A Lover in Homespun Part 6

him, and so, having no common sorrow, their hearts grew narrow--as wur to be expected--and they began to misunderstand each other and drift apart. Sure as thou lives, Mary, getting rid o' the little lad's things wur wheere the mistake came in, in their lives."

Springing excitedly to his feet, he continued quickly, "Thou remembers the night, too, thou gave me the bundle wi' the little things in to take to the charitable inst.i.toote? Well, I didn't go straight theere wi' it; I took it first to my room and opened it, just to have one more look at 'em; and la.s.s, the first thing my eyes fell on wur a little pair o' his boots--thou remembers the pair--the ones that had a little hole in one o' the toes. Well, Mary, that little hole staring me in the face touched my heart and melted it as few things in this world ever did, and so, la.s.s, I just couldn't send 'em away, and I took 'em out and put 'em in my trunk, wheere they still are. Now, Mary, if those little worn boots could break down such a real worldly man as me--and when the lad wur not my own, too--does thou think for a moment that, if the maister and the missus could be got to come across 'em just about at the same time, sweet memories, that they've forgotten, would not rush over 'em, and that their hearts would not be moved to the very core, and that they would not just _have_ to forgive each other? Why! I can fairly see 'em together now, la.s.s, and it's going to be all reet, and--and--and--" He was actually too full for further utterance, and bending down clasped his equally moved listener in his arms, and just hugged her.

When Mary finally managed to extricate herself from his arms, he gave further vent to his feelings by cutting a series of remarkable capers, doubtless a species of ancient dance, in which (undignified as doubtless it would have been) Mary, who had caught the contagion of his happiness, would, I believe, eventually have joined, had he not suddenly hove to.

Hurrying to her side, he said, between his gasps for breath, "And now for the plot, la.s.s. I'll go and get the boots, wrap 'em up, and put 'em on the table theere. Then thou must go and tell the missus that there's a parcel for her on the table. Thou wilt manage, of course, to get out o' the room before she can tell thee to fetch it. As for me, when I know that she's found it, I'll go to the maister and deliver a like message to him, and also get away before he can tell me to bring it. And then, la.s.s, he'll catch her when her heart's full--and then we shall see!"

His genial old coat-tails were flas.h.i.+ng out of the room before Mary could say a word in reply.

As she sank breathlessly down on her chair, she exclaimed: "Ah, but I am excited and moved!"

She had scarcely time to wipe her eyes when John flashed back again, his spectacles in one hand and a small parcel in the other. "Theere they are, la.s.s," he almost shouted as he laid the parcel hurriedly on the table. "And now, Mary, quick, go and tell her, and as soon as she finds 'em I'll go and fix the maister."

Mary needed no second bidding, but hurried away, while John left by a door that led to his master's study.

CHAPTER III.

RECONCILED.

"But ties around this heart were spun That could not, would not, be undone!"

When Mrs. Townsley entered the parlor her face was pale and careworn.

As she seated herself some little distance from the table, bearing the precious parcel upon which so many hopes were now founded, she looked up at the clock.

"I could not go out to-night; he will be leaving soon"--there was a touch of wistfulness in her voice. She sat for a little time sadly turning round and round the plain gold ring on her left hand. "If he had threatened anything else but to desert me," she went on again presently, "I could go to him; but it's no use in trying, I cannot do it."

She rose with a weary sigh and went over to the table and listlessly took up the parcel. She had no curiosity as to its contents, as was shown by her sitting down again without opening it. Resting her chin on her hand she drifted into thoughts that plainly were not happy ones. Finally she again sighed deeply and leaned back in her chair.

Her eyes fell upon the parcel. Indifferently she slipped off the cord and began to unwrap the paper. Something slipped on her lap, and she looked mechanically down; the paper and string, which was still in her hand, fluttered to the floor, her lips parted, her eyes dilated and her face grew pitifully pale. As though fascinated, she continued to gaze at the poor soiled little boots. Her laboring heart at last threw off its torpor and drove the rich color once more back to her face, and then with a cry, full of unutterable love she caught up the precious little things, kissed, cooed, wept and fondled them pa.s.sionately. "My dear, dead darling," she sobbed. Sinking on her knees by the side of the chair, she fondled them afresh and pressed her lips hungrily to the spot where the inquisitive little toe had forced an opening.

Presently the sound of footsteps fell upon her ears. She sprang to her feet. "It is Harold!" she exclaimed excitedly. In her new tender mood she had almost forgotten her resentment toward him. Then an impulse flashed suddenly into her mind--happily she acted upon it. Hastily wrapping up the boots again, she hurriedly placed them on the table, in a position which she thought would attract her husband's attention, and then she sped across the room and hid behind the heavy curtains which screened the deep bay window. She had not been mistaken--it was her husband.

He was wearing his great-coat and had evidently been preparing to go out. She could see from her hiding-place that his absent mood was still strong upon him.

"I--I wish," he said, thoughtfully, to himself, as he entered the room, "that John had thought to bring the parcel; this room is filled with memories of her, and it makes it harder to go." He stopped and looked regretfully around the room; then, noticing the parcel, he walked listlessly over to the table, took it up and ponderingly began to unfold it; the secret the roughly folded paper held was quickly revealed. As he held out the wee boots in the palm of his strong hand, his lips moved for a few moments, but they gave forth no sound. When the words at last came they were pitifully broken: "His, _his_ boots!

My poor, poor darling!" Over and over again he repeated the words as he pa.s.sionately stroked the frayed little toes.

