Romany of the Snows - Gilbert Parker
"I think I understand you," she said. "I think I always did a little,
from the time you stayed with Grah the idiot at Fort o' God, and fought
the Indians when the others left. Only--men said bad things of you, and
my father did not like you, and you spoke so little to me ever. Yet I
mind how you used to sit and watch me, and I also mind when you rode the
man down who stole my pony, and brought them both back."
Pierre smiled--he was pleased at this. "Ah, my young friend," he said, "I
do not forget that either, for though he had shaved my ear with a bullet,
you would not have him handed over to the Riders of the Plains--such a
tender heart!"
Her eyes suddenly grew wide. She was childlike in her amazement, indeed,
childlike in all ways, for she was very sincere. It was her great
advantage to live where nothing was required of her but truth, she had
not suffered that sickness, social artifice.
"I never knew," she said, "that he had shot at you--never! You did not
tell that."
"There is a time for everything--the time for that was not till now."
"What could I have done then?"
"You might have left it to me. I am not so pious that I can't be merciful
to the sinner. But this man--this Brickney--was a vile scoundrel always,
and I wanted him locked up. I would have shot him myself, but I was tired
of doing the duty of the law. Yes, yes," he added, as he saw her smile a
little. "It is so. I have love for justice, even I, Pretty Pierre. Why
not justice on myself? Ha! The law does not its duty. And maybe some day
I shall have to do its work on myself. Some are coaxed out of life, some
are kicked out, and some open the doors quietly for themselves, and go
a-hunting Outside."
"They used to talk as if one ought to fear you," she said, "but"--she
looked him straight in the eyes--"but maybe that's because you've never
hid any badness."
"It is no matter, anyhow," he answered. "I live in the open, I walk in
the open road, and I stand by what I do to the open law and the gospel.
It is my whim--every man to his own saddle."
"It is ten years," she said abruptly.
"Ten years less five days," he answered as sententiously.
"Come inside," she said quietly, and turned to the door.
Without a word he turned also, but instead of going direct to the door
came and touched the broken shutter and the dark stain on one corner with
a delicate forefinger. Out of the corner of his eye he could see her on
the doorstep, looking intently.
He spoke as if to himself: "It has not been touched since then--no. It
was hardly big enough for him, so his legs hung over. Ah, yes, ten
years--Abroad, John Marcey!" Then, as if still musing, he turned to the
girl: "He had no father or mother--no one, of course; so that it wasn't
so bad after all. If you've lived with the tongue in the last hole of the
buckle as you've gone, what matter when you go! C'est egal--it is all the
same."
Her face had become pale as he spoke, but no muscle stirred; only her
eyes filled with a deeper color, and her hand closed tightly on the
door-jamb. "Come in, Pierre," she said, and entered. He followed her. "My
mother is at the Fort," she added, "but she will be back soon."
She placed two chairs not far from the open door. They sat, and Pierre
slowly rolled a cigarette and lighted it.
"How long have you lived here?" he asked presently.
"It is seven years since we came first," she replied. "After that night
they said the place was haunted, and no one would live in it, but when my
father died my mother and I came for three years. Then we went east, and
again came back, and here we have been."
"The shutter?" Pierre asked.
They needed few explanations--their minds were moving with the same
thought.
"I would not have it changed, and of course no one cared to touch it. So
it has hung there."
"As I placed it ten years ago," he said.
They both became silent for a time, and at last he said: "Marcey had no
one,--Sergeant Laforce a mother."
"It killed his mother," she whispered, looking into the white sunlight.
She was noting how it was flashed from the bark of the birch-trees near
the Fort.
"His mother died," she added again, quietly. "It killed her--the gaol for
him!"
"An eye for an eye," he responded.
"Do you think that evens John Marcey's death?" she sighed.
"As far as Marcey's concerned," he answered. "Laforce has his own
reckoning besides."
"It was not a murder," she urged.
"It was a fair fight," he replied firmly, "and Laforce shot straight." He
was trying to think why she lived here, why the broken shutter still hung
there, why the matter had settled so deeply on her. He remembered the
song she was singing, the legend of the Scarlet Hunter, the fabled Savior
of the North.
"Heavy of heart is the Red Patrol--
(Why should the key-hole rust?)
The Scarlet Hunter is sick for home,
(Why should the blind be drawn?)"
He repeated the words, lingering on them. He loved to come at the truth
of things by allusive, far-off reflections, rather than by the sharp
questioning of the witness-box. He had imagination, refinement in such
things. A light dawned on him as he spoke the words--all became clear.
