The End Of The Rainbow Part 1

The End of the Rainbow.

by Marian Keith.

CHAPTER I

THE GLEAM

All afternoon the little town had lain dozing under the lullaby of a June rain. It was not so much a rain as a gentle dewy mist, touching the lawns and gardens and the maple trees that lined each street into more vivid green, and laying a thick moist carpet over the dust of the highways. And the little town, ringed by forest and lake, and canopied by maple boughs, had lain there enjoying it, now blinking half-awake in the brief glimpses of sunlight, now curling up again and going to sleep.

In the late afternoon the silent tournament between sunshine and shadow resulted in a conquest for the sun. His victorious lances swept the enemy from the clean blue skies; they glanced over the lake, lodged in every treetop, and glittered from every church spire. The little town began to stir. The yellow dogs, that had slept all afternoon on the shop steps, roused themselves and resumed their fight in the middle of Main Street. Now and then a clerk ran across to a rival firm to get change for a customer. A few belated shoppers hurried homeward. A farmer's double-buggy backed out of the hotel yard with a sc.r.a.ping sound, and went rattling up the street towards the country. Everything seemed pervaded with an atmosphere of expectancy, a tense air of unrest, as though the whole place were holding itself in readiness for a summons.

And then it came: the great consummation of the day's work. From the tower of the fire-hall burst forth the loud peal of the town bell. Six o'clock! Like the castle of the Sleeping Beauty the town leaped into life. The whistles of the saw-mills down by the lake broke into shrieks of joy. The big steam pipe of Thornton's foundry responded with a delighted roar. The flour mill, the wheel-factory and the tannery joined in a chorus of yells. From factory and shop, office and store, came pouring forth the relieved workers, laughing and calling across the street to each other above the din. There was a noisy tramp, tramp of feet, a hurrying this way and that, a confusion of happy voices. And over all the clamour, the big bell in the tower continued to fling out far over the town and the lake and the woods the joyous refrain that the day's work was done, was done, was done.

Near the corner of Main Street, on a leafy thoroughfare that ran up into the region of lawns and gardens, stood a neat row of red-brick office buildings, with wide doors and shiny windows. Over the widest door and on the shiniest window, in letters of gold, was the legend: EDWARD BRIANS, Barrister, etc.

Never a man pa.s.sed this door on his homeward way without saluting it.

"h.e.l.lo, Ed! Coming home?"--"Hurrah, Ed! Will you be along if we wait ten minutes?"--"Ed! Hurry up and come along!"

No one appeared in response to the summons; but from within came refusals, roared out in a thunderous voice, each roar growing more exasperated than the last.

The streets were almost deserted when, at last, the owner of the big voice came to his door. He was a man of about thirty-five; of middle height, straight, strong and alert. His fair hair had a tendency towards red, and also towards standing on end, and his bright blue eyes had a tendency to blaze suddenly in wrath or shut up altogether in consuming laughter. He had practised law in Algonquin for ten years, and as he had been brought up in the town and was related to one-half the population, and loved by the whole of it, he was spoken of familiarly as Lawyer Ed.

A tall man, leading a little boy by the hand, followed him slowly down the steps. The man was not past middle age, but he was stooped and worn with a life of heavy toil.

"Well, Angus," Lawyer Ed was saying, his deep musical voice thrilling with sympathy, "that'll make you comfortable for a while now, until you're better, anyway. And there's no need for me, or any one, to tell you not to worry over it."

The older man smiled. "No, no. Tut, tut! Worry! That would be but a poor way to treat the Father's care, indeed." His dark eyes shone with an inner light. "If He needs my farm, He'll show me how to lift the mortgage. And if He needs me to do any more work for Him here, He'll give me back my health. But if not--" he paused and his hand went instinctively to the shoulder of the little boy looking up at him with big wondering eyes--"if not--well, well, never fear, He knows the way.

He knows."

An old light wagon and a horse with hanging head were standing by the sidewalk. The man clambered slowly to the seat and gathered up the lines. Lawyer Ed picked up the little boy and swung him up beside his father. He shook him well before he set him down, boxed his ears, pulled his hair, and finally, diving into his pockets, brought out a big handful of pink "bull's-eyes" and showered them into his hat. The little fellow shouted with delight, and having crammed his mouth full, he doubled up his small fists and challenged his friend to another scuffle.

But Lawyer Ed shook his head.

"No! That's enough nonsense to-day, you young rascal! Good-bye, Angus, and--" his musical voice became low and soft--"and G.o.d bless you."

Angus McRae's smile, as he drove away, was like the sun breaking out over Lake Algonquin, and the lawyer felt as if their positions were reversed, and he had just put a mortgage on his farm and Angus were trying to comfort him.

