CHAPTER XII
SEED-TIME
The day after Big Mack's funeral, Ranald was busy polishing Lizette'sglossy skin, before the stable door. This was his favorite remedy forgloomy thoughts, and Ranald was full of gloomy thoughts to-day. Hisfather, though going about the house, was still weak, and worse thanall, was fretting in his weakness. He was oppressed with the terriblefear that he would never again be able to do a man's work, and Ranaldknew from the dark look in his father's face that day and night thedesire for vengeance was gnawing at his heart, and Ranald also knewsomething of the bitterness of this desire from the fierce longing thatlay deep in his own. Some day, when his fingers would be feeling forLeNoir's throat, he would drink long and fully that sweet draught ofvengeance. He knew, too, that it added to the bitterness in his father'sheart to know that, in the spring's work that every warm day wasbringing nearer, he could take no part; and that was partly the cause ofRanald's gloom. With the slow-moving oxen, he could hardly hope to getthe seed in in time, and they needed the crop this year if ever theydid, for last year's interest on the mortgage was still unpaid and thenext installment was nearly due.
As he was putting the finishing touches upon Lisette's satin skin,Yankee drove up to the yard with his Fox horse and buckboard. His boxwas strapped on behind, and his blankets, rolled up in a bundle, filledthe seat beside him.
"Mornin'," he called to Ranald. "Purty fine shine, that, and purtyfine mare, all round," he continued, walking about Lisette and notingadmiringly her beautiful proportions.
"Purty fine beast," he said, in a low tone, running his hands down herlegs. "Guess you wouldn't care to part with that mare?"
"No," said Ranald, shortly; but as he spoke his heart sank within him.
"Ought to fetch a fairly good figure," continued Yankee, meditatively."Le's see. She's from La Roque's Lisette, ain't she? Ought to have somespeed." He untied Lisette's halter. "Take her down in the yard yonder,"he said to Ranald.
Ranald threw the halter over Lisette's neck, sprang on her back, andsent her down the lane at a good smart pace. At the bottom of the lanehe wheeled her, and riding low upon her neck, came back to the barn likea whirlwind.
"By jings!" exclaimed Yankee, surprised out of his lazy drawl; "she'sgot it, you bet your last brick. See here, boy, there's money into thatanimal. Thought I would like to have her for my buckboard, but I havegot an onfortunit conscience that won't let me do up any partner, so Iguess I can't make any offer."
Ranald stood beside Lisette, his arm thrown over her beautiful neck, andhis hand fondling her gently about the ears. "I will not sell her." Hisvoice was low and fierce, and all the more so because he knew thatwas just what he would do, and his heart was sick with the pain of thethought.
"I say," said Yankee, suddenly, "cudn't bunk me in your loft, cud you!Can't stand the town. Too close."
The confining limitations of the Twentieth, that metropolitan center ofsome dozen buildings, including the sawmill and blacksmith shop, weretoo trying for Yankee's nervous system.
"Yes, indeed," said Ranald, heartily. "We will be very glad to have you,and it will be the very best thing for father."
"S'pose old Fox cud nibble round the brule," continued Yankee, noddinghis head toward his sorrel horse. "Don't think I will do much drivin'machine business. Rather slow." Yankee spent the summer months sellingsewing-machines and new patent churns.
"There's plenty of pasture," said Ranald, "and Fox will soon makefriends with Lisette. She is very kind, whatever."
"Ain't ever hitched her, have you?" said Yankee.
"No."
"Well, might hitch her up some day. Guess you wudn't hurt thebuckboard."
"Not likely," said Ranald, looking at the old, ramshackle affair.
"Used to drive some myself," said Yankee. But to this idea Ranald didnot take kindly.
Yankee stood for a few moments looking down the lane and over thefields, and then, turning to Ranald, said, "Guess it's about ready tobegin plowin'. Got quite a lot of it to do, too, ain't you?"
"Yes," said Ranald, "I was thinking I would be beginning to-morrow."
"Purty slow business with the oxen. How would it do to hitch up Lisetteand old Fox yonder?"
Then Ranald understood the purpose of Yankee's visit.
"I would be very glad," said Ranald, a great load lifting from hisheart. "I was afraid of the work with only the oxen." And then, aftera pause, he added, "What did you mean about buying Lisette?" He wasanxious to have that point settled.
"I said what I meant," answered Yankee. "I thought perhaps you wouldrather have the money than the colt; but I tell you what, I hain't gotmoney enough to put into that bird, and don't you talk selling to anyone till we see her gait hitched up. But I guess a little of the plowwon't hurt for a few weeks or so."
Next day Lisette left behind her forever the free, happy days ofcolthood. At first Ranald was unwilling to trust her to any other handsthan his own, but when he saw how skillfully and gently Yankee handledher, soothing her while he harnessed and hitched her up, he recognizedthat she was safer with Yankee than with himself, and allowed him tohave the reins.
