Benton of the Royal Mounted Part 36

Trainor looked up at the other's approach and, lowering the paper that he was reading, nodded to him nonchalantly; his spouse gave no salutation whatever, and appeared engrossed in her sewing.

Ellis halted irresolutely, sensing something strange and apathetic in the manner in which he was received-something _distant_, as it were-and he became slowly conscious of a presentiment that his forebodings had not been without reason, and that all was not well as heretofore, when their usual welcome had been so genuine and unrestrained. With a feeling of vague uneasiness at his heart, he regarded them blankly a moment or two, glancing from one to the other inquiringly; then he said:

"Is anything the matter? What's wrong?"

Trainor fidgeted nervously in his chair awhile, and then raising his self-conscious eyes to the level of his questioner's breast, blurted out:

"Well, you see, Benton, it's like this ... er-"

But words seemed to fail him, and he left the sentence unfinished, relapsing into silence and gazing miserably at his wife, as if seeking her a.s.sistance in his explanation. The latter, now for the first time, raised her head and, gravely contemplating the troubled, anxious face of the Sergeant, addressed her husband.

"Best tell him, Dave," she said, with an inflection of slightly frigid hostility in her tones. "If you won't, _I will_!"

Thus adjured, Trainor coughed awkwardly and began afresh:

"Well, now, see here; look! I'll tell you, Sergeant. It's about that girl, Mary-Miss O'Malley, I mean. You know how I and Mrs. Trainor love and regard that girl? ... known her since she was a little kiddie, and think as much of her as we do of our own children-"

He stopped, and Ellis nodded silently.

"For over a week now," continued the rancher, "that girl's been acting queerly-seems worried-won't talk, and she's not looking at all well.

This afternoon we simply couldn't stand it any longer-she was looking miserable, and it made _us_ miserable, too, seeing her like that. We were right here on the veranda, and she came out of the door to go riding. I caught hold of her by the shoulders-half jos.h.i.+ngly-'Mary, my dear!' I said; 'what's wrong? You're not looking yourself. There's something the matter-won't you tell us? You're not afraid to tell _us_, are you, my girl?' She struggled a bit when I had her cornered like that, and tried to get away from me-then she raised those beautiful honest eyes of hers and looked me squarely in the face. She tried to speak, but somehow the words wouldn't seem to come, and-"

"And _then_," broke in Mrs. Trainor, taking up the tale, "she flung away from him and threw her arms around my neck and hid her face against my shoulder. You know, Mr. Benton, she's the very soul of honesty ...

candid and unafraid to a degree-she doesn't know what evasion or subterfuge means-she's like a brave, simple child in that respect. She clung to me for a bit, and then she breaks out into that quaint Irish brogue of hers-like she often does when she's agitated or excited:

"'Och! 'tis waithin I am for a man to speak!' she wails out. 'And, oh, my dear! ... weary waithin 'tis, ochone!' And then she burst out crying, with great shaking sobs-oh! _how_ that girl _did_ cry-as if her heart was breaking. I talked to her and soothed her the best I could, and by and by she became quieter, dried her eyes, kissed me, and went away to her horse. She didn't say any more than that and I didn't ask her-didn't need to ... for there! ... isn't that admission enough? D'you think _we_ looking on at this play all this time don't know _who_ she meant?" Mrs.

Trainor continued, eyeing Benton severely. "Haven't you been coming here regularly, paying her marked attention, taking her out for rides, and all that? D'you think it's possible to deceive _us_. If you've only been amusing yourself at her expense all these months with no serious intentions, I tell you plainly, Mr. Benton ... I don't think you're acting in a proper manner at all. That girl is one in a thousand.

Besides-she has refused many good offers of marriage-and all for your sake, too-from men who were in the position to give her a downright good home and all the comforts of life. You may think it's not our business, but I tell you it _is_!" she ended, with sparkling eyes. "And we've made up our minds this sort of thing shan't go on any longer-that is, unless you can give us your positive a.s.surance that your intentions are really sincere.... No! you needn't look at me in that idiotic way!" she cried, arising and stamping her foot angrily. "I mean what I say, and I-"

Benton, with a flash of white teeth, and a broad and rather foolish grin on his-now happy-face, suddenly stepped forward and gripped the indignant lady gently by the shoulders.

