Mary wrote her delight in Christina's good fortune, hinting just a little surprise that she should have won a prize where Mary herself had failed. Ellen wrote cautioning her sister not to set her heart on any one for the present. Wallace was young and they would likely be parted, and people saved themselves a great deal of pain if they did not make plans for the future.

Christina was too busy to think much of the future, the present was quite sufficient. For besides all the joyous social events and home duties, like all the other women of the village she was called upon to take up the burden of Red Cross work.

The Red Cross Society proved as great a blessing in the divided ranks of Orchard Glen society, as it did on many another field of battle. It provided a place where the Methodists and Presbyterians could meet on common ground and it was wonderful to see the gradual drawing together of the forces that had been rent asunder by the skirl of old Lauchie's bagpipes It was very heartening to see Mrs. Henderson, Tremendous K.'s wife, and Mrs. Johnnie Brown, the wife of the Methodist Sunday School Superintendent working side by side. It was impossible to keep from speaking when you were sewing on the same hospital shirt and gradually people began to forget that there were Methodists and Presbyterians in the world, remembering only that there were Germany and the Allies. And when Tremendous K. was asked by the Red Cross Society to get up a concert that winter to raise Red Cross funds, Methodists and Baptists came flocking back to the choir and they all sang, "O, Canada" and "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," together as though there had never been a piper in Orchard Glen.

But these harmonious heights were not reached without many a rocky bit of road for the Red Cross Society to travel.

When the Society was formed, a number of women came out from Algonquin to organise, though Mrs. Johnnie Dunn did not see why in common sense they couldn't form a society themselves without a lot of women from town trolloping out to show them how to do something they all knew how to do already. Nevertheless the ladies from town came and they organised centres in Dalton and Greenwood and Orchard Glen and in other places all through the country.

The Orchard Glen Red Cross Society was to meet once a week in the basement of the Methodist Church, it being the largest available space in the village.

Mrs. Sutherland was made President and Mrs. Sinclair Treasurer; and young Mrs. Martin was Secretary, with Christina Lindsay to assist and take the minutes when the children were so bad that nobody could manage them. There was a large executive committee besides, but all these officials were quite irrelevant, for Mrs. Johnnie Dunn was the real head and body and limbs of the society, and looked after all its business.

Then The Woman brought out the materials for sewing and knitting from Algonquin, and returned the garments when she thought they ought to be finished, and woe betide the unlucky Red Cross worker who was behind a day with a shirt or a pair of socks! For she decreed just how much was to be done each week, and no Prussian Militarist ever ruled with so high a hand.

"Just add another roll o' towelling to that order," she would command the Algonquin woman who was handing out her month's work, "there's a lot o' lazy lumps out at our corner that's sittin' pickin' their fingers for want o' somethin' to do."

The Society followed The Woman and the President was left far in the rear. Indeed Orchard Glen was rather proud of Mrs. Johnnie Dunn. She was so clever and made such a name for them in Red Cross circles. The valentine episode was forgotten with other pre-war trivialities and she was reinstated in her old place of leadership.

Mrs. Sutherland presided at all Red Cross meetings with something of the air of a Queen ruling a much limited monarchy, over which a strenuous and efficient Prime Minister is wielding unlimited power. It was an unpleasant position and the rightful monarch might have made efforts to retain her authority but for the ambassador who kept peace between the Queen and the Prime Minister. The peacemaker was the last woman in Orchard Glen to be chosen for such a task, and yet a real peacemaker Joanna proved herself.

Joanna Falls would never have filled the position, but Joanna Boyd, as every one was discovering, was a new creature. She came back from her brief trip with Trooper, when the first contingent left for England. She had a wedding ring on her hand and a new light in her handsome eyes. And she was so gentle and kindly that those who did not stop to remember that love works miracles scarcely knew her.

She became Mrs. Sutherland's life-long friend on the very day the Red Cross Society was formed. It was after the meeting and people were standing about asking questions and delivering opinions, Mrs. Sutherland was still sitting on the platform with the visitors from town and called Joanna to her.

"Mrs. Boyd, my dear," she said pleasantly, "will you come here a moment?"

Joanna looked around in a moment's bewilderment, wondering who Mrs. Boyd was, and then the girls all laughed, and she remembered, and, blushing and looking very beautiful, she obeyed. Mrs. Sutherland introduced her as "Our war bride," and told how Trooper had gone away at the first call of his country. And the visitors asked her all about him, and Joanna, with tears in her handsome eyes, told how he was in the Princess Pats and expected to be in the fighting any day now. It was so wonderful to be able to talk about Trooper and speak out her grief without shame, that Joanna's voice grew very soft and her manner gentle. And a lady whose only son had also ridden away in the Princess Patricias' patted her hand and said it was the women who stayed at home who needed to be brave and that she had many to sympathise with her.

From that day Joanna became Mrs. Sutherland's right hand, she was always ready to do her bidding. Mrs. Sutherland would call across the room full of shirts and towels and whirring machines, "Mrs. Boyd, my dear, could you find me the back of this shirt? I must have mislaid it." And Joanna would run and wait on her hand and foot, Joanna who used to throw the dishwater so it would splash over into Mrs. Sutherland's yard!

And another miracle caused by Trooper's going to the war was the friendship that sprang up between Joanna and The Woman. Mrs. Johnnie Dunn was a warrior at heart herself, and Trooper's leap to the first sound of the bugle thrilled her. She would have parted with a year's profits on milk before she would confess this, but she was really inordinately proud of her soldier and her feelings were displayed in her treatment of him. He had enough socks to foot every man in the Princess Patricias and there was never a soldier in the Canadian Army received such boxes of cake and candy as Trooper.

So his wife and his aunt became firm friends in their common love and pride. They sat together at sewing meetings, sharing scraps of each other's letters and the latest bit of news concerning the Princess Pats.

But Joanna had no easy task keeping peace in the Red Cross Society. The course of that blessed institution ran over a rough bed of rocks from the day of its inception.

There were a deal of rules about the fashioning of shirt collars and the hemming of sheets and the sewing on of buttons and the folding of bandages which The Woman characterised as tomfoolery. The President was for keeping the rules. She believed in system, she stated in her address to the Society, but Mrs. Johnnie Dunn believed only in her own system, and told every one to go ahead and do things the way they had always done and they'd be all right.

Then there was the knitting! Granny Minns, who could turn out her sock a day, and not omit a tittle of Mitty's scolding, said the Kitchener Toe was all humbug. She had knit for her son Tom all his life and her husband too, and was now knitting for Burke. And Burke said her socks were Just right, and what was good enough for Burke was good enough for the other soldiers!

She had an army of followers who were ready to second all she said. Mrs. Lindsay and the Grant Girls and Mrs. Brown and Tremendous K.'s mother were all superexcellent knitters, and Mrs. Brown who was no more afraid of Mrs. Sutherland than The Woman was, said right out in the meeting that the Kitchener Toe was jist some norms got up by the women in the town who hadn't enough to do, and had never learned to knit, anyhow! And Mrs. Brown and Tremendous K.'s wife took to walking home together after the meetings, just to discuss the foolish fashions of some women like Mrs. Sutherland!

Mrs. Sinclair asked for one of the leaders to come out from town and tell about the Kitchener Toe. The lady came and they had an extra meeting in the basement of the Methodist church, and passed around tea and cake and pie afterward. The lady spoke of the horrors of Trench Feet, and showed how the wrong sort of knitting would be sure to produce it. But as Granny Minns never went anywhere, and Mrs. Lindsay and the Grant Girls went only to church, and Mrs. Brown was too deaf to hear, and Mrs. Tremendous K. told her it was just all dishwater anyway, the talk had very little effect.

So a secret society was formed, of which Joanna and Mrs. Sutherland were the leaders. They met at night with drawn blinds and locked doors, and ripped out the uneven and condemned knitting and knit it up again. And before long Orchard Glen was mentioned in the Algonquin papers as the one place that always sent in perfect socks. And a photographer came out from town and took a picture of Granny Minns, as the oldest knitter of faultless socks, and it was put in the paper and Orchard Glen was held up as an example for the countryside and was the envy of the whole knitting public.

The excitement over Red Cross troubles during the winter almost made folk forget the war. The terrible onrush of the enemy had been stopped at the Marne, and, lulled by an over-censored press, the public settled down to the belief that when the Spring came the Germans would be forced back across the Rhine and the war would be over. Britain was safe anyway, every one knew that. For there was the Navy and that, as every one knew, was invincible.

The first contingent had gone; English and Scottish reservists like Burke had left, and many another Old Country man had volunteered, going back to give the old land a helping hand. Then there were the gay lads full of adventure like Trooper, up and away at the first glad chance of looking into "the bright face of danger," and some serious minded ones also, knowing that a terrible danger menaced humanity and they must stand as a wall between. But the great mass of young Canada was as yet undisturbed, and while the press could have called them with one bugle sound, the press sent them back to their work and their play, and so they lingered undisturbed.

