The End Of The Rainbow Part 2

The door was open and he went straight in and along the hall towards the minister's study. As he did so a door at the opposite end of the hall opened suddenly and admitted a round black face and an ample red-ap.r.o.ned figure.

"Good mawnin', Missy Viney!" drawled the visitor. "I done wanta see de ministah, bress de Lawd!"

Viney's white eyeb.a.l.l.s and s.h.i.+ning teeth flashed him a welcome.

"Laws-a-me, Lawya Ed! Is you-all gwine get marrit?"

Viney was a fat, jolly young woman, whom Mrs. Leslie had lured from the little negro settlement in the towns.h.i.+p of Oro, a few miles from Algonquin. She felt the responsibility of her position fully, and showed a marked interest in the affairs of every one of the congregation. But of all living things she loved Lawyer Ed most. His presence never failed to put her in the highest spirits, and his bachelorhood was her perennial joke.

"Ya.s.sum," he answered, hanging his head shyly, "if you done hab me, Viney. I bin wantin' you for years, but I bin too bashful."

Viney screamed and flapped her red ap.r.o.n at him. "You go 'long, you triflin' lawya-man!" she cried, going off into a gale of giggles; but just then the study door opened, the minister's head came out, and the cook's vanished.

"Ah, I thought it was you, Edward, by the joyful noise," said Dr.

Leslie, smiling. He took his visitor by the hand and drew him in.

"Come away, come. I was hoping you would drop in this morning."

They sat down, the minister in his arm-chair before his desk. Lawyer Ed balanced on the arm of another, protesting that he must not stay.

It was his way when he dropped in at the Manse and remained a couple of hours or so, to bustle about, hat and stick in hand, changing from one chair to another, to a.s.sure himself that he was just going. Dr. Leslie understood, and did not urge him to sit down.

Though not an old man, the minister had seen Lawyer Ed grow up from the position of a scholar in his Sabbath School, and quite the most riotous and mischievous one there, to the superintendency of it, and to a seat in the session; and he had a special fatherly feeling towards his youngest elder. Dr. Leslie was the only man in Algonquin, too, folk said, whom Lawyer Ed feared, and to whose opinion he deferred without argument.

"And have you heard from Angus this morning,--or the wee lad?"

"Archie came home about an hour ago. The little rascal's all right, except for a sore arm. I guess he nearly put it out of joint, paddling. Angus was better, too; but I'm bothered about Angus, Dr.

Leslie. That's what I came in for."

He moved about the room, fingering ornaments, picking up books and laying them down again.

"Archie Blair says the anxiety was so bad for his heart, that he's got to stop work right away, for all summer anyway, and perhaps longer.

And his place is all planted, and yesterday, at my advice, he put a mortgage on it."

He stopped before his minister and looked at him with appealing, troubled eyes. "I feel as if I shouldn't have let him, but I didn't antic.i.p.ate this."

Dr. Leslie sat drumming his fingers on the table, his face very grave.

"We can't see Angus McRae want, Edward. We're all indebted to him for something--every one of the session, and the minister most of all."

"The session!" Lawyer Ed jumped off the arm of the sofa where he had just perched. "There's an idea. If you laid it before them, they'd do something; and J. P. and I'll push it and Archie Blair will help."

The minister shook his head. "The session is a big body, Edward, and--" he smiled,--"it has wives and daughters. This must not be talked about. If we help Angus, we mustn't kill him at the same time by hurting his Highland pride."

Lawyer Ed whacked a sofa cus.h.i.+on impatiently with his cane.

"There it is, of course! Hang Scotchmen, anyway! You can't treat them like human beings. That abominable thing they call their pride--always clogs your wheels whichever way you go."

"Don't revile the tree from which you sprung, Edward," said the Scotchman, smiling.

"Thank the Lord, the limb I grew on had a few good green Irish shamrocks mixed with the thistles. If Angus had been as fortunate we'd have him out of distress to-morrow."

"Angus McRae will be the least distressed of us all. I thought of Paul last night when I saw him, 'troubled on every side, yet not distressed, perplexed but not in despair.' We must think of some way in which we can help him quietly--so quietly he may not know it himself. Who has the mortgage?"

"Jock McPherson, of course, who else?"

The minister's face brightened. "Jock McPherson! Well, well, that is fortunate, Edward. Jock's heart is big enough to put the whole church inside provided you find the right key."

"Yes, but it's a ticklish job fitting it when you do find it. Some small item in the business will strike him the wrong way and he will get slow and stiff and arise to the occasion with, 'I feel, Mister Moterator, that it is my juty to object.'"

