Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road Part 13

Young John Keene's face brightened perceptibly at the announcement.

"It's the right thing to do, Corney, and the trip will do you a world of good," he replied, with a familiarity which business rules could not overcome.

"I must go at once. You see, I've a telegram. Perhaps you would care to read it," Cornelius McVeigh continued, moodily.

Young John took up the missive and read it aloud: "Come home at once.

Mother seriously ill.--Dodona." He looked up to find his employer's eyes searching his face anxiously.

"You will go at once, Corney?" he said, quietly, but with a note of challenge.

"The train leaves at noon. Help me to pack up, John," the other answered.

The Tourist Express stopped at The Narrows for half an hour just at lunch time. The Narrows was a pretty place. The peninsula jutting from either way, separated only by a shallow strait, was spanned by the railroad bridge. The station formed a centre at one end to a thickly settled district of summer cottages, and quite close by stood two rather pretentious hotels. East and west the glistening surface of the lakes, dotted with islands, spread out like two great sheets of chased silver. Out beyond, the white trail of the sandy Monk Road zigzagged until it was lost in the trees. 'Twas a half-hour well spent to lounge about the platform and take in the grandeur of the landscape.

The usual crowd of gaily dressed humanity was waiting for the train, surging about it as the pa.s.sengers alighted.

Cornelius McVeigh stepped from the parlor car and looked at his watch irritably. Thirty minutes seemed an age to his impatient mind, and the richly upholstered car was too confining for him to think properly. To the outward eye he was the Cornelius McVeigh of the city, tall, of military bearing and faultlessly attired, who gave his fellow-beings the privilege of calling at his office between the hours of ten and four each business day, that they might lay before his highly trained faculties their little monetary affairs, and also the fee which his wide reputation for successful manipulating could demand. He moved only until he was free of the people, then paused whilst his gaze s.h.i.+fted from his late companions to the station and on to the dim, sunny, leafy country beyond. Disappointment lurked in the corners of his eyes and gradually spread over his entire countenance. Suddenly he realized that it was exceedingly warm on the unsheltered platform. He wished to think quietly, so he s.h.i.+fted his raincoat to his other arm and sought a shaded place against the railing. His mind was struggling in a vortex of ancient history, and this was the picture which arose from the strife. A very commonplace, bare-legged lad, with curly, uncombed hair and face so freckled that a few yards' distance merged them into one complete shade of reddish brown. He surveyed the neighboring bridge, and it came into his mental vision unconsciously.

The long, lean girders he had once trod with the careless ease of a Blondin. Farther out, the rotting tops of the piles of the old foot-bridge had been his seat from which he caught the crafty pickerel.

Beyond, the opening in the sh.o.r.e reeds marked the pa.s.sage to the secret feeding-ground of the black ba.s.s. He remembered it perfectly. A fleeting sarcastic smile dwelt on his deeply-lined features as he watched a number of boats, filled with noisy, gesticulating campers, who fished in the open water where no fish lived. A small lad, certainly a native of the place, dressed in knee trousers and a s.h.i.+rt which let in the air in places, was holding high carnival with the nerves of the onlookers. He was performing daring feats on the trestle-work of the bridge. Suddenly, accidentally, or maybe purposely, the expected catastrophe occurred, and he plunged head foremost into the running water twenty feet below. A chorus of feminine shrieks greeted the termination of his exploits, but his grinning face as he reappeared, treading water and rubbing his eyes, turned their consternation into laughter. Then, with a final howl of boyish delight, he struck out for the nearest pier.

Cornelius McVeigh awoke from his reverie as the express began to move.

He swung aboard and proceeded to gather his baggage together. He had scarcely finished when the train slowed up at the end of his journey.

He stepped out with a feeling of expectation. Home at last! The thought was predominant, and he let it sway him with a selfish disregard to other influences. Everything had changed during his twenty years of absence; and the strangeness broke in upon him as if in condemnation. Here again was the chattering, light-hearted throng, and their presence only added additional pangs. Not a familiar face to greet him. Even the fields and woodlands had a different aspect. All the success of the past decade, which had given wealth and a recognized place in the world of business, could not wipe out the impression of a youth of dreamy idleness and simplicity. Where he had hunted rabbits and slept under a tent of tattered carpet during the warm summer nights stood a gaudily-painted hotel, flanked with wide verandahs and terraced lawns. And all about were people, in hammocks, on chairs or rustic seats, or wandering about enjoying the cool freshness of the lake breezes. He hurried along the wide newly-cut road which led from the station. At the high wire gate, erected so recently that the sods from the post-holes were yet green, he stopped. The successive changes of the place were so startling to him that he wished to contemplate them more slowly. It was an ideal spot and filled the soul with pleasurable antic.i.p.ation. The children played on the gra.s.s, and the hotel employees sang as they dawdled by in pursuit of their duties.

Everything bespoke luxury and ease. In the entrance doorway of the hotel stood a stout man, probably the proprietor. He was looking from under his hand in a speculative way at the stranger by his gate.

