There was no word spoken for some moments after the prayer. With people like the Finches it was considered to be an insult to the Almighty to depart from "the Presence" with any unseemly haste. Then Thomas came to help his mother to her room, but she, with her eyes upon her husband, quietly put Thomas aside and said, "Donald, will you tak me ben?"
Rarely had she called him by his name before the family, and all felt that this was a most unusual demonstration of tenderness on her part.
The old man glanced quickly at her from under his overhanging eyebrows, and met her bright upward look with an involuntary shake of the head and a slight sigh. Comfort was not for him, and he must not delude himself. But with a little laugh she put her hand on his arm, and as if administering reproof to a little child, she said some words in Gaelic.
"Oh, woman, woman!" said Donald in reply, "if it was yourself we had to deal with—"
"Whisht, man! Will you be putting me before your Father in heaven?" she said, as they disappeared into the other room.
There was no fiddle that evening. There was no heart for it with Thomas, neither was there time, for there was the milking to do, and the "sorting" of the pails and pans, and the preparing for churning in the morning, so that when all was done, the long evening had faded into the twilight and it was time for bed.
Before going upstairs, Thomas took Hughie into "the room" where his mother's bed had been placed. Thomas gave her her medicine and made her comfortable for the night.
"Is there nothing else now, mother?" he said, still lingering about her.
"No, Thomas, my man. How are the cows doing?"
"Grand; Blossom filled a pail to-night, and Spotty almost twice. She's a great milker, yon."
"Yes, and so was her mother. I remember she used to fill two pails when the grass was good."
"I remember her, too. Her horns curled right back, didn't they? And she always looked so fierce."
"Yes, but she was a kindly cow. And will the churn be ready for the morning?"
"Yes, mother, we'll have buttermilk for our porridge, sure enough."
"Well, you'll need to be up early for that, too early, Thomas, lad, for a boy like you."
"A boy like me!" said Thomas, feigning indignation, and stretching himself to his full height. "Where would you be getting your men, mother?"
"You are man enough, laddie," said his mother, "and a good one you will come to be, I doubt. And you, too, Hughie, lad," she added, turning to him. "You will be like your father."
"I dunno," said Hughie, his face flushing scarlet. He was weary and sick of his secret, and the sight of the loving comradeship between Thomas and his mother made his burden all the heavier.
"What's wrong with yon laddie?" asked Mrs. Finch, when Hughie had gone away to bed.
"Now, mother, you're too sharp altogether. And how do you know anything is wrong with him?"
"I warrant you his mother sees it. Something is on his mind. Hughie is not the lad he used to be. He will not look at you straight, and that is not like Hughie."
"Oh, mother, you're a sharp one," said Thomas. "I thought no one had seen that but myself. Yes, there is something wrong with him. It's something in the school. It's a poor place nowadays, anyway, and I wish Hughie were done with it."
"He must keep at the school, Thomas, and I only wish you could do the same." His mother sighed. She had her own secret ambition for Thomas, and though she never opened her heart to her son, or indeed to any one, Thomas somehow knew that it was her heart's desire to see him "in the pulpit."
"Never you mind, mother," he said, brightly. "It'll all come right. Aren't you always the one preaching faith to me?"
"Yes, laddie, and it is needed, and sorely at times."
"Now, mither," said Thomas, dropping into her native speech, "ye mauna be fashin' yersel. Ye'll jist say 'Now I lay me,' and gang to sleep like a bairnie."
"Ay, that's a guid word, laddie, an' a'll tak it. Ye may kiss me guid nicht. A'll tak it."
Thomas bent over her and whispered in her ear, "Ay, mither, mither, ye're an angel, and that ye are."
"Hoots, laddie, gang awa wi' ye," said his mother, but she held her arms about his neck and kissed him once and again. There was no one to see, and why should they not give and take their heart's fill of love.
But when Thomas stood outside the room door, he folded his arms tight across his breast and whispered with lips that quivered, "Ay, mither, mither, mither, there's nane like ye. There's nane like ye." And he was glad that when he went upstairs, he found Hughie unwilling to talk.
