Corporal Cameron of the North West Mounted Police Part 3

But Moira stood dazed. "But, Papa, you have not told me what is wrong with Allan." Her voice was quiet, but with a certain insistence in it that at once irritated her father and compelled his attention.

"Tut, tut, Moira, I have just said I do not know."

"Is he ill, Papa?" Again the girl's voice grew faint.

"No, no, not ill. I wish he were! I mean it is some business matter you cannot understand. But it must be serious if Mr. Rae asks my presence immediately. So you must hasten, child."

In less than half an hour Donald and the cart were waiting at the door, and Moira stood in the hall with her father's bag ready packed. "Oh, I am glad," she said, as she helped her father with his coat, "that Allan is not ill. There can't be much wrong."

"Wrong! Read that, child!" cried the father impatiently.

She took the letter and read, her face reflecting her changing emotions, perplexity, surprise, finally indignation. "'A matter for the police,'"

she quoted, scornfully, handing her father the letter. "'A matter for the police' indeed! My but that Mr. Rae is the clever man! The police!

Does he think my brother Allan would cheat?--or steal, perhaps!" she panted, in her indignant scorn.

"Mr. Rae is a careful man and a very able lawyer," replied her father.

"Able! Careful! He's an auld wife, and that's what he is! You can tell him so for me." She was trembling and white with a wrath her father had never before seen in her. He stood gazing at her in silent surprise.

"Papa," cried Moira pa.s.sionately, answering his look, "do you think what he is saying? I know my brother Allan clean through to the heart. He is wild at times, and might rage perhaps and--and--break things, but he will not lie nor cheat. He will die first, and that I warrant you."

Still her father stood gazing upon her as she stood proudly erect, her pale face alight with lofty faith in her brother and scorn of his traducer. "My child, my child," he said, huskily, "how like you are to your mother! Thank G.o.d! Indeed it may be you're right! G.o.d grant it!" He drew her closely to him.

"Papa, Papa," she whispered, clinging to him, while her voice broke in a sob, "you know Allan will not lie. You know it, don't you, Papa?"

"I hope not, dear child, I hope not," he replied, still holding her to him.

"Papa," she cried wildly, "say you believe me."

"Yes, yes, I do believe you. Thank G.o.d, I do believe you. The boy is straight."

At that word she let him go. That her father should not believe in Allan was to her loyal heart an intolerable pain. Now Allan would have someone to stand for him against "that lawyer" and all others who might seek to do him harm. At the House door she stood watching her father drive down through the ragged firs to the highroad, and long after he had pa.s.sed out of sight she still stood gazing. Upon the church tower rising out of its birches and its firs her eyes were resting, but her heart was with the little mound at the tower's foot, and as she gazed, the tears gathered and fell.

"Oh, Mother!" she whispered. "Mother, Mother! You know Allan would not lie!"

A sudden storm was gathering. In a brief moment the world and the Glen had changed. But half an hour ago and the Cuagh Oir was lying glorious with its flowing gold. Now, from the Cuagh as from her world, the flowing gold was gone.

CHAPTER III

THE FAMILY SOLICITOR

The senior member of the legal firm of Rae & Macpherson was perplexed and annoyed, indeed angry, and angry chiefly because he was perplexed.

He resented such a condition of mind as reflecting upon his legal and other ac.u.men. Angry, too, he was because he had been forced to accept, the previous day, a favour from a firm--Mr. Rae would not condescend to say a rival firm--with which he for thirty years had maintained only the most distant and formal relations, to wit, the firm of Thomlinson & s.h.i.+elds. Messrs. Rae & Macpherson were family solicitors and for three generations had been such; hence there gathered about the firm a fine flavour of a.s.sured respectability which only the combination of solid integrity and undoubted antiquity can give. Messrs. Rae & Macpherson had not yielded in the slightest degree to that commercialising spirit which would transform a respectable and self-respecting firm of family solicitors into a mere financial agency; a transformation which Mr. Rae would consider a degradation of an ancient and honourable profession.

This uncompromising att.i.tude toward the commercialising spirit of the age had doubtless something to do with their losing the solicitors.h.i.+p for the Bank of Scotland, which went to the firm of Thomlinson & s.h.i.+elds, to Mr. Rae's keen, though unacknowledged, disappointment; a disappointment that arose not so much from the loss of the very honourable and lucrative appointment, and more from the fact that the appointment should go to such a firm as that of Thomlinson & s.h.i.+elds.

For the firm of Thomlinson & s.h.i.+elds were of recent origin, without ancestry, boasting an existence of only some thirty-five years, and, as one might expect of a firm of such recent origin, characterised by the commercialising modern spirit in its most p.r.o.nounced and objectionable form. Mr. Rae, of course, would never condescend to hostile criticism, dismissing Messrs. Thomlinson & s.h.i.+elds from the conversation with the single remark, "Pus.h.i.+ng, Sir, very pus.h.i.+ng, indeed."

It was, then, no small humiliation for Mr. Rae to be forced to accept a favour from Mr. Thomlinson. "Had it been any other than Cameron," he said to himself, as he sat in his somewhat dingy and dusty office, "I would let him swither. But Cameron! I must see to it and at once."

Behind the name there rose before Mr. Rae's imagination a long line of brave men and fair women for whose name and fame and for whose good estate it had been his duty and the duty of those who had preceded him in office to a.s.sume responsibility.

