Chapter 20

"I am. So angry and hurt that I desire to be happy within the shortest possible period of elapsed time. Now, old girl, look right into my eyes, because I'm going to propose to you for the last time. My worldly assets consist of about a hundred dollars in cash and a six dollar wedding ring which I bought as I came through Port Agnew. With these wordly goods and all the love and honor and respect a man can possibly have for a woman, I desire to endow you. Answer me quickly. Yes or no?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"You chatterbox! When?"

"At your pleasure."

"That's trading talk. We'll be married this afternoon." He stretched out his long arms for her and as she slid off the low hassock and knelt beside his chair, he gathered her hungrily to him and held her there for a long time before he spoke again. When he did it was to say, with an air of wonder that was almost childlike:

"I never knew it was possible for a man to be so utterly wretched and so tremendously happy and all within the same hour. I love you so much it hurts." He released her and glanced at his watch. "It is now two o'clock, Nan. If we leave here by three we can reach the county seat by five o'clock, procure a license and be married by six. By half past seven we will have finished our wedding supper and by about ten o'clock we shall be back at the Sawdust Pile. Put a clean pair of rompers on the young fellow and let's go! From this day forward we live, like the Sinn Fein. 'For ourselves alone.'"

While Nan was preparing for that hurried ceremony, Donald strolled about the little yard, looking over the neglected garden and marking for future attention various matters such as a broken hinge on the gate, some palings off the fence and the crying necessity for paint on the little white house, for he was striving mightily to shut out all thought of his past life and concentrate on matters that had to do with the future. Presently he wandered out on the bulkhead. The great white gulls which spent their leisure hours gravely contemplating the Bight of Tyee from the decaying piling, rose lazily at his approach and with hoarse cries of resentment flapped out to sea; his dull glance followed them and rested on a familiar sight.

Through the Bight of Tyee his father's barkentine Kohala was coming home from Honolulu, ramping in before a twenty mile breeze with every shred of canvas drawing. She was heeled over to starboard a little and there was a pretty little bone in her teeth; the colors streamed from her mizzen rigging while from her foretruck the house-flag flew. Idly Donald watched her until she was abreast and below The Dreamerie and her house-flag dipped in salute to the master watching from the cliff; instantly the young Laird of Tyee saw a woolly puff of smoke break from the terrace below the house and several seconds later the dull boom of the signal gun. His heart was constricted. "Ah, never for me!" he murmured, "never for me--until he tells them to look toward the Sawdust Pile for the master!"

He strode out to the gate where his father's chauffeur waited with the limousine. "Take the car home," he ordered, "and as you pass through town stop in at the Central Garage and tell them to send a closed car over to me here."

The chauffeur looked at him with surprise but obeyed at once. By the time the hired car had arrived Nan and her child were ready, and just before locking the house Nan, realizing that they would not return to the Sawdust Pile until long after nightfall, hauled in the flag that floated over the little cupola; and for the second time, old Hector, watching up on the cliff, viewed this infallible portent of an event out of the ordinary. His hand trembled as he held his marine glasses to his blurred eyes and focussed on The Sawdust Pile, in time to see his son enter the limousine with Nan Brent and her child--and even at that distance he could see that the car in which they were departing from the Sawdust Pile was not the one in which Donald had left The Dreamerie. From that fact alone The Laird deduced that his son had made his choice; and because Donald was his father's son, imbued with the same fierce high pride and love of independence, he declined to be under obligation to his people even for the service of an automobile upon his wedding day.

The Laird stood watching the car until it was out of sight; then he sighed very deeply, entered the house and rang for the butler.

"Tell Mrs. McKaye and the young ladies that I would thank them to come here at once," he ordered calmly.

They came precipitately, vaguely apprehensive. "My dears," he said in an unnaturally subdued voice, "Donald has just left the Sawdust Pile with the Brent lass to be married. He has made his bed and it is my wish that he shall lie in it."

"Oh, Hector!" Mrs. McKaye had spoken quaveringly. "Oh, Hector, dear, do not be hard on him!"

