Tim succeeded at last in forcing Keturah to dodge into a path that led to her corner, and the unique race ended.

Gilbert's visitors were laughing heartily; Rosalie had completely forgotten her ill-temper, and danced about consumed with merriment.

"Oh, I say!" cried Blackburn, leaning weakly against a tree, "that's better than the king's plate!"

"Oh, if Piper Angus had only got in behind the kid!" cried Malcolm Cameron. "There's never anything in this world so good but it might be a little better."

"Well, this comes as near perfection as anything I ever saw," said Blackburn's friend. "Come, ladies, this makes a splendid finale; we must be getting on our way."

Gilbert walked by Rosalie's side to the car. She was radiantly good-humored now, but not a word could he get from her of the subject nearest his heart. Of course she forgave him, she declared, choking back her laughter to say it, but oh! oh! did he ever see anything so frantically funny as that outrageous cow and that mad youngster after her? Gilbert felt almost as much resentment against Keturah as poor Sawed-Off must have experienced. Fate had always used him thus in his dealings with Rosalie. Whenever he wanted her especially to be serious, then something invariably occurred to set her laughing; but how charming she was, to be sure, when she laughed, with her little head thrown back, and the tears in her dancing eyes!

He tried to join her, with poor success. He was consumed with anxiety to know what the secret was she had intended to confide in him, and had almost made up his mind to obey her, and offend Miss Cameron and Malcolm and everybody. What did it matter when it meant Rosalie's favor? But she gave him no second chance. She sprang gaily into the car by Blackburn's side, and waved her hand in farewell. She was still laughing as they moved off, and he could hear her saying between ripples, "Oh! oh! and to think I didn't want to come, and I might have missed that race!"

CHAPTER XII.

A RUSH FOR THE GOAL

The sh.o.r.elark soars to his topmost flight, Sings at the height where morning springs, What though his voice be lost in the light?

The light comes dropping from his wings.

Mount, my soul, and sing at the height Of thy clear flight in the light and the air, Heard or unheard in the night, in the light, Sing there! Sing there!

--DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT.

Elmbrook felt keenly disappointed that the red threshing-machine did not pa.s.s through the village on its return journey. Though no one guessed it, Dr. Allen was the most deeply disappointed of all. Indeed, such was the effect upon him, that he packed his suitcase the next day, Davy Munn hung his mother's sunbonnet upon the top of the stable, and the doctor boarded the train at the back lane and went to Toronto.

Elmbrook literally sat up nights, speculating as to the possible reasons for his sudden departure. Mrs. Munn hadn't the faintest idea.

She even wasn't sure of his destination, had forgotten whether he took many clothes or not, and was perfectly at sea in regard to his possible return. Her son was more explicit, if more imaginative. He bet that the doctor had gone to see the swell young lady that came in the threshing-mill; he was quite sure he would get drunk and show people a few things when he came back, for he was a very wild and fierce young man, and n.o.body in the place, except Mr. Munn, knew just what awful things he could do.

Fortunately, people paid no heed to Davy, and when the doctor returned the following day, looking his usual self, no one suspected him of riotous conduct. Mrs. Munn kept her own counsel, of course, but she wondered secretly what had happened to make him so quiet, and why he did not run up the stairs three steps at a time, whistling loudly, as he used to do.

And yet, according to his own view, there was really no reason why Gilbert should have been less happy. Everything had turned out just as he had wanted. First, Rosalie had forgiven him--that was just like Rosalie, he reflected fondly--and, moreover, had promised--yes, promised faithfully this time--that if he would come down to her New Year's party she would that day announce their engagement. There was another provision attached, however; he must, yes, must, come to the city in the spring; no, not a month later. There was no use in his thinking she would live anywhere else, because she simply would die; and if he wanted to kill her, why, she would just marry Guy Blackburn, and go motoring over a precipice. Surely, when he saw that she was giving up so much for his sake, he might make a little sacrifice for her. And Gilbert had declared, with a rush of grat.i.tude, that he would do anything she asked.

So there was surely no good reason for his apparent lack of spirits.

