CHAPTER X. A TROUBLING OF THE WATERS
One evening in late June Mrs. Williamson was sitting by her
kitchen window. Her knitting lay unheeded in her lap, and
Timothy, though he nestled ingratiatingly against her foot as he
lay on the rug and purred his loudest, was unregarded. She
rested her face on her hand and looked out of the window, across
the distant harbour, with troubled eyes.
"I guess I must speak," she thought wistfully. "I hate to do it.
I always did hate meddling. My mother always used to say that
ninety-nine times out of a hundred the last state of a meddler
and them she meddled with was worse than the first. But I guess
it's my duty. I was Margaret's friend, and it is my duty to
protect her child any way I can. If the Master does go back
across there to meet her I must tell him what I think about it."
Overhead in his room, Eric was walking about whistling.
Presently he came downstairs, thinking of the orchard, and the
girl who would be waiting for him there.
As he crossed the little front entry he heard Mrs. Williamson's
voice calling to him.
"Mr. Marshall, will you please come here a moment?"
He went out to the kitchen. Mrs. Williamson looked at him
deprecatingly. There was a flush on her faded cheek and her
voice trembled.
"Mr. Marshall, I want to ask you a question. Perhaps you will
think it isn't any of my business. But it isn't because I want
to meddle. No, no. It is only because I think I ought to speak.
I have thought it over for a long time, and it seems to me that I
ought to speak. I hope you won't be angry, but even if you are I
must say what I have to say. Are you going back to the old
Connors orchard to meet Kilmeny Gordon?"
For a moment an angry flush burned in Eric's face. It was more
Mrs. Williamson's tone than her words which startled and annoyed
him.
"Yes, I am, Mrs. Williamson," he said coldly. "What of it?"
"Then, sir," said Mrs. Williamson with more firmness, "I have got
to tell you that I don't think you are doing right. I have been
suspecting all along that that was where you went every evening,
but I haven't said a word to any one about it. Even my husband
doesn't know. But tell me this, Master. Do Kilmeny's uncle and
aunt know that you are meeting her there?"
"Why," said Eric, in some confusion, "I--I do not know whether
they do or not. But Mrs. Williamson, surely you do not suspect
me of meaning any harm or wrong to Kilmeny Gordon?"
"No, I don't, Master. I might think it of some men, but never of
you. I don't for a minute think that you would do her or any
woman any wilful wrong. But you may do her great harm for all
that. I want you to stop and think about it. I guess you
haven't thought. Kilmeny can't know anything about the world or
about men, and she may get to thinking too much of you. That
might break her heart, because you couldn't ever marry a dumb
girl like her. So I don't think you ought to be meeting her so
often in this fashion. It isn't right, Master. Don't go to the
orchard again."
Without a word Eric turned away, and went upstairs to his room.
Mrs. Williamson picked up her knitting with a sigh.
"That's done, Timothy, and I'm real thankful," she said. "I
guess there'll be no need of saying anything more. Mr. Marshall
is a fine young man, only a little thoughtless. Now that he's
got his eyes opened I'm sure he'll do what is right. I don't
want Margaret's child made unhappy."
Her husband came to the kitchen door and sat down on the steps to
enjoy his evening smoke, talking between whiffs to his wife of
Elder Tracy's church row, and Mary Alice Martin's beau, the price
Jake Crosby was giving for eggs, the quantity of hay yielded by
the hill meadow, the trouble he was having with old Molly's calf,
and the respective merits of Plymouth Rock and Brahma roosters.
Mrs. Williamson answered at random, and heard not one word in
ten.
"What's got the Master, Mother?" inquired old Robert, presently.
"I hear him striding up and down in his room 'sif he was caged.
Sure you didn't lock him in by mistake?"
"Maybe he's worried over the way Seth Tracy's acting in school,"
suggested Mrs. Williamson, who did not choose that her gossipy
husband should suspect the truth about Eric and Kilmeny Gordon.
"Shucks, he needn't worry a morsel over that. Seth'll quiet down
as soon as he finds he can't run the Master. He's a rare good
teacher--better'n Mr. West was even, and that's saying something.
The trustees are hoping he'll stay for another term. They're
going to ask him at the school meeting to-morrow, and offer him a
raise of supplement."
Upstairs, in his little room under the eaves, Eric Marshall was
in the grip of the most intense and overwhelming emotion he had
ever experienced.
Up and down, to and fro, he walked, with set lips and clenched
hands. When he was wearied out he flung himself on a chair by
the window and wrestled with the flood of feeling.
