CHAPTER IX
“And they saw by the red flashes of the lightning against the violet fog at six paces behind the governor, a man clothed in black and masked by a visor of polished steel, soldered to a helmet of the same nature, which altogether enveloped him....
“‘Come, monsieur,’ said Saint Mars sharply to the prisoner—‘Monsieur, come on.’
“‘Say, “Monseigneur,”’ cried Athos from his corner, with a voice so terrible that the governor trembled from head to foot. Athos insisted upon respect being paid to fallen majesty. The prisoner turned around.
“‘Who spoke?’ said Saint Mars.
“‘It was I,’ said D’Artagnan.
“‘Call me neither “monsieur” nor “monseigneur,”’ said the prisoner—‘Call me “Accursed.”’
“He passed on, and the iron door creaked after him.”
“Ten o’clock!”
“Oh-h!”
“It’s not—not quite ten. Your watch’s slow.”
“Ten minutes after,” declared Cheerio, hiding a smile as he glanced at his watch in the slightly waning light.
A murmur of protest from Hilda, and a growl from Sandy, ready to argue the point. It seemed as if they always reached the most thrilling part of the narrative when “ten o’clock” the limit hour set for the end of the reading would come and Cheerio would, with seeming reluctance, close the enthralling book.
The readings had been substituted for the daily riding trips. The adventures of “The Three Musketeers” were proving of even more enthralling interest to Sandy than the fossilized bones of the early inhabitants of the North American continent. No dime novel of the most lurid sort had had the power to fascinate or appeal to the imagination of the young McPhersons as this masterpiece of the elder Dumas. They were literally transplanted in thought into the France of the Grande Monarche.
Hilda indeed so lost herself each night in the chronicle that she forgot her grudge against the reader, and sat on one side of him almost as closely, peering over his arm at the page, as Sandy on the other side. Of course, the steps were not wide and barely accommodated the three and Hilda’s place was next to the wall. Cheerio sat between the two.
After the readings there would follow an excited discussion of the story that was almost as interesting as the tale itself. It was astonishing how much this Englishman knew about France in the time of Louis the XIV. Sandy would pepper him with questions, and sometimes sought to entrap him into returning to the tale.
“What was Aramis doing at that time? I betchu he had a finger in it all the time. Was he a regular priest?
“If I’d a been D’Artagnan you bet I’d ’ve stood up for the Man in the Iron Mask. I betchu he’d ’ve made a better king than Louis. Couldn’t you read just as far as where they take the mask off? Did they ever take it off? Say, if you set your watch by Chum Lee’s clock, he’s eight minutes and——”
“The clock’s all right, old man. To-morrow’ll be here soon. It’s getting pretty dark now anyway.”
“Oh, that don’t mean it’s late, and I c’d get a lantern if you like. Days are shorter now in Alberta. Before long we won’t have any night light at all, ’cept the star and moon kind.”
Hilda was as concerned in the fortunes of the Musketeers as her brother, but she was obliged to curb her curiosity. With the ending of the reading, her diffidence and restraint would gradually creep back upon her. She was not going to let this man know how throbbingly interested she was. She did not wish him to know how limited had been her reading up to this time. That was a family skeleton that was none of his business, and she could have given Sandy a hard shaking when he disclosed to Cheerio the type of literature that he and Hilda had been “raised on.” Cheerio, with intense seriousness, assured them that their father was “dead right.” That sort of reading, as P. D. had declared, was “truck.”
“Well, it’s all there is anyway,” defended Sandy.
“Not by a jugful, old man. There’s no limit to the amount of books in this good old world of ours—fine stuff, like this, Sandy. Some day you’ll look upon them as friends—living friends.”
“Gee! I wisht I knew where I could get ’em then.”
“Why you can get all the books you want in the public library and in the b-book stores.”
“That’s easy enough to say,” burst from Hilda, “but Dad never gives us time when we go to Calgary to get anywhere near a library, and he’d have a fit if we were to buy books. He says that he’ll choose all that we need to read, and he doesn’t believe in stories or fiction and books like that. He says it’s all made-up stuff and what we want to read—to study, he says—is Truth.”
“Hmph!” from Sandy. “Yes, Mister Darwin and Mister Huxley and a lot of for’n stuff. He’s got a heap of French and German books, but a lot of good they do us, since we can’t read ’em. He’s got five volumes of chess alone, and books and books ’bout cattle and pigs and horses. Just s’f any boy wanted to read that sort of bunk. It’s a doggone shame. If it wasn’t for the bunkhouse Hilda and I never would ’ve had no ejucation at all.”
Cheerio laughed. He could not help himself, though he quickly repressed it, as he felt the girl beside him stiffening.
“Well, old man, the stuff from the bunkhouse will do you more harm than good. I wouldn’t touch it with a stick. Tell you what we’ll do. When we’re through with the Musketeers, we’ll have a regular course of reading.”
