“I’m wantin’ some to see the little sick woman,” said Peeler, “and hear Big Mac’s fiddle again.”
“Boy was here this mornin’,” said Bill as the two struck off down the path, “and he says the ma is awful sick. I guess she won’t be stayin’ long.”
When the men reached the McTavish home night had fallen, and a big moon was lifting her face from the forest far eastward.
A damp wind off the bay bore on its wings the scent of bog and marsh, and from high overhead came the wing-songs of inflying wild ducks. From inside came the music of the fiddle playing “Ye Banks and Braes.”
CHAPTER X
Colonel Hallibut
“Jno. T. Smythe; Seller of guns, ammunition, and provisions; Buyer of furs and game.”
This sign creaked and complained against a dingy little building of unplaned boards. It was gray and forsaken-looking, being one of about two hundred others just like it, of gloomy and sullen aspect. This was Bridgetown. On its one side, stretching eastward, lay a drab-gray fallow of partly cleared land. Here and there stood a clump of trees; here and there a solitary stub, ax-scarred or fire-blackened. In these, Nature seemed to be voicing her resentment of the ravishes of man. In this, the close of an October day, the little town seemed as dead as the slain beauties that had once reigned in her place. Westward, beginning with a stubble of second-growth beeches and maples, the land rolled and undulated, at each step southward and westward taking on a more picturesque appearance of natural grandeur. For ten miles inland lay the scars that civilization had left upon the forest. Then the marks were seen no more. A yellow ridge of golden-oak marked the boundary-line, and behind this line lay Bushwhackers’ Place.
Mr. Smythe, the storekeeper, stood gazing out from the dirty pane at the dreary panorama, occasionally lifting his shifting light-blue eyes heavenward. A big storm-cloud was rolling in above the forest from the west.
“Watson ought to be back by now,” he mused for the twentieth time in half an hour. “God forgive me if I did wrong in letting him take gray Fan. He’s three stone too heavy for the mare.” He turned from the window and glanced toward the door. A heavy step was approaching. From without came a sonorous voice calling and scolding a pack of hounds that now came scrambling and barking up the deserted street.
“It’s Colonel Hallibut,” whispered Smythe in dismay. “Why does he want to show up just at this time of all times? Watson might have known that he would put in his appearance just when he wasn’t wanted. All right, sir. Yes, sir, I’ll open for you, Colonel. Come in, sir; come in.”