"Try to talk sensible for once, Hudson," he said. "See here, I don't want to take advantage of your beastly temper, but if you are really bent on selling the place, and not vaporing as usual, I'm open to make you an offer."

"I've been willing to sell it for two years," Hudson answered with a grin.

"Haven't done half my legal breaking, and don't mean to, so it's not mine to sell, and would have to remain registered to me until the improvements were completed. Then, you see, I could come back, and jump you."

"I don't think you could," said Harry. "You might hurt yourself trying it.

How much do you call a fair thing for the holding as it stands, bearing in mind our risk in buying what is only the good-will with the owner absent?"

They haggled over the terms for a while, and then Harry turned to me.

"We can do it at a stretch, Ralph, by paying him so much after the crop's sold for the next two years. Of course, it's a big handful, but there's lots of sloo hay that would feed winter stock, and I want the house badly.

Indeed, if I don't get it I'm going to build one. Don't you think we could take the risk?"

I thought hard for a few minutes. We were speculating boldly, and already had undertaken rather more than we could manage; but the offer was tempting, and, noting Harry's eagerness, I agreed.

"Yes; we will chance it," I said, "on his own terms of yearly payments, although heaven only knows how we're going to finance it if the crop dies off. Hudson, I'll give you a small check to-morrow if you are satisfied, but it's fair to tell you that if you stayed and completed the improvements you would get more for it when you held the patent."

"That's all right," said Hudson. "I guess I'll take the check. You may have the building and the hundred and sixty blanked acres, scarcely ten of them broken. It's easier peddling pictures than farming, any day, and no one else would buy it in the circ.u.mstances. It's not even mine without the patent, and if I die in the meantime you'll get nothing."

"We'll get the crop and the cattle feed; you don't suppose we've bought it to look at; and if you died the pay would stop," said Harry dryly, and turned toward me when Hudson, moving away contented, sat down to enjoy a peaceful smoke.

"That settles it, Ralph," he said. "The deal ought to show a good result, and I wanted the house. Now that I have got it, it's time for me to ask you a question which would have to be answered presently in any case. I was waiting to see how things would go, out of fairness to her, but as we have bound ourselves hard and fast to Fairmead for several years at least, I'm going to ask you a great thing. Will you give me Aline?"

"Will she have you?" I said smiling.

"That's just what I don't know," Harry answered rather dismally.

"Sometimes I hope so, and sometimes I've a cold fear that she won't. But now that I've told you, I'll ask her this very evening. You'll wish me G.o.dspeed, won't you?"

I looked at him with sympathy, for I knew the feeling, and I had some experience of Aline's moods. Then I laid my hand on his shoulder, "We have been as brothers for a long time, Harry, and it would be only good news if you strengthen the tie. If Aline has the wisdom I give her credit for, she won't say no, and there's no one in the Dominion I should sooner trust her to."

"Then I'll make the plunge," said Harry. "Ralph, I'm very grateful for your good-will. Hudson, where did you fling that confounded bucket? Get up and straighten yourself, and go after Miss Kenyon. Take her anywhere away from Miss Lorimer, and, if you feel like it, make love to her. You're not bad-looking when you wash yourself, and I think she has a fancy for you."

"Not much!" said Hudson grinning as he refilled his pipe. "I've had one experience in that line, and I don't want another. No, sir, henceforward I leave women alone."

Harry went back to the house to shed his working attire, and I strode on toward Fairmead, leaving Hudson sitting among his furniture and kitchen utensils on the darkening prairie, smoking tranquilly. The stars shone out when Harry and Aline came in together. Harry looked exultant, Aline unusually subdued, and me first thing she did was, to my astonishment, to kiss me.

"Aline has promised to marry me before the winter," said Harry.

Wishing them every happiness I went out and left them. I was occupied two hours over some badly needed repairs to the granary, and then for a long time I stood under the stars thinking of Grace.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

A BOUNTIFUL HARVEST

Henceforward Harry's wooing, like my own, was conducted in an intermittent and fragmentary manner. But little time was left us for dalliance or soft speeches, and we paid our homage in practical fashion, with axe and saw and bridle, for there was truth in what Harry said: "The best compliment a man can pay a woman is to work for her comfort. Still, I don't know that more leisure for other things wouldn't be pleasant, too. There is more in life after all than an endless round of sowing and reaping."

