Romany of the Snows - Gilbert Parker
The great logs in the chimney burned brilliantly, and a brass crucifix
over the child's head now and again reflected soft little flashes of
light. This caught the hunter's eye. Presently there grew up in him a
vague kind of hope that, somehow, this symbol would bring him luck--that
was the way he put it to himself. He had felt this--and something
more--when Dominique prayed. Somehow, Dominique's prayer was the only one
he had ever heard that had gone home to him, had opened up the big
sluices of his nature, and let the light of God flood in. No, there was
another: the one Lucette made on the day that they were married, when a
wonderful timid reverence played through his hungry love for her.
Hours passed. All at once, without any other motion or gesture, the boy's
eyes opened wide with a strange, intense look.
"Father," he said slowly, and in a kind of dream, "when you hear a sweet
horn blow at night, is it the Scarlet Hunter calling?"
"P'r'aps. Why, Dominique?" He made up his mind to humour the boy, though
it gave him strange aching forebodings. He had seen grown men and women
with these fancies--and they had died.
"I heard one blowing just now, and the sounds seemed to wave over my
head. Perhaps he's calling someone that's lost."
"Mebbe."
"And I heard a voice singing--it wasn't a bird tonight."
"There was no voice, Dominique."
"Yes, yes." There was something fine in the grave, courteous certainty of
the lad. "I waked and you were sitting there thinking, and I shut my eyes
again, and I heard the voice. I remember the tune and the words."
"What were the words?" In spite of himself the hunter felt awed.
"I've heard mother sing them, or something most like them:
"Why does the fire no longer burn?
(I am so lonely.)
Why does the tent-door swing outward?
(I have no home.)
Oh, let me breathe hard in your face!
(I am so lonely.)
Oh, why do you shut your eyes to me?
(I have no home.)"
The boy paused.
"Was that all, Dominique?"
"No, not all."
"Let us make friends with the stars;
(I am so lonely.)
Give me your hand, I will hold it.
(I have no home.)
Let us go hunting together.
(I am so lonely.)
We will sleep at God's camp to-night.
(I have no home.)"
Dominique did not sing, but recited the words with a sort of chanting
inflection.
"What does it mean when you hear a voice like that, father?"
"I don't know. Who told--your mother--the song?"
"Oh, I don't know. I suppose she just made them up--she and God. . . .
There! There it is again? Don't you hear it--don't you hear it, daddy?"
"No, Dominique, it's only the kettle singing."
"A kettle isn't a voice. Daddy--" He paused a little, then went on,
hesitatingly--"I saw a white swan fly through the door over your
shoulder, when you came in to-night."
"No, no, Dominique; it was a flurry of snow blowing over my shoulder."
"But it looked at me with two shining eyes."
"That was two stars shining through the door, my son."
"How could there be snow flying and stars shining too, father?"
"It was just drift-snow on a light wind, but the stars were shining
above, Dominique."
The man's voice was anxious and unconvincing, his eyes had a hungry,
hunted look. The legend of the White Swan had to do with the passing of a
human soul. The swan had come in--would it go out alone? He touched the
boy's hand--it was hot with fever; he felt the pulse--it ran high; he
watched the face--it had a glowing light. Something stirred within him,
and passed like a wave to the farthest courses of his being. Through his
misery he had touched the garment of the Master of Souls. As though a
voice said to him there, "Someone hath touched me," he got to his feet,
and, with a sudden blind humility, lit two candles, placed them on a
shelf in a corner before a porcelain figure of the Virgin, as he had seen
his wife do. Then he picked a small handful of fresh spruce twigs from a
branch over the chimney, and laid them beside the candles. After a short
pause he came slowly to the head of the boy's bed. Very solemnly he
touched the foot of the Christ on the cross with the tips of his fingers,
and brought them to his lips with an indescribable reverence. After a
moment, standing with eyes fixed on the face of the crucified figure, he
said, in a shaking voice:
"Pardon, bon Jesu! Sauvez mon enfant! Ne me laissez pas seul!"
The boy looked up with eyes again grown unnaturally heavy, and said:
"Amen! . . . Bon Jesu! . . . Encore! Encore, mon pere!"
The boy slept. The father stood still by the bed for a time, but at last
slowly turned and went toward the fire.
Outside, two figures were approaching the hut--a man and a woman; yet at
first glance the man might easily have been taken for a woman, because of
the long black robe which he wore, and because his hair fell loose on his
shoulders and his face was clean-shaven.
