Chapter 15

"I guess I'll have to stay away, 'cause there's nobody to go with me, an' mother said I wasn't to ask you, 'cause it would make your cold worse."

He sighed prodigiously over this self-denial, and with his characteristic self-forgetfulness Duncan put aside his own trouble. "Oh, indeed it is a great man you will be some day," he said. "But what if I would be going with you?"

"Oh, man! but I wish you could! Only I ain't such a baby as to have somebody luggin' me 'round."

Duncan patted his head lovingly. "Hoots, toots, but you surely won't leave a poor old man like your uncle to find his way alone," he said, with great tact. "I will not be at Jimmie Archie's sugar bush for many a year, and you will jist be showing me the road."

Archie's pride was somewhat mollified by this aspect of the case, and being further soothed by a huge slab of bread and jam, he set off with his uncle in high glee. Duncan put on his bonnet and plaid and with Collie bounding in front, half mad with joy at this unexpected excursion, they stepped out upon the road. The moon was shining, but its rays were obscured by the mild night mists. A soft, suffused light shrouded the landscape, giving an unreal and weird appearance to all objects. A rising wind shifted the ghostly clouds here and there; it was a strangely uncanny night.

Jimmie Archie McDonald's farm lay up the river, next to Andrew Johnstone's. But the belt of maples with the sugar camp was quite near. So when Duncan Polite and the child had gone a short distance up the road they climbed a fence and crossed the soft, yielding fields until they reached the line of timber that bordered the stream.

"There's a path jist along by the river that goes straight to Jimmie Archie's bush," explained Archie importantly, strutting ahead. "Ain't you glad I called for you, Uncle Duncan?" He dashed into the woods whooping and yelling, with Collie circling about him in noisy delight, and darted back again at short intervals to ask a dozen unanswerable questions. "What made the moon look so queer? And what was the moon made of, anyhow? Sandy said it was made of green cheese; but Don said if that was true they must have got a chunk of the moon to make Sandy's head. And Don ought to know, since he'd been to college. And what made the moon shine? The master told the Fourth Class that the moon didn't have any light of its own. And Crummie Bailey said that was a howlin' lie, 'cause any fool could see it. And the master heard him saying it at recess, and he licked Crummie good for it, too. And was the shadow on the moon really a man?"

Duncan replied at random. Ordinarily he was Archie's most interesting chum, but to-night he was silent and absent. The boy concluded it was because his uncle had been sick all winter. He was too excited over the prospect of a visit to the sugar bush and unlimited taffy to care very much, however, and went dancing along over the ghostly patches of snow and through the weird, shifting mists, his tongue keeping pace with his feet.

"Don't you wish there was tagers and lions in the bush here, Uncle? I bet I'd shoot them if there was. Sandy says there's lions down in the river bed, but I bet he jist said that to see if I'd get scared. He can't scare me, though. What kind of a noise does a lion make. Uncle Dune? Listen, do you hear that funny noise ahead?" He drew closer to his uncle. "Is that the kind of a noise a lion makes?"

"It will jist be the river you hear, child," said Duncan reassuringly.

"No, I don't mean that squashy noise; it's that bangin' sound," he insisted anxiously. "Listen!"

They stood still, the child holding the man's fingers, and above the sighing of the bare treetops and the rushing of the river there came the sound of dull, booming thuds.

"We will jist see," said Duncan, striving to hide his apprehension. They hurried through the underbrush towards the river, where a few cedar clumps overhung its edge. Duncan seized one and, leaning over, looked down into the dark ravine. The pale moonlight touched the water and revealed the cause of the unusual sounds. Strange dark forms were hurrying along its glinting surface. Down the foaming tide they came, shooting past, swift and stealthy. As far up the river as Duncan's eye could pierce still they appeared, whirling silently forward. But farther down was a sight that made the old man's heart stand still. A few yards below him, and just at the turn in the river above the village were the "Narrows," where the most careful navigation of logs was necessary to prevent a jam. And there, wedged in the narrow channel, hurled together into fantastic shapes and augmented each moment by the oncoming logs which struck the heap with a resounding boom, was piled a wild jumbled mass of timber!

