Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

fashion, also watch-chains of recent purchase. They came aboard the launch in twos and threes, holding hands like little children. Some of them had never seen anything in the shape of a steamer before, and jumped back afraid when the engineer opened the steam-escape.

When the launch was so full that it could hold no more, the remainder tumbled into their canoes and followed in our wake. The Methodist missionary in the north is very severe at times in his notions of what is proper; the gentleman whose church we were about to visit was specially averse to smoking, dancing and cards.

The Indian, for all his simplicity, is a very cunning fellow. At the commencement of our voyage all the pipes were in full blast, but long before we reached shore every trace of tobacco had vanished, save from among the naughty white men, who did not seem to care.

The Mission-house was a long, gray building standing on a little bay with a small village clustered round it, and an Indian school in the rear.

Our advent created a considerable excitement; such a congregation had not been seen within those precincts for many a long day. We were in all at the least two hundred and fifty strong, and packed close almost to suffocation point.

We

As a special courtesy to the white men present, the service was conducted in two languages, English first, followed by the Cree translation. were an odd sight, take us all in all. Squaws with crying children on their backs, Indian hunters with bronzed keen faces drinking in every word, half-breeds with ear-rings and tails of beaver hanging from their caps, white traders leaning back with an amused smile playing around their lips, and the missionary's family setting an example of devout and pious attention.

[blocks in formation]

We traversed several of the beautiful Wesleyan hymns which I had heard sung under such different circumstances in the villages of England, and at last came to the sermon.

The text was becomingly appropriate -"Now are we the sons of God"-Indians and white men with their diverse records and their small knowledge of one another's ways all included in the same category as sons of God. I looked at them, and saw the various emotions chasing across their dusky faces, and then looked at my British brothers with their sneering indifference, and wondered which had the more just claim to the title.

On our return journey, the Split Lakers and Nelson men had little to say. When we had travelled a fitting distance from the shore, they re-lit their pipes, and, still holding the hand of a friend, sat brooding over what they had heard.

Not so we of the paler hue. Critícism was rampant, and the sermon was discussed, much to the detriment of the preacher, whilst these other sons of the same heritage sat and thought.

Sunday with the white man is not a day to be scrupulously observed; it is more convenient for the sorting-out of the tattered fragments of the past week, the balancing of cash accounts and the taking stock of stores.

With the Indian, curiously enough, it is a day of devotion. They sat in groups and talked in low voices, every now and then raising a hymn. The Church of England party had with them a native catechist who read and made comments on the Bible in an informal way, after which all joined in the discussion.

At length the quiet Northern evening began to gather, and the long shadows spread over lake and river; the last sound I heard as I turned in for the night was the old martial strain which I had heard the Honorable Artillery 1782

play as they marched out of the barracks in City Road long years ago, when I was a little boy, "The Son of God goes forth to War," but no longer The Independent Review.

wondered what part these red-skinned people of the barren lands had in His campaign.

Coningsby William Dawson.

Nelson, B. C.

AMELIA AND THE DOCTOR.

CHAPTER XII.

MR. KINGDON'S PROFESSION.

It was not easy to believe that a man who had Mr. Kingdon's high fresh color could be in any but the very best of health, nevertheless Dr. Charlton received a note from him one morning requesting the doctor to come round and to bring his stethoscope with him.

"It was very kind of you to call,” said Mr. Kingdon, when the doctor came in.

"Not at all, not at all," Dr. Charlton responded. "It is my business, my profession, to come when I am summoned-often," he said, looking keenly at the very healthful complexion and singularly clear eye of his patient, "to see people who certainly do not appear as if they had anything very serious the matter with them."

Mr. Kingdon seemed quite to appreciate the point of the remark and smiled as he said, "Perhaps not-no, I believe I have not at all the look of an invalid, and I am sure I hope it may prove that I have not much the matter with me, but I have been a little anxious about my heart: perhaps quite unnecessarily. I should be much obliged, however, if you would sound it."

The doctor accordingly went through the usual forms and ceremonies, and was able to reassure Mr. Kingdon that the vital organ was in a most healthy condition.

"I am very glad to hear it." said the patient, in a tone which seemed to the doctor to imply that he would have

been very much surprised had it proved otherwise; and then he added: "Since you are here, doctor, there is just another little matter, nothing at all to do with your profession, that I should like, if you do not mind, to mention to you.”

Then the doctor knew that the real cause of his summons was about to be disclosed.

Still Mr. Kingdon hesitated a moment or two before beginning, and when he did begin it was with a violence that quite surprised Dr. Charlton, and was the more remarkable because his usual manner was so very composed and quiet.