"_Mrs._ Trainor!" he said, with a daring earnestness that almost took the breath away from that scandalized dame as she struggled to free herself. "If you open your mouth to say one word more, I'll-as sure as you're the wife of your husband-I'll kiss you bang in front of him!"

And, releasing her, he continued: "What you've just told me's made me the happiest man alive.... I know where I get off at, now ... and I'll proceed to tell _you_ something!"

And rapidly he acquainted the astonished pair with the news of his unexpected good fortune, apologizing for his seemingly callous conduct with a deep, sincere contrition that impressed them in no little degree and dispelled all their lingering doubts.

Trainor reached out a ma.s.sive hand. "Sergeant," he said, with great feeling. "Shake! I'm in wrong! I take it all back how I've misjudged you! I might have known you weren't _that_ kind!"

Ellis, swallowing a little, grasped the offered hand warmly.

"Dave!" he blurted out, "it's _me_ that's to blame, all right. It's mighty good of you and Mrs. Trainor to condone that sure questionable simplicity of mine in the way you have. I should have put myself right with both of you at the start."

But Mrs. Trainor outdid her husband in impulsive warmth.

"You threatened to kiss me," she began archly. "Now, I'm going to do more than threaten. There, sir!"

And, suiting the action to the word, she kissed him heartily. Then, womanlike, as the reaction to her happiness-she began to cry. At which Trainor guffawed and caught hold of her teasingly. But, dragging herself away from him, she pushed Ellis towards the path.

"Now you go!" she sobbed, "after her-straightway. And don't you dare bring her back here until you've kissed her tears away and she's her own happy self again. That is, if you can find her," she added, with wet, smiling eyes. "I don't know exactly which way she went."

"Oh, I'll find her, all right," said Ellis cheerfully. "I think I know where she'll be."

And, turning, he strode off to the waiting Johnny, mounted, and set off at a brisk lope towards "Lone b.u.t.te," that reared its head in the hazy distance. For it was _there_ that he guessed instinctively she had betaken herself.

Purposely making a wide detour to escape her possible observation, thirty minutes' brisk riding brought him into a small coulee, dotted with a young growth of Balm o' Gilead trees and alder bushes, which lay to the rear of the b.u.t.te and exactly opposite to the side where the regular path to the summit began. Here he dismounted and, leading Johnny, to save a later descent for that animal, commenced to slowly make the ascent.

Pausing to take breath within a few yards of the top, the breeze brought to his ears the unmistakable sounds of somebody whistling carelessly to herself. Yes, that was her whistle, all right, he reflected; so she couldn't be so _very_ unhappy. Intending to steal up to her un.o.bserved, and calculating from his memory of the position of the big stone, that she would have her back turned towards him, he crept warily to the summit.

Soon, not thirty feet distant on the small plateau, he beheld her seated on the stone and, as he had surmised, facing the West. But her att.i.tude of dejected abandon sobered him somewhat, and the low, monotonous whistle sounded doleful in the extreme. Noiselessly the Sergeant decreased the distance between them, and when within a few feet halted, not wis.h.i.+ng to startle her too badly. On account of her wide-brimmed Stetson hat tipped back on the nape of her neck, and the breeze blowing in her ears, she had not thus far been aware of his close approach, the thick, "old-bottom" prairie gra.s.s effectually deadening the ring of Johnny's steel-shod hoofs.

Long and earnestly, with a great love not unmixed with a pang of remorse in his heart, Ellis gazed on the still unconscious girl. Then all at once he gave a violent start, which almost betrayed his presence to her.

For, suddenly, and with the clarity that the great king saw the writing on the wall, again he seemed to behold, and comprehend fully now, the significance of the strange fantasy which had appeared to him in the detachment the previous night.

