iH^^^^ »*si»t*??i%ty-a»2j?,'!«s?>!WB?ce;,^^^ ?,«4t^■■•.?S^i•*«'>.&::A:::■:<<■'.*•^>/«i GlLBERTf PARKER- 1 ■.ivfn)fi>«»mmy>oii'^.^W^!m<. 1^ ^^.-^ .. ~yrL. //« ^ ^ r>^ rt» <^ THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING 4l " .\ Books by Gilbert Parker Plays, Adaptation of Faust The Vendetta No Defence Round the Compass in Australia Pierre and his People Mrs. Falchion The Trespasser The Translation of a Savage The Trail of the Sword A Lover's Diary When Valmond Came to Pontiac An Adventurer of the North The Seats of the Mighty The Pomp of the Lavillettes The Battle of the Strong THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING AND OTHER TALES CONCERNING THE PEOPLE OF PONTIAC; TO- GETHER WITH CERTAIN "PAR- ABLES OF PROVINCES." By GILBERT PARKER Publishedby Doubleday, Page & Company. . New York, 1900 Copyright, 1899, 1900, by GILBERT PARKER Press of J. J. Little & Co. New York. U.S.A. To The Right Hon. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, G.C.M.G. Dear Sir Wilfrid Laurier : Since I first began to write these tales in 1892, I have had it in my mind to dedicate to you the " bundle of life " when it should be complete. It seemed to me — and it seems so still — that to put your name upon the covering of my parcel — as one should say, In care " It was useless trying to shirk the persistency of that look. " Eight hours, perhaps, sir," the Little Chemist answered, with painful shyness. The Seigneur seemed to draw himself up a little, and his hand grasped his handkerchief tightly for an instant; then he said : " Soon. Thank you." After a little, his eyes turned to Medallion and he seemed about to speak, but still kept silent. His chin dropped on his breast, and for a time he was motion- less and shrunken ; but still there was a strange little curl of pride — or disdain — on his lips. At last he drew up his head, his shoulders came erect, heavily, to the carved back of the chair, where, strange to say, the Stations of the Cross were figured, and he said, in a cold, ironical voice : " The Angel of Patience has lied ! " The evening wore on, and there was no sound, save the ticking of the clock, the beat of rain upon the windows, and the deep breathing of the Seigneur. Presently he started, his eyes opened wide, and his whole body seemed to listen. " I heard a voice," he said. " No one spoke, my master," said the housekeeper. " It was a voice without," he said. " Monsieur," said the Little Chemist, " it was the wind in the eaves." His face was almost painfully eager and sensitively alert. " Hush ! " he said ; " I hear a voice in the tall porch ! " " Sir," said Medallion, laying a hand respectfully on his arm, " it is nothing." With a light on his face and a proud, trembling 204 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING energy, he got to his feet. " It is the voice of my son,'' he said. '* Go — go, and bring him in." No one moved. But he was not to be disobeyed. His ears had been growing keener as he neared the subtle atmosphere of that Brink where man strips him- self to the soul for a lonely voyaging, and he waved the woman to the door. " Wait," he said, as her hand fluttered at the handle. " Take him to another room. Prepare a supper such as we used to have. When it is ready I will come. But, listen, and obey. Tell him not that I have but four hours of life. Go, good woman, and bring him in." It was as he said. They found the son weak and fainting, fallen within the porch — a worn, bearded man, returned from failure and suffering and the husks of evil. They clothed him and cared for him, and strengthened him with wine, while the v/oman wept over him, and at last set him at the loaded, well-lighted table. Then the Seigneur came in, leaning his arm very lightly on that of Medallion with a kind of kingly air ; and, greeting his son before them all, as if they had parted yesterday, sat down. For an hour they sat there, and the Seigneur talked gaily with a colour to his face, and his great eyes glowing. At last he rose, lifted his glass, and said : " The Angel of Patience is wise. I drink to my son ! " He was about to say something more, but a sudden whiteness passed over his face. He drank off the wine, and as he put the glass down shivered, and fell back in his chair. " Two hours short. Chemist ! " he said, and smiled, and was Still. PARPON THE DWARF PARPON THE DWARF PARPON perched in a room at the top of the mill. He could see every house in the village, and he knew people a long distance off. He was a droll dwarf, and, in his way, had good times in the world. He turned the misery of the world into a game, and grinned at