"I wish I had never come to live down here. I wish I had never seen the place."

"Yes?" Dr. Charlton said drily.

"Yes," said the other, quite understanding why the doctor answered him so drily. "I know that it is a foolish way of beginning a story. I will try to tell it a little more clearly. I suppose you don't know what my profession is, do you, doctor? Or perhaps you do?"

"I have not the least idea," the doctor answered.

"Well," said Mr. Kingdon, "I am a money-lender."

He looked at Dr. Charlton after saying it as if he expected him to make some comment, but the doctor said nothing, and Mr. Kingdon added: "I suppose you think money-lender pretty much the same thing as thief, don't you?"

"Well, I should imagine this, Mr.

Kingdon," the doctor replied, "that it's quite possible and quite easy to be a thief both in your profession and in mine. For instance, it would be quite easy for me to send you in a bill for a professional visit to-day; you would probably pay it, and I might take the money; in which case I should, of course, be a thief, for it is very evident to me that you knew quite well that there was nothing in the world the matter with you, and that you played your weak heart merely as a bit of groundbait to bring me here. We are now, I take it, occupied with the real purpose of my visit. But if it's quite easy and possible to be a thief, either in your profession or mine, I believe that it's quite possible, though obviously not nearly so easy, to be an honest man in either of them. So far as the professions go I do not seem to see much difference in that regard, and I do not imagine that there are likely to be many more or less thieves in one than in the other."

"Thank you, Dr. Charlton, thank you," Mr. Kingdon said; "I cannot ask you to speak any fairer than that. You have put my mind much at ease, and I can now talk much more clearly and reasonably with you. When I say that I wish to goodness I had never come near this place, 1 don't want you to think that I am complaining for a moment of the treatment I have received from you or from any other single person in it. They have all been exceedingly kind to me. Of course I am not such a fool as to suppose that a man such as I am is fit society for a lady like Miss Carey, for instance. I know how to behave myself in her drawing-room, and I do not think I do any harm by going to tea there when she is kind enough to ask me to come. I am not wishing to push my way at all. But what I do feel-what does make me wish I had

[blocks in formation]

"I don't understand," said Dr. Charlton. "What is dreadful about it? Of course they are poor, but so are a lot of the rest of the world; there is nothing so very dreadful about that. And of course he is getting a bit old; but that is a very common way of the world too, and nothing so very dreadful about it."

"What is dreadful is to feel that I have brought them to it—or at least to feel that they, or the Colonel at least, must think of it like that. Every time that I go in and out of the gate I feel that their eyes are on me, reproaching me, saying--in their hearts at least-that I am like the cuckoo that has turned them out of their nest."

"I still do not understand quite clearly," said the doctor, "but I am beginning to."

"Yes-you will be beginning to, no doubt. Of course I did not know anything of this Colonel Fraser personally. Of course I did not know anything about this house, or the neighborhood, or anything else; and equally of course I was not in any real sense the cause of the Colonel's troubles. He was in very deep waters before he came to me. People generally are in extremis, as you would say in your profession, doctor, before they apply to mine. But he applied to me in answer to one of our ordinary advertisements, and in the ordinary course of business I advanced him money on the security of this house and took the title-deeds over. He could not meet the interest payments, and so, always in the ordinary course of business, I foreclosed. I do not think any one could say that I dealt hardly with him. I gave him an extension again and again; but it was no good, and in the end he quite agreed himself that it was better that

I should take the security over and so relieve him from the interest liabilities. All this while I had never corresponded with him personally: it was all done through my man of business, you will understand. I only just

looked at the letters now and then and agreed to the granting the extension, and to the final arrangements. And I had no idea in the world of ever coming to live here when I took the house over. I intended, of course, to sell it, and I do not think I should have made much of a profit by it if I had done so. I need not trouble you with figures, but I had advanced a sum against the title-deeds far larger than an ordinary mortgagee would have advanced-very likely up to the full value; I do not know. But before putting it up to sale I thought I would just run down and have a look at it. I liked the look of the place. The soil was evidently very good for rose-growing, and it was a pretty country for riding about-and those are my two hobbies. So the long and the short of it is that I decided to come and live here, and that is the whole story."

"I see, I see," said the doctor. "And now you regret it?"

"I regret it, yes," Mr. Kingdon answered, rising from his chair and pacing up and down the room. "I regret it only for one reason. The neighborhood is a charming one; the soil is good; every one that I have met has been exceedingly kind to me much kinder, I have no doubt, than they would be than they will be now, perhaps, when they know what my profession is."

