Pierre And His People, [Tales of the Far North], Complete - Gilbert Parker
Twenty men drew in a sharp breath of excitement, and Shon
came a step nearer the other, and said in a strange voice:
"I--am--living--with--your--wife?"
"As I say, with my wife, Lucy Rives. Francois Rives was my name ten years
ago. We quarrelled. I left her, and I never saw her again until to-night.
You went to see her two hours ago. You did not find her. Why? She was
gone because her husband, Pierre, told her to go. You want a proof? You
shall have it. Here is the wedding-ring you gave her last night."
He handed it over, and Shon saw inside it his own name and hers.
"My God!" he said. "Did she know? Tell me she didn't know, Pierre?"
"No, she did not know. I have truth to speak to night. I was jealous,
mad, and foolish, and I left her. My boat was found upset. They believed
I was drowned. 'Bien,' she waited until yesterday, and then she took
you--but she was my wife; she is my wife--and so you see!"
The Irishman was deadly pale.
"It's an avil heart y' had in y' then, Pretty Pierre, and it's an avil
day that brought this thing to pass, and there's only wan way to the end
of it."
"So, that is true. There is only one way," was the reply; "but what shall
that way be? Someone must go: there must be no mistake. I have to
propose. Here on this table we lay a revolver. We will give up these
which we have in our pockets. Then we will play a game of euchre, and the
winner of the game shall have the revolver. We will play for a life. That
is fair, eh--that is fair"? he said to those around.
King Kinkley, speaking for the rest, replied: "That's about fair. It
gives both a chance, and leaves only two when it's over. While the woman
lives, one of you is naturally in the way. Pierre left her in a way that
isn't handsome; but a wife's a wife, and though Shon was all in the glum
about the thing, and though the woman isn't to be blamed either, there's
one too many of you, and there's got to be a vacation for somebody. Isn't
that so?"
The rest nodded assent. They had been so engaged that they did not see a
woman enter the bar from behind, and crouch down beside Lady Jane, a
woman whom the latter touched affectionately on the shoulder and
whispered to once or twice, while she watched the preparations for the
game.
The two men sat down, Shon facing the bar and Pierre with his back to it.
The game began, neither man showing a sign of nervousness, though Shon
was very pale. The game was to finish for ten points. Men crowded about
the tables silent but keenly excited; cigars were chewed instead of
smoked, and liquor was left undrunk. At the first deal Pierre made a
march, securing two. At the next Shon made a point, and at the next also
a march. The half-breed was playing a straight game. He could have
stacked the cards, but he did not do so; deft as he was he might have
cheated even the vigilant eyes about him, but it was not so; he played as
squarely as a novice. At the third, at the fourth, deal he made a march;
at the fifth, sixth, and seventh deals, Shon made a march, a point, and a
march. Both now had eight points. At the next deal both got a point, and
both stood at nine!
Now came the crucial play.
During the progress of the game nothing had been heard save the sound of
a knuckle on the table, the flip flip of the pasteboard, or the rasp of a
heel on the floor. There was a set smile on Shon's face--a forgotten
smile, for the rest of the face was stern and tragic. Pierre smoked
cigarettes, pausing, while his opponent was shuffling and dealing, to
light them.
Behind the bar as the game proceeded the woman who knelt beside Lady Jane
listened to every sound. Her eyes grew more agonised as the numbers,
whispered to her by her companion, climbed to the fatal ten.
The last deal was Shon's; there was that much to his advantage. As he
slowly dealt, the woman--Lucy Rives--rose to her feet behind Lady Jane.
So absorbed were all that none saw her. Her eyes passed from Pierre to
Shon, and stayed.
When the cards were dealt, with but one point for either to gain, and so
win and save his life, there was a slight pause before the two took them
up. They did not look at one another; but each glanced at the revolver,
then at the men nearest them, and lastly, for an instant, at the cards
themselves, with their pasteboard faces of life and death turned
downward. As the players picked them up at last and spread them out
fan-like, Lady Jane slipped something into the hand of Lucy Rives.
Those who stood behind Shon McGann stared with anxious astonishment at
his hand; it contained only nine and ten spots. It was easy to see the
direction of the sympathy of Pipi Valley. The Irishman's face turned a
slight shade paler, but he did not tremble or appear disturbed.
Pierre played his biggest card and took the point. He coolly counted one,
and said, "Game. I win." The crowd drew back. Both rose to their feet. In
the painful silence the half-breed's hand was gently laid on the
revolver. He lifted it, and paused slightly, his eyes fixed to the steady
look in those of Shon McGann. He raised the revolver again, till it was
level with Shon's forehead, till it was even with his hair! Then there
was a shot, and someone fell--not Shon, but Pierre, saying, as they
caught him, "Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! From behind!"
