The Second Chance Part 41

"I want to speak to you for a few minutes," he said.

She opened the door and led him into the little parlour.

"Mrs. Cavers, I know that my presence is full of bitter memories for you," he began. "You have no reason to think kindly of me, I well know; but no one else could do this for me, or I would not force myself on you this way----"

She interrupted him. "You were kind to me and my little girl once; you did for us what few would have done. I have never thanked you, but I have always been and always will be grateful; and when I think of you--that is what I remember."

There was a silence between them for a few seconds. Then he spoke.

"I don't know how to begin to say what I want to say. I did you a great wrong--you, and others, too; not willfully, but I did it just the same. I can never make amends. Oh, forgive me for talking about making amends--but you're not the only one who has suffered; it's with me night and day. I can see Bill's face that day--on the river-bank! I liked Bill, too. As you know, I closed the bar that day forever, but it was too late--to help Bill."

Mrs. Cavers was holding the back of a chair, her face colourless and drawn.

"I heard a few days ago that you were coming back to Manitoba to work, to earn your living and the little girl's. I can't stand that--I had to come--Oh, don't scorn me like that--let me help you.

If it had not been for my bar you would have had plenty. I want you to take this; it's the deed of a half-section of land near Brandon--it will keep you in plenty. I'm a blundering fellow--I've put it roughly, but G.o.d knows I mean it all right."

He stopped and wiped the perspiration from his face.

"I can't take it," Mrs. Cavers said, without moving.

"You must!" he cried, moving nearer to her. "Don't refuse! Oh, Mrs.

Cavers, you were merciful to me once--do you mind how you held out your hand to me that day? G.o.d bless you, it was like a drop of water to a man in h.e.l.l. Have mercy now; take a little of the burden from a guilty man's heart."

"I do forgive you freely, and I wish you well, but--I--I--can't take your money," she whispered hoa.r.s.ely.

He walked up and down the room for a few moments, then turned to her again.

"Mrs. Cavers, I've been a guilty man, careless and hard, but that day--on the river-bank--I saw things as I never saw them before, and I'm trying to be square. My mother"--his voice broke and his eyes glistened--"my mother has been in heaven twenty years. She always told me about G.o.d's mercy to--the very worst--that He turned no one down that came to Him. My mother was that kind herself, and knowing her--has made it easier for me to believe that--G.o.d is always merciful--and always willing--to give a fellow a--a second chance. I can't look for it or ask it until--you take this. Now, Mrs. Cavers, I know you don't like me--why should you?--but won't you take it?"

She hesitated, and was about to refuse again, when he suddenly seized her arm and compelled her to meet his gaze.

"For G.o.d's sake!" he cried.

Mrs. Cavers took the doc.u.ment in her trembling hands.

Sandy Braden turned to leave the room, but she detained him.

"Mr. Braden," she almost whispered, her voice was so low, "I have a mother like yours, one who makes it easy to believe that G.o.d is always loving and kind--I want her to thank you for me. Tell her all about it--she'll understand, just like your own mother would--these dear old mothers are all the same."

Mrs. Cavers went back to the veranda and brought her mother into the parlour; then she went out, leaving them alone.

What pa.s.sed between them no one ever knew, but an hour later Sandy Braden went out from the little white cottage with a new light shining in his face, and the peace of G.o.d, which pa.s.ses all understanding, in his heart. He went back into the world that day destined to do a strong man's part in the years to come.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

THE LURE OF LOVE AND THE WEST

If you've heard the wild goose honking, if you've seen the sunlit plain, If you've breathed the smell of ripe grain, dewy, wet, You may go away and leave it, say you will not come again, But it's in your blood, you never can forget.

THERE is a belief, to which many sentimental people still hold, in spite of all contradictory evidence, that marriages are arranged in heaven, and that no amount of earthly wire-pulling can alter the decrees of the Supreme Court. Many beautiful sentiments have been expressed, bearing on this alluring theme, but none more comprehensive than Aunt Kate Shenstone's brief summary: "You'll get whoever is for ye, and that's all there is to it."

Theoretically, Mrs. Burrell was a believer in this doctrine of non-resistance, modified, however, by the fact that she also believed in the existence of earthly representatives of the heavenly matrimonial bureau, to whom is entrusted the pleasing duty of selecting and pairing. Of this glorious company, Mrs. Burrell believed herself a member in good standing, and one who stood high upon the honour roll. Therefore, having decided that Arthur should marry Martha Perkins she proceeded to arrange the match with a boldness that must have made the angels tremble.

