Corporal Cameron of the North West Mounted Police: A Tale of the Macleod Trail. Ralph Connor
“Dunn!”
“Yes, Mr. Dunn, the great International captain, you know! Mr. Dunn says he can take a whole bottle of Scotch—”
“What, Dunn?”
“No, no; you know perfectly well, Uncle! This young Cameron can take a whole bottle of Scotch and walk a crack, but his head gets awfully muddled.”
“Shouldn't be surprised!”
“And Mr. Dunn had a terrible time keeping him fit for the International. You know he was Dunn's half-back. Yes,” cried his niece with enthusiasm, suddenly remembering a tradition that in his youth Sir Archibald had been a famous quarter, his one indulgence, “a glorious half-back, too! You must remember in the match with England last fall the brilliant work of the half-back. Everybody went mad about him. That was young Cameron!”
“You don't tell me! The left-half in the English International last fall?”
“Yes, indeed! Oh, he's wonderful! But he has to be watched, you know, and the young fool lost us the last—” Miss Bessie abruptly checked herself. “But never mind! Well, after the season, you know, he got going loose, and this is the result. Owed money everywhere, and with the true Highland incapacity for business, and the true Highland capacity for trusting people—”
“Huh!” grunted Sir Archibald in disapproval.
“—When his head is in a muddled condition he does something or other to a cheque—or doesn't do it, nobody knows—and there he is in this awful fix. Personally, I don't believe he is guilty of the crime.”
“And why, pray?”
“Why? Well, Mr. Dunn, his captain, who has known him for years, says it is quite impossible; and then the young man himself doesn't deny it.”
“What? Does NOT deny it?”
“Exactly! Like a perfectly straightforward gentleman—and I think it's awfully fine of him—though he has a perfectly good chance to put the thing on a—a fellow Potts, quite a doubtful character, he simply says, 'I know nothing about it. That looks like my signature. I can't remember doing this, don't know how I could have, but don't know a thing about it.' There you are, Uncle! And Mr. Dunn says he is quite incapable of it.”
“Mr. Dunn, eh? It seems you build somewhat broadly upon Mr. Dunn.”
The brown on Miss Bessie's check deepened slightly. “Well, Mr. Dunn is a splendid judge of men.”
“Ah; and of young ladies, also, I imagine,” said Sir Archibald, pinching her cheek.
It may have been the pinch, but the flush on her cheek grew distinctly brighter. “Don't be ridiculous, Uncle! He's just a boy, a perfectly splendid boy, and glorious in his game, but a mere boy, and—well, you know, I've arrived at the age of discretion.”
“Quite true!” mused her uncle. “Thirty last birthday, was it? How time does—!”
“Oh, you perfectly horrid uncle! Thirty indeed! Are you not ashamed to add to the already intolerable burden of my years? Thirty! No, Sir, not by five good years at least! There now, you've made me tell my age! You ought to blush for shame.”
Her uncle patted her firm, round cheek. “Never a blush, my dear! You bear even your advanced age with quite sufficient ease and grace. But now about this young Cameron,” he continued, assuming a sternly judicial tone.
“All I ask for him is a chance,” said his niece earnestly.
“A chance? Why he will get every chance the law allows to clear himself.”
“There you are!” exclaimed Miss Bessie, in a despairing tone. “That's the way the lawyers and your manager talk. They coolly and without a qualm get him arrested, this young boy who has never in all his life shown any sign of criminal tendency. These horrid lawyers display their dreadful astuteness and ability in catching a lad who never tries to run away, and your manager pleads the rules of the Bank. The rules! Fancy rules against a young boy's whole life!”
Her uncle rather winced at this.
“And like a lot of sheep they follow each other in a circle; there is absolutely no independence, no initiative. Why, they even went so far as to suggest that you could do nothing, that you were bound by rules and must follow like the rest of them; but I told them I knew better.”
“Ah!” said Sir Archibald in his most dignified manner. “I trust I have a mind of my own, but—”
“Exactly! So I said to Mr. Dunn. 'Rules or no rules,' I said, 'my uncle will do the fair thing.' And I know you will,” cried Miss Brodie triumphantly. “And if you look at it, there's a very big chance that the boy never did the thing, and certainly if he did it at all it was when he was quite incapable. Oh, I know quite well what the lawyers say. They go by the law—they've got to—but you—and—and—I go by the—the real facts of the case.” Sir Archibald coughed gently. “I mean to say—well you know, Uncle, quite well, you can tell what a man is by—well, by his game.”
“His game!”
“And by his eye.”
“His eye! And his eye is—?”
“Now, Uncle, be sensible! I mean to say, if you could only see him. Oh, I shall bring him to see you!” she cried, with a sudden inspiration.
Sir Archibald held up a deprecating hand. “Do not, I beg.”
“Well, Uncle, you can trust my judgment, you know you can. You would trust me in—in—” For a moment Miss Brodie was at a loss; then her eyes fell upon the grunting, comfortable old mother pig with her industrious litter. “Well, don't I know good Wiltshires when I see them?”
“Quite true,” replied her uncle solemnly; “and therefore, men.”
“Uncle, you're very nearly rude.”
“I apologise,” replied her uncle hastily. “But now, Bessie, my dear girl, seriously, as to this case, you must understand that I cannot interfere. The Bank—hem—the Bank is a great National—”
Miss Bessie saw that the Guards were being called upon. She hastened to bring up her reserves. “I know, Uncle, I know! I wouldn't for the world say a word against the Bank, but you see the case against the lad is at least doubtful.”
“I was going on to observe,” resumed her uncle, judicially, “that the Bank—”
“Don't misunderstand me, Uncle,” cried his niece, realising that she had reached a moment of crisis. “You know I would not for a moment presume to interfere with the Bank, but”—here she deployed her whole force—“the lad's youth and folly; his previous good character, guaranteed by Dunn, who knows men; his glorious game—no man who wasn't straight could play such a game!—the large chance of his innocence, the small chance of his guilt; the hide-bound rigidity of lawyers and bank managers, dominated by mere rules and routine, in contrast with the open-minded independence of her uncle; the boy's utter helplessness; his own father having been ready to believe the worst—just think of it, Uncle, his own father thinking of himself and of his family name—much he has ever done for his family name!—and not of his own boy, and”—here Miss Brodie's voice took a lower key—“and his mother died some five or six years ago, when he was thirteen or fourteen, and I know, you know, that is hard on a boy.” In spite of herself, and to her disgust, a tremor came into her voice and a rush of tears to her eyes.
Her uncle was smitten with dismay. Only on one terrible occasion since she had emerged from her teens had he seen his niece in tears. The memory of that terrible day swept over his soul. Something desperate was doing. Hard as the little man was to the world against which he had fought his way to his present position of distinction, to his niece he was soft-hearted as a mother. “There, there!” he exclaimed hastily. “We'll give the boy a chance. No mother, eh? And a confounded prig for a father!