"Have patience, my daughter," said the man. "Do not enter till I call
you. But stand close to the door, if you will, and hear all."
So saying he raised his hand as in a kind of benediction, passed to the
door, and after tapping very softly, opened it, entered, and closed it
behind him-not so quickly, however, but that the woman caught a glimpse
of the father and the boy. In her eyes there was the divine look of
motherhood.
"Peace be to this house!" said the man gently as he stepped forward from
the door.
The father, startled, turned shrinkingly on him, as if he had seen a
spirit.
"M'sieu' le cure!" he said in French, with an accent much poorer than
that of the priest, or even of his own son. He had learned French from
his wife; he himself was English.
The priest's quick eye had taken in the lighted candles at the little
shrine, even as he saw the painfully changed aspect of the man.
"The wife and child, Bagot?" he asked, looking round. "Ah, the boy!" he
added, and going toward the bed, continued, presently, in a low voice:
"Dominique is ill?"
Bagot nodded, and then answered: "A wild-cat and then fever, Father
Corraine."
The priest felt the boy's pulse softly, then with a close personal look
he spoke hardly above his breath, yet distinctly too:
"Your wife, Bagot?"
"She is not here, m'sieu'." The voice was low and gloomy.
"Where is she, Bagot?"
"I do not know, m'sieu'."
"When did you see her last?"
"Four weeks ago, m'sieu'."
"That was September, this is October--winter. On the ranches they let
their cattle loose upon the plains in winter, knowing not where they go,
yet looking for them to return in the spring. But a woman--a woman and a
wife--is different. . . . Bagot, you have been a rough, hard man, and you
have been a stranger to your God, but I thought you loved your wife and
child!"
The hunter's hands clenched, and a wicked light flashed up into his eyes;
but the calm, benignant gaze of the other cooled the tempest in his
veins. The priest sat down on the couch where the child lay, and took the
fevered hand in his very softly.
"Stay where you are, Bagot," he said; "just there where you are, and tell
me what your trouble is, and why your wife is not here. . . . Say all
honestly--by the name of the Christ!" he added, lifting up a large iron
crucifix that hung on his breast.
Bagot sat down on a bench near the fireplace, the light playing on his
bronzed, powerful face, his eyes shining beneath his heavy brows like two
coals. After a moment he began:
"I don't know how it started. I'd lost a lot of pelts--stolen they were,
down on the Child o' Sin River. Well, she was hasty and nervous, like as
not--she always was brisker and more sudden than I am. I--I laid my
powder-horn and whisky-flask-up there!"
He pointed to the little shrine of the Virgin, where now his candles were
burning. The priest's grave eyes did not change expression at all, but
looked out wisely, as though he understood everything before it was told.
Bagot continued: "I didn't notice it, but she had put some flowers there.
She said something with an edge, her face all snapping angry, threw the
things down, and called me a heathen and a wicked heretic--and I don't
say now but she'd a right to do it. But I let out then, for them stolen
pelts were rasping me on the raw. I said something pretty rough, and made
as if I was goin' to break her in two--just fetched up my hands, and went
like this!--" With a singular simplicity he made a wild gesture with his
hands, and an animal-like snarl came from his throat. Then he looked at
the priest with the honest intensity of a boy.
"Yes, that is what you did--what was it you said which was 'pretty
rough'?"
There was a slight hesitation, then came the reply: "I said there was
enough powder spilt on the floor to kill all the priests in heaven."
A fire suddenly shot up into Father Corraine's face, and his lips
tightened for an instant, but presently he was as before, and he said:
"How that will face you one day, Bagot! Go on. What else?"
Sweat began to break out on Bagot's face, and he spoke as though he were
carrying a heavy weight on his shoulders, low and brokenly.
"Then I said, 'And if virgins has it so fine, why didn't you stay one?'"
"Blasphemer!" said the priest in a stern, reproachful voice, his face
turning a little pale, and he brought the crucifix to his lips. "To the
mother of your child--shame! What more?"
She threw up her hands to her ears with a wild cry, ran out of the house,
down the hills, and away. I went to the door and watched her as long as I
could see her, and waited for her to come back--but she never did.
"I've hunted and hunted, but I can't find her." Then, with a sudden
thought, "Do you know anything of her, m'sieu'?"
The priest appeared not to hear the question. Turning for a moment toward
the boy who now was in a deep sleep, he looked at him intently. Presently
he spoke.