Like most of the early settlers of Glenoro, Duncan was an experienced river-driver, and instantly realised the gravity of the situation. If the jam of logs were permitted long to impede the progress of the river in its high, swollen condition, there would be a disastrous flood in the village. In a flash there passed before his mind a picture of the havoc it would cause,--death and destruction swift and certain upon the unwarned inhabitants, men and women hurried into Eternity unprepared! And Donald,--Donald would be held responsible! This jam must have resulted through his carelessness. Before the world he would be disgraced; before his Maker--the thought struck the old man with a paralysing fear. He stood for a moment motionless, watching the shifting, heaving, rumbling mass,--and then life seemed suddenly to return.

"Run to the Glen, Archie!" he cried to the frightened boy. "Run, laddie, and tell the folk at Peter McNabb's shop there will be a jam at the Narrows!"

Archie was off down a cross track like a hare, Collie after him. Duncan stooped down, feeling among the underbrush, and caught up a stout pole. Grasping it he made his way hurriedly down the bank and along the water's edge to the quaking, seething mass. Cautiously he climbed out upon it, the water hissing about him in angry, spurting jets. He could feel the pile rising beneath him with fearful rapidity. A swift examination convinced Duncan of two startling truths--first, the jam must be broken immediately, or it would be too late, and second, he might break it, even with the small pole he held, but he was neither young enough nor nimble enough to do it and save his own life.

And then, of a sudden, a thought struck him, as if a great light had broken over his soul, an illumination which chased away all the dark, weary shadows and fears of the past months. _The Sacrifice_! The trial he had been dreading! Was this it? Merely the giving of a poor, worn-out life, and the promised blessing would descend? He had failed to save Donald and his father's home from sin and worldliness; but now if he gave his life to save his boy from life-long regret and despair, and his friends from sudden death, would not the Father accept this and send the reward? A sense of overwhelming joy and hope seized the old man. He grasped his pole tightly and went resolutely forward.

With the skilled eye of an old river-driver he soon discovered the "key." Right beneath him lay the log that could unlock the huge, groaning gateway, and let the impeded tide sweep safely down the valley. Duncan leaned forward and pried at it with his pole, putting into the work a strange strength he had not felt for many a year. The mass creaked ominously. A gust of wind caught his old Scotch bonnet, sending it whirling away into the darkness and tossing his white hair. He struggled on, throwing his whole weight upon the pole with a desperate energy, and praying with all the passion of his soul that the High Priest would accept his humble sacrifice. The great hope that perhaps he would be considered worthy to imitate, even in the feeblest manner, the atonement that his Master had made was filling him and lending his arm an unnatural strength. Behind him the waters surged and the piling logs boomed threateningly. But to Duncan there was no menace in the sound. It brought to his mind the words of his favourite psalm, as Peter McNabb sang it in the little church by the river,

"The Lord's voice on the waters is; The God of Majesty Doth thunder--"

"Oh, my Father, my Father!" he was praying with passionate fervour, as he struggled with the stubborn beam, "accept this poor sacrifice, and may Donal' and my father's Glen be saved!"

The answer came in a thunderous roar. Like a wild animal let loose, the wall of lumber leaped up and hurled itself forward. It caught the old man as if he had been a feather and flung him away into the whirling blackness. For an instant his white hair shone out like a snowflake on the dark river, for an instant only, and then the great billow of liberated water came roaring forward and swept over him on its way down the valley.

XVI

THE COVENANT RENEWED

The party from the village which arrived at the Narrows, armed with lanterns, cant-hooks and poles, only to find the jam broken, searched all night for the man who had saved their lives at the sacrifice of his own. The news of the heroic act and the averted disaster spread swiftly, and all night long lights wandered up and down and shout answered shout across the dark water.

