Treasure Valley Part 24

He was sitting up in bed now, shrouded in blankets, a smile of content illuminating his face, while the buzzing little machine on the table at his side was grinding out a Sousa march.

The stern look on the doctor's face startled the young man. He stared in perturbation.

"Is anybody dead?" he whispered.

"Jump up quick," said the doctor sharply, "and run down and feed Speed right away; I want her again in a few minutes, do you understand? Then go down to the track when Lauchie stops, and give him a telegram I want sent on. Tell him I'm not going to Toronto."

On the third day of the new year, when John McIntyre was quite out of danger, Gilbert went over to Mrs. Winters' to ask if she could do something to make the man's surroundings more comfortable. This was just the opportunity for which the village manager had been longing ever since the watchman had taken up his residence at the Drowned Lands. She organized a housecleaning brigade, and every woman in the place joined the ranks. Old Hughie Cameron drove them down the ravine in Sandy McQuarry's big sleigh, and they descended upon John McIntyre's establishment, and soaked and washed and scrubbed until there seemed no small danger of the little shanty's joining the Drowned Lands under a deluge of soapy water. They brought all sorts of comforts, too. Miss Arabella donated her bedroom rug with the purple robins. Miss McQuarry brought bedclothes, Mrs. Winters a feather mattress, and the Longs cooking utensils; and they made beef-tea and chicken broth and jellies, until, from fearing that his patient might die of neglect, the doctor changed to apprehensions lest he be killed with over-attention.

When the rush and excitement of it was all over Gilbert felt as though he had fallen from some great height, and was not yet certain how badly he was hurt. That he had grievously offended Rosalie this time he was a.s.sured. She would listen to no explanations. He might have come if he had wanted, she declared; and when he humbly asked if he might not come yet, he was answered by a newspaper with a paragraph in the society column marked. Miss Rosalie Lane, it stated, was visiting friends in New York.

Harwood went back to the city, and, left alone, Gilbert was too busy to speculate much upon his wrongs. He put them behind him manfully, his indignation at the unfairness of Rosalie's treatment helping him to bear them. But he wrote to her again, very humbly, as usual, and repeated his promise to come to the city in the spring. She condescended to answer, but her brief note was all about the fun she was having, and she made no allusion to his future plans. And with this he was forced to be content.

He was pa.s.sing John McIntyre's shanty one dazzling mid-January day, and, tying his horse, ran in to see how he was faring. He found his patient, dressed in one of his own warm bathrobes--a present from Mrs.

Munn--sitting in a cushioned rocking-chair by the fire. The place was exquisitely clean and tidy, and there was a subtle touch here and there--a blooming geranium in the window, a smoothness of the feather bed--that showed the recent mark of a woman's hand. Seated in the most comfortable chair, behind the stove, was the eldest Sawyer orphan, happily devouring the remains of a boiled chicken, and talking fast and furiously. John McIntyre was pale and haggard, as usual, but his air of fierce reserve had changed to a dreary toleration of the companionship of his fellow-mortals. He was still reticent and silent, but in a helpless, broken-hearted way.

Since his recovery the young doctor felt constrained in his presence.

He could not forget their first interview; so he confined his remarks and questions to strictly professional matters, and made his visits as short as possible.

"And how are you feeling to-day?" he asked cheerily, as he removed his coat, and stood warming his hands by the shining stove.

"Oh, better--quite better." It was John McIntyre's unfailing answer.

The doctor slipped his fingers over his pulse, and nodded in a satisfied way.

"I don't know that it's very wise of you to be out of bed yet, though,"

he said. "You must not sit up too long."

He placed a bottle on the table, gave a few instructions concerning diet, and then turned to go. John McIntyre had been regarding him as though he wanted to speak.

"Sit down a moment, I would like to say something," he said suddenly.

Gilbert took a chair opposite, and looked at him inquiringly.

"They were telling me yesterday how you saved my life that night you found me here," he began slowly.

"Oh, never mind that. It's nothing. Any doctor would have done the same."

"I am not thanking you for it," said John McIntyre, in his old hard voice. "I would much rather you had left me alone. But you did what you thought best, and you have been very kind since." He paused a moment, then went on slowly: "I once said something to you, it is likely you have not forgotten. I would like to take it back. I know now I must have been mistaken."