"Ever since I married you and Lucette Barbond, you have stood in the way
of her duty, Bagot. How well I remember that first day when you knelt
before me! Was ever so sweet and good a girl--with her golden eyes and
the look of summer in her face, and her heart all pure! Nothing had
spoiled her--you cannot spoil such women--God is in their hearts. But
you, what have you cared? One day you would fondle her, and the next you
were a savage--and she, so gentle, so gentle all the time. Then, for her
religion and the faith of her child--she has fought for it, prayed for
it, suffered for it. You thought you had no need, for you had so much
happiness, which you did not deserve--that was it. But she: with all a
woman suffers, how can she bear life--and man--without God? No, it is not
possible. And you thought you and your few superstitions were enough for
her.--Ah, poor fool! She should worship you! So selfish, so small, for a
man who knows in his heart how great God is.--You did not love her."
"By the Heaven above, yes!" said Bagot, half starting to his feet.
"Ah, 'by the Heaven above,' no! nor the child. For true love is unselfish
and patient, and where it is the stronger, it cares for the weaker; but
it was your wife who was unselfish, patient, and cared for you. Every
time she said an ave she thought of you, and her every thanks to the good
God had you therein. They know you well in heaven, Bagot--through your
wife. Did you ever pray--ever since I married you to her?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"An hour or so ago."
Once again the priest's eyes glanced towards the lighted candles.
Presently he said: "You asked me if I had heard anything of your wife.
Listen, and be patient while you listen. . . . Three weeks ago I was
camping on the Sundust Plains, over against the Young Sky River. In the
morning, as I was lighting a fire outside my tent, my young Cree Indian
with me, I saw coming over the crest of a land-wave, from the very lips
of the sunrise, as it were, a band of Indians. I could not quite make
them out. I hoisted my little flag on the tent, and they hurried on to
me. I did not know the tribe--they had come from near Hudson's Bay. They
spoke Chinook, and I could understand them. Well, as they came near I saw
that they had a woman with them."
Bagot leaned forward, his body strained, every muscle tense. "A woman?"
he said, as if breathing gave him sorrow--"my wife?"
"Your wife."
"Quick! Quick! Go on--oh, go on, m'sieu'--good father."
"She fell at my feet, begging me to save her. . . . I waved her off."
The sweat dropped from Bagot's forehead, a low growl broke from him, and
he made such a motion as a lion might make at its prey.
"You wouldn't--wouldn't save her--you coward!" He ground the words out.
The priest raised his palm against the other's violence. "Hush! . . . She
drew away, saying that God and man had deserted her. . . . We had
breakfast, the chief and I. Afterwards, when the chief had eaten much and
was in good humour, I asked him where he had got the woman. He said that
he had found her on the plains she had lost her way. I told him then that
I wanted to buy her. He said to me, 'What does a priest want of a woman?'
I said that I wished to give her back to her husband. He said that he had
found her, and she was his, and that he would marry her when they reached
the great camp of the tribe. I was patient. It would not do to make him
angry. I wrote down on a piece of bark the things that I would give him
for her: an order on the Company at Fort o' Sin for shot, blankets, and
beads. He said no."
The priest paused. Bagot's face was all swimming with sweat, his body was
rigid, but the veins of his neck knotted and twisted.
"For the love of God, go on!" he said hoarsely. "Yes, 'for the love of
God.' I have no money, I am poor, but the Company will always honour my
orders, for I pay sometimes, by the help of Christ. Bien, I added some
things to the list: a saddle, a rifle, and some flannel. But no, he would
not. Once more I put many things down. It was a big bill--it would keep
me poor for five years.--To save your wife, John Bagot, you who drove her
from your door, blaspheming, and railing at such as I. . . . I offered
the things, and told him that was all that I could give. After a little
he shook his head, and said that he must have the woman for his wife. I
did not know what to add. I said--'She is white, and the white people
will never rest till they have killed you all, if you do this thing. The
Company will track you down.' Then he said, 'The whites must catch me and
fight me before they kill me.' . . . What was there to do?"
Bagot came near to the priest, bending over him savagely.
"You let her stay with them--you with hands like a man!"
"Hush!" was the calm, reproving answer. "I was one man, they were
twenty."
"Where was your God to help you, then?"
"Her God and mine was with me."
Bagot's eyes blazed. "Why didn't you offer rum--rum? They'd have done it
for that--one--five--ten kegs of rum!"
He swayed to and fro in his excitement, yet their voices hardly rose
above a hoarse whisper all the time. "You forget," answered the priest,
"that it is against the law, and that as a priest of my order, I am vowed
to give no rum to an Indian."
"A vow? A vow? Name of God! what is a vow beside a woman--my wife?"
His misery and his rage were pitiful to see.
"Perjure my soul? Offer rum? Break my vow in the face of the enemies of
God's Church? What have you done for me that I should do this for you,
John Bagot?"
"Coward!" was the man's despairing cry, with a sudden threatening
movement. "Christ Himself would have broke a vow to save her."
The grave, kind eyes of the priest met the other's fierce gaze, and
quieted the wild storm that was about to break.
"Who am I that I should teach my Master?" he said solemnly. "What would
you give Christ, Bagot, if He had saved her to you?"
The man shook with grief, and tears rushed from his eyes, so suddenly and
fully had a new emotion passed through him.
"Give--give?" he cried; "I would give twenty years of my life!"
The figure of the priest stretched up with a gentle grandeur. Holding out
the iron crucifix, he said: "On your knees and swear it, John Bagot."
There was something inspiring, commanding, in the voice and manner, and
Bagot, with a new hope rushing through his veins, knelt and repeated his
words.
The priest turned to the door, and called, "Madame Lucette!"
The boy, hearing, waked, and sat up in bed suddenly. "Mother! mother!" he
cried, as the door flew open. The mother came to her husband's arms,
laughing and weeping, and an instant afterwards was pouring out her love
and anxiety over her child.
Father Corraine now faced the man, and with a soft exaltation of voice
and manner, said:
"John Bagot, in the name of Christ, I demand twenty years of your
life--of love and obedience of God. I broke my vow, I perjured my soul, I
bought your wife with ten kegs of rum!"
The tall hunter dropped again to his knees, and caught the priest's hand
to kiss it.
"No, no--this!" the priest said, and laid his iron crucifix against the
other's lips.
Dominique's voice came clearly through the room: "Mother, I saw the white
swan fly away through the door when you came in."
"My dear, my dear," she said, "there was no white swan." But she clasped
the boy to her breast protectingly, and whispered an ave.
"Peace be to this house," said the voice of the priest. And there was
peace: for the child lived, and the man has loved, and has kept his vow,
even unto this day.
For the visions of the boy, who can know the divers ways in which God
speaks to the children of men?
AT BAMBER'S BOOM
His trouble came upon him when he was old. To the hour of its coming he
had been of shrewd and humourous disposition. He had married late in
life, and his wife had died, leaving him one child--a girl. She grew to
womanhood, bringing him daily joy. She was beloved in the settlement; and
there was no one at Bamber's Boom, in the valley of the Madawaska, but
was startled and sorry when it turned out that Dugard, the river-boss,
was married. He floated away down the river, with his rafts and drives of
logs, leaving the girl sick and shamed. They knew she was sick at heart,
because she grew pale and silent; they did not know for some months how
shamed she was. Then it was that Mrs. Lauder, the sister of the Roman
Catholic missionary, Father Halen, being a woman of notable character and
kindness, visited her and begged her to tell all.
Though the girl--Nora--was a Protestant, Mrs. Lauder did this: but it
brought sore grief to her. At first she could hardly bear to look at the
girl's face, it was so hopeless, so numb to the world: it had the
indifference of despair. Rumour now became hateful fact. When the old man
was told, he gave one great cry, then sat down, his hands pressed hard
between his knees, his body trembling, his eyes staring before him.
It was Father Halen who told him. He did it as man to man, and not as a
priest, having travelled fifty miles for the purpose. "George Magor,"
said he, "it's bad, I know, but bear it--with the help of God. And be
kind to the girl."
The old man answered nothing. "My friend," the priest continued, "I hope
you'll forgive me for telling you. I thought 'twould be better from me,
than to have it thrown at you in the settlement. We've been friends one
way and another, and my heart aches for you, and my prayers go with you."
The old man raised his sunken eyes, all their keen humour gone, and spoke
as though each word were dug from his heart. "Say no more, Father Halen."
Then he reached out, caught the priest's hand in his gnarled fingers, and
wrung it.
The father never spoke a harsh word to the girl. Otherwise he seemed to
harden into stone. When the Protestant missionary came, he would not see
him. The child was born before the river-drivers came along again the
next year with their rafts and logs. There was a feeling abroad that it
would be ill for Dugard if he chanced to camp at Bamber's Boom. The look
of the old man's face was ominous, and he was known to have an iron will.
