KILMENY OF THE ORCHARD
By L. M. MONTGOMERY
Author of "Anne's House of Dreams," "Rainbow Valley," "Rilla of
Ingleside," etc.
TO MY COUSIN
Beatrice A. McIntyre
THIS BOOK
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
"Kilmeny looked up with a lovely grace,
But nae smile was seen on Kilmeny's face;
As still was her look, and as still was her ee,
As the stillness that lay on the emerant lea,
Or the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Such beauty bard may never declare,
For there was no pride nor passion there;
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Her seymar was the lily flower,
And her cheek the moss-rose in the shower;
And her voice like the distant melodye
That floats along the twilight sea."
-- _The Queen's Wake_
JAMES HOGG
KILMENY OF THE ORCHARD
CHAPTER I. THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH
The sunshine of a day in early spring, honey pale and honey
sweet, was showering over the red brick buildings of Queenslea
College and the grounds about them, throwing through the bare,
budding maples and elms, delicate, evasive etchings of gold and
brown on the paths, and coaxing into life the daffodils that were
peering greenly and perkily up under the windows of the co-eds'
dressing-room.
A young April wind, as fresh and sweet as if it had been blowing
over the fields of memory instead of through dingy streets, was
purring in the tree-tops and whipping the loose tendrils of the
ivy network which covered the front of the main building. It was
a wind that sang of many things, but what it sang to each
listener was only what was in that listener's heart. To the
college students who had just been capped and diplomad by "Old
Charlie," the grave president of Queenslea, in the presence of an
admiring throng of parents and sisters, sweethearts and friends,
it sang, perchance, of glad hope and shining success and high
achievement. It sang of the dreams of youth that may never be
quite fulfilled, but are well worth the dreaming for all that.
God help the man who has never known such dreams--who, as he
leaves his alma mater, is not already rich in aerial castles, the
proprietor of many a spacious estate in Spain. He has missed his
birthright.
The crowd streamed out of the entrance hall and scattered over
the campus, fraying off into the many streets beyond. Eric
Marshall and David Baker walked away together. The former had
graduated in Arts that day at the head of his class; the latter
had come to see the graduation, nearly bursting with pride in
Eric's success.
Between these two was an old and tried and enduring friendship,
although David was ten years older than Eric, as the mere tale of
years goes, and a hundred years older in knowledge of the
struggles and difficulties of life which age a man far more
quickly and effectually than the passing of time.
Physically the two men bore no resemblance to one another,
although they were second cousins. Eric Marshall, tall,
broad-shouldered, sinewy, walking with a free, easy stride, which
was somehow suggestive of reserve strength and power, was one of
those men regarding whom less-favoured mortals are tempted
seriously to wonder why all the gifts of fortune should be
showered on one individual. He was not only clever and good to
look upon, but he possessed that indefinable charm of personality
which is quite independent of physical beauty or mental ability.
He had steady, grayish-blue eyes, dark chestnut hair with a glint
of gold in its waves when the sunlight struck it, and a chin that
gave the world assurance of a chin. He was a rich man's son,
with a clean young manhood behind him and splendid prospects
before him. He was considered a practical sort of fellow,
utterly guiltless of romantic dreams and visions of any sort.
"I am afraid Eric Marshall will never do one quixotic thing,"
said a Queenslea professor, who had a habit of uttering rather
mysterious epigrams, "but if he ever does it will supply the one
thing lacking in him."
David Baker was a short, stocky fellow with an ugly, irregular,
charming face; his eyes were brown and keen and secretive; his
mouth had a comical twist which became sarcastic, or teasing, or
winning, as he willed. His voice was generally as soft and
musical as a woman's; but some few who had seen David Baker
righteously angry and heard the tones which then issued from his
lips were in no hurry to have the experience repeated.
He was a doctor--a specialist in troubles of the throat and
voice--and he was beginning to have a national reputation. He
was on the staff of the Queenslea Medical College and it was
whispered that before long he would be called to fill an
important vacancy at McGill.
He had won his way to success through difficulties and drawbacks
which would have daunted most men. In the year Eric was born
David Baker was an errand boy in the big department store of
Marshall & Company. Thirteen years later he graduated with high
honors from Queenslea Medical College. Mr. Marshall had given
him all the help which David's sturdy pride could be induced to
accept, and now he insisted on sending the young man abroad for a
post-graduate course in London and Germany. David Baker had
eventually repaid every cent Mr. Marshall had expended on him;
but he never ceased to cherish a passionate gratitude to the kind
and generous man; and he loved that man's son with a love
surpassing that of brothers.
