Part 11 (1/2)
”Yes,” answered Gilbert, surprised; ”that is, I helped to, somewhat.
Do you know----”
The man interrupted with a harsh laugh, such as had startled the minister. It was as unmirthful as a cry of pain. ”Yes, I know more than you think. I know _you_, Gilbert Allen!” His voice was harsh with scorn. ”Many, many a time I've heard your name--spoken with the highest praise--oh, the very highest. But you are like all the rest of the world. You would let your best friend starve. Selfishness and dishonesty!” he cried, clenching his hands, ”selfishness and dishonesty! Those are the commonest things in this world--the only things!”
He picked up his lantern, and turning his back on his astonished visitor, disappeared into the dark recess of the engine-room.
The young doctor stood staring after him, undecided whether to follow or not. Was the man mad? There was a wild gleam in his eye, but Gilbert's professional knowledge told him it was rather a gleam of anguish than insanity. He took a step forward, then turned and walked away, wondering, and hotly indignant. He was filled with rage that any man should dare to speak to him so, and wished with all his heart that John McIntyre's hair had not been so white, nor his shoulders so stooped and thin.
But with his amazement and indignation there was struggling a new feeling. The May night was cool, but he felt suffocatingly hot. He shrugged his shoulders. Nonsense! The man certainly was mad. How could any sane person accuse him of leaving his best friend to starve?
And yet--
A figure in white was coming down the village street. It was the princess of the ravine. She was dressed as suited her now, in a long, white, filmy gown, which she held up daintily. She wore no hat, and the bronze hair crowning her shapely head caught the sunset light and shone like gold.
She spoke to him, with a stately sweetness that recognized their previous acquaintance, but invited no further advance. The deep, searching look in her eyes, the same as in her old uncle's, made Gilbert feel uncomfortable. It seemed as if she knew, and every one knew, that he had been guilty of ”selfishness and dishonesty.”
He did not worry long over the strange man and his stranger accusation, for his fortune took a sudden happy turn.
Down on the Lake Simcoe road, about a couple of miles below the village, lived old Mrs. McKitterick, the mother of Conductor Lauchie.
For years she had been an invalid, and a great sufferer, and poor Lauchie had spent half his earnings on doctors' bills; but still she lay in her bed weary month after weary month. They called in the new doctor, and he tried a new form of treatment, a simple operation, and before a month was gone the old lady walked to the barnyard gate and waved her shawl at Lauchie's train as it came puffing out of the swamp.
And the conductor blew her such a joyous salute that folks thought there must be an accident, and Jake Sawyer stopped his mill and ran up the track to see if any of the orphans had been run over.
The real cause of the uproar was soon proclaimed from Long's upstairs, and with it went ringing over the countryside the fame of the new doctor.
Gilbert awoke one morning to find himself the most important man in the towns.h.i.+p of Oro, and the busiest. Patients came from all directions, and Speed, his trim little mare, went flying over the hills and dales as though she, too, were heartily glad that work had begun. Lauchie McKitterick advertised him at every station along the line, and when the doctor wanted to go anywhere on the train Davy Munn needed only to brandish his mother's sunbonnet from the window of the stable loft, and the Lakeview and Simcoe express stopped just below his back gate. He was soon so busy that Granny Long had to give up her afternoon nap to keep track of his swift movements. There was always something doing in the village, too. There was often an accident in the mill, and there was always an accident at Jake Sawyer's. The eldest orphan fell into the mill-pond, and was nearly drowned; the twins took a dose of Paris green just to see if it really would turn their hair into gra.s.s; and Joey ate all the early green apples off a d.u.c.h.ess tree. Then there was Granny Long's neuralgia and Uncle Hughie Cameron's rheumatism; and Mrs.
Winters declared she believed folks got sick on purpose, for the sake of calling the doctor in.
There was some shadow of truth in this, for as the young man came and went among the people's homes their admiration for his skill was soon mingled with a warmer feeling. He had such a ”takin' way” with him, old Granny Long declared, that a body just couldn't help being glad to see him; and old Mrs. McKitterick said the sight of his face was like a dose of medicine, a compliment the young doctor accepted gratefully in its true meaning. Even Mrs. Winters, and all the other famous nurses of the district, who, over an afternoon cup of tea, would give him full instructions upon how to treat this case and that, agreed that the doctor was generally right. And then, though he always had his own way in the end, he took their advice with such good humor, and never scoffed, the way old Dr. Williams did. He would walk into the house and order things in a way that commanded the admiration of even the Duke of Wellington. He scolded the mothers roundly whenever he was called to see a sick baby. He denounced pork and pickles as a child's diet, and made such a fuss about air-tight bedrooms that Jake Sawyer, who, in company with his wife, lived in terror lest a draught of night air should blow on the orphans' precious heads, was forced into the patient complaint that though the doctor was a fine young man, and their eldest was just crazy over him, still he believed, if he had his way, he'd turn folks out of house and home, to live in the road, like tinkers.
The busier Gilbert became the happier he grew. Elmbrook stood, in the center of a rich agricultural district, his patients were mostly wealthy farmers, and he began to feel that he was not so far from his ambition, after all. He would be well enough off at the end of two years to set up a city practice and make a home for Rosalie.
Among the doctor's first social appearances was tea at the manse, where he met again the beautiful Miss Cameron. She came with her brother Malcolm, who was Gilbert's a.s.sistant since he had returned from college. When he was not too busy in the fields, or in dancing attendance on Marjorie Scott, the young man rendered the doctor considerable help.
It was a warm evening, and when tea was finished the company sat out on the veranda. The manse and the church were in full view of the village, half a mile distant, and a fine target for the telescope, as the minister's wife well knew. But here they were screened from observation by the vines.
”You have never heard Miss Cameron sing, have you, Dr. Allen?” asked the minister's wife. ”Then there's a treat in store for you. Run in and give us a song, Elsie, dear.”
Gilbert murmured something polite. He was quite sure Miss Cameron's singing would be very sweet and pretty, like herself; but he still had tingling recollections of the whip-poor-will song, and his anxiety to hear more Elmbrook talent was only mild.
The girl arose from the steps and returned to the twilight of the parlor. ”Give us 'Abide with me,' Elsie,” called the minister, leaning back in his worn armchair with a contented sigh.
”That's the one father always asks for,” said his wife, with a smile.
”He says he'd rather hear your Elsie sing that, Malcolm, than listen to the best minister in Canada preach.”
Young Malcolm turned reluctantly. He was seated on the bottom step, engaged in an absorbing conversation with the minister's eldest daughter, and did not like to be interrupted; but he knew better than to neglect Marjorie's mother.
”Yes, Elsie whoops it up not so badly, sometimes,” he remarked with brotherly candor not unmixed with pride. ”I like to hear her, all right, when she's singing an out-and-out song that's got a head and tail to it. But when she gets on to those hee-ha, hee-ha Italian fireworks things, away up in G, I generally cut for the barn.”
”Hus.h.!.+” said the minister gently. The first notes of the prelude came floating out of the dusk, and then, soft and sweet, and uttered with a perfect enunciation, the words: