A Romany of the Snows Part 17

"Yes," Brydon said, "he is different; and so is she."

"She is a lady," Pierre said, with slow emphasis. "She couldn't hide it if she tried. She plays the piano, and looks all silk in calico. Made for this?"--he waved his hand towards the Bridge House. "No, no! made for--"

He paused, smiled enigmatically, and dropped a bit of wood on the swift current.

Brydon frowned, then said: "Well, made for what, Pierre?"

Pierre looked over Brydon's shoulder, towards a pretty cottage on the hillside. "Made for homes like that, not this," he said, and he nodded first towards the hillside, then to the Bridge House. (The cottage belonged to the young doctor.) A growl like an animal's came from Brydon, and he clinched the other's shoulder. Pierre glanced at the hand, then at Brydon's face, and said sharply: "Take it away."

The hand dropped; but Brydon's face was hot, and his eyes were hard.

Pierre continued: "But then women are strange. What you expect they will not--no. Riches?--it is nothing; houses like that on the hill, nothing.

They have whims. The hut is as good as the house, with the kitchen in the open where the river welts and washes, and a man--the great man of the world to them--to play the little game of life with.... Pshaw! you are idle: move; you are thick in the head: think hard; you like the girl: speak."

As he said this, there showed beneath them the front timbers of a small crib of logs with a crew of two men, making for the rapids and the slide below. Here was an adventure, for running the rapids with so slight a craft and small a crew was smart work. Pierre, measuring the distance, and with a "Look out, below!" swiftly let himself down by his arms as far as he could, and then dropped to the timbers, as lightly as if it were a matter of two feet instead of twelve. He waved a hand to Brydon, and the crib shot on. Brydon sat eyeing it abstractedly till it ran into the teeth of the rapids, the long oars of the three men rising and falling to the monotonous cry. The sun set out the men and the craft against the tall dark walls of the river in strong relief, and Brydon was carried away from what Pierre had been saying. He had a solid pleasure in watching, and he sat up with a call of delight when he saw the crib drive at the slide. Just glancing the edge, she shot through safely. His face blazed.

"A pretty sight!" said a voice behind him.

Without a word he swung round, and dropped, more heavily than Pierre, beside Judith.

"It gets into our bones," he said. "Of course, though it ain't the same to you," he added, looking down at her over his shoulder. "You don't care for things so rough, mebbe?"

"I love the river," she said quietly.

"We're a rowdy lot, we river-drivers. We have to be. It's a rowdy business."

"I never noticed that," she replied, gravely smiling. "When I was small I used to go to the river-drivers' camps with my brother, and they were always kind to us. They used to sing and play the fiddle, and joke; but I didn't think then that they were rowdy, and I don't now. They were never rough with us."

"No one'd ever be rough with you," was the reply. "Oh yes," she said suddenly, and turned her head away. She was thinking of what the young doctor had said to her that morning; how like a foolish boy he had acted: upbraiding her, questioning her, saying unreasonable things, as young egoists always do. In years she was younger than he, but in wisdom much older: in all things more wise and just. He had not struck her, but with his reckless tongue he had cut her to the heart. "Oh yes," she repeated, and her eyes ran up to his face and over his great stalwart body; and then she leaned over the railing and looked into the water.

"I'd break the man into pieces that was rough with you," he said between his teeth.

"Would you?" she asked in a whisper. Then, not giving him a chance to reply, "We are very poor, you know, and some people are rough with the poor--and proud. I remember," she went on, simply, dreamily, and as if talking to herself, "the day when we first came to the Bridge House.

I sat down on a box and looked at the furniture--it was so little--and cried. Coming here seemed the last of what grandfather used to be. I couldn't help it. He sat down too, and didn't say anything. He was very pale, and I saw that his eyes ached as he looked at me. Then I got angry with myself, and sprang up and went to work--and we get along pretty well."

She paused and sighed; then, after a minute: "I love the river. I don't believe I could be happy away from it. I should like to live on it, and die on it, and be buried in it."

His eyes were on her eagerly. But she looked so frail and dainty that his voice, to himself, sounded rude. Still, his hand blundered along the railing to hers, and covered it tenderly--for so big a hand. She drew her fingers away, but not very quickly. "Don't!" she said, "and--and someone is coming!"

There were footsteps behind them. It was her grandfather, carrying a board fished from the river. He grasped the situation, and stood speechless with wonder. He had never thought of this. He was a gentleman, in spite of all, and this man was a common river-boss.

Presently he drew himself up with an air. The heavy board was still in his arms. Brydon came over and took the board, looking him squarely in the eyes.

"Mr. Rupert," he said, "I want to ask something." The old man nodded.

"I helped you out of a bad sc.r.a.pe on the river?" Again the old man nodded.

"Well, mebbe, I saved your life. For that I'm going to ask you to draw no more driftwood from the Madawaska--not a stick, now or ever."

"It is the only way we can keep from freezing in winter." Mr. Rupert scarcely knew what he said. Brydon looked at Judith, who turned away, then answered: "I'll keep you from freezing, if you'll let me, you--and Judith."

"Oh, please let us go into the house," Judith said hastily.

She saw the young doctor driving towards them out of the covered bridge!

When Brydon went to join his men far down the river he left a wife behind him at the Bridge House, where she and her grandfather were to stay until the next summer. Then there would be a journey from Bamber's Boom to a new home.

In the late autumn he came, before he went away to the shanties in the backwoods, and again in the winter just before the babe was born. Then he went far up the river to Rice Lake and beyond, to bring down the drives of logs for his Company. June came, and then there was a sudden sorrow at the Bridge House. How great it was, Pierre's words as he stood at the door one evening will testify. He said to the young doctor: "Save the child, and you shall have back the I O U on your house." Which was also evidence that the young doctor had fallen into the habit of gambling.

The young doctor looked hard at him. He had a selfish nature. "You can only do what you can do," he said.

Pierre's eyes were sinister. "If you do not save it, one would guess why."

The other started, flushed, was silent, and then said: "You think I'm a coward. We shall see. There is a way, but it may fail."

And though he sucked the diphtheria poison from the child's throat, it died the next night.

Still, the cottage that Pierre and Company had won was handed back with such good advice as only a worldwise adventurer can give.

Of the child's death its father did not know. They were not certain where he was. But when the mother took to her bed again, the young doctor said it was best that Brydon should come. Pierre had time and inclination to go for him. But before he went he was taken to Judith's bedside. Pierre had seen life and death in many forms, but never anything quite like this: a delicate creature floating away upon a summer current travelling in those valleys which are neither of this life nor of that; but where you hear the echoes of both, and are visited by solicitous spirits. There was no pain in her face--she heard a little, familiar voice from high and pleasant hills, and she knew, so wise are the dying, that her husband was travelling after her, and that they would be all together soon. But she did not speak of that. For the knowledge born of such a time is locked up in the soul.

Pierre was awe-stricken. Unconsciously he crossed himself.

"Tell him to come quickly," she said, "if you find him,"--her fingers played with the coverlet,--"for I wish to comfort him.... Someone said that you were bad, Pierre. I do not believe it. You were sorry when my baby went away. I am--going away--too. But do not tell him that. Tell him I cannot walk about. I want him to carry me--to carry me. Will you?"

Pierre put out his hand to hers creeping along the coverlet to him; but it was only instinct that guided him, for he could not see. He started on his journey with his hat pulled down over his eyes.

One evening when the river was very high and it was said that Brydon's drives of logs would soon be down, a strange thing happened at the Bridge House.

The young doctor had gone, whispering to Mr. Rupert that he would come back later. He went out on tiptoe, as from the presence of an angel. His selfishness had dropped away from him. The evening wore on, and in the little back room a woman's voice said:

"Is it morning yet, father?"

"It is still day. The sun has not set, my child."

"I thought it had gone, it seemed so dark."

"You have been asleep, Judith. You have come out of the dark."

"No, I have come out into the darkness--into the world."

"You will see better when you are quite awake."

"I wish I could see the river, father. Will you go and look?"

Then there was a silence. "Well?" she asked.

"It is beautiful," he said, "and the sun is still bright."

"You see as far as Indian Island?"