He had followed Eric's college course with keen, watchful
interest. It was his wish that Eric should take up the study of
law or medicine now that he was through Arts; and he was greatly
disappointed that Eric should have finally made up his mind to go
into business with his father.
"It's a clean waste of your talents," he grumbled, as they walked
home from the college. "You'd win fame and distinction in law--
that glib tongue of yours was meant for a lawyer and it is sheer
flying in the face of Providence to devote it to commercial
uses--a flat crossing of the purposes of destiny. Where is your
ambition, man?"
"In the right place," answered Eric, with his ready laugh. "It
is not your kind, perhaps, but there is room and need for all
kinds in this lusty young country of ours. Yes, I am going into
the business. In the first place, it has been father's cherished
desire ever since I was born, and it would hurt him pretty badly
if I backed out now. He wished me to take an Arts course because
he believed that every man should have as liberal an education as
he can afford to get, but now that I have had it he wants me in
the firm."
"He wouldn't oppose you if he thought you really wanted to go in
for something else."
"Not he. But I don't really want to--that's the point, David,
man. You hate a business life so much yourself that you can't
get it into your blessed noddle that another man might like it.
There are many lawyers in the world--too many, perhaps--but there
are never too many good honest men of business, ready to do clean
big things for the betterment of humanity and the upbuilding of
their country, to plan great enterprises and carry them through
with brain and courage, to manage and control, to aim high and
strike one's aim. There, I'm waxing eloquent, so I'd better
stop. But ambition, man! Why, I'm full of it--it's bubbling in
every pore of me. I mean to make the department store of
Marshall & Company famous from ocean to ocean. Father started in
life as a poor boy from a Nova Scotian farm. He has built up a
business that has a provincial reputation. I mean to carry it
on. In five years it shall have a maritime reputation, in ten, a
Canadian. I want to make the firm of Marshall & Company stand
for something big in the commercial interests of Canada. Isn't
that as honourable an ambition as trying to make black seem white
in a court of law, or discovering some new disease with a
harrowing name to torment poor creatures who might otherwise die
peacefully in blissful ignorance of what ailed them?"
"When you begin to make poor jokes it is time to stop arguing
with you," said David, with a shrug of his fat shoulders. "Go
your own gait and dree your own weird. I'd as soon expect
success in trying to storm the citadel single-handed as in trying
to turn you from any course about which you had once made up your
mind. Whew, this street takes it out of a fellow! What could
have possessed our ancestors to run a town up the side of a hill?
I'm not so slim and active as I was on MY graduation day ten
years ago. By the way, what a lot of co-eds were in your
class--twenty, if I counted right. When I graduated there were
only two ladies in our class and they were the pioneers of their
sex at Queenslea. They were well past their first youth, very
grim and angular and serious; and they could never have been on
speaking terms with a mirror in their best days. But mark you,
they were excellent females--oh, very excellent. Times have
changed with a vengeance, judging from the line-up of co-eds
to-day. There was one girl there who can't be a day over
eighteen--and she looked as if she were made out of gold and
roseleaves and dewdrops."
"The oracle speaks in poetry," laughed Eric. "That was Florence
Percival, who led the class in mathematics, as I'm a living man.
By many she is considered the beauty of her class. I can't say
that such is my opinion. I don't greatly care for that blonde,
babyish style of loveliness--I prefer Agnes Campion. Did you
notice her--the tall, dark girl with the ropes of hair and a sort
of crimson, velvety bloom on her face, who took honours in
philosophy?"
"I DID notice her," said David emphatically, darting a keen side
glance at his friend. "I noticed her most particularly and
critically--for someone whispered her name behind me and coupled
it with the exceedingly interesting information that Miss Campion
was supposed to be the future Mrs. Eric Marshall. Whereupon I
stared at her with all my eyes."
"There is no truth in that report," said Eric in a tone of
annoyance. "Agnes and I are the best of friends and nothing
more. I like and admire her more than any woman I know; but if
the future Mrs. Eric Marshall exists in the flesh I haven't met
her yet. I haven't even started out to look for her--and don't
intend to for some years to come. I have something else to think
of," he concluded, in a tone of contempt, for which anyone might
have known he would be punished sometime if Cupid were not deaf
as well as blind.