Mrs. Williamson's words had torn away the delusive veil with
which he had bound his eyes. He was face to face with the
knowledge that he loved Kilmeny Gordon with the love that comes
but once, and is for all time. He wondered how he could have
been so long blind to it. He knew that he must have loved her
ever since their first meeting that May evening in the old
orchard.
And he knew that he must choose between two alternatives--either
he must never go to the orchard again, or he must go as an avowed
lover to woo him a wife.
Worldly prudence, his inheritance from a long line of thrifty,
cool-headed ancestors, was strong in Eric, and he did not yield
easily or speedily to the dictates of his passion. All night he
struggled against the new emotions that threatened to sweep away
the "common sense" which David Baker had bade him take with him
when he went a-wooing. Would not a marriage with Kilmeny Gordon
be an unwise thing from any standpoint?
Then something stronger and greater and more vital than wisdom or
unwisdom rose up in him and mastered him. Kilmeny, beautiful,
dumb Kilmeny was, as he had once involuntarily thought, "the one
maid" for him. Nothing should part them. The mere idea of never
seeing her again was so unbearable that he laughed at himself for
having counted it a possible alternative.
"If I can win Kilmeny's love I shall ask her to be my wife," he
said, looking out of the window to the dark, southwestern hill
beyond which lay his orchard.
The velvet sky over it was still starry; but the water of the
harbour was beginning to grow silvery in the reflection of the
dawn that was breaking in the east.
"Her misfortune will only make her dearer to me. I cannot
realize that a month ago I did not know her. It seems to me that
she has been a part of my life for ever. I wonder if she was
grieved that I did not go to the orchard last night--if she
waited for me. If she does, she does not know it herself yet.
It will be my sweet task to teach her what love means, and no man
has ever had a lovelier, purer, pupil."
At the annual school meeting, the next afternoon, the trustees
asked Eric to take the Lindsay school for the following year. He
consented unhesitatingly.
That evening he went to Mrs. Williamson, as she washed her tea
dishes in the kitchen.
"Mrs. Williamson, I am going back to the old Connors orchard to
see Kilmeny again to-night."
She looked at him reproachfully.
"Well, Master, I have no more to say. I suppose it wouldn't be
of any use if I had. But you know what I think of it."
"I intend to marry Kilmeny Gordon if I can win her."
An expression of amazement came into the good woman's face. She
looked scrutinizingly at the firm mouth and steady gray eyes for
a moment. Then she said in a troubled voice,
"Do you think that is wise, Master? I suppose Kilmeny is pretty;
the egg peddler told me she was; and no doubt she is a good, nice
girl. But she wouldn't be a suitable wife for you--a girl that
can't speak."
"That doesn't make any difference to me."
"But what will your people say?"
"I have no 'people' except my father. When he sees Kilmeny he
will understand. She is all the world to me, Mrs. Williamson."
"As long as you believe that there is nothing more to be said,"
was the quiet answer, "I'd be a little bit afraid if I was you,
though. But young people never think of those things."
"My only fear is that she won't care for me," said Eric soberly.
Mrs. Williamson surveyed the handsome, broad-shouldered young man
shrewdly.
"I don't think there are many women would say you 'no', Master.
I wish you well in your wooing, though I can't help thinking
you're doing a daft-like thing. I hope you won't have any
trouble with Thomas and Janet. They are so different from other
folks there is no knowing. But take my advice, Master, and go
and see them about it right off. Don't go on meeting Kilmeny
unbeknownst to them."
"I shall certainly take your advice," said Eric, gravely. "I
should have gone to them before. It was merely thoughtlessness
on my part. Possibly they do know already. Kilmeny may have
told them."
Mrs. Williamson shook her head decidedly.
"No, no, Master, she hasn't. They'd never have let her go on
meeting you there if they had known. I know them too well to
think of that for a moment. Go you straight to them and say to
them just what you have said to me. That is your best plan,
Master. And take care of Neil. People say he has a notion of
Kilmeny himself. He'll do you a bad turn if he can, I've no
doubt. Them foreigners can't be trusted--and he's just as much a
foreigner as his parents before him--though he HAS been brought
up on oatmeal and the shorter catechism, as the old saying has
it. I feel that somehow--I always feel it when I look at him
singing in the choir."
"Oh, I am not afraid of Neil," said Eric carelessly. "He
couldn't help loving Kilmeny--nobody could."
"I suppose every young man thinks that about his girl--if he's
the right sort of young man," said Mrs. Williamson with a little
sigh.
She watched Eric out of sight anxiously.
"I hope it'll all come out right," she thought. "I hope he ain't
making an awful mistake--but--I'm afraid. Kilmeny must be very
pretty to have bewitched him so. Well, I suppose there is no use
in my worrying over it. But I do wish he had never gone back to
that old orchard and seen her."
