The End Of The Rainbow Part 22

"I didn't mean to be such a jay, Rod. It's all right if you say so. I guess I was crazy. If you just give me your word that you haven't intentions towards her, why, it'll be all right."

Roderick gave the a.s.surance with all his heart, and Fred insisted upon shaking hands over it, and they parted on the best of terms.

But Roderick felt covered with shame when he found himself alone on the Pine Road. He could not deny to his heart that Fred's suspicions had some little reason in them, and the knowledge filled him with dismay.

He was humiliated by the thought that he had accepted many favours from Leslie's father and been a welcome guest many, many times at her home, and he wondered miserably if Helen Murray held the same opinion as Fred.

He came back to his office the next morning determined to avoid Leslie Graham, no matter what the consequence.

She called him on the telephone, wrote dainty notes, and strolled past the office at the time when he was likely to be leaving, all to no avail. Roderick was buried in work, and slowly but surely the knowledge began to dawn upon the girl that she, with all her attractions, was being gently but firmly put aside.

And so the winter sped away on the swift wheels of busy days, and when spring came the local option pet.i.tion began to circulate. And once more Roderick escaped the necessity of declaring himself.

The firm of Elliot and Kent, with whom he had worked in the North, wished to consult him, and he was summoned to Montreal for a week.

Lawyer Ed saw him off at the station fairly puffed up with pride over his boy's importance.

When Roderick returned, the pet.i.tion was signed, and sent away, and Lawyer Ed was jubilating over the fact that they could have got far more names if they had wanted them. And Roderick comforted himself with the thought that his was not needed after all.

The excitement subsided for a time after this, the real hard preparation for voting day would not commence until the autumn, so J.

P. Thornton was seized with the grand idea that the coming summer was surely the heaven-decreed occasion upon which to go off on that long-deferred holiday. The inspiration came to him one day when he had telephoned Lawyer Ed twice and called at his office three times to find him out each time.

"Is this the office of Brians and McRae or only McRae?" he asked when Roderick informed him for the third time that his chief was absent.

"Well, it isn't often like this," said the junior partner apologetically. "We'll get back to our old routine when my chief gets over his local option excitement."

"If you can run this business alone during a Local Option to-do, I see no reason why you couldn't while we take three months holidays, do you?"

"No, I do not," said Roderick heartily. "Can't you make Lawyer Ed go to the Holy Land this spring? I'll do anything to help him go. He needs a rest."

J. P. Thornton looked at the young man smiling reminiscently. He was recalling the night when two young men gave up that very trip and Lawyer Ed had laughingly declared he would go some day even if he had to wait till little Roderick grew up. "And little the boy knows," said Mr. Thornton to himself, "just how much Ed gave up that time."

"Well," he said aloud, "this is surely poetic justice."

"What is?" asked Roderick puzzled. But J. P. would not explain.

"We'll just make him go," he declared. "You stand behind me, Rod, and don't let him get back to work, and I'll get him off."

It was not entirely the old boyish desire to go on the long-looked-for trip with his friend that was at the bottom of Mr. Thornton's anxiety to get away. He could not help seeing that Ed needed a rest and needed it very badly. Archie Blair aroused his fears further. For one evening Lawyer Ed did an altogether unprecedented thing and went home to bed early. Mrs. Hepburn, his sister, was so amazed over such a piece of conduct on her brother's part, that she called at the doctor's office the next day to ask if he thought there was anything wrong with Ed's heart.

Doctor Blair laughed long and loud over the question, putting the lady's fears at rest.

"No, I don't think any one in Algonquin would admit there was anything astray with Ed's heart, Mary," he said. "But his head might be vastly improved by putting a little common sense into it regarding eating and sleeping. He's been going too hard for about twenty-five years and he's tired, that's all. But J. P.'s going to get him off this time, all right, and the change is just what he needs."

He spoke to J. P. about it, and the two determined that they would make all preparations to start for the Holy Land in July and if Ed had to be bound and gagged until the steamer sailed, they would certainly see that he went.

Lawyer Ed consented with the greatest enthusiasm. Of course he would go. He really believed he had enough money saved up, and Roderick was doing everything, anyway, and he could just start off for a forty years wandering in the wilderness if J. P. would go with him.

The whole town became quite excited when Mrs. Hepburn announced at a tea given by Mrs. Captain Willoughby that her brother and J. P.

Thornton were really and truly, even should Algonquin go up in flames the day before, going to sail from Montreal sometime in July for foreign parts. There was a great deal of running to and from the Thornton and Brians homes, and a tremendous amount of talking and advising. And the only topic of conversation for weeks, in the town, was the Holy Land, and the question which greeted a new-comer invariably was, "Did you hear that Lawyer Ed and J. P. have really decided to go?"