The next three days they were all busy with the planting of the potatoes, and nothing could have been better for Hughie. The sweet, sunny air, and the kindly, wholesome earth and honest hard work were life and health to mind and heart and body. It is wonderful how the touch of the kindly mother earth cleanses the soul from its unwholesome humors. The hours that Hughie spent in working with the clean, red earth seemed somehow to breathe virtue into him. He remembered the past months like a bad dream. They seemed to him a hideous unreality, and he could not think of Foxy and his schemes, nor of his own weakness in yielding to temptation, without a horrible self-loathing. He became aware of a strange feeling of sympathy and kinship with old Donald Finch. He seemed to understand his gloom. During those days their work brought those two together, for Billy Jack had the running of the drills, and to Thomas was intrusted the responsibility of "dropping" the potatoes, so Hughie and the old man undertook to "cover" after Thomas.
Side by side they hoed together, speaking not a word for an hour at a time, but before long the old man appeared to feel the lad's sympathy. Hughie was quick to save him steps, and eager in many ways to anticipate his wishes. He was quick, too, with the hoe, and ambitious to do his full share of the work, and this won the old man's respect, so that by the end of the first day there was established between them a solid basis of friendship.
Old Donald Finch was no cheerful companion for Hughie, but it was to Hughie a relief, more than anything else, that he was not much with either Thomas or Billy Jack.
"You're tired," he ventured, in answer to a deep sigh from the old man, toward the close of the day.
"No, laddie," replied the old man, "I know not that I am working. The burden of toil is the least of all our burdens." And then, after a pause, he added, "It is a terrible thing, is sin."
To an equal in age the old man would never have ventured this confidence, but to Hughie, to his own surprise, he found it easy to talk.
"A terrible thing," he repeated, "and it will always be finding you out."
Hughie listened to him with a fearful sinking of heart, thinking of himself and his sin.
"Yes," repeated the old man, with awful solemnity, "it will come up with you at last."
"But," ventured Hughie, timidly, "won't God forgive? Won't he ever forget?"
The old man looked at him, leaning upon his hoe.
"Yes, he will forgive. But for those who have had great privileges, and who have sinned against light—I will not say."
The fear deepened in Hughie's heart.
"Do you mean that God will not forgive a man who has had a good chance, an elder, or a minister, or—or—a minister's son, say, like me?"
There was something in Hughie's tone that startled the old man. He glanced at Hughie's face.
"What am I saying?" he cried. "It is of myself I am thinking, boy, and of no minister or minister's son."
But Hughie stood looking at him, his face showing his terrible anxiety. God and sin were vivid realities to him.
"Yes, yes," said the old man to himself, "it is a great gospel. 'As far as the east is distant from the west.' 'And plenteous redemption is ever found with him.'"
"But, do you think," said Hughie, in a low voice, "God will tell all our sins? Will he make them known?"
"God forbid!" cried the old man. "'And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.' 'The depths of the sea.' No, no, boy, he will surely forget, and he will n
ot be proclaiming them."
It was a strange picture. The old man leaning upon the top of his hoe looking over at the lad, the gloom of his face irradiated with a momentary gleam of hope, and the boy looking back at him with almost breathless eagerness.
"It would be great," said Hughie, at last, "if he would forget."
"Yes," said the old man, the gleam in his face growing brighter, "'If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us,' and forgiving with him is forgetting. Ah, yes, it is a great gospel," he continued, and standing there he lifted up his hand and broke into a kind of chant in Gaelic, of which Hughie could catch no meaning, but the exalted look on the old man's face was translation enough.
"Must we always tell?" said Hughie, after the old man had ceased.
"What are you saying, laddie?"
"I say must we always tell our sins—I mean to people?"
The old man thought a moment. "It is not always good to be talking about our sins to people. That is for God to hear. But we must be ready to make right what is wrong."
"Yes, yes," said Hughie, eagerly, "of course one would be glad to do that."
The old man gave him one keen glance, and began hoeing again.