Instantly there was another shot, and someone crashed against the bottles
in the bar. The other factor in the game, the wife, had shot at Pierre,
and then sent a bullet through her own lungs.
Shon stood for a moment as if he was turned to stone, and then his head
dropped in his arms upon the table. He had seen both shots fired, but
could not speak in time.
Pierre was severely but not dangerously wounded in the neck.
But the woman--? They brought her out from behind the counter. She still
breathed; but on her eyes was the film of coming death. She turned to
where Shon sat. Her lips framed his name, but no voice came forth.
Someone touched him on the shoulder. He looked up and caught her last
glance. He came and stooped beside her; but she had died with that one
glance from him, bringing a faint smile to her lips. And the smile stayed
when the life of her had fled--fled through the cloud over her eyes, from
the tide-beat of her pulse. It swept out from the smoke and reeking air
into the open world, and beyond, into those untried paths where all must
walk alone, and in what bitterness, known only to the Master of the World
who sees these piteous things, and orders in what fashion distorted lives
shall be made straight and wholesome in the Places of Readjustment.
Shon stood silent above the dead body.
One by one the miners went out quietly. Presently Pierre nodded towards
the door, and King Kinkley and another lifted him and carried him towards
it. Before they passed into the street he made them turn him so that he
could see Shon. He waved his hand towards her that had been his wife, and
said: "She should have shot but once and straight, Shon McGann, and
then!--Eh, 'bien!'"
The door closed, and Shon McGann was left alone with the dead.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Irishmen have gifts for only two things--words and women
More idle than wicked
Reconciling the preacher and the sinner, as many another has
PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE
TALES OF THE FAR NORTH
By Gilbert Parker
Volume 5.
ANTOINE AND ANGELIQUE
THE CIPHER
A TRAGEDY OF NOBODIES
A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS
ANTOINE AND ANGELIQUE
"The birds are going south, Antoine--see--and it is so early!"
"Yes, Angelique, the winter will be long."
There was a pause, and then: "Antoine, I heard a child cry in the night,
and I could not sleep."
"It was a devil-bird, my wife; it flies slowly, and the summer is dead."
"Antoine, there was a rushing of wings by my bed before the morn was
breaking."
"The wild-geese know their way in the night, Angelique; but they flew by
the house and not near thy bed."
"The two black squirrels have gone from the hickory tree."
"They have hidden away with the bears in the earth; for the frost comes,
and it is the time of sleep."
"A cold hand was knocking at my heart when I said my aves last night, my
Antoine."
"The heart of a woman feels many strange things: I cannot answer, my
wife."
"Let us go also southward, Antoine, before the great winds and the wild
frost come."
"I love thee, Angelique, but I cannot go."
"Is not love greater than all?"
"To keep a pledge is greater."
"Yet if evil come?"
"There is the mine."
"None travels hither; who should find it?"
"He said to me, my wife: 'Antoine, will you stay and watch the mine until
I come with the birds northward, again?' and I said: 'I will stay, and
Angelique will stay; I will watch the mine.'"
"This is for his riches, but for our peril, Antoine."
"Who can say whither a woman's fancy goes? It is full of guessing. It is
clouds and darkness to-day, and sunshine--so much--to-morrow. I cannot
answer."
"I have a fear; if my husband loved me--"
"There is the mine," he interrupted firmly.
"When my heart aches so--"
"Angelique, there is the mine."
"Ah, my Antoine!"
And so these two stayed on the island of St. Jean, in Lake Superior,
through the purple haze of autumn, into the white brilliancy of winter,
guarding the Rose Tree Mine, which Falding the Englishman and his
companions had prospected and declared to be their Ophir.
But St. Jean was far from the ways of settlement, and there was little
food and only one hut, and many things must be done for the Rose Tree
Mine in the places where men sell their souls for money; and Antoine and
Angelique, French peasants from the parish of Ste. Irene in Quebec, were
left to guard the place of treasure, until, to the sound of the laughing
spring, there should come many men and much machinery, and the sinking of
shafts in the earth, and the making, of riches.
But when Antoine and Angelique were left alone in the waste, and God
began to draw the pale coverlet of frost slowly across land and water,
and to surround St. Jean with a stubborn moat of ice, the heart of the
woman felt some coming danger, and at last broke forth in words of timid
warning. When she once had spoken she said no more, but stayed and
builded the heaps of earth about the house, and filled every crevice
against the inhospitable Spirit of Winds, and drew her world closer and
closer within those two rooms where they should live through many months.
