In Orchard Glen

by Mary Esther Miller MacGregor

But nobody paid the slightest attention. The procession was already moving down the road without the slightest regard to order. The strain had been removed, and everybody seemed seized with a joyous madness. Even Mr. Sinclair waved his hat and laughed at her as his buggy swung past, leaving the hero in the rear.

Then Marmaduke forsook his companions and without asking permission scrambled into her car with Gavin, and sat on the silk fringe of Auntie Elspie's dress, and shouted and waved encouragement to every one that passed while The Woman screamed expostulations.

"Never mind," he roared, to each one, "we didn't forget to flag the train!" and from each buggy and car the long delayed cheers burst forth.

In spite of all her efforts the procession dashed away. Though it wasn't a real procession at all, but a joyous scramble, with every one getting in every one else's way. The children would not go back into their hay-wagon, but scrambled all over into the best cars, and the girls in the choir got mixed up with the boys in single buggies, and a crowd of foolish young fellows got into Mr. Holmes' car with the Piper, and actually persuaded that staid and proper pillar of the Baptist Church to race with Dr. McGarry. And the Piper was so shaken up he couldn't play at all. And young Mr. Martin's horse took fright at the noise and confusion, and nearly ran away, and just escaped throwing all the children into the ditch. And so they all scampered gaily, helter-skelter, back to the village, the hero far in the rear, hidden in clouds of dust, with his friends gambolling ahead. And indeed Gavin's homecoming was no more like a triumphal procession than any of the foot-ball games in which he used to take part in the river pasture.

But whatever faults The Woman or Tremendous K. might have found with his reception, it was perfect in Gavin's eyes and the eyes of the three Aunties. For all its mistakes were but the result of the overwhelming sympathy and joy of his friends, and relief that the Aunties had not, after all, lost the light of their eyes. And indeed if no one had met him but had left him to find his way to Craig-Ellachie alone, and afterwards over the hills to Christina, Gavin would have been perfectly happy. For he was still much the same shy boy who had gone away, with no thought of glory or public notice, but only a simple desire to do his duty. He was not a boy any more, for he had been through scenes that make men old, and the remembrance of them lingered in his deep eyes, and showed in a new staidness of manner. But he was the same simple-hearted Gavin, reticent and unassuming and in his heart he almost could wish, except for the joy it gave his Aunties, that he had never heard of the Victoria Cross. He had only done his duty, he repeated over and over, and all the men at the Front were doing that.

And so he lay back among the cushions, surrounded by flowers, his one hand in Auntie Elspie's, and looked with shining eyes, not at the beautiful familiar bits of landscape which were passing, and to which the Aunties were calling his attention, but at the gleam of a golden-brown head that was occasionally visible from John Lindsay's buggy. Marmaduke pointed out this and that historical landmark; the hill where they used to go coasting in winter; the old burnt stump up which Gavin had climbed to get the hawk's nest one day at recess; the hole below the mill where the teacher forbade them to swim and into which they all plunged at noon quite regularly, and Gavin smiled and nodded, and saw nothing but the gleam of gold ahead.

Whatever had been wrong with the reception and the procession, no fault could be found with the supper. It had been set outdoors on the church lawn, and the tables were so ladened with chicken and ham and jellies and salads and cake and pie, that instinctively the men took off their coats before sitting down to the attack. And after everything was eaten nobody seemed able either to hear or make a speech. And there was no music and no programme, for the juvenile choir, after gorging itself in a truly dangerous fashion, went out into the dust of the village street, and played tag and hide-and-seek, and not even the Pied Piper, himself, could have collected them again. And the other choir was either waiting on the tables, or eating so much that they couldn't sing either.

The address was read, but there was so much noise and joyous running to and fro that not even Gavin heard it. And his speech was as short as a speech could possibly be, just a word of thanks for himself and his Aunts and his oft reiterated statement, he had only done his duty, and all the fellows at the Front, and many at home were doing that.

But everybody had a grand time, nevertheless, such a time of laughing and talking and eating together as had not been experienced in Orchard Glen since the fell day the Piper came to rend the village asunder,—the Piper, who was at this very moment cementing it again with "Tullochgorum," which he was blowing uproariously as he marched up and down in front of the Methodist Church!

When Christina reached home she found there was little work to be done. Uncle Neil and Mitty had come home early and had already finished the milking. Sandy was tired and had stretched himself in the hammock, to have a talk with his mother. Contrary to her custom Christina did not lay aside her white dress for a plainer garb. She spent a long time rearranging the shining crown of her braids, and when the shadows of the poplars began to stretch across the garden, she slipped away through the barn-yard and up the back lane, up to the sun-lit hill top, where Gavin had promised to meet her.