There were many very sorrowful hearts among the searchers, but none so heavy as was borne by an old man who kept apart from the crowd. He stumbled along in a bewildered fashion over rocks and underbrush, his cap gone, his grey hair dishevelled by the wind. He paused often to peer over the swollen waters, and Peter McNabb's heart was smitten with pity as he passed him once and heard him whisper, "Duncan, lad, whaur are ye?"

And it was Andrew Johnstone who found him. Just as the first grey light of the morning stole in at the eastern doorway of the valley he came upon him, lying peacefully beneath the overhanging willows, beside the churchyard. It seemed fitting that Duncan Polite should have found a harbour in the shelter of his Zion, the place that had been the centre of all his hopes.

They covered the quiet, peaceful face and carried him very tenderly,--Peter McNabb and Andrew Johnstone and some of his other lifelong friends,--into John Hamilton's house.

They laid him in the darkened sitting-room, and Mrs. Fraser, in her never failing kindness of heart, went to tell his bereaved sister, while Wee Andra drove off to Lake Oro to find Donald and Sandy.

All day the neighbours came in, silently and sorrowfully, to see the man who had saved the village and to speak of the brave deed he had done at such cost.

But none of all the crowd guessed at the meaning of the sacrifice, except one man. He did not weep nor lament nor speak one word of sorrow. But his shoulders were bent from their accustomed straightness, and his eyes lacked their steady gleam. He sat by the side of his friend all that day and through the next night, refusing to eat or take rest, and motionless, except when he stooped to pat the dog that lay at his feet and that raised his head occasionally with a mournful whine. Andrew Johnstone made no complaint nor did he say anything when his friends came to sympathise with him. But Mrs. Fraser, who had visited the room in company with Duncan's stricken sister, heard Splinterin' Andra whisper softly as they left the place, "Ma hert is very sair for thee, Jonathan, ma brother!"

The roads were in such an impassable condition that by nine o'clock at night Wee Andra had not returned, and Duncan Polite had been laid in his coffin, ready for his long rest. One dim lamp burned near the head of the bier, and at its foot sat old Andrew, his head bowed, his face in his hands. Across the hall the sorrowing neighbours had gathered in the dining-room, where some of Duncan Polite's friends were leading in prayer for the bereaved relatives. Peter McNabb had asked the minister to open the service, but had accepted his refusal in silent sympathy, wondering somewhat at the young man's grief-stricken face. Mr. Ansdell's gentle voice was raised in a petition that the brave deed might be a lesson to all, and the house was very still, when the front door opened softly and a man glided into the parlour. He crossed the room silently and stood gazing down at the figure in the coffin. At the sight of him, the dog lying by old Andrew's side arose and, crossing to where he stood, crouched at his feet, whining pitifully as though begging for help.

Aroused by the movement the old man raised his head.

"Donald!" he cried aloud, startled by the sight of the young man's ghastly face and wild eyes.

But Donald did not seem to be aware of his presence. He looked around the room as if dazed.

"It's true, then!" he cried in a harsh whisper, "it's true."

His eyes were fixed unmeaningly on the elder.

"He was more than a father to me; and I murdered him," he added distinctly.

Andrew Johnstone rose stiffly and came over to where the boy stood. "Wheesht, Donald!" he whispered in alarm. "Wheesht, lad, it is the Lord's will!"

Donald stared at him stupefied. Even half-crazed as he was, there came to his tossed soul a kind of vague wonder that Splinterin' Andra did not scourge him with a pitiless condemnation. "I did it," he repeated, clinging to the one thought he was capable of comprehending. "We were at the tavern when the boom broke--I murdered him!"

"Come awa', lad, an' sit ye doon here, till Ah tell ye"--Andrew Johnstone took hold of the boy's shoulder gently. A wonderful change seemed to have come over the stern old man during the vigil by his dead; the mantle of Duncan Polite seemed to have fallen upon him. "Come awa," he whispered.

But Donald flung off the hand fiercely. He turned again to look at his uncle, and the fire slowly died from his eyes as he gazed at the beloved face. His strength seemed to suddenly leave him. Andrew Johnstone stepped towards him fearing he would fall, but with one more glance at the dead Donald turned and groped his way to the door like one blind.

