The Pioneers Read online

  CHAPTER II

  A few months later Mary Cameron's voice, as she sang lullabies to herbaby, mingled with the forest murmur and the sounds that came from theclearing--the lowing of the cow, the clucking and cackle of fowls, theclang of Donald's axe as he ring-barked trees near the house.

  A one-roomed hut, built of long, rough-barked saplings, ranged one abovethe other, and thatched with coarse reddish-brown bark, laid on inslabs, it stood on the brow of the hill not far from the wagon's firstresting place. Its two doors, set opposite each other, opened, onetowards the back hills and the other towards the creek and the clearedland on which a stubble of stumps still stood. The walls of the hut,inside, were plastered with the clayey hill soil which Mary had rammedinto crevices between the saplings when daylight had at first showed inthin shining streaks, and the mountain breezes had crept chilly throughthem in the early mornings. She had made the floor of beaten clay too,and had gathered from the creek bed the grey and brown stones whichDonald had built into the hearth and chimney with seams of lime and finewhite sand that he had brought from the Port.

  A window space had been left in the wall fronting the clearing; butthere was no glass in it. At night, or when it rained, Mary hung a pieceof hessian over the window. Two chairs were the only ready-madefurniture of the room. The boxes and bales brought in the wagon werepiled in a corner. A table, made of box-covers with sapling legs driveninto the floor, was under the window, and a bed, on a wooden foundationstrapped with green-hide, stood against the back wall. A few pieces ofdelft and white crockery glimmered on a shelf near the open fireplace,and below them, on another shelf, were stone jars and two or three potsand pans.

  Donald's harness, saddle, stirrup-leathers and stock-whip hung on pegsnear the back door. Among the bales and boxes, under a dingy mufflingcloth, stood a spinning wheel, and, tied together with lengths of dustyyarn, the parts of a weaver's hand loom which Mary had brought from theold country. On Sundays, when a bright fire sparkled on the hearth, themats of frayed hessian were spread on the floor, and she had put a jarfilled with wild flowers on the table, her eyes brimmed with joy andtenderness as she gazed about her.

  She had toiled all the summer out of doors with her husband to maketheir home, timber-cutting with him, grubbing stumps from the land,laying twigs and leaves in the stumps and lighting them so that the slowfires eating the wood left only charred shells to clear away. She haddriven Lassie, the grey, backwards and forwards, drawing logs and treetrunks from the slope to the stack behind the house, and when the framesof the wagon shed, cow sheds and stable were up, had laced the brushwoodto them. The weedy, brown nag that was Lassie's trace mate, during thosefirst weeks in the hills had come down and got himself rather badlystaked, and Donald had had to shoot him. It cost him a good deal to firethat shot, but he had worked the harder for it.

  Mary watched the cow while she browsed on the edge of the forest beforea paddock on the top of the hill was fenced. She milked, fed the calfand the fowls, and carried water from the creek to the house. When shewas not doing any of these things, or baking, brushing or furbishingindoors, during those first few months, her fingers were busy withlittle garments--shirts and gowns and overalls--cut from her own clothesof homespun tweed and unbleached calico.

  It was at the end of a long golden day that a cry from her broughtDonald from the far edge of the clearing. He was turning the land forhis first crop, and when he heard that cry, left the mare in her tracks,the rope lines trailing beside her.

  Later, his hands trembling, he took Lassie from the plough, and led herto the creek for water. Then, although the sun had not set, he hobbledher for the night, went into the house and shut the door.

  Usually, all was silent within its walls when the darkness fell; butthis night a garish light flickered under the door. There were sounds ofhushed movement, faint moaning, the crackling of fire on the hearth, allnight. The dog lying on the mat by the door did not know what to make ofit. He growled, low and warningly now and then. Towards morning whilestars still sparkled over the dark wave of the forest, a faintly wailingcry came from the hut. The dog's ears twitched; his yelping had an eerienote.

  Sunlight was flooding the hills, illumining the forest greenery, makingcrimson and gold of the shoots on the saplings, banishing the mistsamong the trees, splashing in long shafts on the sward, wet with dew,when Donald Cameron opened the door. His arms were folded round ashawled bundle. He stood for a moment in the doorway, the sunlightbeating past him into the hut.

  Then he lifted the small body in his arms, kissed it, and held it out tothe dawn, his face wrung with emotion.

  "All this, yours--your world, my son!" he said.

  They were quiet days that followed, days spun off in lengths of sunshinefrom the looms of Time, with the sleepy warmth of the end of the summerand the musky odours of the forest in them. Mary worked less out ofdoors when she was about again; her hands were full, cooking, washingand sewing, and looking after the animals and the baby. She sang to himas she worked. All her joy and tenderness were centred in him now.

  Donald did not understand the love songs she sang to little Davey. Theywere always in her own Welsh tongue.

  "It's queer talk to make to a bairn," he said one day, smiling grimly,as he listened to her.

  "He understands it, I'm sure," she said, smiling too.

  Cameron sang himself sometimes when he was at the far end of theclearing. It was always the same thing--the gathering song of the Clanof Donald the Black. While he was ploughing one morning, Mary firstheard him singing:

  Pibroch o' Donuil Dhu, Pibroch o' Donuil, Wake thy wild voice anew, Summon Clan Conuil.

  The words of the grand old slogan echoed among the hills.

  When next she heard it, Mary lifted Davey out of his cradle and ran tothe door with him, crying happily:

  "Listen, now, Davey dear, to thy father singing!"

  Cameron had interrupted himself to call to the mare as she turned afurrow: "Whoa, Lass! Whoa now!"

  He had gone on with his song as he bent the share to the slope of thehill again.

  A hidden root checked his progress; but when he had got it out of theway, and the plough settled again, he swung down hill, giving his voiceto the wind heartily:

  Leave untended the herd, The flock without shelter; Leave the corpse uninterred, The bride at the altar.

  Leave the deer, leave the steer, Leave nets and barges; Come in your fighting gear, Broad swords and t--a--r--ges.

  His voice had not much music, but Mary loved the way he sang, with thefierceness and burr, the rumble on the last word, of a chieftain callinghis men to battle. It was almost as if he were calling his tribesmen tohelp him in the battle he had on hand. But he was as shamefaced as aschoolboy about his singing, and it was only when he was some distancefrom the house, and had forgotten himself in his work, that he gaveexpression to the deep-seated joy and satisfaction with life that werein him.

  Davey was four months old, and the paddock his father had been ploughingthe day he was born was green with the blades of its first crop, whenMary asked:

  "When will you be going back to the Port, Donald?"

  She had taken Cameron's tea to him where he was working among the treesa little way from the clearing. He was resting for a few minutes,sitting on a log with his axe beside him.

  She spoke quietly as if it were an ordinary enough question she hadasked. Her eyes sought his.

  "There's very little flour left, and only a small piece of corned meat."

  "I'd made up my mind to go, day after to-morrow," he said.