They sped down the lane and out upon the open, smooth highway. The roads were almost dry now, and in the dun-colored fields and the purple-gray woods there was an air of expectancy, as though the earth knew that a great change was near. It was a glorious, blustering spring day. The wind was working strenuously to keep the sky clear of clouds, and a time of it she was having. A hard-working, tidy body she was, this April afternoon, but she did not go about her work systematically. For no sooner had she swept her great floor a clear, gleaming blue, than, with a careless flourish of her broom, she scattered great rolling heaps of down all over it, and had to go frantically to work and brush them together again. Nevertheless, the wind and the clouds, and indeed the whole world, seemed to be having a grand time. The trees swung giddily before the gale, the bare, brown fields were smiling and tidy, and as clean as a floor, and the little streams by the roadside leaped and laughed at the sunlight. Only the birds seemed to be in trouble. A gasping robin clung for a moment to an unsteady perch in a lashing elm, and tried his poor little best to get out a few notes. But the frolicsome wind slapped him in the face, and choked him, and he fled before it to the shelter of the woods. Everywhere was tremendous rush and bustle and glad hurry, for was not all the world preparing for the arrival of Summer? She might come any day now, and the earth must be tidied and swept and washed and dried, to make ready for the glorious paraphernalia of green carpets and curtains, and flower cushions, and endless bric-a-brac, that grand lady was sure to bring.
Even Gilbert felt the joy of the spring day, and behaved quite cheerfully for a young man who had had his heart broken only the winter before. The two had not driven together since the day they had witnessed Sandy McQuarry's Waterloo, and they recalled it with laughter, and discussed, with even more merriment, the wonderful sequel. For since Sandy had fulfilled his wager, and come back to Elmbrook church, and had apparently decided to go softly all the rest of his days, the gossips had noticed patent signs of a strong inclination on his part to go even deeper in his humility, and make a life treaty with his conqueror, and Elmbrook was all agog over the unbelievable prospect. Since that last drive Elsie Cameron had dropped some of her reserve, and Gilbert felt they were on a friendly footing. He was not so afraid of her now, since he had done his duty, and he found her a most pleasant comrade. They talked of many things, grave and gay. They exchanged reminiscences of schooldays, for they were both Canadian born and country bred, and had a wholesome, happy past to recall. In the talk of his boyhood days Gilbert was led to tell of his early ambitions, and of the struggle he had had to get an education.
"I went to the public school until I was fourteen, and I always cherished dreams of one day being a doctor. But our farm was small, and our family large, and when father died we older boys had to turn out to earn our living. I got a job that first summer working in a sawmill near home, and there I met my fortune. There was a big, warm-hearted, rollicking chap there, who was foreman, and I thought he was the most wonderful man alive; and upon my word, I rather think so yet. He was just the sort of fellow to be a tremendous hero in the eyes of a youngster of fifteen. He could walk the logs on the river any old way, and could jump and run and throw the shoulder-stone, and do all manner of stunts, away ahead of everybody else. We kids thought he was the greatest thing outside a dime novel; and I tell you, he was a fine chap all through. I've met a good many people of all sorts since those days, but I've never seen the equal of Martin Heaslip."
"Who?" His listener whirled around in her seat, her eyes startled, her lips parted.
"Heaslip—Martin Heaslip. You don't happen to know him, do you?"
"Oh, no; not at all!" The answer came in hurried confusion. "I—it was the name—I—please go on. I beg your pardon for the interruption."
"He was a Bluenose—one of those Scotch-Irish Nova Scotians, the best kind going; but he had lots of relatives over in Bruce County; perhaps you knew some of them?"
"No, oh, no! I—it was a mistake."
"Well, one day the poor old chap met with rather a serious accident. He was walloping around the mill, as usual, singing a crazy old lumberjack song about 'six brave Cana-jen byes,' who broke a lumber jam. Martin was always whooping away at that dirge, I think I can hear him yet. I'm not up in musical terms, but I think the tune was a kind of Gregorian chant, and as mournful as a dog howling at night. It goes something like this:
'They broke the jam on the Garry Rocks,
And they met a wat-e-ry grave.'