There was every prospect of his being successful in Toronto, and Harwood, his old college chum, had a.s.sured him there would be a fine opening in the spring. Nevertheless, Gilbert Allen was not as glad at heart as might have been expected. For Rosalie had been right in her judgment; he was changed. Several influences had been at work to make a new man of him. Hitherto his life had been unconsciously selfish.

It had been all getting, and no giving. That had seemed inevitable in his college days; but when they were over, self-interest had still remained the strongest force. To attain, to gain what he desired most for himself, had brought him to this country practice, and for a while he was in danger of quenching finally the generous impulses that were a part of his nature. But until Gilbert Allen had almost reached man's estate there had been a good mother in his home, one who had never failed, day and night, to lay her boy's highest welfare before her G.o.d.

So it was impossible that he should go very far astray, and now, all unknowing, he was turning into the path where that mother had always desired he should walk. He had set himself the task of reaching the shining mark of success, all for his own ends; but he found the road to it so absorbing, the daily duty demanding so strenuously the obliteration of self, that, little by little, he was losing sight of his own interests and living primarily for the people that needed his help. He smiled at himself in surprise one day, when, after an unusually busy fortnight, he found that he had forgotten to keep any account of the money owing him. That was not the Gilbert Allen who had sat down, in the first days of his career as a physician, to calculate carefully just how much each mile would bring. He found it was hard for a true physician to be selfish.

And as he went about his task of relieving pain, day by day, unconsciously he was trying to live up to the high ideal that Elmbrook had placed for him.

"Give a dog a bad name and you can be hanging him," quoted old Hughie Cameron one evening when the doctor had joined the company on the milkstand, and the talk was more than usually profound. "That will be a true saying, indeed. But, hoots! toots! it will be working the other way, whatever. Give him a good name, now, and----"

"And he'll git up on his hind legs and walk like a man," said Spectacle John Cross, much to Uncle Hughie's disgust.

Dr. Allen had merely laughed, and forgotten the remark soon after.

Nevertheless, the underlying truth was working out in his own life. He was being made a better man because he had been given a fine name and reputation. He had no petty conceit to be fed by his patients'

adulation. It brought him only a saving sense of his own shortcomings and an honest desire to be more worthy. And there had been still another influence at work, one of which he was entirely unconscious--the quiet life of n.o.ble self-sacrifice lived by the girl on the other side of Treasure Valley was a constant source of reproach to him, though he recognized it not.

So, being the man he was, Gilbert could not be happy in view of what he had promised to do. Even Rosalie's smile was scarcely compensation for the pang he felt when he reflected that the splendid Christmas present he had in store for the man who had given him his chance in life must be used for selfish ends, and Martin must wait. That was the sting; Martin was always waiting, and when would the waiting end?

But he soon lost sight of the future, its joys, as well as its pangs, in the imperative call of the present. When the winter set in he discovered that, hitherto, his work had been but child's play. The high ridge of Elmbrook offered a splendid battle-ground for all the opposing winds. Here they met in furious combat, filling the air with the white dust of battle, and piling up their ramparts of snow until roads and fields and fences were blotted out, and the whole earth lay one dazzling waste.

With the opening of winter came an epidemic of grip [Transcriber's note: grippe?], and other seasonable maladies. The orphans went sliding on the pond before the ice was as thick as window-gla.s.s, and broke through and got severe colds; Mrs. McKitterick fell ill of pneumonia, and all the children up among the stormy hills of Glenoro took the measles. So the young doctor learned all that it meant to be a country physician during an Ontario winter. An early December storm made some of the roads impa.s.sable, and he often had to leave Speed, or the new horse he had lately bought, at some wayside farmhouse while he made the rest of the journey on snowshoes. Often he drove home in the gray winter dawn staggering for want of sleep, only to change his horse and start off in another direction. But he never shirked. His troubled conscience drove him to a vigorous fulfilment of the duty at hand. He had a vague notion that in this way he was atoning for the neglect of the greater obligation.

