The hours of that afternoon, spent partly in rowing about in the old flat-bottomed boat seeking water lilies in the pond, and partly in the shade of the big willows overlooking the dam, were full of restful delight to Margaret. It was one of those rare summer evenings that fall in harvest weather when, after the burning heat of the day, the cool air is beginning to blow across the fields with long shadows. When their work was done the boys hurried to join the little group under the big willows. They were all there. Ben was set there in the big armchair, Mrs. Boyle with her knitting, for there were no idle hours for her, Margaret with a book which she pretended to read, old Charley smoking in silent content, Iola lazily strumming her guitar and occasionally singing in her low, rich voice some of her old Mammy's songs or plantation hymns. Of these latter, however, Mrs. Boyle was none too sure. To her they bordered dangerously on sacrilege; nor did she ever quite fully abandon herself to delight in the guitar. It continued to be a "foreign" and "f.e.c.kless" sort of instrument. But in spite of her there were times when the old lady paused in her knitting and sat with sombre eyes looking far across the pond and into the shady isles of the woods on the other side while Iola sang some of her quaint Southern "baby songs."

Under d.i.c.k's tuition the girl learned some of the Highland laments and love songs of the North, to which his mother had hushed him to sleep through his baby years. To Barney these songs took place with the Psalms of David, if, indeed, they were not more sacred, and it was with a shock at first that he heard the Southern girl with her "foreign instrument"

try over these songs that none but his mother had ever sung to him.

Listening to Iola's soft, thrilling voice carrying these old Highland airs, he was conscious of a strange incongruity. They undoubtedly took on a new beauty, but they lost something as well.

"No one sings them like your mother, Barney," said Margaret after d.i.c.k had been drilling Iola on some of their finer shadings and cadences, "and they are quite different with the guitar, too. They are not the same a bit. They make me see different things and feel different things when your mother sings."

"Different how?" said d.i.c.k.

"I can't tell, but somehow they give me a different taste in my mouth, just the difference between eating your mother's scones with rich creamy milk and eating fruit cake and honey with tea to drink."

"I know," said Barney gravely. "They lose the Scotch with the guitar.

They are sweet and beautiful, wonderful, but they are a different kind altogether. To me it's the difference between a wood violet and a garden rose."

"Listen to the poetry of him. Come, mother," cried d.i.c.k, "sing us one now."

"Me sing!" cried the mother aghast. "After yon!" nodding toward Iola.

"You would not be shaming your mother, Richard."

"Shaming you, indeed!" cried Margaret, indignantly.

"Do, Mrs. Boyle," entreated Iola. "I have never heard you sing. Indeed, I did not know you could sing."

Something in her voice grated upon Barney's ear, but he spoke no word.

"Sing!" cried d.i.c.k. "You ought to hear her. Now, mother, for the honor of the heather! Give us 'Can Ye Sew Cushions?' That's a 'baby song,'

too."

"No," said Barney quietly, "Sing 'The Mac'Intosh,' mother." And he began to play that exquisite Highland lament.

It was not her son's entreaty so much as something in the soft drawl of the Southern girl that made Mrs. Boyle yield. Something in that tone touched the pride in the old lady's Highland blood. When Barney reached the end of the refrain his mother took up the verse with the violin accompanying.

Her voice lacked fulness and power. It was worn and thin, but she had the exquisite lilting note of the Highland maids at their milking or of the fisher folk at the mending of their nets. Clear and sweet and with a penetrating pathos indescribable, the voice rose and fell in all the quaint turns and quavers and cadences that a tune takes on with age. As she sang her song in the soft Gaelic tongue, with hands lying idly in her lap, with eyes glowing in their gloomy depths, the spell of mountain and glen and loch fell upon her sons and upon the girl seated at her feet, while Iola's great l.u.s.trous eyes, fastened upon the stranger's face, softened to tears.

"Oh, that is too lovely!" cried Iola, when the song was done, clapping her hands. "No, not lovely. That is not the word. Sad, sad." She hid her face in her hands one impulsive moment, then said softly, "I could never do that. Never! Never! What is it you put into the song? What is it?"

she cried, turning to Barney.

"It's the moan of the sea," said Barney gravely.

"It gives a feller a kind of holler pain inside," said Ben Fallows.

"There hain't no words fer it."

"Sing again," entreated Iola, all the lazy indifference gone from her voice. "Sing just one more."

"This one, mother," said Barney, playing the tune, "your mother used to sing, you know, 'Fhir a Bhata'."

"How often haunting the highest hilltop, I scan the ocean thy sail to see; Wilt come to-night, Love? wilt come to-morrow?

Wilt ever come, love, to comfort me?

Fhir a bhata, na horo eile, Fhir a bhata, na horo eile, Fhir a bhata, na horo eile, O fare ye well, love, where'er ye be."

For some moments they sat quiet with the spell of the dreamy, sad music upon them.

"One more, mother," entreated d.i.c.k.

"No, laddie. The night is falling. There's work to-morrow for you. Aye, and for Margaret here."

Iola rose and came timidly to Mrs. Boyle. "Thank you," she said, lifting up her great, dark eyes to the old woman's face, "you have given me great pleasure to-night."

"Indeed, and you're welcome, la.s.sie," said Mrs. Boyle, smitten with a sudden pity for the motherless girl. "And we will be glad to see ye when ye come back again."

For this, too, it was that Iola as well as Margaret could never forget that afternoon.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen," cried d.i.c.k, striking an att.i.tude, "though the 'good cheer' department may seem to have accomplished the purpose for which it was organised, it cannot be said to have outlived its usefulness, in that it appears to have created for itself a sphere of operations from which it cannot be withdrawn without injury to all its members. I, therefore, respectfully suggest that the department be organised upon a permanent basis with headquarters at the Mill and my humble self at its head. All who agree will say 'Aye'."

"Aye," said Barney with prompt heartiness.

"Me, too," cried Iola, holding up both hands.

"Mother, what do you say?"

"Aye, laddie. There's much need for good cheer in the world."

"And you?" turning to Margaret, who stood with Mrs. Boyle's arm thrown about her, "how do you vote?"

"This member needs it too much"--with a somewhat uncertain smile--"to say anything but 'Aye'."

"Then," said d.i.c.k solemnly, "the 'good cheer' department is hereby and henceforth organised as a permanent inst.i.tution in the community here represented, and we earnestly hope that its members will continue in their faithful adherence thereto, believing, as we do, that loyalty to this inst.i.tution will be its highest reward."

But none of them knew what potencies of joy and of pain lay wrapped up for them all in that same department of "good cheer."

VIII

BEN'S GANG

The harvest time in Ontario is ever a season of delightful rush and bustle. The fall wheat follows hard upon the haying, and close upon the fall wheat comes the barley, then the oats and the rest of the spring grain.

It was this year to be a more than usually busy time for the Boyle boys. They had a common purse, and out of that purse the payments on the mortgage must be met, as well as d.i.c.k's college expenses. For the little farm, with the profits from the mill, could do little more than provide a living for the family. Ordinarily the lads worked for day's wages, the farmers gladly paying the highest going, for the boys were famous binders and good workers generally. This year, however, they had in mind something more ambitious.

"Mother," said d.i.c.k, "did you hear of the new harvesting gang?"

"And who might they be?" asked his mother, always on the lookout for some nonsense from her younger son.