The End Of The Rainbow Part 15

She tried to say something of this to Roderick, fearing her sombre words had set him to recalling her secret.

"I suppose it is perfect happiness," he said. "If so, I never met any one who had found it, except--yes, I believe I know one."

"Who?" she asked eagerly.

"My father," answered Roderick gently.

"I have heard of him," she said, smiling at the glow of pride in the son's eyes. "And where did he discover it?"

Roderick laughed. "I suppose it's in the heart, after all; but my father is never so happy as when he is in the midst of misery. His pot of gold seems to lie down on Willow Lane."

"On Willow Lane? Why that's where all those dreadfully poor, dirty people live, isn't it?"

"Yes. They are an unsavoury bunch down there. That's where Mr. and Mrs. Ca.s.sidy throw the household furniture at each other, and Billy Perkins starves his family for drink, and where the celebrated Peter McDuff plays the fiddle every night at the tavern. He might have serenaded you, if you had gone back home by the road."

She smiled gratefully and her smile was very beautiful. But her thoughts were in Willow Lane. There were worse things there that Roderick did not mention, but she had heard of them. It was a strange and wonderful thing that the saintly-faced old man with the white hair, whom she had seen with Roderick at church, should find his happiness among such people.

Roderick had paddled as slowly as it was possible to move, but he could not prolong the little voyage any further. They were at the landing.

"I have made you come away back here," she said, "and now you will be so late getting home. I must let you go back at once. Good night, and thank you."

Roderick had been hoping that he might walk up to Rosemount with her, but felt he was dismissed. He wanted, too, to ask her if she would not come out on the lake again, but his shyness kept him silent.

As he helped her out, the yellow light of the wharf lamp fell upon her light dress and shone on the gold of her hair, and at the same moment a canoe slid silently out of the dimness beyond and glided across the track of the moon. In the stern knelt one of Algonquin's young men wielding a lazy paddle, and in the low seat opposite, with a filmy scarf about her dark hair, reclined Miss Leslie Graham. She sat up straight very suddenly, and stared at the girl who was stepping from the canoe. But she did not speak, and Roderick was too absorbed to notice who had pa.s.sed. And the young man with the lazy paddle wondered all the way home what had happened to make the lively young lady so silent and absent-minded.

Helen Murray thought many times of what Roderick had told her about his father's interest in Willow Lane. She could not help wondering if others could find there the peace that shone in the old man's eyes.

She was wondering if she should go down and visit the place, when, one day, Willow Lane came to her. It was a warm languorous October day, a day when all nature seemed at a standstill. Her work was done, she was resting under her soft coverlet of blue gossamer, preparing for her long sleep. Helen had had a hard day, for she had not yet learned her new strange task. The room was noisy, fifty little heads were bent over fifty different schemes for mischief, and fifty sibilant whispers delivered forbidden messages. The teacher was writing on the board, and turned suddenly at the sound of a heavy footstep in the hall. The door was open, letting in the breeze from the lake, and in it stood a big hairy man with a bushy black head and wild blue eyes. Helen stood and stared at him half-frightened.

The fifty small heads suddenly whirled about and a hundred eyes stared at the visitor, but there was no fear in them. A giggling whisper ran like fire over the room. "It's Peter Fiddle!" The man shook his fist at them, and the teacher went with some apprehension towards the door.

"Can I do anything for you, sir?" she enquired, outwardly calm, but inwardly quaking. He took off his big straw hat and made her a profound bow.

"I'll be Peter McDuff," he said with a stately air, "an' I'll loss a pig."

"I--I don't think it's here," faltered Helen, dismayed at a visit from the notorious McDuff. "You might ask some other place," she suggested hopefully.

"I'll be wantin' the bairns to be lookin' for it," he said, making another bow. He turned to the children, now sitting, for the first time since their teacher had set eyes on them, absolutely still and attentive.

"If you see a pig wis a curly tail," he announced, "that's me!"

The whole school burst into a shout of laughter, and the man's face flamed with anger. He shook his fist at them again, moving a step into the room. "Ye impident young upstarts!" he shouted. "I'll be Peter McDuff!" he cried proudly. "And I'll be having you know they will not be laughing at the McDuff whatefer!"

"I--I'm sure they didn't mean to be rude, Mr. McDuff," ventured the frightened teacher.

"My name'll be Peter McDuff," he insisted, coming further into the room while she stepped back in terror. "I'll be sixty years of old, and I'll neffer be casting a tory vote! An' if you'll be gifing me a man my own beeg and my own heavy--" he brandished his fists fiercely.

"Peter!"

The McDuff turned. Behind him stood Angus McRae, his gentle face distressed. He laid his hand on Peter's shoulder with an air of quiet power. "Come away home with me, Peter man," he said soothingly.

"We'll be finding the pig on the road."

Peter stumbled out grumbling, and Angus McRae, pausing a moment to deliver an apology to Helen, followed. Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby came along the hall rocking with laughter.

"You poor child!" she cried. "I heard him, and was coming to the rescue when I saw old Angus. I knew you'd be scared. But Peter wouldn't hurt a hair of a woman's head."

"That Mr. McRae seemed to have some strange power over him," whispered Helen, watching, with some apprehension, the two climb into an old wagon.