They spent the morning driving up and down the lane with Lisette andFox hitched to the stone-boat. The colt had been kindly treated fromher earliest days, and consequently knew nothing of fear. She steppeddaintily beside old Fox, fretting and chafing in the harness, butwithout thought of any violent objection. In the afternoon the coltwas put through her morning experience, with the variation that thestone-boat was piled up with a fairly heavy load of earth and stone. Andabout noon the day following, Lisette was turning her furrow with allthe steadiness of a horse twice her age.
Before two weeks were over, Yankee, with the horses, and Ranald, withthe oxen, had finished the plowing, and in another ten days the fieldslay smooth and black, with the seed harrowed safely in, waiting for therain.
Yankee's visit had been a godsend, not only to Ranald with his work,but also to Macdonald Dubh. He would talk to the grim, silent man by thehour, after the day's work was done, far into the night, till at lengthhe managed to draw from him the secret of his misery.
"I will never be a man again," he said, bitterly, to Yankee. "And thereis the farm all to pay for. I have put it off too long and now it is toolate, and it is all because of that--that--brute beast of a Frenchman."
"Mean cuss!" ejaculated Yankee.
"And I am saying," continued Macdonald Dubh, opening his heart stillfurther, "I am saying, it was no fair fight, whatever. I could whip himwith one hand. It was when I was pulling out Big Mack, poor fellow, fromunder the heap, that he took me unawares."
"That's so," assented Yankee. "Blamed lowdown trick."
"And, oh, I will be praying God to give me strength just to meet him!I will ask no more. But," he added, in bitter despair, "there is no usefor me to pray. Strength will come to me no more."
"Well," said Yankee, brightly, "needn't worry about that varmint. Heain't worth it, anyhow."
"Aye, he is not worth it, indeed, and that is the man who has brought meto this." That was the bitter part to Macdonald Dubh. A man he despisedhad beaten him.
"Now look here," said Yankee, "course I ain't much good at this, butif you will just quit worryin', I'll undertake to settle this littleaccount with Mr. LeNware."
"And what good would that be to me?" said Macdonald Dubh. "It is myselfthat wants to meet him." It was not so much the destruction of LeNoirthat he desired as that he should have the destroying of him. Whilehe cherished this feeling in his heart, it was not strange that theminister in his visits found Black Hugh unapproachable, and concludedthat he was in a state of settled "hardness of heart." His wife knewbetter, but even she dared not approach Macdonald Dubh on that subject,which had not been mentioned between them since the morning he hadopened his heart to her. The dark, haggard, gloomy face haunted her. Shelonged to help him to peace. It was this that sent her to his brother,Macdonald Bhain, to whom she told as much of the story as she thoughtwise.
/> "I am afraid he will never come to peace with God until he comes topeace with this man," she said, sadly, "and it is a bitter load that heis carrying with him."
"I will talk with him," answered Macdonald Bhain, and at the end of theweek he took his way across to his brother's home.
He found him down in the brule, where he spent most of his days toilinghard with his ax, in spite of the earnest entreaties of Ranald. He wasbutting a big tree that the fire had laid prone, but the ax was fallingwith the stroke of a weak man.
As he finished his cut, his brother called to him, "That is no work foryou, Hugh; that is no work for a man who has been for six weeks in hisbed."
"It is work that must be done, however," Black Hugh answered, bitterly.
"Give me the ax," said Macdonald Bhain. He mounted the tree as hisbrother stepped down, and swung his ax deep into the wood with a mightyblow. Then he remembered, and stopped. He would not add to his brother'sbitterness by an exhibition of his mighty, unshaken strength. He stuckthe ax into the log, and standing up, looked over the brule. "It is afine bit of ground, Hugh, and will raise a good crop of potatoes."
"Aye," said Macdonald Dubh, sadly. "It has lain like this for threeyears, and ought to have been cleared long ago, if I had been doing myduty."
"Indeed, it will burn all the better for that," said his brother,cheerfully. "And as for the potatoes, there is a bit of my clearing thatRanald might as well use."
But Black Hugh shook his head. "Ranald will use no man's clearing buthis own," he said. "I am afraid he has got too much of his father in himfor his own good."
Macdonald Bhain glanced at his brother's face with a look of mingledpity and admiration. "Ah," he said, "Hugh, it's a proud man you are.Macdonalds have plenty of that, whatever, and we come by it good enough.Do you remember at home, when our father"--and he went off into areminiscence of their boyhood days, talking in gentle, kindly, lovingtones, till the shadow began to lift from his brother's face, and he,too, began to talk. They spoke of their father, who had always been tothem a kind of hero; and of their mother, who had lived, and toiled, andsuffered for her family with uncomplaining patience.