The prayers were still going on in the dining-room. Peter McNabb's deep, resonant voice could now be heard, and Jessie, who had come in from the kitchen, was standing in a dark corner of the hall waiting to enter. She was weeping silently, not only for the loss of the old man, who was very dear to her, but for the grief and the blame it must bring upon the one she loved the most. She raised her eyes at the sound of the front door opening and caught a glimpse of his ghastly face and desperate eyes as Donald slipped out. There was the depth of despair in his look. All the girl's heart went out to him in love and pity winged by a terrible fear. He looked like one who might do himself harm. She forgot their estrangement, forgot that he might love another, everything but that Donald was in dire distress. She darted noiselessly to the door. "Don!" she whispered eagerly into the darkness. A figure was passing out of the gate and turning down towards the river. A wild terror seized the girl. She flew down the path and caught his arm. "Don, Don," she cried, "where are you going?"

He turned and looked down at her dully. Just then he was capable of realising only that she was striving to turn him from his purpose. "Let go!" he said savagely. "I killed him, I tell you!"

But Jessie clung to his arm desperately.

"Oh, Don," she sobbed, "come back to the house with me, please do come!"

The sight of her tears seemed to affect him. He stared at her as if a gleam of comprehension had come to him. "Why do you want to stop me?" he asked sullenly. "You don't care!"

The girl realised that this desperate situation was no time for false pride. "Oh, Don," she whispered softly, "how can you say that, how can you think it? You know I care, more than anyone!"

He ceased his resistance and stood a moment as if trying to understand. Jessie was praying with all her heart for strength and wisdom to meet and grapple with the despair that was driving him to destruction. She turned and gently led him back to the gate, and as they went she spoke to him as Jessie Hamilton could never have spoken had she not learned through Duncan Polite's help the true meaning of all sorrow and happiness, spoke to him of his mother, of his duty, of his God. It was the hour of Donald's weakness and trial, when Satan desired to sift him as wheat, an hour in which he might have fared ill had the woman who loved him not stood by with her new strength. But it passed in victory, and when at last he laid his head down upon the top of the gate where they stood and convulsive sobs shook his frame, she knew that he was saved.

The day was one of promising spring when they laid Duncan Polite beside Mr. Cameron under the elms. The hepaticas were peeping out around his covenant stone on the hilltop, the river was gay and smiling and all the world seemed glad. And it was well, for an eternal springtime had dawned for the old watchman of Glenoro.

When they carried him into the church for his last service the place was packed to the doors. Everyone had come to do honour to the man who had done so much for them. Even Coonie was there. He had hurried into Glenoro, early, for the first time in his life. His shoulders drooped more than ever, his wrinkled brown face was even unusually sullen, and his small green eyes were filled with a fierce sorrow. Mr. Ansdell preached the funeral sermon. To the wonder of all, Andrew Johnstone desired it, and everyone felt he must yield a deference to his wishes. As for John Egerton, he was relieved. Remembering his last interview with Duncan Polite and how he might have averted this catastrophe had he been faithful to his duty, he felt he could not bear the ordeal.

The minister's text was a strange one for a funeral sermon, but that, too, was Andrew Johnstone's choice. "Son of man, I have set thee a watchman." The old clergyman was the very one for his task. He spent no time in eulogising the dead; but he told simply and tenderly the story of Duncan Polite's covenant, how he had striven to keep it, giving at length his all, even his life, to serve the people of his Glen.

There was not a person in the congregation who did not take the lesson to heart. The story of the old man's unselfish interest in the spiritual life of the place took a firm hold upon the listeners and roused them to better and nobler aims. But there was one to whom the sermon was a fiery ordeal. For even Donald, well-nigh crushed with the weight of his grief and the knowledge of all he had missed, was no more torn by the old clergyman's words than the young minister who sat reviewing his past self-satisfied year in Glenoro in the light of Duncan Polite's hopes.