He raised his great arm as if to silence further argument. "He has brought disgrace upon my house. He is no longer son of mine and we are discussing him for the last time. Hear me, now. There will be no further mention of Donald in my presence and I forbid you, Nellie, you, Elizabeth and you, Jane, to have aught to do wie him, directly or indirectly."

Mrs. McKaye sat down abruptly and commenced to weep and wail her woe aloud, while Jane sought vainly to comfort her. Elizabeth bore the news with extreme fortitude; with unexpected tact she took her father by the arm and steered him outside and along the terrace walk where the agonized sobs and moans of her mother could not be heard--for what Elizabeth feared in that first great moment of remorse was a torrent of self-accusation from her mother. If, as her father had stated, Donald was en route to be married, then the mischief was done and no good could come out of a confession to The Laird of the manner in which the family honor had been compromised, not by Donald, but by his mother, aided and abetted by his sisters! The Laird, now quite dumb with distress, walked in silence with his eldest daughter, vaguely conscious of the comfort of her company and sympathy in his hour of trial.

When Elizabeth could catch Jane's attention through the window she cautiously placed her finger on her lip and frowned a warning. Jane nodded her comprehension and promptly bore her mother off to bed where she gave the poor soul some salutary advice and left her to the meager comfort of solitude and smelling salts.

* * * * *

Just before he retired that night, The Laird saw a light shine suddenly forth from the Sawdust Pile. So he knew his son had selected a home for his bride, and rage and bitterness mingled with his grief and mangled pride to such an extent that he called upon God to take him out of a world that had crumbled about his hoary head. He shook his fist at the little light that blinked so far below him and Mrs. McKaye, who had crept down stairs with a half-formed notion of confessing to The Laird in the hope of mitigating her son's offense--of, mother-like, taking upon her shoulders an equal burden of the blame--caught a glimpse of old Hector's face, and her courage failed her. Thoroughly frightened she returned noiselessly to her room and wept, dry-eyed, for the fountain of her tears had long since been exhausted.

Meanwhile, down at the Sawdust Pile, Nan was putting her drowsy son to bed; in the little living-room her husband had lighted the driftwood fire and had drawn the old divan up to the blue flames. He was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, outlining plans for their future, when Nan, having put her child to bed, came and sat down beside him. He glanced at her with troubled eyes and grinned a trifle foolishly.

"Happy?" he queried.

She nodded. "In a limited fashion only, dear heart. I'm thinking how wonderfully courageous you have been to marry me and how tremendously grateful I shall always be for your love and faith." She captured his right hand and fondled it for a moment in both of hers, smiling a little thoughtfully the while as if at some dear little secret. "Port Agnew will think I married you for money," she resumed presently; "your mother and sisters will think I married you to spite them and your father will think I married you because you insisted and because I was storm-tossed and had to find a haven from the world. But the real reason is that I love you and know that some day I am going to see more happiness in your eyes than I can see to-night."

Again, in that impulsive way she had, she bent and kissed his hand. "Dear King Cophetua," she murmured, "your beggar maid will never be done with adoring you." She looked up at him with a sweet and lovely wistfulness shining in her sea-blue eyes. "And the sweetest thing about it, you angelic simpleton," she added, "is that you will never, never, never know why."

XLI

The first hint of the tremendous events impending came to Mr. Daney through the medium of no less an informant than his wife. Upon returning from the mill office on the evening of Donald McKaye's marriage, Mr. Daney was met at his front door by Mrs. Daney who cried triumphantly:

"Well, what did I tell you about Donald McKaye?"

Mr. Daney twitched inwardly, but answered composedly. "Not one-tenth of one per cent, of what I have discovered without your valuable assistance my dear."

She wrinkled the end of her nose disdainfully. "He's gone motoring with Nan Brent in a hired car, and they took the baby with them. They passed through town about half past two this afternoon and they haven't returned yet."

"How do you know all this?" he demanded coolly.

"I saw them as they passed by on the road below; I recognized that rent limousine of the Central Garage with Ben Nicholson driving it, and a few moments ago I telephoned the Central Garage and asked for Ben. He hasn't returned yet--and it's been dark for half an hour."

