Westways: A Village Chronicle Part 6

Among the village boys with whom at the rector's small school and in the village John was thrown, he liked least the lad McGregor, who had now been invited to coast or skate with the Grey Pine cousins. Tom had the democratic boy-belief that very refined manners imply lack of some other far more practical qualities, and thus to him and the Westways boys John Penhallow was simply an absurd Miss Nancy kind of lad, and it was long after the elders of the little town admired and liked him that the boys learned to respect him. It was easy to see why the generous, good-tempered and pleasant lad failed to satisfy the town boys. John had been sedulously educated into the belief that he was of a cla.s.s to which these fellows did not belong, and of this the Squire had soon some suspicion when, obedient as always, John accepted his uncle's choice of his friend the doctor's son as a playmate.

He was having his hair cut when Tom McGregor came into the shop of Josiah, the barber. "Wait a minute," said John. "Are you through, Mr.

Josiah?"

Tom grinned, "Got a handle to your name?"

"Yes, because Master John is a gentleman."

"Then I'll call you Mister too."

"It won't ever make you Mister," said the barber, "that kind's born so."

John disliked this outspoken expression of an opinion he shared. "Nonsense," he said. "Come up, Tom, this afternoon. Don't forget the muskrat traps, Mr. Josiah."

"No, sir. Too early yet."

"All right," returned Tom. "I'll come."

March had come and the last snow still lay on the land when thus invited Tom joined John and Leila in the stable-yard. "Let's play tag," cried Leila. Tom was ready.

"Here's a stick." They took hold of it in turn. Tom's hand came out on top. "I'm tagger. Look out!" he cried.

They played the game. At last he caught Leila, and crying out, "You're tagged," seized her boy-cap and threw it up on to the steep slope of the stable roof.

"Oh! that's not fair," cried the girl. "You are a rude boy. Now you've got to get it."

"No, indeed. Get the stable-man to get it."

She turned to John, "Please to get it."

"How can I?" he said.

"Go up inside-there's a trap door. You can slide down the snow and get it."

"But I might fall."

"There's your chance," said Tom grinning. John stood, still irresolute.

Leila walked away into the stable.

"She'll get a man," said Tom a little regretful of his rudeness, as she disappeared.

In a moment Leila was up in the hayloft and out on the roof. Spreading out arms and thin legs she carefully let herself slide down the soft snow until, seizing her cap, she set her feet on the roof gutter, crying out, "Get a ladder quick." Alarmed at her perilous position, they ran and called out a groom, a ladder was brought, and in a moment she was on the ground.

Leila turned on the two lads. "You are a coward, Tom McGregor, and you too, John Penhallow. I never-never will play with you again."

"It was just fun," said Tom; "any of the men could have poked it down."

"Cowards," said the girl, tossing back her dark ma.s.s of hair and moving away without a look at the discomfited pair.

"I suppose now you will go and tell the Squire," said Tom. He was alarmed.

She turned, "I-a tell-tale!" Her child-code of conduct was imperative. "I am neither a tell-tale nor a coward. 'Tell-tale pick a nail and hang him to a cow's tail!'" and with this well-known declaration of her creed of playground honour, she walked away.

"She'll tell," said Tom.

"She won't," said John.

"Guess I'll go home," said Tom, and left John to his reflections.

They were most disagreeable.

John went into the woods and sat down on a log. "So," he said aloud, "she called me a coward-and I am-I was-I can't bear it. What would my uncle say?" His eyes filled. He brushed away the tears with his sleeve. A sudden remembrance of how good she had been to him, how loyally silent, added to his distress. He longed for a chance to prove that he was not that-that-Eager and yet distrustful, he got up and walked through the melting snow to the cabin, where he lay on the floor thinking, a prey to that fiend imagination, of which he had a larger share than is always pleasant when excuses are needed.

Leila was coldly civil and held her tongue, but for a few days would not go into the woods with him and rode alone or with her uncle. Tom came no more for a week, until self-a.s.sured that the Squire had not heard of his behaviour, as he met him on the road with his usual hearty greeting. Ann Penhallow saw that the boy was less happy than usual and suspected some mild difficulty with Leila, but in her wise way said nothing and began to use him for some of her many errands of helpfulness in the village and on the farms, where always he made friends. Seeing at last that the boy was too silent and to her eye unhappy, she talked of it to Mark Rivers. The next day, after school, he said to John, "I want to see that old cabin in the woods. Long as I have lived here I have never been that far. Come and show me the way. I tried once to find it and got lost. We can have a jolly good talk, you and I."

The word of kindly approach was timely. John felt the invitation as a compliment, and was singularly open to the approval his lessons won from this gentle dark-eyed man. "Oh!" he said, "I should like that."

After lunch, Leila, a little penitent, said with unwonted shyness, "The woods are very nice to-day, and I found the first arbutus under the snow."

When John did not respond, she made a further propitiatory advance, "It will soon be time for that hornets' nest, we must go and see."

"What are you about?" said Mrs. Ann; "you will get stung."

"Pursuit of natural history," said Penhallow smiling.

"You are as bad as Leila, James."

"Won't you come?" asked the girl at last.

"Thank you. I regret that I have an engagement with Mr. Rivers," said John, with the prim manner he was fast losing.

"By George!" murmured Penhallow as he rose.

John looked up puzzled, and his uncle, much amused, went to get his boots and riding-dress. "Wait till I get you on a horse, my Lord Chesterfield," he muttered. "He and Leila must have had a row. What about, I wonder." He asked no questions.

With a renewal of contentment and well-pleased, John called for the rector. They went away into the forest to the cabin.

"And so," said Rivers, "this is where the first Penhallow had his Indian fight. I must ask the Squire."

"I know about it," said John. "Leila told me, and"-he paused, "I saw it."

"Oh! did you? Let's hear." They lay down, and the rector lazily smoked.

"Well, go ahead, Jack, I like stories." He had early rechristened him Jack, and the boy liked it.

"Well, sir, they saw them coming near to dusk and ran. You see, it was a clearing then; the trees have grown here since. That was at dusk. They barred the door and cut loop-holes between the logs. Next morning the Indians came on. She fired first, and she cried out, 'Oh! James, I've killed a man.'"

"She said that?" asked Rivers.

"Yes, and she wouldn't shoot again until her man was wounded, then she was like a raging lioness."

"A lioness!" echoed Rivers.

"By evening, help came."

"How did you know all this?"