“You said there were three sequels to the Musketeers.”
“So there are, and we’ll read them too; but we want to vary our reading. Now we’ll tackle a bit of Scott and then there’s some poetry I want you to read and——”
“Poetry! Slush-mush! Gee, we don’t want any poetry.”
“Oh, yes, you do. Wait till you hear the kind of poetry I’m going to read to you. Wait till we get into the ‘Idylls of the King.’”
“Idols! You mean gods like the savages worship?”
“No—but never mind. You’ll see when we get to them.”
Hilda said, with some pride:
“First time we go to Calgary, I’m going to buy some books for myself.”
“Where you going to get the money from?” demanded Sandy.
“I suppose Lady Bug won’t take the first prize at the Fall Horse Show—Oh, no, of course not.”
“Ye-eh, and he’ll make you put the prize money in the bank.”
“He won’t.”
“How won’t he?”
“Because,” said Hilda, with dignity, “I happen to be eighteen years old. That’s of age. He can’t. Of course, you——”
Sandy groaned. Hilda had on more than one occasion rubbed in to him the sore matter of his infernal youth and her own advantage of being of age—the extraordinary powers that descended upon her in consequence of those eighteen years.
“I betchu,” said Sandy, “that Dad’ll whirl us through the town, in and out for the Fair, and we won’t get anywhere near a book-store or the libry, and we won’t get a hopping chance to do any shopping. And if we do, he’ll go along to choose for us. Besides he’ll make you give him a list of the things you buy, and you won’t dare to put books on that list. He calls it systematic, scientific, mathmatical training of the mind. Oh, my God—frey!”
“I don’t care,” said Hilda bitterly. “I intend to buy what I choose with my own money. I’m going to get that book ‘The Sheik.’ I saw it in the movies, with Valentino, and it was just lovely. Dad was playing chess at the Palliser and left me in the car, and I got out and went to the movies, and I just loved it, and I’m going every time I get a chance. You just watch me.”
Something in the eager, hungry way in which the girl spoke touched Cheerio and caused him suddenly to put his hand over the small one resting on her lap. His touch had an electrical effect upon the girl. She started to rise, catching her breath in almost a sob. She stood hesitating, trembling, her hand still held in that warm, comforting grasp. At that moment Cheerio would have given much to be alone with the girl. A few moments only of this thrilling possession of the little hand. Then it was wrenched passionately free. Hilda was regaining possession of her senses. The dusk had fallen deeply about them and he could not see her face, but he felt the quick, throbbing breath. A moment only she stayed, and then there was only the blur of her fleeing shadow in the night. Yet despite her going Cheerio felt strangely warmed and most intensely happy. He was acquiring a better knowledge and understanding of Hilda. Her odd moods, her chilling almost hostile attitude and speech no longer distressed him. Perhaps this might have been due to an amazing and most delicious explanation that her red-haired brother had vouchsafed:
“I guess my sister’s stuck on you,” had volunteered Sandy carelessly, whittling away at a stick, and utterly unconscious of the effect of his words on the alert Cheerio. “’Cause she swipes you to your face and throws a fit if anyone says a word about you behind your back.”
Little did that freckled-faced boy realize the amazing effects of his words. No further information in fact might have come from him at this juncture had not Cheerio flagrantly bribed him with “two bits.”
“Go on Sandy——”
“Go on with what?”
“About what you were saying about your sister.”
“Wa-al—” Sandy scratched his chin after the manner of his father, as he tried to recall some specific instance to prove his sister’s interest in the briber. “I said myself that you were a poor stiff and she says: ‘You judge everyone by yourself, don’t you?’ And then I heard her give Hello to Bully Bill, ’cause he said that Holy Smoke was the best rider at O Bar O and Hilda says: ‘Why, Cheerio can ride all around him and back again. He’s just a big piece of cheese.’ And I heard Ho himself makin’ fun of you ’bout takin’ baths every day and ’bout your boiled Sunday shirts, and Hilda says to him: ‘’Twouldn’t be a bad idea if you took a leaf or two out of his book yourself; only you’ll need to stay in the river when you do get there, though it’ll be hard on the river.’ And another time I heard her say to Bully Bill when he was referrin’ to you as a vodeveel act, that time they put you to breakin’ Spitfire, she says: ‘Wonder what you’d look like yourself on his back? Wonder if you’d stay on. Spitfire’s pretty slippery, you know, and you’re no featherweight,’ and Bully Bill says: ‘Hell, I ain’t no tenderfoot,’ and she says: ‘’Course not. You’re a hard-boiled pig’s foot,’ and before he could sass her back—if he dared and he don’t dare, neither, she was off into the house and had banged the door on him. You know Hilda. Gee!”
Yes, he was beginning to know Hilda!