[1] I can find no authority for the old frontiersman's use of the word but in a certain Elizabethan dramatist; and as he uses the word "scut" for the bobtail of a fleeing rabbit or sheep, perhaps the meanings of the word as used are identical.—Author.
[2] It need scarcely be explained these are the old frontiersman's sentiments, not the writer's; but on investigation I found his statement of facts as to what transformed little Wandering Spirit into a blood-thirsty monster was absolutely true. This, of course, did not justify the Rebellion, but helps to explain it, to explain why a worthless scamp like Riel could rouse the peaceful natives to blood thirst and rapine.—Author.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE AWAKENING CONTINUED
It was all over, the inquest, the coroner's finding, the reading of the will, the revelation of the real errand on which the old frontiersman had come from Saskatchewan. The parting of the ways had come to her, as it comes to us all. The death of her father had shut the door on opportunity in the Valley; and the little old lady, waiting for Matthews up in Prince Albert, Canada, to take her back to the inheritance of her father's family in Scotland, opened elsewhere another door of opportunity. As one door had swung shut, another had swung open. Were we creatures of circumstances, as the fatalists declared; or could we master and bend circumstances to human will? Was her feeling of rebellion but the kicking of ructious heels against the closed door of fate? Would time teach the futility of barking one's shins in such fashion? Eleanor sat in the parlor of the suite of rooms reserved by the Williams and herself. The Williams and Matthews had gone out for the evening to some women's club meeting on missions. Eleanor's nerves were too tension-strung for people to-night. They had read her father's will that afternoon. The quiet man doing the duty next and making no professions had left her secure against want; and after the lawyer who read the will had gone, the Williams went out, and Matthews had drawn his chair near to hers and told her the same story of her father's people that he had told Wayland in the Desert.
"They were a' dark fearsome men," he had said, telling her of the first Fraser-MacDonald who fought with Wolfe at Quebec, and the Man of the Iron Hand. "They were a' dark fearsome men; but of stainless honor, child! Not a man of them left a bar sinister on th' scutcheon! Even the man who married th' squaw, had a priest tie th' knot so that children would come stainless t' life; but they were dark fearsome men, undyin' in their hates an' unhappy in their loves. Y'r own mother's people turned against y'r father for th' part he took in th' Rebellion."
"Don't you think," asked Eleanor, "it's time one of the race broke the spell of unhappy love?"
"Aye, child! 'Tis why A'd take y' back t' th' little old lady waitin' in Prince Albert, an' put y' in y'r own place in th' halls o' Scotland? D' y' know there's been none o' y'r race direct t' occupy th' manor since th' first Frazer fled from th' Jacobite Rebellion to French Canada? 'Twas part o' his stubborn spirit that he fought for the Nation that had cast him out."
"Oh, I'm not interested in the Jacobites and Wolfe and things of the past," interrupted Eleanor. "I want to live my life full in the present."
"Aye; an' 'tis because y're a Fraser-MacDonald of the Lovatt clan that ye want t' live a full present! If you were an upstart new-rich, my dear, y'd be sellin' y'r soul t' th' Devil an' y'r body t' some leprous kite with ulcerous weddin' kisses for the privilege o' claimin' this inheritance that's yours! There's a male decendant o' some collateral line on th' place adjoinin' yours. Man alive, he's had th' pick o' every pork packer's an' brewer's daughter; but he's waitin' th' little lady who's his aunt t' come back from Prince Albert—"