His strength seemed suddenly to desert him and he sank weakly on a chair, "How I loved him! My G.o.d!" Then there flashed back to him the memory of his wife's deep, true love, and sorrow for the lost one, and of how he had added to their sorrow, and how they were now about to separate, and the regret and pity of it all broke down all self-control and caused sobs to break from his lips, such as only strong men who seldom know what tears are, can ever utter.

When the storm had spent itself he rose and carefully wrapped up the boots. "I will take them with me," he said, "they will keep me from growing narrow and morose again. Ah, if I had but kept them when I was pa.s.sing through the dark days! I should have had more sympathy with her, have understood myself and her better, and this never would have happened." He looked around the room for the last time: "No, she never was so dear to me as she is to-night; I never understood her so well."

As he was moving sadly toward the door some belated organ-grinder, in an adjacent street, began to play the weird refrain of that song which has touched the hearts of so many who have loved home:

"Home, home, sweet, sweet home--."

He stopped and listened to the music as it stole plaintively from the distance into the room. When he began to move toward the door again he was absently repeating the haunting refrain:

"Home, home, sweet, sweet home--."

The music, as well as his words, had floated to the deep bay window; the curtains had swiftly and noiselessly parted, and she was stealing after his retreating figure with an expression mantling her face which brought out every detail of its great beauty.

As he raised his hand to open the door the organ drifted from the refrain to the air.

He began sadly to repeat the pathetic words:

"An exile from home--."

Two warm, loving arms had stolen around his neck from behind and smothered the words on his lips: "Not an exile from home, Harold; no, no, not that, dear! The boots--we understand better now--forgive me, Harold. Don't go. I----."

Once more the organ had reached the refrain:

"Home, home, sweet, sweet home--."

As he folded her pa.s.sionately in his arms she drew his face down to hers and said, with the happy light still glowing and beautifying her face: "We will take it as a good omen; to us, now, there shall be no place like home, shall there, dear?"

As he looked into her eyes he answered by lovingly repeating the refrain which was now dying softly away in the distance:

"Home, home, sweet, sweet home--."

A Prairie Episode.

The fierce rays of the sun, which had turned the prairie gra.s.s into a lifeless-looking dusty brown, continued to pour pitilessly down on the horde of perspiring workmen, exhausted Indian ponies, and long-eared morose mules.

At intervals, gusts of hot parching winds bent the rank gra.s.s, which gave forth a dry, almost rasping sound, very different from its usual musical rustle.

"In ten minutes more it will be noon, and we can get out of this into the shade for an hour," said Joe Swan, a huge muscular laborer, as he pushed the nose of the steel sc.r.a.per into the earth.

The words were addressed to a pale-faced young man who was driving the pair of mules. .h.i.tched to the sc.r.a.per. The only reply was a tired tug on the reins, and the next moment the sc.r.a.per had torn up half a yard of the tenacious prairie sod and cast it to one side. As he turned the mules around to get them into position again, Joe glanced covertly at the weary face, shook his head in a troubled manner, and muttered, "It ain't the work that's breaking him up like this; it's her, and it's going to end in trouble long before we reach the Rockies."

It was a strange, almost fantastic life these two men, with hundreds of others, were leading away out here on the vast prairie, whose long solitude was now being broken by the babel that attends track-laying, and whose vast bosom, for the first time, was being girded with a band of steel which was to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific, and bring home most forcibly to the Mother Country the value of her great Canadian colony.

Stretching away in front of and behind the two men were hundreds of other sc.r.a.pers, tearing up the sod, while closely following them came gangs of track-layers, who laid the ties and fastened the rails to them as quickly as the sod was removed. It was easy work track-laying on the flat expanse, where grading for hundreds of miles at a stretch was practically unnecessary. Such, indeed, was the rapidity with which the rails were laid that camp had to be moved from two to three miles westward every day, so that the men never knew what it was to sleep twice in the same place.

As Joe was about to scoop up another load, a gunshot echoed and re-echoed across the prairie. "Dinner time; just what we have been waiting for!" shouted Joe, as he let go the handles of the sc.r.a.per, unhitched the mules, sprang on the back of one of them, and stooping, swung Harry Langdon, his delicate-looking driver, laughingly across the back of the other. The next moment they were das.h.i.+ng towards the camp half a mile away. Other laborers, similarly mounted, were straining every muscle to reach the same place, for they knew that the rule of "first come, first served," would be religiously adhered to.

A fast friends.h.i.+p had sprung up between the huge sc.r.a.per-handler and his young driver. The very day the little fellow had wandered into camp, two months before, with his hands and face swollen with mosquito bites, and asked for a job, big-hearted Joe took a liking to him. It was owing to Joe's influence with the foremen that he was at last, grudgingly, given work, as his slim, girlish figure told strongly against him among such a crowd of sinewy, hardy men.

Had he been put driving for any other sc.r.a.per-handler than Joe he would never have succeeded; for before he had been in camp a week the thick tepid surface water, which they all had to drink, coupled with the intense heat, told on him, and for weeks he was so ill that he could scarcely drag his feet along.

Owing to the custom of each sc.r.a.per being compelled to clear a certain distance every day, it was impossible--on account of the great stretch to be covered by all the sc.r.a.pers--for the foremen to more than two or three times a day visit the works, and thus it was that Joe, unknown to the foremen, was able to let his little driver lie for hours, when he was at his weakest, in the thick gra.s.s, while he wrestled with the stubborn mules and the sc.r.a.per at the same time.