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GILBERT PARKER

ne GOING of
THE WHITE SWAN

'No, no — this!* the priest said."

[p- 56]

The GOING of
THE WHITE SWAN

GILBERT PARKER

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

MCMXII

THE GOING OF THE
WHITE SWAN

WHY don't she come back,
father?"
The man shook his head, his hand
fumbled with the wolfskin robe
covering the child, and he made no
reply.

"She'd come if she knew I was
hurted, wouldn't she?"

The father nodded, and then
turned restlessly toward the door,
as though expecting some one. The

THE GOING OF

look was troubled, and the pipe he
held was not alight, though he made
a pretense of smoking.

"Suppose the wildcat had got
me, she'd be sorry when she comes,
wouldn't she?"

There was no reply yet, save by
gesture, the language of primitive
man; but the big body shivered a
little, and the uncouth hand felt for
a place in the bed where the lad's
knee made a lump under the robe.
He felt the little heap tenderly, but
the child winced.

"S-sh, but that hurts! This wolf-
skin's most too much on me, isn't it,
father?"

Th'' man softly, yet awkwardly,
lifted the robe, folded it back, and

THE WHITE SWAN

slowly uncovered the knee. The
leg was worn away almost to skin
and bone, but the knee itself was
swollen with inflammation. He
bathed it with some water, mixed
with vinegar and herbs, then drew
down the deer-skin shirt, and did the
same with the child's shoulder.
Both shoulder and knee bore the
marks of teeth, — where a huge wild-
cat had made havoc — and the body
had long red scratches.

Presently the man shook his head
sorrowfully, and covered up the
small disfigured frame again, but
this time with a tanned skin of the
caribou. The flames of the huge
woo '^re dashed the walls and floor
with a velvety red and black, and
3

THE GOING OF

the large iron kettle, bought of the
Company at Fort Sacrament, puffed
out geysers of steam.

The place was a low hut with
parchment windows and rough
mud-mortar lumped between the
logs. Skins hung along two sides,
with bullet-holes and knife-holes
showing: of the great gray wolf, the
red puma, the bronze hill-lion, the
beaver, the bear, and the sable; and
in one corner was a huge pile of
them. Bare of the usual comforts
as the room was, it had a sort of re-
finement also, joined to an inexpress-
ible loneliness, you could scarce
have told how or why.

"Father," said the boy, his face
pinched with pain for a moment, "it
4

THE WHITE SWAN

hurts so, all over, every once in a
w^hile."

His fingers caressed the leg just
below the knee.

"Father," he suddenly added,
"what does it mean when you hear
a bird sing in the middle of the
night?"

The woodsn .i looked down anx-
iously into the boy's face. "It hasn't
no meaning, Dominique. There
ain't such a thing on the Labrador
Heights as a bird singin' in the
night. That's only in warm coun-
tries where there's nightingales. So
— bien sur!"

The boy had a wise, dreamy, spec-
ulative look.

"Well, I guess it was a nightin-
5

THE GOING OF

gale — it didn't sing like any I ever
heard."

The look of nervousness deepened
in the woodman's face. "What did
it sing like, Dominique?"

"So it made you shiver. You
wanted it to go on, and yet you
didn't want it. It was pretty, but
you felt as if something was going
to snap inside of you."

"When did you hear it, my son?"

"Twice last night — and — and I
guess it was Sunday the other time.
I don't know, for there hasn't been
no Sunday up here since mother
went away — has there?"

"Mebbe not."

The veins were beating like live
6

THE WHITE SWAN

cords in the man's throai and at his
temples.

'Twas just the

Fathe

same

Corraine bein' here, when mother
had Sunday, wasn't it?"

The man made no reply; but a
gloom drew down his forehead, and
his lips doubled in as though he en-
dured physical pain. He got to his
feet and paced the floor. For weeks
he had listened to the same kind of
talk from this wounded, and, as he
thought, dying son, and he was get-
ting less and less able to bear it.
The boy at nine years of age was, in
manner of speech, the merest child,
but his thoughts were sometimes
large and wise. The only white
7

THE GOING OF
child within a compass of a hun-
dred miles or so; the lonely life of
the hills and plains, so austere in
winter, so melted to a sober joy in
summer; listening to the talk of his
elders at camp-fires and on the
hunting-trail, when, even as an in-
fant almost, he was swung in a
blanket from a tree or was packed
in the torch-crane of a canoe; and
more than all, the care of a good,
loving—if passionate— little moth-
er: all these had made him far wiser
than his years. He had been hours
upon hours each day alone with
the birds, and squirrels, and wild
animals, and something of the keen
scent and instinct of the animal
world hid entered into his bodv and
8

THE WHITF SWAN

brain, so that he felt what he could
not understand.

