"No, I am quite right, and besides, there's Ike. I ought to look after Ike."

"Don't you worry about Ike," said the Convener. "He's able to look after himself; besides I'll look him up when I get you to sleep. Come now," and he led him into the tiny bedroom. "You get into bed; I'll bring you a cup of tea and you can sleep. No one will disturb you, and, I'll wake you at the right time, never fear."

"I don't think I am sleepy," said Shock; but when in a few minutes his friend came back with his cup of tea he found Shock in a sleep so profound that he had not the heart to wake him. "Poor chap, poor chap!"

said the Convener, looking down upon the strong, rugged face, now so haggard. "This is a hard country!"

For hours Shock lay dead in sleep. Before nightfall the Convener went to look up Ike, and on his return found his guest still asleep. "Let him sleep, it will do him good," he said to his kind-hearted wife, who would have wakened Shock to have supper.

"We'll let him sleep till an answer comes to his wire." Late at night he went down to the telegraph office.

"Yes," replied the clerk in answer to his enquiry, "there's a wire for Mr. Macgregor just come in. Bad news, too, I guess."

The Convener took the message and read: "Your mother pa.s.sed away in perfect peace this evening. Your message brought her great joy. She wished me to send this reply: 'The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. Stay at your post, lad, till He calls:' HELEN."

"'Stay at your post till He calls,'" read the Convener again. "A great soul that. That word will do him good."

He was right. He found Shock waiting for him, calm, expectant, and ready to bear whatever life might bring, nor did his face change as he read the wire over and over again. He only said: "G.o.d is very good to us. She went away in peace, and she got my wire and I hers."

"Yes," said the Convener, "G.o.d is always good. We sometimes cannot see it, but," he added, "it was a great matter that your sister could have been there with her."

"My sister?" said Shock. "Oh!" a sudden flush reddening his pale cheek.

"She's not my sister--she's my--she's our friend, yes, a dear friend.

It would be a great joy to my mother to have her."

There was no sign of grief in his face, but a great peace seemed to have settled upon him. Long into the night he talked over the affairs of his mission field, giving in response to the keen questions of his Convener a full account of the work he had been carrying on, opening up the plans he had made for future work. In particular was he anxious to enlist the Convener's sympathy in his scheme for a reading-room and hospital at the Pa.s.s. The Convener shook his head at the plan. "I agree with you entirely," he said, "but the Committee, I fear, will not give you a grant for a hospital. If it were a church now--"

"Well," argued Shock, "it will serve for a church."

"You may count on me to do my best for you," replied the Convener, "but I am not sanguine. The Committee are extremely cautious and conservative."

But when the Convener came to ask about the difficulties and trials of his life his missionary became silent. There were no trials and difficulties to speak of, no more at least than the rest of the people had to bear. They were all good to him.

"That's all right," said the Convener, "but there are difficulties, none the less. It is a hard country, and sometimes it lays burdens upon us almost greater than we can bear. There are the poor McIntyres, now,"

he continued. "How did you find them?"

"Very well," replied Shock. "But, indeed, I didn't notice much."

And then the Convener told him of the story of their great grief.

"It is a common enough story in this country. The little baby was five months old, singularly bright and attractive. McIntyre himself was quite foolish about it; and, indeed, the whole congregation were quite worked up over it. Took suddenly ill, some mysterious trouble; no doctor within forty miles; before he arrived the baby was gone. They were dreadfully cut up about it."

"I--I never noticed," said Shock, with a sense of shame. "I wasn't thinking."

There was no demonstration of sympathy on the part of his people when Shock returned to his work. One by one they came up after the evening service to shake hands with him and then to leave him alone. But that night, when all had gone except Ike, who was hovering about downstairs within call of Shock,--who, was sitting upstairs alone in the room which, in the fulness of his joy, he had set apart for his mother,--a voice was heard asking cautiously:

"Is he in?"

"Yes, but I guess he's pretty tired," replied Ike doubtfully.

"I'd like to see him a minute," replied the voice, with a sudden huskiness.

"Oh! It's you, is it?" said Ike. "Well, come in. Yes, come right upstairs." And Carroll came heavily up the stairs with Patsy in his arms.

"Why, Carroll, this is awfully good of you!" exclaimed Shock, going to meet him.

"It's the little lad," said Carroll. "It's Patsy, he's breakin' the heart av him, an' he wants to see you, and, your riverince, it's meself--I want to--" The voice broke down completely.