The winter was harsh, but the hearts of the two were strong. They loved;
and Love is the parent of endurance, the begetter of courage. And every
day, because it seemed his duty, Antoine inspected the Rose Tree Mine;
and every day also, because it seemed her duty, Angelique said many aves.
And one prayer was much with her--for spring to come early that the child
should not suffer: the child which the good God was to give to her and
Antoine.
In the first hours of each evening Antoine smoked, and Angelique sang the
old songs which their ancestors learned in Normandy. One night Antoine's
face was lighted with a fine fire as he talked of happy days in the
parish of Ste. Irene; and with that romantic fervour of his race which
the stern winters of Canada could not kill, he sang, 'A la Claire
Fontaine,' the well-beloved song-child of the 'voyageurs'' hearts.
And the wife smiled far away into the dancing flames--far away, because
the fire retreated, retreated to the little church where they two were
wed; and she did as most good women do--though exactly why, man the
insufficient cannot declare--she wept a little through her smiles. But
when the last verse came, both smiles and tears ceased. Antoine sang it
with a fond monotony:
"Would that each rose were growing
Upon the rose-tree gay,
And that the fatal rose-tree
Deep in the ocean lay.
'I ya longtemps que je t'aime
Jamais je ne t'oublierai."
Angelique's heart grew suddenly heavy. From the rose-tree of the song her
mind fled and shivered before the leafless rose-tree by the mine; and her
old dread came back.
Of course this was foolish of Angelique; of course the wise and great
throw contumely on all such superstition; and knowing women will smile at
each other meaningly, and with pity for a dull man-writer, and will
whisper, "Of course, the child." But many things, your majesties, are
hidden from your wisdom and your greatness, and are given to the
simple--to babes, and the mothers of babes.
It was upon this very night that Falding the Englishman sat with other
men in a London tavern, talking joyously. "There's been the luck of
Heaven," he said, "in the whole exploit. We'd been prospecting for
months. As a sort of try in a back-water we rowed over one night to an
island and pitched tents. Not a dozen yards from where we camped was a
rose-tree-think of it, Belgard, a rose-tree on a rag-tag island of Lake
Superior! 'There's luck in odd numbers, says Rory O'More.' 'There's luck
here,' said I; and at it we went just beside the rose-tree. What's the
result? Look at that prospectus: a company with a capital of two hundred
thousand; the whole island in our hands in a week; and Antoine squatting
on it now like Bonaparte on Elbe."
"And what does Antoine get out of this"? said Belgard.
"Forty dollars a month and his keep."
"Why not write him off twenty shares to propitiate the gods--gifts unto
the needy, eh!--a thousand-fold--what?"
"Yes; it might be done, Belgard, if--"
But someone just then proposed the toast, "The Rose Tree Mine!" and the
souls of these men waxed proud and merry, for they had seen the
investor's palm filled with gold, the maker of conquest. While Antoine
was singing with his wife, they were holding revel within the sound of
Bow Bells. And far into the night, through silent Cheapside, a rolling
voice swelled through much laughter thus:
"Gai Ion la, gai le rosier,
Du joli mois de Mai."
The next day there were heavy heads in London; but the next day, also, a
man lay ill in the hut on the island of St. Jean.
Antoine had sung his last song. He had waked in the night with a start of
pain, and by the time the sun was halting at noon above the Rose Tree
Mine, he had begun a journey, the record of which no man has ever truly
told, neither its beginning nor its end; because that which is of the
spirit refuseth to be interpreted by the flesh. Some signs there be, but
they are brief and shadowy; the awe of It is hidden in the mind of him
that goeth out lonely unto God.
When the call goes forth, not wife nor child nor any other can hold the
wayfarer back, though he may loiter for an instant on the brink. The poor
medicaments which Angelique brings avail not; these soothing hands and
healing tones, they pass through clouds of the middle place between
heaven and earth to Antoine. It is only when the second midnight comes
that, with conscious, but pensive and far-off, eyes, he says to her:
"Angelique, my wife."
For reply her lips pressed his cheek, and her fingers hungered for his
neck. Then: "Is there pain now Antoine?"
"There is no pain, Angelique."
He closed his eyes slowly; her lips framed an ave. "The mine," he said,
"the mine--until the spring."
"Yes, Antoine, until the spring."