"Ye'd better be asking ye're mother about that. She will know."
"No, no," said Hughie, "I can't."
The old man paused in his work, looked at the boy for a moment or two, and then went on working again.
"Speak to my woman," he said, after a few strokes of his hoe. "She's a wonderful wise woman." And Hughie wished that he dared.
During the days of the planting they became great friends, and to their mutual good. The mother's keen eyes noted the change both in Hughie and in her husband, and was glad for it. It was she that suggested to Billy Jack that he needed help in the back pasture with the stones. Billy Jack, quick to take her meaning, eagerly insisted that help he must have, indeed he could not get on with the plowing unless the stones were taken off. And so it came that Hughie and the old man, with old Fly hitched up in the stone-boat, spent two happy and not unprofitable days in the back pasture. Gravely they discussed the high themes of God's sovereignty and man's freedom, with all their practical issues upon conduct and destiny. Only once, and that very shyly, did the old man bring round the talk to the subject of their first conversation that meant so much to them both.
"The Lord will not be wanting to shame us beyond what is necessary," he said. "There are certain sins which he will bring to light, but there are those that, in his mercy, he permits us to hide; provided always," he added, with emphasis, "we are done with them."
"Yes, indeed," assented Hughie, eagerly, "and who wouldn't be done with them?"
But the old man shook his head sadly.
"If that were always true a man would soon be rid of his evil heart. But," he continued, as if eager to turn the conversation, "you will be talking with my woman about it. She's a wonderful wise woman, yon."
Somehow the opportunity came to Hughie to take the old man's advice. On Saturday evening, just before leaving for home, he found himself alone with Mrs. Finch sitting beside the open window, watching the sun go down behind the trees.
"What a splendid sunset!" he cried. He was ever sensitive to the majestic drama of nature.
"Ay," said Mrs. Finch, "the clouds and the sun make wonderful beauty together, but without the sun the clouds are ugly things."
Hughie quickly took her meaning.
"They are not pleasant," he said.
"No, not pleasant," she replied, "but with the sunlight upon them they are wonderful."
Hughie was silent for some moments, and then suddenly burst out, "Mrs. Finch, does God forget sins, and will he keep them hid, from people, I mean?"
"Ay," she said, with quiet conviction, "he will forget, and he will hide them. Why should he lay the burden of our sins upon others? And if he does not why should we?"
"Do you mean we need not always tell? I'd like to tell my—some one."
"Ay," she replied, "it's a weary wark and a lanely to carry it oor lane, but it's an awfu' grief to hear o' anither's sin. An awfu' grief," she repeated to herself.
"But," burst out Hughie, "I'll never be right till I tell my mother."
"Ay, and then it is she would be carrying the weight o' it."
"But it's against her," said Hughie, his hands going up to his face. "Oh, Mrs. Finch, it's just awful mean. I don't know how I did it."
"Ye can tell me, laddie, if ye will," said she, kindly, and Hughie poured forth the whole burden that had lain so long upon him, but he told it laying upon Foxy small blame, for during those days, his own part had come to bulk so large with him that Foxy's was almost forgotten.
For some moments after he had done Mrs. Finch sat in silence, leaning forward and patting the boy's bowed head.
"Ay, but he is rightly named," she said, at length.
"Who?" asked Hughie, surprised.
"Yon store-keepin' chiel." Then she added, "But ye're done wi' him and his tricks, and ye'll stand up against him and be a man for the wee laddies."
"Oh, I don't know," said Hughie, too sick at heart and too penetrated with the miserable sense of his own meanness and cowardice, to make any promise.
"And as tae ye're mither, laddie," went on Mrs. Finch, "it will be a sair burden for her." When Mrs. Finch was greatly moved she always dropped into her broadest Scotch.
"Oh, yes, I know," said Hughie, his voice now broken with sobs, "and that's the worst of it. If I didn't have to tell her! She'll just break her heart, I know. She thinks I'm so—oh, oh—" The long pent up feelings came flooding forth in groans and sobs.
For some moments Mrs. Finch sat quietly, and then she said, "Listen, laddie. There is Another to be thought of first."
