A Dozen Ways Of Love by Lily Dougall (lightweight ebook reader txt) 📕

was at once very primitive and very modern. Many log-houses still remained in it; almost all the other houses were built of wood. The little churches, which represented as many sects, looked like the churches in a child's Dutch village. The town hall had only a brick facing. On the hillsides that surrounded the town far and wide were many fields, in which the first stumps were still standing, charred by the fires that had been kindled to kill them. There were also patches of forest still to be seen among these fields, where the land had not yet been cleared. In spite of all this, the town was very advanced, every improvement being of the newest kind because so recently achieved. Upon huge ungainly tree-trunks roughly erected along the streets, electric lamps hung, and telephone wires crossed and recrossed one another from roof to roof. There was even an electric tram that ran straight through the town and some distance into the country on either side. The general store had a gaily dressed lay figure in its window,--a female figure,--and its gown was labelled 'The Latest Parisian Novelty.'

The theological student was going out to take tea. He was a tall, active fellow, and his long strides soon brought him to a house a little way out of the town, which was evidently the abode of some degree of taste and luxury. The house was of wood, painted in dull colours of red and brown; it had large comfortable verandahs under shingled roofs. Its garden was not old-fashioned in the least; but though it aspired to trimness the grass had not grown there long enough to make a good lawn, so the ribbon flower-beds and plaster vases of flowers lacked the green-velvet setting that would have made them appear better. The student was the less likely to criticise the lawn because a very pretty, fresh-looking girl met him at the gate.

She was really a fine girl. Her dress showed rather more effort at fashion than was quite in keeping with her very rural surroundings, and her speech and accent betrayed a childhood spent among uneducated folk and only overlaid by more recent schooling. Her face had the best parts of beauty: health and good sense were written there, also flashes of humour and an habitual sweet seriousness. She had chanced to be at the gate gathering flowers. Her reception of the student was frank, and yet there was just a touch of blushing dignity about it which suggested that she took a special interest in him. The student also, it would appear, took an interest in her, for, on their way to the house, he made a variety of remarks upon the weather which proved that he was a little excited and unable to observe that he was talking nonsense.

In a little while the family were gathered round the tea-table. The girl, Miss Torrance by name, sat at the head of the table. Her father was a banker and insurance agent. He sat opposite his eldest daughter and did the honours of the meal with the utmost hospitality, yet with reserve of manner caused by his evident consciousness that his grammar and manners were not equal to those of his children and their guest. There were several daughters and two sons younger than Miss Torrance. They talked with vivacity.

The conversation soon turned upon the fact that the abundant supply of cream to which the family were accustomed was not forthcoming. Strawberries were being served with the tea; some sort of cold pudding was also on the table; and all this to be eaten without cream,--these young people might have been asked to go without their supper, so indignant they were.

Now, Mr. Torrance had been decorously trying to talk of the young minister's last sermon and of the affairs of the small Scotch church of which he was an elder, and Miss Torrance was ably seconding his effort by comparing the sentiments of the sermon to a recent magazine article, but against her will she was forced to attend to the young people's clamour about the cream.

It seemed that Trilium, the cow, had recently refused to give her milk. Mary Torrance was about eighteen; she suddenly gave it as her opinion that Trilium was bewitched; there was no other explanation, she said, no other possible explanation of Trilium's extraordinary conduct.

A flush mounted Miss Torrance's face; she frowned at her sister when the student was not looking.

'It's wonderful, the amount of witchcraft we have about here, Mr. Howitt,' said the master of the house tentatively to the minister.

Howitt had taken Mary's words in jest. He gave his smooth-shaven face the twist that with him always expressed ideas wonderful or grotesque. It was a strong, thin face, full of intelligence.

'I never could have conceived anything like it,' said he. 'I come across witch tales here, there, everywhere; and the marvellous thing is, some of the people really seem to believe them.'

The younger members of the Torrance family fixed their eyes upon him with apprehensive stare.

'You can't imagine anything more degrading,' continued the student, who came from afar.

'Degrading, of course.' Mr. Torrance sipped his tea hastily. 'The Cape Breton people are superstitious, I believe.'

An expression that might have betokened a new resolution appeared upon the fine face of the eldest daughter.

'_We_ are Cape Breton people, father,' she said, with dignified reproach. 'I hope'--here a timid glance, as if imploring support--'I hope we know better than to place any real faith in these degrading superstitions.'

Howitt observed nothing but the fine face and the words that appeared to him natural.

Torrance looked at them both with the air of an honest man who was still made somewhat cowardly by new-fashioned propriety.