it from his high little eyrie with the dormer window. He had lived with Farette, the miller, for some years, serving him with a kind of humble in- solence. It was not a joyful day for Farette when he married Julie. She led him a pretty travel. He had started as her master; he ended by being her slave and victim. She was a wilful wife. She had made the Seigneur de la Riviere, of the House with the Tall Porch, to quarrel with his son Armand, so that Armand disappeared from Pontiac for years. When that happened she had already stopped con- fessing to the good Cure ; so it may be guessed there were things she did not care to tell, and for which she had no repentance. But Parpon knew, and Medallion the auctioneer guessed ; and the Little Chemist's wife hoped that it was not so. When Julie looked at Par- pon, as he perched on a chest of drawers, with his head cocked and his eyes blinking, she knew that he read the truth. But she did not know all that was in his 2o8 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING ■ head ; so she said sharp things to him, as she did to everybody, for she had a very poor opinion of the world, and thought all as flippant as herself. She took nothing seriously ; she was too vain. Except that she v/as sorry Armand was gone, she rather plumed herself on having separated the Seigneur and his son — it was something to have been the pivot in a tragedy. There came others to the village, as, for instance, a series of clerks to the Avocat; but she would not decline from Armand upon them. She merely made them miser- able. But she did not grow prettier as time went on. Even Annette, the sad wife of the drvmken Benoit, kept her line looks ; but then, Annette's life was a thing for a book, and she had a beautiful child. You can- not keep this from the face of a woman. Nor can you keep the other : when the heart rusts the rust shows. After a good many years, Armand de la Riviere came back in time to see his father die. Then Julie picked out her smartest ribbons, capered at the mirror, and dusted her face with oatmeal, because she thought that he would ask her to meet him at the Bois Noir, as he had done long ago. The days passed, and he did not come. When she saw Armand at the funeral — a tall man with a dark beard and a grave face, not like the Armand she had known, he seemed a great distance from her, though she could almost have touched him once as he turned from the grave. She would have liked to throw herself into his arms, and cry before them all, " Mon Armand ! " and go away with him to the House with the Tall Porch. She did not care about Farettc, the mumbling old man who hungered for money, having ceased to hunger for anything else PARPON THE DWARF 209 — even for Julie, who laug-hed and shut her door in his face, and cowed him. After the funeral JuHe had a strange feehng. She had not much brains, but she had some shrewdness, and she felt her romance askew. She stood before the mirror, rubbing her face with oatmeal and frowning hard. Presently a voice behind her said : " Madame Julie, shall I bring another bag of meal ? " She turned quickly, and saw Parpon on a table in the corner, his legs drawn up to his chin, his black eyes twinkling. " Idiot ! " she cried, and threw the meal at him. He had a very long, quick arm. He caught the basin as it came, but the meal covered him. He blew it from his beard, laughing softly, and twirled the basin on a finger-point. " Like that, there will need two bags ! " he said. " Imbecile ! " she cried, standing angry in the centre of the room. " Ho, ho ! what a big word ! See what it is to have the tongue of fashion ! " She looked helplessly round the room. " I will kill you ! " " Let us die together," answered Parpon ; " we are both sad." She snatched the poker from the fire, and ran at him. He caught her wrists with his great hands, big enough for tall Medallion, and held her. " I said ' together,' " he chuckled ; " not one before the other. We might jump into the flume at the mill, or go over the dam at the Bois Noir ; or, there is Farette's musket which he is cleaning — gracious! but it will kick when it fires, it is so old ! " She sank to the floor. " Why does he clean the 14 2IO THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING musket? " she asked; fear, and something wicked too, in her eye. Her fingers ran forgetfully through the hair on her forehead, pushing it back, and the marks of smallpox showed. The contrast with her smooth cheeks gave her a weird look. Parpon got quickly on the table again and sat like a Turk, with a furtive eye on her. " Who can tell ! " he said at last. " That