Jasper was among the first to congratulate him, which he did so heartily that I concluded that he had stopped his visits in time, and it was with a repet.i.tion of his former kindness that he added:

"You'll need to rustle this season, for you've plainly bitten off more than you can chew. Still, you've friends on the prairie who'll see you through, and if it's horses or men or money you're stuck for, I guess you know where to find them."

We borrowed oxen, we borrowed mowers, we hired help everywhere, and somehow paid for it, while by dint of endless planning we managed to avoid an overdraft at the bank. Still, I lamed Ormond's hunter, and dawn was often in the sky when I rode home from the Manor to begin the day's round again without resting. But our efforts prospered, and the weather favored us, while Jasper and other neighbors, including some from Carrington, helped us on opportunity, until one summer day I rode over to the Manor to press for a decision. I hesitated when I got there, for I was heavy from want of sleep and troubled about many small matters, and, when Grace greeted me, she looked so fresh and tranquil that it seemed unfair to bring the stains of turmoil and fierce hurry into her presence.

"You are tired, poor Ralph," she said, laying a cool hand on my forehead when I drew her down beside me. "The sun has darkened you to the color of a Blackfoot. You are thin, and there are too many wrinkles on your brow--put them away immediately. I wonder whether any one would recognize in you the fresh-faced and somewhat callow stripling with whom I talked about the Dominion that day on Starcross Moor. It is not so very long ago, and yet life has greatly changed and taught us much since then. You must not be vain about it, but I really think I prefer you now."

She strove to avoid my answer, which was an active one, and then settled to grave attention when I said: "You were always the same, Grace, unequaled among women. I was very raw and foolish, but you have helped me, and experience in these new lands teaches even fools. Now, however, I am chiefly lonely--and Fairmead is waiting for you."

"I wish to know my duty," said Grace. "I still think and think until my brain grows tired, and yet I cannot see it clearly. As I told the others, the Manor is an undesirable inheritance; but I am its mistress, and it brings heavy charges with it, a load of debt among them, which it would seem cruel to leave my aunt to grapple with. If we sold it there would be nothing left for her, and even that might not be possible while my father lives. Ralph, dear, he was once very kind to me, and it is hard that I can do so little to help him."

She sighed, and looking at me wearily made no answer to my further pleading, until, as it happened, Miss Carrington, preceded by a very awkward Scandinavian maid, entered the room with a tray on which was placed the Russian tea and dainties for which the house was famous.

"You looked in need of refreshment, Ralph, when you came in," she said.

"There have been changes at the Manor, but we have not forsaken all our ancient customs."

She was, as Aline said, "a dear old lady," sweet of face, yet stately, though now she looked careworn too; and rising I bowed respectfully, as, acting under one of those sudden impulses which are sometimes better than judgment, I said:

"I hope you will believe that no one regrets the changes more than I do, and it is only trusting in your kindness that I venture to look for a welcome here. There cannot be many who would so kindly receive one who even against his will has been indirectly connected with your troubles.

Besides, I have been abusing your generosity further by trying to persuade Grace to desert you, and, strangest of all, I ask you to help me."

Grace blushed, and her aunt sat silent for a while.

"I am glad you told me," she then answered quietly, "for I have been thinking what she ought to do. I wondered now and then that my niece did not ask me, and I am going to tell my thoughts to both of you. There is a will extant leaving her this property, with a portion to me, but it will be a long struggle to free the land from its creditors, and my poor brother may live as he is for years. He has been mercifully spared all further anxiety, and I hope that he will. I am old, and my day has long gone by. Grace is young, with the world before her; and it is neither right nor necessary that she should put away all hope of happiness indefinitely. There is only one time when the joy of life is more real than its sorrows. With kinsman Lyle's counsel, and Foster to work the land, I can hold the Manor and care for my brother, and for both to remain here would be a useless sacrifice. So if you love her, as I believe you do, it is right that you should enjoy together what is sent you. Grace should go to you."