"She was a good woman," said Macdonald Bhain, with a note of tendernessin his voice. "And it was the hard load she had to bear, and I would toGod she were living now, that I might make up to her something of whatshe suffered for me."
"And I am thankful to God," said his brother, bitterly, "that she isnot here to see me now, for it would but add to the heavy burden I oftenlaid upon her."
"You will not be saying that," said Macdonald Bhain. "But I am sayingthat the Lord will be honored in you yet."
"Indeed, there is not much for me," said his brother, gloomily, "but thesick-bed and six feet or more of the damp earth."
"Hugh, man," said his brother, hastily, "you must not be talking likethat. It is not the speech of a brave man. It is the speech of a manthat is beaten in his fight."
"Beaten!" echoed his brother, with a kind of cry. "You have said theword. Beaten it is, and by a man that is no equal of mine. You knowthat," he said, appealing, almost anxiously, to his brother. "You knowthat well. You know that I am brought to this"--he held up his gaunt,bony hands--"by a man that is no equal of mine, and I will never beable to look him in the face and say as much to him. But if the Almightywould send him to hell, I would be following him there."
"Whisht, Hugh," said Macdonald Bhain, in a voice of awe. "It is aterrible word you have said, and may the Lord forgive you."
"Forgive me!" echoed his brother, in a kind of frenzy. "Indeed, he willnot be doing that. Did not the minister's wife tell me as much?"
"No, no," said his brother. "She would not be saying that."
"Indeed, that is her very word," said Black Hugh.
"She could not say that," said his brother, "for it is not the Word ofGod."
"Indeed," replied Black Hugh, like a man who had thought it all out,"she would be reading it out of the Book to me that unless I would beforgiving, that--that--" he paused, not being able to find a word, butwent on--"then I need not hope to be forgiven my own self."
"Yes, yes. That is true," assented Macdonald Bhain. "But, by the graceof God, you will forgive, and you will be forgiven."
"Forgive!" cried Black Hugh, his face convulsed with passion. "Hearme!"--he raised his hand to heaven.--"If I ever forgive--"
But his brother caught his arm and drew it down swiftly, saying:"Whisht, man. Don't tempt the Almighty." Then he added, "You would notbe shutting yourself out from the presence of the Lord and from thepresence of those he has taken to himself?"
His brother stood silent a few moments, his hard, dark face swept with astorm of emotions. Then he said, brokenly: "It is not for me, I doubt."
But his brother caught him by the arm and said to him, "Hear me, Hugh.It is for you."
They walked on in silence till they were near the house. Ranald andYankee were driving their teams into the yard.
"That is a fine lad," said Macdonald Bhain, pointing to Ranald.
"Aye," said his brother; "it is a pity he has not a better chance. Heis great for his books, but he has no chance whatever, and he will be abowed man before he has cleared this farm and paid the debt on it."
"Never you fear," said his brother. "Ranald will do well. But, man, whata size he is!"
"He is that," said his father, proudly. "He is as big as his father, andI doubt some day he may be as good a man as his uncle."
"God grant he may be a better!" said Macdonald Bhain, reverently.
"If he be as good," said his brother, kindly, "I will be content; but Iwill not be here to see it."
"Whisht, man," said his brother, hastily. "You are not to speak suchthings, nor have them in your mind."
"Ah," said Macdonald Dubh, sadly, "my day is not far off, and that Iknow right well."
Macdonald Bhain flung his arm hastily round his brother's shoulder. "Donot speak like that, Hugh," he said, his voice breaking suddenly. Andthen he drew away his arm as if ashamed of his emotion, and said, withkindly dignity, "Please God, you will see many days yet, and see yourboy come to honor among men."
But Black Hugh only shook his head in silence.
Before they came to the door, Macdonald Bhain said, with seemingindifference, "You have not been to church since you got up, Hugh. Youwill be going to-morrow, if it is a fine day?"
"It is too long a walk, I doubt," answered his brother.
"That it is, but Yankee will drive you in his buckboard," said MacdonaldBhain.
"In the buckboard?" said Macdonald Dubh. "And, indeed, I was never in abuckboard in my life."
"It is not too late to begin to-morrow," said his brother, "and it willdo you good."
"I doubt that," said Black Hugh, gloomily. "The church will not be doingme much good any more."
"Do not say such a thing; and Yankee will drive you in his buckboardto-morrow."
His brother did not promise, but next day the congregation received ashock of surprise to see Macdonald Dubh walk down the aisle to his placein the church. And through all the days of the spring and summer hisplace was never empty; and though the shadow never lifted from his face,the minister's wife felt comforted about him, and waited for the day ofhis deliverance.