"Eh, Lad," cried the old man, his face radiant, "it is your father would be the happy man to see that day. There is a piece of work for you two now."
"I'm ready," cried Lawyer Ed enthusiastically. "If I could only see that cursed traffic on the run it would be the joy of my life to encourage it with a good swift kick. We'll start a campaign right away. Won't we, Rod?"
"All right," cried Roderick, pleased at the look in his father's face. "You give your orders. I'm here to carry them out."
"There, Angus! You've got your policeman for the Jericho Road. We'll do it yet. If we get the liquor business down, as Grandma Armstrong says, we'll knock it conscientious."
Old Angus followed them to the gate when they drove away, his heart swelling with high hope. He would live to see all his ambitions realised in Roderick. He sat up very late that night and when he went to bed and remembered how the Lad had promised to help rid Peter of the drink curse, he could not sleep until he had sung the long-meter doxology. He sang it very softly, for Kirsty was asleep and it might be hard to explain to her if she were disturbed; nevertheless he sang it with an abounding joy and faith.
As Roderick and Lawyer Ed drove homeward, down the moon-lit length of the Pine Road; they were surprised to hear ahead of them, within a few rods of Peter Fiddle's house, the sound of singing. Very wavering and uncertain, now loud and high, now dropping to a low wail, came the slow splendid notes of Kilmarnock to the sublime words of the 103rd psalm.
The two in the buggy looked at each other. "Peter!" cried Lawyer Ed in dismay.
When Old Peter was only a little bit drunk he inclined to frivolity and gaiety, and was given to playing the fiddle and dancing, but when he was very drunk, he was very solemn, and intensely religious. He gave himself to the singing of psalms, and if propped up would preach a sermon worthy of Doctor Leslie himself.
A turn in the road brought him into sight. There, between the silver mirror of the moonlit lake and the dark scented green of the forest, insensible to the beauty of either, sat the man. He was perched perilously on the seat of his wagon and was swaying from side to side, swinging his arms about him and singing in a loud maudlin voice, the fine old psalm that he had learned long, long ago before he became less than a man.
Lawyer Ed pulled up before him.