CHAPTER XIV
"OVER THE TOP"
The Lindsay boys had been about a month on the battle line when, besidetheir weekly letters, there came a splendid big fat envelope to thehome people, containing a letter from each of the three.
There had been many letters from the boys, gay and bright and full ofcheer, but none that contained such comfort as these. And theassurance they brought put new life into the mother and Christina'sloving eyes noted a new energy in all her movements.
She read Jimmie's letter first. It was headed "Back of the Front," andwas largely taken up with a list of the wonderful things they had hadto eat for their Christmas dinner. It was a bang-up spread, sureenough, and with the boxes sent from home on top of it all, they ate somuch that they couldn't even have run away if Fritz had come over topay them a visit.
But the important part of the letter was the description of a Sundayafternoon he and Neil and Sandy spent together behind the lines. Itwas great having that day with Sandy. Of course he and Neil werealways together, for Jimmie wished to assure them all at home that hecouldn't blow his nose without Neil standing over him to see that hedid it just right. But a day with Sandy was a treat, for besides beingin another quarter he was an officer, and as hard to get at as theKaiser. But they arranged a meeting this Sunday, and Jimmie guessedthat Sandy bust all the red tape in the British army doing it.
"Neil and I had just come out of our ground-hog's hole and we hadnearly all France on our uniforms, and Sandy was such a swell, alldolled up like a field-marshal that Neil said perhaps we oughtn't to beso familiar as to salute him. But we got a bath and got fumigated too,and it was real Christmas holidays not to have to scratch for a wholeday. We had to salute Sandy when there was any one else round, butwhen we got him alone I paid him up for all the respect and I wiped thefloor with a few yards of his officer's uniform. I tell you,Christina, he can't put me down now the way he used to. I'm as hard asnails and I'm as tall as he is. Sandy said I could be court-martialedand shot for it, but Neil refereed and saw that justice was done. Istarted out to tell you and Mother about that Sunday we had together,but I'll leave it to Neil, he can do it better than I can, but I wantMother to know that I agree with everything he says, and she needn't bescared about me out here. I'm all right."
"So don't cry, Dear, I'm all right here. Oh, it's just like bein' at hame."
Sandy's letter told still more about the meeting; but Neil's letterwent right to the heart of the matter. "I wish you could have seen usat our Battalion service, Mother, that Sunday morning. It wasn't veryfar back, and we could hear the guns booming as we stood in a quietspot behind a shattered little village. We sang 'Faint not for fear,His arms are near,' the last hymn we sang in Orchard Glen church, andafter it was over we met Sandy and we went off together, Sandy andJimmie and I, to have one of our old-time Sunday talks, just as we usedto wander off to the fields after Sunday School, we two, with Jimmietagging at our heels. It wasn't much like home, though, just adesolate shell-torn corner behind the ragged remnants of a barn, but,somehow, the quiet took us back to Orchard Glen and home, and youseemed there. And we got talking about the contrast between our lifeout here and back there and the temptations all around that were sonew. And we each stood up, so to speak, and told our experience, likea good old Methodist class-meeting, that would have delighted Grandpaif he could have heard it. And Sandy said that when he saw thedevastation Sin could bring, it had made him want to be a preacher morethan ever before. And then it was Jimmie's turn, and he confessed thatsomething about military camp life gave him a feeling of physicalnausea at first. For a month he didn't want to go beyond the Y. M. C.A. tent, and then he began to get used to it all, but he never had thesmallest inclination to mix in it. He's the same bright, clean boythat left you, Mother, a great deal older and wiser, but no sadder, andyou need not fear for him. We were saying that it was you who hadgiven us our strength against temptation, because you never setanything but the highest before us and Sandy remarked that you hadbuckled our armour on tight before you sent us out to battle, and thenJimmie said, 'It's like being in one of the Tanks. You ride right overeverything in the biggest show the Huns can pull off and nothing cantouch you.'"
"I think that was a fine description of what you gave us, don't you,Mother? You had no money to give us, but you built and riveted a Tankwith your years of hard toil, and you put us all inside and we are safethere forever. And so you must not worry about us. For even if we arecalled upon to pay the price, what does that matter?"
When the letter was read and reread, Christina was surprised to see hermother put it carefully away in the pocket of her skirt; and putting onher bonnet and cloak, she slipped out quietly and went away across theShort Cut towards the village. Christina wondered that she had saidnothing about where she was going and stood at the window watching herwith anxious loving eyes and wondering if she were wearing warm enoughclothing as the wind swayed her bent old figure. She supposed hermother had gone to see Granny Minns, but Joanna dropped in with someRed Cross work on her way up to Mrs. Johnnie Dunn's for an afternoon'ssewing, and told Christina that she had seen her mother sitting in thechurchyard beside her father's grave.