"You'll meet the lady of the future some day," said David dryly.
"And in spite of your scorn I venture to predict that if fate
doesn't bring her before long you'll very soon start out to look
for her. A word of advice, oh, son of your mother. When you go
courting take your common sense with you."
"Do you think I shall be likely to leave it behind?" asked Eric
amusedly.
"Well, I mistrust you," said David, sagely wagging his head.
"The Lowland Scotch part of you is all right, but there's a
Celtic streak in you, from that little Highland grandmother of
yours, and when a man has that there's never any knowing where it
will break out, or what dance it will lead him, especially when
it comes to this love-making business. You are just as likely as
not to lose your head over some little fool or shrew for the sake
of her outward favour and make yourself miserable for life. When
you pick you a wife please remember that I shall reserve the
right to pass a candid opinion on her."
"Pass all the opinions you like, but it is MY opinion, and mine
only, which will matter in the long run," retorted Eric.
"Confound you, yes, you stubborn offshoot of a stubborn breed,"
growled David, looking at him affectionately. "I know that, and
that is why I'll never feel at ease about you until I see you
married to the right sort of a girl. She's not hard to find.
Nine out of ten girls in this country of ours are fit for kings'
palaces. But the tenth always has to be reckoned with."
"You are as bad as _Clever Alice_ in the fairy tale who worried
over the future of her unborn children," protested Eric.
"_Clever Alice_ has been very unjustly laughed at," said David
gravely. "We doctors know that. Perhaps she overdid the
worrying business a little, but she was perfectly right in
principle. If people worried a little more about their unborn
children--at least, to the extent of providing a proper heritage,
physically, mentally, and morally, for them--and then stopped
worrying about them after they ARE born, this world would be a
very much pleasanter place to live in, and the human race would
make more progress in a generation than it has done in recorded
history."
"Oh, if you are going to mount your dearly beloved hobby of
heredity I am not going to argue with you, David, man. But as
for the matter of urging me to hasten and marry me a wife, why
don't you"--It was on Eric's lips to say, "Why don't you get
married to a girl of the right sort yourself and set me a good
example?" But he checked himself. He knew that there was an old
sorrow in David Baker's life which was not to be unduly jarred by
the jests even of privileged friendship. He changed his question
to, "Why don't you leave this on the knees of the gods where it
properly belongs? I thought you were a firm believer in
predestination, David."
"Well, so I am, to a certain extent," said David cautiously. "I
believe, as an excellent old aunt of mine used to say, that what
is to be will be and what isn't to be happens sometimes. And it
is precisely such unchancy happenings that make the scheme of
things go wrong. I dare say you think me an old fogy, Eric; but
I know something more of the world than you do, and I believe,
with Tennyson's _Arthur_, that 'there's no more subtle master
under heaven than is the maiden passion for a maid.' I want to
see you safely anchored to the love of some good woman as soon as
may be, that's all. I'm rather sorry Miss Campion isn't your
lady of the future. I liked her looks, that I did. She is good
and strong and true--and has the eyes of a woman who could love
in a way that would be worth while. Moreover, she's well-born,
well-bred, and well-educated--three very indispensable things
when it comes to choosing a woman to fill your mother's place,
friend of mine!"
"I agree with you," said Eric carelessly. "I could not marry any
woman who did not fulfill those conditions. But, as I have said,
I am not in love with Agnes Campion--and it wouldn't be of any
use if I were. She is as good as engaged to Larry West. You
remember West?"
"That thin, leggy fellow you chummed with so much your first two
years in Queenslea? Yes, what has become of him?"
"He had to drop out after his second year for financial reasons.
He is working his own way through college, you know. For the
past two years he has been teaching school in some out-of-the-way
place over in Prince Edward Island. He isn't any too well, poor
fellow--never was very strong and has studied remorselessly. I
haven't heard from him since February. He said then that he was
afraid he wasn't going to be able to stick it out till the end of
the school year. I hope Larry won't break down. He is a fine
fellow and worthy even of Agnes Campion. Well, here we are.
Coming in, David?"
"Not this afternoon--haven't got time. I must mosey up to the
North End to see a man who has got a lovely throat. Nobody can
find out what is the matter. He has puzzled all the doctors. He
has puzzled me, but I'll find out what is wrong with him if he'll
only live long enough."