"Young fool! Much he cares for the honour of his family! I wonder what's at the bottom of this business! Looks ugly! Decidedly ugly! The first thing is to find him." A messenger had failed to discover young Cameron at his lodgings, and had brought back the word that for a week he had not been seen there. "He must be found. They have given me till to-morrow. I cannot ask a further stay of proceedings; I cannot and I will not." It made Mr. Rae more deeply angry that he knew quite well if necessity arose he would do just that very thing. "Then there's his father coming in this evening. We simply must find him. But how and where?"

Mr. Rae was not unskilled in such a matter. "Find a man, find his friends," he muttered. "Let's see. What does the young fool do? What are his games? Ah! Football! I have it! Young Dunn is my man." Hence to young Dunn forthwith Mr. Rae betook himself.

It was still early in the day when Mr. Rae's mild, round, jolly, clean-shaven face beamed in upon Mr. Dunn, who sat with dictionaries, texts, and cla.s.s notebooks piled high about him, burrowing in that mound of hidden treasure which it behooves all prudent aspirants for university honours to diligently mine as the fateful day approaches.

With Mr. Dunn time had now come to be measured by moments, and every moment golden. But the wrathful impatience that had gathered in his face at the approach of an intruder was overwhelmed in astonishment at recognising so distinguished a visitor as Mr. Rae the Writer.

"Ah, Mr. Dunn," said Mr. Rae briskly, "a moment only, one moment, I a.s.sure you. Well do I know the rage which boils behind that genial smile of yours. Don't deny it, Sir. Have I not suffered all the pangs, with just a week before the final ordeal? This is your final, I believe?"

"I hope so," said Mr. Dunn somewhat ruefully.

"Yes, yes, and a very fine career, a career befitting your father's son. And I sincerely trust, Sir, that as your career has been marked by honour, your exit shall be with distinction; and all the more that I am not unaware of your achievements in another department of--ah--shall I say endeavour. I have seen your name, Sir, mentioned more than once, to the honour of our university, in athletic events." At this point Mr.

Rae's face broke into a smile.

An amazing smile was Mr. Rae's; amazing both in the suddenness of its appearing and in the suddenness of its vanis.h.i.+ng. Upon a face of supernatural gravity, without warning, without beginning, the smile, broad, full and effulgent, was instantaneously present. Then equally without warning and without fading the smile ceased to be. Under its effulgence the observer unfamiliar with Mr. Rae's smile was moved, to a responsive geniality of expression, but in the full tide of this emotion he found himself suddenly regarding a face of such preternatural gravity as rebuked the very possibility or suggestion of geniality. Before the smile Mr. Rae's face was like a house, with the shutters up and the family plunged in gloom. When the smile broke forth every shutter was flung wide to the pouring sunlight, and every window full of flowers and laughing children. Then instantly and without warning the house was blank, lifeless, and shuttered once more, leaving you helplessly apologetic that you had ever been guilty of the fatuity of a.s.sociating anything but death and gloom with its appearance.

To young Mr. Dunn it was extremely disconcerting to discover himself smiling genially into a face of the severest gravity, and eyes that rebuked him for his untimely levity. "Oh, I beg pardon," exclaimed Mr.

Dunn hastily, "I thought--"

"Not at all, Sir," replied Mr. Rae. "As I was saying, I have observed from time to time the distinctions you have achieved in the realm of athletics. And that reminds me of my business with you to-day,--a sad business, a serious business, I fear." The solemn impressiveness of Mr. Rae's manner awakened in Mr. Dunn an awe amounting to dread. "It is young Cameron, a friend of yours, I believe, Sir."

"Cameron, Sir!" echoed Dunn.

"Yes, Cameron. Does he, or did he not have a place on your team?"

Dunn sat upright and alert. "Yes, Sir. What's the matter, Sir?"

"First of all, do you know where he is? I have tried his lodgings. He is not there. It is important that I find him to-day, extremely important; in fact, it is necessary; in short, Mr. Dunn,--I believe I can confide in your discretion,--if I do not find him to-day, the police will to-morrow."

"The police, Sir!" Dunn's face expressed an awful fear. In the heart of the respectable Briton the very mention of the police in connection with the private life of any of his friends awakens a feeling of gravest apprehension. No wonder Mr. Dunn's face went pale! "The police!" he said a second time. "What for?"

Mr. Rae remained silent.

"If it is a case of debts, Sir," suggested Mr. Dunn, "why, I would gladly--"

Mr. Rae waved him aside. "It is sufficient to say, Mr. Dunn, that we are the family solicitors, as we have been for his father, his grandfather and great-grandfather before him."

"Oh, certainly, Sir. I beg pardon," said Mr. Dunn hastily.

"Not at all; quite proper; does you credit. But it is not a case of debts, though it is a case of money; in fact, Sir,--I feel sure I may venture to confide in you,--he is in trouble with his bank, the Bank of Scotland. The young man, or someone using his name, has been guilty of--ah--well, an irregularity, a decided irregularity, an irregularity which the bank seems inclined to--to--follow up; indeed, I may say, instructions have been issued through their solicitors to that effect.

Mr. Thomlinson was good enough to bring this to my attention, and to offer a stay of proceedings for a day."

"Can I do anything, Sir?" said Dunn. "I'm afraid I've neglected him. The truth is, I've been in an awful funk about my exams, and I haven't kept in touch as I should."

"Find him, Mr. Dunn, find him. His father is coming to town this evening, which makes it doubly imperative. Find him; that is, if you can spare the time."