The Silver Maple Part 28

The place was so little changed in the two years he could almost believe he had never left it. He noticed only one radical difference.

Pete Nash's establishment had disappeared. The tavern had not been able to withstand the united progress of commerce and righteousness; Mr. Cameron's advent had heralded its downfall, and the toot of the railway train through Oro had sounded its death knell.

Big Malcolm had not finished dilating upon the blessing its departure had been to the community, when they reached the post office. A crowd stood collected about it, eager but quiet. They hid their concern in the true rural fashion and stood leaning against every available support with supreme indifference, shoulders high, hands in pockets, caps on one side. Store Thompson was more ceremonious. Before Scotty could alight, out he came with hands outstretched in greeting. He had prepared an elaborate speech of welcome, adorned with all the available polysyllables in the dictionary; but, when he saw Scotty's familiar face, his eyes shining with the joy of his home-coming, and Big Malcolm, erect and full of fire as though he had suddenly dropped twenty years of his life, his heart got the better of his head and he could only shake the voyageur's hand again and again and say:

"Aye, ye're home again. Aye, ye've jist come home, like!"

And then out bustled Store Thompson's wife, who was as blithe and brisk as she had been twenty years before, and she had no difficulty in kissing Scotty this time, though she had to stand on tip-toe to do it.

And at last the crowd flung off its lethargy and one by one came forward in greeting. Dan had already arrived and was resplendent amid the whole population of the Flats; and not the Flats only, for such a cosmopolitan crowd had not been seen in the Glen since the old days of the fights. There were all the Murphys and the Caldwells and, of course, every MacDonald from far and near. And Hash Tucker had brought over a goodly representation of the Tenth to do honour to his old schoolmates. Scotty had got through only half the hand shakes when the minister came up from the manse to welcome the boys and tell them they had made him proud of Canada.

Scotty found, somewhat to the dismay of his reticent soul, that Dan had been spreading abroad the story of his gallant rescue of an English officer against overwhelming odds, and the ovation he received was particularly trying.

"It's a pity you couldn't have kept your long, Irish tongue still for a day!" he grumbled, and Dan laughed and thumped him soundly upon the chest for an ungrateful and stony-hearted old Scotchman.

The two were standing, the centre of a breathless ring, while Dan, with true Irish fluency, described the fight at Kirbekan, when the sound of rapidly approaching wheels partly diverted the attention of the audience.

"Eh, yon must be the Captain an' his family jist gettin' home," said Store Thompson, turning away to welcome the new arrivals. For, since the departure of the tavern, Store Thompson was public host in the Glen. Scotty heard and felt his heart leap into his mouth. Would she be there?

The wheels were stopping. "That'll be his son most like, the young man," he heard someone say above the buzzing in his ears. "He's been away in the wars."

Captain Herbert's voice came next, "No, thank you, James, not to-night; we just want to water the horses. But what's all this? You haven't lapsed into the old warlike days in my absence, I hope?"

And then Scotty shoved Dan aside and looked up. Yes, there she was, and not at all pale and ill as his heart had feared, but smiling and flushed like a wild rose. And her eyes were looking a welcome straight into his, over the heads of the people; such a welcome as not all the love of his own kin had been able to give.

And the next instant a marvellous thing happened, a thing that astounded all the spectators and left them amazed and gaping. For the pale young man at Captain Herbert's side suddenly leaped to his feet as though he had gone mad. He gave a shout, "_Big Scalper!_" and the same moment he had cleared the carriage wheels and several people's heads and had flung himself upon Scotty and delivered him a blow that sent him staggering back against the verandah. And instead of resenting such outrageous treatment, as any right-minded descendant of the Fighting MacDonalds should, Scotty submitted very meekly. In a laughing, half-ashamed manner he allowed himself to be pounded and shaken, and when his a.s.sailant had almost wrung his hands off, even permitted himself to be dragged up to the carriage wheels.

"Father!" cried the young man, his voice high with excitement, "it's the very fellow himself! It's Big Scalper!"

At that Dan Murphy uttered a yell that made the topmost pine on the Oro banks ring.