She sang of the Scarlet Hunter, but she meant someone else! That was it--
"Hungry and cold is the Red Patrol--
(Why should the door be shut?)
The Scarlet Hunter has come to bide,
(Why is the window barred?)"
But why did she live here? To get used to a thought, to have it so near
her, that if the man--if Laforce himself came, she would have herself
schooled to endure the shadow and the misery of it all? Ah, that was it!
The little girl, who had seen her big lover killed, who had said she
would never forgive the other, who had sent him back the fretted-silver
basket, the riding-whip, and other things, had kept the criminal in her
mind all these years; had, out of her childish coquetry, grown
into--what? As a child she had been wise for her years--almost too wise.
What had happened? She had probably felt sorrow for Laforce at first, and
afterwards had shown active sympathy, and at last--no, he felt that she
had not quite forgiven him, that, whatever was, she had not hidden the
criminal in her heart. But why did she sing that song? Her heart was
pleading for him--for the criminal. Had she and her mother gone to
Winnipeg to be near Laforce, to comfort him? Was Laforce free now, and
was she unwilling? It was so strange that she should thus have carried on
her childhood into her womanhood. But he guessed her--she had
imagination.
"His mother died in my arms in Winnipeg," she said abruptly at last. "I'm
glad I was some comfort to her. You see, it all came through me--I was so
young and spoiled and silly--John Marcey's death, her death, and his long
years in prison. Even then I knew better than to set the one against the
other. Must a child not be responsible? I was--I am!"
"And so you punish yourself?"
"It was terrible for me--even as a child. I said that I could never
forgive, but when his mother died, blessing me, I did. Then there came
something else."
"You saw him, there amie?"
"I saw him--so changed, so quiet, so much older--all grey at the temples.
At first I lived here that I might get used to the thought of the
thing--to learn to bear it; and afterwards that I might learn--" She
paused, looking in half-doubt at Pierre.
"It is safe; I am silent," he said.
"That I might learn to bear--him," she continued.
"Is he still--" Pierre paused.
She spoke up quickly. "Oh no, he has been free two years."
"Where is he now?"
"I don't know." She waited for a minute, then said again, "I don't know.
When he was free, he came to me, but I--I could not. He thought, too,
that because he had been in gaol, that I wouldn't--be his wife. He didn't
think enough of himself, he didn't urge anything. And I wasn't
ready--no--no--no--how could I be! I didn't care so much about the gaol,
but he had killed John Marcey. The gaol--what was that to me! There was
no real shame in it unless he had done a mean thing. He had been
wicked--not mean. Killing is awful, but not shameful. Think--the
difference--if he had been a thief!"
Pierre nodded. "Then some one should have killed him!" he said. "Well,
after?"
"After--after--ah, he went away for a year. Then he came back; but no, I
was always thinking of that night I walked behind John Marcey's body to
the Fort. So he went away again, and we came here, and here we have
lived."
"He has not come here?"
"No; once from the far north he sent me a letter by an Indian, saying
that he was going with a half-breed to search for a hunting party, an
English gentleman and two men who were lost. The name of one of the men
was Brickney."
Pierre stopped short in a long whiffing of smoke. "Holy!" he said, "that
thief Brickney again. He would steal the broad road to hell if he could
carry it. He once stole the quarters from a dead man's eyes. Mon Dieu! to
save Brickney's life, the courage to do that--like sticking your face in
the mire and eating!--But, pshaw!--go on, p'tite Lucille."
"There is no more. I never heard again."
"How long was that ago?"
"Nine months or more."
"Nothing has been heard of any of them?"
"Nothing at all. The Englishman belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company, but
they have heard nothing down here at Fort Ste. Anne."
"If he saves the Company's man, that will make up the man he lost for
them, eh--you think that, eh?" Pierre's eyes had a curious ironical
light.
"I do not care for the Company," she said. "John Marcey's life was his
own."
"Good!" he added quickly, and his eyes admired her. "That is the thing.
Then, do not forget that Marcey took his life in his hands himself, that
he would have killed Laforce if Laforce hadn't killed him."
"I know, I know," she said, "but I should have felt the same if John
Marcey had killed Stroke Laforce."
"It is a pity to throw your life away," he ventured. He said this for a
purpose. He did not think she was throwing it away.
She was watching a little knot of horsemen coming over a swell of the
prairie far off. She withdrew her eyes and fixed them on Pierre. "Do you
throw your life away if you do what is the only thing you are told to
do?"