All this bustle of preparation and expectation did not deceive J. P.

into a false position of security. He was by no means confident, and he kept a strict eye on Lawyer Ed to see that he did not launch some new scheme that would demand his personal attention till Christmas.

For well he knew that until his friend was on board the steamer and beyond swimming distance from the land, he was not safe. Any day something might arise to make it seem quite impossible to go.

So he was thrown into quite a state of nervousness when, early in June, Algonquin began to prepare for a unique celebration. The first of July had been chosen as "Old Boys' Day," and all Algonquin's exiled sons had been invited to come back to the old home on that day and be made happy.

"Old Boys' Day" was an entirely new inst.i.tution in Algonquin. Indeed she did not have many sons beyond middle age, but other Ontario towns were having these reunions, and Algonquin was never known to be behind her contemporaries, in the matter of having anything new, even though the newest thing was Old Boys.

So no wonder J. P. Thornton was anxious. For such a celebration was just the sort of thing in which Lawyer Ed gloried. Fortunately it was set a month before they were to sail, but J. P. knew that Ed would need all that time to recover from the perfect riot of friendship into which he would be sure to plunge on Old Boys' Day.

As the first of July approached, the whole town gave itself up to extravagant preparations and, as J. P. expected, Lawyer Ed, turned over his office to Roderick, put away railway time-tables and guide books and headed every committee. There was a committee of ladies from all the churches to serve dinner to the Old Boys on their arrival. There was a decorating committee with instructions to cover the town with flags and bunting and banners, no matter what the cost. There was a committee for sports, on both land and water and, most important of all, a reception committee, half to go down to Barbay with Captain Jimmie and the town band to bring the Old Boys home by water, the only proper way to approach Algonquin, and the other half to meet them at the dock.

Of course all this upheaval and bustle did not take place without some slight discord. The first storm arose through a dispute as to where the big dinner should be held upon the arrival of the boat. The first suggestion was that it be held in the opera house. But unfortunately, many of the best people of Algonquin objected to holding anything there as a matter of principle.

It was the common case of a very good place having a bad name. Had the opera house been called the town hall, which it really was, no one would have found fault with it. But its name suggested actors and the theatre, and many of the good folk, Mr. McPherson at their head, just wouldn't countenance it at all.

Of course there was the other cla.s.s who said Algonquin would be too dull to live in were it not for the winter attractions of the opera house which gave it such a bad name. In fact every one who had any pretensions towards knowing what was the correct thing in city life, went regularly to the plays, and declared they were just as high cla.s.s as you would see in Toronto.

Indeed a new play was always announced as "The Greatest Attraction in Toronto Last Week," and companies had several times come all the way from New York just to appear in Algonquin. Then every winter there were the Topp Brothers who came and stayed a whole week in Crofter's Hotel, and gave a different play every night. There were all the best known dramas, "Lady Audley's Secret," and "East Lynne" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and once they even gave "Faust,"--without music, it is true, but a splendid reproduction nevertheless, with the biggest and tallest Topp brother as Mephisto, all in red satin and, every one said, just perfectly terrible.

So every one who knew anything at all about what was demanded of people moving in the best circles, p.r.o.nounced the opera house the finest inst.i.tution in the town and demanded that the Old Boys be taken to it upon their arrival and welcomed and fed. And all the other people said it was a sinful and worldly place, and declared they would have no Old Boys' banquet at all if it were to be served in that theatrical abomination.

The Presbyterian Sunday-school room was the next place in size, and, to smooth matters over, Lawyer Ed offered it for the dinner.

Then the Anglican and the Catholic and the Methodist ladies met and said it was just like the Presbyterians to want to have the banquet in their church, to make it appear to the Old Boys that they were doing it all. And Mrs. Captain Willoughby, the smartest woman in Algonquin and the Convener of the dinner committee, said that if those gossipy old cranks wanted to have the banquet in the lock-up, why they might have it there for all she cared, but she wanted every one to know that it would be served in the Presbyterian School room or she would have nothing to do with it. That almost settled it for every one knew it was utterly impossible to get up such a huge affair without Mrs.

Captain Willoughby at the head. But the very next night Jock McPherson brought up the matter in a session meeting and objected to having the dinner in the schoolroom, as it was not a religious gathering.