Wallace had to part with Christina at Christmas time, a consummation that had been devoutly looked forward to by his mother. He left her with many promises to write and to be home for Easter. Christina had scarcely time to miss him for Sandy and Neil came home and Mary and Hugh McGillivray came up from Port Stewart and the house rang with the good times they all had together. And Grandpa could scarcely be persuaded to go to bed lest he miss some of Jimmie's and Sandy's antics.

On Christmas day a letter came from the two absent ones. They were invited to take dinner with some friends in Prairie Park, people who had heard Neil preach when he was in the west, and they declared he would be one of Canada's leading preachers some day.

Allister wrote a longer letter than usual to Christina. There was an entirely new note in it.

"This war has knocked things endways for me I'm afraid," he said. "You needn't say anything to John or the boys yet, but if everything keeps rolling down hill as fast as it's been going there will be no college for any one next year. So perhaps you were just as wise to stay home. I didn't know just how good you were to let Ellen come till she told me all about it. It's been rough on Ellen and you've been a brick to let her come. But if things don't get too rotten we'll win out yet and make the world sit up and take notice. Ellen's got the craze to go nursing and she wants to start right away. Only she thinks she ought to go home. If she trains maybe she'll be going overseas if this war doesn't show some signs of ending."

It was not at all like Allister, and Christina was filled with anxiety. What if Sandy and Neil had to be stopped in their college course? And Allister had furnished many a comfort on the farm that made life easier for them all and especially for John and had hinted that there might be a car in the Spring. If his money all went with the war, there would be never again any chance for her. But she did not worry over herself, only wrote to Ellen urging her to take her nurse's course by all means, for everything was quite all right at home.

When the pleasant rush of Christmas was over she was rather surprised to find that life was not so dull as she had expected. She missed Wallace, but not quite so much as she felt she should. She grew impatient with herself and began to wonder if she were different from other girls. Mary lived for Hugh, and Ellen's days had arranged themselves around Bruce's coming and going, and she could not but ask why she was not as joyous over Wallace's preference for her as she had expected to be.

When he was away from her he seemed to be her very ideal Knight, so handsome and brave and good, but when he was in her presence, he was just a very ordinary, pleasant young man, with no halo of romance about him. She was rather disappointed in herself. She wondered if she were of a dissatisfied nature whom nothing could please.

And then she had no sooner settled down to a lonely winter than suddenly Wallace came back. He came up to see her on the very evening of his return, to explain his sudden appearance and tell her all the tragic sum of his experiences.

It appeared that his hopes were all blasted; his uncle had behaved in a shameful manner. In spite of the fact that Wallace had almost studied himself ill all Fall, Uncle William simply refused to let him go back to college.

"But your examination!" cried Christina in dismay. "You passed that, didn't you?"

Wallace had neglected to explain about the examination. One paper, the Latin prose, was quite beyond belief. The man who set it was crooked, there was no doubt about it, and anyway Wallace had always felt that Mr. Sinclair was very old-fashioned in his methods. A fellow just couldn't learn under him.

Christina's heart was striving to excuse him, declaring that he had been ill-used, while her head was protesting that he was only a spoiled boy who had wasted his opportunities, and was now ready to lay the blame at any door but his own.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she declared with real sympathy. "And what will you do now?"

"I think I'll enlist," he declared despondently, sinking down into the depths of the soft couch, one of the comforts that Allister's money had made possible. "There isn't anything else for me to do. I've had such rotten luck."

He glanced at Christina as he spoke and was rather disconcerted to see that she made no opposition. His mother always wept and wrung her hands, and made any concession at the merest suggestion of his going to the Front, and he had supposed that Christina would, at least, show some agitation.

But instead there came a sudden light into her eyes.

"Oh," she declared, "it must be grand to be a man and go away and fight for freedom!"

Wallace raised his head and stared at her.

"I don't believe you'd care a mite if I were killed!" he cried reproachfully.

Christina's eyes dropped to the grey sock she was knitting.

"Oh, I—I didn't mean that!" she cried apologetically. "I—I just thought maybe you wanted to go."

"I can't leave mother," he declared, "that's one sure thing. And another is that I'm going to give up the University. I never wanted to go anyway. I think I'll go into business, or perhaps I'll farm. I'm going to stay home for a week or so anyway and talk things over with Uncle Peter."

He seemed to forget his troubles after this resolution and became his old gay self, and Christina's head gave way to her heart and she was altogether happy that he had come home.

But there was not much happiness or comfort in the red house with the pillars. Dr. McGarry had helped his sister indulge they boy and now he was angry with him for turning out the exact product to be expected from their indulgence. The Doctor stormed and scolded and Mrs. Sutherland wept. Wallace threatened to enlist. Uncle Peter said it was the best thing he could do and then, when things were really getting quite intolerable and Wallace was packing his trunk for parts unspecified, fate intervened once more and he was taken down with what the Doctor said was a very heavy cold but which Mrs. Sutherland declared might easily develop into pneumonia.

Mitty Wright, who did Mrs. Sutherland's washing, reported that the way his mother waited on the young gentleman and babied him was a caution, and the Doctor was nearly as bad, running up and down stairs, scolding one minute and giving medicine the next. The patient responded to the good nursing and before the middle of January he was able to be outdoors again. He convalesced very happily, especially after he was able to walk as far as the Lindsay hill. Uncle William showed no sign of repentance, though Mrs. Sutherland told him how near to death's door the boy had been, but Wallace did not seem disturbed. The evil provided by Uncle Peter's war-distemper was sufficient unto the day without worrying over Uncle William. The old man would come round yet, Wallace felt sure, and meanwhile he was having a very pleasant time and Orchard Glen with Christina in it was a very delightful place.

Jimmie came stamping in one wild boisterous evening when February had began to shout across the country from hill to hill and turn the world into a whirling whiteness.

It was Friday evening and he was earlier than usual as Mrs. Johnnie Dunn had given him a lift more than half way in her cutter. And she had so much Red Cross truck piled into it, he complained, that his feet stuck out into the drifts all the way home.

He had stopped at the postoffice for the mail, and there was a letter from Neil. His regular Tuesday letter had come as usual and a second one was rather surprising.

Christina ran with it into the sitting room where her mother was sewing overtime on a couple of hospital shirts that The Woman said had to be ready for Monday, and not a minute later.

"A letter from Neily," Mrs. Lindsay said, stopping her work and taking off her spectacles to await the reading. "What will he be wanting to say at this time o' the week?"

Christina tore it open and went to the window to catch the last light of the short winter day. The letter started as usual with the weekly budget of college news. Every one was speeding up, now, for Spring and exams, had just turned the last corner and were coming straight at them. Sandy's new room was something superfine and much warmer than the last, but board wasn't getting any better. They were all longing for a taste of Mother's biscuits and Christine's pies. And then the letter fell back into reminiscences of old days, as Neil's letters had a habit of doing.

"Do you remember, Mother, when we were little and any danger threatened, I was always the shy one who ran and got behind your skirts? And do you remember you were always saying to John and me, and especially to me, 'Lads must be brave?' It was not so bad, I remember your saying, if Ellen or Mary were to take fright when a stranger came to the house, or Mr. Sinclair called to hear our Catechism, but it was a real disgrace for a boy. 'Lads must be brave' was your slogan. And many a time it has braced me in hard places since. Out on the prairie, for instance, when it was deadly lonesome, and the work seemed to be no use, and down here in the city when I gave out my text the night I preached in Hamilton Street Church, and looked up and saw old Professor Johnstone sitting straight in front of me, looking at his boots. I tell you, Mother, the consolations of religion were not so upholding at such moments as your 'Lads must be brave.'

"And how it has been 'dingin' in my ears these days to fairly deeve me," as Tremendous K. would say. "The bugle calls it every morning when the boys march out on the campus. I see it in every headline of the paper; I hear it in every call for men, and I'm afraid I haven't wanted to listen. I have wanted my life to run along a smooth road, the one I have planned for myself; a fine church with a big salary, plenty of time to study and a little to travel, and you sitting in the Manse pew with the best silk dress in the church. That has been my programme. But the pleasant road was not the way the Master went, and the servant cannot choose. He trod the hard way, and there is not the slightest doubt in my mind which way He wants me to go. I know you are guessing already at what I am going to ask of you. And now I must turn upon you with your own slogan and say, 'Mothers must be brave!' Oh, how brave and gallant they must be in these days, only they can know. But I know you, Mother, well enough to tell that you will say yes when I ask you to be brave enough to let me enlist. It is not a matter of choice with me, I am constrained. Woe is me if I go not to Belgium!"

