"But, Davie, do you think it would be a sign that the Lord was against grandfather if He should let Jacob Holt do his worst? I cannot bear to hear you say such things, as though we were just trying him."

"Well, and is not that just what we are bidden do? It's no' me that is saying grandfather is to be forsaken in his old age."

"And I'm sure its no' me. Grandfather forsaken! Never. And, Davie, the loss of Ythan even wouldna mean that to grandfather. Do you no'

mind: 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.' What is Ythan, and what are any of us to grandfather, in comparison to having the Lord Himself?" said Katie, with rising colour and shining eyes.

"Well, it is no' me that say it. There are plenty of folk in Gershom just waiting to see how it will turn--to see which is going to beat--the Lord or--or the other side. I wouldna say that grandfather himself is not among the number."

"Davie," said Katie solemnly, "my grandfather kens how it must end. Do you think he puts his trust in G.o.d on a venture like that? You little ken."

Davie made no reply at this time. But they were never weary of the theme, and sometimes went so far as to plan what it would be best to do should they have to leave Ythan. Grannie sometimes watched with sad eyes the shadow on the old man's face, but no one was more ready than grannie to laugh to scorn the idea that any real harm could happen to them.

So the season opened cheerfully to them all. Davie was indeed the chief dependence now, and went about his work in a way that must have gladdened his grandfather's heart, though he said little about it.

There was no other man about the place. They got a day's work now and then from a neighbour, and later they must have a man to help, or perhaps two, when the heaviest of the work should come on. But in the meantime, Davie and his brothers did all that was to be done in the sugar-place, and sometimes Katie helped them.

Indeed, as far as sugaring-time was concerned, they might have had help every day and all day. There was not so much sugar made in the vicinity of Gershom as there used to be, and the idle lads of the place enjoyed being in the Ythan woods, in the sweet spring air and sunshine, even on days when working hard at carrying in the sap was all that could be done. But there was always this drawback to Davie's pleasure in their help or their company, that his grandfather did not like either the one or the other. It was partly his own reserved nature that made the presence of strangers distasteful to him, and it was partly, too, because of painful remembrances of the time when one like Davie had been led astray by the influence of such lads. So Davie did not encourage his friends of the village to come, as he might have done in other circ.u.mstances.

On "sugaring-off" days there were usually plenty of visitors.

Sugaring-off is the final process of sugar-making, when the syrup into which the sap has been made by long boiling down, is clarified and skimmed and boiled still until it is clear as amber, ready, when cooled, to become a solid ma.s.s of glittering sweetness. It is astonishing what a quant.i.ty of the warm brown liquid can be consumed with pleasure, and without satiety, and on sugaring-off days not even the half-acknowledged dread of Mr Fleming and his stern looks and ways prevented a gathering of young people larger than would have been welcome to less open-handed folk. But the consumption of a few pounds of warm sugar, more or less, was a small matter in the opinion of the old people, provided all behaved themselves as they ought; and whatever might have been likely to happen in Mr Fleming's absence, his presence was a sufficient check on the most foolish among them. And even the wild young lads of the village found the old man less grim and stern in the spring woods, with the sunshine about them, than they had learned to think him as they watched him sitting in the meeting-house on Sundays.

Sugaring-time is a time of hard and unpleasant work, and this was a more favourable year than usual. Davie had been too busy with other things all the winter to be able to do much in the way of improving the tools and utensils necessary in the making of sugar. By another year there would be a change, he told Katie in confidence. But in the meantime, the three great iron kettles that had been in use during his father's lifetime made the only boiling apparatus; they hung over a fire of great logs, on a strong pole the ends of which rested on the "crotch" of two great logs or ports set up fifteen or twenty feet apart, and there was no roof above them.

The "camp" or "shanty" used for shelter if it rained, was close by the fire, made of boards, one end of which rested in the ground, while the other end was raised to rest on a pole extended between the boughs of two overhanging trees; but the young people rarely cared to enter it.