musket has not been fired for years. It would not kill a bird ; the shot would scatter : but it might kill a man — a man is bigger." " Kill a man ! " She showed her white teeth with a savage little smile. '' Of course it is all guess, I asked Farette what he would shoot, and he said, ' Nothing good to eat.' I said I would eat what he killed. Then he got pretty mad, and said I couldn't eat my own head. Holy ! that was funny for Farette. Then I told him there was no good going to the Bois Noir, for there would be nothing to shoot. Well, did I speak true, Madame Julie?" She was conscious of something new in Parpon. She could not define it. Presently she got to her feet and said : " I don't believe you — you're a monkey ! " " A monkey can climb a tree quick ; a man has to take the shot as it comes." He stretched up his power- ful arms, with a swift motion as of climbing, laughed, and added : " Madame Julie, Farette has poor eyes ; he could not see a hole in a ladder. But he has a kink in his head about the Bois Noir. People have talked " " Pshaw ! " Julie said, crumpling her apron and throwing it out ; " he is a child and a coward. He PARPON THE DWARF 211 should not play with a gun; it might go off and hit him." Parpon hopped down and trotted to the door. Then he turned and said, with a sly gurgle: " Farette keeps at that gun. What is the good! There will be no- body at the Bois Noir any more. I will go and tell him." She rushed at him with fury, but seeing Annette Benoit in the road, she stood still and beat her foot angrily on the doorstep. She was ripe for a quarrel, and she would say something hateful to Annette; for she never forgot that Farette had asked Annette to be his wife before herself was considered. She smoothed out her wrinkled apron, and waited. " Good day, Annette," she said loftily. " Good day, Julie," was the quiet reply. " Will you come in? " " I am going to the mill for flax-seed. Benoit has rheumatism." " Poor Benoit ! " said Julie, with a meaning toss of her head. " Poor Benoit ! " responded Annette gently. Her voice was always sweet. One would never have known that Benoit was a drunken idler. " Come in. I will give you the meal from my own. Then it will cost you nothing," said Julie, with an air. " Thank you, Julie, but I would rather pay." " I do not sell my meal," answered Julie. " What's a few pounds of meal to the wife of Farette ? I will get it for you. Come in, Annette." She turned towards the door, then stopped all at once. There was the oatmeal which she had thrown at Parpon, the basin, and the poker. She wished she 212 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING had not asked Annette in. But in some things she had a quick wit, and she hurried to say : " It was that yellow cat of Parpen's. It spilt the meal, and I went at it with the poker." Perhaps Annette believed her. She did not think about it one way or the other ; her mind was with the sick Benoit. She nodded and said nothing, hoping that the flax-seed would be got at once. But when she saw that Julie expected an answer, she said, " Ce- cilia, my little girl, has a black cat — so handsome. It came from the house of the poor Seigneur de la Ri- viere a year ago. We took it back, but it would not stay." Annette spoke simply and frankly, but her words cut like a knife. Julie responded, with a click of malice : " Look out that the black cat doesn't kill the dear Cecilia." Annette started, but she did not believe that cats sucked the life from children's lungs, and she replied calmly : " I am not afraid ; the good God keeps my child." She then got up and came to Julie, and said : " It is a pity, Julie, that you have not a child. A child makes all right." Julie was wild to say a fierce thing, for it seemed that Annette was setting off Benoit against Farette ; but the next moment she grew hot, her eyes smarted, and there was a hint of trouble at her throat. She had lived very fast in the last few hours, and it was telling on her. She could not rule herself — she could not play a part so well as she wished. She had not before felt the thing that gave a new pulse to her body and a joy- ful pain at her breasts. Her eyes got thickly blurre-d so that she could not see Annette, and, without a word, she hurried to get the meal. She was silent when she PARPON THE DWARF 213 came back. She put the meal into Annette's hands. She felt that she would like to talk of Armand. She knew now there was no evil thought in Annette. She did not like her more for that, but she felt she must talk, and Annette was safe. So she took her arm. " Sit down, Annette," she said. " You come so sel- dom." " But