She planned an evening party, and wrote to Arthur asking him to bring Martha, but forgot to send Martha an invitation, which rather upset her plans, for Martha declined to go. Mrs. Burrell, however, not to be outdone, took Arthur aside and talked to him very seriously about his matrimonial prospects; but Arthur brought the conversation to an abrupt close by telling her he had not the slightest intention of marrying, and had quite made up his mind to go back to England as soon as the harvest was over.

When Mrs. Burrell was telling her husband about it she was almost in tears.

"If he goes to England, John, we'll never see him again; he'll marry an English girl--I know it. They're so thick over there he can't help it, when he sees so many dangling after him! He'll just have to marry one of them."

"To thin them out, I suppose you mean," her husband said, smiling.

"Don't worry, anyway, and above all things, don't interfere. Leave something for Providence to do."

After Mrs. Cavers and Libby Anne had gone, life in the Perkins's home settled down to its old pleasing monotony. The schoolmaster found Martha a willing and apt pupil, and came to look forward with pleasure to the evenings he spent helping her to understand the world in which she was living. Dr. Emory paid his regular visits, seeking with the magic arts of music to draw Arthur's thoughts down the pleasant lanes of love. Pearl Watson, like a true general, kept a strict oversight of everything, but apparently took no active part herself; only on Sat.u.r.day afternoons, which she usually spent with Martha, she had Martha tell her the stories she had read during the week. At first the telling was haltingly done, for Martha was not gifted with fluent speech, but under the spell of Pearl's sympathetic listening, her story-telling powers developed amazingly.

When the summer days came, with their wealth of flowers and singing birds, to Martha the whole face of Nature seemed changed; she heard new music in the meadowlark's ringing note, and the plaintive piping of the whippoorwill. The wild roses' fragrant beauty, the gorgeous colouring of the tiger-lilies and moccasin flowers, the changing hues of the grainfields at noon-day as the drifting clouds threw racing shadows over them, were all possessed of a new charm, a new power to thrill her heart, for the old miracle of love and hope had come to Martha, the old witchery that has made "blue skies bluer and green things greener," for us all. There was the early rising in the dewy mornings when the river-valley was filled with silvery mist, through which the trees loomed gray and ghostly; there was the quivering heat of noonday, that played strange tricks on the southern horizon, when even the staid old Tiger Hills seemed to pulsate with the joy of summer; and, then the evenings, when the day's work was done, and the western sky was all aglow with crimson and gold.

One quiet Sunday evening in harvest time, Martha and Arthur stood beside the lilac hedge and watched the sun going down behind the Brandon Hills. Before them stretched the long field of ripening grain. There was hardly a leaf stirring on the trees over their heads, but the tall grain rustled and whispered of the abundance of harvest.

As they listened to the rustling of the wheat Martha said: "I have been trying to think what it sounds like, but can think of nothing better than the bursting of soap-bubbles on a tub of water, and that's a very unpoetical comparison."

"I think it's a very good one, though," Arthur said, absently.

"And it seems to whisper: 'Plenty, plenty, plenty,' as if it would tell us we need not rush and worry so," she went on. "I love to listen to it. It has such a contented sound."

Arthur sighed wearily, and looking up, Martha saw his face was sad with bitter memories.

"What is it, Arthur?" she said, drawing nearer in quick sympathy.

"I'm all right," he answered quickly, but, with an effort; "just a little bit blue, perhaps."

"How can anyone be blue to-night with everything so beautiful and full of promise?" Martha cried.

"There are other things--beside these," he said gloomily.

Martha shrank back at his words, for she knew of whom he was thinking. Then a sudden rage seized her, and she turned and faced him with a new light burning in her eyes.

"You must forget her!" she cried. "You must! She cares nothing for you. She, never loved you, or she would not have treated you so badly. She soon let you go when she got what she thought, was a better chance. Why do you go on loving her?" She seized his arm and shook him. "It's foolish, it's weak--why do you do it? I wouldn't waste a thought on any one who cares nothing for me--it isn't--it isn't----" she stopped abruptly, and the colour surged into her pale face.

"Oh, Arthur, forgive me for speaking so." All the anger had gone from her voice. "I cannot bear to see you so unhappy. Try to forget her.

The world is wide and beautiful."

In the western sky a band of crimson circled the horizon.