He stood for a moment on the sidewalk, his bright eyes grown misty, and watched the pair drive down the hill. Then he looked across the street and saw Doctor Archibald Blair climbing into his mud-splashed buggy, satchel in hand. Lawyer Ed walked across to him, his shining boots sinking in the soft mud.

By descent Lawyer Ed was partly Scotch, by nature he was entirely Irish. He possessed a glib tongue of the latter order and his habit was to address every one he met, be he Indian, Highland Scot, or French Canadian, in the dialect which the person was supposed to favour. So he roared out in his magnificent baritone, as he picked his way among the puddles:

"Hoot! Losh! Is yon yersel', Aerchie mon?"

Doctor Blair glared down at him from under lowering brows.

"Dear me, Ed, you're an object of pity, when you try to get that clumsy tongue of yours, hampered as it is by a brogue from Cork, around the most musical sounds of the most musical language under heaven. Give it up, man! Give it up!"

"Haud yer whisht! Or whisht yer blethers!--whichever way that outlandish, heathenish gibberish your forebears jabbered, would have it. You see, Archie, one great advantage of being Irish--and it's not your fault that you're not, man, I don't blame you--one great advantage is that you can speak all languages with equal ease. Now a Scotchman's tongue is like his sense of humour and his brains--a bit hard to wiggle."

"_'Beware a tongue that's smoothly hung, A heart that warmly seems to feel'_"----

quoted Doctor Blair, who was always ready with his Burns. He shoved his black satchel under the seat, and hauled the muddy lap-robe over his knees.

"Do you want anything in the line of common sense, or did you just come over here to blather?"

"I came to see what you thought of Angus. Is he very sick?"

"Angus McRae? Yes he is, Ed, I'm sorry to say. I felt I ought to tell him to quit work altogether, but he can't afford it."

"Is it anything dangerous?"

"Well, if anything should happen--a shock or strain of any kind on his heart--he'd be laid up--maybe put out of business altogether."

"And to-day he put a mortgage on his place, to help pay the debts of Peter McDuff and a dozen other old leeches that live on him."

The two friends looked at each other and nodded silently.

"He's a wonderful man, that Angus McRae," said Dr. Blair.

"He's the finest man living!" cried Lawyer Ed, always enthusiastic. "I owe that man more than I can ever pay--not money, something more valuable--nearly everything I have that's worth while."

His friend nodded. There were few men in Algonquin who were not indebted to Angus McRae for something of value.

"Angus is rich in that sort of wealth," said Archie Blair.

"_It's no in t.i.tles nor in rank; It's no in wealth like Lon'on bank, To purchase peace and rest.

It's no in makin' muckle mair; It's no in books; it's no in lear; To make us truly blest.'_"

"But Angus knows where it is, and he's not like most people who go to church and sing and pray one day in the week and cheat their neighbours the other six!"

The doctor cracked his whip and drove off in high good humour, for he had made a smart slap at the church, as he always loved to do in Lawyer Ed's presence, and had escaped before that glib Irishman could answer.

He could catch something roared out behind him, about a man who could stay home from church so that he might be a hypocrite seven days in the week and half the nights too, but he pretended not to hear.

Meanwhile Angus McRae and his little son rattled away down one street and along another and out upon the country road. Just where the town and country met stretched a row of ragged, tumble-down buildings.

There was an ill-smelling hotel, with two or three loungers smoking on the sagging veranda, a long fence covered with tattered and glaring circus posters, a half-dozen patched and weather-beaten houses and a row of abandoned sheds and barns.

Algonquin proper was a pretty little town, all orchards and gardens and winding hilly streets smothered in trees. And the dreary wretchedness of its back entrance, as it might be called, was all the more painful in contrast. Willow Lane, this miserable little street was named; but Angus McRae had long termed it, in his secret heart, the Jericho Road.

For the old tavern at the end of it had proved the downfall of many a traveller on that highway, and many a man had Angus picked up, who had fallen there among thieves.

Every one on the Jericho Road knew him well, and went to him for help in time of trouble and, though they did not realise it, he was indeed their neighbour in precisely the way his Master meant him to be.

The lane turned into the country road, and once more all was fragrance and beauty. It curved around the southern sh.o.r.e of Lake Algonquin; on one side the forest, dark and cool, its dim floor splashed with golden light, its arches ringing with the call of the Canada bird, on the other side the blue and white of the lake, laughing and tumbling beneath the blue and white of the sky.

When the gleam of the water came into view, the little boy clapped his hands and churned up and down in delight. The fresh, damp wind fanned his face, and he shouted to the white-winged gulls dipping and soaring out there in their free ocean of air. He looked up laughingly into his father's face, but quickly became grave. His father's eyes were wistful; he had not spoken for a long time. The child remembered vague hints of trouble that afternoon in Lawyer Ed's office.