"Hum-m-m! What do you suspect, my dear?"

"The worst," she replied dramatically.

"What a wonderful fall day this has been," he remarked blandly as he hung up his hat. She turned upon him a glance of fury; he met it with one so calm and impersonal that the good lady quite lost control of herself. "Why do you withhold your confidence from me?" she cried sharply.

"Because you wouldn't respect it, my dear; also, because I'm paid to keep the McKaye secrets and you're not."

"Is he going to marry her, Andrew? Answer me," she demanded.

"Unfortunately for you, Mrs. Daney, the young gentleman hasn't taken me into his confidence. Neither has the young lady. Of course I entertain an opinion, on the subject, but since I am not given to discussing the intimate personal affairs of other people, you'll excuse my reticence on this subject, I'm sure. I repeat that this has been a wonderful fall day."

She burst into tears of futile rage and went to her room. Mr. Daney partook of his dinner in solitary state and immediately after dinner strolled down town and loitered around the entrance to the Central Garage until he saw Ben Nicholson drive in about ten o'clock.

"Hello, Ben," he hailed the driver as Ben descended from his seat. "I hear you've been pulling off a wedding."

Ben Nicholson lowered his voice and spoke out the corner of his mouth. "What do you know about the young Laird, eh, Mr. Daney? Say I could 'a' cried to see him throwin' himself away on that Jane."

Mr. Daney shrugged. "Oh, well, boys will be boys," he declared. "The bigger they are the harder they fall. Of course, Ben, you understand I'm not in position to say anything, one way or the other," he added parenthetically, and Ben Nicholson nodded comprehension. Thereupon Mr. Daney sauntered over to the cigar stand in the hotel, loaded his cigar case and went down to his office, where he sat until midnight, smoking and thinking. The sole result of his cogitations, however, he summed up in a remark he directed at the cuspidor just before he went home:

"Well, there's blood on the moon and hell will pop in the morning."

For the small part he had played in bringing Nan Brent back to Port Agnew, the general manager fully expected to be dismissed from the McKaye service within thirty seconds after old Hector should reach the mill office; hence with the heroism born of twelve hours of preparation he was at his desk at eight o'clock next morning. At nine o'clock The Laird came in and Mr. Daney saw by his face instantly that old Hector knew. The general manager rose at his desk and bowed with great dignity.

"Moritori salutamus, sir," he announced gravely.

"What the devil are you talking about, Daney?" The Laird demanded irritably.

"That's what the gladiators used to say to the Roman populace. It means, I believe, 'We who are about to die, salute you.' Here is my resignation, Mr. McKaye."

"Don't be an ass, Andrew," The Laird commanded and threw the proffered resignation into the waste basket. "Why should you resign?"

"To spare the trouble of discharging me, sir."

"What for?"

"Bringing the Brent girl back to Port Agnew. If I hadn't gotten her address from Dirty Dan I would never have suggested to--"

"Enough. We will not discuss what might have been, Andrew. The boy has married her, and since the blow has fallen nothing that preceded it is of the slightest importance. What I have called to say to you is this: Donald McKaye is no longer connected with the Tyee Lumber Company."

"Oh, come, come, sir," Daney pleaded. "The mischief is done. You'll have to forgive the boy and make the best of a bad business. What can't be cured must be endured, you know."

"Not necessarily. And you might spare me your platitude, Andrew," The Laird replied savagely. "I'm done with the lad forever, for son of mine he is no longer. Andrew, do you remember the time he bought that red cedar stumpage up on the Wiskah and unloaded it on me at a profit of two hundred thousand dollars?"

Mr. Daney nodded. "And you, in turn, sold it at a profit of fifty thousand," he reminded the irate old man.

"Donald did not retain that profit he made at my expense. 'Twas just a joke with him. He put the money into bonds and sent them to you with instructions to place them in my vault for my account." Mr. Daney nodded and The Laird resumed. "Take those bonds to the Sawdust Pile, together with a check for all the interest collected on the coupons since they came into my possession, and tell him from me that I'll take it kindly of him to leave Port Agnew and make a start for himself elsewhere as quickly as he can. He owes it to his family not to affront it by his presence in Port Agnew, giving ground for gossip and scandal and piling needless sorrow upon us. And when the Sawdust Pile is again vacant you will remove the Brent house and put in the drying yard you've planned this many a year."

