Lady Merton, Colonist Part 34

The other was the head of the "bothy" or boarding-house for hired men, a long low building, with cheerful white-curtained windows, which could be seen just beyond the cow-house.

As she looked over the broad whiteness of the farmlands, above which the sunset clouds were now tossing in climbing lines of crimson and gold, rising steeply to a zenith of splendour, and opening here and there, amid their tumult, to show a further heaven of untroubled blue--Elizabeth thought with lamentation that their days on the farm were almost done. The following week could see them at Ottawa for the opening of the session. Anderson was full of Parliamentary projects; important work for the Province had been entrusted to him; and in the general labour policy of the Dominion he would find himself driven to take a prominent part. But all the while his heart and Elizabeth's were in the land and its problems; for them the true, the entrancing Canada was in the wilds. And for Anderson, who through so many years, as an explorer and engineer, had met Nature face to face, his will against hers, in a direct and simple conflict, the tedious and tortuous methods of modern politics were not easy to learn. He must indeed learn them--he was learning them; and the future had probably great things in store for him, as a politician. But he came back to the Saskatchewan farm with joy, and he would leave it reluctantly.

"If only I wasn't so rich!" thought Elizabeth, with compunction. For she often looked with envy on her neighbours who had gone through the real hardships of the country; who had bought their Canadian citizenship with the toil and frugality of years. It seemed to her sometimes that she was step-child rather than daughter of the dear new land, in spite of her yearning towards it.

And yet money had brought its own romance. It had enabled Anderson to embark on this ample farm of nearly two square miles, to staff it with the best labour to be got, on a basis of copartnership, to bring herds of magnificent cattle into these park-like prairies, to set up horse-breeding, and to establish on the borders of the farm a large creamery which was already proving an attraction for settlers. It was going to put into Elizabeth's hands the power of helping the young University of Strathcona just across the Albertan border, and perhaps of founding in their own provincial capital of Regina a training college for farm-students--girls and boys--which might reproduce for the West the college of St. Anne's, that wonderful home of all the useful arts, which an ever-generous wealth has given to the Province of Quebec.

Already she had in her mind a cottage hospital--sorely wanted--for the little town of Donaldminster, wherein the weaklings of this great emigrant army now pouring into the country might find help.

Her heart, indeed, was full of schemes for help. Here she was, a woman of high education, and much wealth, in the midst of this nascent community. Her thoughts pondered the life of these scattered farms--of the hard-working women in them--the lively rosy-cheeked children. It was her ambition so to live among them that they might love her--trust her--use her.

Meanwhile their own home was a "temple of industrious peace." Elizabeth was a prairie housewife like her neighbours. She had indeed brought out with her from c.u.mberland one of the Martindale gardeners and his young wife and sister; and the two North-Country women shared with the farm mistress the work of the house, till such time as Anderson should help the husband to a quarter-section of his own, and take someone else to train in his place. But the atmosphere of the house was one of friendly equality. Elizabeth--who had herself gone into training for a few weeks at St. Anne's--prided herself on her dairy, her bread, her poultry. One might have seen her, on this winter afternoon, in her black serge dress with white cap and ap.r.o.n, slipping into the kitchen behind the dining-room, testing the scones in the oven, looking to the preparations for dinner, putting away stores, and chatting to the two clear-eyed women who loved her, and would not for the world have let her try her strength too much! For she who was so eagerly planning the help of others must now be guarded and cherished herself--lest ill befall!

But now she was at the window watching for Anderson.

The trail from Donaldminster to Battleford pa.s.sed in front of the house, dividing the farm. Presently there came slowly along it a covered wagon drawn by a pair of sorry horses and piled at the back with household possessions. In front sat a man of slouching carriage, and in the interior of the wagon another figure could be dimly seen. The whole turn-out gave an impression of poverty and misfortune; and Elizabeth looked at it curiously.

Suddenly, the wagon drew up with a jerk at the gate of the farm, and the man descended, with difficulty, his limbs being evidently numb with cold.

Elizabeth caught up a fur cloak and ran to the door.

"Could you give us a bit of shelter for the night?" said the man sheepishly. "We'd thought of getting on to Battleford, but the little un's bad--and the missus perished with cold. We'd give you no trouble if we might warm ourselves a bit."

And he looked under his eyebrows at Elizabeth, at the bright fire behind her, and all the comfort of the new farmhouse. Yet under his shuffling manner there was a certain note of confidence. He was appealing to that Homeric hospitality which prevails throughout the farms of the Northwest.

And in five minutes, the horses were in the barn, the man sitting by the kitchen fire, while Elizabeth was ministering to the woman and child.

The new-comers made a forlorn trio. They came from a district some fifty miles further south, and were travelling north in order to take shelter for a time with relations. The mother was a girl of twenty, worn with hardship and privation. The father, an English labourer, had taken up free land, but in spite of much help from a paternal Government, had not been able to fulfil his statutory obligation, and had now forfeited his farm. There was a history of typhoid fever, and as Elizabeth soon suspected, an incipient history of drink. In the first two years of his Canadian life the man worked for a farmer during the summer, and loafed in Winnipeg during the winter. There demoralisation had begun, and as Elizabeth listened, the shadow of the Old World seemed to be creeping across the radiant Canadian landscape. The same woes?--the same weaknesses?--the same problems of an unsound urban life?

