MICHAEL McGRATH,

POSTMASTER

By RALPH CONNOR

Author of "The Sky Pilot," "Black Rock," Etc.

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

CHICAGO        NEW YORK        TORONTO

Copyright 1900

BY

Fleming H. Revell Company

Michael McGrath, Postmaster.

Some men and some scenes so fasten themselves into one's memory that the years, with their crowding scenes and men, have no power to displace them. I can never forget "Ould Michael" and the scene of my first knowing him. All day long I rode, driving in front my pack-pony laden with my photograph kit, tent and outfit, following the trail that would end somewhere on the Pacific Coast, some hundreds of miles away. I was weary enough of dodging round the big trees, pushing through underbrush, scrambling up and down mountain-sides, hugging cliffs where the trail cut in and wading warily through the roaring torrent of "Sixty-mile Creek." As the afternoon wore on, the trail left the creek and wound away over a long slope up the mountain-side.

"Ginger," said I to my riding pony, "we are getting somewhere"—for our trail began to receive other trails from the side valleys and the going was better. At last it pushed up into the open, circled round a shoulder of the mountain, clinging tight, for the drop was sheer two hundred feet, and—there before us stretched the great Fraser Valley! From my feet the forest rolled its carpet of fir-tops—dark-green, soft, luxurious. Far down to the bottom and up again, in waving curves it swept, to the summit of the distant mountains opposite, and through this dark-green mass the broad river ran like a silver ribbon gleaming in the sunlight.

Following the line of the trail, my eye fell upon that which has often made men's hearts hard and lured them on to joyous death. There, above the green tree-tops, in a clearing, stood a tall white mast and from the peak, flaunting its lazy, proud defiance, flew a Union Jack.

"Now, Ginger, how in the name of the Empire comes that brave rag to be shaking itself out over these valleys!"

Ginger knew not, but, in answer to my heels, set off at a canter down the slope and, in a few minutes, we reached a grassy bench that stretched down to the river-bank. On the bench was huddled an irregular group of shacks and cabins and, in front of the first and most imposing of them, stood the tall mast with its floating flag. On the wide platform that ran in front of this log cabin a man was sitting, smoking a short bull-dog pipe. By his dress and style I saw at once that he had served in Her Majesty's army. As I rode up under the flag I lifted my cap, held it high and called out: "God save the Queen!" Instantly he was on his feet and, coming to attention with a military salute, replied with great fervor: "God bless her!" From that moment he took me to his heart.

That was my introduction to "Ould Michael," as everyone in the Valley called him, and as he called himself.

After his fifth glass, when he would become dignified, "Ould Michael" would drop his brogue and speak of himself as "Sergeant McGrath, late of Her Majesty's Ninety-third Highlanders," Irishman though he was.

Though he had passed his sixtieth year, he was still erect and brisk enough in his movement, save for a slight hitch in his left leg. "A touch of a knife," he explained, "in the Skoonder Bag."

"The where?"

"Skoonder Bag, forninst the walls the Lucknow—to the left over, ye understand."

"I'm ashamed to say I don't," I answered, feeling that I was on the track of a yarn.

He looked at me pityingly.

"Ye've heard av Sir Colin?" He was not going to take anything for granted.

I replied hastily: "Sir Colin Campbell, of course."

"Well, we was followin' Sir Colin up to the belagured city when we run into the Skoonder Bag—big stone walls and windys high up, and full av min, like a jail, or a big disthillery."

Then, like a dream from the past, it came to me that he was talking of that bloody fight about and in the "Secunderabogh," where, through a breach two feet square, the men of the Ninety-third, man by man, forced their way in the face of a thousand Sepoys, mad for blood and, with their bayonets, piled high in gory heaps the bodies of their black foes, crying with every thrust, in voices hoarse with rage and dust, "Cawnpore! Cawnpore!" That tale Ould Michael would never tell till his cups had carried him far beyond the stage of dignity and reserve.

After he had helped me to picket my ponies and pitch my tent, he led me by a little gate through his garden to the side door of the cabin.

The garden was trim, like Ould Michael himself, set out in rectangular beds, by gravel-walks and low-cut hedges of "old man." It was filled with all the dear old-fashioned flowers—Sweet William and Sweet Mary, bachelor's buttons, pansies and mignonette, old country daisies and snapdragons and lilies of the valley and, in the centre of the beds, great masses of peonies, while all around, peeping from under the hedges of old man, were poppies of every hue. Beyond the garden there was a plot of potatoes, cabbage and other vegetables and, best of all and more beautiful than all, over the whole front of the cabin, completely hiding the rough logs, ran a climbing rose, a mass of fragrant bloom. Ould Michael lingered lovingly for a moment among his flowers, and then led me into the house.

The room into which we entered was a wonder for preciseness and order. The walls were decorated with prints, much-faded photographs, stuffed birds, heads of deer and a quaint collection of old-fashioned guns, pistols and bayonets, but all arranged with an exactness and taste that would drive mad the modern artistic decorator. On one side of the window hung a picture of Wellington: on the other, that of Sir Colin. To the right of the clock, on a shelf, stood a stuffed mallard; to the left on a similar shelf, stood a stuffed owl. The same balance was diligently preserved in the arrangement of his weapons of war. A pine table stood against one wall, flanked by a home-made chair on either side. A door opened to the left into a bedroom, as I supposed; another, to the right, into what Ould Michael designated "My office, sir."

"Office?" I inquired.

"Yes, sir," still preserving his manual of ceremony, "Her Majesty's mail for Grand Bend."

"And you are the Postmaster?" I said, throwing into my voice the respect and awe that I felt were expected.

"That same," with a salute.

"That explains the flag, then; you are bound to keep that flying, I suppose."

"Bound, sir? Yes, but by no law is it."

"How, then?"

"For twenty-five years I marched and fought under that same flag," said the old soldier, dropping into his brogue, "and under it, plaze God, I'll die."

I looked at the old man. In his large dark-blue eyes shone that "fire that never slumbers"—the fire of loyal valor, with its strange power to transform common clay into men of heroic mould. The flag, the garden, the postoffice—these were Ould Michael's household gods. The equipment of the postoffice was primitive enough.

"Where are the boxes?" I inquired; "the letter-boxes, you know; to put the letters into."

"An' what wud I do puttin' them into boxes, at all?"

"Why, to distribute the mail so that you could find every man's letter