"I wish I could say this is all I am asking you to give up. Is it too much that we ask you to let Sandy go, too? He is more eager than I and saw his duty clearly from the first. We both realise that yours is the hardest part. But your sons couldn't be slackers. And after all the war may not last so long, and we'll be home before you know it. Sandy will likely be a general, and who knows but I may get to be a lance-corporal!"

There was more in the same light strain and a note for Christina from Sandy, saying he was taking the officers' course and she must remember when he came home to say "sir" to him when she addressed him.

But Christina did not read the letter through at first. When the full meaning of it burst upon her she turned to her mother, expecting to see tears, but instead her mother's small bent figure had grown suddenly straight and her eyes were shining with a strange mingling of pride and anguish.

"Oh, Mother!" cried Christina, "oh, don't I wish I were a boy!"

"Whisht, whisht!" cried her mother, "I could ill spare you, Christine, I can ill spare the lads." And then she rose and went quietly into the bedroom and shut the door, and Christina knew that her mother had gone for strength to bear this trial to the source of all power.

When Wallace came up the hill the next evening, he found the Lindsays in a state of subdued excitement. Christina's cheeks were crimson and her eyes shone until she looked positively handsome.

"Sandy and Neil are both going to the war," she cried half in dismay, half in exultation.

"Are they really?" asked Wallace. "They're lucky. This beastly breakdown of mine has spoiled all my chances. My, I'd like to be in their boots!"

Christina felt a sudden rising of resentment. "I don't think they are a bit lucky," she burst forth. "You surely don't call it lucky to go to the front and get badly wounded, and perhaps killed?"

Wallace smiled a superior smile. "There's not much danger of that. The boys won't get over there for a year at best, and the war will likely be all over by that time. Germany can't stand this strain for many more months."

Christina had a distinct feeling of disappointment. She had wanted Wallace to admire the boys for all they were giving up, and he was calling them lucky, and maintaining an envious attitude as though they were off on a free trip to Europe. She changed the subject hastily and he did not refer to the war again that evening.

Jimmie and Uncle Neil alone were filled with rejoicing. Uncle Neil felt an exultation that he was at pains to hide. He said little, for his sister's anguished eyes forbade that he voice the pride that was consuming him, but he sat up half the night playing his fiddle, and for the next few days he went about whistling all the warlike songs he knew.

The news was shouted to Grandpa, along with extracts from Neil's letter, before he went to bed. He made little comment, merely saying that "they were fine lads and would do their duty." But Christina knew he was deeply grieved that Neil should be turned aside from the ministry. He expressed no sorrow but he did not sing the Hindmost Hymn and the next morning at family worship he read,

"Why art thou cast down, oh, my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me?"



CHAPTER XI

"LAST LEAVE"

The Lindsay boys did not get home on leave until the Easter vacation, for they were taking their military training along with their university work. John drove down to Silver Creek Crossing to meet them, for the roads to town were almost impassable. The home-coming of the boys had always been the great event in their family life, but it was a far more wonderful thing this time; it had something of the flavour of heroes returning from the war.

Christina and Jimmie met them at the road gate under the moaning poplars, where the wind whipped her skirts about her and blew her hair into her eyes.

Their mother and Uncle Neil were half way down the lane, and even Grandpa had hobbled to the edge of the garden to meet the soldier boys home on their first leave. Christina had known they would be in khaki, but when a trim young private of artillery in jingling spurs and bandolier, and a smart young subaltern in shining boots and straps and belt and what not leaped from the democrat and charged upon her; instead of running to meet them, their sister put her head down against the gate post and burst into tears. Somehow the sight of Sandy in the uniform of his country's service had overwhelmed Christina with a sense of the great gulf that had yawned between them. Sandy and Neil were gone and there were two soldier-men in their place. Manlike, they did not understand her tears.

"Goodness, Christine!" cried Sandy, jovially, "if you're sorry we've come home, we can turn right back if you'd rather."

"You silly thing—I—I'm not sorry," gasped Christina; kissing them and turning from tears to laughter. "I—I forgot you'd be in uniform."

"Well, cheer up," said Neil comfortingly, "I'll admit that the sight of Sandy's calves is enough to make anybody weep, but he'll fatten up next summer—here's Mother!"—and he ran up the lane at a breakneck pace.

Certainly Sandy's calves were not any too stout. He looked like a whip handle dressed up, Uncle Neil said as he circled round him admiringly. But he was as neat and smart as a whip, too, even if he were thin and even John could not hide his admiration. And as for Grandpa, he had to take refuge in Gaelic exclamations to express himself.

The mother spoke just one hint of her regrets as they sat around the supper table, Neil at her right hand. She smoothed his rough khaki sleeve, examining the cloth closely, and pronounced it a fine comfortable piece that would wear well.

"It's the only cloth to wear these days, Mother," Neil said. "Don't you think so?"

She shook her head. "I would be hoping to see you in a black coat, Neily," she said softly.

"That'll come later," said Neil comfortingly. "You think I did right, don't you?" he continued, anxiously.

"Oh, yes, yes, indeed, you did right, and I'm proud that you will be wanting to go," she declared bravely. And Neil's heart was content.

These were stirring days in Orchard Glen while the boys were home. All the boys and girls gathered at the Lindsays just as they used to. But there was one family missing. The McKenzies were absent, and Uncle Neil never sang the "Standard on the Braes o' Mar" any more.

There was great fun with Sandy and Neil, for Sandy was an officer and his elder brother a private, and it was impossible for them to remember that Neil's old air of authority with Sandy was now quite out of place. The private was always saluting the subaltern with tremendous gravity, and the next moment treating him in a manner that deserved a court-martial.

Jimmie followed his soldier brothers about in a passion of admiration. And one day the ambition that was burning him up burst forth.

"Say, what do you think?" he cried excitedly, coming in with the afternoon mail. "Tommy Holmes has enlisted, and he's a month younger than I am."

"Then he's a silly youngster, and ought to be kept washing dishes to punish him," said Neil sharply. "No boy under eighteen has any right to enlist!"

"I'll be eighteen next Fall!" declared Jimmie defiantly.

"Which means you've barely turned seventeen, so hold your tongue," said Sandy.

Jimmie saluted with mock meekness. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," he said, with a great show of nervousness.

Uncle Neil laughed uproariously, but brother Neil looked serious, and when milking time came he took Jimmie aside in the barn.

"You're worrying Mother, with your talk about enlisting," he said. "Can't you see that, and be quiet."

"I want to go as much as you do," said Jimmie stubbornly.

"I don't want to go at all," declared Neil, and his younger brother stared. "And neither would you if you would stop and think what a fearful thing this war is. I'm going because it is my duty, and so is Sandy. It's your duty to stay at home and finish the education John and Allister are giving you, and look after Mother.

"I don't want to go back to school," grumbled Jimmie, "Not after I've passed next summer, anyway."

"John doesn't want to stay here on the farm. He'd like to go to the Front, but he stays. You are young and you will be needed later. So be a man and do your duty. All the soldiers aren't going info the trenches."

But his advice had little effect on Jimmie, the war fever was in his veins. He gave his promise, however, to wait until he was eighteen, and Neil had to be content. But he was restless and fretful under the restriction, he felt quite sure that the war would all be over long before that date and his great opportunity would be gone.

Meanwhile Orchard Glen was slowly waking up at the call for men. Tommy Holmes rushed into khaki after the first glorious sight of the Lindsay boys in the village street, and Tremendous K.'s eldest son followed. And Christina had the heavy task of writing to Ellen to tell her that Bruce had given up his prospects of being a Doctor, and was enlisted with the University corps. Mr. Sinclair's only son, who was a minister in a neighbouring town, came home to say farewell, dressed in his chaplain's uniform, and the little village lived in a whirl of excitement.

The Red Cross Society was busy night and day making socks for the boys who had left, with the result that they each one got far more than any young man with only two feet could possibly wear.

All this stir, and the sight of so much khaki coming and going in the village had a bad effect upon Dr. McGarry. Every day he took the war more grievously to heart. He and Mr. Holmes took different sides as to the conduct of the spring campaign, and after Tommy enlisted it was not safe for the Doctor to go into the store, so high did feeling run.

And at home the Doctor was even worse, until poor Mrs. Sutherland's life was scarcely worth living. Wallace unwittingly brought down a torrent of wrath upon his head one day when the Spring Drive was on and prospects were looking black. It was an inopportune moment for Wallace to broach the subject upon which he had been thinking deeply for many days.

"Uncle," he said, as they sat down to their pretty tea-table in the sun-flooded dining-room. "I'd like to go on a farm this Spring. That Ford place below the mill is for sale, and the Browns are talking of buying it. You've always wanted to retire on a farm and I could start the work and——"

He paused, interrupted by his mother's dismayed exclamation. "Wallace! You with your prospects to settle down here and be a common farmer! Surely you don't mean it!"