"It's the English spalpeen!" he roared to the dumbfounded crowd. "It's the cratur Scotty pulled out o' the black divils in Agypt. Oh, hooray!"

It seemed as if all the township of Oro joined him in one mighty shout.

Some said afterwards that even Store Thompson cheered, though most people believed that the excitement of the moment gave birth to that wild rumour. But certain it is that an equally wonderful thing happened, for at the sound of the uproar the minister turned back from the manse gate, and when he was made aware of the cause, he actually waved his hat in the air and made everyone give three more cheers.

And such a prodigious handshaking ensued that Scotty was almost overcome. Captain Herbert acted as if he could never let him go; and there was Store Thompson and the minister and half the crowd to shake hands with again, and it seemed to Scotty that every second man was the young Egyptian officer, and he found to his amus.e.m.e.nt that even that absurd Dan was greeting him as though they had not met for years!

But he was only half-conscious of it all, only half realised what it meant even when Miss Herbert took both his hands in hers and whispered softly: "G.o.d bless you, my boy." For he could see nothing but Isabel's face and her blue eyes swimming in happy tears, and felt only her clinging hands as she whispered brokenly: "Oh, Scotty, isn't it wonderful, wonderful?" And Scotty knew that even she did not quite realise just how wonderful it was.

Then, amid all the expressions of good will, Big Malcolm stepped forward and held out his hand to Captain Herbert. It was grasped warmly and the old man felt, with a great uplifting of his spirit, that his last forgiveness was accomplished and his last feud buried.

It was very late that night when the company broke up and Scotty found himself at home once more. Monteith had returned with him, and as he took his leave the young man accompanied him to the gate.

"I wanted a chance to tell you, before I go," he said, as they paused in the moonlight, "that you were right, after all, Ralph."

"In giving up?" asked Scotty eagerly. "Is it because of what you saw this afternoon?"

"No; the reward of a right act doesn't always come so suddenly; but because I have learned something since you went away, something that your grandmother taught me up there under the Silver Maple. I know now that when a man has once realised what the Great Sacrifice means he cannot choose his own way."

And Scotty went up to his old bed in the loft and lay listening to the branches of the Silver Maple softly caressing the roof, unable to sleep for joy and thankfulness.

The days that followed were very busy ones. Scotty was often at the Grange; not altogether because inclination turned his feet thither, but because there was much business to settle. Lieutenant Herbert wanted to return soon to England, and he would not leave until his new friend had received due rest.i.tution and more. Scotty wanted nothing; the look in Isabel's eyes was enough, but Harold would not listen. No, he must have the Grange and all that pertained to it, he declared; for the Captain and his sister had long thought of going back to England to end their days. "So," he concluded, "when you are through that college course, which it appears you must take, you and Bluebell can settle down here to farming; and good luck go with you, because I don't envy you your lot!"

But Scotty and Isabel cared very little whether they were envied or not. Their own happiness was sufficient.

And so Ralph Stanwell came into his inheritance at last, and by the right road, the road of truth and equity, which, though it may often descend by the way of the cross, is sure and straight and leadeth unto life eternal.

The day before he left to take up his studies in the city, Scotty went down to the Grange and brought Isabel up, ostensibly to spend the day with Kirsty, but really because they wanted to say farewell among their old haunts. The girl had spent the afternoon at Big Malcolm's and as evening fell and Scotty prepared to take her home, they went round to the side of the house and sat for a few moments under the Silver Maple.

Lake Oro was a sea of gems flashing between the dusky points of the fir trees. The hilltops were flushed with rose, the valleys steeped in purple, and the vesper sparrows filled the golden twilight with their music.

"Scotty," said the girl softly, "I've been reminded all day of the psalm Granny Malcolm taught us here--'Thou hast beset me behind and before and hast laid Thine Hand upon me!'"

And Scotty, whose mind held the vivid remembrance of a great temptation, to which he had almost yielded and from which he had been saved that wonderful night in the wilderness, added: "'Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain unto it.'"

And a little breeze, dancing up from the golden bosom of Lake Oro, tossed the green canopy above their heads and showed that every dark emerald leaf had its silver lining.

THE END