A Cry in the Wilderness

VIII

I did not light the candles. The firelight showed through the mica in the stove grate. I sat down by the window and looked out. A full moon shone high and clear above the dark irregular outline of the massed treetops in the woods across the creek, now covered with ice and blanketed with white. The great hemlock branches, crowding close to the house, were drooping, snow-laden. The moonlight, reflected in them, flashed diamond dust from the upper branches; beneath the lower ones it cast violet shadows on the snow.

"What next?" I was thinking, and might have spared myself the trouble of that thought, for just then Mrs. Macleod knocked at the door and came in.

"In the dark? Marcia, my dear, we need you down stairs."

"Of course I 'll come, Mrs. Macleod, if you wish me to, but I don't quite see how, as your companion and assistant, I am needed now down stairs. I shall feel as if I were not earning my salt, just playing lady."

Now, can any one tell me why the spirit of revolt at the change in my position in this house, through the coming of the owner and his friend, should have materialized in just this ungracious speech? I was ashamed of myself the moment I had given it utterance. Such a mean sentiment! Not worthy of a woman of twenty-six. I was thankful she could not see my face.

She hesitated before replying. When she spoke I heard a note of displeasure in her voice.

"I need you now, perhaps, more than before. With these guests in the house, there is more responsibility than during the last three weeks."

"If only they were guests!" The perverse spirit was still at work within me. "But we are the guests now, and I don't quite see what my work is to be; my position seems to be an anomalous one."

"It may seem so to you," she replied quietly. I knew by the tone of her voice she was exercising great self control, and that had the candles been lighted I should have seen her cheeks flush a deep pink; "but evidently it is perfectly clear to Doctor Rugvie. The position is his creation. I think you can trust him.– Are you coming?"

The rebuke was well deserved, and, in accepting it, my respect for her was doubled.

"Just let me get my work," I said, fumbling in my basket for some petty crochet. She said nothing, and in silence we went down stairs together, she little realizing that, in referring to Doctor Rugvie as the one to whom I was indebted for being here, she twisted some fibre in my mental make-up and caused it to vibrate painfully. Had I but known it, I had been keyed to this moment ever since hearing Delia Beaseley's account of my mother's death—keyed too long and at too high a pitch. Something had to give way; hence my mood of apparent revolt, because I could not live in unchanged circumstances in this manor of Lamoral.

As we entered the living-room the three pipes were in full blast.

"Permitted?" said the Doctor, waving his towards us as he rose. Mr. Ewart, also, rose and came towards us. In the manner of his action I saw that, already, he had taken his rightful place as host. He held out his hand in greeting, and I took it.

"Sit here, Miss Farrell, by me," he motioned to the corner of the sofa next his easy chair, "and tell me how you have managed to accomplish a home—in three weeks. Mrs. Macleod and Jamie have been giving you all the credit for this transformation. How did you do it?"

He put me at ease at once, for what he said sounded both cordial and sincere. The tone of voice challenged me instantly to be as sincere with him.

"Perhaps it's because I never have had the chance to make what you call a 'home' before, and besides," I looked up from my sofa corner and dared to say the truth, "it was such a pleasure to spend some money that I did n't have to earn by hard work; this was play for me. But, truly, Mrs. Macleod and Jamie are not fair to themselves; they not only helped, but inspired me."

"Oh, woman, woman!" said the Doctor, laughing; "shopping is the characteristic symptom of the sex!"

"Talk about inspiration," said Jamie; "Marcia put mother and me through our best paces. I can tell you we conjugated: I must hustle, Thou must hustle, He must hustle, We must hustle, You must hustle, They must hustle, for three weeks," he said emphatically.

"You seem to have thriven on it," said the Doctor.

"Your work was in the New York Library, Miss Farrell?" It was Mr. Ewart who spoke.

"Yes, in a branch; I was there for five years."

"Who told you that, Gordon?" Jamie demanded.

"Who?—Who but Cale?"

Mrs. Macleod laughed outright at that, and Jamie and I joined her; we could not help it. The mere inflection of Mr. Ewart's voice, told us he had succumbed on the way over to our omniscient One. I saw that, quiet as he was, he had a keen sense of humor.

"Yes," he continued, "Cale made my acquaintance on the platform, and half way on the road he took occasion to give me some information concerning my household."

"Oh, I know that too," I said, "for Cale confided to me immediately on his arrival that, to use his own expression, he could n't get in a 'word edgewise', on account of the rapidity with which you and Peter were carrying on a conversation in French. I think he is jealous of every tongue but his own."

"We had better compare notes, Miss Farrell. I concluded that Cale was a firm friend of yours from his remarks."

"What did he say? Do tell me."

"I will—if you 'll agree to tell me his comments on my talk with Pierre. I believe Pierre's words fell over themselves, he had so much to tell me."

"Hear—hear!" This from Jamie.

"I agree; tell me, please."

"I think it was just before we entered the river road—"

"I know it was, for he told me so," I said, enjoying the fun.

"Oh, he did! Well, perhaps you will be so good as to tell me, if he told you what he told me you told him?"

"You would n't ask that if you knew Cale," said Jamie, shaking his head dubiously.

"No, he did n't," I said. "Cale is a genuine Yankee. What did he say?"

"You hear that, Ewart? What did I tell you?"

"Oh, you've been telling, too, have you, Jamie Macleod? He gave me to understand that it was he who brought you from the steamboat to the house; that you were born in New York; that you had been in the Public Library of that city; that in consequence what you did n't know about books was, in his estimation, not worth knowing; that you were just as handy with hammer and tacks as you were with books, and that you had been 'fixin' up' the old manor till it shone. I gathered further, that he expected me to be properly appreciative of the benefits conferred upon me in this matter. As, up to that time, I had heard nothing of your arrival in Richelieu-en-Bas, and as my friend here, Doctor Rugvie, was likewise in the dark in regard to your personality, you may imagine our curiosity; in fact, he wanted to rouse it, and took the best way to do it."

"He can do that," said Mrs. Macleod, smiling at this description of Cale's powers; "but he rarely satisfies us in regard to himself. Of course, Jamie and I respect his reticence, but I should like to know if he has been married. He is such a character! I should like to know more of his life."

"I must take a good look at him to-morrow," said the Doctor, filling his pipe.

"I should n't know him if I met him on the road," said Mr. Ewart; "for his cap was drawn over his forehead, and his beard and side whiskers were a mask. Won't he come in with us for a few minutes, Jamie?– By the way, you say that he is always with you at porridge, a custom I hope you will not depart from, now I am here, Mrs. Macleod."

"I shall want some too," said the Doctor, whimsically; "it will be like those never-to-be-forgotten days in Crieff fifteen years ago."

Mrs. Macleod said nothing; but she turned to him with such an indulgent smile, that I knew she would give the great man anything in reason or unreason for what he had been, and was, to her son and to herself.

Jamie jumped up impulsively.

"Tell me what he said, Marcia, about Gordon's talk with Pierre, and then I 'll go and have him in—without the porridge, though, for it's too late to-night."

"He said that if the old manor barns had been 'afire', and Mr. Ewart and Pierre had been trying to get the horses out, they could n't have talked faster."

"That's one on you, Ewart," said Jamie, gleefully. Mr. Ewart laughed. "I hope to make a friend of Cale; I like him."

Jamie left the room, and the talk drifted to other things.

"Have you seen Mère Guillardeau lately?" Mr. Ewart asked of Mrs. Macleod.

"Not since the last of October; but Marcia has seen her recently."

He looked at me inquiringly.

"I bought the rag carpet strips of her daughter."

"Is the old woman well?"

"Yes, she is wonderful for her age."

"Ninety-nine next year," said Mr. Ewart. "What a century she has lived!"

"André père must be ninety, then," said Doctor Rugvie. "How well I remember him! He is Mère Guillardeau's brother, as perhaps you know," he said turning to me. "Jamie must have told you of André."

