The Silver Maple Part 24

The old man accepted the hospitality gratefully. He appeared worn and exhausted, and seemed to have suddenly lost his restless energy, as though the spur which had driven him forth in the night had been removed.

Scotty made a comfortable seat for him of cedar boughs placed against a large tree trunk, and stirred up the fire to a blaze. Its rays danced forth, lighting up the worn face and white hair of the old man seated before it, and the strong frame of the young one standing erect in splendid contrast. The light made the log walls of the old shanty stand forth, touched here and there the fantastic heaps of dead brushwood and misshapen stumps, illumined the underside of the adjacent trees and danced away down the dim avenues to be lost among the ghostly shadows.

And while his host prepared supper, the minister beguiled the time by asking after all his friends in the Oa and the Glen, especially the Highlanders, for Mr. McAlpine was not above possessing a little weakness for anyone who spoke the Gaelic. And then he must know what the young man was doing, and how he came to be there.

Scotty answered his questions in the distantly respectful manner that all the Glenoro youth had been wont to show this man. He explained his sudden excursion to the woods as merely a natural desire to be out of doors. He told something too of his life with Raye & Hemming in Barbay, but he had all the reticence of his cla.s.s and kin, and the minister learned little from what he said.

And while they conversed the elder man was watching the younger with the keen eye of a detective. For to old John McAlpine every soul with whom he came in contact was a burden to be carried until it was laid safely at the foot of the cross, and he was yearning to know if this young man, so respectful and kindly of manner, had yet had his heart touched by Divine love.

He tried to read the dark, young face in the light of the dancing flames, noting every feature--the intellectual brow, the kind, bright eyes, the mouth, still boyish, and showing some wilfulness and impatience of rule; the resolute chin. A good face, the man concluded, with rare possibilities. But he was convinced before the conversation closed that its owner was not a follower of the meek and lowly One.

For the minister was a marvellous reader of character, and in spite of Scotty's reserve, before the evening was gone he had allowed his guest to discover that he intended to carve out his own destiny as he desired, fearless of consequences.

When everything was in readiness for the night, and the young man had returned from making up a second bed in the shanty, the minister drew up close to the fire and took from his pocket a Bible.

He slowly turned over the leaves, praying earnestly that he might be guided in his choice to something that would touch this young man's soul. The 139th Psalm caught his eye, and the deep voice slowly and solemnly read:

"O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thoughts afar off.... Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in h.e.l.l, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me."

Leaning back against a fallen tree trunk, his face partially hidden in shadow, Scotty listened intently. Had this man been sent out of the darkness of the forest to show him how foolhardy were his attempts to escape from G.o.d? For had he not been saying to himself all these past months that surely the darkness of secrecy would cover his wrongdoing; that somehow he would escape from G.o.d.

He had not read the Bible since he left home, and the old familiar words, coming like a long-lost friend, struck him with their inevitable truth. His rest in the lap of nature had brought him to himself; he saw things with a clearer vision, and he realised now that the fierce yearning to be away which had driven him to the forest had been really the desire to escape the Eye that never sleeps. The longing to take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea had been upon him, and here G.o.d's messenger had met him, and he stood like a hunted animal at bay.

The minister read on without pause almost to the end, and then stopped.

There were two more verses, Scotty well knew; he and Isabel had learned that Psalm years ago at Granny's knee. "Search me, O G.o.d, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." He looked up half-inquiringly as the voice ceased. The minister smiled comprehendingly.

"I see you know what follows," he said; "it is a great thing to be grounded in the Scriptures in youth. Do you know why I stopped?"

"No," said Scotty, in a whisper.

"Because the next is a verse I hardly dare to read. It is a fearful thing to ask the Almighty G.o.d to search the heart, for there are wicked ways in us, many and deep." He began slowly turning over the leaves again, and Scotty waited with a strange dread of what was coming.

The pa.s.sage was from the challenging words that came to Job out of the whirlwind, and like a whirlwind they swept over the young man's soul.

"Who is this that darkeneth counsel, by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins, like a man, for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me."

He paused a moment and his listener held his breath. To him the words did not seem to be spoken by man, but seemed to come out of the whispering darkness of the great forest.

"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.... Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the cornerstone thereof; when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of G.o.d shouted for joy?"

Scotty's heart suddenly swelled. This great Jehovah was speaking directly to him; the Jehovah whose inexorable laws were written in man's very being, as well as in His Book. And he, His creature, was about to set them aside, declaring that he would walk as seemed right in his own eyes.

But the minister was still reading. "Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the day-spring to know his place?... Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?... Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?"

Scotty listened with heart and ears, and when the minister came at last to Job's confession, he felt he could echo the words, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes."

The amber column of smoke rising straight to the circle of sky was suddenly touched with a silver radiance. Up from behind the dark island the moon had arisen, radiant and burnished, and was sending a long shimmering pathway across the deep blue of Lake Simcoe. Scotty's eyes followed its glint between the tree trunks and the words came over him again, "Now mine eye seeth thee." But when the minister paused he came back to realities. Another picture rose before him, the sweet face of the girl he loved, the one whom he was to win by keeping in the path wherein he now walked. A look of defiance flitted across his face. No. He would go on. He could never give up now!

But the leaves had rustled again, and now the minister had resumed his word pictures. This time they were not of the mighty Jehovah, just, unapproachable, omnipotent; but of the lonely Man of Nazareth standing by the lakeside and calling the fishermen to Him, and then on to Calvary when He said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The elder man's keen eyes saw the tokens of a conflict in the other's face, and he was too wise to address him directly. His occasional remarks had the effect of soliloquies, but they plunged Scotty's soul in the valley of shadows.

