A Dozen Ways Of Love

by L. Dougall

A young minister was walking through the streets of a small town in the island of Cape Breton. The minister was only a theological student who had been sent to preach in this remote place during his summer holiday. The town was at once very primitive and very modern. Many log-houses still remained in it; almost all the other houses were built of wood. The little churches, which represented as many sects, looked like the churches in a child's Dutch village. The town hall had only a brick facing. On the hillsides that surrounded the town far and wide were many fields, in which the first stumps were still standing, charred by the fires that had been kindled to kill them. There were also patches of forest still to be seen among these fields, where the land had not yet been cleared. In spite of all this, the town was very advanced, every improvement being of the newest kind because so recently achieved. Upon huge ungainly tree-trunks roughly erected along the streets, electric lamps hung, and telephone wires crossed and recrossed one another from roof to roof. There was even an electric tram that ran straight through the town and some distance into the country on either side. The general store had a gaily dressed lay figure in its window,—a female figure,—and its gown was labelled 'The Latest Parisian Novelty.'

The theological student was going out to take tea. He was a tall, active fellow, and his long strides soon brought him to a house a little way out of the town, which was evidently the abode of some degree of taste and luxury. The house was of wood, painted in dull colours of red and brown; it had large comfortable verandahs under shingled roofs. Its garden was not old-fashioned in the least; but though it aspired to trimness the grass had not grown there long enough to make a good lawn, so the ribbon flower-beds and plaster vases of flowers lacked the green-velvet setting that would have made them appear better. The student was the less likely to criticise the lawn because a very pretty, fresh-looking girl met him at the gate.

She was really a fine girl. Her dress showed rather more effort at fashion than was quite in keeping with her very rural surroundings, and her speech and accent betrayed a childhood spent among uneducated folk and only overlaid by more recent schooling. Her face had the best parts of beauty: health and good sense were written there, also flashes of humour and an habitual sweet seriousness. She had chanced to be at the gate gathering flowers. Her reception of the student was frank, and yet there was just a touch of blushing dignity about it which suggested that she took a special interest in him. The student also, it would appear, took an interest in her, for, on their way to the house, he made a variety of remarks upon the weather which proved that he was a little excited and unable to observe that he was talking nonsense.

In a little while the family were gathered round the tea-table. The girl, Miss Torrance by name, sat at the head of the table. Her father was a banker and insurance agent. He sat opposite his eldest daughter and did the honours of the meal with the utmost hospitality, yet with reserve of manner caused by his evident consciousness that his grammar and manners were not equal to those of his children and their guest. There were several daughters and two sons younger than Miss Torrance. They talked with vivacity.

The conversation soon turned upon the fact that the abundant supply of cream to which the family were accustomed was not forthcoming. Strawberries were being served with the tea; some sort of cold pudding was also on the table; and all this to be eaten without cream,—these young people might have been asked to go without their supper, so indignant they were.

Now, Mr. Torrance had been decorously trying to talk of the young minister's last sermon and of the affairs of the small Scotch church of which he was an elder, and Miss Torrance was ably seconding his effort by comparing the sentiments of the sermon to a recent magazine article, but against her will she was forced to attend to the young people's clamour about the cream.

It seemed that Trilium, the cow, had recently refused to give her milk. Mary Torrance was about eighteen; she suddenly gave it as her opinion that Trilium was bewitched; there was no other explanation, she said, no other possible explanation of Trilium's extraordinary conduct.

A flush mounted Miss Torrance's face; she frowned at her sister when the student was not looking.

'It's wonderful, the amount of witchcraft we have about here, Mr. Howitt,' said the master of the house tentatively to the minister.

Howitt had taken Mary's words in jest. He gave his smooth-shaven face the twist that with him always expressed ideas wonderful or grotesque. It was a strong, thin face, full of intelligence.