there is Benoit, and the child " " The child has the black cat from the House ! " There was again a sly ring to Julie's voice, and she almost pressed Annette into a chair. " Well, it must only be a minute." " Were you at the funeral to-day ? " Julie began. " No; I was nursing Benoit. But the poor Seign- eur! They say he died without confession. No one was there except M'sieu' Medallion, the Little Chemist, old Sylvie, and M'sieu' Armand. But, of course, you have heard everything." " Is that all you know? " queried Julie. " Not much more. I go out little, and no one comes to me except the Little Chemist's wife — she is a good woman." "What did she say?" " Only something of the night the Seigneur died. He was sitting in his chair, not afraid, but very sad, we can guess. By-and-by he raised his head quickly. ' I hear a voice in the Tall Porch,' he said. They thought he was dreaming. But he said other things, and cried again that he heard his son's voice in the Porch. They went and found M'sieu' Armand. Then a great supper was got ready, and he sat very grand at the head of the table, but died quickly, when making a grand speech. It was strange he was so happy, for he did not confess — he hadn't absolution ! " 214 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING This was more than JuHe had heard. She showed excitement. " The Seigneur and M'sieu' Armand were good friends when he died? "' she asked. " Quite." All at once Annette remembered the old talk about Armand and Julie. She was confused. She wished she could get up and run away ; but haste would look strange. " You were at the funeral ? " she added after a minute. " Everybody was there." " I suppose M'sieu' Armand looks very fine and strange after his long travel," said Annette shyly, rising to go. " He was always the grandest gentleman in the province," answered Julie, in her old vain manner. " You should have seen the women look at him to-day ! But they are nothing to him — he is not easy to please ! " " Good day," said Annette, shocked and sad, moving from the door. Suddenly she turned, and laid a hand on Julie's arm. " Come and see my sweet Cecilia," she said. " She is gay ; she will amuse you." She was thinking again what a pity it was that Julie had no child. " To see Cecilia and the black cat ? Very well — • some day." You could not have told what she meant. But, as Annette turned away again, she glanced at the mill; and there, high up in the dormer window, sat Parpon, his yellow cat on his shoulder, grinning down at her. She wheeled and went into the house. PARPON THE DWARF 215 II Parpon sat in the dormer window for a long time, the cat purring against his head, and not seeming the least afraid of falHng, though its master was well out on the window-ledge. He kept mumbling to himself: " Ho ! ho ! Farettc is below there with the gun, rub- bing and rubbing at the rust ! Holy Mother, how it will kick ! But he will only meddle. If she set her eye at him and come up bold and said, ' Farette, go and have your whiskey-wine, and then to bed ! ' he would sneak away. But he has heard something. Some fool, perhaps that Benoit — no, he is sick, — per- haps the herb-woman has been talking, and he thinks he will make a fuss. But it will be nothing. And M'sieu' Armand, will he look at her! " He chuckled at the cat, which set its head back and hissed in reply. Then he sang something to himself. Parpon was a poor little dwarf with a big head, but he had one thing which made up for all, though no one knew it — or, at least, he thought so. The Cure himself did not know. He had a beautiful voice. Even in speaking it was pleasant to hear, though he roughened it in a way. It pleased him that he had something of which the finest man or woman would be glad. He had said to himself many times that even Armand de la Riviere would envy him. Sometimes Parpon went away ofif into the Bois Noir, and, perched there in a tree, sang away — a man, shaped something like an animal, with a voice like a muffled silver bell. Some of his songs he had made himself: wild things, broken thoughts, not altogether human ; the language 2i6 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING of a world between man and the spirits. But it was all pleasant to hear, even when, at times, there ran a weird, dark thread through the woof. No one in the valley had ever heard the thing he sang softly as he sat look- ing down at Julie: " The little white smoke blows there, blows here, The little blue wolf comes down — Ccsl la ! And the hill-dwarf laughs in the young wife's ear, When the devil conies back to town — C\sl la ! " It was crooned