The Hunted Outlaw, or, Donald Morrison, the Canadian Rob Roy Part 6

She flung herself beside her bed. First of all, she didn't believe the story. It was a foul lie. "What! Donald Morrison kill a man! Donald, my lover, whom I have known since childhood--whose generous instincts I have so often admired! Donald Morrison to redden his hands with the blood of his fellow! Impossible, impossible! Oh, Donald, Donald," she cried wildly, "say it isn't true; say it isn't true!"

She knelt over the bed, too deeply stricken for tears. After that pa.s.sionate prayer for denial--a prayer which is constantly ascending from humanity, and which, asking for an a.s.surance that the storm shall not ravish the rose of life, has in it perhaps at bottom something of selfishness--she remained motionless. She was thinking it out. It _was_ true Donald _had_ killed a man. The report could not lie so circ.u.mstantially. The place, and the date, and the details were given.

The story was true, and Donald had taken a life. But then, had he committed murder? A thousand times, no! Warren had threatened to kill Donald. Warren _would_ have killed him. Donald defended himself; and if, in defending himself, he had taken a life, what then? Terrible--too terrible for words; but life was as sweet to Donald as it was to Warren. A moment later and he would have been the victim. He obeyed the fundamental law of nature.

Thus Minnie tried to reason, but it brought no comfort to her. Her simple dream of love and modest happiness was over. She knew that. The beautiful vase of life was broken, and no art could mend it!

When thought was in some degree restored, she sat down and wrote the following letter:--

"Oh, Donald, Donald, what have I read in the papers? Is it true? Is it true?

"Tell me all. Even if the truth be the very worst, do not fear that I shall reproach you. G.o.d forbid that I should sit in judgment upon you.

Look to G.o.d. He can pardon the deepest guilt. My feelings are not changed toward you. I loved you when you were innocent, and I would not be worthy the name of woman if I were not faithful even in despair.

Hasty you may have been, but I know that wickedness never had a lodgment in your heart.

'Oh, what was love made for if 'tis not the same Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame."

"Your broken hearted

"MINNIE."

CHAPTER XXII. WHAT WAS DONALD ABOUT.

When Mrs. Morrison learnt the dreadful news that Donald had shot Warren, the poor old woman was overwhelmed with despair. Donald himself broke the news to her. After satisfying himself that Warren was dead, he turned on his heel and went home to Marsden.

"Mother," he said, with terrible calmness, when he entered the door, "I have killed Warren."

Mrs. Morrison looked at him vaguely. She did not comprehend.

"Warren wanted to arrest me this morning in Megantic, and because I refused to go with him he pulled out a pistol, as I thought, to shoot me. I fired at him. The shot killed him."

Mrs. Morrison uttered a shriek. "Oh, Donald, my son, my son," she exclaimed, "what is this, what is this? Killed Warren! Oh, you must fly at once, or they will be after you!"

"No, mother, I will not run. I will stay where I am. They can't arrest me. I can easily avoid all who are sent for that purpose. My friends will keep me informed of their doings. But, mother, whatever others say, I want you to believe that I never thought of harming a hair of Warren's head when he met me. I fired in self-defence. I deplore his death; but it was either he or I."

"Oh, I believe you, Donald, and your poor mother," breaking into a violent fit of weeping, "your poor mother will never turn against you.

But what will be the end? The officers must take you some time."

"I don't know what the end will be," he said gloomily. "If I thought I would get a fair trial I might give myself up; but if I did so now they would hang me, I believe. I will wait and see, and the woods, with every inch of which I am familiar, will be my retreat, should the pursuit ever be dangerous."

Donald's father took the news stoically. His nature was not emotional.

The relations between father and son were strained. Little was said on either side.

Donald walked about as usual. He had repeated to his immediate friends every circ.u.mstance of the tragedy. They fully believed him innocent of murder. This exoneration was of great value to him. From mouth to mouth the story spread that Donald fired in self-defence, and the latter found that all the faces he met were friendly faces.

What he said to himself in his own room every night, he said to his friends--"I regret the deed. I had no thought of touching Warren. When I saw his pistol flash in front of me, I felt in a moment that my life was at stake. I obeyed an instinct, which prompted me to get the first shot to save myself. I could get back to the States, but I'll stay right here. Let them take me if they can."

In vain his friends urged flight. He was inflexible on this point.