I had pa.s.sed my younger days among a homely people, and had been taught little except what I learned in the silence of the mountains and on the wide prairie, and yet I think it was without awkwardness that I bent over Miss Carrington's hand. Speech would hardly have expressed the grat.i.tude and respect I felt, while I recognize now that the motive of the action was in her and not in me. Then I turned to her niece and waited with longing in my eyes until Grace, who had changed to her softest mood and was now only a blushing girl, said simply:

"You have made it easy, Aunt. Ralph, I will come."

"That is right," said Miss Carrington. "Ralph, you have waited patiently, and I can trust you to be kind to her." Then she smiled upon us as she added: "If not, I take my brother's place, and you shall answer for it.

There is still a Carrington at the Manor holding authority. And so, to turn to the practical, if either of you can consider such prosaic things as tea, it is growing cold already, and it is a pity to waste the Carrington tea."

The tea was not wasted. We are only creatures of flesh and blood, thankful, the wiser among us, for the transitory glimmer of romance that brightens our work-a-day lot, and gives some much-needed strength to grapple with it, and I had ridden far after a night spent in the open and a hard morning's work. So I accepted what was offered, and found it delicious to rest in that pretty room, where the last of the sunlight sparkled on the silver and lit up the sweet face of the lady who beamed upon us. Again it seemed almost too good to be true, and hard to believe, that victory had crowned the struggle, while even as I balanced the dainty China cup it reminded me of the battered kettle from which we filled the blackened cans in a British Columbian camp. There, instead of embroidered curtains, were festoons of cedar sprays, biting cold and acrid wood-smoke in place of warmth and artistic luxury, and I knew that I had been favored greatly--for though many strive, the victory is to the few. Still, from out of the shadows of the somber firs, I seemed to hear our partner who lay among the boulders say: "The long, long road has a turning, and there is rest at last."

Before I left the Manor late that night all was settled, for when I pressed for an early conclusion Grace, yielding, said: "I am not afraid of poverty, Ralph; and if it comes we will lighten it by each bearing half.

So we will take the risk of the harvest together, for if I share in your prosperity I must also take my share in the hardship."

I did not get home to Fairmead until the next day, for I nodded in the saddle until I could not see the way, and several times nearly fell out of it, and when the tired horse stopped on a bluff I found a couch in withered fern and slept there soundly, to waken long after sunrise, wet with dew. That, however, was a trifling matter on the Western prairie, because the man who loves small comforts has no business there, and after the events of the previous day discomfort was nothing to me. Dreams seldom trouble the toiler in that land; and when I stood up refreshed under the early sunlight, and memory returned, the world seemed filled with light and beauty to reflect my own gladness. Ormond's horse was cropping the gra.s.ses not far away, and when I caught him the very birch leaves rustled joyfully under their tender shimmering green as we rode over the bluff, while once out on the prairie a flight of sand-hill cranes came up from the south, calling to one another, dazzling blurs of whiteness against the blue, and even their hoa.r.s.e cry seemed to ring with triumph.

Aline ran out to meet me when I dismounted, and my mood must have been infectious, for she smiled as she greeted me.

"I sent Harry to scour the prairie in search of you, for I feared you must have been dead tired and the horse had fallen in a ravine. But you must have slept among the fairies, Ralph, and risen transfigured. You look too radiant for my serious brother."

It was after hay-time, and the wheat was tall and green, when Grace and I were married in the little wooden church at Carrington, and every man in the settlement rode there in her train. Few princesses of royal blood ever had a finer escort than hers, and she came in state, as was due to her--for Grace was a prairie princess and the heiress of Carrington.

Perhaps the memory of what had happened made her subjects doubly anxious to show their loyalty; while, remembering who I was, and how I landed in that country a poor emigrant, once more I found it hard to understand why of all men such a gift had been bestowed on me.

The riders of Carrington also filled one room at the Manor with glittering tokens of their good-will from Toronto and Montreal, besides such useful things as tools and harness, while among the presents lay a plain letter with a black border which Grace and I read together. It was from Martin Lorimer. "I wish you both many blessings," it ran, "and knowing your foolish way of thinking, I could not send the present I wanted to; but you'll take this, with an old man's very good wishes. It's a certificate of paid-up stock in the new Day Spring Mining Company, of which Calvert is manager. Sell or hold as pleases you. You'll find a market--for already Calvert's sending up good ore. I also send you something else--your cousin valued it."