"Well done, Rory! He's up first!" cried a girl whose brilliant complexion and still more brilliant locks proclaimed her relationship to the captain of the north side.

"Huh! Barney'll soon catch him, you'll see," cried Margaret. "Oh, Barney, hurry! hurry!"

"Indeed, he will need to hurry," cried Rory's sister, mercilessly exultant. "He's up! He's up!"

Sure enough, Rory, riding the first half of his plate over the bent, had just "broken it down," and in half a minute, seized by the men detailed for this duty, it was in its place upon the posts. Like cats, three men with mauls were upon it driving the pins home just as the second half was making its appearance over the bent, to be seized and placed and pinned as its mate had been.

"He's won! He's won!" shrieked Rory's admiring faction.

"Barney! Barney!" screamed his contingent reproachfully.

"Well done, Rory! Keep at it! You've got them beaten!"

"Beaten, indeed!" was the scornful reply. "Just wait a minute."

"They're at the 'purlines'!" shrieked Rory's sister, and her friends, proceeding to scream wildly after the female method of expressing emotion under such circ.u.mstances.

"My!" sniffed a contemptuous member of Barney's faction, suffering unutterable pangs of humiliation. "Some people don't mind making a show of themselves."

"Oh, Barney! why don't you hurry?" cried Margaret, to whose eager spirit Barney's movements seemed painfully and almost wilfully slow.

But Barney had laid his plans. Dividing his men into squads, he had been carrying out the policy of simultaneous preparation, and while part of his men had been getting the plates to their places, others had been making ready the "purlines" and laying the rafters in order so that, although beaten by Rory in the initial stages of the struggle, when once his plates were in position, while Rory's men were rushing about in more or less confusion after their rafters, Barney's purlins and rafters moved to their positions as if by magic. Consequently, though when they arrived at the rafters Barney was half a dozen behind, the rest of his rafters were lifted almost as one into their places.

At once the ranks of Barney's faction, which up to this point had been enduring the poignant pangs of what looked like humiliating defeat, rose in a tumult of triumph to heights of bliss inexpressible, save by a series of ear-piercing but altogether rapturous shrieks.

"They're down! They're down!" screamed Margaret, dancing in an ecstasy of joy, while hand over hand down posts, catching at braces, slipping, sliding, springing, the men of both sides kept dropping from incredible distances to the ground. Suddenly through all the tumultuous shouts of victory a heart-rending scream rang out, followed by a shuddering groan and dead silence. One-half of Rory's purlin plate slipped from its splicing, the pin having been neglected in the furious haste, and swinging free, fell crashing through the timbers upon the scurrying, scrambling men below. On its way it swept off the middle bent Rory, who was madly entreating a laggard to drop to the earth, but who, flung by good fortune against a brace, clung there. On the plate went in its path of destruction, missing several men by hairs' breadths, but striking at last with smashing cruel force across the ankle of poor little Ben Fallows, in the act of sliding down a post to the ground. In a moment two or three men were beside him. He was lifted up groaning and screaming and carried to an open gra.s.sy spot. After some moments of confusion Barney was seen to emerge from the crowd and hurry after his horse. A stretcher was hastily knocked together, a mattress and pillow placed thereon, to which Ben, still groaning piteously, was tenderly lifted.

"I'll go wid ye," said Tom Magee, throwing on his coat and hat.

Before they drove out of the yard the little Englishman pulled himself together. "Stop a bit, Barney," he said. He beckoned Rory to his side.

"Tell them," he said between his gasps, "not to spoil their supper for me. I cawn't heat my share, but I guess perhaps I hearned it."

"And that you did, lad," cried Rory. "No man better, and I'll tell them."

The men who were standing near and who had heard Ben's words broke out into admiring expletives, "Good boy, Benny!" "Benny's the stuff!" till finally someone swinging his hat in the air cried, "Three cheers for Benny!" and the feelings of the crowd, held in check for so many minutes, at length found expression in three times three, and with the cheers ringing in his ears and with a smile upon his drawn face, poor Ben, forgetting his agony for the time, was borne away on his three-mile drive to the doctor.

The raising was over, but no man asked which side had won.

IV

THE DANCE

The dance was well on when Barney and Tom drove up to the McLeods' gate.

They were met by Margaret and Barney's mother, who, with a group of girls and Mr. McLeod, had been waiting for them. As they drove into the yard they were met at once with eager questions as to the condition and fate of the unhappy Ben.