Christina's eyes filled with tender tears; she understood. Her motherhad gone with the boys' letters to share with their father the gladnews that had lifted the burden from her heart.
Christina read all Neil's letter to Grandpa that night. It was nolight task, but she could not bear that he miss a word. She had herreward, for he sang the 103rd psalm at the top of his lungs before hesettled for the night, and the Hindmost Hymn louder and clearer than hehad ever sung it since the day the boys went away.
And the next morning he read again the 91st psalm, and his old shakingvoice rose high and strong as he came to the words that spoke thetriumph over all life's ills, and for the first time in her lifeChristina understood them. "Surely He shall deliver thee from thesnare of the fowler and from the noisome pestilence.... Thou shall notbe afraid for the terror by night nor for the arrow that flieth by daynor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness."
The promise was literally true! The white Comrade walked beside herwarrior brothers and they were safe. And Christina learned thatmorning that there was only one thing in life that mattered after all.For even though the boys had had wealth and power and great fame andsocial position none of these would have brought any real comfort tothe heart of the mother and grandfather at that moment. The knowledgethat they were safe from sin and its power was everything. And thosethings upon which she had set her heart and counted of supremeimportance did not weigh at all in the great crisis of life.
And right on that day of exultation, when the psalm was still repeatingitself triumphantly in their ears, the dreaded word came from thebattlefield. Mr. Holmes received the telegram at the little officebehind the store. He had been very distant with Mr. Sinclair eversince he joined the Methodists against the Presbyterians, but he forgotall about their estrangement in the terrible task that faced him ofcarrying the news to the Lindsay family. So he went hurriedly to theManse with his heavy burden, and Mr. Sinclair did not seem to think itstrange that he should come. The two men left their work and went upthe hill to the Lindsay home walking close together like children whowere afraid and were trying to give each other support.
And there by the bright fireside, sitting in the sunny window, whereher scarlet geraniums bloomed as gay as the poppies in Flanders Field,they found Christina and told her the news: that Neil and Jimmie hadgone over the top, together, very eager and glad, and that they wouldnot come back.
Christina was thankful afterwards for the merciful numbness, that waslike an anaesthetic in a painful operation. She had a feeling that shewould awaken soon and realise fully the terrible calamity that hadbefallen, but just now, if she kept still it would not hurt so much.
She was filled with wonder at her mother's courage. Even in the firstmoments of anguish she showed not a moment of wavering
faith. And shewas more filled with wonder at Grandpa. Neil had been Grandpa'sspecial pride, and she was afraid of the result of the news. She wentto the bright corner of the kitchen where he sat and tried tremblinglyto make him understand, holding back her own grief by main force, thatshe might tell it gently. He made no outcry, spoke no word of grief;but for an hour afterwards he sat quite still in deep thought, and sheheard him saying over and over to himself, as though trying to graspthe magnitude of his sorrow, "Both o' them! Not the two o' them,surely?" And then after pondering a while, "Aye, the two o' them!"
But when she put him to bed that night, dumb and sick with anguishherself, she could not but notice that Grandpa was acting strangely.He had an air of suppressed excitement, as though he were hiding somegood news. She did not guess what it was until she had left him, andoverheard him saying, "Aye, aye, I'll see them all the sooner. All thesooner!" in a tone of exultation. She did not hand him the hymn book,thinking he would not want to sing, but when she peeped in later to seeif it were time to take away the lamp, she was amazed to hear himsinging very softly and low, lest any overhear him, but singing,nevertheless, in the house of mourning, the Hindmost Hymn,
"On the other side of Jordan, in the sweet fields of Eden, Where the tree of life is blooming, there is rest for you."
For Grandpa had travelled far on the upward road, and Christina did notrealise that death was a small incident in the life of one who stoodjust at the door into the other world.
In the morning when she went in and ran up his window blind to the topto let in the sunlight, he was lying as she had left him the nightbefore, with the little orange-covered book held loosely in his coldhands. For Grandpa had sung the Hindmost Hymn for the last time andwas even now singing the First Hymn in a new Book away in the sweetfields of Eden, where there is no more death, neither sorrow norcrying, neither is there any more pain.
Christina had no time for her own grief, so busy she was comforting hermother, cheering Uncle Neil, sustaining John and writing consolingletters to the absent ones. Sometimes she was so occupied that shealmost forgot the terrible blow that had fallen, and then it would comeupon her with an unbelievable shock that Neil and Jimmie weredead,--gone forever out of the world!
It was something her heart would not accept. How could it be, itargued, that Neil, so strong and steady and full of high purpose, andJimmie, so radiant and full of life, could be lying dead in the mud ofa trench? It was unbelievable. And at last she came to understand,through watching with her mother, whose faith leaped over even thisbarrier of death, that the instincts of her heart were right. Jimmieand Neil were not dead. They were gone, somewhere, beyond her sight,but they were still living and moving and working as they had done hereon earth. Some fault of vision, some failure of the senses made itimpossible for her to communicate with them. But they were there, andalive! Her mother was sure of that. And Grandpa was right, he had metthem the sooner for their untimely call to the Life Beyond.
Allister came home as soon as the news about Neil and Jimmie reachedhim. He stayed a week with them, comforting his mother and Uncle Neil,helping John about the barn, and trying to keep Christina from goingtoo often to Grandpa's empty room. He brought a long letter fromEllen, offering to come home just as soon as the hospital authoritieswould spare her. She was getting on wonderfully well, Allisterreported, and had determined, should the war continue, that she wouldoffer herself as a Red Cross nurse, but had decided to come home if shewere needed.
Christina was longing for her elder sister's presence and help, but theremembrance of Neil's sacrifice for Jimmie made her ashamed of thethought. So she wrote bravely to Ellen bidding her stay until shefinished her course.
On the evening before Allister left, he and Christina sat by the firetalking, long after the others had gone to bed. Wallace had been thereearlier in the evening, and to Christina's amazement Allister did notshare in the universal admiration for him.
"He's got money, that young chap, Christine," he said. "But moneyisn't everything, girl, remember that."
"But you like Wallace, don't you?" asked Christina in surprise.
"Oh, I guess he's all right. But he's got things too easy. And he'llwant to get them easy all his life or he'll kick over the traces."
Christina was not conscious of any feeling of resentment. She did noteven take the trouble to attempt to defend Wallace, and Allister seemedsurprised.
"Yes, I thought money was the whole thing," he went on, "and now thewar has made me a poor man. I've got the farm I had when I went Westfirst, and I've got something more, I've got a pocketful of debts thatwill take me years to pay off. But, I guess I'm about as well off insome ways as I ever was."
Christina would have been very much dismayed at this some monthsearlier, but in the face of the stupendous events of her life the lossof property or even of the chance of wealth seemed trivial. She saidso to Allister and was glad to find that he agreed with her.
"I found that out since I was home last," he declared. "I thought youlacked ambition because you always gave up your chance in life to thisone and the other one. But you were the wise one. Money, and gettin'on in the world and all that don't amount to much after all. And ifmoney is all this fellow of yours has, mind you, that ain't enough. Itmight do for some girls, but let me tell you, it won't satisfy you."
As the dark days of the war dragged on, Christina found her talent forcomforting others sadly needed. For her own family were only theforerunners of many another stricken home.
Burke was the next to fall, and little Mitty was left alone to strugglewith Granny and poverty and grief, and Christina needed all herstrength to bring her through the trial.
And the next was Trooper. He went over the top in a gallant raid ofthe Princess Pats, calling on his comrades to follow, and it seemed tothose who had known him, that somewhere he must still be going on, gayand bright and fearless, always calling on other high hearts to comeafter him.
Joanna bore his going like a soldier's wife. She never walked quite soerect again, and her jet black hair began to turn grey, but she waseven more faithful in her work at the Red Cross meetings, and she andThe Woman grew firmer friends than ever in their common grief.
Christina went about among the stricken ones, easing her own grief incomforting others. But she had one ever present trouble for which shecould receive no comfort on any side. Every day the falseness of herattitude towards Wallace Sutherland weighed more heavily upon herhonest heart. And how she was going to tell him of the change in hershe did not know. How was she going to tell him that, though he hadonce been her hero, her ideal True Knight, that he had failed to liveup to her high standard, and that another, a real hero, who had lefther at the call of duty, had, all unwittingly, slipped into his place?
And then an event happened that made it unnecessary for her to tellhim. It was the news that came one early day in Spring, when all theworld was a wild rush of wind and water, and blinding sunshine,--theword that Gavin had been killed.
By a strange chance it was Wallace, himself, who brought the news toChristina. When Mr. Holmes heard the dread message ticked off on thetelegraph machine, he went straight to Mr. Sinclair, again, with hisburden of dismay and grief. And, unable to bear the heavy news alone,the minister went over to see if Dr. McGarry would help him carry theterrible burden to Craig-Ellachie.
Mr. Holmes kept the dread secret to himself until they had time todeliver it, fearing that the Grant Girls might hear it from anothersource. So the news had not reached the Lindsay farm in the eveningwhen Wallace came up the hill to see Christina.
He could not but notice a growing change in her manner towards him, buthe had put it down to her grief over the loss of her brothers. One ofChristina's charms in his eyes had been her independence and herevident indifference as to whether what she did or said should pleasehim or otherwise, but he thought it was high time she was showing somewarmth of feeling and instead she had been strange and cold and aloofrecently.
