But how white the world looked this morning, and how proud and brilliant the sky! Nothing in the plane of vision but waves of snow stretching to the Cypress Hills; far to the left a solitary house, with its tin roof flashing back the sun, and to the right the Big Divide. It was an old-fashioned winter, not one in which bare ground and sharp winds make life outdoors inhospitable. Snow is hospitable-clean, impacted snow; restful and silent. But there was one spot in the area of white, on which Mab’s eyes were fixed now, with something different in them from what had been there. Again it was a memory with which Sergeant Fones was associated. One day in the summer just past she had watched him and his company put away to rest under the cool sod, where many another lay in silent company, a prairie wanderer, some outcast from a better life gone by. Afterwards, in her home, she saw the Sergeant stand at the window, looking out towards the spot where the waves in the sea of grass were more regular and greener than elsewhere, and were surmounted by a high cross. She said to him—for she of all was never shy of his stern ways:
“Why is the grass always greenest there, Sergeant Fones?”
He knew what she meant, and slowly said: “It is the Barracks of the Free.”
She had no views of life save those of duty and work and natural joy and loving a ne’er-do-weel, and she said: “I do not understand that.”
And the Sergeant replied: “ ‘Free among the Dead like unto them that are wounded and lie in the grave, who are out of remembrance.’ ”
But Mab said again: “I do not understand that either.”
The Sergeant did not at once reply. He stepped to the door and gave a short command to some one without, and in a moment his company was mounted in line; handsome, dashing fellows; one the son of an English nobleman, one the brother of an eminent Canadian politician, one related to a celebrated English dramatist. He ran his eye along the line, then turned to Mab, raised his cap with machine-like precision, and said: “No, I suppose you do not understand that. Keep Aleck Windsor from Pretty Pierre and his gang. Good-bye.”
Then he mounted and rode away. Every other man in the company looked back to where the girl stood in the doorway; he did not. Private Gellatly said, with a shake of the head, as she was lost to view: “Devils bestir me, what a widdy she’ll make!” It was understood that Aleck Windsor and Mab Humphrey were to be married on the coming New Year’s Day. What connection was there between the words of Sergeant Fones and those of Private Gellatly? None, perhaps.
Mab thought upon that day as she looked out, this December morning, and saw Sergeant Fones dismounting at the door. David Humphrey, who was outside, offered to put up the Sergeant’s horse; but he said: “No, if you’ll hold him just a moment, Mr. Humphrey, I’ll ask for a drink of something warm, and move on. Miss Humphrey is inside, I suppose?”
“She’ll give you a drink of the best to be had on your patrol, Sergeant,” was the laughing reply. “Thanks for that, but tea or coffee is good enough for me,” said the Sergeant. Entering, the coffee was soon in the hand of the hardy soldier. Once he paused in his drinking and scanned Mab’s face closely. Most people would have said the Sergeant had an affair of the law in hand, and was searching the face of a criminal; but most people are not good at interpretation. Mab was speaking to the chore-girl at the same time and did not see the look. If she could have defined her thoughts when she, in turn, glanced into the Sergeant’s face, a moment afterwards, she would have said, “Austerity fills this man. Isolation marks him for its own.” In the eyes were only purpose, decision, and command. Was that the look that had been fixed upon her face a moment ago? It must have been. His features had not changed a breath. Mab began their talk.
“They say you are to get a Christmas present of promotion, Sergeant Fones.”
“I have not seen it gazetted,” he answered enigmatically.
“You and your friends will be glad of it.”
“I like the service.”
“You will have more freedom with a commission.” He made no reply, but rose and walked to the window, and looked out across the snow, drawing on his gauntlets as he did so.
She saw that he was looking where the grass in summer was the greenest!
He turned and said:
“I am going to barracks now. I suppose Young Aleck will be in quarters here on Christmas Day, Miss Mab?”
“I think so,” and she blushed.
“Did he say he would be here?”
“Yes.”
“Exactly.”
He looked toward the coffee. Then: “Thank you. … .Good-bye.”
“Sergeant?”
“Miss Humphrey!”
“Will you not come to us on Christmas Day?”
His eyelids closed swiftly and opened again. “I shall be on duty.”
“And promoted?”
“Perhaps.”
“And merry and happy?”—she smiled to herself to think of Sergeant Fones being merry and happy.
“Exactly.”
The word suited him.
He paused a moment with his fingers on the latch, and turned round as if to speak; pulled off his gauntlet, and then as quickly put it on again. Had he meant to offer his hand in good-bye? He had never been seen to take the hand of anyone except with the might of the law visible in steel.
He opened the door with the right hand, but turned round as he stepped out, so that the left held it while he faced the warmth of the room and the face of the girl. The door closed.
Mounted, and having said good-bye to Mr. Humphrey, he turned towards the house, raised his cap with soldierly brusqueness, and rode away in the direction of the barracks.
The girl did not watch him. She was thinking of Young Aleck, and of Christmas Day, now near. The Sergeant did not look back.
Meantime the party at Windsor’s store was broken up. Pretty Pierre and Young Aleck had talked together, and the old man had heard his son say: “Remember, Pierre, it is for the last time.” Then they talked after this fashion:
“Ah, I know, ‘mon ami;’ for the last time! ‘Eh, bien,’ you will spend Christmas Day with us too—no? You surely will not leave us on the day of good fortune? Where better can you take your pleasure for the last time? One day is not enough for farewell. Two, three; that is the magic number. You will, eh? no? Well, well, you will come to-morrow—and—eh, ‘mon ami,’ where do you go the next day? Oh, ‘pardon,’ I forgot, you spend the Christmas Day—I know. And the day of the New Year? Ah, Young Aleck, that is what they say—the devil for the devil’s luck. So.”
“Stop that, Pierre.” There was fierceness in the tone. “I spend the Christmas Day where you don’t, and as I like, and the rest doesn’t concern you. I drink with you, I play with you—‘bien!’ As you say yourself, ‘bien,’ isn’t that enough?”
“ ‘Pardon!’ We will not quarrel. No; we spend not the Christmas Day after the same fashion, quite. Then, to-morrow at Pardon’s Drive! Adieu!”
Pretty Pierre went out of one door, a malediction between his white teeth, and Aleck went out of another door with a malediction upon his gloomy lips. But both maledictions were levelled at the same person. Poor Aleck.