Each Man's Son by Hugh Maclennan Read Free Book Online

happened?”
    Mollie set out to explain and forgot her shyness in the telling. “It was one of those days, Doctor, when MacKeegan’scourtroom was full to the doors, for it was the Monday after the biggest fight of all in MacDonald’s Corner. Big Alec McCoubrie looks very fine in his brass buttons, and I know it is true he is strong enough to burst his uniform if he swells out his chest, but he can’t see anything in the dark, Doctor, and he is not too smart in the daylight, either. Imagine Big Alec arresting Mr. Camire thinking he was Holy John MacEachern–but that is what he did, and on Monday morning there was Mr. Camire in court with the rest of them.”
    Mollie began to imitate the magistrate’s accent as she continued to explain and Margaret smiled, hoping the story would not irritate her husband.
    â€œâ€˜What are you up to?’” Mollie went on, her gentle voice suddenly as hoarse and broad as MacKeegan’s. “‘Wass it fightin’ or wass it just tomcattin’ around?’ And of course,” she continued in her natural voice, “not being able to understand the English, what could Mr. Camire do but stand there and shake his head? ‘Now then, you ,’ said MacKeegan, ‘you answer me–are you ghuilty or are you not ghuilty?’ And Mr. Camire just stood there, not being able to understand. ‘So the prissoner cannot speak English! Can you speak Gaelic?’ And still Mr. Camire could not understand. ‘The prissoner cannot speak Gaelic. Can you speak French?’ And how could Mr. Camire know what old MacKeegan meant when he said it just like that? After MacKeegan said ‘Can you speak Gherman,’ that was all the languages he had ever heard of, so then he got mad and he grabbed his beard with both hands the way he does and he shouted out loud, ‘I ha? talked to this little bugger in four different languages and he hass not answered me in one. I say he iss as ghuilty as hell!’”
    Margaret laughed in the hope of forestalling a comment from her husband, but the comment came.
    â€œThis town,” Ainslie said flatly, “has far too many liars in it.”
    Mollie stiffened and her eagerness turned to a sudden dignity. “What I was telling was true, Doctor, and the languageincluded. If you do not believe me you can ask Mr. Sutherland, the lawyer.”
    Ainslie let out a sigh of exasperation. “I wasn’t calling you a liar. I was merely trying to suggest that you shouldn’t believe everything you hear–whether you hear it from Mr. Sutherland or anybody else.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Doctor.” She was still aloof in her dignity.
    â€œThere’s nothing for you to be sorry for. I’m sorry for the–the general childishness of this whole place.”
    Margaret sighed inwardly. It was too frustrating to a mind like his to be constantly irritated by people he wanted to love and admire. She turned to Mollie. “Tell me some more about Alan. He’s growing so fast. What would you like him to be when he grows up?”
    They were well into the town now and the mare was taking the left turn towards the bridge over the inner harbor of Broughton.
    â€œI would like for Alan to grow up to be a doctor, but it is not a thing I expect, Mrs. Ainslie. It would be bad for us to have too high ideas. Maybe Alan could be a minister. He’s different, I know he is. And if his father is successful, Alan will have a fine education.”
    Mollie’s answer seemed almost unbearably poignant to Margaret, for she knew that the boy was exceptional and she also knew that the odds were against any future for him but a life in the mines. Mollie herself came of worthy people; her father had been an elder in the church and it was said in the district that after her marriage he had never spoken to her again. When people began to talk about Archie as a fighter, she remembered Dr. Dougald saying