She placed her hand on her heart--that had been her one guide.
Pierre got to his feet, came over, and touched her on the shoulder.
"You have the great secret," he said quietly. "The thing may be all wrong
to others, but if it's right to yourself--that's it--mais oui! If he
comes," he added "if he comes back, think of him as well as Marcey.
Marcey is sleeping--what does it matter? If he is awake, he has better
times, for he was a man to make another world sociable. Think of Laforce,
for he has his life to live, and he is a man to make this world sociable.
'The Scarlet Hunter is sick for home--
(Why should the door be shut?)'"
Her eyes had been following the group of horsemen on the plains. She
again fixed them on Pierre, and stood up.
"It is a beautiful legend--that," she said.
"But?--but?" he asked.
She would not answer him. "You will come again," she said; "you
will--help me?"
"Surely, p'tite Lucille, surely, I will come. But to help--ah, that would
sound funny to the Missionary at the Fort and to others!"
"You understand life," she said, "and I can speak to you."
"It's more to you to understand you than to be good, eh?"
"I guess it's more to any woman," she answered. They both passed out of
the house. She turned towards the broken shutter. Then their eyes met. A
sad little smile hovered at her lips.
"What is the use?" she said, and her eyes fastened on the horsemen.
He knew now that she would never shudder again at the sight of it, or at
the remembrance of Marcey's death.
"But he will come," was the reply to her, and her smile almost settled
and stayed.
They parted, and as he went down the hill he saw far over, coming up, a
woman in black, who walked as if she carried a great weight. "Every shot
that kills ricochets," he said to himself:
"His mother dead--her mother like that!"
He passed into the Fort, renewing acquaintances in the Company's store,
and twenty minutes after he was one to greet the horsemen that Lucille
had seen coming over the hills. They were five, and one had to be helped
from his horse. It was Stroke Laforce, who had been found near dead at
the Metal River by a party of men exploring in the north.
He had rescued the Englishman and his party, but within a day of the
finding the Englishman died, leaving him his watch, a ring, and a cheque
on the H. B. C. at Winnipeg. He and the two survivors, one of whom was
Brickney, started south. One night Brickney robbed him and made to get
away, and on his seizing the thief he was wounded. Then the other man
came to his help and shot Brickney: after that weeks of wandering, and at
last rescue and Fort Ste. Anne.
A half-hour after this Pierre left Laforce on the crest of the hill above
the Fort, and did not turn to go down till he had seen the other pass
within the house with the broken shutter. And later he saw a little
bonfire on the hill. The next evening he came to the house again himself.
Lucille rose to meet him.
"'Why should the door be shut?"' he quoted smiling.
"The door is open," she answered quickly and with a quiet joy.
He turned to the motion of her hand, and saw Laforce asleep on a couch.
Soon afterwards, as he passed from the house, he turned towards the
window. The broken shutter was gone.
He knew now the meaning of the bonfire the night before.
THE FINDING OF FINGALL
"Fingall! Fingall!--Oh, Fingall!"
A grey mist was rising from the river, the sun was drinking it
delightedly, the swift blue water showed underneath it, and the top of
Whitefaced Mountain peaked the mist by a hand-length. The river brushed
the banks like rustling silk, and the only other sound, very sharp and
clear in the liquid monotone, was the crack of a woodpecker's beak on a
hickory tree.
It was a sweet, fresh autumn morning in Lonesome Valley. Before night the
deer would bellow reply to the hunters' rifles, and the mountain-goat
call to its unknown gods; but now there was only the wild duck skimming
the river, and the high hilltop rising and fading into the mist, the
ardent sun, and again that strange cry--
"Fingall!--Oh, Fingall! Fingall!"
Two men, lounging at a fire on a ledge of the hills, raised their eyes to
the mountain-side beyond and above them, and one said presently:
"The second time. It's a woman's voice, Pierre." Pierre nodded, and
abstractedly stirred the coals about with a twig.
"Well, it is a pity--the poor Cynthie," he said at last.
"It is a woman, then. You know her, Pierre--her story?"
"Fingall! Fingall!--Oh, Fingall!"
Pierre raised his head towards the sound; then after a moment, said:
"I know Fingall."
"And the woman? Tell me."
"And the girl. Fingall was all fire and heart, and devil-may-care.