"Elinor, don't be foolish!" snapped her brother, looking up from a dreary paragraph concerning a British reverse that was attempting to appear as a strategic move. "You might be glad to have him a common farmer, as you call it. And as for his prospects, I don't see what they are, to tell you the truth."

"Don't you agree with me, Uncle?" cried Wallace ingratiatingly. "These old chaps here farm like Noah before the flood. I'd like to show some of them an up-to-date way of managing stock." But his uncle was not capable of agreeing with anybody. His sister's tears forbade that he put his duty before his nephew, and it fairly broke the old man's heart that Wallace needed any one to suggest that he enlist. In times of peace he would have sympathised with the boy's desire to be a farmer, and he approved highly of Christina, but just now he could listen to nothing but the cry of Belgium.

"What's the use of talking a lot of rot!" he burst forth irritably. "You needn't ask my advice about farming! Before you'd get your crop off your farm next Fall the Kaiser of Germany would have everything to say about it. How will you like it when you have to pass over most of your profits to him and his War Lords? Here we are planning and scheming and all the time we're living in a Fool's Paradise, with the enemy at our door! We are marrying and giving in marriage, while the floods are pouring in upon us! Yes, go farming to-morrow if you like! It'll only be for a few months anyway. The Philistines are upon us!"

Matters were always serious when the Doctor took to quoting Scripture, and Mrs. Sutherland reached protectingly for her cut-glass spoon tray as his fist came down with a crash upon the table.

The result of the unhappy episode was that Wallace tramped sulkily up to his room after supper, and when his distressed mother went up to comfort him, she found him packing his suit-case once more. He was going to enlist. This was the end, he could stand no more, he declared.

"Oh, Wallace, Wallace, you will surely break your widowed mother's heart," declared Mrs. Sutherland in despair. She wept and pleaded. She made extravagant promises. She would write to Uncle William, she would even go to see him if he thought best, she would not urge him to go back to college if he did not want to. She would write Uncle William about the farm and she would try to make Uncle Peter be more reasonable if only Wallace would promise that he would not break her heart by enlisting. Wallace was a warm-hearted boy who could not bear to look upon distress. So he promised and his mother put aside all her high hopes and wrote humbly and pleadingly to her brother. Wallace was really not strong enough to study, the confinement seemed to impair his health. Peter agreed with her there. He would like to go farming, there was an excellent chance to buy or rent a place right near the village. Peter was interested in it and declared that he would like to retire and go on this farm some day. They felt that Wallace's health would improve if he had outdoor life, etc.

Whatever the letter contained it proved the key to unlock Uncle William's closed money box. He was not at all a hard man and his sister's distress moved him. He wrote that he was glad that the young cub had sense enough to farm, for it was no use trying to educate him. But he thought that a military training would be good for a young fellow's health. However, if he would rather feed the pigs and clean out the stable than go to college, all right, let him, that was probably his proper place. The words stung but they were covered by a most wonderful cheque, with instructions to Uncle Peter to see that the youngster did not throw it away.

Mrs. Sutherland was relieved even in the midst of her bitter disappointment. She had had such high ambitions for Wallace and now there seemed nothing ahead of him but the life of a common farmer. He would marry Christina Lindsay and probably never go further from home than Algonquin and William would give all his money to Tom's girls who had more now than they needed. But there was no alternative, and when she thought of his enlisting she was thankful that there was something to keep him at home. The recruiting officers would not trouble a young man on a farm.

From that time Christina noticed a marked change in Mrs. Sutherland's attitude toward her. From being coldly aloof she became warmly gracious and treated her second only to Joanna. Christina accepted the change gratefully. It had always been a trial, this disapproval of Wallace's mother. She ought to be very happy, she told herself, when she scolded herself for still longing to be away. Wallace would always be in Orchard Glen now, the Ford place had good barns and a fine old house, and who knew?—her heart beat fast at the thought, but there was no thrill of joy accompanying. Some subtle change had come over Christina since Sandy had enlisted. It seemed as if there could be no other course for a young man now in these days of agony and blood. Her heart was away with her brothers in their high endeavour and could be content with nothing less.

It was a beautiful Autumn day when Sandy and Neil came home for their last leave, as bright and happy as though they were going for a pleasure trip round the world. Hugh MacGillivray brought Mary home to say good-bye to them, for Mary was needing special care these days and could not travel alone.

Grandpa read the 91st Psalm at worship the morning before they left, and he paused and looked at the two young soldiers as he read the words. "Thou shalt not be afraid of the terror by night nor for the arrow that flieth by day ... a thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand but it shall not come nigh thee."

Christina listened and wondered and a strange new doubt crept into her soul. How could she believe that promise, knowing that so many brave boys had fallen before the arrow that flieth by day and that these dear ones might meet a similar fate? Were the words of that psalm merely beautiful sounding phrases that meant nothing? She glanced at her mother to see if she could read a similar doubt there; but Mrs. Lindsay's face was rapt, as though she had seen a new vision of the psalm's meaning, and Christina was puzzled and disheartened.

She held up her head bravely, standing at the garden gate to wave them good-bye as they drove down the lane in the golden sunlight. Then she ran down the lane after them, stumbling a little when a mist came over her eyes. She even ran down the road, gallantly waving her apron as long as Sandy waved his cap, feeling glad that he could not see the tears that were streaming down her face. And she made sure that the democrat had disappeared behind the hill before she gave way and sank down sobbing on the dusty grass of the roadside.

She went back to the desolate home, she must not linger over her grief for she was needed there as comforter. Her mother had disappeared into the sanctuary of her room where she was seeking strength from the source that had never failed her in all life's trials and would hold her up even in this great agony. Grandpa was sitting fumbling helplessly with his hymn book and arguing with himself. She could hear him whispering, "Be not far from me, O Lord, for trouble is near!" and she patted his bowed white head gently as she passed. Uncle Neil had fled to the barn, and Mitty was crying over the wash-tub in the shed. Christina went furiously to work, as her refuge from tears. It would never do to break down and be no use when Sandy was gone away to fight for her!

But work would not last all day. It was finished in the evening and Wallace came up in his usual gay spirits to report progress on his new farm, where everything was running in the most up-to-date manner. But Christina was too sad to even pretend to be interested. She could not rejoice over a new gasoline engine that was to do all the work, when Sandy and Neil were to be made part of the cruel engine of war. And for the first time Wallace found her uninterested and consequently uninteresting.



CHAPTER XII

"ALL THE BLUE BONNETS ARE OVER THE BORDER!"

One day early in the Winter, when the boys' English letters had begun to arrive regularly, Auntie Elspie Grant came over the hills on her snowshoes, to pay a visit of sympathy to Mrs. Lindsay. She brought a bottle of the liniment they made every Fall from the herbs of the Craig-Ellachie garden, a stone jar of their best raspberry cordial, a pot of mincemeat, and a piece of Christmas cake.

She spent a long afternoon while they both knitted socks and read the boys' letters and heard the latest news of Allister and Ellen and Mary and discussed at great length the never-failing virtues of Gavin. John drove the guest home in the cutter round by the road, for Mrs. Lindsay could not bear the sight of Elspie walking away over the drifts, though as a matter of fact, Elspie in her youthful spirits enjoyed it immensely.

"Elspie Grant's worryin' about Gavin," said Mrs. Lindsay, when the guest had gone and the early supper was being cleared away.

"What's the matter with him?" asked Christina with that feeling of self condemnation that any thought of Gavin always brought.

"She doesn't quite know. That's the trouble. He's not been eating and he doesn't seem to want to go anywhere. I wonder what can be wrong with the lad? Such a comfort as Gavin will be to the girls!"

Christina did not suggest an explanation. She had no self-conceit, and could not imagine that Gavin was grieving over her to the extent of loss of appetite. But she could not help wondering if she contributed in any measure to his trouble. For now that the matter was drawn to her attention she remembered that Gavin was not taking the part in the life of the young people of the village which he had once taken. Since the Red Cross Society had brought about a reunion of the divided forces of Orchard Glen, social activities had become very popular, but Gavin was not one of the reunited company. He did not come to the Temperance meetings any more and had dropped Choir Practice. He had even left the choir of his own church and he had deserted on the very day when he was most needed, the day they unveiled the Honour Roll with the names of the boys who had gone overseas. And in spite of all Tremendous K.'s scolding and pleadings he would not return.

"Gavin Grant's queer," grumbled Jimmie. "We were depending on him to give something the next night the boys have to give the programme, but he won't even help with the singing."

"Did you ask him what was the matter?" asked Christina, interested. "Auntie Elspie told Mother that he is acting as if he were sick."

"I think he's acting just plain mean," declared Jimmie, who had been taking Sandy's place with Gavin lately and was disappointed in him. "Maybe he's in love," he added with a grin and went off whistling.

But it was not that altogether that troubled Gavin, for there was certainly something very badly wrong with the lad. It was love and war combined that ailed him, and the war had become a burden too heavy for his strong young shoulders.