"So he has. And he's the only one that has. He keeps Peter in order when he's drunk and keeps him sober, when he can. Ah, dear me! dear me! There's a clever man all gone wrong. Angus McRae's been working with him for years. He lives out there past what they call Willow Lane. Ever been down there?"

"No, but I've heard of it often."

"It's that bit of street that runs from the end of the town where that old hotel is. I'm going down there after school to see about Minnie Perkins. Come along for a walk. Now, you children, go right back there, do you hear me?" For the primary grade had overflowed and was flooding the halls. And Madame swept them back and slammed her door.

When school was dismissed and the last noisy youngster had gone storming forth Helen went down the hall to her friend's room. Madame came swaying out carrying a bunch of gay spiked gladiolus, her draperies floating about her with cherubs peeping from their folds, like a saint in an old picture.

She dismissed her satellites firmly at the first corner, except those who lived beyond or on Willow Lane, a ceremony that necessitated a great deal of shooing and scolding.

The first eye-sore on Willow Lane was the old hotel, still standing there, forlorn and ugly, as though ashamed of all the evil it had wrought.

As the years pa.s.sed there was always a new generation of loungers to sit and smoke and spit on its sagging veranda. From it ran the old high board fence plastered with ugly advertis.e.m.e.nts of soap or circus or patent medicine. It disfigured the whole street and shut off a possible glimpse of the lake. Away on the other side of it was a meadow where in spring-time the larks soared and sang, and beyond it the lake and the woods where the mocking bird and the bee made music.

But here in Willow Lane was neither sound nor sight that was pleasant.

The street consisted of a single sorry-looking row of houses with narrow box-like yards shoved up close to the road, as though there were not acres and acres of open free meadow land behind them. The hills upon which Algonquin was situated ceased abruptly here, and the land spread away in a flat plain along the lake sh.o.r.e. The ground was low and damp, and every house in Willow Lane that had the misfortune to possess a cellar was the abode of disease. A deep ditch ran parallel to the rickety board side-walk. There had just been a week of unceasing rain and it was full of green water.

"Oh dear!" said Helen, in distress. "I had no idea there was such a place as this in Algonquin."

"People have lived here for years and still seem to have no idea," said Madame. She paused and looked back. "Do you see that house 'way up on the hill yonder? The one with the tower sticking up between the trees?

That's Alexander Graham's mansion. And he makes a good deal of his money out of the rents of these houses, and n.o.body seems to care very much. The people of the churches send down turkeys and plum puddings, and everything good at Christmas time, and seem to think that will do for another year. But the only man who tries to do anything all the time is Angus McRae. I suppose you know that Lawyer Ed calls him the Good Samaritan, and this the Jericho Road."

The first house in the dreary row was the turbulent home of Mr.

Ca.s.sidy, the gentleman who commanded so much of Lawyer Ed's attention.

Mrs. Ca.s.sidy was on the front veranda washing. It was a pastime she seldom indulged in, for there was never much water in the old leaky rain barrel at the corner of the house. For while Willow Lane had water, water everywhere, the inhabitants had not any drop in which to wash themselves. But the overflowing rain-barrels had tempted Judy to-day, and so her little figure was bobbing up and down over the washboard like a play Judy in a show. She was scrubbing her own clothes, but not her husband's, for Mr. Ca.s.sidy and his wife lived each an entirely independent life. They occupied different sections of the house even, and the lady saw to it that her husband's apartments were the coldest in winter and the hottest in summer. This arrangement had been held to, ever since the day that Mike thrashed Judy. It had not been without some provocation, it is true; for though very small, Mrs.

Ca.s.sidy had a valiant spirit, and had many and varied ways of exasperating her husband's inflammable temper. But Lawyer Ed had appealed to Father Tracy, and that muscular shepherd of his flock had come down upon Willow Lane and thrashed Mike thoroughly and soundly.

Since then there had been a sort of armed neutrality in the home of the Ca.s.sidys.

"Good day, Mrs. Ca.s.sidy," called Madame over the little fence. "It's a beautiful day after the rain."

"Aw, well now and is that you, Mrs. Adam?" enquired Judy, her little face peering out of the clouds of steam. "Sure it's yerself would be bringin' beautiful weather, aven if it was poorin'."

Her voice was soft, her manner ingratiating, there was no sign of the warrior spirit beneath.

"I hope the rain'll keep off till you get your clothes dry," said Madame pleasantly, but pa.s.sing resolutely on, for Mrs. Ca.s.sidy showed sighs of a desire to come to the gate and have a friendly chat. "We must get out of her way. If she starts to talk we'll never escape,"

she whispered. "Just look at that will you!"

The second place was one where some pitiful attempts at beautifying had been made. The yard was swept clean and a little drain had been dug at the side to let the water run off. A few drowned flowers leaned over on their hard clay beds, and there was a neat curtain and a mosquito netting on each window. But right against the window that overlooked the Ca.s.sidys' yard, Mrs. Ca.s.sidy had piled all the old boards, boxes and rubbish she could find, to obstruct the view to the town, of her too ambitious neighbour. "Now, what do you think of that?" cried Madame. "Isn't she the malicious little soul?"

"Good day, Mrs. Kent, and how are you to-day?"