Part 12 (1/2)
”Eh, Lad,” cried the old man, his face radiant, ”it is your father would be the happy man to see that day. There is a piece of work for you two now.”
”I'm ready,” cried Lawyer Ed enthusiastically. ”If I could only see that cursed traffic on the run it would be the joy of my life to encourage it with a good swift kick. We'll start a campaign right away. Won't we, Rod?”
”All right,” cried Roderick, pleased at the look in his father's face.
”You give your orders. I'm here to carry them out.”
”There, Angus! You've got your policeman for the Jericho Road. We'll do it yet. If we get the liquor business down, as Grandma Armstrong says, we'll knock it conscientious.”
Old Angus followed them to the gate when they drove away, his heart swelling with high hope. He would live to see all his ambitions realised in Roderick. He sat up very late that night and when he went to bed and remembered how the Lad had promised to help rid Peter of the drink curse, he could not sleep until he had sung the long-meter doxology. He sang it very softly, for Kirsty was asleep and it might be hard to explain to her if she were disturbed; nevertheless he sang it with an abounding joy and faith.
As Roderick and Lawyer Ed drove homeward, down the moon-lit length of the Pine Road; they were surprised to hear ahead of them, within a few rods of Peter Fiddle's house, the sound of singing. Very wavering and uncertain, now loud and high, now dropping to a low wail, came the slow splendid notes of Kilmarnock to the sublime words of the 103rd psalm.
The two in the buggy looked at each other. ”Peter!” cried Lawyer Ed in dismay.
When Old Peter was only a little bit drunk he inclined to frivolity and gaiety, and was given to playing the fiddle and dancing, but when he was very drunk, he was very solemn, and intensely religious. He gave himself to the singing of psalms, and if propped up would preach a sermon worthy of Doctor Leslie himself.
A turn in the road brought him into sight. There, between the silver mirror of the moonlit lake and the dark scented green of the forest, insensible to the beauty of either, sat the man. He was perched perilously on the seat of his wagon and was swaying from side to side, swinging his arms about him and singing in a loud maudlin voice, the fine old psalm that he had learned long, long ago before he became less than a man.
Lawyer Ed pulled up before him.
”Oh Peter, Peter!” he cried, ”is this you?”
Peter Fiddle stopped singing, with the righteously indignant air of one whose devotions have been interrupted by a rude barbarian.
”And who will you be,” he demanded witheringly, ”that dares to be speaking to the McDuff in such a fas.h.i.+on? Who will you be, indeed?”
”Come, come, Peter, none of that,” said his friend soothingly. ”I cannot think who you are. You surely can't be my old friend, Peter McDuff, sitting by the roadside this way. Who are you, anyway?”
Peter became suddenly grave. The question raised a terrible doubt in his mind. He looked about him with the wavering gaze of a man on board a heaving s.h.i.+p. His unsteady glance fell on the empty wagon shafts lying on the ground. He looked at them in bewilderment, then took off his old cap and scratched his head.
”How is this, I'd like to know?” demanded Lawyer Ed, pus.h.i.+ng his advantage. ”If you're not Peter McDuff, who are you? And where is the horse gone?”
Roderick climbed out of the buggy, smothering his laughter, and leaving the two to argue the question, he went after the truant horse which might help to establish his master's lost ident.i.ty. Lawyer Ed dismounted and helped him hitch it, and apparently satisfied by its reappearance, Peter stretched himself on the seat and went soundly asleep again. He lay all undisturbed while they drove him in at his gate, and put his horse away once more. And he did not move even when they lifted him from his perch and, carrying him into the house, put him into his bed.
And just as they entered the town they met poor young Peter plodding slowly and heavily towards his dreary home.
”We must do something for those two, Rod,” said Lawyer Ed, shaking his head pityingly. ”We must get Local Option or something that'll help Peter.”
But Roderick was thinking of what Miss Leslie Graham had said, and wondering if it might mean that he would be asked to handle the big affairs of Graham and Company.
CHAPTER VII
”MOVING TO MELODY”
The first Sunday that Angus McRae drove along the lake sh.o.r.e and up to the church with Lawyer Ed's partner sitting at his side, he was praying, all the way, to be delivered from the sin of pride. They left Aunt Kirsty at home as usual, with her Bible and her hymn-book, for the poor lady had grown so stout that she could not be lifted into buggy or boat or conveyance of any kind. They started early, but stopped so often on the road that they were none the earlier in arriving. For Angus must needs pause at the McDuff home, to see that young Peter was ready for church, and that old Peter was thoroughly sobered. And there was a huge bouquet of Aunt Kirsty's asters to be left at Billy Perkins's for the little girl who was sick. There were sounds of strife in Mike Ca.s.sidy's home too, and Angus dismounted and went in to reason with Mike and the wife on the incongruity of throwing the dishes at each other, when they had spent the morning at ma.s.s.
So when the Good Samaritan had attended to all on the Jericho Road there was not much time left, and the church bells were ringing when they drove under the green tunnel of Elm Street; the Anglican, high, resonant and silvery, the Presbyterian, with a slow, deep boom, and between the two, and harmonising with both, the mellow, even roll of the Methodist bell. The call of the bells was being given a generous obedience, for already the streets were crowded with people. From the hills to the north and the west, from the level plain to the south they came, on foot, and in buggies. Even the people who lived across the lake or away down the sh.o.r.e were there, some having crossed the water in boats or launches. This means of conveyance, however, was regarded with some disfavour, as it too perilously resembled Sunday boating.
The matter had even been brought up in the session by Mr. McPherson, who declared he objected to it, for there was no good reason why Christian people could not walk on the earth the Almighty had provided for them, on the Sabbath day.
Roderick put away the horse into the shed, smiling tenderly when he found his father waiting at the gate for him. He wanted to walk around to the church door with his boy, so that they might meet his friends together. They were received in a manner worthy of the occasion, for the four elders who were ushering all left their posts and came forward to greet Angus McRae, knowing something of what a great day in his life this Sabbath was. J. P. Thornton and Jock McPherson ushered on one side of the church, Lawyer Ed and Captain McTavish on the other, a very fitting arrangement, which mingled the old and the new schools. Only Lawyer Ed could never be kept in his own place, but ran all over the church and ushered wheresoever he pleased.
The elders of Algonquin Presbyterian church were at their best when showing the people to their seats on a Sabbath morning. Each man did it in a truly characteristic manner. Captain Jimmie received the wors.h.i.+ppers in a breezy fas.h.i.+on, as though the church were the _Inverness_ and he were calling every one to come aboard and have a bit run on the lake and a cup-a-tea, whatever. Mr. McPherson shook hands warmly with the old folk, but kept the young people in their places, and well did every youngster know that did he not conduct himself in the sanctuary with becoming propriety, the cane the elder carried would likely come rapping down smartly on his unrighteous knuckles. J. P.