She--she was not beautiful except in the eye, but that was like a flame
of red and blue. Her hair, too--then--would trip her up, if it hung
loose. That was all, except that she loved him too much. But women--et
puis, when a woman gets a man between her and the heaven above and the
earth beneath, and there comes the great hunger, what is the good! A man
cannot understand, but he can see, and he can fear. What is the good! To
play with life, that is not much; but to play with a soul is more than a
thousand lives. Look at Cynthie."
He paused, and Lawless waited patiently. Presently Pierre continued:
Fingall was gentil; he would take off his hat to a squaw. It made no
difference what others did; he didn't think--it was like breathing to
him. How can you tell the way things happen? Cynthie's father kept the
tavern at St. Gabriel's Fork, over against the great saw-mill. Fingall
was foreman of a gang in the lumberyard. Cynthie had a brother--Fenn.
Fenn was as bad as they make, but she loved him, and Fingall knew it
well, though he hated the young skunk. The girl's eyes were like two
little fire-flies when Fingall was about.
"He was a gentleman, though he had only half a name--Fingall--like that.
I think he did not expect to stay; he seemed to be waiting for
something--always when the mail come in he would be there; and afterwards
you wouldn't see him for a time. So it seemed to me that he made up his
mind to think nothing of Cynthie, and to say nothing."
"Fingall! Fingall!--Oh, Fingall!"
The strange, sweet, singing voice sounded nearer. "She's coming this way,
Pierre," said Lawless.
"I hope not to see her. What is the good!"
"Well, let us have the rest of the story."
"Her brother Fenn was in Fingall's gang. One day there was trouble. Fenn
called Fingall a liar. The gang stopped piling; the usual thing did not
come. Fingall told him to leave the yard, and they would settle some
other time. That night a wicked thing happened. We were sitting in the
bar-room when we heard two shots and then a fall. We ran into the other
room; there was Fenn on the floor, dying. He lifted himself on his elbow,
pointed at Fingall--and fell back. The father of the boy stood white and
still a few feet away. There was no pistol showing--none at all.
"The men closed in on Fingall. He did not stir--he seemed to be thinking
of something else. He had a puzzled, sorrowful look. The men roared round
him, but he waved them back for a moment, and looked first at the father,
then at the son. I could not understand at first. Someone pulled a pistol
out of Fingall's pocket and showed it. At that moment Cynthie came in.
She gave a cry. By the holy! I do not want to hear a cry like that often.
She fell on her knees beside the boy, and caught his head to her breast.
Then with a wild look she asked who did it. They had just taken Fingall
out into the bar-room. They did not tell her his name, for they knew that
she loved him.
"'Father,' she said all at once, 'have you killed the man that killed
Fenn?'
"The old man shook his head. There was a sick colour in his face.
"'Then I will kill him,' she said.
"She laid her brother's head down, and stood up. Someone put in her hand
the pistol, and told her it was the same that had killed Fenn. She took
it, and came with us. The old man stood still where he was; he was like
stone. I looked at him for a minute and thought; then I turned round and
went to the bar-room; and he followed. Just as I got inside the door, I
saw the girl start back, and her hand drop, for she saw that it was
Fingall; he was looking at her very strange. It was the rule to empty the
gun into a man who had been sentenced; and already Fingall had heard his,
'God-have-mercy!' The girl was to do it.
"Fingall said to her in a muffled voice, 'Fire--Cynthie!'
"I guessed what she would do. In a kind of a dream she raised the pistol
up--up--up, till I could see it was just out of range of his head, and
she fired. One! two! three! four! five! Fingall never moved a muscle; but
the bullets spotted the wall at the side of his head. She stopped after
the five; but the arm was still held out, and her finger was on the
trigger; she seemed to be all dazed. Only six chambers were in the gun,
and of course one chamber was empty. Fenn had its bullet in his lungs, as
we thought. So someone beside Cynthie touched her arm, pushing it down.
But there was another shot, and this time, because of the push, the
bullet lodged in Fingall's skull."
Pierre paused now, and waved with his hand towards the mist which hung
high up like a canopy between the hills.
"But," said Lawless, not heeding the scene, "what about that sixth
bullet?"
"Holy, it is plain! Fingall did not fire the shot. His revolver was full,
every chamber, when Cynthie first took it."
"Who killed the lad?"
"Can you not guess? There had been words between the father and the boy:
both had fierce blood. The father, in a mad minute, fired; the boy wanted
revenge on Fingall, and, to save his father, laid it on the other. The
old man? Well, I do not know whether he was a coward, or stupid, or
ashamed--he let Fingall take it."
"Fingall took it to spare the girl, eh?"
"For the girl. It wasn't good for her to know her father killed his own
son."
"What came after?"
"The worst. That night the girl's father killed himself, and the two were
buried in the same grave. Cynthie--"
"Fingall! Fingall!--Oh, Fingall!"
"You hear? Yes, like that all the time as she sat on the floor, her hair
about her like a cloud, and the dead bodies in the next room. She thought
she had killed Fingall, and she knew now that he was innocent. The two
were buried. Then we told her that Fingall was not dead. She used to come
and sit outside the door, and listen to his breathing, and ask if he ever
spoke of her. What was the good of lying? If we said he did, she'd have
come in to him, and that would do no good, for he wasn't right in his
mind. By and by we told her he was getting well, and then she didn't
come, but stayed at home, just saying his name over to herself. Alors,
things take hold of a woman--it is strange! When Fingall was strong
enough to go out, I went with him the first time. He was all thin and
handsome as you can think, but he had no memory, and his eyes were like a
child's. She saw him, and came out to meet him. What does a woman care
for the world when she loves a man? Well, he just looked at her as if
he'd never seen her before, and passed by without a sign, though
afterwards a trouble came in his face. Three days later he was gone, no
one knew where. That is two years ago. Ever since she has been looking
for him."
"Is she mad?"
"Mad? Holy Mother! it is not good to have one thing in the head all the
time! What do you think? So much all at once! And then--"
"Hush, Pierre! There she is!" said Lawless, pointing to a ledge of rock
not far away.
The girl stood looking out across the valley, a weird, rapt look in her
face, her hair falling loose, a staff like a shepherd's crook in one
hand, the other hand over her eyes as she slowly looked from point to
point of the horizon.
The two watched her without speaking. Presently she saw them. She gazed
at them for a minute, then descended to them. Lawless and Pierre rose,
doffing their hats. She looked at both a moment, and her eyes settled on
Pierre. Presently she held out her hand to him. "I knew you--yesterday,"
she said.
Pierre returned the intensity of her gaze with one kind and strong.
"So--so, Cynthie," he said; "sit down and eat."
He dropped on a knee and drew a scone and some fish from the ashes. She
sat facing them, and, taking from a bag at her side some wild fruits, ate
slowly, saying nothing. Lawless noticed that her hair had become grey at
her temples, though she was but one-and-twenty years old. Her face, brown
as it was, shone with a white kind of light, which may, or may not, have
come from the crucible of her eyes, where the tragedy of her life was
fusing. Lawless could not bear to look long, for the fire that consumes a
body and sets free a soul is not for the sight of the quick. At last she
rose, her body steady, but her hands having that tremulous activity of
her eyes.
"Will you not stay, Cynthie?" asked Lawless very kindly.
She came close to him, and, after searching his eyes, said with a smile
that almost hurt him, "When I have found him, I will bring him to your
camp-fire. Last night the Voice said that he waits for me where the mist
rises from the river at daybreak, close to the home of the White Swan. Do
you know where is the home of the White Swan? Before the frost comes and
the red wolf cries, I must find him. Winter is the time of sleep.
"I will give him honey and dried meat. I know where we shall live
together. You never saw such roses! Hush! I have a place where we can
hide."
Suddenly her gaze became fixed and dream-like, and she said slowly: "In
all time of our tribulation, in all time of our wealth, in the hour of
death, and in the Day of Judgment, Good Lord, deliver us!"
"Good Lord, deliver us!" repeated Lawless in a low voice. Without looking
at them, she slowly turned away and passed up the hill-side, her eyes
scanning the valley as before.
"Good Lord, deliver us!" again said Lawless. "Where did she get it?"
"From a book which Fingall left behind."
They watched her till she rounded a cliff, and was gone; then they
shouldered their kits and passed up the river on the trail of the wapiti.
One month later, when a fine white surf of frost lay on the ground, and
the sky was darkened often by the flight of the wild geese southward,
they came upon a hut perched on a bluff, at the edge of a clump of pines.
It was morning, and Whitefaced Mountain shone clear and high, without a
touch of cloud or mist from its haunches to its crown.
They knocked at the hut door, and, in answer to a voice, entered. The
sunlight streamed in over a woman, lying upon a heap of dried flowers in
a corner. A man was kneeling beside her. They came near, and saw that the
woman was Cynthie.
"Fingall!" broke out Pierre, and caught the kneeling man by the shoulder.
At the sound of his voice the woman's eyes opened.