in such songs as this did his soul find a medium of expression.

There was a day coming swiftly upon him, that was to try to the utmost all the pent up valour of his reticent nature, but as yet that day was all undreamed of. And Christina Lindsay, remembering when that day came, this Temperance meeting, recalled with self-abas.e.m.e.nt that she had thought that Gavin Grant could not have chosen a song more unlike himself; he, so shy and shrinking to sing of "A Warrior Bold." If she had not been so downhearted she would have laughed at him.

When the song was finished there was a moment's hush over the meeting, and then came a storm of applause, long continued. The boys took to clapping and stamping rhythmically, and shouting, "More, more," until the old building rocked.

But Gavin shook his head persistently, and John arose and announced the next. This was a comic song by Marmaduke Simms, and Duke certainly was a very funny fellow. He could imitate anything from Mrs. Johnnie Dunn's car on a steep hill, to the Martins' youngest baby crying. He soon had them all in roars of laughter, and the meeting broke up in much gaiety, and some anxiety on the part of the girls as to their ability to do as well on the next Friday.

Most of the boys and girls paired off and vanished into the darkness.

The unfortunate ones who were not yet attached, moved away in bunches.

Christina belonged to this latter cla.s.s, unless a brother was with her.

But Jimmie had disappeared with the boys of his own age, John was walking ahead, arguing hotly with Tremendous K. about the subject of his address, and Sandy had meanly deserted her to go off with a white dress, which she had identified as belonging to Margaret Sinclair, the minister's youngest daughter who was home for her holidays. Under happier circ.u.mstances Christina would have been pleased at his choice, but nothing in connection with poor Sandy could please her just now.

He was bearing his disappointment far better than she was, for her trouble was worse than a disappointment. The unbearable part to her was the fact that stared her in the face, the fact that she was deliberately taking the privilege denied him.

She walked away from the hall slowly and silently, between Joanna Falls and Annie Brown, for Joanna's cavalier was a very uncertain quant.i.ty and poor plain Annie had never had a beau in her life. But Joanna suddenly remembered that she had left her handkerchief on the seat in the hall, and must run back for it before Trooper and Duke locked the door. The girls knew better than to wait for her, and then Burke Wright and Mitty strolled up and began talking with Annie. Christina stepped behind them in the narrow pathway for a moment, and it was then that a tall figure loomed up beside her out of the darkness, and a musical voice with a slow Highland accent that it was impossible to mistake, repeated the proper formula.

"May I see you home, Christine?"

Christina stopped short in the pathway. Never in all her nineteen years had she been asked that momentous question; the opening note of all country romances. She had heard it sounded on every side for years but its music had always pa.s.sed her by. She had begun to wonder just a little wistfully, when she would hear it. And now here it was! But, alas, like her first birthday gift, it had came from an unwelcome source!

But she answered quite cordially, being incapable of deliberately wounding any one, and Gavin gave a deep breath of relief as he took his place at her side. He was too shy to take her arm in the approved fas.h.i.+on, as all young men did when seeing a young woman to her home.

Instead he left a foot or two between them as they walked up the hill under the stars in the warm scented darkness.

Christina tried to chat, but Gavin was so overcome with the wonder of seeing her home, that he could not talk. He longed for some deadly peril to threaten her so that he might be her protector, some catastrophe that he might avert.

He was fairly aching to tell her that his great ambition was to be her Warrior Bold, and ride out to do doughty deeds for her sweet sake; that she was his Love so young and fair, of whom he had been singing, with eyes so blue and heart so true; but instead, he walked dumbly by her side, keeping carefully a yard away from her, and answering her laborious attempts at conversation with only a word. For Gavin was one of the inarticulate poets of earth, a mute, inglorious Lovelace, with a heart burdened with unsung lines to his Lucasta on going to the wars.

They had come to one of their prolonged seasons of silence, when Christina discovered that they were strolling slowly behind Old Johnnie McKenzie, Bruce's father, and Mr. Sinclair who was seeing him a piece of the way home, for the purpose of rejoicing over the good news about Bruce. The minister had been so many years in the pulpit that he used his preaching voice on all occasions, and there was no chance of missing a word that he said.

"This is great news about Bruce, Mr. McKenzie," he was saying in a full round voice, "great news! I'd rather see him going for the Ministry.

But you have brought up your lads in the fear of the Lord and Bruce will serve his Maker well as a doctor, I've no fear. Yes, it's fine news."

Mr. Sinclair was greedy of gain of the highest order for his flock, and gave parents no rest if he thought they were not giving their children the utmost education they could afford. It was largely due to him that all Orchard Glen looked to the University rather than to the counting house as the goal of those who would succeed, and that old Knox always had an Orchard Glen boy helping to keep her halls noisy.

"Yes sir, it's grand to see another of our boys entering the University," he went on, as though delivering his Sunday sermon. "And now that Johnnie's got into the High School we'll have to head him for the ministry. He's a bright lad that Johnnie of yours. Neil Lindsay is the only boy we have in Knox now, and there must be another coming along before he gets out. I was hoping I'd get Sandy Lindsay started to the University this Fall, but he seemed to talk to-night as if he wasn't sure of going. I'll be disappointed if Sandy doesn't get away soon; I was hoping Allister would see him through. Sandy would make a fine man in the pulpit. He's got the same gift as John. Man, I hope he won't be kept back. We can't do without our representative in Knox, Mr. McKenzie, the boys must be coming on. And your Johnnie will have to be the next. Come away in, Mr. McKenzie, and we'll tell Mrs.

Sinclair, this is a day of good tidings. Come away in, man."