Scotty turned with a gesture of defeat. To pray was the last thing he desired to do, it meant surrender; but this time he knelt obediently at the minister's side by the dying fire.
And as he bowed his head he was suddenly startled by the words that broke forth. It seemed as if all his own soul's struggle had been transferred to the man at his side. Old John McAlpine had a wondrous gift of prayer, one that never failed to cast a solemn spell over his hearers, and to-night he pleaded for the soul of this young man as if for his life. His big hands were knotted, the perspiration stood in beads on his white forehead, and his agonised voice rose and went ringing away into the forest. Scotty was awesomely reminded of One who prayed in a garden, quite unlike this one of nature's wild making, and sweat drops of blood because of the sin he was to bear. And before the minister had ceased it seemed as if that other One came to his side and took up the petition, for Scotty felt his worldly desires slip from him like a garment. The struggle was over. Henceforth there could be no indecision, for he was not his own, but had been bought with a price.
When they arose from their knees the darkness had suddenly become transparent. A mysterious rustle and whisper of awakening life was on all sides, the dawn was on the point of breaking. Scotty's fire, like his worldly hopes, had died down to pale ashes, but far out on the faintly grey bosom of Lake Simcoe, and away beyond its dark forest-ring, soon to put all lesser lights to shame in their triumphant blaze, were kindling the fires of Heaven.
XIV
THE VOYAGEURS
Oh, the East is but the West, with the sun a little hotter;
And the pine becomes a palm by the dark Egyptian water;
And the Nile's like many a stream we know that fills its brimming cup;
We'll think it is the Ottawa as we track the batteaux up!
Pull, pull, pull! as we track the batteaux up!
It's easy shooting homeward when we're at the top.
—WILLIAM WYE SMITH.
The Imperial transport, Ocean King, had loosed from her moorings at Montreal and was swinging down with the tide of the mighty St. Lawrence, and on her deck, many leaning eagerly over the railing to get a last glimpse of home, stood some four hundred stalwart sons of the Maple Land. Great, strong fellows they were, all with the iron muscles and steady, clear eyes of the expert riverman. For these were the famous voyageurs, trained from childhood on the rapids and cataracts of Canadian streams and summoned now to the help of the mother country on the ancient river of Egypt.
When Lord Wolseley found himself face to face with the tremendous task of reaching Gordon far up the hostile Nile, he remembered the assistance he had received in an earlier expedition in a western land from the daring, untiring, cool-headed, warm-hearted Canadian boatmen. And he asked that once more they might give him aid. And here they were, the best the country could produce, a rollicking, light-hearted crew, ready for anything—adventure, hard work, danger, death.
Among those who stood longest gazing at the receding land were two who had begun their years of apprenticeship for this great day on the little, noisy, foaming stream that scolded its way into the Oro river. And one of them, looking at the fast-fading outline of Mount Royal, saw instead an old log house among the enfolding Ontario hills, with a Silver Maple spreading its protecting branches above the roof. His home!—and the dear home faces, how they rose up from the misty shore; and another face, the most beautiful in the world, as he had seen it that winter night in the sunset glow!