"Come in, come in!" cried Shock, his tears flowing fast. "Come, Patsy, do you want to see me? Come on, old chap, I want you, too." He took the little cripple in his arms and held him tight while his tears fell upon Patsy's face and hands.

"Is it for your mother?" whispered Patsy in an awestruck tone.

"Yes, yes, Patsy dear," said Shock, who was fast losing control of himself, the long pent-up grief breaking through all barriers of self-control. "She's gone from me, Patsy lad."

"But," said the little boy, lifting up his beautiful face in wonder.

"Sure, isn't she wid Jesus Himself and the blessed angels?"

"Oh, yes, Patsy, my boy! she is, and it's not right to grieve too much, but I cannot help it," said Shock, regaining control of himself. "But I am glad you came in to tell me, and we'll all try to be good men so that some day we'll all go there, too."

For a long time they sat looking out on the moon-lit lake and the distant hills, Shock telling the little lad he held in his arms of the beautiful country to which his mother had gone.

That night was the beginning of better things for the big Irishman. The revenge he had cherished for so many months pa.s.sed out of his heart, and among his closest friends and his warmest companions Shock could count from that time forth Tim Carroll.

XVII

BETTY'S LAST WORDS

There is a certain stimulus in grief which lends unreal strength to endure, but Nature will be avenged in a physical and emotional reaction, all the more terrible that it is unexpected. Then the full weight of the sorrow presses upon the heart already exhausted, and the sense of loss becomes the more painful because it can be fairly estimated, and the empty place can be more truly measured because it is seen in its relation to the ordinary life.

So it was with Shock. The first sharp stab of grief was over, and now he carried with him the long ache of a wound that would not heal for many a day. His mother had filled a large part of his life. As far back into childhood as his memory could go, there she stood between him and the great world, his sure defence against all evil, his refuge in all sorrow; and as he grew into manhood she made for herself a larger and larger place in his thought and in his life. He well knew how she had toiled and denied herself comforts and endured hardships that he might gain that height of every Scottish mother's ambition for her son, a college education, and he gave her full reward in the love of his heart and the thoughtful devotion of his life. All his interests and occupations, his studies, his mission work in the Ward, his triumphs on the football field, all he shared with her, and until the last year no one had ever challenged her place of supremacy in his heart. His future was built about his mother. She was to share his work, her home was to be in his manse, she was to be the centre about which his life would swing; and since coming to the West he had built up in imagination a new life structure, in which his mother had her own ancient place. In this new and fascinating work of exploring, organising, and upbuilding he felt sure, too, of his mother's eager sympathy and her wise understanding.

It had been the happiest of all his fancies that his mother should preside over the new home, the opening of which had been attended with such pride and joy. She would be there to live with him every day, watching him go out and waiting for him to come in.

Now all that was gone. As his mind ran along its accustomed grooves every turn of thought smote him with a pang sharp and sudden. She was no longer a part of the plan. All had to be taken down, the parts readjusted, the structure rebuilt. He began to understand the Convener's words, "This is a hard country." It demanded a man's life in all the full, deep meaning of the word; his work, of course of body and brain, but his heart as well, and his heart's treasures.

In the midst of his depression and bewilderment Ike brought him a letter which had lain two weeks at the Fort, and whose date was now some four weeks old. It was from Brown and ran thus:

My Dear Old Chap:

I do not know how to begin this letter. The terribly sudden and awful calamity that has overtaken us has paralysed my mind, and I can hardly think straight. One thing that stands out before me, wiping out almost every other thought, is that our dear Betty is no more. You cannot imagine it, I know, for though I saw her in her coffin, so sweet and lovely, but oh! so still, I cannot get myself to believe it. The circ.u.mstances concerning her death, too, were awfully sad, so sad that it simply goes beyond any words I have to describe them. I will try to be coherent; but, though I shall give you an account of what happened, I cannot begin to convey the impression upon my mind. Well, let me try.

You know Mrs. Fairbanks has been opposed all along to The Don's attentions to Betty, and has tried her best to block him. After you left, the opposition grew more determined. Why, for the life of me, I cannot say. She had apparently made up her mind that The Don must quit.

She worked every kind of scheme, but it was no good. That plucky little girl, in her own bright, jolly way, without coming to an open break, would not give back an inch, and The Don kept coming to the house just because Betty insisted. He would have quit long before, poor chap. You know how proud he is.