He saw that he had worried his
inher, and it troubled him. He
thought of something.

"Daddy," he said, "let me have
it."

A smile struggled for life in the
hunter's face, a.« he turned to the
wall and took down the skin of a
silver fox. He held it on his palm
for a moment, looking at it in an
interested, satisfied way, then he
brought it over and put it into the
child's hands; and the smile now
shaped itself, as he saw an eager
pale face buried in the soft fur

"Good I good!" he said involunta-
rily.

THE GOING OF

"Bon! bon!" said the boy's voice
from the fur, in the language of
his mother, who added a strain of
Indian blood to her French ances-
try.

The two sat there, the man half-
kneeling on the low bed, and strok-
■ -g the fur very gently. It could
scarcely be thought that such pride
should be spent on a little pelt, by
a mere backwoodsman and his nine-
year-old son. One has seen a wom-
an fingering a splendid necklace,
her eyes fascinated by the bunch of
warm, deep jewels — a light not of
mere vanity, or hunger, or avarice
in her face — only the love of the
beautiful thing. But this was an
animal's skin. Did they feel the

THE WHITE SWAN

animal underneath it yet, giving it
beauty, life, glory?

The silver-fox skin is the prize of
the lorth, and this one was of the
boy's own harvesting. While his
father was away he saw the fox
creeping by the hut. The joy of the
hunter seized him, and guided his
eye over the sights of his father's
rifle as he rested the barrel on the
windowsill, and the animal was his!
Now his finger ran into the hole
made by the bullet, and he gave
a little laugh of modest triumph.
Minutes passed as they studied, felt,
and admired the skin, the hunter
prcud of his son, the son alive with
a primiti e passion, which inflicts
sufl^ering to get the beautiful thing.

I ■

THE WHITE SWAN

Perhaps the tenderness as well as the
wild passion of the animal gets into
the hunter's blood, and tips his fin-
gers at times with an exquisite kind-
ness—as one has noted in a lion
fondling her young, or in tigers ae
they sport upon the sands of the des-
ert. This boy had seen his father
shoot a splendid moose, and, as it lay
dying, drop down and kiss it in the
neck for sheer love of its handsome-
ness. Death is no insult. It is the
law of the primitive world— war,
and love in war.

'pHEY sat there for a long time,
not speaking, each busy in his
own way: the boy full of imagin-
ings, strange, half-heathen, half-
angelic feelings; the man roaming
Jn that savage, romantic, super-
stitious atmosphere which belongs to
the north, and to the north alone
At last the boy lay back on his
P'llow, his finger still in the bullet-
hok of the pelt. His eyes closed,
and he seemed about to fall asleep
but presently looked up and whis-
13

I I

THE GOING OF

pered: "I haven't said my prayers,
have I?"

The father shook his head in a sort
of rude confusion.

"I can pray out loud if I want to,
can't I?"

"Of course, Dominique." The
man shrank a little.

"I forget a good many times, but
I know one all right, for I said it
when the bird was singing. It isn't
one out of the book Father Cor-
raine sent mother by Pretty Pierre;
it's one she taught me out of her
own head. P'r'aps I'd better say
it."

"P'r'aps, if you want to." The
voice was husky.

The boy began :
14

*.l«- . Al

-.'IM^J:^:^

THE WHITE SWAN

"O Bon Jesu, who died to save us
from our sins, and to lead us to Thy
country, where there is no cold, nor
hunger, nor thirst, and where no one
is afraid, listen to Thy child. . . .
When the great winds and rains
come down from the hills, do not
let the floods drown us, nor the
woods cover us, nor the snow-slide
bury us, and do not let the prairie-
fires burn us. Keep wild beasts,
from killing us in our sleep, and
give us good hearts that we may not
kill them in anger."

His finger twisted involuntarily
into the bullet-hole in the pelt, and
he paused a moment.

"Keep us from getting lost, O
Bon Jesu."

^^^^^m^.

THE GOING OF

Again there was a pause, his eyes
opened wide, and he said:

"Do you think mother's lost, fa-
ther?"

A heavy broken breath came from
the father, and he replied haltingly:
"Mebbe— mebbe so."