'I never put much o' my faith in these things myself,' he said at last in broad accents, 'still,'--an honest shake of the head--'there's queer things happens.'

'It is like going back to the Middle Ages'--Howitt was still impervious--'to hear some of these poor creatures talk. I never thought it would be my lot to come across anything so delightfully absurd.'

'Perhaps for the sake of the ministry ye'd better be careful how ye say your mind about it,' suggested Mr. Torrance; 'in the hearing of the poor and uneducated, of course, I mean. But if ye like to make a study o' that sort of thing, I'd advise ye to go and have a talk with Mistress Betty M'Leod. She's got a great repertory of tales, has Mistress Betty.'

Mary spoke again. Mary was a young woman who had the courage of her opinions. 'And if you go to Mistress M'Leod, Mr. Howitt, will you just be kind enough to ask her how to cure poor Trilium? and don't forget anything of what she says.'

Miss Torrance gave her sister a word of reproof. There was still upon her face the fine glow born of a new resolution never again to listen to a word of witchcraft.

As for Howitt, there came across his clever face the whimsical look which denoted that he understood Mary's fun perfectly. 'I will go to-morrow,' he cried. 'When the wise woman has told me who has bewitched Trilium, we will make a waxen figure and stick pins in it.'

The next day Howitt walked over the hills in search of Mistress Betty M'Leod. The lake of the Bras d'Or held the sheen of the western sun in its breast. The student walked upon green slopes far above the water, and watched the outline of the hills on the other side of the inlet, and thought upon many things. He thought upon religion and philosophy, for he was religious and studious; he thought upon practical details of his present work, for he was anxious for the welfare of the souls under his charge; but on whatever subject his thoughts dwelt, they came back at easy intervals to the fair, dignified face of his new friend, Miss Torrance.

'There's a fine girl for you,' he said to himself repeatedly, with boyish enthusiasm. He thought, too, how nobly her life would be spent if she chose to be the helpmeet of a Christian minister. He wondered whether Mary could take her sister's place in the home circle. Yet with all this he made no decision as to his own course. He was discreet, and in minds like his decisions upon important matters are fruits of slow growth.

He came at last to a farm, a very goodly farm for so hilly a district. It lay, a fertile flat, in a notch of the green hillside. When he reached the house yard he asked for Mistress Betty M'Leod, and was led to her presence. The old dame sat at her spinning-wheel in a farm kitchen. Her white hair was drawn closely, like a thin veil, down the sides of her head and pinned at the back. Her features were small, her eyes bright; she was not unlike a squirrel in her sharp little movements and quick glances. She wore a small shawl pinned around her spare shoulders. Her skirts fell upon the treadle of the spinning-wheel. The kitchen in which she sat was unused; there was no fire in the stove. The brick floor, the utensils hanging on the walls, had the appearance of undisturbed rest. Doors and windows were open to the view of the green slopes and the golden sea beneath them.

'You come from Canada,' said the old dame. She left her spinning with a certain interested formality of manner.

'From Montreal,' said he.

'That's the same. Canada is a terrible way off.'

'And now,' he said, 'I hear there are witches in this part of the land.' Whereupon he smiled in an incredulous cultured way.

She nodded her head as if she had gauged his thought. 'Ay, there's many a minister believes in them if they don't let on they do. I mind----'

'Yes,' said he.

'I mind how my sister went out early one morning, and saw a witch milking one of our cows.'

'How did you know she was a witch?'

'Och, she was a neighbour we knew to be a witch real well. My sister didn't anger her. It's terrible unlucky to vex them. But would you believe it? as long as we had that cow her cream gave no butter. We had to sell her and get another. And one time--it was years ago, when Donald and me was young--the first sacrament came round----'

'Yes,' said he, looking sober.

'And all the milk of our cows would give hardly any butter for a whole year! And at house-cleaning time, there, above the milk shelves, what did they find but a bit of hair rope! Cows' and horses' hair it was. Oh, it was terrible knotted, and knotted just like anything! So then of course we knew.'

'Knew what?'

'Why, that the milk was bewitched. We took the rope away. Well, that very day more butter came at the churning, and from that time on, more, but still not so much as ought by rights to have come. Then, one day, I thought to unknot the rope, and I undid, and undid, and undid. Well, when I had got it undone, that day the butter came as it should!'

'But what about the sacrament?' asked he.

'That was the time of the year it was. Oh, but I could tell you a sad, sad story of the wickedness of witches. When Donald and me was young, and had a farm up over on the other hill, well, there was a poor widow with seven daughters. It was hard