Her heart sank for a moment--only to provoke an instant reaction of cheerfulness. No!--in Canada the human will has still room to work, and is not yet choked by a jungle growth of interests.

She waited for Anderson to come in, and meanwhile she warmed and comforted the mother. The poor girl looked round her in amazement at the pretty s.p.a.cious room, as she spread her hands, knotted and coa.r.s.ened by work, to the blaze. Elizabeth held her sickly babe, rocking it and crooning to it, while upstairs one of kind-eyed c.u.mberland women was getting a warm bath ready, and lighting a fire in the guest-room.

"How old is it?" she asked.

"Thirteen months."

"You ought to give up nursing it. It would be better for you both."

"I tried giving it a bit o' what we had ourselves," said the mother, dully--"But I nearly lost her."

"I should think so!" laughed Elizabeth indignantly; and she began to preach rational ways of feeding and caring for the child, while the mother sat by, despondent, and too crushed and hopeless to take much notice. Presently Elizabeth gave her back the babe, and went to fetch hot tea and bread and b.u.t.ter.

"Shall I come and get it in the kitchen?" said the woman, rising.

"No, no--stay where you are!" cried Elizabeth. And she was just carrying back a laden tray from the dining-room when Anderson caught her.

"Darling!--that's too heavy for you!--what are you about?"

"There's a woman in there who's got to be fed--and there's a man in there"--she pointed to the kitchen--"who's got to be talked to. Hopeless case!--so you'd better go and see about it!"

She laughed happily in his face, and he s.n.a.t.c.hed a kiss from her as he carried off the tray.

The woman by the fire rose again in amazement as she saw the broad-shouldered handsome man who was bringing in the tea. Anderson had been tramping through the thin-lying snow all day, inquiring into the water-supply of a distant portion of the farm. He was ruddy with exercise, and the physical strength that seemed to radiate from him intimidated the wanderer.

"Where are you bound to?" he said kindly, as he put down the tea beside her.

The woman, falteringly, told her story. Anderson frowned a little.

"Well, I'd better go and talk to your husband. Mrs. Anderson will look after you."

And Elizabeth held the baby, while the woman fed languidly--too tired and spiritless indeed to eat.

When she could be coaxed no further, Elizabeth took her and the babe upstairs.

"I never saw anything like this in these parts!" cried the girl, looking round her at the white-tiled bathroom.

"Oh, they're getting quite common!" laughed Elizabeth. "See how nice and warm the water is! Shall we bathe the baby?" And presently the child lay warm and swaddled in its mother's arms, dressed in some baby-clothes produced by Elizabeth from a kind of travellers' cupboard at the top of the stairs. Then the mother was induced to try a bath for herself, while Elizabeth tried her hand at spoon-feeding the baby; and in half an hour she had them both in bed, in the bright spare-room--the young mother's reddish hair unbound lying a splendid ma.s.s on the white pillows, and a strange expression--as of some long tension giving way--on her pinched face.

"We'll not know how to thank you"--she said brokenly. "We were just at the last. Tom wouldn't ask no one to help us before. But we'd only a few shillings left--we thought at Battleford, we'd sell our bits of things--perhaps that'd take us through." She looked piteously at Elizabeth, the tears gathering in her eyes.

"Oh! well, we'll see about that!" said Elizabeth, as she tucked the blankets round her. "n.o.body need starve in this country! Mr. Anderson'll be able perhaps to think of something. Now you go to sleep, and we'll look after your husband."

Anderson joined his wife in the sitting-room, with a perplexed countenance. The man was a poor creature--and the beginnings of the drink-craving were evident.

"Give him a chance," said Elizabeth. "You want one more man in the bothy."

She sat down beside him, while Anderson pondered, his legs stretched to the fire. A train of thought ran through his mind, embittered by the memory of his father.

He was roused from it by the perception that Elizabeth was looking tired. Instantly he was all tenderness, and anxious misgiving. He made her lie down on the sofa by the fire, and brought her some important letters from Ottawa to read, and the English newspapers.

From the elementary human need with which their minds had just been busy, their talk pa.s.sed on to National and Imperial affairs. They discussed them as equals and comrades, each bringing their own contribution.

"In a fortnight we shall be in Ottawa!" sighed Elizabeth, at last.

Anderson smiled at her plaintive voice.

"Darling!--is it such a tragedy?"

"No, I shall be as keen as anybody else when we get there. But--we are so happy here!"

"Is that really, really true?" asked Anderson, taking her hand and pressing it to his lips.

"Yes"--she murmured--"yes--but it will be truer still next year!"

They looked at each other tenderly. Anderson stooped and kissed her, long and closely.

He was called away to give some directions to his men, and Elizabeth lay dreaming in the firelight of the past and the future, her hands clasped on her breast, her eyes filling with soft tears. Upstairs, in the room above her, the emigrant mother and baby lay sleeping in the warmth and shelter gathered round them by Elizabeth. But in tending them, she had been also feeding her own yearning, quickening her own hope. She had given herself to a man whom she adored, and she carried his child on her heart. Many and various strands would have gone to the weaving of that little soul; she trembled sometimes to think of them. But no fear with her lasted long. It was soon lost in the deep poetic faith that Anderson's child in her arms would be the heir of two worlds, the pledge of a sympathy, a union, begun long before her marriage in the depths of the spirit, when her heart first went out to Canada--to the beauty of the Canadian land, and the freedom of the Canadian life.

THE END