Love stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- Canada -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"It's turned out better than we intended," said Marmaduke in improper
glee. "Why didn't we think of it?"
Now, Piper Lauchie had not been in Orchard Glen that summer, and the
last occasion upon which he had visited the village had been on his way
home from a picnic, under rather merry circumstances which left his
memory of the place pleasantly hazy. Trooper had cautioned him to
march right into the hall on his arrival, explaining that the building
was on his left hand side after he crossed the bridge, and that he
could not miss it for it would be all lit up and he and Marmaduke would
be at the door to see him march triumphantly inside. So far he had
followed his instructions to the letter. He tuned up half way down the
hill and came marching across the bridge, and then the Dreadful Thing
happened.
It was almost dark by this time and surely neither the Piper nor
Trooper nor Marmaduke was to blame that the Methodist church should be
placed on the left hand side after you crossed the bridge, and that it
should be all lit up so that the Piper could not miss it! And he did
not miss it, either. The sight of the rows of heads against the
windows, all in the attitude of waiting, inspired the musician to
greater effort. He shifted his chanter a bit, put more wind into it,
and burst into a gayer and faster tune, and when he reached the bit of
sidewalk opposite the door of the Methodist church, he whirled about,
with a flirt of his kilt and a flip of his plaid, swept up the steps,
through the open door and went screaming up the church aisle right to
the pulpit steps, fairly raising the roof to the tune of "Hey! Johnnie
Cope, are ye waukin' yet?"
And all the while this terrible mishap was occurring, the Choir in the
hall farther down the street, just at the moment when all was going as
ill as human affairs could go, was singing in false security, "All's
Well!"
When Trooper and Duke, waiting admiringly in the middle of the road,
saw their charge suddenly disappear into the pitfall of the Methodist
church, they stood paralysed for one dreadful moment, like men who had
seen the earth open and swallow everything upon which they had set
their hearts. Then Trooper gave a terrific yell, the war whoop he had
learned on the prairie, and turned and looked at his companion in
disaster. Duke was beyond uttering even a yell. He collapsed silently
upon the grass by the roadside, and rolled back and forth in a kind of
convulsion, while Trooper staggered to the fence and hung limply over
it like a wet sack. And all the while inside the hall higher and
stronger and more confident, swelled the words of the chorus in
dreadful irony, "All's Well, All's Well!"
Nobody could ever quite explain how the Piper got ejected from the
church and transferred to the hall where he belonged. There were so
many conflicting reports.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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