And Wallace, accustomed to have everything arranged just ashe wanted it, was beginning to feel somewhat ill-used. He felt that,though Christina were so heartbroken over Jimmie and Neil, she ought toshow more consideration for him. And to-night he had made up his mindto ask her to share the Ford place with him. He had quite decided thatthere could never be any one like Christina for him, and he felt surethat when they were really engaged she would be more like her old self,and they would be as happy as they were in the beginning.
Christina was sitting in the warm corner by the sitting-room stove,knitting a sock for Gavin when he entered. The room was bright andpleasant, and Wallace felt very happy when he flung himself luxuriouslyupon the deep sofa. But Christina was graver than she had ever been.She was sorry for him and was blaming herself bitterly; she had laid asnare for her own feet and now she was in desperate straits to get outof it.
Wallace saw her evident distress and supposed she had heard of Gavin,and was disturbed for his Aunts.
"Awful thing, this, for the poor old Grant Girls," he remarked,sympathetically.
Christina stopped in the act of sitting down, and straightened herselfquickly, as though she had been struck a blow.
"What?" She uttered the word in a fearful whisper, but the young manfelt she was showing only the natural agitation she must feel,remembering Jimmie and Neil.
"Didn't you hear? Gavin's killed," he said concisely.
Christina stood and looked at him stupidly. "What did you say?" sheasked in a dazed fashion.
"Gavin,--Gavin Grant," he repeated wonderingly, "he's been killed.They just got the telegram to-night, and Mr. Sinclair and Uncle Peterhave gone to tell the poor old Aunts--" he stopped, struck by the lookin her face. She had turned perfectly white, even to her lips, and satdown, slowly and dazedly. She picked up her knitting, looked at it amoment, foolishly, and then laid it down with a bewildered air.
Wallace got up suddenly from the sofa. "Christine!" he cried in alarm."What's the matter? Don't--don't look like that! I didn't mean tofrighten you. Oh, Christina, was Gavin?--Oh, I didn't know! What doesit mean to you?" he cried in sharp dismay.
She looked at him with honest, stricken eyes. "It means everything tome, Wallace," she said simply. "Everything in the world," telling thebald truth, in this supreme moment, without an effort. And when shehad said it, a great billow of darkness came rolling across the roomand surged over her. She heard Wallace calling for her mother, heardUncle Neil run in from the kitchen, and then sank away into a greatsilence and peace.
They tried to make her stay in bed the next day, but she insisted upongoing to see the Grant Girls with her mother. The fields were too wetand soft to be crossed, so Christina drove Dolly in the old buck-board.Craig-Ellachie was all sunshine, and the windows were alight withblossoms, scarlet geraniums and great waxy begonias, pink and white andcrimson, were in every sunny nook and corner, and purple hyacinths andpure white Easter lilies filled the old kitchen with fragrance. Thegarden, too, showed signs of beauty, for already the first crocus hadpushed its brave little head through the brown earth of the flower beds.
But the Grant Girls had lost the Spring-time bloom of their youth. Anuntimely frost had smitten down the one flower of their hearts. Theywere not girls any more; three stricken old women sat in the widebright kitchen among the flowers in a bewilderment of grief too deepfor tears.
Hughie Reid and his wife were there, and Mr. Sinclair and Joanna, andseveral other friends from the village. And out in the summer kitchenMrs. Johnnie Dunn had blackened and polished the stove that did notneed polishing, and was now madly scrubbing the floor that did not needscrubbing in the least, the tears all the while streaming down herface. Everything that loving hands could do in the house and barn wasdone, and the Aunties sat about in unaccustomed idleness, like lostchildren who had suddenly found themselves in strange surroundings, andwere even afraid to speak.
And Christina sat beside them, dumb with her grief and theirs, and noteven daring to whisper to them that her heart was lying with theirs,"Somewhere in France."
It seemed a very little thing, in the face of their stupendous loss,when the news came that Gavin had died a very glorious death, that hewould have been given the Victoria Cross had he lived, and that theywere sending it to Auntie Elspie. He had held back a rush of theenemy, alone and single-handed, until his comrades got to a place ofsafety. He had stayed on in a desperate position, working his machinegun, while the world rocked beneath him and the mad heavens raged withshot and shell above him, had held on though he was wounded again andagain, saying between his teeth, "Stand Fast, Craig-Ellachie!" Andthen a shell had come and the gallant stand was over. But he had savedthe Blue Bonnets from destruction, and spared many lives in losing hisown.
The Aunties held up their poor bowed heads, as Mr. Sinclair read themthe splendid story. They knew Gavie would do something great, and itwas just the way he would have wished to go, Auntie Elspie saidtremulously. But the light had gone out of their lives, and it wassmall comfort that it had blazed so gloriously in the going.
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