Cornelius saw these things mechanically. Then, as his eyes pa.s.sed from one point to another, his mother's tavern came within the circle of his vision. He looked no farther. There it stood, the oddest, drollest structure that ever marred so perfect a landscape. Its weather-beaten s.h.i.+ngles curled to the sky. Its cracked chimneys and protruding gable leaned towards the roadway, and every board was rusted to a natural paintless hue. The pump stood apart, the trough green with moss and the handle pointing outwards threateningly, like a grim sentry guarding against the curious pa.s.sers-by. A grove of trees generously shaded the rear porch, and beyond them, behind the high fence, he knew, was the garden. The log barn, with its plastered c.h.i.n.ks, had not altered a particle, and the cow might have been the same one he had milked, so like her she appeared as she munched at the trailing wisps of hay hanging from the loft. The outspoken cackle of hens also added to the rustic environments. It filled his heart with gladness to see the old place, but it was not complete. The quaintest figure of all was missing--his mother, tall and white-headed, standing on the verandah watching down the road for his return. Something was hanging to the soiled bra.s.s k.n.o.b of the front door, and as he approached he saw that it was a streamer of black crepe. His heart, which for twenty long years had thrilled only to the hard-won successes of a self-made man, beat with a sudden pa.s.sionate fear, and a tear stole out upon his cheek. A new-born awkwardness grappled with him as he stumbled along the roadway. Somehow he saw a pair of dirty, sun-scorched feet encased in his s.h.i.+ning leather shoes. The languid eyes of the hotel guests followed him, and some wondered as to the nature of his errand.

Arriving at the door, he knocked lightly. An old woman, with dishevelled grey hair and shoulders enveloped in a bright homespun shawl, answered his summons and shrilly demanded what he wanted.

"Is it Mrs. Conors?" he asked, scrutinizing her face earnestly. She turned with a look of open-mouthed wonder upon him, and hesitated before speaking, so he continued:

"Have you forgotten Corney?" He trembled with a vague fear, and the old woman's failing memory smote him painfully.

"Be ye Corney McVeigh? A-comin' home to see yer poor dead mammy, an'

ye the ounly boy she had? But surely Corney wouldn't have sich foine clothes. I can scarcely believe ye," she muttered, doubtingly.

"Dead! Mother dead!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, pa.s.sing his hand across his forehead. He swayed a moment as if struck, and then he answered, with forced calmness:

"Yes, Mrs. Conors, I am Corney, and I want to see my mother. I've been coming home these many years, but something always turned up to spoil my plans. I knew the money I sent her every month was sufficient to keep her in comfort, but I didn't think it would be like this--not like this!"

Corney McVeigh stepped across the ancient threshold and gazed long and searchingly at the face in the darkened parlor; a face seamed and thin with toil and worry, yet infinitely sweet and motherlike to the world-lost man who choked back the tears as he felt again that almost forgotten child-love.

Mrs. Conors broke the silence.

"I put her ould spinning-wheel there in the corner, where she could see it 'fore she went. Those socks on the table was her last work fer ye, Corney. She said to keep yer father's pictur' an' hers togither in the alb.u.m. I was also tould to warn ye 'gainst sleepin' in the draught, 'cause ye were always weak about the lungs, an' yer father died o' thet complaint. She thought maybe ye wouldn't be wantin' the ould house, so if the hotel man offered ye a good figure ye could sell it. The cow and the chicks were to go to me, an'--well, bless me heart, if he hasn't fainted!"

Mrs. Conors ceased her explanations and called to the occupants of the rear room, whose conversation came in to her in low monotones. "Mrs.

Dodona! Jennie! it's Corney, and the lad's fainted."

The blindness, for that was all that Corney experienced, pa.s.sed off in a few minutes, and when his eyes could notice he saw that they had carried him to the little room which had once been his own bed-chamber.

Two women were placing cool cloths on his head. When he revived, one stepped quietly out. The other remained. She was young and decidedly pretty, but her face showed plainly the effects of recent grief.

Cornelius McVeigh noticed her appearance particularly because it was peculiarly familiar to him. The harsh shock of his bereavement had pa.s.sed, leaving him weakened but calm.

"Corney, do you remember me?" the girl asked him, gently.

"Jennie," he answered, hesitatingly, as if it was an effort for him to collect his thoughts.

"We have lost our mother--ours," she said, tremulously, and lowered her head, weeping.

He hastily arose, and his arm clasped her shoulder with brotherly affection. It seemed to him the only way to comfort her. She did not resist him, and they sorrowed together.

Cornelius McVeigh did not hasten away from the scene of his great sorrow. To tell the truth, he had lost for the time being his craving for the bustling of the city and the subdued activity of his office.

In the place of the latter came hours of quiet, apathetic reverie while he lingered beneath the roof-tree of home. He modified his dress and waylaid sundry travellers who pa.s.sed the door in lumbering farm wagons.

Ofttimes he clambered aboard and went a-visiting, and in exchange for his city stories received tales of the Monk Road and his mother that were as balm to his wounded heart.

Jennie was also loath to leave the peaceful spot. Her grandparent, who found a new joy in living because of his affection for her, came to the neighboring hotel and hired a suite of rooms for an indefinite period.

He proved a worthy comrade in idleness for the jaded business man, and the three of them, Jennie, Cornelius McVeigh and Mr. Hyden, were always together.

Jennie had been an apt pupil, and the few years of education which her grandparent had provided for her had transformed her from an uncultivated country girl into an accomplished young woman. Nor was she lacking in comeliness. Ofttimes the eyes of Cornelius McVeigh followed her with a strange light glistening in their depths.

The boy and girl love of years gone by, so prematurely blighted and so long dormant, was struggling again to the surface, and who knows but another wedding, the last of so many which have been recorded in the previous chapters, may yet be an accomplished fact? But that involves another story, and it has not the presence of Nancy McVeigh.