"Ben, is it?" said Tom. "Indeed, it's a hero we've discovered. He stud it like a brick. An' I'm not sure but there are two av thim," he said, jerking his thumb toward Barney. "Ye ought to have seen him stand there houldin' the light an' pa.s.sin' the doctor sthrings, an' the blood spoutin' like a stuck pig. What happened afther, it's mesilf can't tell ye at all, for I was restin' quietly by mesilf on the floor on the broad av me back, an' naither av thim takin' annythin' to do wid me except to drown me wid watther betune times. Indeed, it's himsilf is the born doctor, an' so he is," continued Tom, warming to his theme, "for wid his hands red wid blood an' his face as white as yer ap.r.o.n, ma'am, niver a shiver did he give until the last knot was tied an' the last st.i.tch was sewed. Bedad! there's not a man in the county could do the same."

There was no stopping Tom in his recital, and after many attempts Barney finally gave it up, and began unhitching his horse. Meantime the sound of the dancing had ceased, and suddenly up through the silence there rose a voice in song to the accompaniment of some stringed instrument.

It was an arresting voice. The group about the horse stood perfectly still as the voice rose and soared and sank and rose again in an old familiar plantation air.

"Who in thunder is that?" cried Barney, turning to his mother.

But his mother shook her head. "Indeed, I know not, but it's likely yon strange girl that came out from town with the Murrays."

"I know," cried Teenie Ross, Rory's sister, with a little toss of her head, "Alec told me. She is the girl who has come to take the teacher's place for a month. She is the niece of Sheriff Hossie. Her father was a colonel in the Southern army, California or Virginia or some place, I don't just remember. Oh! I know all about her, Alec told me," continued Teenie with a knowing shake of her ruddy curls. "And she'll have a string of hearts dangling to her ap.r.o.n, if she wears one, before the month is out, so you'd better mind out, Barney."

But Barney was not heeding her. "Hush!" he said, holding up his hand, for again the voice was rising up clear and full into the night silence.

Even Teenie's chatter was subdued and no one moved till the verse was finished.

"She'll be needing a boarding house, Barney," continued Teenie wickedly.

"You'll just need to take her with you to the Mill."

"Indeed, and there will be no such la.s.sie as yon in my house," said the mother, speaking sharply.

"She has no mother," said Margaret softly, "and she will need a place."

"Yes, that she will," replied Mrs. Boyle, "and I know very well where she will be going, too, and you with four little ones to do for, not to speak of the minister, the hardest of the lot." Mrs. Boyle was evidently seriously angered.

"Man! What a voice!" breathed Barney, and, making fast the horse to the waggon, he set off for the barn apparently oblivious of all about him.

"Begorra, ma'am, an' savin' yer prisince, there's n.o.body knows what's in that lad. But he'll stir the world yit, an' so he will. An' that's what the ould Doctor said, so it was."

When Barney reached the barn floor the Southern girl had just finished her song, and with her guitar still in her hands was idly strumming its strings. The moonlight fell about her in a flood so bright as to reveal the ivory pallor of her face and the l.u.s.trous depths of her dark eyes.

It was a face of rare and romantic beauty framed in soft, fluffy, dark hair, brushed high off the forehead and gathered in a Greek knot at the back of her head. But besides the beauty of face and eyes, there was an air of gentle, appealing innocence that awakened the chivalrous instincts latent in every masculine heart, and a lazy, languorous grace that set her in striking contrast to the alert, vigorous country maids so perfectly able to care for themselves, asking odds of no man. When the singing ceased Barney came out of the shadow at his father's side, and, reaching for the violin, said, "Let me spell you a bit, Dad."

At his voice d.i.c.k, who was across the floor beside the singer, turned quickly and, seeing Barney, sprang for him, shouting, "h.e.l.lo! you old whale, you!" The father hastily pulled his precious violin out of danger.

"Let go, d.i.c.k! Let go, I tell you!" said Barney, struggling in his brother's embrace; "stop it, now!"

With a mighty effort he threw d.i.c.k off from him and stood on guard with an embarra.s.sed, half-shamed, half-indignant laugh. The crowd gathered near in delighted expectation. There was always something sure to happen when d.i.c.k "got after" his older brother.

"He won't let me kiss him," cried d.i.c.k pitifully, to the huge enjoyment of the crowd.

"It's too bad, d.i.c.k," they cried.

"So it is. But I'm not going to be put off. It's a shame!" replied d.i.c.k, in a hurt tone. "And me just home, too."

"It's a mean shame, d.i.c.k. Wouldn't stand it a minute," cried his sympathisers.

"I won't either," cried d.i.c.k, preparing to make an attack.

"Look here, d.i.c.k," cried Barney impatiently, "just quit your nonsense or I'll throw you on the floor there and sit on you. Besides, you're spoiling the music."

"Well, well, that's so," said d.i.c.k. "So on Miss Lane's account I'll forbear, provided, that is, she sings again, as, of course, she will."