“Waal, now, by hang, thet’s one thing Ah can’t do,” said Mr. McKay. “They ain’t been no formalities yet. When Ah find a man ’at knows gee frum haw Ah don’t worry much about what he was christened.”
“Call me Ray,” said Burton, as he threw the inside tugs over the horses’ backs and slipped the tongue from the neck-yoke. “Go into the house and rest, Mr. McKay, and I will put the team away, if Mr. Ensley will show me where.”
“Waal, what d’ye think of thet?” said Mr. McKay, slapping his thigh. “The young fellow’s givin’ orders already. An’ what’s more—what’s more,” he repeated, pointing a huge fore-finger at Burton—“what’s more, the old man’s goin’ tuh do as he’s told.”
Burton unhitched the team and watered them; drew the harness off and rubbed them down with a wisp of hay as Ensley filled the mangers. Then the two men walked to the shack, where they found Mr. McKay with his great boots off and his stockinged feet resting comfortably on the ash-pan of the stove, in which a slab fire burned cheerily. The tea-kettle was singing lustily; a saucepan of dried apples simmered on the back of the stove, and presently the appetising smell of frying potatoes and eggs filled the little room. The light from Ensley’s single lamp fell on the walls, papered with pictures and cartoons from English publications, with a dry-goods box nailed up for a cupboard, and over the door the miniature arsenal which always marks the Britisher’s home. Outside the darkness was settling down; the long, persistent twilight of the Canadian summer lingered in the western sky, but the east loomed black and colourless, and a strange night wind sighed mournfully over the endless, sweeping fields of grass.
[CHAPTER XIII—GROPING]
| “Then I gave him hopes he could not define and fears that he could not flee; And he heard my cry in the long, still night, In my spirit-thrall I held him tight, And his blind soul-eyes craved for the light; But the light he could not see.” Prairie Born. |
Hiram Riles’ temper was not improved by driving home through a soaking rain from the Dominion Day sports at Plainville. Hiram’s interest in sports at best was purely negative. He enjoyed the discomfiture of the defeated team; he gloated over the player whose costly error brought upon him the wrath of the spectators. At a game Hiram always stood a little to one side, watching, not for brilliant plays, but for errors, and passing contemptuous remarks about such of the players as were unfortunate enough to localise his displeasure. There had been only one bright spot in the whole day’s experiences. That was the news of the stolen money being found in Burton’s trunk. Riles had never forgiven the affair at Grant’s, and his nature was such that his hatred grew rather than abated with the passage of time. He now felt that his young enemy would be properly covered with shame; he could honourably dismiss the matter from his mind, or at least lay it aside to be revived when Burton regained his liberty. But the storm had interfered with his intended carousal; Riles’ appetite rarely got the better of his prudence, and even the reflection that Burton was by this time probably safe in the cells failed to give the pleasure such a happy situation warranted.
But Riles’ displeasure during his drive home was a small thing compared with his rage on discovering that the hailstorm had swept out forty acres of his best crop. The destruction had caught only a corner of his farm, and although his poor neighbour to the south had every stalk of his crop destroyed Riles wasted no sympathy on neighbours, but walked his floor all night nursing his anger and vexation. At an earlier hour than usual he wakened London, and cuffed the boy soundly before he made his escape to the stables. The cows in the corral yawned and rose lazily, stretching their hind quarters to throw off the night’s cramp, as a soft mist rose from the warm spots where they had lain. London glanced at the house, but there was no sign of Riles; then he softly set the dog on the astonished cattle. For a minute or two they circled the corral; then one old cow, more venturesome than the rest, sprang over the fence, breaking the upper wire in the effort, and all followed her to liberty.
“That’ll give ’im somethink helse to worry habout,” reflected the boy. “’E’ll think they broke away when the ’ail struck ’em.”
Riles’ temper showed no improvement during the day, nor for many days thereafter. The loss of forty acres of grain was a matter calling for at least as many days’ mourning. The poor neighbour, whose crop was all he had, had taken heart again, and whistled as he ploughed the ruin of the storm underfoot, but Riles could not forget that Providence had been most unfair to him, and was even more brutal than ever with his help, both beast and human.