Treasure Valley Part 30

"I went to the public school until I was fourteen, and I always cherished dreams of one day being a doctor. But our farm was small, and our family large, and when father died we older boys had to turn out to earn our living. I got a job that first summer working in a sawmill near home, and there I met my fortune. There was a big, warm-hearted, rollicking chap there, who was foreman, and I thought he was the most wonderful man alive; and upon my word, I rather think so yet. He was just the sort of fellow to be a tremendous hero in the eyes of a youngster of fifteen. He could walk the logs on the river any old way, and could jump and run and throw the shoulder-stone, and do all manner of stunts, away ahead of everybody else. We kids thought he was the greatest thing outside a dime novel; and I tell you, he was a fine chap all through. I've met a good many people of all sorts since those days, but I've never seen the equal of Martin Heaslip."

"Who?" His listener whirled around in her seat, her eyes startled, her lips parted.

"Heaslip--Martin Heaslip. You don't happen to know him, do you?"

"Oh, no; not at all!" The answer came in hurried confusion. "I--it was the name--I--please go on. I beg your pardon for the interruption."

"He was a Bluenose--one of those Scotch-Irish Nova Scotians, the best kind going; but he had lots of relatives over in Bruce County; perhaps you knew some of them?"

"No, oh, no! I--it was a mistake."

"Well, one day the poor old chap met with rather a serious accident.

He was walloping around the mill, as usual, singing a crazy old lumberjack song about 'six brave Cana-jen byes,' who broke a lumber jam. Martin was always whooping away at that dirge, I think I can hear him yet. I'm not up in musical terms, but I think the tune was a kind of Gregorian chant, and as mournful as a dog howling at night. It goes something like this:

'_They broke the jam on the Garry Rocks, And they met a wat-e-ry grave.'_

Martin could sing about as well as I can, so you may imagine what a continuous performance of that sort was like. He was bellowing away at this, as usual, never looking where he was stepping, when he stumbled, and fell against the big saw, and the mill going at top speed. I happened to be standing right behind him at the time, and I managed to jerk him back before he went right over; but he cut his foot badly, as it was, poor chap. I had always loved to tinker away at cuts and bruises, so I managed to patch him up a bit, and stop the bleeding, till the doctor came. It was nothing, any one could have done it, but poor old Martin made a great fuss over it; and he literally dragged me out of the mill and shoved me back to school. Paid every cent of my expenses until I was through my first year at college. After that I got on my own feet. I taught school for a while, and paid my way; but I'll never forget that Martin Heaslip was the man that gave me my chance. I just fancy I see him now, sailing down the river on the slipperiest log in the bunch, and roaring out his song about a 'wat-er-y grave' as gay as a lark."

The doctor paused, in happy reminiscence. There was a tense silence.

At last his companion spoke.

"Where is he now?" Her voice trembled; she had turned away, and was looking far off over the clean brown fields.

"He was a wandering sort of chap. He went back to Nova Scotia; then West, somewhere, and the last move was to the Klond.y.k.e. He's been there for several years now, I fancy; hoping to make a fortune, no doubt."

Gilbert paused, slightly confused. He was ashamed to discover how little he really knew about Martin. There was no remark from his companion. She could not help noticing his evident embarra.s.sment, and the poverty of his knowledge regarding his old friend, and she was drawing her own damaging conclusions. As the silence continued he glanced at her half inquiringly. There was a look of distress in the golden-brown depths of her eyes.

"Are you cold?" he asked, with hasty compunction. "I've been yarning away and forgetting time and place. Go on, there, Speed! You are not cold?"

"No, not at all, thank you." She answered absently. Her mind was busy running over Arabella's story, and putting the two tales side by side.

So this was "the boy," who had been so generously treated and been so selfish in return; the boy who had repaid Martin's generosity with forgetfulness, and had helped to lengthen poor little Arabella's years of waiting. Her anxiety for Arabella had been swept away. She was telling herself that she should be relieved and thankful for that, but, strange to say, her feelings were exactly the opposite.

