The Major Part 15

"I don't mean physically only, but in every way--in body, soul and mind.

And for Tom, too, the country has done much. In England, you know, he was just loafing, filling in time with one useless thing after another, and on the way to get fat and lazy. Here he is doing things, things worth while. His ranch is quite a success. Then he is always busy organising various sorts of industries in the country--dairying, lumbering and that sort of thing. He has introduced thoroughbred stock.

He helps with the schools, the churches, the Agricultural Inst.i.tutes. In short, he is doing his part to bring this country to its best. And this, you know, is the finest bit of all Canada!"

Her brother laughed. "Pardon me," he said, "there are so many of these 'finest bits.' In Nova Scotia, in Quebec, I have found them. The people of Ontario are certain that the 'finest bit' is in their province, while in British Columbia they are ready to fight if one suggests anything to the contrary."

"I know. I know. It is perfectly splendid of them. You know we Canadians are quite foolish about our country."

"WE Canadians!"

"Yes. WE Canadians. What else? We are quite mad about the future of our country. And that is why I wanted you to come out here, Jack. There is so much a man like you might do with your brains and training. Yes. Your Oxford training is none too good for this country, and your brain none too clever for this big work of laying the foundations of a great Empire. This is big enough for the biggest of you. Bigger, even, than the thing you were doing at home, Jack. Oh, I heard all about it!"

"You heard all about it? I hope not. I hope you have not heard of the awful mess I made of things."

"Nonsense, Jack! 'Forward' is the word here. Here is an Empire in the making, another Britain, greater, finer, and without the hideous inequalities, injustices and foolish cla.s.s distinctions of the old."

"My G.o.d! Sybil, you sound like Lloyd George himself! Please don't recall that ghastly radicalism to me."

"Never mind what it sounds like. You will get it too. We all catch it here, especially Old Country folk. For instance, look away to the left there. See that little clump of buildings beside the lake just through the poplars. There is a family of Canadians typical of the best, the Gwynnes, our closest neighbours. Good Irish stock, they are. They came two years after we came. Lost their little bit of money. Suffered, my!

how they must have suffered! though they were too proud to tell any of us. The father is a gentleman, finely educated, but with no business ability. The mother all gold and grit, heroic little woman who kept the family together. The eldest boy of fifteen or sixteen, rather delicate when he came, but fearfully plucky, has helped amazingly. He taught the school, putting his money into the farm year after year. While teaching the school he somehow managed to grip hold of the social life of this community in a wonderful way, preached for Mr. Rhye, taught a Bible Cla.s.s for him, quite unique in its way; organised a kind of Literary-Social-Choral-Minstrel Club and has added tremendously to the life and gaiety of the neighbourhood. What we shall do when he leaves, I know not. You will like them, I am sure. We shall drop in there on our way, if you like."

"Ah, well, perhaps sometime later. They all sound rather terribly industrious and efficient for a mere slacker like myself."

Along the trail they galloped, following the dogs for a mile or so until checked by a full flowing stream.

"I say, Willow Creek is really quite in flood," said his sister. "The hot sun has brought down the snows, you know. The logs are running, too.

We will have to go a bit carefully. Hold well up to the stream and watch the logs. Keep your eye on the bank opposite. No, no, keep up, follow me. Look out, or you will get into deep water. Keep to the right. There, that's better."

"I say," said her brother, as his horse clambered out of the swollen stream. "That's rather a close thing to a ducking. Awfully like the veldt streams, you know. Ice cold, too, I fancy."

"Ice cold, indeed, glacier water, you know, and these logs make it very awkward. The Gwynnes must be running down their timber and firewood. We might just run up and look in on them. It's only a mile or so. Nora will be there. She will be 'bossing the job,' as she says. It will be rather interesting."

"Well, I hope it is not too far, for I a.s.sure you I am getting quite ravenous."

"No, come along, there's a good trail here."

A smart canter brought them to a rather pretentious homestead with considerable barns and outbuildings attached. "This is the Switzers'

place," said Mrs. Waring-Gaunt. "German-Americans, old settlers and quite well off. The father owned the land on which Wolf Willow village stands. He made quite a lot of money in real estate--village lots and farm lands, you know. He is an excellent farmer and ambitious for his family--one son and one daughter. They are quite plain people. They live like--well, like Germans, you know. The mother is a regular hausfrau; the daughter, quite nice, plays the violin beautifully. It was from her young Gwynne got his violining. The son went to college in the States, then to Germany for a couple of years. He came back here a year ago, terribly German and terribly military, heel clicking, ram-rod back, and all that sort of thing. Musical, too, awfully clever; rather think he has political ambitions. We'll not go in to-day. Some day, perhaps.

Indeed, we must be neighbourly in this country. But the Switzers are a little trying."

"Why know them at all?"

"There you are!" cried his sister. "Fancy living beside people in this country and not knowing them. Can't you see that we must not let things get awry that way? We must all pull together. Tom is fearfully strong on that, and he is right, too, I suppose, although it is trying at times.

Now we begin to climb a bit here. Then there are good stretches further along where we can hurry."