For quiet, shy, gentle Gavin was burning to be up and away into the struggle. His daily tasks of peace had become a galling joke scarcely to be borne. And the more he yearned to be gone the more bitterly he blamed himself for what he called his ingratitude and faithlessness. He loved his three foster-mothers with all the power of his loyal young heart. They had rescued him from a miserable starved childhood and had lavished all the wealth of their loving hearts upon him. And now he had grown to manhood, and every year they looked more and more to him for support. Their declining years had come and he dared not face the possibility of leaving them. He argued the matter out with himself by day in field and barnyard, and by night as he tossed on his sleepless bed. Why should he yearn to go when his duty plainly declared that he should stay? Many of the young farmers about Orchard Glen, boys he had grown up with and who could easily be spared, never thought for a moment of the war as their task. And why should he, who was so sadly needed at home?

But it was inevitable that Gavin should be unhappy in the safety of home while the world was in agony. Without realising it the Grant Girls had raised their boy to be a soldier, they so gentle and so peace loving. Life had not been narrow, even away back at Craig-Ellachie, where the grass grew in the middle of the corduroy road. Gavin had been nurtured on songs and tales of noble deeds and deathless devotion. He had been reared in a home where each one vied with the other in forgetting self and serving the other. The best books had been his daily reading. And, greatest of all, he had been trained to take as his life's pattern the One whose sole purpose had been not to be ministered unto, but to minister.

Night after night as he was growing into manhood, Auntie Flora would seat herself at the little old organ, and together they would all sail happily over a sea of song, thrilling ballads of the old days when men went gaily to death, singing

"So what care I though Death be nigh, I live for love or die!"

Then Auntie Elspie would put aside her spinning and Auntie Janet her knitting and they would tell him tales from the glorious history of the clan Grant. And he was never tired of hearing that story of the Indian Mutiny, told the Grant Girls by their grandfather; how a Highland regiment held a shot torn position till help came, held against overwhelming odds while men fell on every side, held, crying to each other all up and down the sore-pressed line, "Stand fast, Craig-Ellachie!"

And so Gavin could not but grow up filled with great aspirations. He could no more help being chivalrous and self-forgetful than he could help having the slow, soft accent of his Aunties.

And then into his high-purposed life came the Great Occasion! It seemed as if he had been trained just for this. It called to him and him alone. The greatest struggle of history; a death-struggle of sore-pressed Freedom against hideous Oppression was shaking the earth, and the smoke of the conflict was blackening the heavens—and through it all Gavin Grant remained at peace in his home! Every old Belgian woman of whom he read, driven from her ruined home, was Auntie Elspie. Every Belgian girl, suffering unspeakable wrong, was Christina. And they were crying night and day to him for help and crying in vain.

Many a night, after he had read a flaming page of Belgium's and Armenia's fearful history, he sat, sleepless, by the dying kitchen fire until dawn, and the day that the name of Edith Cavell was written in letters of fire across the sides of civilisation, Gavin went off into the woods alone with his axe, and tried to put some of the fury that was burning him up into savage blows against the unoffending timber.

And then the Orchard Glen boys began to answer the call, one by one; Burke and Trooper, and Christina's brothers. Tommy Holmes and Charlie Henderson, and Bruce McKenzie, and he was like Gareth in the story Auntie Flora had so often told him, Gareth who had to work in the kitchen, while his brother-knights rode clanking past him through the doorway, out into the world of mighty deeds, out to meet Death on the Field of Glory. Those were the days when he had to repeat "Stand fast, Craig-Ellachie" over and over again as he went about his peaceful tasks. It brought him little comfort, for it was not to stand fast that he wanted, but to spring forward in answer to the call to the hazardous task, to death itself, the call which through the ages has always summoned the high heart. Sometimes the acutest misery would seize him at the thought that persistently haunted him, the fear that if he had been really a Grant he would have seen his duty more clearly and would already be in the battle line. Perhaps there was some necessary spirit left out of him, some saving quality which his degraded parents could not hand down to him. If he had been of better blood might he not have paid no attention to tears and partings but have thrown away everything in the glorious chance of dying in the greatest cause for which the world had ever struggled?

He argued the question from every point, and yet he could not find it in his soul to leave his Aunts. He watched them intently to see if they would drop any hint of their opinion in the matter. But while they highly admired Trooper and commended the Lindsay boys, saying that not even the ministry should keep Neil at home, he could not elicit from them the smallest hint that they thought he was called to enlist. And so he set his teeth, determined to Stand Fast though his heart should break. But he was ashamed to be seen in public and he grew more shy and reticent as the hard days dragged on. Gradually he dropped out of all the activities that used to take him to the village. When he went he always saw Christina and Wallace Sutherland together, and that sight added to his misery. And finally he could not bear to hear himself sing. He looked down at his big brawny hands and arms and felt ashamed that he should be standing in a safe and peaceful place, singing! He choked at the thought. He sometimes wished he were not so big and strong. If he were small and weak like Willie Brown or even had one leg like Duke it would be easier to bear.

He gave no reason when he suddenly left the choir the day the Honour Roll was unveiled. He could not confess that he found it intolerable to sit up there right next to that list of heroes. His Aunts remonstrated gently, but though he answered as gently he was unyielding. So he went back to the family pew and sat beside Auntie Elspie. To be sure the growing Honour Roll faced him there, every name written in letters of flame that leaped out and scorched him, but at least he did not have to sing back there and could bear his shame better.

His Aunts worried themselves almost ill over him. Auntie Janet dosed him with medicine and compelled him to wear heavier underwear. Auntie Flora was so fearful that his spiritual condition was languishing that she spoke to Mr. Sinclair and he promised to see Gavin and talk to him. Auntie Elspie said nothing but she watched him, and finally her keen mother-heart divined his malady.

Auntie Flora had always been Gavin's instructor, and had led him along the way of good books and into a slight knowledge of music, Auntie Janet had been his playmate and confidante, the one with whom he had always shared his secrets and to whom he had confessed his boyish scrapes. But Auntie Elspie had been his mother, and she knew her boy. At first she thought the trouble arose over Christina and was bitterly disappointed when the handsome young man from town had stepped in and ruined all Gavin's hopes. But she knew he was too proud to grieve long, and he had laughed one night when Auntie Flora read him "The Manly Heart," "Shall I, wasting in despair, die because a lady's fair? If she be not fair to me, what care I how fair she be?" and asked that she read it again. It was just right, he declared, and went around whistling that evening. There must be something more than Christina troubling him she concluded. And then she began to suspect the truth. Many little incidents helped to confirm her suspicions, and at last she realised it beyond a doubt. Gavin was craving to be up and away into the death struggle of the trenches!

The truth broke upon her with a thrill of mingled exultation and dismay. For the three gentle ladies who could not bear to contemplate the possibility of Gavin's leaving them, were each secretly cherishing a longing to hear him express a desire to be away to the war, the desire which he was so painfully smothering for their sakes.

Hughie Reid, who was next of kin to the Grant girls, lived on the farm just below Craig-Ellachie on the road to the village. He was a distant cousin, and a kindly man and the Aunties were always giving his wife a hand with her work and practically kept his boys in socks and mittens. His oldest boys were almost grown to manhood, and Hughie had often said to Auntie Elspie,

"If Gavin ever wants to quit farming, Elspie, I'll take Craig-Ellachie on shares. I need a bit more land for my stock." And Auntie Elspie had always laughed at him, saying there was little fear of his ever getting it, for Gavie would never think of anything but the farm. But the night when Gavin's heart was laid bare before her, Auntie Elspie remembered Hughie's oft repeated wish and made a great and noble resolve.

She came to her dismaying conclusion concerning Gavin one evening after he had been to town. He was all unconscious of her loving espionage and had no idea that he was betraying himself. A Highland Battalion was being raised in the County, called the Blue Bonnets. Recruiting agents were going all through the country, and at concert and tea meeting the young people sang a gallant old Scottish song transcribed to suit the locality.

"March, March! Dalton and Anondell! Why my lads, dinna ye march forward in order? March, March! Greenwood and Orchard Glen, All the Blue Bonnets are over the Border!"

Gavin had been to Algonquin and had heard it on every side, had seen boys in khaki marching down the street, and worse still, lads in kilts swinging along, laughing and light-hearted. And he had fled home, in terror lest some one accost him and ask him to join them. The lilting lines had set themselves to the jingle of his bells as he drove homeward, and mile by mile he could hear nothing but

"Trumpets are sounding, war steeds are bounding, Stand to your arms and march in good order. Germans shall many a day tell of the bloody fray When all the Blue Bonnets came over the Border!" "March! March!"...

He was very silent at supper that evening. He made an effort to be especially kind and attentive, but he could not be merry. He could not chat about his visit to town and the doings there which the Aunties were all eager to hear. For he had seen nothing but boys in kilts, swinging laughingly down the street, had heard nothing but the pipes and drums lilting "All the Blue Bonnets are over the Border!"

