Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road.

by R. Henry Mainer.

CHAPTER I.

_THE WOMAN OF THE INN._

During the _regime_ of Governor Monk, of Upper Canada, the military road was cut through the virgin pine from Lake Ontario to the waters leading into Georgian Bay. The clearings followed, then the homesteads, then the corners, where the country store and the smithy flourished in primitive dignity. The roadside hostelry soon had a place on the highway, and deep into its centre was Nancy McVeigh's.

Nancy McVeigh's tavern was famed near and far. In earliest days the name was painted in letters bold across the high gabled face, but years of weather had washed the paint off. Its owner, however, had so long and faithfully dominated its destiny that it was known only as her property, and so it was named. A hill sloped gently for half a mile, traversed by a roadway of dry, grey sand, flanked on either side by a split-rail snake fence, gradually widening into an open s.p.a.ce in front of the tavern. The tavern had reached an advanced stage of dilapidation. A rickety verandah in front shaded the first story, and a gable projected from above, so that the sill almost touched the ridge-board. A row of open sheds, facing inwards, ranged along one side of the yard, terminated by a barn, which originally had been a low log structure, but, with the increase of trade, had been capped with a board loft. Midway between the sheds and the house stood the pump, and whilst the owners gossiped over the br.i.m.m.i.n.g ale mugs within the house, the tired beasts dropped their muzzles into the trough. Some of the pa.s.sers-by were of temperate habits, and did not enter the door leading to the bar, but accepted the refreshment offered by Nancy's pump, and thought none the less of the woman because their principles were out of sympathy with her business. The place lived only because of its mistress, and an odd character was she. Fate had directed her life into a peculiar channel, and she followed its course with a sureness of purpose that brought her admiration. She was tall, raw-boned, and muscled like a man. Her face was deeply lined, patient, and crowned with a ma.s.s of fine, fair hair turning into silvery grey, and blending so evenly that a casual observer could scarcely discern the change of color. It was her eyes, however, that betrayed the soul within, their harshness mocking the goodness which was known of her, and their softness at times giving the lie to the roughness which, in a life such as hers, might be expected.

Nancy McVeigh, the tavern and the dusty Monk Road were synonymous, and to know one was to know all three.

Nancy was within the bar when two wayfarers, whose teams were drinking at the trough, entered.

"It's a foine day, Mistress McVeigh," greeted old Mr. Conors, at the sight of her.

"It is that, and more, too, Mr. Conors," she a.s.sented, including the two men before her in her remark.

"This spell o' weather's bad fer the crops. I'll have to stop at the pump altogether if it don't rain soon."

"You're welcome to your choice. If ye want a drink and can pay fer it, I am pleased to serve ye, but I ask no man fer what he cannot afford,"

was Nancy's rejoinder, as she wiped her hands on her ap.r.o.n after drawing the mugs.

"Been to town?" she inquired, after a minute's reflection.

"Yes, and a bad place it is to save money. The women folk have so many things to buy that I often wonder where the pay for the seed grain'll come from. Had to buy the missus a shawl, and two yards of flannel for the kids to-day, and heaven only knows what they will be wanting next week, when school begins again," commented Mr. Conors.

"'Tis a G.o.d's blessing to have your childer, the bright, wee things!

They keep us from fergittin' altogether," said Nancy, sighing, and looking abstractedly out of the window.

"She is thinkin', poor woman," observed Mr. O'Hagan, in a low tone.

"Ye have quite a squad yerself, Nancy," ventured Mr. Conors.

"Yes," she agreed, "there's Sam Duncan's little girl. You remember big Sam, who was drowned in his own well?" Mr. Conors nodded. "And Jennie--but she's a rare young la.s.s now, and waits on table as well as I can do. If I could spare her I'd send her to school, fer she needs book learnin' more than she's got at present, but it's hard work I have to keep up the old place, and I'm not as able fer it as I was the first years after McVeigh died. Then I have Will Devitt's boy. He's past eighteen now, and handy about the stables. If it was not fer him I'm thinkin' old Donald would never manage at all."

"An' you'd take in the very nixt waif that comes along," declared Mr.

O'Hagan.

"Maybe," answered Mistress McVeigh, thoughtfully.

Mr. Conors broke in with the question, "Where's yer own boy, Corney?

It's a long while since he was about the place with his capers and curly head. Only t'other day my missus was talkin' about the time he and my Johnny learned to smoke behind my barn, and almost burnt the hull of us into the bargain."