Dr. Gilbert Allen arose. The room felt stifling. "Will you tell me exactly what you meant? Who was the friend you mentioned?" he asked in a low tone.

The man shook his head. "No; what is the use?" he asked wearily. "He is dead and gone, long ago. I was mistaken, that was all."

Gilbert went away puzzled. The "friend" was dead? Then the man had not meant Martin, after all. It was a case of conscience making a coward of him, he reflected. And so the two parted, all unconscious of how near each had come to giving an uplift to the other's life.

Gilbert drove up the glittering road, following the fairy windings and turnings of the valley. Down in the shadows the bare trees were vivid blue, up on the heights the snow was a blinding silver. He was meditating deeply on John McIntyre's words. They had hurt him more than his angry accusation that evening in the mill. How he hated himself! Why not plunge in and do the right thing now, whether Martin needed it or not, and then, after that, let the future bring what it would?

A woman's figure appeared on the road ahead of him, carrying a basket, and explaining by her presence the immaculate state of John McIntyre's home. Gilbert recognized the shimmer of Elsie Cameron's deep gold hair with renewed feelings of compunction. If he had only had the calm courage to walk the path of duty as this girl was doing! He touched his horse and drew up beside her. The keen air had given her cheeks a deeper tint, her hair was glorious in the sunlight, and her eyes were brilliant.

She thanked him smilingly as he helped her into the cutter. He could not help remembering the last time they had ridden together, and the disastrous consequences.

They spun along the smooth road, and just as they were rounding a turn in the winding valley a heavy sleigh, with a load of wood, came out of the forest and moved slowly along in the track ahead. Gilbert uttered an exclamation of impatience. "Now we shall have to crawl," he said.

"Sandy might have let us pa.s.s."

"Perhaps he didn't see us. He looks preoccupied."

"Likely he's concocting some scheme for sending the minister to Muskoky for the rest of the winter."

"I really believe he'll drive him away from here some day. No one knows how much Sandy's conduct has made poor Mr. Scott suffer."

"Well, the end is near, according to Silas Long's predictions. He prophesies sure retribution, and it's not far off now, he says. Such a learned astronomer ought to know. h.e.l.lo! what's the matter?"

The sleigh ahead had stopped, and its driver was haranguing some obstacle in his pathway. The two in the cutter leaned out and gazed forward inquiringly.

Right in the middle of the highway, facing Sandy McQuarry's team, stood the schoolmistress. She had a basket on her arm, and was bound for John McIntyre's place with a mold of jelly, but she was really bent on finding out if that eldest orphan-imp had been spending the day with that dreadful old man instead of coming to school.

The ravine road was narrow, and on either side the deep, untrodden snow made it impossible for a sleigh to turn out without risking an upset.

It was an unwritten law of the winter highway that pedestrians must give the right of way to vehicles, particularly those that bore loads.

But the Duke of Wellington was subject to no law she did not wish to obey. To turn off the road meant plunging into the deep snow, and that she had not the smallest intention of doing.

"Ye'll hae to turn oot!" shouted Sandy McQuarry peremptorily.

"Do you think I'm going to flounder through that snow to my waist?"

demanded the Duke indignantly.

"Move aside and let me pa.s.s!"

"Ah canna move oot, wumman!" he cried, with truth. "Ma load'll upset!"

"What are you going to do about it, then?" Sandy McQuarry glared.

"Ah'm goin' to drive on," he declared grimly.

"Indeed!" Miss Weir placed her basket exactly in the middle of the road, carefully adjusted her shawl over it, and, with perfect deliberation, sat down upon it.

"Hoh!" Sandy McQuarry grunted disdainfully. He could soon scare even the Duke of Wellington out of such an untenable position. "Ma conscience, but ye'll no sit there lang!" he muttered. He urged his team forward until the nose of one of his grays was right over her head. But he had not calculated on the immovability of the Iron Duke.

She did not stir a muscle, but sat, with a calm, meditative face, gazing across the valley. The grays tossed their heads, puzzled and indignant, and then stopped.

Sandy McQuarry was red with rage.

"D'ye want me to run over ye, ye thrawn piece o' humanity, ye?" he shouted.

The Duke did not appear to hear him. He rose to his feet, whip in hand.

"Jemima Weir!" he thundered, "will ye, or will ye no step off that road and let me drive on?"

"I will no!" answered the Duke, with unkind emphasis.