The Buffalo Runners: A Tale of the Red River Plains

“Yes, daddy,” said Elspie, taking up the discourse; “we can put you into the room that corresponds with Duncan’s room at the other end of the house, so that you and he will be able to meet after your long illness. But there is another contrivance which Dan has been making for us—not for you, but for Old Peg. Tell daddy about it, Dan.”

“Like the chair,” said Dan, “it is no novelty, except in this out-o’-the-way place. You see, I have noticed that Old Peg is rather deaf—”

“Well, Tan,” interrupted old McKay with a benignant smile, “it iss not much observation that you will be requirin’ to see that!”

“Just so. Well, I also observed that it gives Duncan some trouble to speak loud enough to her. So I have invented a sort of ear-trumpet—a tin pipe with an ear-piece at one end and a mouth-piece at the other, which I hope may make things easier.”

“Hev ye not tried it yet?” asked McKay.

“Not yet. I’ve only just brought it.”

“Go down, lad, an’ try it at wanse, an’ let me know what the upshot iss.”

Down they all went accordingly, leaving Duncan senior alone.

They found Old Peg in the act of administering beef-tea refreshment—or something of that sort—to the invalid. Peter Davidson and Archie Sinclair were there also, paying him a visit.

“Hallo, Little Bill!” said Archie as his brother entered. “You here! I guessed as much. Your passion for nursing since you attended Dan is outrageous. You do more nursing in this house, I do believe, than Elspie and Jessie and Old Peg put together. What d’ee mean by it, Bill? I get no good of you at all now!”

“I like it, Archie, and I’m training myself to nurse you when you get ill or old!”

“Thank ’ee for nothin’, Little Bill, for I don’t mean to become either ill or old for some time to come; but, I say, are they goin’ to perform an operation on Old Peg’s head?”

This was said in consequence of Elspie shouting to the old woman to let her put something into her ear to cure deafness.

“Cure deafness!” she exclaimed, with a faint laugh, “nothin’ will ever cure my deafness. But I can trust you, dearie, so do what you please.”

“Shut your eyes, then.”

“And open your mouth!” said Archie to Little Bill in a low voice.

Old Peg did as she was bid. Dan, approaching behind her, put the small end of the tube into her right ear—which was the best one—and Elspie, putting her mouth to the other end, spoke to her in her soft, natural voice.

The effect was amusing. Old Peg dropped into her chair as if paralysed, and gazed from one to another in mute amazement.

“Eh! dearie. Did I ever think to hear the sweet low voice o’ Elspie like as it was when she was a bairn! Most amazin’!” she said. “Let me hear’t again.”

The operation was repeated, and it was finally found that, by means of this extemporised ear-trumpet, the poor creature once more became a conversable member of society. She went about the house the remainder of that day in a quite excited state, asking questions of everybody, and putting the end of the instrument to their mouths for an answer. Archie even declared that he had caught her alone in the back-kitchen shoving the cat’s head into the mouth-piece of the instrument, and pinching its tail to make it mew.

It was two days after the occurrence of these incidents that the old woman was seated by Duncan’s bedside, gazing through her tortoise-shell glasses at the well-thumbed Bible, when her patient, who had been very restless, looked up and spoke.

“Can I do anything for ye, dearie?” said Old Peg, putting the trumpet-end into her ear, and handing the mouth-piece to Duncan.

“You—you hear much better now, Old Peg?” said the sick man, in his natural voice.

“Ay, much, much better; thanks to the Lord—and to Mr Daniel.”

“If Daniel had not thought of it,” said the invalid, quite gravely, “do you think that the Lord would hev sent the machine to you?”

“He might or He might not,” returned the old woman, promptly. “It’s not for me to say, nor yet to guess on that point. But this I do know for certain—if the Lord hadna’ thought upon Mr Daniel, then Mr Daniel wouldna’ have been here to think upon me.”

Duncan made no reply, and for some time remained quite silent. Then he spoke again.

“Peg, what wass it that you would be reading to me last night—something about a malefactor, I’m thinking.”

“Ay, it was about the robbers that was crucified on each side o’ the Lord. One o’ them reviled the Lord as he was hangin’ there, the other found forgiveness, for he was led to see what a lost sinner he was, and repented and confessed his sins.”

“That is fery strange,” said Duncan, after a few moments’ thought. “Do you think, Peg, that the robber that was forgiven wass a—a murderer?”

“I have little doubt o’t,” answered Peg, “for I’ve heard say that they think very little o’ human life in them Eastern countries. But whatever he was, the blood of Jesus Christ was able to cleanse him.”

“Ay, but if he was a murderer, Peg, he did not deserve to be forgiven.”

“My bairn,” said the old woman, with something of motherly tenderness in her tone, “it’s not them that deserve to be forgiven that are forgiven, but them that see that they don’t deserve it. Didna’ this robber say that he was sufferin’ for his sins justly? That, surely, meant that he deserved what he was getting, an’ how is it possible to deserve both condemnation an’ forgiveness at the same time? But he believed that Jesus was a king—able and willing to save him though he did not deserve it, so he asked to be remembered, and he was remembered. But lie down now, bairn, an’ rest: Ye are excitin’ yoursel’, an’ that’s bad for ye.”

A week or so after the conversation above recorded, Dan brought a wheel-chair for Duncan, similar to the one he had made for his father. As Duncan had been getting out of bed for several days before, Dan found him dressed and sitting up. He therefore lifted him into the chair at once, and wheeled him out into the garden, where a blaze of warm sunshine seemed to put new life into the poor invalid.

It had been pre-arranged that old McKay should be brought down that same day to his new room, and that he should also be wheeled into the garden, so as to meet his son Duncan, without either of them being prepared for the meeting.

“I don’t feel at all sure that we are right in this arrangement,” Elspie had said; but Dan and Fergus, and Mrs Davidson and Jessie had thought otherwise, so she was overruled.

Archie was deputed to attend upon Duncan junior, and Little Bill obtained leave to push the chair of old McKay. The younger man was wheeled under the shade of a tree with his back to the house, and left there. Then the family retired out of the way, leaving Archie to attend the invalid.

A few minutes after young Duncan had been placed, Little Bill pushed his charge under the same tree, and, wheeling the chair quickly round, brought father and son suddenly face to face.

The surprise was great on both sides, for each, recollecting only the man that had been, could hardly believe in the reality of the ghost that sat before him.

“Father!” exclaimed Duncan at last.

But the old man answered not. Some strong feeling was evidently surging within him, for his mouth was tightly pursed and his features worked strangely. Suddenly he burst into tears, but the weakness was momentary. With an effort that seemed to concentrate the accumulated energy of all the McKays from Adam downwards, he again pursed his mouth and looked at his younger son with a stern persistent frown, worthy of the most rugged of Highlanders in his fiercest mood.

Duncan was inexpressibly touched.

“Father,” said he again, “I’ve been a baad, baad son to you.”

“Tuncan,” retorted the old man, in a husky but firm voice, “I’ve been a baad, baad father to you.”

“Let us shake hands—whatever,” said the son.

The two silently grasped each other’s hands with all the little strength that remained to them. Then old McKay turned suddenly to his henchman.

“Little Bill,” said he, in a tone that was not for an instant to be disregarded, “shove me down to the futt of the garden—you rascal!”

With a promptitude little short of miraculous the Highlander was wheeled away, and thus the momentous meeting was abruptly brought to a close.

Chapter Thirty Three.

Matrimonial Plans and Prospects