"I shall certainly not tell them without your authority to do so," the doctor said, as Mr. Kingdon paused doubtfully.

"That is kindly spoken," said the money-lender, "and I think, since you are willing to look at it in that spirit, I will put it like this-I will not give

you any authority to do this or that about it. I will ask you to do as you think fit. However, that is of very little moment. What I was going to say is that I regret having come to live down here for one reason only: I am haunted, it is exactly as if I was haunted, by the thought of that poor gallant old gentleman and that sweet young lady that I seem to have hunted out of their own house and home. It is dreadful to me meeting them as I go out. It is dreadful for me to have to return that poor old gentleman's salute. It is so courteous, and so distant too. It is such a reminder to me. all the time. I am not a sentimental man, as you may suppose, doctor, and I am not a soft-hearted man-our profession is not one that makes us sentimental or tender-hearted-if that old gentleman were to scowl at me, or to cut me (as he very well might), or to abuse me, I should not mind it a bit. I should grin and bear it, and rather enjoy it. I am used to that, quite used to it. But what I am not used to is being treated in the way he treats me-no doubt what you would say is, and of course it is perfectly true, that I have not been used to gentlemen. And to think that he should never have said a word to any one, to any of the neighbors, to give me away-to tell what my profession is! Oh, it is wonderful! It is wonderful!"

Mr. Kingdon paused to blow his nose in a red silk pocket-handkerchief.

"He's a very fine specimen certainly," said the doctor, "of a soldier and a gentleman-and a fool."

"A fool, oh yes," said Mr. Kingdon. "A fool certainly; but what a deal better to be a fool like that than a knave like some-like most. Our profession. Dr. Charlton, as I daresay you may suppose, does not bring us into close contact with the very best people in the world. I have always realized

that. But I tell you very truly that I have never realized that there are in the world any people quite so good as one or two that I have met, and who have met me as their equal, since I have been down here."

"I can very well believe it," the doctor answered, his thoughts travelling, whither Mr. Kingdon's had most probably preceded them, to Miss Carey.

"Yes, it is true. Well, I am afraid I have been a bore to you. I felt that I had to unburden myself to somebody; I couldn't bear it kept in to myself any longer; and I felt somehow that you would not misunderstand me. I felt that I was living among all the kind good people here as such a fraud too. I do not mind so much now that I have told you; and whether you tell them or not, it is for you to judge. Of course I supposed at first that Colonel Fraser would have told everybody. I was fully prepared for that.

I sup

pose it is, as I said before, that I did not know exactly what sort of thing a gentleman was. That was part of my reason for bothering you with all this that you have been good enough to listen to so patiently; but I had another reason too, and that was to ask you, who know the people, and all about them, so much better than I do, whether there is any way in which I could possibly help them-the Colonel and his granddaughter, I mean-could make restitution in any way. Of course they are so proud, that kind of person, aren't they? One could not offer anything exactly. Is there not any way?"

The doctor shook his head. "I am afraid not."

"I did not know," Mr. Kingdon proceeded, "whether it would be possible to tell the Colonel that some of the moneys that had passed from his hands to mine had been invested in a manner that had proved unexpectedly profitable, and I could tell him that he

was entitled to the proceeds. He is so very simple about business matters that I wondered whether it would be possible to do anything in that way."

The doctor shook his head. "It would be very difficult. He is simple, as you say, but he is terribly proud. I am afraid he would see what you were aiming at, and if he did he would resent it dreadfully."

"Yes," Mr. Kingdon answered sadly. "I was afraid you would say that."

[ocr errors]

"As they say in the 'Arabian Nights,' said the doctor presently, "if that old soldier's story were to be graven on the eye corners it would serve as a warning to whomsoever would be warned. I know no other in which one may read quite so plainly certain interesting lessons in human nature. He was always a saddened man, a reserved, shut up man, even when he first came to occupy this house which is yours now. He has had a succession of blows in his life. In the first place or in the first place so far as I know anything of his story -he has been saddened by the death of his young wife, to whom he was, I believe, very fondly attached. Then there came the affair of his daughter running off with that young rascal Robin Rivers, and he grew more and more sad and stern. Then this grandchild turned up, as if she had dropped from the clouds, and in her companionship the man's whole nature seemed to expand itself and soften. After that, as you know, the old fool began to speculate, lost all his money, fell upon bad times; and the effect has been to make him more crusty and reserved again than ever. He is only like that with grown men and women though. Do you notice how gentle he is with children? He has a heart of gold under that rough old shell."

"It is of better stuff than gold, doctor," Mr. Kingdon declared-he had perhaps found reason, in the pursuit of

« AnteriorContinuar »