CHAPTER X. "BE IT EVER SO HUMBLE, THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME."
Donald Morrison is back to the simple life of Marsden again. Five years had changed him enormously. His figure had always promise of athletic suppleness. It was now splendidly compact. He left the type of the conventional farmer. He returned the picturesque embodiment of the far West. Perhaps, in his long locks, wide sombrero, undressed leggings, and prodigal display of shooting irons, there may have been a theatrical suggestion of Buffalo Bill.
The village folk accepted him with intense admiration. Here was something new to study. Had Donald not been to the great and wonderful Far West, so much the more fascinating because nobody knew anything about it? Had he not shot the buffalo roaming the plains? Had he not mingled in that wild life which, without moral lamp-posts, allures all the more because of a certain flavoring spice of deviltry? Every farmer's son in Marsden, Gould, Stornaway, and Lake Megantic, envied Donald that easy swaggering air, that frank, perhaps defiant outlook, which the girls secretly adored. Is it the village maiden alone who confesses to a secret charm in dare-devilism? Let the social life of every garrison city answer. The delicately nurtured lady's heart throbs beneath lace and silk, and that of the village girl beneath cotton, but the character of the emotion is the same.
"Oh, Donald, Donald, my dear son!"
Withered arms were round his neck, and loving lips pressed his cheek.
Donald's home-coming had been a surprise. He had sent no word to his parents. His mother was sitting in the kitchen, when he entered unannounced. For a moment she did not know him, but a mother's love is seldom at fault. A second glance was enough. It passed over Donald the bronzed and weather-beaten man, and reached to Donald the curly-headed lad, whose sunny locks she had brushed softly when preparing him for school.
"Yes, mother," said Donald, tenderly returning her greeting, "I am back again. I intend to settle down. Father's letter showed me that things were not going too well, and I thought I would come home and help to straighten them out a bit. I have had my fill of wandering, and now I think I would like to live quietly in the old place where I was born, among the friends and the scenes which are endeared to me by past associations."
"Oh, I wish you would, Donald," the old mother replied, with moist eyes. "Your father wants you home, and I want you home. We're now getting old and feeble. We won't be long here. Remain with us to the close."
"Well, Donald, my man, welcome back," a hearty voice cried.
Upon looking round Donald saw his father, who had been out in the fields, and just came in as the mother was speaking. The two men cordially shook hands.