The May days had come, and Glenoro was all pink and white in a burst of apple blossoms when Donald next returned from college. On the evening after his arrival he walked down the village street with mingled feelings of joy and pain. Jessie was waiting for him at the gate; he almost fancied he could detect her white dress through the trees even at this distance, but he had just passed an old house on the hilltop, a house at which he had always stopped in the past, and now it was silent and empty. As he turned from behind the elms and came in full view of the village, he suddenly paused. The minister was just emerging from Peter McNabb's gate; he turned up the hill and he and Donald came face to face.

The two young men stood for an instant, and then, with a common impulse, stretched out their hands. John Egerton grasped the hand of Duncan Polite's nephew with a pang of regret. If he had done this long before, what a different turn affairs might have taken.

Donald was the first to speak. "This is very kind of you, Mr. Egerton," he said with his accustomed frankness. "I have misjudged you so often----"

"Don't say anything about what is past, Mr. McDonald," said the other hastily; "I can never forget what I owe you, and it would be the deepest of my many regrets in leaving Glenoro if you and I could not part friends."

"There need be no doubt of that," said Donald simply; "I am sorry you are leaving."

John Egerton's face was overcast. "I must. I came here not knowing what was required of me. In fact, I never realised what was required of my calling until I had a glimpse into a life of real Christian consecration. I am going to another field, to do better work, I hope."

Donald was touched by the honest confession. This did not seem the gay, self-sufficient young man he had met on former occasions. "I cannot pretend to criticise another man's life, knowing my own," he answered humbly. "I am sure I wish you all success in your new place."

"Thank you. Success does not mean quite the same to me now as it did a few months ago. There is one thing I would like to say to you before I go, Mr. McDonald"--he hesitated--"I believe your uncle wished you to enter the ministry?"

Donald made a motion of assent. That was a subject upon which, as yet, he could not trust himself to speak.

"I thought so. And part of his hope was that I should help you to it," he added bitterly. "But I have hoped and prayed every day since that God would lead you to it. Have you decided yet?"

Donald's voice was not quite steady. "I have. A man surely does not need a second lesson such as I have had to show him the way."

John Egerton held out his hand again. "I am very, very glad," he said earnestly. "Do not make my mistake. There is no sting like the sting of regret; you and I both know that."

Donald was silent. He was not given to much speaking at any time, and now the depth of his feeling closed his lips. But he took his pastor's hand with a heart-warming grip, and without another word the two parted in mutual understanding and sympathy.

But at the sight of Jessie leaning over the gate between the oaks all other thoughts fled from Donald's mind. She wore a soft white dress, with a blue ribbon, his favourite colour, at her throat. Her uncovered head, with its wealth of golden brown curls, was poised like a flower on a slender stem. Her deep eyes were aglow with welcome. "I saw you talking to Mr. Egerton," she said, when Donald had opened the gate for her and they were passing down the village street.

"Yes, he's an honest man, Jessie; I never understood him before."

"He's changed, too," said the girl gravely. "I am sure he will do much good in his new charge."

When they had walked down the leafy street and reached the little churchyard gate a silence fell between them. They had planned this walk before Donald's return, and their thoughts were serious. Together they passed around the old white building. The grass beneath their feet was an intense emerald, and the young, fresh leaves of the woodbine covering the church walls glistened in the light of the fading sunset.

They paused before a new white stone under a tall elm. Donald caught his breath as he stooped to read the lettering in the gathering dusk: "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace."

He gazed at it so long that Jessie put out her hand and touched his sleeve in silent sympathy.

"Here is the other one, Don," she whispered. He started and turned. "Wee Andra and Sandy brought it down this morning. Mr. Johnstone wanted it."

Donald put his hand upon the rough stone that had been Duncan Polite's Bethel. "It was kind of him," he said softly.

They were shut out from the village by the church; the soft grass of the graveyard was under their feet, the elms with their small, green, fairy-like leaves hung over them, and the river murmured softly at their side. He took her hands in his. "Can't we renew that covenant here, you and I, Jessie, for his sake?" Donald whispered.