quietly, but it was distinct and melo- dious, and the cat purred an accompaniment, its head thrust into his thick black hair. From where Parpon sat he could see the House with the Tall Porch, and, as he sang, his eyes ran from the miller's doorway to it. Ofif in the grounds of the dead Seigneur's manor he could see a man push the pebbles with his foot, or twist the branch' of a shrub thoughtfully as he walked. At last another man entered the garden. The two greeted warmly, and passed up and down together. Ill " My good friend," said the Cure, '' it is too late to mourn for those lost years. Nothing can give them back. As Parpon the dwarf said — you remember him, a wise little man, that Parpon — as he said one day, ' For everything you lose you get something, if only how to laugh at yourself ! ' " Armand nodded thoughtfully, and answered, " You are right — you and Parpon. But I cannot forgive PARPON THE DWARF 217 myself ; he was so fine a man : tall, with a grand look, and a tongue like a book. Ah, yes, I can laugh at myself — for a fool." He thrust his hands into his pockets, and tapped the ground nervously with his foot, shrugging his shoulders a little. The priest took off his hat and made the sacred gesture, his lips moving. Armaiid caught off his hat also, and said, " You pray — for him ? " " For the peace of a good man's soul." " He did not confess ; he had no rites of the Church ; he had refused you many years." " My son, he had a confessor." Armand raised his eyebrows. " They told me of no one." " It was the Angel of Patience." They walked on again for a time without a word. At last the Cure said, " You will remain here ? " " I cannot tell. This ' here ' is a small world, and the little life may fret me. Nor do I know what I have of this " — he waved his hands towards the house — " or of my father's property. I may need to be a wanderer again." " God forbid ! Have you not seen the will ? " " I have got no farther than his grave," was the som- bre reply. The priest sighed. They paced the walk again in silence. At last the Cure said : " You will make the place cheerful, as it once was." " You are persistent," replied the young man, smil- ing. "Whoever lives here should make it less gloomy." " We shall soon know who is to live here. See, there is Monsieur Garon, and Monsieur Medallion also." " The Avocat to tell secrets, the auctioneer to sell 2 IS THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING them — eh ? " Armand went forward to the gate. Like most people, he found Medalhon interesting, and the Avocat and he were old friends. " You did not send for me, monsieur," said the Avocat timidly, "but I thought it well to come, that you might know how things are ; and Monsieur Medallion came because he is a witness to the will, and, in a case," — here the little man coughed nervously, — " joint executor with monsieur le Cure.' They entered the house. In a businesslike way 'Armand motioned them to chairs, opened the curtains, and rang the bell. The old housekeeper appeared, a sorrowful joy in her face, and Armand said, " Give us a bottle, of the white-top, Sylvie, if there is any left." " There is plenty, monsieur," she said ; " none has been drunk these twelve years." The Avocat coughed, and said hesitatingly to Ar- mand : " I asked Parpon the dwarf to come, monsieur. There is a reason." Armand raised his eyebrows in surprise, " Very good," he said. " When will he be here? " " He is waiting at the Louis Quinze hotel." " I will send for him," said Armand, and gave the message to Sylvie, who was entering the room. After they had drunk the wine placed before them, there was silence for a moment, for all were wondering why Parpon should be remembered in the Seigneur's will. " Well," said Medallion at last, " a strange little dog is Parpon. I could surprise you about him — and, there isn't any reason why I should keep the thing to myself. One day I was up among the rocks, looking for a straved horse. I got tired, and lay down in the shade of the Rock of Red Pigeons — you know it. I fell PARPON THE DWARF 219 asleep. Something waked me. I got up and heard the finest singing you can guess : not Hke any I ever heard; a wild, beautiful, shivery sort of thing. I lis- tened for a long time. At last it stopped. Then something slid down the rock. I peeped out, and saw Parpon toddling away." The Cure stared incredulously, the Avocat took off his glasses and tapped his lips musingly, Armand whistled softly. " So," said Armand at last, " we have the jewel in the toad's head. The clever imp hid it all these years — even from you, monsieur le Cure." " Even from me," said