The Prospector: A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass. Ralph Connor
nodded. "And yonder goes `Shock,' the great Shock."
"Oh, where?" cried Betty. "Yes, yes. Now, do you know I think he is just as mean as he can be. Here I have been bowing and smiling my best and sweetest for four years, and though he knows a lot of the men we know he is just as much a stranger as ever," and Betty pouted in a manner that would have brought deep satisfaction to Shock had he seen her.
"Here are the three halves, aren't they?" inquired Helen, the elder sister.
"Yes," replied Lloyd. "There's Martin and Bate. Fine fellow, Bate—and—"
"Oh!" broke in Betty, "there's the 'The Don.' do wish they would look. They needn't pretend they don't see us, the horrid things."
"Of course they see you," answered Lloyd, "but they are engaged in serious business. You surely don't expect to divert their attention from the pursuit of their noble art. Why, who, or what do you conceive yourself to be?"
But Betty only smiled serenely, and shook her curls back saucily.
"Oh, I know," replied Lloyd, "I know what you are saying. `Some day, some day they will grovel.' Alas, only too soon! And, indeed, here comes The Don on his second round. I'll ask him what he means."
"If you dare!" cried Betty.
"Mr. Lloyd!" said Helen haughtily, and Mr. Lloyd thought better of it.
But "The Don" did not even glance toward the group.
"Look at that, now," said Lloyd disgustedly.
"Did anyone ever see such besotted devotion to a barbarous vocation."
"He did not see us at all," insisted Betty. "But why is Mr. Balfour called 'The Don'?"
"Obviously, I should say, from his Don-like appearance, bearing, carriage, etc. But I am not an authority. Ask little Brown, your special slave. He knows all about both Shock and The Don."
"What absurd names you have," exclaimed Betty. "Now, what is the reason for Shock's name? Is it the shock of his charge in the scrimmage?"
"Not bad, that. I rather fear, however, it has to do with his most striking feature, if feature it be, for, when you pull him feet first out of a scrimmage, a method not infrequently adopted, his head is a sight to behold. But, as I said before, ask Brown."
"I will to-night. He's coming over after tea. You are coming, too, are you not?"
Lloyd bowed. "I shall be delighted"
True to her word Betty greeted Brown, on his appearance in the cosy, homelike parlour of the Fairbanks' that evening, with the question, "How did 'The Don' come by his nickname?"
"Oh, did you never know that? Most fellows put it down to his style, but it's not that. He got it from his blood. You know, his father was one of those West India, sea-captains that one used to find strewn thick through Halifax society, who made fortunes in rum and lost them pretty much the same way. Well, the old captain married a Spanish girl. I have seen her portrait, and she was a beauty, a `high-bred Spanish lady,' sure enough. Lived somewhere in the islands. Came home with the Captain, and died in Halifax, leaving her seven year old boy in charge of an aunt. Father died soon afterwards. Grief, I believe, and drink. Even then his people called the 'the little Don.' He had a little money left him to start with, but that has long since vanished. At any rate, for the last five or six years he has had to fend for himself."
"Quite a romance," said Lloyd.
"Isn't it?" exclaimed Betty. "And he never told a word."
"Well, The Don's not a publisher."
"But then he told you."
"Yes, he told me and Shock one night. He likes us, you see."
"'De gustibus non disputandum,'" murmured Lloyd, and in answer to Betty's inquiring look added, "as the old woman said when she kissed her cow."
"Now then, what about Shock's name?" continued Betty.
"Hair," said Brown laconically. "You have seen him come out of a scrimmage like a crab?"
"Yes. Isn't he just lovely then?" exclaimed Betty.
"Lovely? Oh, woman, woman! A ghastly, bloody, fearsome spectacle. Lovely! But it was ever thus. 'Butchered to make a Roman holiday,'" replied Lloyd.
"Well, he is rather bloody. Bleeds easily, you; know, but it doesn't hurt at all," said Brown. "He never really enjoys himself till the blood flows."
"Disgusting old Berserker!" exclaimed Lloyd.
"But I think he is just a dear," went on Betty enthusiastically. "The way he puts his head right down into a crowd of men, and lets them jump on him and maul him!"
"Yes," replied her sister, who had taken little part in the conversation, "and comes out smiling. That is what I like."
"And bloody," added Lloyd. "That's what Miss Betty likes."
"I want to know about him," cried Betty impatiently. "Why don't we get to know him? Tell me about him," she insisted. "Where does he live? Who are his people?"
Brown hesitated.
"Well, you see, Shock's shy. Does not go in for the sort of thing that Lloyd, for instance, revels and glitters in—teas, functions, social routs, and all that, you know. He has only his mother, a dear old Highland lady, poor, proud, and independent. She lives in a quaint little house out on the Commons away behind the college, and lives for, in, with, by, and around Shock, and he vice versa. He shares everything with her, his work down in the mission—"
"Mission!" interrupted Betty.
"Yes. Runs a mission down in St. John's ward. Gives her all his experiences with the denizens of that precinct, keeps her in touch with his college work, and even with his football. You ought to see him lay a out the big matches before her on the tea table with plates, cups, salt cellars, knives, spoons, and you ought to see her excitement and hear her criticisms. Oh, she's a great sport!"
"Go on," said Helen, her fine eyes beginning to glow. "Go on. Tell us more about her."
But Brown shut up abruptly, as if he had been taking a liberty with the privacy of his friend's home.
"Oh," he said lightly, "there's nothing more to tell. They live a very quiet, very simple, but, I think, a very beautiful life."
"And she's fond of football?" inquired Betty.
"Devoted to it."
"And has she never seen a game? Has she never seen Shock play?" inquired Helen.
"Never."
"Would she be afraid?"
"Would you insult the widow of a Sutherland Highlander whose picture in warlike regalia regards her daily from her cottage wall?"
"Well, I am going to see her," exclaimed Betty.
Brown looked annoyed.
"What for?"
"Why, I am going to call."
Brown laughed a little scornfully. "Yes, and be sure to leave three cards—is it?—and tell her your day."
"What do you mean?" exclaimed Betty indignantly. "You are not very polite."
"Oh, I am sorry, really. But I imagined the old lady looking at you and wondering what was your particular business, and then I thought of your difficulty in making it quite clear to her."
"Why! does she not call on anyone?"
"No. She takes her knitting and visits."
"Well, I'm going anyway, somehow. I'll ask Shock to take me."
"Oh, Betty, you could not do that," said Helen. "No man would like exhibiting his home, much less his mother."
But Betty shook her head decidedly, saying, "I'll find some