But it seemed to her brother that the good stretches were rather fewer and shorter than the others, for the sun was overhead when they pulled up their horses, steaming and ready enough to halt, in a small clearing in the midst of a thick bit of forest. The timber was for the main part of soft woods, poplar, yellow and black, cottonwood, and further up among hills spruce and red pine. In the centre of the clearing stood a rough log cabin with a wide porch running around two sides. Upon this porch a young girl was to be seen busy over a cook stove. At the noise of the approaching horses the girl turned from her work and looked across the clearing at them.

"Heavens above! who is that, Sybil?" gasped her brother.

Mrs. Waring-Gaunt gave a delighted little cry. "Oh, my dear, you are really back." In a moment she was off her horse and rushing toward the girl with her arms outstretched. "Kathleen, darling! Is it you? And you have really grown, I believe! Or is it your hair? Come let me introduce you to my brother."

Jack Romayne was a young man with thirty years of experience of the normal life of the well-born Englishman, during which time he had often known what it was to have his senses stirred and his pulses quickened by the sight of one of England's fair women, than whom none of fresher and fairer beauty are to be found in all the world; yet never had he found himself anything but master of his speech and behaviour. But to-day, when, in obedience to his sister's call, he moved across the little clearing toward the girl standing at her side, he seemed to lose consciousness of himself and control of his powers of action. He was instead faintly conscious that a girl of tall and slender grace, with an aura of golden hair about a face lovelier than he had ever known, was looking at him out of eyes as blue as the prairie crocus and as shy and sweet, that she laid her hand in his as if giving him something of herself, that holding her hand how long he knew not, he found himself gazing through those eyes of translucent blue into a soul of unstained purity as one might gaze into a shrine, and that he continued gazing until the blue eyes clouded and the fair face flushed crimson, that then, without a word, he turned from her, thrilling with a new gladness which seemed to fill not only his soul but the whole world as well.

When he came to himself he found his trembling fingers fumbling with the bridle of his horse. For a few moments he became aware of a blind rage possessing him and he cursed deeply his stupidity and the gaucherie of his manner. But soon he forgot his rage for thinking of her eyes and of what he had seen behind their translucent blue.

"My dear child," again exclaimed Mrs. Waring-Gaunt, "I declare you have actually grown taller and grown--a great many other things that I may not tell you. What have they done to you at that wonderful school? Did you love it?"

The girl flushed with a quick emotion. "Oh, Mrs. Waring-Gaunt, it was really wonderful. I had such a good time and every one was lovely to me.

I did not know people could be so kind. But it is good to get back home again to them all, and to you, and to all this." She waved her hand to the forest about her.

"And who are up here to-day, and what are you doing?" inquired Mrs.

Waring-Gaunt.

"In the meantime I am preparing dinner," said the girl with a laugh.

"Dinner!" exclaimed Jack Romayne, who had meantime drawn near, determined to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of this girl as a man familiar with the decencies of polite society. "Dinner! It smells so good and we are desperately hungry."

"Yes," cried Mrs. Waring-Gaunt. "My brother declared he was quite faint more than an hour ago, and now I am sure he is."

"Fairly ravenous."

"But I don't know," said the girl with serious anxiety on her face.

"You see, we have only pork and fried potatoes, and Nora just shot a chicken--only one--and they are always so hungry. But we have plenty of bread and tea. Would you stay?"

"It sounds really very nice," said Mrs. Waring-Gaunt.

"It would be awfully jolly of you, and I promise not to eat too much,"

said the young man. "I am actually faint with hunger, and a cup of tea appears necessary to revive me."

"Of course, stay," said the girl with quick sympathy. "We can't give you much, but we can give you something."

"Oh----ho!"

"O-h-o-o-o-h! O-h-o-o-o-h!" A loud call came from the woods.

"There's Nora," said Kathleen. "O-o-o-o-o-h! O-o-o-o-o-h!" The girl's answering call was like the winding of a silver horn. "Here she is."

Out from the woods, striding into the clearing, came a young girl dressed in workmanlike garb in short skirt, leggings and jersey, with a soft black hat on the black tumbled locks. "h.e.l.lo, Kathleen, dinner ready? I'm famished. Oh, Mrs. Waring-Gaunt, glad to see you."

"And my brother, Nora, Mr. Jack Romayne, just come from England, and hungry as a bear."

"Just from England? And hungry? Well, we are glad to see you, Mr.

Romayne." The girl came forward with a quick step and frankly offered her brown, strong hand. "We're awfully glad to see you, Mr. Romayne,"

she repeated. "I ought to be embarra.s.sed, I know, only I am so hungry."

"Just my fix, Miss Nora," said the young man. "I am really anxious to be polite. I feel we should decline the invitation to dinner which your sister has pressed upon us; we know it is a shame to drop in on you like this all unprepared, but I am so hungry, and really that smell is so irresistible that I feel I simply cannot be polite."

"Don't!" cried the girl, "or rather, do, and stay. There's enough of something, and Joe will look after the horses." She put her hands to her lips and called, "J-o-o-e!"

A voice from the woods answered her, followed by Joe himself. "Here, Joe, take the horses and unsaddle them and tether them out somewhere."