It held the syrup tubs and such stores of food as were needed from day to day, but it was small and low, and "out of doors" suited them better, even at night when their work detained them.

Into the great maple trees, scattered over an area of many acres, small scooped spouts of cedar were fastened, and out of a tiny cutting, made by a common axe above it, the sap flowed over these into a primitive bucket of cedar, or a still more primitive trough placed beneath. This sap was carried from all parts of the place in pails sustained by a rough wooden yoke placed on the shoulders of the carrier, and emptied into great wooden sap-holders beside the kettles. This part of the work, to be done well, and with the smallest amount of labour, had to be done in the early morning, before the sun had melted the crust which the night's frost had made on the snow. For even when the open fields were bare, the snow still lingered in the hollows of the wood, and to carry full pails safely, when one's feet were sinking into the ma.s.s made soft by the sunshine, was a feat not to be accomplished easily.

This carrying of the sap and the cutting of the wood for fires, was the hard part of the work; the boiling of the sap and all the rest of it was considered by Davie and his brothers as only fun. When there was a great run of sap, as usually happens several times in the season, the boiling had to be carried on through the night, as well as during the day, and when the weather was fine, this only made the fun the greater.

At such times Davie usually secured the companionship of a friend, and the chances were the friend brought another friend or two with him; and there were few things happening in Gershom or elsewhere that were not freely discussed at such times.

Katie had less to do with sugar-making this year than ever she had before, and was inclined to murmur a little because of it. But she was less needed in the wood now, her grandmother said, when the other bairns were growing able to help their brother, and Katie was needed in the house. Early as it was, there were calves to be fed and milk to be cared for, and this year it was understood that Katie was to be responsible for all that was done in the dairy. There was plenty to do; Katie's mother was not strong, and grannie confessed that she was feeling herself not so young as she used to be, and Katie was the main stay now.

And, besides, Katie was too nearly a grown woman now to play herself with the bairns in the wood, grannie went on to say, and it was far better for Davie to get Ben Holt or some other lad to help, when help was needed, than to take his sister from her work at home to do work for which she was not fit. Of course Katie a.s.sented, and yielded her own pleasure, as she always did at any word of grannie's; but grannie herself felt a little uncomfortable about it. For it was not her thought that Katie should be kept, as a general thing, out of the wood, but Davie's. Between indignation and amus.e.m.e.nt, she had had some difficulty in keeping her countenance when the lad had spoken.

"I dinna need her, grannie, and she's better at home. Help! There's no fear but I'll get help enough. Jim Miller will be over, and Moses Green, and more besides, very likely, and I'm no' wanting Katie."

"You're well off for helpers, it seems, Davie, my lad. But as for Katie's going--"

"Grannie, she's no' going. As for helpers, they may come and go, and help or not help, as suits themselves. But the less they have to say about our Katie in the town, the better. Helpers! Do you suppose, grannie dear, that they all come to help me?"

His grandmother looked at him in amazement.

"I doubt, laddie, you hardly ken what you are saying."

"I ken fine, grannie. If they want to see Katie, they must come to the house here, to my mother and you. I'm no' to have the responsibility."

"Davie, lad," said grannie solemnly, "if you kenned what you are saying, you would deserve the tawse. Responsibility, indeed! A laddie like you; and my bonnie simple-hearted Katie."

"I'm saying nothing about Katie, grannie. I'm speaking about other folk. Jim to-day and Moses to-morrow, and maybe young Squire Holt--no less, the next--with their compliments and their nonsense. And as for Katie, she likes it well enough, or she might come to like it; she's but a la.s.sie after all."

"Oh, laddie, laddie!" was all his astonished grandmother could say.

"I'm no' needing her to-day," repeated Davie.

"Davy, you are to say nothing of all this to your sister. I wouldna for much that she would hear the like of that from you."

"I thought it better to speak to you, grannie," said Davie with gravity.

Grannie would have liked to box his ears.

"Grannie, you needna be angry at me. I'm no saying that Katie is heeding; but other folk call her bonnie Katie as well as you, and she's almost a woman now, and it canna be helped."

