The Major Part 55

"G.o.d grant that Canada may see its duty clearly," said Mr. McPherson.

"G.o.d make us strong to bear His will."

They hurried back to their island, each busy with his thoughts, seeking to readjust life to this new and horrible environment.

Mrs. Murray met them at the dock. "You are back, Dr. Brown," she cried.

"Did you forget something? We are glad to see you at any rate." Then noticing the men's faces, she said, "What is the matter, James? Is there anything wrong?"

"We bring terrible news, Mother," he said. "We are at war."

Mrs. Murray's' mind, like her husband's, moved swiftly. She was a life partner in the fullest sense. In business as in the home she shared his plans and purposes. "What about the block, James?" she asked.

"I wired Eastwood," he replied, "to stop that."

"What is it, Mother?" inquired Isabel, who stood upon the dock clinging to her mother's dress, and who saw in the grave, faces about her signs of disaster.

"Hush, dear," said her mother. "Nothing that you can understand." She would keep from her children this horror as long as she could.

At lunch in the midst of the most animated conversation the talk would die out, and all would be busy fitting their lives to war. Like waves ever deepening in volume and increasing in force, the appalling thought of war beat upon their minds. After lunch they sat together in the screened veranda talking quietly together of the issues, the consequences to them and to their community, to their country, and to the world at large, of this thing that had befallen them. They made the amazing discovery that they were almost entirely ignorant of everything that had to do with war, even the relative military strength of the belligerent nations. One thing like a solid back wall of rock gave them a sense of security--the British Navy was still supreme.

"Let's see, did they cut down the Navy estimates during the last Parliament? I know they were always talking of reduction," inquired Mr.

Murray.

"I am afraid I know nothing about it," said Dr. Brown. "Last week I would have told you 'I hope so'; to-day I profoundly hope not. Jane, you ought to know about this. Jane is the war champion in our family," he added with a smile.

"No, there has been no reduction; Winston Churchill has carried on his programme. He wanted to halt the building programme, you remember, but the Germans would not agree. So I think the Navy is quite up to the mark. But, of course," she added, "the German Navy is very strong too."

"Ah, I believe you are right, Jane," said Dr. Brown. "How completely we were all hoodwinked. I cannot believe that we are actually at war. Our friend Romayne was right. By the way, what about Romayne, Jane?"

"Who is he?" inquired Mr. Murray.

"Romayne?" said Dr. Brown. "Oh, he's a great friend of ours in the West.

He married a sister of young Gwynne, you know. He was an attache of the British Emba.s.sy in Berlin, and was, as we thought, quite mad on the subject of preparation for war. He and Jane hit it off tremendously last autumn when we were visiting the Gwynnes. Was he not an officer in the Guards or something, Jane?"

"Yes," replied Jane, fear leaping into her eyes. "Oh, Papa, do you think he will have to go? Surely he would not."

"What? Go back to England?" said Dr. Brown. "I hardly think so. I do not know, but perhaps he may."

"Oh, Papa!" exclaimed Jane, the quick tears in her eyes. "Think of his wife and little baby!"

"My G.o.d!" exclaimed Dr. Brown. "It is war that is upon us."

A fresh wave of horror deeper than any before swept their souls. "Surely he won't need to go," he said after a pause.

"But his regiment will be going," said Jane, whose face had become very pale and whose eyes were wide with horror. "His regiment will be going and," she added, "he will go too." The tears were quietly running down her face. She knew Jack Romayne and she had the courage to accept the truth which as yet her father put from his mind.

Dumb they sat, unschooled in language fitted to deal with the tides of emotion that surged round this new and overwhelming fact of war. Where next would this dread thing strike?

"Canada will doubtless send some troops," said Dr. Brown. "We sent to South Africa, let me see, was it five thousand?"

"More, I think, Papa," said Jane.

"We will send twice or three times that number this time," said Mr.

Murray.

And again silence fell upon them. They were each busy with the question who would go. Swiftly their minds ran over the homes of their friends and acquaintances.

"Well, Doctor," said Mr. Murray, with a great effort at a laugh, "you can't send your boy at any rate."

"No," said Dr. Brown. "But if my girl had been a boy, I fear I could not hold her. Eh, Jane?" But Jane only smiled a very doubtful smile in answer.

"We may all have to go, Doctor," said Mr. Murray. "If the war lasts long enough."

"Nonsense, James," said his wife with a quick glance at her two little girls. Her boy was fifteen. Thank G.o.d, she would not have to face the question of his duty in regard to war. "They would not be taking old men like you, James," she added.

Mr. Murray laughed at her. "Well, hardly, I suppose, my dear," he replied. "I rather guess we won't be allowed to share the glory this time, Doctor."

Dr. Brown sat silent for a few moments, then said quietly, "The young fellows, of course, will get the first chance."

"Oh, let's not talk about it," said Ethel. "Come, Jane, let's go exploring."

Jane rose.

"And me, too," cried Isabel.

"And me," cried Helen.

Ethel hesitated. "Let them come, Ethel," said Jane. "We shall go slowly."

