"You should be giving thanks, not complaining," he said, his gaze returning to her. "We must do that now—give thanks for the journey accomplished."
And, as if it were the last duty of a well-spent day, he knelt on the grassy earth, and Mary knelt beside him.
Donald Cameron addressed his God as man speaks to man; yet his voice had a vibrating note as he prayed.
"O Lord," he said, "we thank Thee for having brought us in safety to our new home. We thank Thee for having brought us over the sea, through the storms and the troubles on the ship when there was nothing to eat but weevily biscuits, and the water stank, and there was like to be mutiny with the men in the chained gangs. We—we thank Thee, this woman and I. She is a good woman for a man to have with him when he goes to the ends of the earth to carve out a name and a place for himself."
He paused thoughtfully for a moment; and then went on:
"I have said all that before; but I have been thinking that it would do no harm to say it again now that we are ready to begin the new life, and will need all Thy help and protection, Lord. We thank Thee for having brought us all the miles from the coast, and the beasts and the wagon, in safety—though the bay horse I bought of Middleton's storekeeper is turning out badly. He was a poor bargain at the best of it—weak in the knee and spring-halted. Do Thou have a care of him. Lord. It will be a big loss to me if he is no use ... with all the clearing and carting there will be to do soon."
He talked a little longer to the Almighty, asking no favour, but intimating that he expected to be justly dealt by as he himself dealt by all men. In the matter of the bay, he said that he did not think a God-fearing man had been treated quite as well as, under the circumstances, he might have been; but he imputed no blame—except to Middleton's storekeeper—and gave thanks again.
A man of middle height, squarely built, Donald Cameron had the loosely slung frame of a farm labourer. The woman beside him, although her clothes were as poor and heavy as his, was more finely and delicately made. The hands clasped before her were long and slender.
The prayer ended, they rose from the grass. Cameron's eyes covered his wife. A gust of tenderness swept him.
"There was not what you might call much sentiment about our mating," he said. "But I doubt not it has come, Mary."