But Lawyer Ed met and overcame every difficulty. He laughed and cajoled the opera house party into giving way. He forced the programme committee to put Mr. McPherson down for one of the chief addresses of welcome at the banquet, and the objections ceased. He called up his friend Father Tracy on the telephone and bade him see that his flock did their duty in the matter, and he took the Methodist minister's wife and the Anglican clergyman's daughter and Mrs. Captain Willoughby all down town together for ice cream, and there was no more trouble.

"Women are ticklish things to handle, Rod," he said, wiping his perspiring forehead when all was harmony again. "The only wise way for a man to act is to get married and hand over all such manoeuvres to his wife. See that you get one as soon as possible."

"I've heard something somewhere regarding the advantage of example over precept," said Roderick gravely.

"Hold your tongue," said his chief severely. "If I wish to serve you as a terrible warning, to be avoided, instead of an example to be followed, you ought to be grateful in any case."

He strode away swinging his cane and whistling and Roderick watched him with affectionate eyes. He was wondering, as all the town wondered, except a couple of his nearest friends who knew, why Lawyer Ed had never married. And he was thinking of a pair of soft blue eyes that had not grown any kinder to him as the months had pa.s.sed. He went back to his work, the solace for all his troubles. He was taking no part in the preparations for the Old Boys' celebration, and was looking forward to the date with small pleasure. For that was the day she would likely be leaving for her summer vacation. And who knew whether she would come back or not? So he watched Lawyer Ed's joyous preparations for the Old Boys' visit, without much interest, little thinking it was to be of more moment to him than to any one else in Algonquin.

Early in the morning of the first of July the rain came pouring down, but the clouds cleared away before ten o'clock, leaving the little town fresh and green and glowing after its bath. Everything was dressed in its best for the visitors. The gardens were in their brightest summer decorations. The June roses and peonies were not yet gone, and the syringa bushes and jessamine trees were all a-bloom. Main Street was lined with banners and overhung with gay bunting. Lake Algonquin smiled and twinkled and sparkled out her welcome. The fairy islands, the surrounding woods, everything, was at its freshest and greenest.

Early in the morning the _Inverness_ with half of the entertainment committee, the town band, and such youngsters as Captain Jimmie could not eject from his decks, sailed away down to Barbay to bring the heroes home and, as the _Chronicle_ said in a splendid editorial, the next morning, Algonquin's heart throbbed with pride as the goodly ship sailed into port with her precious cargo. The Barbay _Clarion_, Algonquin's and the _Chronicle's_ bitter and hasty enemy, wearily remarked the next week that Algonquin always found something to be proud of anyway. But there could be no doubt Algonquin had reason on this first of July, for the _Inverness_ carried homeward men whose names had brought honour to the little town.

There was J. P.'s son who edited the paper read by every Canadian from Halifax to Vancouver, except those who, wilfully blinded by political prejudice, read the organ of the opposite party. There was Tom Willoughby, the captain's brother, member for the Dominion House, who tore himself away from Ottawa, every one felt, at great risk to his country's weal, leaving the question of war in South Africa and reciprocity with Australia in abeyance, while he rushed across the country to do honour to the old home town. As the _Chronicle_ said, the next morning, being a supporter of Tom's party, not even King Edward himself could have found fault with a loyalty that would take such risks for home and native land.

There was Sandy Graham's brother from New York, who had made, some said, a million in real estate deals in the West, and Lawyer Ed's own brother, who was a professor of note in a University "down East."

There were business, and professional men, young workmen from near by cities and towns, statesmen and scholars. But of them all, none was such a hero, and none so eagerly awaited, as Harry Armstrong. For only the summer before, Harry had taken a Canadian lacrosse team around the world and had vanquished everything in Europe, Asia and Africa that dared to hold up a stick against them.

When the first far away note of the _Inverness'_ whistle floated across the water from the Gates, the ladies at the Presbyterian church began putting the finishing touches to the tables and the dressing on the salads, and half of the reception committee that had remained at home drove down to the dock. They arranged themselves there in proper order, with Captain Willoughby, the Mayor, at the head, or rather almost at the head, for of course Lawyer Ed was a few steps in advance of him.

The dock was a new and important landing place. There was a big distinction between the dock and the wharf. The latter was the decrepit old wooden structure, torn and jarred by ice and storms, that stood at the foot of Main Street, where every one of the Old Boys had fished and fallen in and nearly drowned himself many a time. But the dock, as every one knew, was the fine new landing place, built of stone and cement, and stretching from the town park, away out, it almost seemed, as far as the Gates. The _Inverness_ had had instruction to put in at the dock, not only to impress the Old Boys with the strides Algonquin had made, but as a delicate compliment to Tom Willoughby, through whose political influence it had been built.