the Cure, smiling. Then, gravely : " It is strange, the angel in the stunted body." " Are you sure it's an angel ? " said Armand. ' " Whoever knew Parpon do any harm ? " queried the Cure. " He has always been kind to the poor," put in the Avocat. " With the miller's flour," laughed Medallion : " a pardonable sin." He gave a quizzical look at the Cure. " Do you remember the words of Parpon's song? " asked Armand. " Only a few lines ; and those not easy to understand, unless one had an inkling." " Had you the inkling? " " Perhaps, monsieur," replied Medallion seriously. They eyed each other. " We will have Parpon in after the will is read," said Armand suddenly, looking at the Avocat. The Avocat drew the deed from his pocket. He looked up hesi- tatingly, and then said to Armand, " You insist on it being read now? " 220 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING Armand nodded coolly, after a quick glance at Medallion. Then the Avocat began, and read to that point where the Seigneur bequeathed all his property to his son, should he return — on a condition. When the Avocat came to the condition Armand stopped him. " I do not know in the least what it may be," he said ; " but there is only one by which I could feel bound. I will tell you. My father and I quarrelled " — here he paused for a moment, clenching his hands before him on the table — " about a woman ; and years of misery came. I was to blame in not obeying him. I ought not to have given any cause for gossip. What- ever the condition as to that matter may be, I will ful- fil it. My father is more to me than any woman in the world ; his love of me was greater than that of any woman. I know the world — and women." There was a silence. He waved his hand to the Avocat to go on, and as he did so the Cure caught his arm with a quick, affectionate gesture. Then Mon- sieur Garon read the conditions : That Farette, the miller, should have a deed of the land on which his mill was built, with the dam of the mill — provided that Armand should never so much as by a word again address Julie, the miller's wife. If he agreed to the condition, with solemn oath before the Cure, his bless- ing would rest upon his dear son, whom lie still hoped to see before he died. When the reading ceased there was silence for a moment, then Armand stood up, and took the will from the Avocat; but instantly, without looking at it, handed it back. " The reading is not finished," he said. " And if I do not accept the condition, what then?" PARPON THE DWARF 221 Again Monsieur Garon read, his voice trembling a little. The words of the will ran: " But if tliis con- dition be not satisfied, I bequeath to my son Armand the house known as the House with the Tall Porch, and the land, according to the deed thereof; and the residue of my property — with the exception of two thousand dollars, which I leave to the Cure of the parish, the good Monsieur Fabre — I bequeath to Par- pon the dwarf." Then followed a clause providing that in any case Parpon should have in fee simple the land known as the Bois Noir, and the hut thereon. Armand sprang to his feet in surprise, blurting out something, then sat down, quietly took the will, and read it through carefully. When he had finished he looked inquiringly, first at Monsieur Garon, then at the Cure. " Why Parpon ? " he said searchingly. The Cure, amazed, spread out his hands in a helpless way. At that moment Sylvie announced Parpon. Armand asked that he should be sent in. " We'll talk of the will afterwards," he added. Parpon trotted in, the door closed, and he stood blinking at them. Armand put a stool on the table. " Sit here, Parpon," he said. Medallion caught the dwarf under the arms and lifted him on the table. Parpon looked at Armand furtively. " The wild hawk comes back to its nest," he said. " Well, well, what is it you want with the poor Parpon ? " He sat down and dropped his chin in his hands, looking round keenly. Armand nodded to Medallion, and Medallion to the priest, but the priest nodded back again. Then Medallion said, " You and I know the Rock of Red Pigeons, Parpon. It is a good place to 222 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING perch. One's voice is all to one's self there, as you know. Weir, sing us the song of the little brown diver." Parpon's hands twitched in his beard. He looked fixedly at Medallion. Presently he turned towards the Cure, and shrank so that he looked smaller still. " It's all right, little son," said the Cure kindly. Turning sharply on Medallion : " When was it you heard? " he said. Medallion told him. Pie nodded, then sat very still. They