His remarks were not exactly flattering, but for the first time I felt glad to stand a strong man among those who had other advantages behind them, though I fumed inwardly when presently I heard Harry’s partner say:
“What a curious man your friend is! I saw him standing before the big glass actually admiring himself.”
And Harry had the mendacity to assure her that this was a favorite habit of mine.
Afterward I chatted for a time with the giver of the feast. We had much in common, for he was a stalwart plainly spoken man whose chief concern was the improvement of his holding, and from what he said it was clear that taking season by season his bank account increased but little, while he mentioned that several of his neighbors lost a certain sum yearly. There are two ways of farming in the West, and it seemed that after all Harry and I had chosen the better, the creeping on from acre to acre, living frugally, and doing oneself whatever is needed, then investing each dollar hardly saved in better implements.
Nevertheless, I saw that the men of Carrington who followed the other plan, spending and hiring freely, were doing a good work for the country, because even if they lost a small sum each year most of them could afford it, and their expenses would have been much greater at home. They helped to maintain a demand for good horses and the product of clever workmen’s skill; they supported the storekeepers of the wooden towns; and the poorer settlers could always earn a few dollars by working for them. So it dawned upon me that it is well for the nation that some are content to take their pleasure, as these men did, in an occupation that brought them small profit, sinking their surplus funds for the benefit of those who will follow them. Neither does the mother country lose, because she reaps the fruit of their labors in the shape of cheap and wholesome food.
At last the conversation drifted around to the founder of Carrington.
“An austere man,” said Lyle, “and he’s somewhat different from the rest of us – ready to gather in wherever he can, very hard to get ahead of at a deal; but if he is keen it’s all for the sake of his daughter. There are two things Carrington is proud of, one is this settlement, and the other his heiress. He’s not exactly an attractive personage, but there are whispers that some painful incident in her mother’s life soured him, and one learns to respect him. His word is better than most other men’s bond, and if his will is like cast iron his very determination often saves trouble in the end.”
Silence succeeded, for bold chords of music held the assembly still, and I saw Harry seated at the piano, which apparently had escaped serious damage in its long transit across the prairie. This was a surprise, for I had not suspected Harry of musical proficiency. There was power in his fingers, hardened as they were, and when the ringing prelude to an English ballad filled the room more than his partner felt that he could call up a response to his own spirit from the soul of the instrument. The lad beside him also sang well, perhaps because he was young and sentiment was strong within him, but sturdy labor under the open heaven seems inimical to the development of hypercritical cynicism, and the men who at home would probably have applauded that song with an indulgent smile listened with kindling eyes and then made the long room ring with their bravos. Here, far away from the land that bred them, they were Britons still, and proud of their birthright.
Then Grace Carrington sang, and I would have given years of my life for Harry’s skill, which seemed a bond between them as she smiled gratefully upon him. The words were simple, as became the work of a master who loved the open, and the music flowed with them like the ripple of a glancing water; so a deeper silence settled upon all, and I was back in England where a sparkling beck leaped out from the furze of Lingdale and sped in flashing shallows under the yellow fern, while somewhere beyond the singer’s voice I could almost hear the alders talking to the breeze. When it ceased the sound grew louder, but it was only a bitter blast that came from the icy Pole moaning about the homestead of Lone Hollow.
Raymond Lyle stepped forward to express the wish of the rest, and Grace bent her fair head to confer with Harry, who nodded gravely, after which she stood still, while a stately prelude that was curiously familiar awoke old memories. Then the words came, and from the lips of others they might have seemed presumptuous or out of place, but Grace Carrington delivered them as though they were a message which must be hearkened to, and there was an expectant hush when the first line, “A sower went forth sowing,” rang clearly forth. Later some of those about me breathed harder, and I saw that big Raymond’s eyes were hazy, while one hard brown hand was clenched upon his knee, as in sinking cadence we heard again, “Within a hallowed acre He sows yet other grain.”
Then after the last note died away and there was only the moaning of the wind, he said simply, “Thank you, Miss Carrington. I am glad you sang it at the Lone Hollow harvest home.”
“I would never have played it here for any one else,” said Harry presently. “These things are not to be undertaken casually, but she – well, I felt they had to listen, and I did the best that was in me. I think it was her clean-hearted simplicity.”
It was some time afterward when I led Grace out and spent a blissful ten minutes swinging through the mazes of a prairie dance, before we found a nook under dark spruce branches from the big coulée, where Grace listened with interest while I told her of our experiences in the Dominion. The background of somber sprays enhanced her fair beauty, and her dress, which, though there was azure about it, was of much the same color, melted into the festoon of wheat stalks below. The French-Canadian was playing another of his weird waltzes, and it may have been this that reminded me, for now I remembered how I had seen her so before.
“You will not laugh, I hope, when I tell you that all this seems familiar,” I said hesitatingly. “Sometimes in a strange country one comes upon a scene that one knows perfectly, and we feel that, perhaps in dreams, we have seen it all before. Why it is so, I cannot tell, but once in fancy I saw you with a dress exactly like the one you are wearing now, and the tall wheat behind you. Of course, it sounds ridiculous, but, as Harry says, we do not know everything, and you believe me, don’t you?”
Grace’s face grew suddenly grave, and there was a heightened color in it as she answered: “Your friend is a philosopher, besides a fine musician, and I quite believe you. I have had such experiences – but I think these fancies, if fancies they are, are best forgotten. Still, tell me, did you dream or imagine anything more?”
“Yes,” I said, still puzzled as a dim memory came back, “I saw your father too. He seemed in trouble, and I was concerned in it. This I think was on the prairie, but there were tall pines too; while across the whole dream picture drove an alternate haze of dust and snow.”
Grace shivered as though the relation troubled her, and was silent until she said with a smile:
“It must be that ghostly music. Louis of Sapin Rouge has missed his vocation. We will talk no more of it. You once did me a kindness; I wonder whether you would repeat it.”
“I would go to the world’s end,” I commenced hotly, but stopped abashed as she checked me with a gesture, though I fancied that she did not seem so displeased at my boldness as she might have been. Then she answered, smiling:
“I thought you were too staid and sensible for such speeches, and they hardly become you, because of course you do not mean it. It is nothing very serious. There are signs of bad weather, and my aunt is not strong, so, as Miss Lyle presses us, we shall stay here until to-morrow noon, and I want you to ride over and tell my father. He might grow uneasy about me – and for some reason I feel uneasy about him, while, as he has been ailing lately, I should not like for him to venture across the prairie. It seems unfair to ask you, but you are young and strong; and I should like you to meet him. He has his peculiarities, so our neighbors say, but he has ever been a most indulgent parent to me, and he can be a very firm friend. You will do this, as a favor, won’t you?”
She gave me her hand as she rose, and, mastering a senseless desire to do more than this, I bowed over it and hurried away, feeling that hers was the favor granted, for Ormond and many others would gladly have ridden fifty miles through a blizzard to do her bidding. It was for this reason that I made my excuses to