Rainbow Valley eBook

Faith sat up in bed and looked out of the little vine-hung window.  The night was very still, the silence broken only by Una’s soft breathing.  Faith felt terribly alone in the world.  She could see Glen St. Mary lying under the starry blue meadows of the autumn night.  Over the valley a light shone from the girls’ room at Ingleside, and another from Walter’s room.  Faith wondered if poor Walter had toothache again.  Then she sighed, with a little passing sigh of envy of Nan and Di.  They had a mother and a settled home—­they were not at the mercy of people who got angry without any reason and called you a varmint.  Away beyond the Glen, amid fields that were very quiet with sleep, another light was burning.  Faith knew it shone in the house where Norman Douglas lived.  He was reputed to sit up all hours of the night reading.  Mary had said if he could only be induced to return to the church all would be well.  And why not?  Faith looked at a big, low star hanging over the tall, pointed spruce at the gate of the Methodist Church and had an inspiration.  She knew what ought to be done and she, Faith Meredith, would do it.  She would make everything right.  With a sigh of satisfaction, she turned from the lonely, dark world and cuddled down beside Una.

CHAPTER XVI.  TIT FOR TAT

With Faith, to decide was to act.  She lost no time in carrying out the idea.  As soon as she came home from school the next day she left the manse and made her way down the Glen.  Walter Blythe joined her as she passed the post office.

“I’m going to Mrs. Elliott’s on an errand for mother,” he said.  “Where are you going, Faith?”

“I am going somewhere on church business,” said Faith loftily.  She did not volunteer any further information and Walter felt rather snubbed.  They walked on in silence for a little while.  It was a warm, windy evening with a sweet, resinous air.  Beyond the sand dunes were gray seas, soft and beautiful.  The Glen brook bore down a freight of gold and crimson leaves, like fairy shallops.  In Mr. James Reese’s buckwheat stubble-land, with its beautiful tones of red and brown, a crow parliament was being held, whereat solemn deliberations regarding the welfare of crowland were in progress.  Faith cruelly broke up the august assembly by climbing up on the fence and hurling a broken rail at it.  Instantly the air was filled with flapping black wings and indignant caws.

“Why did you do that?” said Walter reproachfully.  “They were having such a good time.”

“Oh, I hate crows,” said Faith airily.  “The are so black and sly I feel sure they’re hypocrites.  They steal little birds’ eggs out of their nests, you know.  I saw one do it on our lawn last spring.  Walter, what makes you so pale to-day?  Did you have the toothache again last night?”

Walter shivered.

“Yes—­a raging one.  I couldn’t sleep a wink—­so I just paced up and down the floor and imagined I was an early Christian martyr being tortured at the command of Nero.  That helped ever so much for a while—­and then I got so bad I couldn’t imagine anything.”