"Another?" asked Hughie. "Oh, yes, I know. But He knows already, and indeed I have often told Him. But besides, you say He will forget, and take it away. But mother doesn't know, and doesn't suspect."
"Well, then, laddie," said Mrs. Finch, with quiet firmness, "let her tell ye what to do. Mak ye're offer to tell her, and warn her that it'll grieve ye baith, and then let her say."
"Yes, I'll do it. I'll do it to-night, and if she says so, then I'll tell her."
And so he did, and when he came back to the Finch's on Monday morning, for his mother saw that leaving school for a time would be no serious loss, and a week or two with the Finches might be a great gain, he came radiant to Mrs. Finch, and finding her in her chair by the open window alone, he burst forth, "I told her, and she wouldn't let me. She didn't want to know so long as I said it was all made right. And she promised she would trust me just the same. Oh, she's splendid, my mother! And she's coming this week to see you. And I tell you I just feel like—like anything! I can't keep still. I'm like Fido when he's let off his chain. He just goes wild."
Then, after a pause, he added, in a graver tone, "And mother read Zaccheus to me. And isn't it fine how He never said a word to him?"—Hughie was too excited to be coherent—"but stood up for him, and"—here Hughie's voice became more grave—"I'm going to restore fourfold. I'm going to work at the hay, and I fired that old pistol into the pond, and I'm not afraid of Foxy any more, not a bit."
Hughie rushed breathlessly through his story, while the dark face before him glowed with intelligent sympathy, but she only said, when he had done, "It is a graund thing to be free, is it no'?"
CHAPTER X
THE BEAR HUNT
"Is Don round, Mrs. Cameron?"
"Mercy me, Hughie! Did ye sleep in the woods? Come away in. Ye're a sight for sore eyes. Come away in. And how's ye're mother and all?"
"All right, thank you. Is Don in?"
"Don? He's somewhere about the barn. But come away, man, there's a bit bannock here, and some honey."
"I'm in a hurry, Mrs. Cameron, and I can't very well wait," said Hughie, trying to preserve an evenness of tone and not allow his excitement to appear.
"Well, well! What's the matter, whatever?" When Hughie refused
a "bit bannock" and honey, something must be seriously wrong.
"Nothing at all, but I'm just wanting Don for a—for something."
"Well, well, just go to the old barn and cry at him."
Hughie found Don in the old barn, busy "rigging up" his plow, for the harvest was in and the fall plowing was soon to begin.
"Man, Don!" cried Hughie, in a subdued voice, "it's the greatest thing you ever heard!"
"What is it now, Hughie? You look fairly lifted. Have you seen a ghost?"
"A ghost? No, something better than that, I can tell you."
Hughie drew near and lowered his voice, while Don worked on indifferently.
"It's a bear, Don."
Don dropped his plow. His indifference vanished. The Camerons were great hunters, and many a bear had they, with their famous black dogs, brought home in their day, but not for the past year or two; and never had Don bagged anything bigger than a fox or a coon.
"Where did you see him?"
"I didn't see him." Don looked disgusted. "But he was in our house last night."
"Look here now, stop that!" said Don, gripping Hughie by the jacket and shaking him.
But Hughie's summer in the harvest-field had built up his muscles, and so he shook himself free from Don's grasp, and said, "Look out there! I'm telling you the truth. Last night father was out late and the supper things were left on the table—some honey and stuff—and after father had been asleep for a while he was wakened by some one tramping about the house. He got up, came out of his room, and called out, 'Jessie, where are the matches?' And just then there was an awful crash, and something hairy brushed past his leg in the dark and got out of the door. We all came down, and there was the table upset, the dishes all on the floor, and four great, big, deep scratches in the table."
"Pshaw! It must have been Fido."
"Fido was in the barn, and just mad to get out; and besides, the tracks are there yet behind the house. It was a bear, sure enough, and I'm going after him."
"You?"
"Yes, and I want you to come with the dogs."
Glengarry School Days-a story of early days in Glengarry Page 12