Part 30 (1/2)
”I went to the public school until I was fourteen, and I always cherished dreams of one day being a doctor. But our farm was small, and our family large, and when father died we older boys had to turn out to earn our living. I got a job that first summer working in a sawmill near home, and there I met my fortune. There was a big, warm-hearted, rollicking chap there, who was foreman, and I thought he was the most wonderful man alive; and upon my word, I rather think so yet. He was just the sort of fellow to be a tremendous hero in the eyes of a youngster of fifteen. He could walk the logs on the river any old way, and could jump and run and throw the shoulder-stone, and do all manner of stunts, away ahead of everybody else. We kids thought he was the greatest thing outside a dime novel; and I tell you, he was a fine chap all through. I've met a good many people of all sorts since those days, but I've never seen the equal of Martin Heaslip.”
”Who?” His listener whirled around in her seat, her eyes startled, her lips parted.
”Heaslip--Martin Heaslip. You don't happen to know him, do you?”
”Oh, no; not at all!” The answer came in hurried confusion. ”I--it was the name--I--please go on. I beg your pardon for the interruption.”
”He was a Bluenose--one of those Scotch-Irish Nova Scotians, the best kind going; but he had lots of relatives over in Bruce County; perhaps you knew some of them?”
”No, oh, no! I--it was a mistake.”
”Well, one day the poor old chap met with rather a serious accident.
He was walloping around the mill, as usual, singing a crazy old lumberjack song about 'six brave Cana-jen byes,' who broke a lumber jam. Martin was always whooping away at that dirge, I think I can hear him yet. I'm not up in musical terms, but I think the tune was a kind of Gregorian chant, and as mournful as a dog howling at night. It goes something like this:
'_They broke the jam on the Garry Rocks, And they met a wat-e-ry grave.'_
Martin could sing about as well as I can, so you may imagine what a continuous performance of that sort was like. He was bellowing away at this, as usual, never looking where he was stepping, when he stumbled, and fell against the big saw, and the mill going at top speed. I happened to be standing right behind him at the time, and I managed to jerk him back before he went right over; but he cut his foot badly, as it was, poor chap. I had always loved to tinker away at cuts and bruises, so I managed to patch him up a bit, and stop the bleeding, till the doctor came. It was nothing, any one could have done it, but poor old Martin made a great fuss over it; and he literally dragged me out of the mill and shoved me back to school. Paid every cent of my expenses until I was through my first year at college. After that I got on my own feet. I taught school for a while, and paid my way; but I'll never forget that Martin Heaslip was the man that gave me my chance. I just fancy I see him now, sailing down the river on the slipperiest log in the bunch, and roaring out his song about a 'wat-er-y grave' as gay as a lark.”
The doctor paused, in happy reminiscence. There was a tense silence.
At last his companion spoke.
”Where is he now?” Her voice trembled; she had turned away, and was looking far off over the clean brown fields.
”He was a wandering sort of chap. He went back to Nova Scotia; then West, somewhere, and the last move was to the Klond.y.k.e. He's been there for several years now, I fancy; hoping to make a fortune, no doubt.”
Gilbert paused, slightly confused. He was ashamed to discover how little he really knew about Martin. There was no remark from his companion. She could not help noticing his evident embarra.s.sment, and the poverty of his knowledge regarding his old friend, and she was drawing her own damaging conclusions. As the silence continued he glanced at her half inquiringly. There was a look of distress in the golden-brown depths of her eyes.
”Are you cold?” he asked, with hasty compunction. ”I've been yarning away and forgetting time and place. Go on, there, Speed! You are not cold?”
”No, not at all, thank you.” She answered absently. Her mind was busy running over Arabella's story, and putting the two tales side by side.
So this was ”the boy,” who had been so generously treated and been so selfish in return; the boy who had repaid Martin's generosity with forgetfulness, and had helped to lengthen poor little Arabella's years of waiting. Her anxiety for Arabella had been swept away. She was telling herself that she should be relieved and thankful for that, but, strange to say, her feelings were exactly the opposite.
When Gilbert helped her out at her own door she bade him a hurried farewell, and ran up the steps. There was something in her movements like a hurt fawn running for cover. Her uncle sat in his accustomed corner by the window, where the sunlight came through a little green hedge of geraniums. His stockinged feet were on the stove damper, his weekly newspaper in his hand.
”Ech! hech! Elsie, la.s.s!” he cried. ”Look ye here, now! Here's the finest receep for trouble ye ever heard. Jist listen!” She paused by his chair and smiled wanly. ”There's a long bit in the newspaper here that would be telling that wherever a poisonous weed grows, jist right beside it, mind ye, you will be finding the herb that cures the poison.
Eh! eh! wouldn't that be jist beautiful, whatefer?” His golden-brown eyes were radiant. ”Och! hoch! but it takes the Almighty to be managing things, indeed! Now, last night I would be rastlin' away when the rheumatics wouldn't let me sleep--the rheumatics would be a fine thing to make a body think--I would be rastlin' away about the poison o' sin an' trouble that would be in the world; and here, jist to-day, I would be reading this piece--and hoots! there it is, ye see! Yes, yes, it takes the Almighty to manage things, indeed! And ye mind He would be coming and living among us, ye see. There it is again: He would jist be the cure planted right among the poison! Oh! hoch! Yes! yes!”
The girl laid her hand for a minute on his rough s.h.i.+rt-sleeve. ”And the rheumatism is bad again, is it, Uncle Hughie?”
”Hoots! not much, not much. It will jist be the April wind--and the doctor would be giving me a fine liniment last time. Oh, it is the fine young man he will be, indeed. And you would be out for a drive with him?” he added, in kindly interest.
”Yes, uncle.” Her face flushed, and she moved toward the door leading to the stairs. ”Yes, I was out for a little drive with Dr. Allen.”
She pa.s.sed out, and closing the door behind her, added softly to herself, ”For the last time.”
CHAPTER XV
THE ELOPEMENT
For Law immutable hath one decree, ”No deed of good, no deed of ill can die; All must ascend unto my loom and be Woven for man in lasting tapestry.”