The dreary whistle ceased, and with her chin resting in her hands she began to idly croon to herself an old-fas.h.i.+oned time-worn ballad, which he vaguely recognized as Whittier's "Maud Muller." Lord! what a time it seemed since he'd heard _that!_ he reflected. It took him right back to the scenes of his boyhood again at Shrewsbury-peaceful, gray-spired old-world Shrewsbury. Verse by verse, came the monotonous refrain of the antiquated poem to his ears-just as a little girl will sometimes drone to herself as she sits plaiting her hair in the sun:

Maud Muller looked and sighed. "Ah me!

That I the Judge's bride might be!

He would dress me up in silks so fine, And praise and toast me at his wine."

How the air of a long-forgotten song, a chance phrase in a book, the scent of new-mown hay and of certain flowers, the splendor of a tropical sunrise, the glory of a flaming crimson and gold sunset, or the calm beauty of a moonlight night will ofttimes awaken in us strange old longing memories of other-and, perchance-happier days. Harking back now through all the years came to him, dimly, the recollection that the _very last_ time he had heard _that_ was at a gathering of young hearts held in his old school town, when he was a bright-eyed young sinner of thirteen or thereabouts-"soirees," as they were called then. Yes, it was at Dr. Pennington's, and saucy, yet tender-eyed, little Darthea Pennington had recited it. She had cried, too, at its conclusion, he remembered; which spectacle of girlish emotion had prompted him to start in tormenting her with some youthful nonsense, in a well-meant effort to revive her natural gaiety. True, she'd slapped his face as the reward for his impudence, but didn't she relent later to the extent of allowing him to kiss "friends," and afterwards take her in to supper?

"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, And all should bless me who left our door."

The Judge looked back at he climbed the hill, And saw Maud Muller standing still.

With bowed head the listener stood there motionless, whilst a wave of emotion surged through his heart, awakening all the sentiment which, through long years of iron self-repression, had lain dormant in his deep nature.

Whatever had possessed her to hark back to this memory of her girlhood?

he mused. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances he would no doubt have resorted as heretofore, to his customary badinage-chaffed her about "grinding out Whittier by the yard," or mimicked her in a mincing falsetto. But now-as he heard it _now_-the element of absurdity was distinctly lacking ...

nay! it was pitiful-almost tragic ... how like a simple child again she seemed, in her unhappiness?

With pathetic, monotonous regularity-as if she were seeking to distract her thoughts from her trouble by repeating some orison-the interminable stanzas rose and fell, with a quavering cadence:

Then she took up her burden of life again, Saying only. "It might have been."

Choking back a lump in his throat, Ellis now dropped his horse's lines and stepped forward.

"Mary!" he called softly.

And, at the sound of his voice the girl, with a slight start and exclamation, turned and looked up at him. With a feeling of deep contrition he remarked her pale, tear-stained face, and the dark shadows under her splendid eyes, denoting mental worry and sleepless nights. Her first surprise over, she settled listlessly back again to her old dejected att.i.tude, but never taking her great weary eyes off his face.

Never a word had she uttered yet, but continued to gaze silently on the man before her with a forlorn, wistful expression that cut him to the very heart. Suddenly she began to speak, but her voice seemed to ring strangely lifeless and far away in his ears.

"Oh! ... and are you back again?" came the toneless accents, "to mock me with that handsome, cold face of yours? I was happy enough till _you_ came into my life ... you who've laid yourself out to make me love you-for nothing, p'r'aps, except your own amus.e.m.e.nt ... 'tis through I am with happiness now, I guess ... would to G.o.d we'd never known each other.... Oh, go! ... go away, please!... I-I just can't bear it...."

Before the infinite pathos of her hopeless look and bitter words the strong man shook with his emotion until speech seemed beyond him. For, remorse-stricken though he was, beneath her reproach he glimpsed the evidence of so great a love that he could only stand and regard her with awed amazement. Aye!-well he knew now, that come what would or could, all that love was his, and would be his forever. Suddenly he leaned forward with outstretched arms and struggling, heart-wrung words burst from his lips; a golden gleam from the sinking sun, just then, lighting up and intensifying the manly beauty of his strong, clean-cut features.

"Mary!" he cried hoa.r.s.ely. "Oh, Mary, my girl. I've been thoughtless-I didn't know!... forget-forgive!..."