Chapter III. The Manse in the Bush - Page 2

the gate.

"Well, my darling! have you been a good boy all afternoon?"

"Huh-huh! Guess who's come back from the shanties!"

"I'm sure I can't guess. Who is it?" It was a very bright and very sweet face, with large, serious, gray-brown eyes that looked down on the little boy.

"Guess, mamma!"

"Why, who can it be? Big Mack?"

"No!" Hughie danced delightedly. "Try again. He's not big."

"I am sure I can never guess. Whoa, Pony!" Pony was most unwilling to get in close enough to the gate-post to let Hughie spring on behind his mother.

"You'll have to be quick, Hughie, when I get near again. There now! Whoa, Pony! Take care, child!"

Hughie had sprung clean off the post, and lighting on Pony's back just behind the saddle, had clutched his mother round the waist, while the pony started off full gallop for the stable.

"Now, mother, who is it?" insisted Hughie, as Lambert, the French- Canadian man-of-all-work, lifted him from his place.

"You'll have to tell me, Hughie!"

"Ranald!"

"Ranald?"

"Yes, Ranald and his father, Macdonald Dubh, and he's hurted awful bad, and--"

"Hurt, Hughie," interposed the mother, gently.

"Huh-huh! Ranald said he was hurted."

"Hurt, you mean, Hughie. Who was hurt? Ranald?"

"No; his father was hurted--hurt--awful bad. He was lying down in the sleigh, and Yankee Jim--"

"Mr. Latham, you mean, Hughie."

"Huh-huh," went on Hughie, breathlessly, "and Yankee--Mr. Latham asked if the minister was home, and I said 'No,' and then they went away."

"What was the matter? Did you see them, Lambert?"

"Oui" ("Way," Lambert pronounced it), "but dey not tell me what he's hurt."

The minister's wife went toward the house, with a shadow on her face. She shared with her husband his people's sorrows. She knew even better than he the life-history of every family in the congregation. Macdonald Dubh had long been classed among the wild and careless in the community, and it weighed upon her heart that his life might be in danger.

"I shall see him to-morrow," she said to herself.

For a few moments she stood on the doorstep looking at the glow in the sky over the dark forest, which on the west side came quite up to the house and barn.

"Look, Hughie, at the beautiful tints in the clouds, and see the dark shadows pointing out toward us from the bush." Hughie glanced a moment.

"Mamma," he said, "I am just dead for supper."

"Oh, not quite, I hope, Hughie. But look, I want you