His capacity for toil won the admiration of the hard-working people among whom he lived. Often, as they watched his lonely cutter moving down the road, like a little ship in a stormy sea, now rising high on a snowy billow, now almost disappearing in the hollow, as he fought his way against the bitter blast to relieve some one's pain, they unanimously voted the doctor a man.

And the cures he worked! They talked them over around the kitchen fire at night, never wearying of the theme. There was Mrs.

McKitterick--everybody knew about her, of course. And there was Arabella Winters, who was in bed and like to die, one day, and the doctor had her sitting up and going around the next. And as for Jake Sawyer's orphans--well, there was no knowing how often he had saved their lives. Yes, the doctor certainly was a caution.

As he worked the days flew past, and Rosalie's New Year's celebration, which was to bring him such happiness, was fast approaching. He had all the arrangements made for his holidays several weeks before.

Harwood was coming to take his work for a week, and everything promised to turn out exactly as he had hoped.

On the last night of December he drove down the Lake Simcoe road to pay a farewell visit to Mrs. McKitterick. Harwood had arrived the day before, and the next morning Gilbert was to take the early train for Toronto. Lauchie had promised to wait at the back lane for him, and Davy had shoveled a path down to the railroad track.

Gilbert wore his first-prize mittens under his fur gauntlets, and Mrs.

McKitterick praised him for the wonderful care he was taking of them.

She was better, quite herself again, but she warned him to be back in less than a week, for how could she get on without him? He had not the heart to tell her that he would not likely be with her much longer. He had to wait for a cup of tea, and by the time he had made another call it was getting late.

As he was hurrying homeward he bethought himself of a short road to the village, a winter highway, that went up the ravine, past the Drowned Lands, following the old abandoned corduroy track. It had been made by Sandy McQuarry's teams hauling logs up to the mill, and being sheltered, was comparatively free from drifts. The doctor turned into it, and pa.s.sed into the breathless silence of the cedar swamp. His horse's bells sounded startlingly clear in the tense Stillness. To his right lay the cold, drear stretches of the Drowned Lands; the gaunt tree-trunks were but dimly discernible against the gray landscape, and looked more ghostly than ever, standing there, stark and silent, like an army of the dead. Not a light could be seen, nor a sign of human habitation. Above stretched the illimitable blue of heaven, steely cold, like the frozen earth, and spangled with glittering stars. For several nights Gilbert had had very little sleep, and as he moved on through the unbroken silence his head drooped forward on his breast, the lines hung loosely in his limp hand, and he swayed from side to side like a drunken man. Speed trotted steadily onward, picking her way carefully, like the wise little animal she was. She seemed the only living thing in all the ghostly stillness.

Suddenly the horse stopped, and her sleepy driver lurched forward and almost fell over the dashboard. He sat bolt upright and stared stupidly about him. Then he guessed that something was probably wrong with the harness. Speed was a dainty little animal, and always refused to move when her attire was not in perfect order. She had once cleverly forestalled what might have been a serious accident, by standing stock-still when a strap gave way. Gilbert stumbled out and went around to her head. Sure enough, a buckle had broken. He patted the little mare affectionately.

"Ah, Speed, you're a finicky old girl," he grumbled. "If you were as dead for want of sleep as I am you wouldn't know whether you had any harness or not."

Speed rubbed him ingratiatingly with her nose as he strove, with numb fingers, to repair the damage. The bells were still, and the silence of the winter night was oppressive. The dry rustle of some dead leaves that still clung forlornly to a ghostly beech by the wayside sounded loud and startling. All at once the doctor was conscious of another sound, one that appealed to his professional ear--the sound of a smothered, strangling cough. He looked about him wonderingly, and found that he had stopped just in front of the old shanty where John McIntyre lived. He had seen the man only once or twice since the mill closed, though he often heard the eldest orphan talk about him. But Tim had been confined to the house for the past week, the result of his premature skate on the pond, and the village had heard nothing of the watchman for some time.

Gilbert stood a moment, doubtful as to what he should do. The coughing began again, with a sound in it, this time, that told the physician he must hesitate no longer. He drew his horse up to the old tumbled-down bars, tied and blanketed her, and taking his satchel, plunged through the deep snow to the shanty. He drew off his fur gauntlet and knocked on the shaky door, but the moment he had done so he recognized the futility of the act. He tried the latch, it lifted, and he stepped in.