"Yes, of André father and André son; you know them both?"

It was the first time I had spoken directly with the Doctor, although he was the one in the room upon whom all my thoughts centered.

"For many years; I saw him first in Tadoussac, just after the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Afterwards, for six consecutive summers I was in camp with him and his son on the Upper Saguenay. There 's none like him. By the way, Miss Farrell, has Jamie ever told you how the old guide André went to the World's Fair at Chicago?"

"No."

"We 'll get him to tell you—and us; I can never hear it too many times. It's unique, and it takes Jamie to tell it well. André told me years ago, and last summer he told Jamie and Mr. Ewart. Jamie wrote me about it."

"I shall never forget that night," said Mr. Ewart.

He laid his pipe on the mantel and stood back to the fireplace, his hands clasped behind him. He was not so tall as Jamie or Doctor Rugvie; not so thin as the former, nor stout like the latter. He had kept his body in good training for, as he stood there, despite the few gray hairs on the temples, he looked like a man of thirty, rather than one who might be father to Jamie.

Jamie came in at this moment, looking thoroughly cross as well as crestfallen.

"He won't come," he announced bluntly, taking his seat and leaning forward to the fire, his long arms resting on his knees, his hands clasped and hanging between them. He glared at the andirons.

"What's the matter, Jamie?" I asked; I knew something had gone wrong.

"He says he does n't belong here, and all that rot. Confound it all! When you come up against Cale's crotchets you might as well go hang yourself for all you can move him."

I looked at Mr. Ewart. I saw the gray eyes flash suddenly.

"We must change all that, Jamie. Just give him leeway till I 've looked about a bit and struck root into my—home." I noticed the slight hesitation before the word "home". "By the way, it's early yet."

"Early!" Jamie was rousing himself from his private sulk. "You might like to know that generally we have porridge at nine and are in bed by half-past."

"We 'll change all that too, Mrs. Macleod—with the Doctor's permission, of course," he said, sitting down beside her. "We 're not going to lose the pleasure of these long winter evenings. After porridge, we 'll have grand bouts of chess, Jamie, and a little music—I see that Miss Farrell has not included a piano in her furnishings—"

"Not for eighty-seven dollars," I said, hoping he would appreciate the financial fact; but he only looked a little mystified, and went on:

"—And hours with the books, and some snowshoeing on fine moonlight nights; you 'll see that the winter is none too long in Canada—O pays de mon amour!" he said smiling. Clasping his hands behind his head, he looked steadily at the leaping flames.

The tone in which he said all this would have heartened a confirmed pessimist; upon Jamie Macleod it acted like new wine. His face grew radiant, and the look he gave his friend held something of worship in it.

Doctor Rugvie groaned audibly as he laid aside his pipe.

"What is it, mon vieux?" said Mr. Ewart.

"You make me envious," he said, rising and putting on another log; "but if I can be with you only one week, I 'm going to make the most of it. No turning in before eleven-thirty while I 'm here."

"I 'll make it one with you any time you say, John." Underneath the banter we heard the undercurrent of deep affection. "You 'll be up here two or three times during the winter, and next summer you 've promised to camp with Jamie and the Andrés, father and son, and me, for two months on the Upper Saguenay. Speaking of André, père, Jamie, have you redeemed the promise you gave me last summer?"

Jamie twisted his long length in his chair before answering. "Yes, in a way."

"What does 'in a way' mean? What promise?" asked the Doctor eagerly. Mr. Ewart answered for him.

"It was about André—old André's story of his voyage to the Columbian Exposition in 'ninety-three. Have you written it up?"

"In a way I have, yes."

"Well, Jamie Macleod," I exclaimed, half impatiently, "for lack of originality, commend me to you to-night!"

I was afraid I should not hear the story. I exulted in the thought that my intuition concerning a second R. L. Stevenson in Jamie Macleod, was to prove correct. Jamie looked over at me and smiled provokingly.

"Come on, Boy, out with it!" said the Doctor encouragingly. "I 'm willing to be bored with your literary style for the sake of hearing dear old André's story rehashed by a young aspirant for honors."