And all the while Auntie Elspie watched him closely, her heart sinking.

When supper was over and they sat around the sitting room stove, Auntie Flora seated herself at the organ, thinking to cheer him.

"Come away, Gavie dear," she cried. "It's a long time since we had some music and I'm afraid you'll be forgettin' the fiddle altogether. Come away and we'll have a good old sing."

He could not refuse, but said he would play if she would sing, and then he passed over all the old war-like favourites, "A Warrior Bold" and "Scots Wha Hae," and asked instead for songs of peace, "Caller Herrin'," "Ye Banks and Braes," "Silver Threads Among the Gold."

"Sing 'A Warrior Bold' Gavie," cried Auntie Janet, looking up from the sock she was knitting for Burke Wright, "Ye've no sung it for such a long, long time."

He made an excuse about not being able to sing it; it was too high for him.

"Ye haven't got a cold, have you, hinny?" she asked anxiously, and he answered no, that he was quite well.

Then Auntie Flora, all unconscious, opened all the stops of the little organ and burst into Bruce's deathless "Battle Hymn," the welcome to all gallant souls to a gory bed or to victory.

"Play it and sing it both, Gavie!" cried Auntie Janet joining her voice in, "Now's the day, and now's the hour!" But Gavin made a hurried excuse about seeing to the cattle, and hastily putting down his violin went out quickly. Auntie Elspie saw his face as he passed and all her doubts and with them her hopes vanished. She had suspected before; now she knew!

"I thought Gavie did all the chores," said Auntie Flora, looking up as she finished only the first stanza of the song. Auntie Elspie said nothing. She bent over the hospital shirt she was sewing, as though to look for a flaw in her work. She was winking away the tears that her sisters must not see.

She put on an old coat of Gavin's and slipped out after him to the barn.

She found there was little to do. He had recovered his composure, and scolded her lovingly for coming out in the cold. He had a momentary picture of his Aunts' going out to the stable on sharp nights like these to feed the cattle and bed the horses, and he tried to believe he was glad he was not going.

The next day at dinner Auntie Elspie remarked casually that she thought she would take a run over to Hughie's and see if little Elspie was better of her cold, and have a cup of tea with Hughie's wife.

Gavin had an errand to Orchard Glen Mill, and on his way drove her over in the old box sleigh, promising to call for her early on his return. Auntie Janet had a few purchases she wanted him to make at the store in Orchard Glen, and when he had come back from the mill, Gavin tied his horse and ran into the store.

Marmaduke was sitting tilted back on a chair behind the stove making love to Tilly. Life had been but a dreary business for Duke since Trooper went to the war. Old Tory Brown and old Willie Henderson, who had been bitter enemies ever since the disastrous day the Piper took his music to the wrong meeting, were sitting waiting for the mail on opposite sides of the stove. Mr. Holmes was slowly and carefully putting the letters and papers into their proper compartments, at the back of the store, looking up over his spectacles as each newcomer entered.

"Hello, Gavin," called Marmaduke, "Cold day. Reg'lar Tory weather we're gettin' these days."

"It'd be hot enough times if yous folks and Quebec was runnin' the country," remarked old Tory Brown, while Mrs. Holmes, who had come in to give a hand at distributing the mail, gave a warning before her departure into the house, "Now, Pa, don't let the folks talk politics. It's bad enough to have our boys goin' to the war without havin' war at home."

Tilly ran forward and took Gavin's list and began to put up his parcels. She stopped to stare out of the frosty window as a smart cutter dashed up to the store veranda. A portly gentleman in the uniform of a Major stepped out of it. He was not an unfamiliar figure in the locality, having been through the country for some time raising recruits for The Blue Bonnets. Major Harrison was not very successful in his dealings with men, but if he had little influence at home he had plenty at Ottawa and was sure of his position.

"Here comes Lord Kitchener," remarked Marmaduke. "Better take a good look at him, Tilly. He'll maybe be goin' to the Front in a year or so, and you won't see him for a while."

Mr. Holmes looked over his glasses, a flash of appreciation in his eyes. Since Tommy had gone to the Front his father was on the lookout for any one who stayed behind under the shelter of a khaki uniform and Major Harrison was said to belong to that rapidly growing unit.

"Look out, Duke," he warned. "He's a great persuader, he'll have you in The Blue Bonnets before you know what's happened you."

A joyous resolution suddenly shone in Marmaduke's eyes. He quickly concealed his peg leg behind a barrel, and leaning back, the picture of idleness, he drummed on the floor with his one good foot and whistled, "It's a Long Way to Tipperary."

The Major swung open the door and marched in, followed by his bat man. He had been but an indifferent business man on a small salary before he fell upon the fat days of war, but now he had a servant and a position of authority.

"Good-day, Mr. Holmes," he cried heartily. "Good-day, Miss Tilly, you're looking as lovely as ever, I see."

Tilly gasped and giggled and took refuge in questioning Gavin as to whether it was number forty or fifty white spool his Aunt wanted.

"Good-day, sir," cried Marmaduke heartily, suspending his musical performance for a moment. "Glad to see you. Heard you were gone to the Front. Glad to see it's a false alarm again."

"But my heart's right there," he added tunefully, keeping time on the top of a barrel with his fingers.

"How's things going in the Army, Major Harrison?" put in Mr. Holmes, seeing the Major looking slightly annoyed.

"The Army's growing," answered the officer, pulling off his gloves and spreading his cold hands over the stove.

"We just need a few more young fellows like you've got hanging round this corner, and we'll have the Germans driven back to Berlin in another month or so."

He looked around him sharply. "This is a war where no young chap that's got red blood in his veins can stay at home." He glanced meaningly from Gavin to Marmaduke.

Gavin was one of Marmaduke's warmest friends and he did not enjoy the thought of the Major worrying him. He attempted to draw the fire to himself.

"Some folks round here claims to have blue blood, though," he remarked with a guilelessness that would have misled a German Spy. He accomplished his object; the Major looked down at him.

"If their claims are true they won't be here long, my friend," he said emphatically, but he turned to Gavin again.

"Come along, young man, and let me put you down for The Blue Bonnets. It's the finest Battalion that's going overseas, and we've room for only a few more. I believe you're Scotch, aren't you? What's your name?"

"Grant, Gavin Grant."

"Grant! Why, you're the very fellow I'm looking for! Come along and get into a kilt, man. What's a fellow by the name of Grant doing at home when there's a war on? Wouldn't you like to go over and smash the Germans, now?"

Gavin looked at him dumbly. It was as if a lost soul were being asked if it would like to enter Paradise.

"Well, what's keeping you?" asked the Major impatiently.

"I—I can't leave the farm and my Aunts," he stammered.

"Pshaw, you're not tied to your Auntie's apron string, are you? Every fellow I ask to enlist in this part of the country has got either an aunt or a grandmother or a second cousin——"

"I'm worse off than that," interrupted Marmaduke, seeing that Gavin was in misery, "I've got a—" His voice dropped to a confidential whisper,—"A girl!"

The Major looked at him sharply, but Marmaduke was a perfect picture of rural simplicity.

"You're not married are you?" he asked shortly, glancing at Tilly, who had forgotten all about Gavin's purchases and was staring at the smart officer in open-mouthed admiration.

"Well, not,—that is," Duke hesitated in evident painful embarrassment, "well, we're not married yet, but we expect very soon,—" He turned a languishing look upon Tilly, and indicated her to the Major with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder. "You wouldn't have a fellow go and leave his girl now, would you?"

Tilly went off into a spasm of hysterical giggles and denials, and the shoulders of the two old men beside the stove began to heave with suppressed laughter.

"Oh, well, you're not married yet," cried the Major briskly. "You come along and enlist in our Highland Battalion. What's your name?"

"Timothy O'Toole," said Marmaduke shamelessly, "and I'll go in no Highland gang, I'd nivir do at all at all among them outlandish spalpeens with their bare legs; Tilly wouldn't like it," he added modestly.

"Pshaw! Everybody knows that half the Highland regiments in the British Army are Irish. Enlist first and you can get married after. Every girl admires the khaki, eh, Miss Holmes?"

Tilly was hanging on to the counter by this time, too far gone to be able to enlighten the Major as to the truth, while her father was standing with a bunch of letters in his hand, a pleased smile on his face. Nobody minded Duke's nonsense and he dearly loved to see these city fellows taken down a button hole or two.

"No sir," cried Duke firmly, "no Highland Battalion for me. I'm goin' over wearin' o' the Grane or nothing at all. Besides my Bittalion ain't goin' yet for a while. I was askin' some of them high-up officers in Algonquin and they were tellin' me not to be in any hurry. You see," he added confidingly, "it's this way. You can get transferred. If you're in a Bittalion that's goin' over you get transferred to another, and when it goes you get transferred again. I can let you in on the thing if you'd like to know how they do it," he added with ingratiating generosity.