When Gilbert helped her out at her own door she bade him a hurried farewell, and ran up the steps. There was something in her movements like a hurt fawn running for cover. Her uncle sat in his accustomed corner by the window, where the sunlight came through a little green hedge of geraniums. His stockinged feet were on the stove damper, his weekly newspaper in his hand.

"Ech! hech! Elsie, la.s.s!" he cried. "Look ye here, now! Here's the finest receep for trouble ye ever heard. Jist listen!" She paused by his chair and smiled wanly. "There's a long bit in the newspaper here that would be telling that wherever a poisonous weed grows, jist right beside it, mind ye, you will be finding the herb that cures the poison.

Eh! eh! wouldn't that be jist beautiful, whatefer?" His golden-brown eyes were radiant. "Och! hoch! but it takes the Almighty to be managing things, indeed! Now, last night I would be rastlin' away when the rheumatics wouldn't let me sleep--the rheumatics would be a fine thing to make a body think--I would be rastlin' away about the poison o' sin an' trouble that would be in the world; and here, jist to-day, I would be reading this piece--and hoots! there it is, ye see! Yes, yes, it takes the Almighty to manage things, indeed! And ye mind He would be coming and living among us, ye see. There it is again: He would jist be the cure planted right among the poison! Oh! hoch! Yes! yes!"

The girl laid her hand for a minute on his rough shirt-sleeve. "And the rheumatism is bad again, is it, Uncle Hughie?"

"Hoots! not much, not much. It will jist be the April wind--and the doctor would be giving me a fine liniment last time. Oh, it is the fine young man he will be, indeed. And you would be out for a drive with him?" he added, in kindly interest.

"Yes, uncle." Her face flushed, and she moved toward the door leading to the stairs. "Yes, I was out for a little drive with Dr. Allen."

She pa.s.sed out, and closing the door behind her, added softly to herself, "For the last time."

CHAPTER XV

THE ELOPEMENT

For Law immutable hath one decree, "No deed of good, no deed of ill can die; All must ascend unto my loom and be Woven for man in lasting tapestry."

--ISABELLA VALANCY CRAWFORD.

In the middle of May Miss Arabella's wedding gown was completed, and presented a blue cascade of frills and flounces that delighted the owner's beauty-loving soul. Just once had she tried it on, and then only in sections, for Mrs. Munn said it was dreadful bad luck to wear your wedding gown before the day. So at one time Miss Arabella had put on the billowy skirt with her lilac waist; and at another the blue silk blouse with her old gingham skirt, and even then she had been seized with such a fit of trembling that Elsie Cameron had to hold her up.

The dressmaking had been carried on in a large empty room above the doctor's surgery, and when it was finished Miss Arabella left the gown there. She dared not take it home, for fear Susan would discover it.

So Mrs. Munn wrapped it carefully in a sheet and hung it behind the door. There were bunches of dried sage and mint and lavender hanging along the low rafters above it, and just to move the wedding dress gave one a whiff as sweet as a breath from all the spices of Araby.

Often, when Dr. Allen drove away, Miss Arabella would run over to Mrs.

Munn's, and up the back stairs, for a look at the gown, just to convince herself that it had not been merely a beautiful dream. It was something tangible, the outward and visible sign that her happiness was real. For hours afterward she would go about her work in a kind of blissful daze, until Susan declared it was a caution how Arabella forgot things, and she wondered what on earth was the matter with her.

She looked well enough, but sometimes her appet.i.te was bad, and she, Susan, had a good mind to take her over to Dr. Allen, and see if he couldn't cure her up in a day, the way he did last fall.

Arabella had another mysterious source of forgetfulness. When Susan's watchfulness kept her from visiting Mrs. Munn's lumber room, she would slip away into her spare bedroom, shut the door, and taking out two letters from her top drawer, would sit down and read them again and again. The last letter was always convincing; it breathed Martin's strong, joyous spirit from every line, and drove away all fears. It had come promptly in answer to hers, and had been sent under cover to Mrs. Munn, for fear Ella Anne's curiosity might again be aroused.