"Have you seen anything of this?" Mr. Ewart turned to Mrs. Macleod.

"I 've neither seen nor heard anything of this kind," she replied with an amazed look at her son. Jamie smiled again, this time quizzically.

"What's this you 've been keeping from your mother, Boy?"

"Oh, Jamie, do read it to us!" I begged.

Jamie laughed aloud then, much to the two men's delight, as I could see, and said—tease that he is:

"I 've been waiting for Marcia to ask me; she is n't apt to ask favors of any one; but I say,—" he looked half shamefacedly at his friends,—"it's rough on me to read anything of mine before such critics as you and Gordon, Doctor Rugvie."

"Do you good," growled the Doctor; "get you used to publicity. If we have a genius in the family, it's best he should sprout his pin feathers in our presence before he becomes a full-fledged Pegasus. We could n't hold you down then, you know."

"You 've had a lot of faith in me, Doctor—you and Ewart; after all, Oxford mightn't have done what that has for me. I 'll read it—but I shall feel like a fool, I know."

"It won't hurt you to feel that way once in a while at twenty-three; it's educative," said the Doctor dryly.

In the general laughter that followed, Jamie left the room. He was gone but a minute. When he came in, I saw he was nervous. He cleared his throat once or twice, after taking his seat at the left of the fireplace, and glanced anxiously at the candles; but they were fresh at nine, and good for two hours longer. Doctor Rugvie looked at his watch.

"Half-past ten; I 'll keep time, Jamie."

"What do you call it, Jamie?" Mr. Ewart asked, to ease the evident embarrassment in which the young Scotsman found himself.

"'André's Odyssey'."

"Good! I like that," said the Doctor; "that's just what it was. Nothing like a good title to work up to."

"Of course, I embellished a little here and there, but I stuck to the facts and in many places to André's words; and I tried to make the whole in André's spirit."

"Intentions all right, Boy—let us judge of the result," said the Doctor. He settled comfortably in his chair, leaned his head on the back and gazed steadily at the wooden ceiling; but I think he managed to keep an eye on Jamie.

And, oh, that bright eager face, the firelight enhancing its brightness! The hand that trembled despite his effort at control, the slight flush on the high cheek bones from which the summer's tan had not yet house-worn! The expressive unsteady voice that gradually steadied itself as, in the interest of reading, self-consciousness was forgotten!

I bent low over my crochet; I did not want to look again at him, for I was glad, so glad for him, for his mother, for his two friends, who had had such faith in him, for myself that I could count him as a friend. This was, indeed, the beginning of fulfilment.

IX

For five and twenty years no man had seen in Tadoussac old André's face nor heard his voice upon the river's lower course. Both long and late within their icy caves the winters dwelt. The spring-tides, messaging the wild emancipated water's glee, rushed down to meet the short-lived summer joy, and autumn after autumn fled with torch of flaming leaf, reversed, death-heralding, far up the Saguenay's dark winding gorge—yet André came no more in all that time.

And now, behold them both, in Tadoussac! old André and his dog, Pierre, le brave, or was it Pierre's son?—lean-ribbed, thin-haunched and tragic-eyed, with fell of wolf, Pierre! How well they all remembered him, le brave! The frosts were in his bones, oh, long ere this; so Pierre's offspring, then?—as large as life! And André, too, old guide and voyageur!

Of notches six times ten had André cut within the shaft of one great pine that sings above that wonderful caprice of pool, and quiet river reach, and torrent wild, men long have called the Upper Saguenay. That very day when his boy's heart beat wild to suffocation, as upon the bank he landed his first salmon—nom de Dieu, no sunset glow e'er equalled in his eyes that palpitant and silver-scalèd mass of vibrant rose!—the sap from that first notch had oozed; and now they said in Tadoussac that André never knew his age!

Oh, fools! What matter of a few years more or less? He counted all his years by his heart's youth, as here he was in Tadoussac to prove.