An exploration of the island was always a thing of unmixed and varied delight. There were something over twenty-five acres of wooded hills running up to bare rocks, ravines deep in shrub and ferns, and lower levels thick with underbrush and heavy timber. Every step of the way new treasures disclosed themselves, ferns and gra.s.ses, shrubs and vines, and everywhere the wood flowers, shy and sweet. Everywhere, too, on fallen logs, on the grey rocks, and on the lower ground where the aromatic balsams and pines stood silent and thick, were mosses, mosses of all hues and depths. In the sunlit open s.p.a.ces gorgeous b.u.t.terflies and gleaming dragon flies fluttered and darted, bees hummed, and birds sang and twittered. There the children's voices were mingled in cheery shouts and laughter with the other happy sounds that filled the glades. But when they came to the dark pines, solemn and silent except when the wind moved in their ta.s.selled tops with mysterious, mournful whispering, the children hushed their voices and walked softly upon the deep moss.

"It is like being in church," said Helen, her little soul exquisitely sensitive to the mystic, fragrant silences and glooms that haunted the pine grove.

On a sloping hillside under the pines they lay upon the mossy bed, the children listening for the things that lived in these shadowy depths.

"They are all looking at us," said Isabel in a voice of awed mystery.

"Lots and lots of eyes are just looking, looking, and looking."

"Why, Isabel, you give me the creeps," laughed Jane. "Whisht! They'll hear you," said Isabel, darting swift glances among the trees.

"The dear things," said Jane. "They would love to play with you if they only knew how." This was quite a new idea to the children. Hitherto the shy things had been more a.s.sociated with fear than with play. "They would love to play tag with you," continued Jane, "round these trees, if you could only coax them out. They are so shy."

Stealthily the children began to move among the bushes, alert for the watching eyes and the shy faces of the wild things that made their homes in these dark dwellings. The girls sat silent, looking out through the interlacing boughs upon the gleam of the lake below. They dearly loved this spot. It was a favourite haunt with them, the very spot for confidence, and many a happy hour had they spent together here. To-day they sat without speech; there was nothing that they cared to talk about. It was only yesterday in this same place they had talked over all things under the sun. They had exchanged with each other their stores of kindly gossip about all their friends and their friends' friends. Only yesterday it was that Ethel for the twentieth time had gone over with Jane all the intricately perplexing and delightful details in regard to her coming-out party next winter. All the boys and girls were to be invited, and Jane was to help with the serving. It was only yesterday that in a moment of quite unusual frankness Ethel had read s.n.a.t.c.hes of a letter which had come from Macleod, who was out in a mission field in Saskatchewan. How they had laughed together, all in a kindly way, over the solemn, formal phrases of the young Scotch Canadian missionary, Ethel making sport of his solemnity and Jane warmly defending him. How they had talked over the boys' affairs, as girls will talk, and of their various loves and how they fared, and of the cruelties practised upon them. And last of all Ethel had talked of Larry, Jane listening warily the while and offering an occasional bit of information to keep the talk going. And all of this only yesterday; not ten years ago, or a year ago, but yesterday! And to-day not a word seemed possible. The world had changed over night. How different from that unshaded, sunny world of yesterday! How sunny it was but yesterday! Life now was a thing of different values. Ah, that was it. The values were all altered. Things big yesterday had shrunk almost to the point of disappearance to-day.

Things that yesterday seemed remote and vague, to-day filled their horizon, for some of them dark enough. Determined to ignore that gaunt Spectre standing there, in the shadow silent and grim, they would begin to talk on themes good yesterday for an hour's engrossing conversation, but before they were aware they had forgotten the subject of their talk and found themselves sitting together dumb and looking out upon the gleam of the waters, thinking, thinking and ever thinking, while nearer and ever more terrible moved the Spectre of War. It was like the falling of night upon their world. From the landscape things familiar and dear were blotted out, and in their place moved upon them strange shapes unreal and horrible.

At length they gave it up, called the children and went back to the others. At the dock they found a launch filled with visitors bringing news--great news and glorious. A big naval battle had been fought in the North Sea! Ten British battleships had been sunk, but the whole German fleet had been destroyed! For the first time war took on some colour.

Crimson and purple and gold began to shoot through the sombre black and grey. A completely new set of emotions filled their hearts, a new sense of exultation, a new pride in that great British Navy which hitherto had been a mere word in a history book, or in a song. The children who, after their manner, were quickest to catch and to carry on to their utmost limits the emotions of the moment, were jubilantly triumphant.

Some of them were carrying little Union Jacks in their hands. For the first time in their lives that flag became a thing of pride and power, a thing to shout for. It stood for something invisible but very real. Even their elders were not insensible to that something. Hitherto they had taken that flag for granted. They had hung it out of their windows on Empire Day or on Dominion Day as a patriotic symbol, but few of them would have confessed, except in a half-shamed, apologetic way, to any thrill at the flapping of that bit of bunting. They had shrunk from a display of patriotic emotion. They were not like their American cousins, who were ever ready to rave over Old Glory. That sort of emotional display was un-Canadian, un-British. But to-day somehow the flag had changed. The flag had changed because it fluttered in a new world, a new light fell upon it, the light of battle. It was a war flag to-day. Men were fighting under it, were fighting for all it represented, were dying under its folds, and proudly and gladly.

"And all the men will go to fight, your father and my father, and all the big boys," Ethel heard a little friend confide to Isabel.