Black Rock, Ralph Connor [top novels of all time .txt] 📗

‘Why, certainly,’ I cried, thankfully enough; ‘what an ass I am!’

‘Quite true,’ said Graeme solemnly.

‘Where is he?’ I asked.

‘At this present moment?’ he asked, in a shocked voice. ‘Why, Connor, you surprise me.’

‘Oh, I see!’

‘Yes,’ he went on gravely; ‘you may trust my mother to be discreetly attending to her domestic duties; she is a great woman, my mother.’

I had no doubt of it, for at that moment she came out to us with little Marjorie in her arms.

‘You have shown Mrs. Mavor to her room, mother, I hope,’ said Graeme; but she only smiled and said—

‘Run away with your horses, you silly boy,’ at which he solemnly shook his head. ‘Ah, mother, you are deep—who would have thought it of you?’

That evening the manse overflowed with joy, and the days that followed were like dreams set to sweet music.

But for sheer wild delight, nothing in my memory can quite come up to the demonstration organised by Graeme, with assistance from Nixon, Shaw, Sandy, Abe, Geordie, and Baptiste, in honour of the arrival in camp of Mr. and Mrs. Craig. And, in my opinion, it added something to the occasion, that after all the cheers for Mr. and Mrs. Craig had died away, and after all the hats had come down, Baptiste, who had never taken his eyes from that radiant face, should suddenly have swept the crowd into a perfect storm of cheers by excitedly seizing his tuque, and calling out in his shrill voice—

‘By gar! Tree cheer for Mrs. Mavor.’

And for many a day the men of Black Rock would easily fall into the old and well-loved name; but up and down the line of construction, in all the camps beyond the Great Divide, the new name became as dear as the old had ever been in Black Rock.

Those old wild days are long since gone into the dim distance of the past. They will not come again, for we have fallen into quiet times; but often in my quietest hours I feel my heart pause in its beat to hear again that strong, clear voice, like the sound of a trumpet, bidding us to be men; and I think of them all—Graeme, their chief, Sandy, Baptiste, Geordie, Abe, the Campbells, Nixon, Shaw, all stronger, better for their knowing of him, and then I think of Billy asleep under the pines, and of old man Nelson with the long grass waving over him in the quiet churchyard, and all my nonsense leaves me, and I bless the Lord for all His benefits, but chiefly for the day I met the missionary of Black Rock in the lumber-camp among the Selkirks.