The End Of The Rainbow Part 6

"It'll jist be the answer to all my prayers, Lad. I feel I am no use in the world at all, now that you have made me give up all work." He gave his son a glance of loving reproach. For while Roderick had managed to get his education, he had managed too, to do wonderful things with the little farm, so that his father had long ago given up the work he had resumed after his year's illness. And Aunt Kirsty had a servant-girl in the kitchen now, and devoted all her time to her garden and her Bible.

"You've jist made your father a useless old body. But I jist can't be minding, for I see how you can be taking up all my work. There's the Jericho Road waiting for you, Lad."

The young man smiled indulgently. "And what do you think I can do there, Father? Unless Mike Ca.s.sidy goes to law as usual."

"Ah, but is jist you that can. Edward will be finding great opportunities for helping folk and he has not the time now. There's that poor bit English body, Perkins, and his family, and there's Mike as you say, though Father Tracy would be straightening him up something fine. But you must jist see that he doesn't go to law any more. And then there's poor Peter Fiddle."

The younger man laughed. "Peter is the kind of poor we have with us always, Dad. Is he behaving any better?"

"Och, indeed I sometime think I see a decided improvement," exclaimed Old Angus, with the optimism that had refused to give Peter Fiddle up through years of drunkenness and failure. "We must jist keep hold of him, and the good Lord will save Peter yet, never fear."

Roderick was silent. Personally he had no faith in Peter McDuff the elder. He had gone on through the years fiddling and singing and telling stories, his drunken sprees showing a constantly diminishing interval between. Every one in Algonquin, except Angus McRae, had given him up long ago, but his old friend still held on to him with a faith which was really the only thing that kept old Peter from complete ruin. But Roderick had the impatience of youth with failure, and though he had inherited his father's warm heart, he was not at all happy at the thought of becoming guardian of all the poor unfortunates of the town who in one way or the other had fallen among thieves.

"Eh yes, yes, there is a great ministry for you here, Lad. I have sometimes been sorry that you did not feel called to the preaching, but I was jist thinking the last time Edward and I talked the work over, that I was glad now you hadn't. For you will be able to help the poor folk that need you jist as well here, though I would be far from putting anything above the preaching of the Gospel. But there will be many ways of preaching the Gospel, Lad, and the lawyer has a great chance. It will be by jist being neighbour to the folk in want. Folk go more often to the lawyer or the doctor, Archie Blair says, when they are in trouble, than they do to their minister, and I am afraid it's true. And a great many of the folk that will come to you to get you to do their business, Lad, will be folk in trouble, many who have fallen among thieves on the Jericho Road, and you will be pouring in the oil and the wine that the dear Lord has given you, and you will be doing it all in His name." He sighed happily. "Oh, yes, indeed and indeed, it will be a great ministry, Roderick, my son."

Roderick was silent. His heart was touched. He resolved he would do the best he could for any friend of his father who was in trouble. But his eye was set on far prospects of great achievement, where Algonquin and the Jericho Road had no place.

Their talk was interrupted by Aunt Kirsty, who came to the door to demand of him what he had done with his clothes. Had he come home, the rascal, with nothing but what was on his back after the six pairs of new socks she had sent him only last spring?

Roderick sprang up. "My trunk! It will be on the wharf. I yelled at Peter to put it off there, just as we were driving away, and said I'd paddle over and get it. I forgot all about it, Aunt Kirsty." The father and son looked at each other and smiled. It was easy to forget when they were together.

"I'll go after it right now. It's mostly old books and soiled clothes, Auntie, but there's one nice thing in it. You ought to see the peach of a shawl I got you." He ran in for his cap, and she followed him to the door, scolding him for his foolish extravagance, but not deceiving any one into thinking that she was not highly pleased.

Angus stood long at the water's edge watching the Lad's canoe slip away out on the mirror of the lake. The sh.o.r.e was growing dark, but the water still reflected the rose of the sunset. The soft dip of his paddle disturbed its stillness and a long golden track marked the road he was taking out into the light. Away ahead of him, beyond the network of islands, shone the glory of the departing day. The Lad was paddling straight for the Gleam. The father's mind went back to that evening of stormy radiance, when the little fellow had paddled away to find the rainbow gold.

His eyes followed the straight, alert young figure yearningly. He was praying that in the voyage of life before him, his boy might never be led away by false lights. He recalled the words of the poem Archie Blair had recited the evening before at a young folks' meeting in the town.

"_Not of the sunlight Not of the moonlight Not of the starlight, Oh young Mariner, Down to the haven, Call your companions Launch your vessel And crowd your canvas And e'er it vanish Over the margin After it; follow it; Follow the gleam!_"

It held the burden of his prayer for the Lad; that, ever unswerving, he might follow the true Gleam until he found it, shining on the forehead of the blameless King.

CHAPTER IV

SIDE LIGHTS

Roderick was not thinking of that Gleam upon which his father's mind was set, as he glided silently out upon the golden mirror of Lake Algonquin. The still wonder of the glowing lake and sky and the mystery of the darkening sh.o.r.e and islands carried his thoughts somehow to a new wonder and dream; the light that had shone in the girl's brave eyes, the colour that had flooded her face at his awkward words. They were beautiful eyes but sad, and there were tints in her hair like the gold on the water. Roderick had known scarcely any young women. His life had been too busy for that--when he was away, books had claimed all his attention, when he was home, the farm. But in the background of his consciousness, shadowy and unformed, but none the less present, dwelt a vague picture of his ideal woman; the woman that was to be his one day. She was really the picture of his mother, as painted by his father's hand, and as memory furnished a light here or a detail there.

Roderick had not had time to think of his ideal; his heart was a boy's heart still--untried and unspoiled, but this evening her shadowy form seemed to have become more definite, and it wore golden brown hair and had sad blue-grey eyes.