The Major's face flamed hot. It was no secret that he had been going through the transferring process. Red anger leaped into his eyes.

"Aw, what's the matter with you?" he asked, dropping his suave manner and becoming abusive. "Are you one of those yellow-livered chaps that's got chronic cold feet?"

"Well," said Marmaduke ingenuously, "it ain't quite so bad as that. I've got one cold foot though, but I s'pose that wouldn't keep me out. I guess a wooden leg wouldn't matter any more than a wooden head would it?" And straight in the air he held his peg leg up to view.

The long pent up amusement of the audience burst forth. The two old enemies across the stove broke into a simultaneous upheaval, a disturbance that filled up the breach between them with the loose earth of laughter. Mr. Holmes dropped his letters and chuckled loudly, and as for Tilly, she was past giggling, she fairly shouted.

The Major turned and walked out, his face white with anger.

"He's gone to get transferred to the Five-Hundredth," declared Timothy O'Toole joyfully. "I hear that Canada's goin' to send over Five Hundred Battalions and he'll be all ready for the last one."

"Ah, Duke, Duke, you're a rascal," said Mr. Holmes reprovingly.

"It's the only fun I can get out o' this business of stayin' at home," declared Duke, his face growing grave, "and I guess I need all that's comin' to me with Trooper and the other fellows away fightin' for me!"

Gavin could not join the laughter. He was too deeply hurt. He gathered up his parcels and hurried away; and once more the bells set themselves to the tune of "Blue Bonnets" and played "March, March, Why, ma lads, dinna' ye March Forward in Order?" as he drove home.

Auntie Elspie was talking to Hughie Reid in deep conference when Gavin arrived at the farm, and on the way home she was so silent, that he was worried over her.

"You're not cold, are you, Auntie Elspie?" he asked for the third time, as he tucked the old sheep skin robe around her.

"No, no, lad, I'm not cold," she said, but she shivered as she said it. It was not the blustering February wind that chilled, but the cold hand that seemed closing round her heart, the knowledge that now it was possible for Gavin to go and that soon she must tell him. She put off the evil day. She could not tell him to-night, she felt, but perhaps on the morrow.

As they were sitting down to their early supper and the February sunset was turning all the white fields to a glory of rose and gold, a big sleigh-load of merry young folk came jingling down the glittering road and swept past the house with a storm of bell-music. There was a good Winter road here across their sheltered valley and through the swamp to Dalton's Corners and the Orchard Glen Choir was taking its musical way thither. They were singing "It's a Long Way to Tipperary," and Auntie Janet, young as any of them, ran to the door and waved to them, while Bruce and Wallace and Prince and Bonnie bounded out barking madly. But Gavin did not go near the door nor look after them. He suspected Christina would be there, and most likely Wallace Sutherland and their gay company was not for him.

"You ought to be going with them, Gavie, lad," cried Auntie Janet, coming in with a rush of fresh air. "Listen, they're singin': 'All the Blue Bonnets are over the Border!' now! Eh, isn't it bonnie?"

Auntie Elspie's loving eyes were watching Gavin, and her sinking heart told her she must soon do something to put an end to his misery.

He went to his bed early that night, before they could ask him to sing, but he could not sleep. He heard Auntie Janet and Auntie Flora come up the creaking old stairs together, talking in whispers lest they disturb him. They shared a room at the end of the hall and Auntie Elspie's room was opposite his. It was quite late when finally he heard her come up to bed. But yet he could not sleep. His window-blind was rolled to the top and the moonlight flooded his room. Outside the diamond-spangled earth lay still and frost bound. Craig-Ellachie stood out white, silver-crowned, against the blue of the forest. Gavin raised himself on his elbow and looked out at the silent beauty of the night. The great white expanse seemed calling to him to come away and do as his fellow heroes were doing. He ought to be lying in a freezing trench, grasping a rifle instead of skulking in a feather bed wrapped in warm blankets. But indeed the bed had become a very rack to poor Gavin, the blankets smothered him. He tossed from side to side, vainly seeking relief.

Suddenly he sat up in bed, holding his breath to listen. The great glittering space of the outdoor world had taken voice and was crying out against him for not playing the man. From far across the silver sheen of the fields, clear and piercing, came the words,

"By oppression's woes and pains, By our sons in servile chains, We will drain our dearest veins But they shall be free! Lay the proud usurper low; Tyrants fall in every foe; Liberty's in every blow; Let us do—or die!"

Gavin sprang from his bed and flung on his clothes madly. He had a wild notion that he must run out to the road and shout aloud to the world that he was coming, coming to the battle-front! When he was dressed he ran to the window and threw it up and his madness departed from him. It was only the gay sleigh-load returning from the Dalton tea-meeting. They swept past the house, setting his dogs barking madly, and the song died away as they disappeared down the glittering silver road. Gavin leaned far out of the window; his burning face stung by the cold air.

"Stand fast, Craig-Ellachie!" he whispered through his clenched teeth. The hot tears came smarting to his eyes, and he suddenly drew back, ashamed of his weakness. He closed the window, remembering even in his misery to do it quietly so as not to disturb the dear ones who were sleeping. He still knelt on at the window watching the shining track where the song of deathless liberty was fading away.

But there was a pair of loving ears near, that had heard all Gavin's movements. Auntie Elspie slept in the room opposite his, and ever since the night he had developed the whooping cough she had kept her door ajar and that was the reason she knew that her boy had not been sleeping well for many a night. And to-night she lay awake listening to the incessant creak of his old roped bed, and sharing his misery. She knew she could not bear it much longer, she must rise and tell him he was free. And then she heard him bounding from his bed, and the notes of the song as it swept gloriously past and died away.

She rose from her bed and lit the lamp. She dressed herself fully, for she knew there was no more sleep for her that night. She was trembling from head to foot, and praying for strength to carry out her heavy task. She had something of the feeling of the patriarch when the imperative Voice called, "Take now thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and offer him for a burnt offering." She dropped on her knees before her bed. She knelt a long time, and then, strengthened, obedient to the Voice that summons all great souls, she rose and walked into Gavin's room.

Gavin was still kneeling by the window when she entered. His hair, touched by the moonlight, was soft and wavy, he looked very young and grief-stricken. For a moment the vision of him lying wounded and helpless in a trench, uncared for, shook her brave resolve. A great lump rose in her throat. She braced herself and said softly, "Gavin, Laddie!"

Gavin leaped to his feet. "Auntie Elspie!" he cried in amazement, his eyes dazzled by the light, "why, you are dressed! You're not sick?" he cried anxiously, taking the lamp from her hand.

"No, no," she said; "I'm jist all right. Put the lamp down, hinny, I want to talk with you." She sat down on the edge of his bed and he placed the lamp on his high old dresser and came and sat beside her wonderingly.

"I couldn't help hearing you tossing about. You're not sleepin', Gavie, you're worryin', lad."

"No, no, Auntie Elspie," he cried hastily, "I'm all right, I'm not sick. You go back to bed, do. You'll catch cold."

But the woman only gazed at him mournfully. "Eh, eh, hinny, I ken all about it," she whispered, lapsing into broader Scotch in her agitation. "Ye can't hide things from your Auntie Elspie. Ye're wearyin' to be away to the war, I ken as well as if ye telled me."

There was a wail in her voice that wrung Gavin's heart. "Oh, Auntie Elspie," he cried, "oh, no, no! I'll never leave you. I'll not be going. I'm not wearying. I know what my duty is; and it's here at home with you." He was repeating his assurance incoherently, when she stopped him.

"Gavie, there's no need to tell your Auntie Elspie that you would do all that is in your power for us. I ken you've kept silence all these months for fear of giving us pain. But I've been watching you, and I guessed what ailed you. And it is what we would have, Gavie. We would not have you want to stay at home while others go to die for us to save our homes and lives. And indeed it's proud I am this night, even if my heart is sore—sore——"

She broke down a moment, and again Gavin firmly declared his decision. He could not deny he wanted to go to the Front he confessed, but maybe it was just a foolish love of adventure and it did not interfere with the fact that he was needed at home.

"So I'll jist stay here, Auntie Elspie," he repeated, "I am needed here, and I would be ashamed to turn my back on you. I couldn't be happy knowing you needed me, and I wasn't here to take care of you all."

And so they argued the matter far into the night, Auntie Elspie insisting that he should go, and the boy declaring that he would not. She was reinforced shortly by her sisters. Auntie Flora had heard the low rumble of voices and had seen the light in Gavin's room. She wakened Janet, and fearing that Gavin's strange conduct had culminated in an attack of some real illness, the two anxious old ladies hurriedly flung on some clothes and went down the hall to Gavin's room. And there they found a strange scene, Elspie urging Gavin to enlist, and Gavin holding back and declaring that nothing would induce him to go to the war!