"Have you candles--many candles, Angelique?"
"There are many, my husband."
"The ground is as iron; one cannot dig, and the water under the ice is
cruel--is it not so, Angelique?"
"No axe could break the ground, and the water is cruel," she said.
"You will see my face until the winter is gone, my wife."
She bowed her head, but smoothed his hand meanwhile, and her throat was
quivering.
He partly slept--his body slept, though his mind was feeling its way to
wonderful things. But near the morning his eyes opened wide, and he said:
"Someone calls out of the dark, Angelique."
And she, with her hand on her heart, replied: "It is the cry of a dog,
Antoine."
"But there are footsteps at the door, my wife."
"Nay, Antoine; it is the snow beating upon the window."
"There is the sound of wings close by--dost thou not hear them,
Angelique?"
"Wings--wings," she falteringly said: "it is the hot blast through the
chimney; the night is cold, Antoine."
"The night is very cold," he said; and he trembled. . . "I hear, O my
wife, I hear the voice of a little child . . . the voice is like thine,
Angelique."
And she, not knowing what to reply, said softly:
"There is hope in the voice of a child;" and the mother stirred within
her; and in the moment he knew also that the Spirits would give her the
child in safety, that she should not be alone in the long winter.
The sounds of the harsh night had ceased--the snapping of the leafless
branches, the cracking of the earth, and the heaving of the rocks: the
Spirits of the Frost had finished their work; and just as the grey
forehead of dawn appeared beyond the cold hills, Antoine cried out
gently: "Angelique . . . Ah, mon Capitaine . . . Jesu" . . . and then, no
more.
Night after night Angelique lighted candles in the place where Antoine
smiled on in his frozen silence; and masses were said for his soul--the
masses Love murmurs for its dead. The earth could not receive him; its
bosom was adamant; but no decay could touch him; and she dwelt alone with
this, that was her husband, until one beautiful, bitter day, when, with
no eye save God's to see her, and no human comfort by her, she gave birth
to a man-child. And yet that night she lighted the candles at the dead
man's head and feet, dragging herself thither in the cold; and in her
heart she said that the smile on Antoine's face was deeper than it had
been before.
In the early spring, when the earth painfully breathed away the frost
that choked it, with her child for mourner, and herself for sexton and
priest, she buried Antoine with maimed rites: but hers were the prayers
of the poor, and of the pure in heart; and she did not fret because, in
the hour that her comrade was put away into the dark, the world was
laughing at the thought of coming summer.
Before another sunrise, the owners of the island of St. Jean claimed what
was theirs; and because that which had happened worked upon their hearts,
they called the child St. Jean, and from that time forth they made him to
enjoy the goodly fruits of the Rose Tree Mine.
THE CIPHER
Hilton was staying his horse by a spring at Guidon Hill when he first saw
her. She was gathering may-apples; her apron was full of them. He noticed
that she did not stir until he rode almost upon her. Then she started,
first without looking round, as does an animal, dropping her head
slightly to one side, though not exactly appearing to listen. Suddenly
she wheeled on him, and her big eyes captured him. The look bewildered
him. She was a creature of singular fascination. Her face was expressive.
Her eyes had wonderful light. She looked happy, yet grave withal; it was
the gravity of an uncommon earnestness. She gazed through everything, and
beyond. She was young--eighteen or so.
Hilton raised his hat, and courteously called a good-morning at her. She
did not reply by any word, but nodded quaintly, and blinked seriously and
yet blithely on him. He was preparing to dismount. As he did so he
paused, astonished that she did not speak at all. Her face did not have a
familiar language; its vocabulary was its own. He slid from his horse,
and, throwing his arm over its neck as it stooped to the spring, looked
at her more intently, but respectfully too. She did not yet stir, but
there came into her face a slight inflection of confusion or perplexity.
Again he raised his hat to her, and, smiling, wished her a good-morning.
Even as he did so a thought sprung in him. Understanding gave place to
wonder; he interpreted the unusual look in her face.
Instantly he made a sign to her. To that her face responded with a
wonderful speech--of relief and recognition. The corners of her apron
dropped from her fingers, and the yellow may-apples fell about her feet.
She did not notice this. She answered his sign with another, rapid,
graceful, and meaning. He left his horse and advanced to her, holding out
his hand simply--for he was a simple and honest man. Her response to this
was spontaneous. The warmth of her fingers invaded him. Her eyes were
full of questioning. He gave a hearty sign of admiration. She flushed
with pleasure, but made a naive, protesting gesture.
She was deaf and dumb.
