"Why, it"s half-past five and no tea," she exclaimed, her round face shining, and her gentle eyes wide open. "Where"s Jim? Not here? Why, I am astonished. Betty, what are you thinking of?--and after five years, too."
"Betty hasn"t got him in proper harness yet," laughed the parson, but there was a look in his eyes which was not in harmony with his laugh.
"Harness? Don"t be absurd, Tom." Then she turned to Betty. "Did you tell him five?"
Tom Chepstow picked up his hat, and before the girl could answer he was at the door.
"I"m going to fetch him," he said, and was gone before Betty"s protest reached him.
"I do wish uncle wouldn"t interfere," the girl said, as her aunt laughed at her husband"s precipitate exit.
"Interfere, my dear!" she exclaimed. "You can"t stop him. He"s got a perverted notion that we women are incapable of taking care of ourselves. He goes through life determined to fight our battles.
Determined to help us out when we don"t need it. He"s helped me "out"
all our married life. He spends his life doing it, and I often wish he"d--he"d leave me "in" sometimes. I"ve never seen a man who could upset a woman"s plans more completely than your uncle, and all with the best intention. One of these days I"ll start to help him out, and then we"ll see how he likes it," she laughed good-humoredly. "You know, if he finds Jim he"s sure to upset the boy, and he"ll come back thinking he"s done his duty by you. Poor Tom, and he does mean so well."
"I know he does, auntie, and that"s why we all love him so. Everybody loves him for it, He never thinks of himself. It"s always others, and----"
"Yes, my dear, you"re right. But all the same I think he"s right just now. Why isn"t Jim here? Why didn"t he come straight away? Why has he been in Malkern five hours before he comes to see you? Betty, my child, I"ve not said a word all these years. I"ve left you to your own affairs because I know your good sense; but, in view of the stories that have reached us about Jim, I feel that the time has come for me to speak.
Are you going to verify those stories?"
Mrs. Chepstow established her comfortable form in a basket chair, which audibly protested at the weight it was called upon to bear. She folded her hands in her lap, and, a.s.suming her most judicial air, waited for the girl"s answer. Betty was thinking of her meeting with Jim on the bridge.
"I shall hear what he has to say," she said decidedly, after a long pause.
Her aunt stared.
"You"re going to let him tell you what he likes?" she cried in astonishment.
"He can tell me what he chooses, or--he need tell me nothing."
Her aunt flushed indignantly.
"You will never be so foolish," she said, exasperated.
"Auntie, if Uncle Tom had been away five years, would you ask him for proof of his life all that time?" Betty demanded with some warmth.
The other stirred uneasily.
"That depends," she said evasively.
"No, no, auntie, it doesn"t. You would never question uncle. You are a woman, and just as foolish and stupid about that sort of thing as the rest of us. We must take our men on trust. They are men, and their lives are different from ours. We cannot judge them, or, at any rate, we would rather not. Why does a woman cling to a scoundrelly husband who ill-treats her and makes her life one long round of worry, and even misery? Is it because she simply has to? No. It is because he is her man. He is hers, and she would rather have his unkindness than another man"s caresses. Foolish we may be, and I am not sure but that we would rather be foolish--where our men are concerned. Jim has come back. His past five years are his. I am going to take up my little story where it was broken five years ago. The stories I have heard are nothing to me.
So, if you don"t mind, dear, we will close the subject."
"And--and you love him?" questioned the elder woman.
But the girl had turned to the window. She pointed out down the road in the direction of the village.
"Here is uncle returning," she said, ignoring the question. "He"s hurrying. Why--he"s actually running!"
"Running?"
Mrs. Chepstow bustled to the girl"s side, and both stood watching the vigorous form of the parson racing up the trail. Just as he came to the veranda they turned from the window and their eyes met. Betty"s were full of pained apprehension, while her aunt"s were alight with perplexed curiosity. Betty felt that she knew something of the meaning of her uncle"s undignified haste. She did not actually interpret it, she knew it meant disaster, but the nature of that disaster never entered into her thought. Something was wrong, she knew instinctively; and, with the patience of strength, she made no attempt to even guess at it, but simply waited. Her aunt rushed at the parson as he entered the room and flung aside his soft felt hat. Betty gazed mutely at the flaming anger she saw in his blue eyes, as his wife questioned him.
"What is it?" she demanded. "What has happened?"
Parson Tom drew a chair up to the table and flung himself into it.
"We"ll have tea," he said curtly.
His wife obediently took her seat.
"And Jim?" she questioned.
The angry blue eyes still flashed.
"We won"t wait for him."
Then Betty came to the man"s side and laid one small brown hand firmly on his shoulder.
"You--you saw him?" she demanded.
Her uncle shook her hand off almost roughly.
"Yes--I saw him," he said.
"And why isn"t he here?" the girl persisted without a tremor, without even noticing his rebuff.
"Because he"s lying on his bed at the hotel--drunk. Blind drunk,--confound him."
CHAPTER VII
THE WORK AT THE MILLS
It was sundown. The evening shadows, long drawn out, were rapidly merging into the purple shades of twilight. The hush of night was stealing upon the valley.
There was one voice alone, one discordant note, to jar upon the peace of Nature"s repose. It was the voice of Dave"s mills, a voice that was never silent. The village, with all its bustling life, its noisy boarding-houses, its well-filled drinking booths, its roystering lumber-jacks released from their day"s toil, was powerless to disturb that repose. But the harsh voice of the driving machinery rose dominant above all other sounds. Repose was impossible, even for Nature, where the restless spirit of Dave"s enterprise prevailed.
The vast wooden structures of the mills, acres of them, stood like some devouring growth at the very core of Nature"s fair body. It almost seemed like a living organism feeding upon all the best she had to yield. Day and night the saws, like the gleaming fangs of a voracious life, tore, devoured, digested, and the song of its labors droned without ceasing.
Controlling, directing, ordering to the last detail, Dave sat in his unpretentious office. Love of the lumberman"s craft ran hot in his veins. He had been born and bred to it. He had pa.s.sed through its every phase. He was a sawyer whose name was historical in the forests of Oregon. As a cant-hook man he had few equals. As foreman he could extract more work from these simple woodsman giants than could those he employed in a similar capacity.
In work he was inevitable. His men knew that when he demanded they must yield. In this direction he displayed no sympathy, no gentleness. He knew the disposition of the lumber-jack. These woodsmen rate their employer by his driving power. They understand and expect to be ruled by a stern discipline, and if this treatment is not forthcoming, their employer may just as well abandon his enterprise for all the work they will yield him.
But though this was Dave in his business, it was the result of his tremendous force of character rather than the nature of the man. If he drove, it was honestly, legitimately. He paid for the best a man could give him, and he saw that he got it. Sickness was sure of ready sympathy, not outspoken, but practical. He was much like the prairie man with his horse. His beast is cared for far better than its master cares for himself, but it must work, and work enthusiastically to the last ounce of its power. Fail, and the horse must go. So it was with Dave. The man who failed him would receive his "time" instantly. There was no question, no excuse. And every lumber-jack knew this and gladly entered his service.