Part 9 (1/2)

Then Shock proceeded, after his habit, to give his mother a full share of what he had been enjoying. Mrs. Macgregor listened intently, pausing now and then in her knitting to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e, ”Well-a-well!” ”Look at that, now!” ”Hear to him!” When Shock had finished, Brown broke in: ”It was truly magnificent, I a.s.sure you, Mrs. Macgregor, and the enthusiasm of the man! And his yarns! Oh, he is truly, great!”

”And what would he be doing at the college?” enquired the old lady.

”There would not be much money there, I doubt.”

”Men, mother, men,” cried Shock with some excitement. ”Volunteers for the Great West, and a hard time he is having, too, what with the foreign field, and needy vacancies in this country, and city pulpits, and the like.”

Mrs. Macgregor sat silent, her needles flying fast and her lips pressed together.

”I wish you could have heard him, Mrs. Macgregor,” said Brown, enthusiastically. ”He has a tongue like a rasp, and at times it takes off the skin. That was fine, Shock, about the fellows who could not give him answer till they had asked the Lord about it. 'I find a good many men,' the old chap said, 'who, after anxiously enquiring as to the work expected of them, remuneration, prospects of advance, etc., always want to lay the matter before the Lord before giving their answer. And I am beginning to think that the Lord has some grudge against the West, for almost invariably He appears to advise these men to leave it severely alone.' Oh, it was great!” Little Brown hugged his knee in delight at the memory of that rasping tongue.

”But surely there are plenty of men,” said Mrs. Macgregor a little impatiently, ”for there's no want of them whateffer when a congregation falls vacant.”

”That's so,” replied Brown; ”but you see he wants only first-cla.s.s men--men ready for anything in the way of hards.h.i.+p, and not to be daunted by man or devil.”

”Ou ay!” said the old lady, nodding her head grimly; ”he will not be finding so many of yon kind.”

”But it must be a great country,” went on Brown. ”You ought to bear him tell of the rivers with sands of gold, running through beds of coal sixty feet thick.”

The old lady shook her cap at him, peering over her gla.s.ses. ”Ye're a gay callant, and you will be taking your fun off me.”

”But it's true. Ask Shock there.”

”What?” said Shock, waking up from a deep study. Brown explained.

”Yes,” said Shock. ”The sands of the Saskatchewan are full of gold, and you know, mother, about the rivers in Cariboo.”

”Ay, I remember fine the Cariboo, and Cariboo Cameron and his gold. But not much good did it do him, poor fellow.”

”But,” said Shock, gazing into the fire, ”it was terrible to hear his tales of these men in the mines with their saloons and awful gambling places, and the men and women in their lonely shacks in the foot-hills.

My! I could see them all.”

Mrs. Macgregor looked sharply into her son's face, then laying her knitting down in her lap she turned to him and said severely, ”And what took them out yonder? And did they not know what-na country it was before they went out?”

”Yes,” said Shock, still looking into the fire, ”but there they are, Mother, there they are, and no living soul to speak a good word to them.”

”Well then,” said the old lady, even more impatiently, ”let them put up with it, as better before them have done to their credit, ay, and to their good as well.”

”Meantime the saloons and worse are getting them,” replied Shock, ”and fine fellows they are, too, he says.”

”And is yon man wanting the lads from the college to go out yonder to those terrible-like mines and things so far from their homes? Why does he not send the men who are wanting places?” Mrs. Macgregor's tone was unusually sharp. Both Shock and Brown looked at her in surprise.

”Yes, you may look,” she went on, ”but I say let them that's not needed here go out yonder, and there will be plenty of them, I warrant.”

”'And they'd none of them be missed,'” sang Brown.

”I doubt they wouldn't do,” said Shock, shaking his head sadly.

”Well, mother,” cried Brown, ”you'll have a chance of hearing him yourself to-morrow morning, for he is going to preach in your church, I see.”

The old lady shrugged her shoulders. ”Indeed, and I wish our meenister wouldn't be so ready with his pulpit for every Bill and Bob that comes the way. He will not be needing a rest again, will he?”