Hilton had once a sister who was a mute. He knew that amazing primal
gesture-language of the silent race, whom God has sent like one-winged
birds into the world. He had watched in his sister just such looks of
absolute nature as flashed from this girl. They were comrades on the
instant; he reverential, gentle, protective; she sanguine, candid,
beautifully aboriginal in the freshness of her cipher-thoughts. She saw
the world naked, with a naked eye. She was utterly natural. She was the
maker of exquisite, vital gesture-speech.
She glided out from among the may-apples and the long, silken grass, to
charm his horse with her hand. As she started to do so, he hastened to
prevent her, but, utterly surprised, he saw the horse whinny to her
cheek, and arch his neck under her white palm--it was very white. Then
the animal's chin sought her shoulder and stayed placid. He had never
done so to anyone before save Hilton. Once, indeed, he had kicked a
stableman to death. He lifted his head and caught with playful shaking
lips at her ear. Hilton smiled; and so, as we said, their comradeship
began.
He was a new officer of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Guidon. She was
the daughter of a ranchman. She had been educated by Father Corraine, the
Jesuit missionary, Protestant though she was. He had learned the
sign-language while assistant-priest in a Parisian chapel for mutes. He
taught her this gesture-tongue, which she, taking, rendered divine; and,
with this, she learned to read and write.
Her name was Ida.
Ida was faultless. Hilton was not; but no man is. To her, however, he was
the best that man can be. He was unselfish and altogether honest, and
that is much for a man.
When Pierre came to know of their friendship he shook his head
doubtfully. One day he was sitting on the hot side of a pine near his
mountain hut, soaking in the sun. He saw them passing below him, along
the edge of the hill across the ravine. He said to someone behind him in
the shade, who was looking also, "What will be the end of that, eh?"
And the someone replied: "Faith, what the Serpent in the Wilderness
couldn't cure."
"You think he'll play with her?"
"I think he'll do it without wishin' or willin', maybe. It'll be a case
of kiss and ride away."
There was silence. Soon Pierre pointed down again. She stood upon a green
mound with a cool hedge of rock behind her, her feet on the margin of
solid sunlight, her forehead bared. Her hair sprinkled round her as she
gently threw back her head. Her face was full on Hilton. She was telling
him something. Her gestures were rhythmical, and admirably balanced.
Because they were continuous or only regularly broken, it was clear she
was telling him a story. Hilton gravely, delightedly, nodded response now
and then, or raised his eyebrows in fascinated surprise. Pierre,
watching, was only aware of vague impressions--not any distinct outline
of the tale. At last he guessed it as a perfect pastoral-birds, reaping,
deer, winds, sundials, cattle, shepherds, hunting. To Hilton it was a new
revelation. She was telling him things she had thought, she was recalling
her life.
Towards the last, she said in gesture: "You can forget the winter, but
not the spring. You like to remember the spring. It is the beginning.
When the daisy first peeps, when the tall young deer first stands upon
its feet, when the first egg is seen in the oriole's nest, when the sap
first sweats from the tree, when you first look into the eye of your
friend--these you want to remember. . . ."
She paused upon this gesture--a light touch upon the forehead, then the
hands stretched out, palms upward, with coaxing fingers. She seemed lost
in it. Her eyes rippled, her lips pressed slightly, a delicate wine crept
through her cheek, and tenderness wimpled all. Her soft breast rose
modestly to the cool texture of her dress. Hilton felt his blood bound
joyfully; he had the wish of instant possession. But yet he could not
stir, she held him so; for a change immediately passed upon her. She
glided slowly from that almost statue-like repose into another gesture.
Her eyes drew up from his, and looked away to plumbless distance, all
glowing and childlike, and the new ciphers slowly said:
"But the spring dies away. We can only see a thing born once. And it may
be ours, yet not ours. I have sighted the perfect Sharon-flower, far up
on Guidon, yet it was not mine; it was too distant; I could not reach it.
I have seen the silver bullfinch floating along the canon. I called to
it, and it came singing; and it was mine, yet I could not hear its song,
and I let it go; it could not be happy so with me. . . . I stand at the
gate of a great city, and see all, and feel the great shuttles of sounds,
the roar and clack of wheels, the horses' hoofs striking the ground, the
hammer of bells; all: and yet it is not mine; it is far, far away from
me. It is one world, mine is another; and sometimes it is lonely, and the
best things are not for me. But I have seen them, and it is pleasant to
remember, and nothing can take from us the hour when things were born,
when we saw the spring--nothing--never!"