It was the look in his two younger Aunts' eyes, when the case was explained to them, that first shook Gavin's resolution. Auntie Flora stood up tall and stately, and her face flushed proudly as she turned to Janet. "What did I tell ye!" she cried triumphantly, "I knew he wanted to go!" And Auntie Janet burst into tears, and hiding her face in the old shawl she had thrown round her shoulders she sobbed, "Aye, and I said it, too. I knew ye couldn't be the kind that would want to stay at home, Gavie." And Gavin comforted them in a state of speechless wonder. It appeared that after all they had been waiting for him to express a desire to go and that their pride was quite equal to their grief!



CHAPTER XIII

"THE PLIGHTED RING"

Jimmie came home from school on Friday evening bounding in full of news.

"Say, who do you s'pose's gone and enlisted from Orchard Glen now?" he demanded indignantly of Christina, who was preparing supper in the bright, warm kitchen.

"Mrs. Johnnie Dunn," suggested his sister. But Jimmie was in no mood for a joke. Each new enlistment from the community was to him a personal injury.

"More unlikely than that!" he growled, throwing his heavy bag of books in the corner, and his wet mittens behind the stove, "it's Gavin Grant, that's who it is."

Christina stopped in the operation of taking a pan of hot biscuits from the oven. "Gavin Grant! Why! Are you sure, Jimmie?"

"Course I'm sure. I saw him in town to-day. He's joined the Blue Bonnets, and they're going to Camp Borden, and I tell you it just makes a fellow sick, that's what it does!"

Jimmie did not explain just why Gavin's joining the army should have such an effect upon his health and Christina paid no heed to his complaint. She was completely taken by surprise. If there was a young man in Orchard Glen who had a good excuse for staying at home surely that young man was Gavin. And yet he was going, when it would be so easy to remain. She was not long left to wonder over him. Her mother brought home the whole story of Gavin's struggle from his proud and grief-stricken Aunts the very next day. Elspie Grant had come over to offer sympathy when her sons left her for the battle-field and Mary Lindsay could not rest until she had done the same for her old friend. So as next day was Saturday, Jimmie took her over to Craig-Ellachie in the cutter.

She came home filled with the story of the long time Gavin had been yearning to go, but had remained silent for his Aunts' sake, how he was making every preparation for their comfort in his absence, how brave he was, and how proud they were of him, even though it was breaking their three old hearts to see him go.

Christina listened to the recital in ever-deepening humiliation. She remembered how she had been disgusted with Gavin when he fled from before Piper Lauchie's wrath, and how full of admiration she had been for Wallace Sutherland's courage. She had played the part of a silly girl who could not see the character under the thin covering of appearances. Her humiliation was not made lighter by the remembrance that Wallace had given no smallest hint of a desire to enlist.

There was nothing else talked of at the Red Cross rooms the next day. Mrs. Sutherland was quite severe in her condemnation of Gavin for going and leaving a farm and three helpless women who had brought him up and given him his chance in the world.

"It is his plain duty to stay at home," she said distinctly. "It is nothing but a desire for adventure that is taking many of our young men away, when they are needed here to work the land. No young man with a farm should be allowed to enlist."

This was too much for Mrs. Johnnie Dunn, of course, and she proceeded to rid herself of the burden of it.

"Well, my stars!" she declared loudly, her needle flying in and out in time to her words, "I would rather get down on my marrow bones and scrub for my living if I was the Grant Girls than keep a young man at home. Gavin Grant's duty ain't at home any more than Trooper's is. The Grant Girls'll never want. Hughie Reid is just a brother to them, and he's to work the farm. And the Grant Girls are as well fixed as any folks in this Hall. And let me ask yous folks what good our farms'll be to us when the Germans gets here. Just tell me that, now?"

As usual, the Prime Minister had silenced the Monarch, and the latter took refuge in a royal and dignified silence that ignored the noisy usurper.

"Christina, my dear," Mrs. Sutherland said, "will you be so good as to fetch me another skein of this sweater-coat yarn from the storeroom?" Christina went obediently, inwardly hot and raging. She wanted to rush in by The Woman's side and stand up for Gavin and tell how chivalrous and brave he really was. But how ridiculous she would look speaking up to Wallace's mother in that fashion. And yet, it seemed as if some one had cast a reflection upon Sandy so much did it annoy her.

She was unpacking the desired article from a bale, hidden by a pile of supplies which The Woman had brought out the evening before, when voices from the other side of the barrier reached her.

"She won't stay President long, I bet." It was Tilly's voice and Tilly's giggle accompanied it. "She's started now to talk like the war was wrong and young men shouldn't go."

"Everybody knows it's all because Wallace won't go," answered Bell Brown. "Pa says Dr. McGarry won't speak at any more recruitin' meetings nor anything because he's so ashamed."

"I don't see how Christine Lindsay..." But Christina had tiptoed out of her ambush and escaped into the main room with the yarn, her cheeks burning, her eyes unnaturally bright.

Gavin went to camp at Niagara but was allowed to come back to work his farm for a month in the Summer. The Grant Girls were as happy to have him again as if he had returned from the war, and with youth's happy disregard of the future, they set themselves to have the gayest Summer that had ever shone down upon Craig-Ellachie, and folks who went there said there never was such fun as they had round the supper table with Gavin giving his Aunts' military orders and they obeying them with military precision.

Christina would have given much to be one of those guests. She wanted to show Gavin before he went that she admired his spirit, and was glad he wanted to go. But she felt diffident about going to Craig-Ellachie, and she shrewdly guessed that Gavin would never ask her.

She saw him only at church, and how proudly the Aunties walked down the aisle with Gavin in his Highland Uniform to show them to their seat and sit at the end of the pew. And indeed they could scarcely keep their eyes off him during the service, and a fine sight he was to be sure, in his trim khaki coat and his gay kilt. And the worry had all gone from his face and he was his old smiling kindly self. He was too busy to come to any of the village festivities and Christina had no opportunity to speak to him except as he came down the church aisle. And though the other girls crowded around him she stood aloof, so strangely shy she had become of Gavin.

Joanna and the other girls decided the young people must give Gavin a send-off such as had been given to all the boys and so they planned for a gathering on an evening when he came home for the last leave, and Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists once more joined amicably in a common cause. But Gavin was not to have the privilege of receiving a public farewell, a circumstance that suited him well, for he had dreaded anything that would drag him into public notice.

For one dark Autumn day, when the last blossom of the Grant Girls' garden had drooped before the frost, the Blue Bonnets were suddenly called to go overseas. Gavin had come home just the night before for a week-end leave, and a telegram summoned him to rejoin his Battalion at once. There was a great stir at Craig-Ellachie. Hughie Reid hurried over as soon as the news reached him, and he sent one of his boys to fetch Mrs. Johnnie Dunn to help the Aunties through their trial, and Hughie himself got out his Ford car to take Gavin to Algonquin to catch the midnight train for Toronto.

The weather seemed to be in accord with the hearts of the three bereaved old women, a cold rain came sweeping across the hills just as night fell and Gavin drove away from his old home and the loving arms that would have held him, into the storm and darkness, and the light of Craig-Ellachie went out with him.

Christina had not heard of Gavin's sudden call, and while he was driving away in the wind and rain, she was sitting by the fire winding a skein of yarn which Wallace Sutherland was holding.

The sitting room was warm and bright, and had many pretty feminine touches, and there were plenty of easy chairs and cushions that Mary had contributed from time to time. The soft-shaded lamp-light fell on Christina's bright hair as she bent over her yarn. Her mother had gone to bed early, they were alone and Wallace was watching Christina from his luxurious seat on the big deep sofa, in perfect content. The wind howled around the corners of the old house, and the rain lashed the window panes, but the comfort of the bright sitting-room and Christina's presence were only made more delightful by the contrast.

Wallace sank down deeper into the sofa. He was in his happiest mood. He had worked quite steadily all Summer and had been so successful in the process of "Showing Uncle William" that that unreasonable old person had written quite a reasonable letter to his brother, saying that, maybe there was something in the young cub after all, and that if he really succeeded in demonstrating that he was good for something, even if it was only feeding the pigs, he, Uncle William, might be inclined to pay him a visit, etc., etc. It was that etc. that so raised Wallace's spirits. He knew Uncle William, oh, right down to the ground, he declared, and had no hesitation in assuring Christina that if everything went all right with his stock this Winter, Uncle William was his to do as he pleased with. He was very happy, and expected Christina to rejoice with him. She was naturally gay and ready to follow a merry lead, and Wallace enjoyed her companionship more than any one he had known for that very reason. But he could not deny that for some time she had not been such a good comrade. She had to make an effort to-night to help him be gay over Uncle William's complete undoing. She tried to be interested as he told all his good fortune, but was just a little relieved when John came in for a few minutes and began talking politics.