Dominique's eyes closed again.
"I'h make up some," he said slowly:
"And if mother's lost, O Bon Jesu,
bring her back again to us, for every-
thing's going wrong."

Again he paused, then went on
with the prayer as it had been taught
him.

"Teach us to hear Thee whenever

Thou callest, and to see Thee when

Thou visitest us, and let the blessed

Mary and all the saints speak oftei

THE WHITE SWAN
to Thee for us. O Christ, hear us.
Lord have mercy upon us. Christ,
have mercy upon us. Amen."

Making the sign of the cross, he
lay back, and said: "I'll go to sleep
now, I guess."

'I ■!•'■

Ill

'T^HE man sat for a long time
■*■ looking at the pale, shining
face, at the blue veins showing pain-
fully dark on the temples and fore-
head, at the firm little white hand,
which was as brown as a butternut
a few weeks before. The longer he
sut, the deeper did his misery sink
into his soul. His wife had gone he
knew not where, his child was wast-
ing to death, and he had for his
sorrows no inner consolation. He
had ever had that touch of mystical
imagination inseparable from the
iS

l|l||^R^pWJli>-

THE WHITE SWAN
far north, yet he had none of that re-
ligious belief which swallowed up
natural awe and turned it to the re-
fining of life, and to the advantage
of a man's soul. Now it was forced
in upon him that his child was wiser
than himself; wiser and safer. His
life had been spent in the wastes,
with rough deeds and rugged habits,
and a youth of hardship, danger, and
almost savage endurance had given
him a half-barbarian temperament,
which could strike an angry blow at
one moment and fondle to death at
the next.

When he married sweet Lucette

Barbond his religion reached little

farther than a belief in the Scarlet

Hunter of the Kimash Hills and

(

THE GOING OF

those voices that could be heard call-
ing in the night, till their time of
sleep be past and they should rise
and reconquer the north.

Not even Father Corraine, whose
ways were like those of his Master,
could ever bring him to a more
definite faith. His wife had at first
striven with him, mourning yet lov-
ing. Sometimes the savage in him
had broken out over the little crea-
ture, merely because barbaric tyr-
anny was in him — torture followed
by the passionate kiss. But how was
she philosopher enough to under-
stand the cause 1

When she fled from their hut one
bitter day, as he roared some wild
words at her, it was because her

( f .i

ST^

^£b-^ ^:!t f- f ''V^SM.- <^

THE WHITE SWAN

nerves had all been shaken from
threatened death by wild beasts, (of
this he did not knew) and his
violence drove her mad. She had
run out of the house, and on, and
on, and on— and she had never come
back. That was weeks ago, and
there had been no word nor sign of
her since. The man was now busy
with it all, in a slow, cumbrous way.
A nature more to be touched by
things seen than by things told, his
mind was being awakened in a mas-
sive kind of fashion. He was view-
ing this crisis of his life as one sees
a human face in the wide searching
light of a great fire. He was rest-
less, but he held himself still by a
strong effort, not wishing to disturb

•f(

i '

THE GOING OF

the little sleeper. His eyes seemed
to retreat farther and farther back
under his shaggy brows.

The great logs in the chimney
burned brilliantly, and a brass cruci-
fix 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 him-
self. He had felt this— and some-
thing 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

•Afmmm^M'^ ^^i^f^^JT*

THE WHITE SWAN

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.

TTOURS 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?"
24

x~mfi^:i.fj'-'-f. ir^^iX'^^f^::^"

TUF- WHITF SWAN

He made up his mind to humor 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. P'r'aps he's calling some
one that's lost."
"Mebbe."

"And I heard a voice singing — It
wasn't a bird to-night."

"There was no voice, Domi-
nique."

"Yes, yes." There was some-
thing 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 GOING OF

the voice. I remember the tu se and
the words."

"What were the words?' lu
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.)

[ 1

X .m

THE WHITE SWAN

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 re-
cited the words with a sort of chant-
ing 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 ket-
tle singing."

THE GOING OF

"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."
28

THE WHITE SWAN

The man's voice was anxious and
unconvincing, his eyes had a
hungry, haunted 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. Some-
thing stirred within him, and passed
like a wave to the farthest course of
his being. Through his misery he
had touched the garment of the
Master of Souls. As though a voice
said to him there, "Some one hath
touched me," he got to his feet, and,
with a sudden blind humility, lit two

3 29

THE GOING OF

candles, and placed them on a shelf
in a corner before a porcelain fig-
ure 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 sol-
emnly 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 Jhu! Sauves man
enfant! Ne me laissez pas seul!"