"Whisht, Davie. Well, never mind; I'm no' angry. But say nothing to Katie to put things in her head. A laddie like you." And grannie laughed in spite of her indignation. But she kept her "bonnie Katie" at home for the most part, unless there was some special reason for her going with the rest.

There were many other visitors at the sugar-place--visitors whom even Davie could not suspect of coming altogether for Katie's sake. Most people who had a chance to do so, liked to go at least once into the woods when the sugar-making was going on, and the Flemings' place was not very far from the village, and lay high and dry and was easy of access, so that few days pa.s.sed without a visit from some one.

Sometimes they were visitors to mind and sometimes they were not, but the laws of hospitality held good in the woods as in the house, and they were welcomed civilly at least. Once or twice, when particular friends of his came on sap-boiling days, Davie ventured on an impromptu sugaring-off on his own responsibility. He made use of a small kettle for the purpose, so that the important matter of boiling down the sap need not be interfered with. He told himself that he was not disobeying his grandfather, but he knew that probably it had never come into his mind that such a thing would be attempted, and he did not enjoy it much, though his visitors did. He acknowledged afterward to Katie, that never in the course of his life had he "felt so mean" as he did on the last occasion of the kind. The sugar was just coming to perfection, when the eager barking of the dog proclaimed the approach of some one, and Davie never doubted that it was his grandfather. It was all that he could do to prevent himself from s.n.a.t.c.hing the sugar from the fire and putting it out of sight. He did not do it, however, and it was not his grandfather. But Davie's feeling of discomfort stayed with him, though he had no reason to suppose that any one of the party had noticed his trouble.

But in this he was mistaken. The very last person to whom he would have liked to betray himself had observed him. Mr Maxwell had only been a few minutes at the camp, and was not one of those for whose entertainment Davie had prepared. Of course he knew that whoever came to the place on regular sugaring-off days, was made welcome to all that could be enjoyed on the occasion, but even with his knowledge that the Flemings were open-handed on all occasions, he did feel somewhat surprised that such special pains should be taken for the entertainment of chance comers. But it was the anxious look that came over Davie's face that struck him painfully.

That Davie, whose character for straightforwardness and courage no one doubted--his grandfather's right hand, the staff and stay of the whole household--that Davie should be found turning aside, ever so little, from what was open and right, hurt the minister greatly. He loved the lad too well to forbear from reproof, or at least a caution, so he stayed till the others had left the wood to say a word to him. This was not his first visit to the camp, for Davie and he were friends, and Mr Maxwell had proved his friendship in a way that the boy liked--by lending him books, and by helping him to a right appreciation of their contents. He had a book in his hand now, as he waited while Davie filled the kettles and stirred the fire, and it troubled him to think that he was going to prove his friendship this time in a way the boy would not like so well. He did not know what to say, and had not decided, when Davie, perhaps surprised at his unwonted silence, looked up and met his eye.

"Davie, lad, was it your grandfather that you expected to see when Collie barked a little while ago?"

Davie reddened and hung his head, and then looking up, said with a touch of anger in his voice:

"You are thinking worse of me than I deserve, Mr Maxwell."

"Well, I shall be glad to be set right, Davie."

"You don't suppose my grandfather would grudge a few pounds of sugar in such a year as this? Why, there has been no such season since I can remember, at least we have never made so much."

"No, I did not suppose that. It would not be like him."

"And there was no time lost; I was helped rather than hindered. And anybody would do the same in any sugar-place in the country, only--"

Davie hesitated.

"It was not the sugar I thought of, it was the look that came over your face when you thought your grandfather was coming, that accused you.

You accused yourself, Davie."

After a moment's silence, Davie said:

"My grandfather is not just like other folks in all things, and there were two or three here that he does not like--and he might have spoken hastily--being taken by surprise, and--I didn't like the thought of it."

The hesitation was longer this time.

"The chances are, he would--have given me--a blowing up, and that is not so pleasant before folks."

"Well," said the minister again.