The Prospector Part 9

Then Shock proceeded, after his habit, to give his mother a full share of what he had been enjoying. Mrs. Macgregor listened intently, pausing now and then in her knitting to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e, "Well-a-well!" "Look at that, now!" "Hear to him!" When Shock had finished, Brown broke in: "It was truly magnificent, I a.s.sure you, Mrs. Macgregor, and the enthusiasm of the man! And his yarns! Oh, he is truly, great!"

"And what would he be doing at the college?" enquired the old lady.

"There would not be much money there, I doubt."

"Men, mother, men," cried Shock with some excitement. "Volunteers for the Great West, and a hard time he is having, too, what with the foreign field, and needy vacancies in this country, and city pulpits, and the like."

Mrs. Macgregor sat silent, her needles flying fast and her lips pressed together.

"I wish you could have heard him, Mrs. Macgregor," said Brown, enthusiastically. "He has a tongue like a rasp, and at times it takes off the skin. That was fine, Shock, about the fellows who could not give him answer till they had asked the Lord about it. 'I find a good many men,' the old chap said, 'who, after anxiously enquiring as to the work expected of them, remuneration, prospects of advance, etc., always want to lay the matter before the Lord before giving their answer. And I am beginning to think that the Lord has some grudge against the West, for almost invariably He appears to advise these men to leave it severely alone.' Oh, it was great!" Little Brown hugged his knee in delight at the memory of that rasping tongue.

"But surely there are plenty of men," said Mrs. Macgregor a little impatiently, "for there's no want of them whateffer when a congregation falls vacant."

"That's so," replied Brown; "but you see he wants only first-cla.s.s men--men ready for anything in the way of hardship, and not to be daunted by man or devil."

"Ou ay!" said the old lady, nodding her head grimly; "he will not be finding so many of yon kind."

"But it must be a great country," went on Brown. "You ought to bear him tell of the rivers with sands of gold, running through beds of coal sixty feet thick."

The old lady shook her cap at him, peering over her gla.s.ses. "Ye're a gay callant, and you will be taking your fun off me."

"But it's true. Ask Shock there."

"What?" said Shock, waking up from a deep study. Brown explained.

"Yes," said Shock. "The sands of the Saskatchewan are full of gold, and you know, mother, about the rivers in Cariboo."

"Ay, I remember fine the Cariboo, and Cariboo Cameron and his gold. But not much good did it do him, poor fellow."

"But," said Shock, gazing into the fire, "it was terrible to hear his tales of these men in the mines with their saloons and awful gambling places, and the men and women in their lonely shacks in the foot-hills.

My! I could see them all."

Mrs. Macgregor looked sharply into her son's face, then laying her knitting down in her lap she turned to him and said severely, "And what took them out yonder? And did they not know what-na country it was before they went out?"

"Yes," said Shock, still looking into the fire, "but there they are, Mother, there they are, and no living soul to speak a good word to them."

"Well then," said the old lady, even more impatiently, "let them put up with it, as better before them have done to their credit, ay, and to their good as well."

"Meantime the saloons and worse are getting them," replied Shock, "and fine fellows they are, too, he says."

"And is yon man wanting the lads from the college to go out yonder to those terrible-like mines and things so far from their homes? Why does he not send the men who are wanting places?" Mrs. Macgregor's tone was unusually sharp. Both Shock and Brown looked at her in surprise.

"Yes, you may look," she went on, "but I say let them that's not needed here go out yonder, and there will be plenty of them, I warrant."

"'And they'd none of them be missed,'" sang Brown.

"I doubt they wouldn't do," said Shock, shaking his head sadly.

"Well, mother," cried Brown, "you'll have a chance of hearing him yourself to-morrow morning, for he is going to preach in your church, I see."

The old lady shrugged her shoulders. "Indeed, and I wish our meenister wouldn't be so ready with his pulpit for every Bill and Bob that comes the way. He will not be needing a rest again, will he?"

Shock gazed at his mother in sheer amazement. He had never seen her like this before. This bitter impatience was so unlike her usual calm, dignified self-control.

"But mother," he ventured, "the cause will be needing money and the people will need to hear about it, surely."

