AN IGNOMINIOUS TASK
Into the dim woods full of the tombs
Of the dead trees soft in their sepulchres,
Where the pensive throats of the shy birds hidden
Pipe to us strangely entering unbidden,
And tenderly still in the tremulous glooms
The trilliums scatter their white-winged stars.
—ABCHIBALD LAMPMAN.
Winter passed, and then came the spring, with its fresh, warm winds coming up from Lake Simcoe and sweeping away the ice and snow in a mad, joyous rush of water.
Scotty went barefoot just as soon as there was enough bare ground to step upon. He seemed for a time to cast aside all restraint with his shoes and stockings, and when not in school lived a freebooter's life in the forest.
He and Bruce spent much time wandering, plundering and exploring from the edge of the corduroy road where the musk and marigolds and fleur-de-lis grew in glorious profusion all through the green and golden depths to where the River Oro slipped from its sweet enthralment of reeds and water lilies to go bounding away down the valley to Lake Simcoe. The whole place was a plantation of treasures and teemed with sounds of life: the blue-jay, the song-sparrow, the robin, the noisy, red-winged black-bird, the plaintive pee-wee, the far-off, clear-ringing whitethroat, the jolly woodpecker, the noisy squirrel, and the shy raccoon—Scotty knew them all intimately, learned their ways and lived their life.
He was given to much idle roaming through the swamp, on the way to and from school, too, and when he went to bring home the cows he remained longer than even Granny could excuse. For that simple task should have been performed in a very short time. He could trace the cattle through the woods with the sure instinct of a sleuth-hound, could distinguish Spotty's tracks from Cherry's, and might have found his own little heifer's in the midst of the public highway. But his skill did not help to make him any more expeditious, for he often forgot his errand and would lie full length upon the ground, gazing up into the restless, swishing, green sea above, and dreaming wonderful dreams. Callum declared he was a lazy little beggar and ought to be cowhided to make him move, though where one could be found to perform that necessary operation the MacDonald family were not prepared to say.
That he did not altogether develop into a little savage was entirely due to Granny's tender care. Nowhere was the influence of her beautiful character felt so strongly as by the little grandson. She, who could command her grown-up sons by her mere presence, and who was slowly but surely transforming Big Malcolm's wild nature, was quietly moulding the boy's character. Scotty early learned the great lessons of life, the lessons of truth and right, and was well grounded in the knowledge of the things that are eternal. He could read the Bible before he ever entered school, and could repeat the Shorter Catechism with a rapidity that sometimes alarmed Granny, as savouring of irreverence. He learned a verse of Scripture by heart every evening of his life, and the Sabbath was a grand review day.
Sunday was always a red-letter day in Scotty's life, for he generally had Granny to himself. Not that the others were away; for Big Malcolm, who generally ruled his household rather laxly, sternly forbade Sabbath visiting. But the boys wandered off to the barn or the woods after morning prayers, and Big Malcolm dozed, or smoked, or read his Bible. And then Granny and her boy would climb the little hillock beside the house and sit under the Silver Maple. This was a fine position, for one could see Lake Oro, stretched out there blue and sparkling in its ring of forest, and far away to the south, a glittering string of diamonds and turquoise where Lake Simcoe lay smiling in the sun, and now and then, where a clearing opened the view, the blue flash of the river. And there, with the soft rustle of the green and silver canopy above, and around the scent of the clover and the basswood blossoms, Scotty lay with his head in Granny's lap and heard wonderful stories of One who sat on a hill and spoke to the multitude as never man yet spake. And never afterwards, though he sometimes wandered from Granny's teachings, did those Sabbath days lose their hold upon his life.
And so the spring slipped into summer, and one evening a new element came into his life. He was lying on the doorstone, his feet in the cool, dewy grass, dreamily watching the fireflies sparkling away down in the pasture by the woods, and listening to the hoarse cry of the night hawks as they swooped overhead. It was a warm evening, and the leaves of the Silver Maple, still touched by the hot glow of the sunset, hung motionless in the still air.
Rory came out with his fiddle, and, sitting with his chair tilted against the house, droned out a low, sweet, yearning song for Bonny Prince Charlie who would return no more, no more. Grandaddy sat near on a bench smoking contentedly. Since the day of the first prayer meeting at Long Lauchie's, Big Malcolm had lived a life of peace, and had once more regained his attitude of happy, kind complacency. Old Farquhar was gone; he had disappeared when the Silver Maple was putting forth its buds, and had gone "a kiltin' owre the brae," as he musically expressed it to Scotty; but everyone knew that he would come back in the autumn as surely as the wild ducks went south. Indoors, close to the candle, sat Hamish poring over "Waverley," and Callum could be heard tramping about in the loft, preparing to go off for the evening. Callum took great pains with his toilette these evenings, Scotty noticed, though the boys did not tease him any more about going to see Mary Lauchie; indeed, there were no more good-natured allusions to his courtship. Instead, Scotty had overheard Rory tell Callum, in the barn one day, that "he'd go sparkin' old Teenie McCuaig, though she was seventy and hadn't a tooth in her head, before he'd be seen going down to the Flats to see an Irish girl." And Callum had seized him by the shoulders and flattened him up against the wall until he roared for mercy. There was always something in the home atmosphere when Callum started off of an evening now that vaguely reminded Scotty of those terrible days following Grandaddy's fight in the Glen. He felt anxiously that his hero was doing something of which his family disapproved, and wondered fearfully what it might be.