So, as we have stated, he walked abroad in perfect safety. He carried his rifle and his two revolvers, and possibly, in some quarters, this rather suggestive display may, in _some_ degree, have accounted for the civility with which he was everywhere greeted.

The county authorities had not moved against him. The Provincial Government had not as yet intervened. A price was not yet set upon his capture. He was free to go and come as he chose, and yet he moved amongst those who had seen him take the life of a fellow creature.

Minnie's letter, addressed to his father's care, reached him. It moved him deeply. Since the tragedy he had frequently tried to write to her, but never found the courage.

He recognized that all hope of future union with Minnie was now impossible. He had taken a life. At any moment the officers of the law might be on his track. His arrest might lead him to the scaffold.

In his reply to Minnie, Donald described the tragic scene with which the reader is familiar, deplored the occurrence, but, with great earnestness, asked her to believe that he had acted only in self-defence. "I started out," he said, in one portion of his letter, "to go to church last Sunday evening. I had reached the door, when I thought--'Donald, you have broken a law of G.o.d!' and I had not the courage to go in."

We quote this pa.s.sage merely in confirmation of our statement that Donald felt perfectly free to go abroad after the tragedy, and to partic.i.p.ate in the social life of the village.

CHAPTER XXIII. ACTION OF THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT.--FIVE OFFICERS SENT TO MEGANTIC.

To the common mind government is something vast, mysterious, and powerful. It is a.s.sociated with armies and navies, and an unlimited police force. There are a glittering sword, a ponderous mace, and an argus eye, that reaches to the remotest point of territory like a great big electric search light, in it.

No man is a hero to his valet, and the nearer you get to the seat of power, the less does government impose upon the imagination. Those who read, with infinite respect, "that the Government has decided, after a protracted meeting of the Cabinet, to levy a tax upon terrier dogs for purposes of revenue," would be shocked to learn that government meant a small table, a bottle of wine, a few cigars, and two men not a whit above the mental or moral level of the ordinary citizen. Government imposes when you meet it in respectful capitals in the public prints, but when you get a glimpse of it in its s.h.i.+rt sleeves, _en famille_, or playing harlequin upon the top of a barrel at the hustings, or tickling the yokels with bits of cheap millinery and silk stockings, and reflect that you have paid homage to _that_, you begin to doubt the saving efficacy of the ballot box.

Now, the Government of Quebec is neither a naval nor a military power.

It doesn't want to fight, and if it did it hasn't got either the s.h.i.+ps, or the men, or the money. The Sergeant-at-Arms in the Legislative a.s.sembly is the only military person in its pay. It has not even a single policeman to a.s.sert the majesty of the law.

The Government of Quebec is the Hon. Honore Mercier.

Mr. Mercier is like the first Napoleon. He chooses _tools_ to a.s.sist, not strong individualities to oppose, him.

Party journalism in the Province of Quebec is peculiarly bitter and mendacious. The Press generally had made the most of the shooting of Warren. A month had elapsed, and no attempt had been made to arrest Morrison, who, it was alleged, swaggered through the country armed to the teeth, and threatening death to the man who should attempt to take him. It was generally agreed that this was a scandal. But the opposition journals made political capital out of the affair.

"What! was this the Mercier Government? Was this the sort of law and order we were promised under his _regime_? Here was a criminal at large defying the law. Was Mr. Mercier afraid to arrest him, lest he might forfeit the Liberal votes of the county? It looked like it. Could Mr.

Mercier not impress, for love or money, a single man in the Province to undertake the task of arresting Morrison? Or was Mr. Mercier so taken up with posing in that Gregory costume that he had no time to devote to the affairs of his country?"

Mr. Mercier's reply to the party Press was to send down five special constables to Megantic.

CHAPTER XXIV. TELLS HOW THE CONSTABLES ENJOYED THEMSELVES.

CAESAR--"Let me have men about me that are fat-- Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights."

The five constables that Mr. Mercier sent down to Megantic put up in the village hotel.

Within an hour Donald had received the following note:--

"Dear Donald,--Action at last. Five men from Quebec after you. Keep away from Marsden for a day or so. I don't think there is much to fear.

They would not know you, I believe, if they met you, and they are so frightened by the stories they have heard about you, that I don't believe they would dare to arrest you, even if they found you. However, as well be on the safe side. Go into the woods a little bit"