He was thinking how all his life he had been compa.s.sed about. He knew now that what he had called hedging circ.u.mstances had been G.o.d's very Hand. His grandmother's faithful teachings had guided his careless boyish feet; his grandfather's falls from the high position he had set himself were graphic object-lessons to teach the value of righteousness; Monteith's influence had kept him in the right way, and now how dared he turn aside of his own will?

But what was the minister reading now? What but the story of a young man, one so goodly and commendable in person and character that the Master had regarded him with an especial feeling of comradeship; but there was one thing he refused to give up, and he turned his back upon the Saviour of mankind and went away sorrowful, "for his possessions were very great." And Scotty's possessions were great also--those he was about to reach out and seize, infinitely beyond the value of gold and silver, and he wanted to turn away, too, but something held him.

The minister glanced at the young man's face, and knew his heart had been touched. He closed the Book. "Let us pray," he said, and rising, knelt by the side of a moss-grown log. But Scotty did not kneel; he sat erect, staring with desperate eyes into the fire, and striving with all the force of his will to harden his heart. To his relief the old man made no remark upon his strange conduct when he arose from his knees, but at once went to his bed in the shanty. Some subtle instinct told him the young man would be better alone.

Long after he had retired Scotty walked up and down before the fire, fighting out the old, weary battle; but now with a fury as if for life.

To go on with his work at Raye & Hemming's now in the light of what had come to him this night would be, he knew, to cast aside all the teachings of his lifetime--the teachings of Granny, of experience, yes, even of Monteith, for he realised now they had all come from G.o.d, and were one. He was down in the valley of the shadows, and the rod and staff were of no comfort to him, for they meant pain and renunciation.

He could not give up Captain Herbert's friendship and Isabel; he could not go on. The fire had died down to a red eye looking sullenly out of the smoky darkness, the moon had sunk behind the forest ring, and out of the blackness of night came a sensation of approaching change, a hint that the dawn was near. As Scotty, pale and haggard, stood looking into the dying fire, a step aroused him and the minister was by his side.

"Why, sir," he cried in surprise, "you will surely not be getting up yet. It is quite dark."

"I was not sleeping," said the old man. "I could not but watch you,"

he added gently, "for I cannot but see you are carrying a burden; one heavy for your time of life, my lad, and I wondered if I could be of any help."

All Scotty's mental att.i.tude of defiance melted away before this gentle sympathy. He was silent, simply through the inability to speak, and the minister continued, "Do not speak of it if you would rather not. I would not force your confidence, but just come and we will pray about it, and you will tell the Father and He will be making it right."

Scotty turned with a gesture of defeat. To pray was the last thing he desired to do, it meant surrender; but this time he knelt obediently at the minister's side by the dying fire.

And as he bowed his head he was suddenly startled by the words that broke forth. It seemed as if all his own soul's struggle had been transferred to the man at his side. Old John McAlpine had a wondrous gift of prayer, one that never failed to cast a solemn spell over his hearers, and to-night he pleaded for the soul of this young man as if for his life. His big hands were knotted, the perspiration stood in beads on his white forehead, and his agonised voice rose and went ringing away into the forest. Scotty was awesomely reminded of One who prayed in a garden, quite unlike this one of nature's wild making, and sweat drops of blood because of the sin he was to bear. And before the minister had ceased it seemed as if that other One came to his side and took up the pet.i.tion, for Scotty felt his worldly desires slip from him like a garment. The struggle was over. Henceforth there could be no indecision, for he was not his own, but had been bought with a price.

When they arose from their knees the darkness had suddenly become transparent. A mysterious rustle and whisper of awakening life was on all sides, the dawn was on the point of breaking. Scotty's fire, like his worldly hopes, had died down to pale ashes, but far out on the faintly grey bosom of Lake Simcoe, and away beyond its dark forest-ring, soon to put all lesser lights to shame in their triumphant blaze, were kindling the fires of Heaven.

XIV

THE VOYAGEURS

Oh, the East is but the West, with the sun a little hotter; And the pine becomes a palm by the dark Egyptian water; And the Nile's like many a stream we know that fills its br.i.m.m.i.n.g cup; We'll think it is the Ottawa as we track the batteaux up!

Pull, pull, pull! as we track the batteaux up!

It's easy shooting homeward when we're at the top.

--WILLIAM WYE SMITH.

The Imperial transport, _Ocean King_, had loosed from her moorings at Montreal and was swinging down with the tide of the mighty St.

Lawrence, and on her deck, many leaning eagerly over the railing to get a last glimpse of home, stood some four hundred stalwart sons of the Maple Land. Great, strong fellows they were, all with the iron muscles and steady, clear eyes of the expert riverman. For these were the famous voyageurs, trained from childhood on the rapids and cataracts of Canadian streams and summoned now to the help of the mother country on the ancient river of Egypt.

When Lord Wolseley found himself face to face with the tremendous task of reaching Gordon far up the hostile Nile, he remembered the a.s.sistance he had received in an earlier expedition in a western land from the daring, untiring, cool-headed, warm-hearted Canadian boatmen.

And he asked that once more they might give him aid. And here they were, the best the country could produce, a rollicking, light-hearted crew, ready for anything--adventure, hard work, danger, death.

Among those who stood longest gazing at the receding land were two who had begun their years of apprenticeship for this great day on the little, noisy, foaming stream that scolded its way into the Oro river.