The long pent up amus.e.m.e.nt of the audience burst forth. The two old enemies across the stove broke into a simultaneous upheaval, a disturbance that filled up the breach between them with the loose earth of laughter. Mr. Holmes dropped his letters and chuckled loudly, and as for Tilly, she was past giggling, she fairly shouted.

The Major turned and walked out, his face white with anger.

"He's gone to get transferred to the Five-Hundredth," declared Timothy O'Toole joyfully. "I hear that Canada's goin' to send over Five Hundred Battalions and he'll be all ready for the last one."

"Ah, Duke, Duke, you're a rascal," said Mr. Holmes reprovingly.

"It's the only fun I can get out o' this business of stayin' at home,"

declared Duke, his face growing grave, "and I guess I need all that's comin' to me with Trooper and the other fellows away fightin' for me!"

Gavin could not join the laughter. He was too deeply hurt. He gathered up his parcels and hurried away; and once more the bells set themselves to the tune of "Blue Bonnets" and played "March, March, Why, ma lads, dinna' ye March Forward in Order?" as he drove home.

Auntie Elspie was talking to Hughie Reid in deep conference when Gavin arrived at the farm, and on the way home she was so silent, that he was worried over her.

"You're not cold, are you, Auntie Elspie?" he asked for the third time, as he tucked the old sheep skin robe around her.

"No, no, lad, I'm not cold," she said, but she shivered as she said it.

It was not the bl.u.s.tering February wind that chilled, but the cold hand that seemed closing round her heart, the knowledge that now it was possible for Gavin to go and that soon she must tell him. She put off the evil day. She could not tell him to-night, she felt, but perhaps on the morrow.

As they were sitting down to their early supper and the February sunset was turning all the white fields to a glory of rose and gold, a big sleigh-load of merry young folk came jingling down the glittering road and swept past the house with a storm of bell-music. There was a good Winter road here across their sheltered valley and through the swamp to Dalton's Corners and the Orchard Glen Choir was taking its musical way thither. They were singing "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," and Auntie Janet, young as any of them, ran to the door and waved to them, while Bruce and Wallace and Prince and Bonnie bounded out barking madly. But Gavin did not go near the door nor look after them. He suspected Christina would be there, and most likely Wallace Sutherland and their gay company was not for him.

"You ought to be going with them, Gavie, lad," cried Auntie Janet, coming in with a rush of fresh air. "Listen, they're singin': 'All the Blue Bonnets are over the Border!' now! Eh, isn't it bonnie?"

Auntie Elspie's loving eyes were watching Gavin, and her sinking heart told her she must soon do something to put an end to his misery.

He went to his bed early that night, before they could ask him to sing, but he could not sleep. He heard Auntie Janet and Auntie Flora come up the creaking old stairs together, talking in whispers lest they disturb him. They shared a room at the end of the hall and Auntie Elspie's room was opposite his. It was quite late when finally he heard her come up to bed. But yet he could not sleep. His window-blind was rolled to the top and the moonlight flooded his room. Outside the diamond-spangled earth lay still and frost bound. Craig-Ellachie stood out white, silver-crowned, against the blue of the forest. Gavin raised himself on his elbow and looked out at the silent beauty of the night. The great white expanse seemed calling to him to come away and do as his fellow heroes were doing. He ought to be lying in a freezing trench, grasping a rifle instead of skulking in a feather bed wrapped in warm blankets. But indeed the bed had become a very rack to poor Gavin, the blankets smothered him. He tossed from side to side, vainly seeking relief.

Suddenly he sat up in bed, holding his breath to listen. The great glittering s.p.a.ce of the outdoor world had taken voice and was crying out against him for not playing the man. From far across the silver sheen of the fields, clear and piercing, came the words,

"By oppression's woes and pains, By our sons in servile chains, We will drain our dearest veins But they shall be free!

Lay the proud usurper low; Tyrants fall in every foe; Liberty's in every blow; Let us do--or die!"

Gavin sprang from his bed and flung on his clothes madly. He had a wild notion that he must run out to the road and shout aloud to the world that he was coming, coming to the battle-front! When he was dressed he ran to the window and threw it up and his madness departed from him. It was only the gay sleigh-load returning from the Dalton tea-meeting. They swept past the house, setting his dogs barking madly, and the song died away as they disappeared down the glittering silver road. Gavin leaned far out of the window; his burning face stung by the cold air.

"Stand fast, Craig-Ellachie!" he whispered through his clenched teeth.

The hot tears came smarting to his eyes, and he suddenly drew back, ashamed of his weakness. He closed the window, remembering even in his misery to do it quietly so as not to disturb the dear ones who were sleeping. He still knelt on at the window watching the shining track where the song of deathless liberty was fading away.

But there was a pair of loving ears near, that had heard all Gavin's movements. Auntie Elspie slept in the room opposite his, and ever since the night he had developed the whooping cough she had kept her door ajar and that was the reason she knew that her boy had not been sleeping well for many a night. And to-night she lay awake listening to the incessant creak of his old roped bed, and sharing his misery.

She knew she could not bear it much longer, she must rise and tell him he was free. And then she heard him bounding from his bed, and the notes of the song as it swept gloriously past and died away.

She rose from her bed and lit the lamp. She dressed herself fully, for she knew there was no more sleep for her that night. She was trembling from head to foot, and praying for strength to carry out her heavy task. She had something of the feeling of the patriarch when the imperative Voice called, "Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and offer him for a burnt offering." She dropped on her knees before her bed. She knelt a long time, and then, strengthened, obedient to the Voice that summons all great souls, she rose and walked into Gavin's room.