"Oh, as to that," she answered in a relieved tone, "it is not much that we can give, but what we can we will, and, indeed, there are many of them in that Kirk that would be the better of giving a little of their money. But, lad," she added as if dismissing a painful subject, "you must be at your books."

"Which means I must go. I know you, Mother Macgregor," said Brown, using his pet name for the woman who had for two years been more of a mother to him than his own.

"Ay, and within a few weeks you will be wishing, as well, that someone had set you to your books, for the examinators will be upon you."

"And, doubtless, shear me as bare as Delilah did Samson of old. But I am not promising you I am going to work. My physician warns me against work on Sat.u.r.day nights, so I am going to hunt up The Don."

"Indeed then, you will know well where to look for him," said the old lady shrewdly.

"Ah, mother, you're too sharp for any of us. Not much escapes your eyes."

"Indeed, one does not require eyes to see some things, and yon laddie is daft enough."

"Daft's the word," said Brown, "and has been for the last three years.

Is not it astonishing and profoundly humiliating," he added solemnly, "to see a chit of a girl, just because she has brown curls and brown eyes with a most bewildering skill in using them, so twiddle a man? It pa.s.ses my comprehension."

The old lady shook her head at him. "Wait you, my lad. Your day will come."

"I hear The Don has got the offer of a great appointment in connection with the new railway in that country and I fear that means trouble for him. There are those who would be delighted to see him out of the way for a couple of years or so."

But the old lady would not gossip, so Brown was forced to drop the subject with the remark, "But I'll do what I can to a.s.sist the Fates, and I'll begin by bringing both those young ladies to hear your big gun to-morrow if I can, Shock. They ought to know more about their own country."

Shock glanced up quickly as if to speak, but seemed to think better of it and poked the fire instead.

"I doubt they would be more profited in their own church," said Mrs.

Macgregor. "'Traivellin' sheep are sair tae keep,' as they say in the South country. No, it's little enough the poor things will be getting in yon church of theirs with their read prayers and their bit sairmon--a sairmonette, they will be calling it. Ay, a sairmonette!"

The old lady indulged herself in a quiet chuckle of indescribable contempt.

"Why, mother," said Shock in a reproving tone, "don't you know that their minister is just a splendid preacher. There is no better in the city."

"And that's not saying much," said the old lady. "But I'm glad to hear it."

"My! mother, but you are censorious to-night. You can't expect to find men like Candlish, Chalmers, and Macdonald of Ferintosh in every age."

"Ay," said the old lady with an emphatic shake of her head, "and that's a true word. Men like yon are not to be found, and like McCheyae and Burns and Guthrie and the rest of them. Oh! it iss manys the Sabbath morning when I wa.s.s a la.s.s that I walked with my shoes and stockings in my hand down the glen to hear these men preach. And yon was the preaching. Yon was the preaching. None of your puny, peeping, fifteen-meenute sairmonettes, but preaching, terrible heart-smiting preaching." The old lady had ceased her knitting and was sitting erect in her chair gazing straight before her. The young men sat silent, fearing to break the spell that was upon her, and waiting eagerly for what they knew was coming.

"Man! man!" she continued, "those were the days! and those were the men! I have heard such preaching as would cause your heart to quake within you, and make you to listen with the fear of death upon you lest it should stop."

"It must have been terrible preaching, indeed," said Brown softly.

"Terrible! ay, terrible's the word. Lad, lad," said the old lady, turning upon Brown her piercing blue-grey eyes, "in the old Mullin Church I have seen the very rafters throbbing, and strong men and women swaying like the tree-tops in the glen while Burns was raging forth upon them like the Tummel in spate, while visions of the eternal things--the throne of G.o.d and the Judgment Day--filled our eyes." She paused a few moments and then sinking back into her chair she went on, "Ay, terrible preaching, yon, like the storm-blast sweeping the hillsides and rending the firs in the Pa.s.s. Yes! yes! But gentle at times and winning, like the rain falling soft at night, wooing at the bluebells and the daisies in the glen, or like a mother croonin over the babe at her breast, till men wept for love and longing after Himself. Ay, lad, lad, yon was the preaching."

There was a long silence while they waited for her to continue.