The End Of The Rainbow Part 5

"I am not sure where he is. I heard he had gone to Montreal." And when she had said it she became as white as the dainty lawn blouse she wore.

Roderick made a blundering attempt to apologise for something, he scarcely knew what, and only made matters worse.

"I--I beg your pardon," he said, "I shouldn't have asked--but I thought--we understood--at least I mean Billy said," he floundered about hopelessly, and she came to his aid.

"That Dr. Wells and I were engaged?" She was looking at him directly now, sitting erect with a sparkle in her eye.

"Yes," he whispered.

"It was true--then. But it is not now."

"I am so sorry I spoke--" faltered Roderick.

"You need not be," she broke in. "It was quite natural--only--" she looked at him keenly for a moment as though taking his measure. "May I ask a favour of you, Mr. McRae?"

"Oh, yes, I should be so glad," he broke out, anxious to make amends.

"Then if you would be so good as to make no mention of--of this. I shall be living in Algonquin now for some time probably."

She stopped falteringly. She could not confess to this strange young man that she had come away to this little town where no one knew her just to escape the curiosity and pity of acquaintances and friends, and that she was dismayed at meeting one on its very threshold who knew her secret. She was relieved to find him more anxious to keep it than she herself.

He a.s.sured her that he would not even think of it again, and then he stumbled upon a remark about the fis.h.i.+ng in Lake Algonquin, and the duck-shooting, two things, he recollected afterwards, in which she could not possibly be interested, and finally he made his escape. He leaned over the bow, watching the channel opening out its green arms to the _Inverness_, and tried to recall all that he had heard about d.i.c.k Wells. Billy Parker, who knew all college gossip, had told him much to which he had scarcely listened. But he remembered something concerning a broken engagement. Wells was to have been married in June to the pretty Miss Murray, Billy had said. She had her trousseau all ready, and then d.i.c.k had gone on a trip to the Old Country alone. No one knew the reason, though Billy had declared it was the same old reason--"Another girl."

Roderick McRae's chivalry had never before been called into action where young women were concerned. Now he felt something new and strong rising within him. He was suddenly filled with the old spirit which sent a knight out upon the highway to do doughty deeds for the honour of a lady, or to right her wrongs. His warm heart was filled with conflicting emotions, rage at himself for having brought the hurt look into those soft blue eyes, rage at Wells for being the primary cause of it, and underneath all a strange, quite unreasonable, feeling of exhilaration over the fact that he and the girl with the golden hair and the sad eyes had a secret between them.

They were in the Gates now, pa.s.sing slowly through the railroad bridge.

The softly tinted gla.s.sy water of Lake Algonquin, with the green islands mirrored in its clear depths was opening out to view. The channel too, was clear and still like crystal, save where the swell from the bows of the _Inverness_ rolled away to the low sh.o.r.e and set the bulrushes nodding a stately welcome. The echoes of the little engine clattered away into the deep woods, startlingly clear. An ugly brown bittern, with a harsh exclamation of surprise at the intrusion into his quiet domain, shot across the bow and disappeared into the swamp. A great heron sailed majestically down the channel ahead of the boat, his broad blue wings gleaming in the sunlight. It was all so still and beautiful that a sense of peace and content awoke in Roderick's heart.

The _Inverness_ was making her way slowly towards the second bridge.

The channel was very narrow and shallow here and the captain's little whistle that communicated with the powers below was squeaking frantically. Just as the bridge began to turn, a man in a mud-splashed buggy dashed up, a moment too late to cross, and stood there holding his horse, which went up indignantly on its heels every time the _Inverness_ snorted. His fair face was darkened with anger, his blue eyes were blazing. He leaned over the dashboard and shook his fist at the little wheel-house which held the captain.

"Get along there you, Jimmie McTavis.h.!.+" He roared in a voice that was rich and musical even in its anger. "Can't you see I'm in a hurry, you thundering old mud-turtle? I could sail a s.h.i.+p across the Atlantic while you are dawdling here. Get out of my road, I tell you! I've got to be in town before that five train goes out, and here's that old dromedary of yours stuck in the mud.--How? What? Oh, what in the name of--?" He choked, spluttering with wrath, for with a final squeak the _Inverness_ stopped altogether.

