"Are you still bound to get out of Orchard Glen?" asked Sandy slyly, and Christina had to confess that she was not. She could not quite explain to Sandy that all her restless ambition had been but the desire for something great and heroic such as her simple life did not seem to contain. But the great and heroic had come right to her door, unseen, it is true, but now recognised, and her soul was perfectly content in its radiance. Life could never be narrow and common-place any more. She had attained all her ambition through following the road her heart indicated,—the shining pathway of loving self-sacrifice that leads to the stars.
CHAPTER XVI
THE HILLS ABOVE ORCHARD GLEN
As soon as the word reached Craig-Ellachie that Gavin was to be sent home to Canada, Orchard Glen began to bustle about for a grand celebration when he arrived.
Tremendous K. got the biggest choir together that the village had ever seen; a harmonious jumble of Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists. And the children of the three Sunday Schools united in a grand chorus, and Minnie Brown and Martha Henderson worked like slaves teaching them songs and patriotic exercises, all denominations so mixed up nobody could tell which was which.
Mr. Sinclair was chairman of the committee to plan the celebration with Mr. Wylie and the Baptist minister as his assistants. And nobody raised the slightest objection when, at the very first meeting, Marmaduke proposed that they invite Piper Lauchie McDonald to come down from Glenoro and play Gavin home from the station.
Mr. Wylie nodded, and said "A good idea," and old Tory Brown himself spoke up and said, "Yes, yes, let's have the buddy. I don't like his noise, myself, but Gavin will be pleased. He aye liked the pipes."
And Piper Lauchie was vastly pleased when he received the invitation and graciously declared that he would set his vow aside, not for the sake of Orchard Glen, but out of his reverence for the Victoria Cross, and permit the misguided folk to listen to his music once more.
Every one was pleased furthermore because the public reception was to be held in the Temperance Hall instead of the Presbyterian Church, for it was felt that for this occasion Gavin belonged to the whole village, no Church should claim them. And this arrangement suited the good folk who were alarmed at the possibility of hearing the piper in church, for as old Willie Henderson said, "Even though the lad did a great deed, that was no reason why the people of the village should pollute the House o' God."