"Very well, sir. It's not a task to my liking, but--" His pause was eloquent.

"Have my old desk put in order for me. I'm back in the harness and back to stay, and at that I'm not so certain it isn't the best thing for me, under the present circumstances. I dare say," he added, with a sudden change of tone, "the news is all over Port Agnew this morning."

Mr. Daney nodded.

"You will procure Donald's resignation as President and have him endorse the stock I gave him in order to qualify as a director of the company. We'll hold a directors' meeting this afternoon and I'll step back into the presidency."

"Very well, sir."

"You will cause a notice to be prepared for my signature, to be spread on the bulletin board in each department, to the effect that Donald McKaye is no longer connected in any way with the Tyee Lumber Company."

"Damn it, man," Daney roared wrathfully, "have you no pride? Why wash your dirty linen in public?"

"You are forgetting yourself, my good Andrew. If you do not wish to obey my orders I shall have little difficulty inducing your assistant to carry out my wishes, I'm thinking." The Laird's voice was calm enough; apparently he had himself under perfect control, but--the Blue-Bonnets-coming-over-the-Border look was in his fierce gray eyes; under his bushy iron-gray brows they burned like campfires in twin caverns at night. His arms, bowed belligerently, hung tense at his side, his great hands opened and closed, a little to the fore; he licked his lips and in the brief silence that followed ere Mr. Daney got up and started fumbling with the combination to the great vault in the corner, old Hector's breath came in short snorts. He turned and, still in the same attitude, watched Daney while the latter twirled and fumbled and twirled. Poor man! He knew The Laird's baleful glance was boring into his back and for the life of him he could not remember the combination he had used for thirty years.

Suddenly he abandoned all pretense and turned savagely on The Laird.

"Get out of my office," he yelled. "I work for you, Hector McKaye, but I give you value received and in this office I'm king and be damned to you." His voice rose to a shrill, childish treble that presaged tears of rage. "You'll be sorry for this, you hard-hearted man. Please God I'll live to see the day your dirty Scotch pride will be humbled and you'll go to that wonderful boy and his wife and plead for forgiveness. Why, you poor, pitiful, pusillanimous old pachyderm, if the boy has dishonored you he has honored himself. He's a gallant young gentleman, that's what he is. He has more guts than a bear. He's _married_ the girl, damn you--and that's more than you would have done at his age. Ah, don't talk to me! We were young together and I know the game you played forty years ago with the girl at the Rat Portage--yes, you--you with your youth and your hot passions--turning your big proud back on your peculiar personal god to wallow in sin and enjoy it."

"But I--I was a single man then," The Laird sputtered, almost inarticulate with fury and astonishment.

"He was a single man yesterday but he's a married man to-day. And she loves him. She adores him. You can see it in her eyes when his name is mentioned. And she had no _reason_ to behave herself, had she? She has behaved herself for three long years, but did she win anybody's approbation for doing it? I'm telling you a masterful man like him might have had her without the wedding ring, for love's sake, if he'd cared to play a waiting game and stack the cards on her. After all, she's human."

Suddenly he commenced to weep with fury, the tears cascading into his whiskers making him look singularly ridiculous in comparison with the expression on his face, which was anything but grievous. "Marriage! Marriage!" he croaked. "I know what it is. I married a fat-head--and so did my wife. We've never known romance; never had anything but a quiet, well-ordered existence. I've dwelt in repression; never got out of life a single one of those thrills that comes of doing something daring and original and nasty. Never had an adventure; never had a woman look at me like I was a god; married at twenty and never knew the Grand Passion." He threw up his arms. "Oh-h-h, God-d-d! If I could only be young again I'd be a devil! Praise be, I know one man with guts enough to tell 'em all to go to hell."

With a peculiar little moving cry he started for the door.

"Andrew," The Laird cried anxiously. "Where are you going?"