His imitation of Mr. McPherson's deliberate manner, when in his sadly frequent role of objector in the session, could not but bring a smile to the minister's face.

"I have no fear of your not being able to overcome his objections, should any arise. Now, sit down just a few minutes, and let us see what is to be done."

The two talked far into the morning, and laid their plans well. Mr.

McPherson was to be persuaded to remove the mortgage, and instead, as Angus was in need of the money, to rent the farm. Lawyer Ed was to see that it was let for a goodly sum that would keep its owner beyond anxiety, and whatever Jock stood to lose by the bargain was to be returned to him in whole or part by a little circle of friends. It was a great scheme, worthy of a legal mind, Dr. Leslie said, and Lawyer Ed went away well pleased with it.

He went two blocks out of his way, so that he could reach J. P.

Thornton's office without pa.s.sing his own, and spent another hour laying the scheme before him.

So, when he finally got to his place of business, irate clients were buzzing about it like angry bees. But little cared Lawyer Ed. He laughed and joked them all into good humour and dropping into the chair at his desk, he drove through a ma.s.s of business in an incredibly short time, telephoning, writing notes, hailing pa.s.sers-by on the street, and attending to his correspondence, all while he was holding personal interviews,--doing half-a-dozen things at once and doing them as though they were holiday sport.

The rush of the day's business kept him from speaking to Jock McPherson until late in the evening, when, at the end of the session meeting, he found himself walking away from the church with Mr. McPherson on one side and his friend, J. P. Thornton, on the other. He felt just a little anxious over the outcome of the interview. He had no fear that Jock would be unwilling to help Angus McRae, but he had every fear, and with good reason, that he would want to do it in his own way. If Jock were in a good humour, he would fall in with the plan, if not, he would do exactly as he pleased and spoil everything.

And, as ill-luck would have it, when they were coming down the steps under the checkered light from the arc-lamp s.h.i.+ning through the leaves, Lawyer Ed made the most unfortunate remark he could have chosen.

He was carrying home a Book of Praise under his arm and was humming a psalm in a rich undertone. And the unwise thing he said was: "I'd like to sing the _Amen_ at the end of the psalms, as well as the hymns.

What do you say, J. P.?"

"An excellent idea, Ed," said Mr. Thornton heartily. "The psalms would sound much more finished--" He stopped suddenly, realising that they had made a fatal mistake. Mr. McPherson had overheard, and uttered a disgusted snort. For he hated the new appendage to the hymns, and looked upon its importation into the church service much as if the use of incense had been introduced. He was a little man, with a shrewd eye and a slow tongue--but a tongue that could give a deadly thrust when he got ready to use it.

"The Aye-men," he said with great deliberation, and when he was most deliberate, he was most to be feared. "Inteet, and you'll be putting that tail to the end o' the psawlms too." He tapped Lawyer Ed on the arm with his spectacle case. "Jist be waiting a bit till you get permission, young man. You and John Thornton are not jist awl the session."

Mr. McPherson was the senior elder, the champion of all things orthodox, and he was inclined to regard Lawyer Ed and J. P. as irresponsible boys.

"Hoot toot, mon," shouted Lawyer Ed jovially. "What's wrong wi' a bit Aye-men foreby? It's in the Scriptur', 'Let all the people say Amen'--and here you would forbid them!"

Jock was a Highlander, and Lawyer Ed's habit of addressing him in a Lowland dialect was particularly irritating as the mischievous young elder well knew.

"Yus. You know the Scriptures ferry well indeed, but if you would be reading a little farther you will find that it will be saying, 'How shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen?'"

This tickled Lawyer Ed and he laughed loudly. "Tut, tut, Jock! It's a small thing to make a fuss about. You and Jimmie McTavish and a lot more of you fellows are dead set against all sorts of things that you accept in the end. Why, man, I can remember the day when you two objected to the little organ in the old church, and you got used to it and liked it."

"I liked it? Indeed, and when would that be?"

"Well, you stopped kicking, anyway, until we got the big one, which was clean unreasonable, whatefer."

"No, sir." Mr. McPherson's spectacle case tapped the younger man's arm peremptorily. "I was perfectly logical then, as I am now. I objected when the wee squeaking thing was brought in, and I objected more when you and the weemin filled up the end o' the church with a machine to turn us all deef. As I say, I was perfectly logical, the greater the organ, the greater the objection."

J. P. hid a smile in the darkness and hastened to interpose, for when Jock once got riding his objection hobby he would agree with nothing under the sun.