The boy looked up with eyes
30

THE WHITE SWAN

again grown unnaturally heavy, and
said:

"Amen! . . . Bon Jesu! . . . En-
core/ Encore, man pere!"

npHE 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 ap-
proaching the hut — a man and a
woman; yet at first glance the man
might easily have been taken for a
woman, because of his clean-shaven
face, of the long black robe which
he wore, and because his hair fell
loose on his shoulders.

"Have patience, my daughter,"
32

THE WHITE SWAN

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 be-
hind 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
frcm the door.

The father, startled, turned
shrinkingly on him, as though he had
seen a spirit.

"M'sim' le cure!" he said in
33

&•:

i ^

THE GOING OF

French, w th an accent much poorer
than that of the priest, or even of his
own son. He had learned Frenc.i
from his wife; he himself was Eng-
lish.

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 wildcat and then fever, Father
Corraine."

The priest felt the boy's pulse
softly, then with a close personal
34

l:;l

■:#*?

THE WHITE SWAN

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 re-
turn 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
35

THE GOING OF

you loved your wife and child I"
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 own.

"Stay where you are, Bagot, 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 1" he added, lifting up an 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

THE WHITE SWAN

two coals. After a moment he be-
gan:

"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
whiskey-flash— up there 1"

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
37

THE GOING OF

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 was 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 was what you did—
38

-■^^Mm

THE WHITE SWAN

what was it you laij 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 Fa-
ther Corraine's face, and his lips
tightened for an instant, but pres-
ently 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
39

J ^

THE GOING OF

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 1
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 sud-
den thought, "Do you know any-
thing of her, m'sieu'?"
The priest appeared not to hear
40

«l

THE WHITE SWAN

the question. Turning for a mo-
ment 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 can-
not 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
41

THE GOING OF

J.fl

t ;!i

religion and the faitii of her child
— she has fought for it, prayed for
it, suffered for it. You thought you
had no need of religion, 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 super-
stitions were enough for her. — Ah,
poor fooll She should worship
youl 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 un-
42

THE WHITE SWAN

selfish and patient, and where it is
the stronger, it cares for the wealier;
but it was your wife who was un-
selfish, patient, and cared for you.
Every time she said an ave she
thought of you, and her every
thanks to 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 any-
thing 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
44

THE WHITE SWAN

a landwave, from the very lips of
the sunrise, as it were, a band of In-
dians. 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 -jaid, 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
* 45

THE GOING OF

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 humor,
I asked him where he had got the
woman. He said that he had found
her on the plains — she had lost
46

THE WHITE SWAN

her way. I told him then that I
wanted to buy her. He said to mc.
'What does a priest want of a wo-
man?' 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.
47

THE GOING OF

"For the love of God go on I" he
said hoarsely.

"Yes, for the love of God. I
have no money, I am poor, but the
Company will always honor my
orders, for I pay sometimes by the
help of le hon Jesu. Well, 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 I could
give. After a little he shook his
head, and said that he must have the
48

THE WHITE SWAN

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 Com-
pany 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?"

THE GOING OF

"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 ex-
citement, 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 I A vow I Son of God I
what is a vow beside a woman — my
wife?"

His misery and his rage were
pitiful to see.

THE WHITE SWAN

"Perjure my soul I Oflfer rum I
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 despair-
ing cry, with a sudden threatening
movement. "Christ himself would
have broke a vow to s^ve 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 sud-
51

i1 '4

THE GOING OF

denly 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 gentle grandeur. Hold-
ing out the iron crucifix, he said:
"On your knees and swear it, John
Bagotl"

There was something inspiring,
commanding, in the voice and man-
ner, and Bagot, with a new hope
rushing through his veins, knelt
and repeated his words.

The priest turned to the door, and
called, "Madame Lucettel"

The boy, hearing, waked, and sat
up in bed suddenly.
52

THE WHITE SWAN

"Mother! mother!" he cried, as
the door flew open.

The mother came to her hus-
band's arms, laughing and weeping,
and an instant after\vards was pour-
ing 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 per-
jured 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.

THE WHITE SWAN

"No, no— this!" the priest said,
and laid his iron crucifix against the
other's lips.

VII

■pvOMINIQUE'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.

THE WHITE SWAN

"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 menl

THE END

NOVELS BY SIR GILBERT PARKER

Tha Going of the White S«.an

The SeeU of the Mighty

The Trail of the Sword

Mrs. Falchion

D. APPLKTON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK