第13章

ONLY ONE CLAIM

It always gave Brown a sense of content to enter the Macgregor cottage.Even among the thrifty North country folk the widow Macgregor's home, while not as pretentious as those of the well-to-do farmers, had been famous as a model of tidy house-keeping.Her present home was a little cottage of three rooms with the kitchen at the back.The front room where Mrs.Macgregor received her few visitors, and where Shock did most of his reading, except when driven to his bedroom by the said visitors, was lighted by two candles in high, polished, old-fashioned brass candlesticks, and by the fire from the hearth, which radiated a peace and comfort which even the shiny hair-cloth chairs and sofa and the remaining somewhat severe furniture of the room could not chill.It was the hearth and mantel that had decided Mrs.Macgregor and Shock in their purchase of the little cottage, which in many eyes was none too desirable.On the walls hung old-fashioned prints of Robbie Burns and his Highland Mary, the Queen and the Prince Consort, one or two quaint family groups, and over the mantel a large portrait of a tall soldier in full Highland dress.Upon a bracket in a corner stood a glass case enclosing a wreath of flowers wrought in worsted, and under it in a frame hung a sampler with the Lord's Prayer similarly wrought.On one side of the room stood a clock upon a shelf, flanked by the Family Bible and such books as "The Saint's Rest," "Holy Living,""The Fourfold State," "Scots Worthies," all ancient and well worn.

On the other side stood a bookcase which was Shock's, and beside it a table where he did his work.Altogether it was a very plain room, but the fireplace and the shining candlesticks and the rag carpet on the floor redeemed it from any feeling of discomfort, while the flowers that filled the windows left an air of purity and sweetness.

"Come away, my lad, come away," said Mrs.Macgregor, who sat knitting by the fire."The night is chill enough.Come away up to the fire.""Thanks, Mrs.Macgregor," said Brown, "it does me good to look at you by the fire there with your knitting.When I'm an old man I only hope I'll have a cozy hearthstone like this to draw up to, and on the other side a cozy old lady like you with pink cheeks like these which I must now kiss.""Tut, tut, it's a daft laddie you are whatever," said the old lady, blushing a little, but not ill-pleased."Sit ye down yonder." Brown, ever since his illness, when Mrs.Macgregor and Shock had nursed him back from death's door two years ago, was one of the family, and, indeed, he used endearments with the old lady that the undemonstrative Shock would never have dared to use."Ye're late, Hamish.Surely yon man had much to say," said his mother, looking lovingly upon her great, sturdy son.

"That he had, mother, and great it was, I can tell you."Then Shock proceeded, after his habit, to give his mother a full share of what he had been enjoying.Mrs.Macgregor listened intently, pausing now and then in her knitting to ejaculate, "Well-a-well!" "Look at that, now!" "Hear to him!" When Shock had finished, Brown broke in: "It was truly magnificent, I assure you, Mrs.Macgregor, and the enthusiasm of the man! And his yarns! Oh, he is truly, great!""And what would he be doing at the college?" enquired the old lady.

"There would not be much money there, I doubt.""Men, mother, men," cried Shock with some excitement."Volunteers for the Great West, and a hard time he is having, too, what with the foreign field, and needy vacancies in this country, and city pulpits, and the like."Mrs.Macgregor sat silent, her needles flying fast and her lips pressed together.

"I wish you could have heard him, Mrs.Macgregor," said Brown, enthusiastically."He has a tongue like a rasp, and at times it takes off the skin.That was fine, Shock, about the fellows who could not give him answer till they had asked the Lord about it.'Ifind a good many men,' the old chap said, 'who, after anxiously enquiring as to the work expected of them, remuneration, prospects of advance, etc., always want to lay the matter before the Lord before giving their answer.And I am beginning to think that the Lord has some grudge against the West, for almost invariably He appears to advise these men to leave it severely alone.' Oh, it was great!" Little Brown hugged his knee in delight at the memory of that rasping tongue.

"But surely there are plenty of men," said Mrs.Macgregor a little impatiently, "for there's no want of them whateffer when a congregation falls vacant.""That's so," replied Brown; "but you see he wants only first-class men--men ready for anything in the way of hardship, and not to be daunted by man or devil.""Ou ay!" said the old lady, nodding her head grimly; "he will not be finding so many of yon kind.""But it must be a great country," went on Brown."You ought to bear him tell of the rivers with sands of gold, running through beds of coal sixty feet thick."The old lady shook her cap at him, peering over her glasses."Ye're a gay callant, and you will be taking your fun off me""But it's true.Ask Shock there."

"What?" said Shock, waking up from a deep study.Brown explained.

" Yes," said Shock."The sands of the Saskatchewan are full of gold, and you know, mother, about the rivers in Cariboo.""Ay, I remember fine the Cariboo, and Cariboo Cameron and his gold.