"None of your infernal business," the rebel shrilled, "but if you must know, I'm going down to the Sawdust Pile to kiss the bride and shake a man's hand and wish him well. After I've done that I'll deliver your message. Mark me, he'll never take those bonds."

"Of course he will, you old fool. They belong to him."

"But he refused to make a profit at the expense of his own father. He gave them to you and he's not an Indian giver."

"Andrew, I have never known you to act in such a peculiar manner. Are you crazy? Of course he'll take them. He'll have to take them in order to get out of Port Agnew. I doubt if he has a dollar in the world."

Mr. Daney beat his chest gorilla fashion. "He doesn't need a dollar. Boy and man, I've loved that--ahem! son of yours. Why, he always _did_ have guts. Keep your filthy money. The boy's credit is good with me. I'm no pauper, even I if do work for you. I work for fun. Understand. Or do you, Hector McKaye?"

"If you dare to loan my son as much as a thin dime I'll fire you out of hand."

Mr. Daney jeered. "How?" he demanded very distinctly, and yet with a queer, unusual blending of the sentence with a single word, as if the very force of his breath had telescoped every syllable, "would you like to stand off in that corner there and take a long runnin' jump at yourself, proud father?"

"Out of this office! You're fired."

Mr. Daney dashed the tears from his whiskers and blew his nose. Then he pulled himself together with dignity and bowed so low he lost his center of gravity and teetered a little on his toes before recovering his balance. "Fired is GOOD," he declared. "Where do you get that stuff, eh? My dear old Furiosity, ain't my resignation in the waste-basket? Good-by, good luck and may the good Lord give you the sense God gives geese. I'm a better man than you are, Gunga Din."

The door banged open. Then it banged shut and The Laird was alone. The incident was closed. The impossible had come to pass. For the strain had been too great, and at nine o'clock on a working day morning, steady, reliable, dependable, automatic Andrew Daney having imbibed Dutch courage in lieu of Nature's own brand, was, for the first time in his life, jingled to an extent comparable to that of a boiled owl.

Mr. Daney's assistant thrust his head in the door, to disturb The Laird's cogitations. "The knee-bolters went out at the shingle mill this morning, sir," he announced. "They want a six and a half hour day and a fifty per cent. increase in wages, with a whole holiday on Saturday. There's a big Russian red down there exhorting them."

"Send Dirty Dan to me. Quick!"

A telephonic summons to the loading shed brought Daniel P. O'Leary on the run. "Come with me, Dan," The Laird commanded, and started for the shingle mill. On the way down he stopped at the warehouse and selected a new double-bitted ax which he handed to Dirty Dan. Mr. O'Leary received the weapon in silence and trotted along at The Laird's heels like a faithful dog, until, upon arrival at the shingle mill the astute Hibernian took in the situation at a glance.

"Sure, 'tis no compliment you've paid me, sor, thinkin' I'll be afther needin' an ax to take that fella's measure," he protested.

"Your job is to keep those other animals off me while _I_ take his measure," The Laird corrected him.

Without an instant's hesitation Dirty Dan swung his ax and charged the crowd. "Gower that, ye vagabones," he screeched. As he passed the Russian he seized the latter by the collar, swung him and threw him bodily toward old Hector, who received him greedily and drew him to his heart. The terrible O'Leary then stood over the battling pair, his ax poised, the while he hurled insult and anathema at the knee-bolters. A very large percentage of knee-bolters and shingle weavers are members of the I.W.W. and knowing this, Mr. O'Leary begged in dulcet tones, to be informed why in this and that nobody seemed willing to lift a hand to rescue the Little Comrade. He appeared to be keenly disappointed because nobody tried, albeit other axes were quite plentiful thereabouts.

Presently The Laird got up and dusted the splinters and sawdust from his clothing; the Red, battered terribly, lay weltering in his blood. "I feel better now," said The Laird. "This is just what I needed this morning to bring me out of myself. Help yourself, Dan," and he made a dive at the nearest striker, who fled, followed by his fellow-strikers, all hotly pursued by The Laird and the demon Daniel.