Martin evidently retained his old rollicking spirits, for he fell in most cordially with the plan for eloping. It suited him down to the ground, he declared. He would come to Lakeview on the last night of May, and early in the morning of the first of June he would drive out in the finest livery rig the place possessed, and away they would fly, without a howd'ye-do to any one. But they must come back for a little visit after their honeymoon, for there was a certain old friend of his in Elmbrook he must see. He was not going to tell even her about him, because it was to be a big surprise. He felt like going out and shooting up the town when he thought about it all.

Miss Arabella had taken the letter to Elsie soon after its arrival, and had read parts of it aloud. Whom did Elsie suppose he meant by an old friend in the village? She couldn't remember that he had known any one here very well, except William. Martin and William had taken to each other from the first. Yes, likely he meant William.

Elsie was fashioning a white lace ruffle for the collar of the blue silk gown, and bent her shining head lower over her work. Here was another proof of Martin's whole-souled generosity. There was not a hint of blame for his ungrateful friend.

"D'ye know, Elsie," said Miss Arabella hesitatingly, "it jist makes me feel bad to see you sewing anything for that dress, because--because--it was to have been yours, you know."

"But, indeed, Arabella, you know I'd far rather see you wear it. When should I ever put on such a grand dress as that, with all the work I have to do?"

"Oh, but I Intended it for your wedding dress! You mind, I told you?"

"Wedding dress!" Elsie laughed. "Why, Arabella, it might have been worn into rag-carpet strips before I'd need it!"

"But I thought--it seemed to me, he--he always acts as if he liked you so awful, Elsie."

"He? Who? Do you mean Lauchie McKitterick or Sawed-Off Wilmott, or Sandy McQuarry, or whom do you mean, Arabella Winters?"

"Oh, dear me, Elsie!" Miss Arabella gave a half-distressed little laugh. "You know they wouldn't, one o' them, dast look at you. You know right well I mean the doctor."

The girl bent lower over her work, and a flush crept over her face.

She shook her head decidedly. "Oh, no! no! Arabella. You are all wrong. Dr. Allen has no more idea of caring for me in that way than I of caring for him. Come, let me see if these wrist-bands are large enough."

Miss Arabella felt the gentle rebuke, and sighed. It was really too bad, because they were both so good-looking, and so well suited, and so young. And the faded little lilac lady thought regretfully of her lost youth.

The second letter allayed any lingering fears Elsie had felt regarding the elopement. According to Dr. Allen, she might safely trust Arabella to Martin Heaslip, and his own words went to prove the same. So if they wanted to run away, let them; they would run back in a few days, anyway, and then what would happen? Would the young man have the grace to be ashamed of himself? Martin, she was sure, would never blame him; his letter had breathed nothing but heartiest good-will. But Martin's generosity only made the other's ingrat.i.tude the blacker.

Meanwhile, the first of June was fast approaching, and as yet no one had a suspicion of the treasure hidden away in Mrs. Munn's lumber room.

Even that lady's talent for keeping a secret might have been rather severely taxed had it not been that those around her were absorbed in other interests. There were Davy and his bosom comrade, the eldest orphan. They certainly would have divined that something unusual was transpiring in the old storeroom; but just now they had no time for such trivial things. For the race between Sawed-Off Wilmott and young Lochinvar, begun on the last show day, and continued hotly all winter, was fast reaching a culminating point. The boys were vastly interested in it, and since the long evenings had pa.s.sed Tim had discarded books and fallen back into his old evil ways. So between them and Ella Anne, life was made a th.o.r.n.y path for the rival lovers.

Then the shrewd Mrs. Munn had noticed that lately the doctor seemed to be absent-minded. Indeed, he was very much worried over a problem of his own that had nothing to do with his patients. The question was, what had he done to offend Miss Cameron? Why she should have suddenly changed from warm friendship to cold avoidance of him he could not understand. Whenever he called, she was out, or overwhelmingly busy, or just about to fulfil another engagement, until he understood, and ceased calling. Her conduct hurt him more than he could have thought possible. He had long known and admired her profoundly. He cared much for her good opinion; but that her disapproval could wound him was something he had not suspected. He had supposed that Rosalie had made anything like that quite impossible for him forever.

So, in the midst of these abstractions, Miss Arabella's wedding gown hung, all unnoticed, in the fragrance of lavender and mint, until at last the end of May arrived, the eve of the day set for the elopement.