Gavin was still kneeling by the window when she entered. His hair, touched by the moonlight, was soft and wavy, he looked very young and grief-stricken. For a moment the vision of him lying wounded and helpless in a trench, uncared for, shook her brave resolve. A great lump rose in her throat. She braced herself and said softly, "Gavin, Laddie!"

Gavin leaped to his feet. "Auntie Elspie!" he cried in amazement, his eyes dazzled by the light, "why, you are dressed! You're not sick?" he cried anxiously, taking the lamp from her hand.

"No, no," she said; "I'm jist all right. Put the lamp down, hinny, I want to talk with you." She sat down on the edge of his bed and he placed the lamp on his high old dresser and came and sat beside her wonderingly.

"I couldn't help hearing you tossing about. You're not sleepin', Gavie, you're worryin', lad."

"No, no, Auntie Elspie," he cried hastily, "I'm all right, I'm not sick. You go back to bed, do. You'll catch cold."

But the woman only gazed at him mournfully. "Eh, eh, hinny, I ken all about it," she whispered, lapsing into broader Scotch in her agitation.

"Ye can't hide things from your Auntie Elspie. Ye're wearyin' to be away to the war, I ken as well as if ye telled me."

There was a wail in her voice that wrung Gavin's heart. "Oh, Auntie Elspie," he cried, "oh, no, no! I'll never leave you. I'll not be going. I'm not wearying. I know what my duty is; and it's here at home with you." He was repeating his a.s.surance incoherently, when she stopped him.

"Gavie, there's no need to tell your Auntie Elspie that you would do all that is in your power for us. I ken you've kept silence all these months for fear of giving us pain. But I've been watching you, and I guessed what ailed you. And it is what we would have, Gavie. We would not have you want to stay at home while others go to die for us to save our homes and lives. And indeed it's proud I am this night, even if my heart is sore--sore----"

She broke down a moment, and again Gavin firmly declared his decision.

He could not deny he wanted to go to the Front he confessed, but maybe it was just a foolish love of adventure and it did not interfere with the fact that he was needed at home.

"So I'll jist stay here, Auntie Elspie," he repeated, "I am needed here, and I would be ashamed to turn my back on you. I couldn't be happy knowing you needed me, and I wasn't here to take care of you all."

And so they argued the matter far into the night, Auntie Elspie insisting that he should go, and the boy declaring that he would not.

She was reinforced shortly by her sisters. Auntie Flora had heard the low rumble of voices and had seen the light in Gavin's room. She wakened Janet, and fearing that Gavin's strange conduct had culminated in an attack of some real illness, the two anxious old ladies hurriedly flung on some clothes and went down the hall to Gavin's room. And there they found a strange scene, Elspie urging Gavin to enlist, and Gavin holding back and declaring that nothing would induce him to go to the war!

It was the look in his two younger Aunts' eyes, when the case was explained to them, that first shook Gavin's resolution. Auntie Flora stood up tall and stately, and her face flushed proudly as she turned to Janet. "What did I tell ye!" she cried triumphantly, "I knew he wanted to go!" And Auntie Janet burst into tears, and hiding her face in the old shawl she had thrown round her shoulders she sobbed, "Aye, and I said it, too. I knew ye couldn't be the kind that would want to stay at home, Gavie." And Gavin comforted them in a state of speechless wonder. It appeared that after all they had been waiting for him to express a desire to go and that their pride was quite equal to their grief!

CHAPTER XIII

"THE PLIGHTED RING"

Jimmie came home from school on Friday evening bounding in full of news.

"Say, who do you s'pose's gone and enlisted from Orchard Glen now?" he demanded indignantly of Christina, who was preparing supper in the bright, warm kitchen.

"Mrs. Johnnie Dunn," suggested his sister. But Jimmie was in no mood for a joke. Each new enlistment from the community was to him a personal injury.

"More unlikely than that!" he growled, throwing his heavy bag of books in the corner, and his wet mittens behind the stove, "it's Gavin Grant, that's who it is."

Christina stopped in the operation of taking a pan of hot biscuits from the oven. "Gavin Grant! Why! Are you sure, Jimmie?"

"Course I'm sure. I saw him in town to-day. He's joined the Blue Bonnets, and they're going to Camp Borden, and I tell you it just makes a fellow sick, that's what it does!"

Jimmie did not explain just why Gavin's joining the army should have such an effect upon his health and Christina paid no heed to his complaint. She was completely taken by surprise. If there was a young man in Orchard Glen who had a good excuse for staying at home surely that young man was Gavin. And yet he was going, when it would be so easy to remain. She was not long left to wonder over him. Her mother brought home the whole story of Gavin's struggle from his proud and grief-stricken Aunts the very next day. Elspie Grant had come over to offer sympathy when her sons left her for the battle-field and Mary Lindsay could not rest until she had done the same for her old friend.

So as next day was Sat.u.r.day, Jimmie took her over to Craig-Ellachie in the cutter.

She came home filled with the story of the long time Gavin had been yearning to go, but had remained silent for his Aunts' sake, how he was making every preparation for their comfort in his absence, how brave he was, and how proud they were of him, even though it was breaking their three old hearts to see him go.

Christina listened to the recital in ever-deepening humiliation. She remembered how she had been disgusted with Gavin when he fled from before Piper Lauchie's wrath, and how full of admiration she had been for Wallace Sutherland's courage. She had played the part of a silly girl who could not see the character under the thin covering of appearances. Her humiliation was not made lighter by the remembrance that Wallace had given no smallest hint of a desire to enlist.

There was nothing else talked of at the Red Cross rooms the next day.

Mrs. Sutherland was quite severe in her condemnation of Gavin for going and leaving a farm and three helpless women who had brought him up and given him his chance in the world.