"And whither away?"—"To see Mère Guillardeau?"—"To visit once again in Richelieu-en-Bas?"—"Or else Trois Rivières where long ago the maskinonge leaped for him?" "To see the Seigniory of Lamoral where lived his grandpère's seignior, lived and died?"—"A pilgrimage? Sainte Anne de Beaupré, then?"—"Or Indian Lorette just by Quebec?" The questions multiplied. "Come, tell us all." And André told them all.

"'Tis true," he said, "that there upon the Upper Saguenay strange tales are rife. From o'er the distant sea the English came to camp within the wilds, and I was guide. I listened to their tales whene'er the camp-fire crackled and the snow, the feather-snow that melted from the pines, fell hissing on the glowing arch of logs."

How André loved that sound! How dear to him was that one time in all the year's full round, when freeze the nights, the sap grows chill and numb; when warms the rising sun at early dawn and that sweet ichor runs! It kept him young; within him stirred his youthful forest hopes and joys with that first mounting life. And loud he laughed, nor gave the secret of his youth, his woodsman's lasting joys.

He told them how with mien impassive he had listened well, reflected long on what the English said, till May clouds, mirrored in the darkling pools, foreshadowed substance for those haunting dreams of glories human eyes had never seen; for far away upon the Lake there stood a city marvellous, the English said,—and they to André never yet had lied,—and who beheld it saw with naked eye the glories of the New Jerusalem.

And André, marking how the little runs were earlier loosened from their icy chains, how soft beneath the black and sodden leaves the water trickled free with here and there a bubble rising, proving spring had come—old André, listening so, the echo caught of that far song of storm-tossed Michigan as its wild waters, mingling with the rest, pursued their steady seaward course and swept with undertones enticing past the gorge of Saguenay and sang in André's ear:

What wonder that his simple woodsman's heart was moved to quick response! That ere one moon had waxed and waned his dugout was prepared for its long journey inland, west by south, along the waterway of two great Lands! He showed it now in Tadoussac with pride: this fruit of two Canadian winters' toil. Its ample hull was shiny black with age. Its prow sharp-nosed and long to cleave, pike-like, the rapids' wave, capricious, treacherous. Its stern was truncated like tail of duck, the waters never closed but on it pressed, and sped it on the river's lower course.

For twenty years he watched the sturdy growth of one great tree that towered above its mates; and when the noble bole, both straight and strong, was grown to such proportions that he deemed it fit to brave the rapids, such its curve, he laid the monarch low, and hewed, and shaped, and burned, and thickly overlaid with pitch, and launched it on the Lower Saguenay—a fine, well-balanced craft, his floating camp; and this was thirty years or more agone.

His destination now made known, upon the river bank a crowd eyed him agape. With pride he showed to wondering Tadoussac how he had made provision for his voyage.

Along one side was lashed a sapling pine with seamless sail, three-cornered and close furled; 'twas fashioned from the stout flap of a tent. Along the other stretched two pockets strong of moose skin, hair side out to shed the rain. The topmost one he filled with ample store of salmon smoked on his own spit of ash, and good supply of that brown wrinkled leaf whose qualmy fragrance, issuing from the bowl of his loved pipe, had ever proved in camp and wild the solace of his lonely life.

Within the other pocket he had placed his comrade-breadwinner, his trusted gun. Its shining barrel glistened cunningly from out the soft black depths, and knowingly, for many a wingèd voyager of the air would it bring low to beat the lucent wave to crimson froth before the voyage were done. Both oars and paddles of well-seasoned ash he laid within the dugout's ample hulk.

Then he was ready to set out, and seek that shining wonder-city by the Lake—a "New Jerusalem", the English said, and they to André never yet had lied. His old-time friends were gathered at the pier to bid him on his quest "God Speed". They cast the painter loose.

"Adieu—adieu," a hand clasp here and there, and then again: "Adieu!"

Pierre, with forepaws stemmed against the prow, bayed musical farewell. Old André turned and murmuring, "Adieu," broke forth exultantly in joyous song: