A Romany of the Snows Part 15

"Her G.o.d 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 G.o.d! 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 G.o.d'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 pa.s.sed 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d. 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 ma.s.s 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 s.h.i.+fted 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 sh.o.r.e 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-s.h.i.+fted, 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, bl.u.s.tering, 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 fas.h.i.+on of Dugard, added: "Ho, ho, monsieur the butcher, take your time at that. There is too much blood in your carca.s.s. 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 G.o.d'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?"