A Prairie Courtship

by Harold Bindloss

The man arrived with the spanner and Alison heard Hall ride away. When the clash and rattle of the binder began again she lay still for a long time beneath the sheaves. The men's conversation had made it clear that Thorne would shortly be involved in disaster, and that alone was painful news, though by comparison with another aspect of the matter it was of minor importance. The man loved her, and it was for that reason he had undertaken this most unfortunate farming venture. Everybody seemed to know it, though he had never told her what was in his mind, and she had been content to wait. Now, however, she had no doubt that she loved him, and he would, it seemed, shortly go away and vanish altogether beyond her reach—at least, unless something should very promptly be done. She knew he would not claim her while he was an outcast and a ruined man.

She closed one hand tight and a flush crept into her face as she made up her mind on one point, and she was thankful while she did so that she was on the Canadian prairie, where the thing seemed easier than it would have done in England. In that new land time-honored prejudices and hampering traditions did not seem to count. Men and women outgrew them there and obeyed the impulses of human nature, which were, after all, elemental and existent long before the invention of what were, perhaps, in the more complex society of other lands, necessary fetters. Thorne, the pedler, farmer, railroad hand, or whatever he might become, should at least know that she loved him and decide with that knowledge before him whether he would go away.

Then, growing a little more collected, she considered the second point. Though Hall and Farquhar had cast considerable doubt upon his ability to help, there was just a possibility that Hunter might hold out a hand, and she would stoop to beg for any favor that might be shown her lover. This latter decision, however, she prudently determined to keep from Thorne in the meanwhile.

By and by she walked quietly back to the house and busied herself as usual, though late in the afternoon she asked Mrs. Farquhar for a horse and the buggy. Her employer did not trouble her with any questions as to why she wanted them, though she favored her with a glance of unobtrusive but very keen scrutiny, and soon after supper the hired man brought the buggy to the door. Then Alison came out from her room, where she had spent some time carefully comparing the two or three dresses she had clung to when she had parted with the rest in Winnipeg, one after another. She had attired herself in the one that became her best, for she felt that there must be nothing wanting in the gift she meant to offer her lover. She recognized that this was what her intention amounted to. What other women did with more reserve, veiling their advances in disguises which were after all so flimsy that nobody except those who wished could be deceived, she would do with imperious openness.

The days were now rapidly growing shorter, and when she reached Thorne's homestead the sun hung low above the verge of the great white plain. The man was not in sight, which struck her as strange, as there would be light enough to work for some time yet, but she was not astonished that he had evidently not heard her approach, because she had driven slowly for the last mile, almost repenting of her rashness and wondering whether she should not turn and go back again. Once she had set about it, the thing she had undertaken appeared increasingly difficult. Indeed, she knew that had the man been less severely pressed nothing would have driven her into the action she contemplated. It was only the fact that he was face to face with disaster, beaten down, desperate, that warranted the sacrifice of her reserve and pride.

Getting down at length, she left the horse, which was a quiet one, and walked toward the house. The door stood open when she reached it, and looking in she saw the man sitting at a table, on which there lay a strip of paper covered with figures. His face was worn and set, and every line of his slack pose was expressive of dejection. He did not immediately see her, and a deep pity overwhelmed her and helped to sweep away her doubts and hesitation as she glanced round the room. It was growing shadowy, but it looked horribly comfortless, and the few dishes that were still scattered about the table bore the remnants of a singularly uninviting meal. There was a portion of a loaf, blackened outside, sad and damp within; butter that had liquefied and partly congealed again in discolored streaks; a morsel of half-cooked pork reposing in solid fat; and a can of flavored syrup, black with flies. She wondered how any one coming back oppressed with anxiety from a day of exhausting toil could eat such fare. Then she noticed a small heap of tattered garments, which he evidently had no leisure to mend, lying on the floor, and while it brought her no sense of repulsion, the sight of them further troubled her. These were things which jarred on the beneficent, home-making instincts which suddenly awoke within her nature, and they moved her to a compassionate longing to care for and shelter the lonely man.

Then he looked up and saw her, and she flushed at the swift elation in his face, which, however, almost immediately grew hard again. It was as though he had yielded for a moment to some pleasurable impulse, and had then, with an effort, repressed it and resumed his self-control.

"Come in," he invited, rising with outstretched hand, and she suddenly recalled how she had last crossed that threshold in his company. There had been careless laughter in his eyes then, he had moved and spoken with a joyous optimism, and now there was plain upon him the stamp of defeat. Even physically the man looked different.

She sat down when he drew her out a chair, but he remained standing, leaning with one hand on the table.

"Is Mrs. Farquhar outside?"