The captain darted out of the wheel-house to call down an indignant enquiry of the Ancient Mariner as to the cause of the delay. Much sailing in all weathers in the keen air of the northern lakes had ruined Captain McTavish's voice, which, at best, had never been intended for any part but a high soprano. And now it was almost inaudible with anger. It ill became the dignity of a sea captain to be thus publicly berated in the presence of his pa.s.sengers.

"If ye'd whisht ye're noise," he screamed, "I'd be movin' queek enough.

Come away, Sandy! Come away, Peter, man!"

For all his sailing, the captain was a true landsman, and when under pressure his thin nautical veneer slipped off him, and his language was not of the sea.

"Come away, Sandy," he called artlessly, "and gee her a bit. _Gee_!"

"I can have the law on you for obstructing the King's Highway!"

thundered the man on the bridge.

"The water will be jist as much the King's Highway as the road!"

retorted the captain indignantly. "If you would be leafing other folks' business alone, and attending to your own, you would be knowing the law better. It is a rule of the sea that effery vessel--"

"The sea!" the enemy burst in with an overwhelming roar. "The sea! A vessel! A miserable fish pond, and an old tub like that, the sea and a vessel! Get away with you! Get out of my sight!"

He waved a hand as if he would wipe the _Inverness_ from off the face of the waters.

During the altercation, Roderick McRae had been leaning far over the railing, striving to attract the attention of the madman in the buggy.

But his voice was drowned in the laughter and cheers of the pa.s.sengers who were enjoying the battle immensely. At this moment he put his fingers to his teeth and uttered a long, sharp whistle. "Ho! Lawyer Ed!" he shouted. The man on the bridge started. His angry face, with the quickness of lightning, broke into radiance.

"Roderick!--Rod! Are you there? Hooray!" He caught off his hat and waved it in the air. "Come on home with me! I dare you to jump it!"

The _Inverness_ was at a perilous distance from the bridge, but the young man did not hesitate a moment before the half-laughing challenge.

He leaped lightly upon the railing, poised a moment and, with a mighty spring, landed upon the bridge. The onlookers gave a gasp and then a relieved and admiring cheer.

Another spring put Roderick into the buggy, where his friend hammered him on the back, and they laughed like a couple of school-boys. And that was what they really were, for though Roderick McRae was nearly twenty-four, he was feeling like a boy in his home-coming joy, and as for Lawyer Ed he hadn't grown an hour older, either in feeling or appearance, but lived perennially somewhere near the joyous age of eighteen.

Meanwhile the real captain of the _Inverness_ had begun to bestir himself. The Ancient Mariner cared not the smallest lump of coal that went into the furnace door for the command of his brother-captain; but he had a wholesome fear of Lawyer Ed, and doubted the wisdom of rousing him again. So he gave an order to Peter, and with a great deal of boiling and churning of the water the _Inverness_ slowly began to move.

The bridge, worked by a dozen youngsters who always roosted there, began to turn into place. With a defiant yell of her whistle, the _Inverness_ sailed out of the Gates, and the buggy dashed across the bridge and away down the dusty road. But though Lawyer Ed was bubbling over with good humour now, he turned, Marmion like, to shake his gauntlet of defiance at the retreating vessel, and to call out insulting remarks to which the captain responded with spirit.

"Well inteet," said the Ancient Mariner, as he settled once more to his pipe, "it will be a great peety that Lawyer Ed has neither the Gawlic nor the profanity, for when he will be getting into a rage he will jist be no use at all, at all!"

All unconscious of his verbal deficiencies, and uproariously happy, Lawyer Ed sped away down the Pine Road towards town. He had been looking forward for a long time to this day, when Roderick should come back to Algonquin to be his partner.

"It's great to see you again, Lad," he exclaimed joyfully, surveying the young man's fine figure and frank face with pride. "I was getting nervous for fear you were going West after all."

"I can't pretend I didn't want to go," he confessed, "though I didn't like the idea of another fellow in my place in your office. You see I'm a good bit of a dog in the manger, and when Father's last letter arrived I felt I must come."

"That's right, my boy. Your place is with your father just now. And you're looking as fine and fit as if you'd been away camping."

"I'm ready for anything. You and J. P. Thornton can start for the Holy Land to-morrow."

"I prophesied once, about a score or so years ago; that I'd go when you could manage my practice, and I'll be hanged if I don't think it's coming true. J. P.'s talking about it, anyway. Does your arm ever bother you now?"

Roderick doubled up his right fist, stretched out his arm, and slowly drew it up, showing his splendid muscle. "Sometimes, but not anything to bother about, only a twinge once in a while when it's damp. I can still paddle my good canoe, and if you'd like a boxing bout--" he turned and squared up to his friend, receiving a lightning-like blow that nearly knocked him into the road. And the two went off into an uproarious sparring match like a couple of youngsters.

Lawyer Ed had never yet married though he still made love to every woman, girl and baby in Algonquin. But Roderick McRae had grown to be like a son to him, filling every desire of his big warm heart, and now the proud day had come when his boy was to be his partner. He and Angus had talked for hours of the wonderful things that were to be accomplished in the town and church and on the Jericho Road when the Lad came home, and had laid great plans at which the Lad himself only guessed. They had feared for a time that all were to be ruined when, after his graduation, he had been kept in the city in the employ of a firm, and had received from them an offer of a position in the West.

But he had refused, to their joy, and was to settle in Algonquin and relieve Lawyer Ed of his altogether too burdensome practice.

As they spun along, for the five-o'clock train was still to be caught, the elder man poured out all the news of the town; J. P.'s last great speech, Algonquin's lacrosse victories, the latest battle in the session,--for Jock McPherson was still a valiant and stubborn objector,--the last tea-meeting at McClintock's Corners, where the Highland Quartette, of whom Lawyer Ed was leader, had sung, the errand over to Indian Head, where he had just been, etc., etc. It was not half told when they came to the point in the road opposite Roderick's home, and the Lad leaped down, promising to run up to the office that night when he went into town for his trunk.

He lost no time on the rest of the journey. It was a dash through the dim woods where the white Indian Pipes raised their tiny, waxen tapers, and the squirrels skirled indignantly at him from the tree-tops; a leap across the stream where the water-lilies made a fairy bridge of green and gold, a scramble through the underbrush, and he was at the edge of the little pasture-field, and saw the old home buried in orchard trees, and Aunt Kirsty's garden a blaze of sun-flowers and asters. And there at the gate, gazing eagerly down the lane in quite the wrong direction, stood his father!

The years had told heavily on the Good Samaritan, and Roderick's loving eye could detect changes even in the last year of his absence. Old Angus's tall figure was stooped and thin, and he carried a staff, but he still held up his head as though facing the skies, and his eyes were as young and as kindly as ever. The Lad gave a boyish shout and came bounding towards him. The old man dropped his stick and held out both his hands. He said not a word, but his eyes spoke very eloquently all his pride and joy and love. He put his two hands on his son's head and uttered a low prayer of thanksgiving.

Aunt Kirsty came bustling out as fast as her acc.u.mulating flesh would permit. Poor Aunt Kirsty had grown to a great bulk these later days and could not hurry, but indeed had she used up all the energy on moving forward that she mistakenly put into swaying violently from side to side, she would have made tremendous speed. Roderick ran to meet her, and she took him into her ample bosom and kissed him and patted him on the back and poured out a dozen Gaelic synonyms for darling, and then shoved him away, and burying her face in her ap.r.o.n, began to cry because he was such a man and not her baby any more!

The father's heart was too full for words; but after supper when they sat out on the porch in the soft misty twilight, he found many things to ask, and many questions to answer. Roderick sat on the step facing the lake, filled with a great content. The sunset gleam of the water through the darkening trees, the soft plaintive call of the phoebes from the woods, the sleepy drone of Bossy's bell from the pasture, and the scents of the garden made up the atmosphere of home.

"Well, well, and you have come to stay," his father said for the tenth time, rubbing his hands along his knee in ecstasy, "to stay."

"It'll be great to know that I don't have to run away at the end of the summer, won't it?"