CHAPTER V.  CHRISSY.
1804.
As the settlement did not afford any greater educational advantages than Mrs. Wright, with a multitude of other claims upon her time, was able to give to her daughters, Chrissy and Abbie were sent to a convent in Quebec, there being no other boarding-schools in Canada at this time.
Among their school friends was Sally Smith, whose mother invited them to spend Christmas with them at the officers' quarters at the Citadel.
"Just fancy!" said Mrs. Smith, addressing her husband, the Colonel, and his guest, a young Scotchman, as the girls entered the dining-room. "Shut up in a convent for sixteen months with nothing to vary the monotony of it! Do they not deserve a holiday?"
As they were introduced George Morrison and Chrissy looked at each other and bowed formally and composedly, and an awkward, embarrassing silence followed. For the first time in his life the presence of a fair and lovely girl cast a spell over him so extraordinary that, as he sat opposite to her at the dinner-table and watched her frank, bright, expressive face, his own responded to her every expression.
It would not be difficult to say which had made the most profound impression upon the mind of the honest young Scotchman, his distant kinsman, the Colonel, with his handsome, kindly face and his sturdy English character, or the tall, slight form before him, with sloping shoulders, tapering arms, and a face lovely in its spiritual contour.
George Morrison thought he had never met such a man as the Colonel, nor was the admiration unreciprocated, for his host took a great fancy to George. "He is one of those men," he remarked to his wife, "whom porridge and the Shorter Catechism have endowed with grit and backbone—just the sort of fellow for the Hudson's Bay Company's service. In dealing with traders and trappers men of nerve are needed, men of brain, men of muscle. George Morrison is not a man to be imposed upon. He can take his place at the head of a crowd of dare-devils and keep them under perfect control."
It is hardly possible in a way for a young man to live in the same house with a young and lovely woman like Chrissy without running more or less risk of entanglement. More especially is this so where the two have had little or no outside society to divert their attention from each other. George and Chrissy soon found it pleasant to be a good deal together. Before she had been a week in the house he had come to the conclusion that Chrissy was one of the most attractive women he had ever met, and one of the strangest. That she was clever and good he soon discovered from remarks she made from time to time; but that she had something that he did not possess was evident, and it puzzled him. So curious was he to fathom the mystery that he took every opportunity of associating with her in the hope of drawing from her the secret of her joyous, triumphant life.
They read together, sang together, walked together, and it seemed to them both that every word interchanged, every blending sound of their voices, every step they took, was welding together a bond which had existed since first they met at the Colonel's hospitable table. To George it seemed a natural sequence that when he had for the first time met the young woman who, he was convinced, was predestined by God to be his counter-part that the recognition should be mutual. He knew that she had a way of making him feel perfectly at ease in her society. When he was talking to her, or even sitting silently by her, he felt a sense of restfulness and reliance that he had never before experienced in the society of a woman, especially since he bade farewell to civilization to lead his men through the trackless maze of rivers, lakes and woods of the North-West.
It soon became evident to Chrissy that George liked her society. It never occurred to her what a boon it was to the rugged Nor'wester to be thrown, for the first time, into the society of a young woman not only of considerable intellectual attainments but of deep spirituality.
Chrissy did not think of love or marriage at first. What she did think of was the possibility of leading the young Scotchman into the highest realm of life—the spiritual.
They had just left the little old-fashioned church, and were walking the snowy streets in silence, when Chrissy spoke:
"Do you know," she said, shyly, "it's very strange, but you are the only man I have ever met to whom I could speak with confidence of the subject nearest my heart."
"And what may that be?" he asked, a ray of light and hope illumining his face.
"It is the realization of the love of the Unseen and Eternal. More to me than the sweetest earthly tie is One whom having not seen I love."
"It is all a mystery to me," he said. "In fact it is incomprehensible how anyone can manifest such enthusiasm and devotion to One unknown. Though I learned at mother's knee that 'man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.' I have never been able to get beyond the theory of it."
"I am sorry for you," she said, her voice trembling with disappointment.
For several minutes neither spoke, when Chrissy said, slowly and thoughtfully:
"How oblivious the mineral kingdom is to the life of the world above it, and the vegetable kingdom to that of the animal. How much more so the man or woman having a mere physical existence to the life of the spiritual. They have not the faculty of comprehending its joys or its privileges any more than a stone can appreciate a flower, or a flower appreciate science or art. My heart yearns with unutterable pity for anyone to whom Christ and the things of the spiritual world are not a reality."
George made no response, and as they had reached the door of the Colonel's quarters, he grasped her hand.
"Chrissy, Chrissy," he said, "I must go. I dare not trust myself to speak," and he left her standing on the door-step.
The happy holidays had slipped away all too soon. Chrissy stood by a window gazing at the panorama before her. The moonlight poured through the window, filling the room with a soft radiance which rested upon her head with a kind of halo. The indescribable beauty of the scene without faded into insignificance compared with the scene which George Morrison contemplated—a young woman whose pure heart was mirrored in the beauty of her face and breathed in every accent of her gentle voice. Her earnest blue eyes looked as though they could see into that other world of which she so often spoke. Never before had he beheld a life so filled with fascinating grace as to pervade every gesture and accent. Never had he met a soul so permeated with love and devotion to God, and withal so simple, so natural, so sweet.
Chrissy was evidently oblivious to the presence of anyone, and started when George suddenly remarked:
"Pardon me, Miss Chrissy, if I intrude upon the sacredness of your meditations, but I understand you are going to leave us to-morrow. We may not meet again, for you will be shut up within the cloistered walls yonder and I shall be leaving in the spring for the great unknown land. I shall have cause to thank God through all eternity for your visit I am grateful, deeply grateful, for the loving interest you have manifested in my welfare, and I cannot part with you, dear Chrissy, without giving some expression of the intense love I have for you. It would be heaven begun on earth if I might only be permitted to walk life's pathway with you; but, alas! I am not in a position to offer you a home. I am not one of those white-shirt-fronted gentlemen such as we frequently meet with here, but, thank God, I can now offer you a heart that is white, a life that is pure. Life in the woods has rubbed off any of the veneer or polish that I may have brought with me from the Old Land, and I am just as you see me, Chrissy, a plain, rough man from the wilds of the West. Notwithstanding which, could you not give me a pledge that some time, somewhere, I may claim you as my own?"
For a moment Chrissy said nothing, but the expression of her face was more eloquent than any words. Her breast heaved with emotion as she said, slowly and calmly:
"I am convinced that such a union as you propose would be founded upon the only true basis, a mutual love for Christ. unions such as this have only their beginning here; their full fruition is in eternity."
In a moment he was at her feet, and, pressing her hand to his lips, he poured forth expressions of happy gratitude to the Giver of all good.
To her lover she seemed as she stood before him an incarnation of love, of beauty, of goodness and grace, more like something belonging to another world—a subject of a higher power.