The place was in utter darkness, and bitingly cold, a chill dampness that struck the heart. The man's strangled breathing came from a corner of the room. The doctor spoke, but there was no answer. He hastily struck a match and looked around. The little flickering light showed a rickety table, an old stove red with rust, and a dark object in a far corner. It showed, also, a lantern on the floor. Gilbert lit it, and going to the corner, bent over the sick man. John McIntyre lay stretched on a low straw bed, covered with a ragged quilt and a heap of nondescript clothing. His breath was coming in choking gasps, and he gazed up at his visitor with staring, but unseeing, eyes. The doctor felt his burning forehead and his leaping pulse, and uttered a sharp exclamation. John McIntyre was sick, so sick that relief must come speedily or it would not come at all.

Gilbert was wide awake now. The weary man was lost in the alert physician. He forced some medicine down the man's throat, found some kindling-wood in the shed, and soon had a blazing fire and a boiling kettle. Then he flung aside his cap and coat and went rummaging in the meager cupboard; he must have something--anything--for poultices. He gave a relieved whistle as he stumbled upon a can of linseed meal, and reflected, with some amus.e.m.e.nt, upon how approvingly Mrs. Winters would have regarded the homely treatment. When he had adjusted the hot poultice he ran out and led his shivering horse around into the shelter of the old shed behind the house. Then he hurried back to John McIntyre's bedside and took up his night's work. A hard battle he knew it would be, with, as yet, almost even chances for life and death. He went into the struggle eagerly, with not only the strong desire to relieve pain and save life, which is part of the true physician, but with his fighting instinct keenly aroused. The battle was on; there was only his strength and skill against the dread specter, and he was determined to win.

All night long he hung over his patient, watchful, careful, seizing every smallest vantage ground, swiftly changing his tactics when he sighted defeat ahead. Once or twice he sank into the single chair the place possessed and s.n.a.t.c.hed a few minutes' sleep; but when the instant came to administer medicine or change the poultices, he was wide awake again. So completely was he absorbed in his task that he lost all consciousness of time and place, until he noticed a sickly appearance in the lantern's light, and glancing at the little frosted window-pane, he saw the ghosts of the Drowned Lands standing out plainly against the dawn. Gilbert drew a deep breath. The night had ended, and with it the struggle. The doctor bent over his patient, pale and worn-looking, but his eyes aglow with the light of conquest. For he had won the battle. John McIntyre lay there, spent and white, but he was saved.

When he had made his patient as comfortable as possible with his inadequate means, Gilbert prepared to go home. He left reluctantly, but he promised himself he would send Harwood back immediately. He hurried out to the cutter, and sent Speed spinning up the road toward the village. As he faced the brightening horizon it came to him with a leap of his heart that it was New Year's Day! He would barely have time to catch the train! He drove swiftly into his own yard and dashed in at the kitchen door.

"Is Dr. Harwood up?" he demanded, coming suddenly upon Mrs. Munn, and paralyzing her preparations for breakfast.

Had he not been in such a hurry he would have known it was too much to expect his silent housekeeper to vouchsafe, all at once, the amount of information required to answer that question.

"Dear! dear!" she cried, in consternation, standing with the dripping porridge-stick held over the hot stove. "I dunno. There's a letter on your desk," she added reluctantly.

Gilbert darted into his office and tore open the note. Harwood had been called out in the night to an urgent case, fifteen miles away, and would not be back till the afternoon.

The young doctor walked slowly to the frosty window and looked out upon the white lawn, the paper crushed in his hand. He stood there, motionless, for fully a minute, and when he turned away his face was very stern. He walked upstairs and knocked peremptorily on the door of Davy's room.

The high, falsetto squeak of a gramophone was coming gaily through the portal, and without waiting for an answer Gilbert impatiently put his head through the doorway. Since the lawnmower had gone to its well-earned rest Mr. Munn lived only for this other instrument, the sound of whose music he found similar to that of his lost treasure.