He swept silently around the end of Wanda Island, and his dreams were suddenly interrupted by a startling sight; for directly in front of him, just between the little bay and the lake beyond, bobbed an upturned canoe and two heads!

To the youthful native of Algonquin an upset into the lake was not a serious matter; and to the young lady and gentleman swimming about their capsized craft, the affair, up to a few moments previous, had been rather a good joke. How it had happened that two such expert canoeists as Leslie Graham and Fred Hamilton could fall out of anything that sailed the water, was a question those who knew them could not have solved. They had been over to Mondamin Island to gather golden-rod and asters for a party the young lady was to give the next evening. They had been paddling merrily homeward, the s.p.a.ce between them piled with their purple and golden treasure, and as they paddled they talked, or rather the young lady did, for where Miss Leslie Graham was, no one else had much chance to say anything.

"There's the _Inverness_ at the dock," she said, when they came within view of the town. "Aunt Elinor's boarder must have come on it, the girl that's going to teach in Miss Hasting's room."

"I thought your aunt said you weren't to call her a boarder."

The girl put her paddle across the canoe and leaned back with a burst of laughter. She was handsome at any time, but particularly so when she laughed, showing a row of perfect teeth and a merry gleam in her black eyes.

"Poor old Auntie! Isn't she a joke? She's scared the family escutcheon of the Armstrongs will be sullied forever with the blot of a boarder on it. Auntie Bell is nearly as bad too. My! I hope they won't expect us to trot her around in our set."

"Why?" asked young Mr. Hamilton. He was always interested in new girls.

"Too many girls in it already. You know that, Fred Hamilton."

"Well, I say, I believe you're right, Les," he ventured, but with some hesitation. He was a rather nice young fellow, with the inborn idea that, theoretically, there couldn't be too many girls, but there was no denying the fact that Algonquin seemed to have more than her fair share. Only, Leslie was always so startlingly truthful, it was sometimes rather disconcerting to hear one's half-formed thoughts spoken out incisively as was her way.

"There does seem to be an awful swarm of them," he admitted reluctantly, "especially since the Harrisons and the Wests came to town. I danced twenty-five times without drawing breath at Polly's last spree, and never twice with the same girl. Where did she pick 'em all up, anyway?"

That was the last remark they could remember having made. And the girl was wont to explain that the thing which happened next was a just judgment upon the young man for uttering such sentiments, and a fearful warning for his future. But the most elaborate explanations could never quite solve the mystery, for they never knew how it chanced that the next moment the canoe was over and they were in the water. To a girl of Algonquin, a canoe upset was inexcusable; to a boy, a disgrace never to be lived down. So when Leslie Graham and Fred Hamilton, who had been born and brought up on the sh.o.r.es of the lake and had learned to swim and walk simultaneously, found themselves in the water, the first expression in their eyes, after an instant's startled surprise, was one of indignation.

"What on earth did you do?" gasped the girl, and "What on earth did you do?" sputtered the boy.

And then, being the girl she was, Leslie Graham burst out laughing, "'What on the water,' would be more appropriate. Well, Fred Hamilton, I never thought you'd upset!"

"I didn't!" he cried indignantly. "You jumped, I saw you."

"Jumped! I never did! And even if I did, I don't see why you should have turned a somersault. I could dance the Highland Fling in a canoe and not upset. Oh dear! all my flowers are gone!" They put their hands on the upturned craft and floated easily.

"What are you going to do about it?" she asked. "We're a long way from sh.o.r.e, and the walking's damp."

He glanced about. They were a good distance from land, but the only danger he antic.i.p.ated was the danger of a rescue. He would be disgraced forever if some fellow paddled out from home and picked them up. But a little island lay between them and the town, screening them from immediate exposure.

"Do? Why, just hop in again. Here, help me heave her over!"

Many a time in younger days, just for fun, they had pitched themselves out of their canoe, righted it again, "scooped" and "rocked" the water out, and scrambled back over bow and stern. But that was always when they wore bathing suits and there were no paddles and cushions floating about to be collected. But they were ready for even this difficult feat. They tumbled the canoe over to its proper position, and the young man, by balancing himself upon one end and swimming rapidly, sent the stern up into the air and "scooped" most of the water out. Then they rocked it violently from side to side, to empty the remainder, while the girl sang gaily "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep," her dancing eyes no less bright than the water drops glistening on her black curly hair.

But the emptying process was longer than they had antic.i.p.ated, and the evening air was growing cool. By the time the canoe was ready to enter, the girl had stopped singing.

"Hustle up, Freddie!" she called, giving a little shiver, as he shot away through the water for a paddle. "This water's getting wetter every minute." When he returned, he placed himself at the stern and the girl at the bow.

"Now," he cried, "when I say go, you climb like a cat, Les. Don't hurry, just crawl in easy. Ready? Go!"

She placed her hands on the gunwale and drew herself up, while her companion, with an eye on her progress, slowly crawled over the stern.

But the heavy drag of her soaked cloth skirt was too much for the girl's strength. She paused, failed at the critical moment, slipped to one side, and they were once more in the water, the canoe bottom up.

"Oh, hang!" exclaimed the young man. Then apologetically, "Never mind, heave her over, and we'll do it again."

But the girl's teeth had begun to chatter, and the work of emptying the canoe the second time was not such a joke. And the second attempt to get in and the third also proved a failure.

"What's the matter, anyhow?" grumbled the boy impatiently. "You've done that three times, Leslie!"

He was amazed and dismayed to see her lip quiver. "I can't do it, Fred. I'm all tired out. I--I believe I'm going to yell for help."

"Oh, Great Scott, Leslie!" groaned the young man. Then encouragingly, "You're all right. Cheer up! I'll get you into this thing in no time."