Dugard was a handsome man, half French, half Scotch, swarthy and
admirably made. He was proud of his strength, and showily fearless in
danger. For there were dangerous hours to the river life: when, for
instance, a mass of logs became jammed at a rapids, and must be loosened;
or a crib struck into the wrong channel, or, failing to enter a slide
straight, came at a nasty angle to it, its timbers wrenched and tore
apart, and its crew, with their great oars, were plumped into the busy
current. He had been known to stand singly in some perilous spot when one
log, the key to the jam, must be shifted to set free the great tumbled
pile. He did everything with a dash. The handspike was waved and thrust
into the best leverage, the long robust cry, "O-hee-hee-hoi!" rolled over
the waters, there was a devil's jumble of logs, and he played a desperate
game with them, tossing here, leaping there, balancing elsewhere, till,
reaching the smooth rush of logs in the current, he ran across them to
the shore as they spun beneath his feet.
His gang of river-drivers, with their big drives of logs, came sweeping
down one beautiful day of early summer, red-shifted, shouting,
good-tempered. It was about this time that Pierre came to know Magor.
It was the old man's duty to keep the booms of several great lumbering
companies, and to watch the logs when the river-drivers were engaged
elsewhere. Occasionally he took a place with the men, helping to make
cribs and rafts. Dugard worked for one lumber company, Magor for others.
Many in the settlement showed Dugard how much he was despised. Some
warned him that Magor had said he would break him into pieces; it seemed
possible that Dugard might have a bad hour with the people of Bamber's
Boom. Dugard, though he swelled and strutted, showed by a furtive eye and
a sinister watchfulness that he felt himself in an atmosphere of danger.
But he spoke of his wickedness lightly as, "A slip--a little accident,
mon ami."
Pierre said to him one day: "Bien, Dugard, you are a bold man to come
here again. Or is it that you think old men are cowards?"
Dugard, blustering, laid his hand suddenly upon his case-knife.
Pierre laughed softly, contemptuously, came over, and throwing out his
perfectly formed but not robust chest in the fashion of Dugard, added:
"Ho, ho, monsieur the butcher, take your time at that. There is too much
blood in your carcass. You have quarrels plenty on your hands without
this. Come, don't be a fool and a scoundrel too."
Dugard grinned uneasily, and tried to turn the thing off as a joke, and
Pierre, who laughed still a little more, said: "It would be amusing to
see old Magor and Dugard fight. It would be--so equal." There was a keen
edge to Pierre's tones, but Dugard dared not resent it.
One day Magor and Dugard must meet. The square-timber of the two
companies had got tangled at a certain point, and gangs from both must
set them loose. They were camped some distance from each other. There was
rivalry between them, and it was hinted that if any trouble came from the
meeting of Magor and Dugard the gangs would pay off old scores with each
other. Pierre wished to prevent this. It seemed to him that the two men
should stand alone in the affair. He said as much here and there to
members of both camps, for he was free of both: a tribute to his genius
at poker.
The girl, Nora, was apprehensive--for her father; she hated the other man
now. Pierre was courteous to her, scrupulous in word and look, and fond
of her child. He had always shown a gentleness to children, which seemed
little compatible with his character; but for this young outlaw in the
world he had something more. He even laboured carefully to turn the
girl's father in its favour; but as yet to little purpose. He was thought
ful of the girl too. He only went to the house when he knew her father
was present, or when she was away. Once while he was there, Father Halen
and his sister, Mrs. Lauder, came. They found Pierre with the child,
rocking the cradle, and humming as he did so an old song of the coureurs
de bois:
"Out of the hills comes a little white deer,
Poor little vaurien, o, ci, ci!
Come to my home, to my home down here,
Sister and brother and child o' me
Poor little, poor little vaurien!"
Pierre was alone, save for the old woman who had cared for the home since
Nora's trouble came. The priest was anxious lest any harm should come
from Dugard's presence at Bamber's Boom. He knew Pierre's doubtful
reputation, but still he knew he could speak freely and would be answered
honestly. "What will happen?" he abruptly asked.
"What neither you nor I should try to prevent, m'sieu'," was Pierre's
reply.
"Magor will do the man injury?"
"What would you have? Put the matter on your own hearthstone, eh? . . .
Pardon, if I say these things bluntly." Pierre still lightly rocked the
cradle with one foot.
"But vengeance is in God's hands."
"M'sieu'," said the half-breed, "vengeance also is man's, else why did we
ten men from Fort Cypress track down the Indians who murdered your
brother, the good priest, and kill them one by one?"