A smile flitted across Nancy McVeigh's face at the recollection. "My Corney's a wonderful lad, Mr. Conors. He doesn't take after either of his parents, fer he'd give over the best game in the world fer a book.

He's livin' in Chicago, and he writes home now and then. He's makin'

lots of money, too, the scamp, but he's like his father fer spendin'.

Sometimes he borrows from me, just to tide him over, but he says that he will make enough money some day to turn the old tavern into a mansion. Then I'll be a foine lady, with nothin' to do but sit about and knit, with a lace cap on me head, and servants to do all the work.

Though I'm afraid me old bones would never submit to that."

"Do ye believe the nonsense he writes, Mistress McVeigh?" questioned Mr. Conors.

"Aye, an' I do that, sir. It's me, his old mother, that knows the grit o' him, and the brains he has."

Tears were shining in Nancy's eyes, and she dried them on her ap.r.o.n, under cover of a sharp order which she called to a maid in the dining-room.

"Ye have a rare good heart in ye, Nancy McVeigh," Mr. O'Hagan commented.

"Heart, ye call it, sor. It's a mother's heart, and nothin' else," she answered, quickly, and then continued, somewhat bitterly, "It's nigh broke with anger and trouble this day. It's not that the work is hard, nor the trade fallin' away, for it has kept me and mine these many years, and it'll never fail while I have me health. But my interest falls due this month."

"It's a power o' interest ye hev paid that old miser, John Keene, since McVeigh took over the tavern," Mr. Conors observed.

"It is that, Mr. Conors, and he treats me none the better fer it. A week come Tuesday he stalks into the bar here, and, before my customers, he threatens to put me into the road if I fail to have the amount fer him on the due date. I jest talked back to him with no fear in me eye, and he cooled off wonderfully. I have since got the money together, and a hundred dollars to pay on the princ.i.p.al, and to-morrow I'm goin' to give it to him with me compliments."

"Ye need not be afraid o' his puttin' ye out, Mistress McVeigh, begorra. He knows right well the place wouldn't be fit to stable horses in if ye were to leave it, and then who'd pay him his dirty interest?" sagely remarked Mr. Conors.

"Well, if that ain't James Bennet comin' along the road, and tipsy, too," broke in Mr. O'Hagan, catching sight of a new arrival from townwards.

"The likes o' him!" sniffed Nancy, contemptuously. "Not a drop will I serve him, the good-fer-nothin'! There's his poor wife with a two-weeks-old baby, and two other childer scarce able to walk, and him carryin' on and spendin' money as if he could afford it."

The three waited, watching in silence, whilst the semi-intoxicated fellow tumbled out of his rig and walked with uncertain footsteps to the tavern door.

"An' what be ye wantin' the night?" spoke up Nancy, barring his entrance, and all the softness gone from her voice.

"Wantin', ye silly woman! what d'ye suppose I'd chance breakin' me neck gettin' out o' me buggy fer, but a drink o' yer best brewed?"

"Not a drop, James Bennet. Ye needn't come round my door askin' fer liquor. You, with a sick wife and a house full o' childer! It's a wonder ye're not ashamed. Better put yer head under the pump and then git ye home. Ye're no man at all, James, and I've told ye so before."

"It's not refusin' an old frien', are ye, Mistress McVeigh?" Bennet asked, coaxingly.

"Ye're no frien' o' mine, I'd like ye to understand, and if Mary O'Neil had taken my advice years ago, ye'd hev niver had the chance o' abusin'

her."

"Ye're not doubtin' that I have the change?" pleaded Bennet, digging his hands deeply into his pocket, as if to prove his statement.

"More's the pity, then, fer it should be at home with yer wife, who'd know how to keep it."

"Ye're very hard on me," he whined, edging up the steps.

"Ye may thank yer stars I'm no harder," threatened the unyielding Nancy.

"I tell ye, Mrs. McVeigh, I'm burnin' with thirst, and I'm goin' to have only one."

"Ye're not, sor."

"I will, ye old shrew! Out o' my way!" he exclaimed, with an ugly showing of temper, and moved as if to force an entrance. But Nancy McVeigh had learned life from the standpoint of a man, and, reaching forward, she sent him tottering from the verandah. Nor did she hesitate to follow up her advantage. With masculine swiftness and strength she seized him by the collar, and in a trice had him head downwards in the horse-trough.