CHAPTER VII.  "A MINISTERING ANGEL, THOU."
1808.
Two years had passed since the interrupted meeting in the tent. Not a word had Chrissy received from her lover. At length a report reached her, through a passing brigade, that George Morrison had been sent to the vicinity of Great Bear Lake to open a trading-post for his company, and that nothing had since been heard or seen of him.
Chrissy's devotion to her absent lover had grown deeper and stronger as month followed month. She never felt for an instant that he was dead to her. She did not think of him with hopes that were withered, with a tenderness frozen; the man whom she loved never once became a vague, dreamy idea to her, for to Chrissy George was a living, bright reality, who would come some day to fulfil his promise, when she would at last enter into the glorious consummation of her heart's deepest longing. It was this confidence that cheered and sustained her as she became her mother's most efficient coadjutor in missions of mercy and love. It was not an uncommon sight to see mother and daughter cantering over the rough woodland roads to distant clearances, in response to appeals for help from the sick and sorrowing.
On one occasion the appeal came from "Aunt" Allen, who lived on one of the back concession roads. As they approached the unpretentious but cosy little farm cottage, in the midst of a field of blackened stumps, Mrs. Allen came out to meet them.
"Oh, Mrs. Wright," she said, "I'm so thankful you have come. He's nearly mad with pain. In fact, I think the poor lad is agoin' out of his mind."
"How did it happen?" asked Mrs. Wright.
"You see," she said, "He had to sleep out nights in the woods when he was hauling timber to the drive, and an insect or somethin' must have got into his ear, for he could feel it a movin' and a crawlin' and"——.
"What have you done?" interrupted Mrs. Wright.
"We made him lie down with his ear on the pillow, but it was no good. Then we made him hold his ear down while we struck his head several hard blows to make it fall out, but it was no good. Then we put an onion poultice on it to draw it out, but that was no good, and now we don't know what more to do."
"I fear," said Mrs. Wright sadly, "that I shall not be much help to you, for my book does not mention what should be done in a case of that kind."
"But, mother," said Chrissy, "we cannot leave until we have done something. It is dreadful to see him suffer so."
"Physic will not touch it," she replied, "and they seem to have done everything that could be done."
At length Chrissy said:
"I've thought of a plan. Let us hold him with his head downwards, so that it may have a chance to drop on the floor; then let someone puff tobacco smoke up into the ear, and perhaps the smoke will cause the insect to become stupefied and it will fall out."
"Very good," said her mother. "The plan is worth trying, but who will do the smoking? There's not a man about the place."
"I'll do it myself," said Chrissy. "You have a pipe and tobacco, I suppose, Mrs. Allen?"
"Yes," she replied, "for the lad smokes."
The experiment was tried. Chrissy, kneeling on the clean sanded floor, puffed away vigorously at the strong old pipe, while her mother and Mrs. Allen held the young man's head over the fumes. Soon something dropped upon the floor, which proved to be a large red ant, and a shout of triumph went up as Mrs. Allen jumped upon it and ground it to nothingness. This brought instantaneous relief to the sufferer, who was very profuse in his expressions of gratitude.
Poor Mrs. Allen laughed and cried in turn as they took an affectionate farewell of one another, but Chrissy's face had an unusually pallid appearance, which, however, soon faded away as they galloped down the road to Mrs. Murphy's cottage.
They found the poor woman on a bed of suffering, where she had been for three months.
"Is it yersilf that's come, me lady?" she said, a slight flush of pleasure lighting up the pale, sad face.
"Yes, Bridget," said Mrs. Wright, "and I have brought my daughter, whom you have not seen for a long time."
"Ah, me darlint," she said, grasping Chrissy's hand, "Moike is a gud husband to me. He has a big, koind Irish heart, but one night when he came home he wasn't hisself, Moike wasn't, and he kicked me and the swate lamb there," pointing to a fat dumpling of a baby, "out of the door, and thin he locked it forninst me, Moike did; and I entrated him to let me in, but he would not; so I ran over the shnow through the fields to Joe Larocque's shanty, and I tuk off me skurt to roll the wee darlint in, for she was cryin' with the could, an' I ran to the shanty. For shure I was in my bare feet, an' when at last I reached Larocque's he was afeared to let me come in, he was, an' I prayed him for the sake o' the Blessed Virgin and all the holy angels to open the door, an' afther a long toime he did."
"Poor Moike," she said, with a look of agony in her face; "he's a gud man, a gud man, but he was not hisself—it was the dhrink that did it."
"There now, Bridget," said Mrs. Wright, "you have talked enough; you had better keep quite still while I remove these bandages."
The odor from the poor frozen hands and feet was frightful, but patiently and tenderly they removed the old bandages and applied new ones, after first saturating them in linseed oil and lime water. Before they had finished, the patient, overcome with exhaustion, sank back into a state of semi-unconsciousness, repeating the sad words over and over again:
"Poor Moike, he's gud, he's gud; but he wasn't hisself."
"I am afraid," whispered Mrs. Wright, "that mortification has set in. Did you observe that she had no feeling in the right foot while we were dressing it? Poor soul! Her sufferings will soon be over—perhaps to-night."
The tears streamed down Chrissy's face as she looked first at the poor sufferer, then at the innocent babe so soon to become motherless.
"I think, mother," she said, "that you had better leave me with her, for the Larocques can only come over once a day, and Mike has evidently no idea of how to take care of a sick woman, much less a baby. Could you not take him with you? Tell him that father wants him, for he said only this morning that he wanted more men."
It was finally decided that Chrissy should remain, and that the grief-stricken husband should ride her pony as far as the Columbia farm, where he was to remain until the Chief should give him leave to return.
It was nearly dark when Mrs. Wright reached Burns's, where several young men were standing round the door. Touching their hats respectfully to her as she entered, they soon followed her into a low room, permeated with the sickening odor of whisky and stale tobacco, where a young man lay with blackened eyes, a gash over the left temple, and a broken arm.
"So you've been fighting again, Andrew?" she said, "I thought after your last scrape that you would leave Jamaica rum alone."
Andrew was fully convinced in his own mind that his injuries would ultimately prove fatal, and his feelings alternated between vengeance on the one who had proved too strong for him and an uneasy apprehension of dissolution.
"It was not my fault; and if ever I lay hands on that villain again I'll thrash him within an inch of his life," he hissed through clenched teeth, his face white with rage; "I'll smash every bone in his body. Give me time, Mrs. Wright, to say a paternoster before you begin."
"How can you pray, 'Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name,' and drink that which will cause His name to be profaned and blasphemed?" she said. "How can you pray, 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done,' and drink that which will be the greatest hindrance to the coming of His kingdom and the fulfilment of His will? How can you pray, 'Give us this day our daily bread,' and drink that which is depriving thousands of daily bread? How can you pray, 'Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,' and take that which makes us unwilling to forgive our debtors? How can you pray, 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,' and drink that which has proved temptation and evil to so many? I assure you, Andrew," she said, "that you cannot say a paterno............