said nothing, but watched him. They saw his eyes grow distant and absorbed, and his face took on a shining look, so that its ugliness vv^as almost beauti- ful. All at once he slid from the stool and crouched on his knees. Then he sent out a low long note, like the toll of the bell-bird. From that time no one stirred as he sang, but sat and watched him. They did not even hear Sylvie steal in gently and stand in the cur- tains at the door. The song was weird, with a strange thrilling charm ; it had the slow dignity of a chant, the roll of an epic, the delight of wild beauty. It told of the little good Folk of the Scarlet Hills, in vague allusive phrases : their noiseless wanderings ; their sojourning with the eagle, the v/olf, and the deer; their triumph over the winds, the whirlpools, and the spirits of evil fame. It filled the room with the cry of the west v/ind ; it called out of the frozen seas ghosts of forgotten worlds ; it coaxed the soft breezes out of the South ; it made them all to be at the whistle of the Scarlet Hunter who ruled the North. Then, passing through veil after veil of mystery, it told of a grand Seigneur whose boat was overturned in a whirlpool, and was saved by a little brown diver. PARPON THE DWARF 223 And the end of it all, and the heart of it all, was in the last few lines, clear of allegory : " And the wheel goes round in the village mill, And the little brown diver he tells the grain . . . And the grand Seigneur he has gone to meet The little good Folk of the Scarlet Hills ! " At first, all were so impressed by the strange power of Parpen's voice, that they were hardly conscious of the story he was telling. But when he sang of the Seigneur they began to read his parable. Their hearts throbbed painfully. As the last notes died away Armand got up, and, standing by the table, said : " Parpon, you saved my father's life once? " Parpon did not answer. "Will you not tell him, my son?" said the Cure, rising. Still Parpon was silent. " The son of your grand Seigneur asks you a ques- tion, Parpon," said Medallion soothingly. " Oh, my grand Seigneur! " said Parpon, throwing up his hands. " Once he said to me, ' Come, my brown diver, and live with me.' But I said, * No, I am not fit. I will never go to you at the House with the Tall Porch.' And I made him promise that he would never tell of it. And so I have lived sometimes with old Farette." Then he laughed strangely again, and sent a furtive look at Armand. " Parpon," said Armand gently, " our grand Sei- gneur has left you the Bois Noir for your own. So the hills and the Rock of Red Pigeons are for you — and the little good people, if you like." Parpon, with fiery eyes, gathered himself up with a quick movement, then broke out, " Oh, my grand 224 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING Seigneur ! my grand Seigneur ! " and fell forward, his head in his arms, laughing and sobbing together. Armand touched his shoulder. " Parpon ! " But Parpon shrank away. Armand turned to the rest. " I do not understand it, gentlemen. Parpon does not like the young Sei- gneur as he liked the old." Medallion, sitting in the shadow, smiled. He under- stood. Armand continued : " As for this testament, gentlemen, I will fulfil its conditions ; though I swear, were I otherwise minded regarding the woman " — here Parpon raised liis head swiftly — " I would not hang my hat for an hour in the Tall Porch." They rose and shook hands, then the wine was poured out, and they drank it off in silence. Parpon, however, sat with his head in his hands. " Come, little comrade, drink," said Medallion, offer- ing him a glass. Parpon made no reply, but caught up the will, kissed it, put it into Armand's hand, and then, jumping down from the table, ran to the door and disappeared through it. IV The next afternoon the Avocat visited old Farette. Farette was polishing a gun, mumbling the while. Sitting on some bags of meal was Parpon, with a fierce twinkle in his eye. Monsieur Garon told Farette briefly what the ^Seigneur had left him. With a quick, greedy chuckle Farette threw the gun away. " Man alive ! " said he ; " tell me all about it. Ah, the good news ! " " There is nothing to tell : he left it ; that is all." PARPON THE DWARF 225 " Oh, the good Seigneur ! " cried P^arette, " the grand Seigneur ! " Some one laughed scornfully in the doorway. It was Julie. " Look there ! " she cried : " he gets the land, and throws away the gun ! Brag and coward, miller ! It is for me to say ' the grand Seigneur ! ' " She tossed her head : she thought the old Seigneur had relented towards her. She turned away to the house with a flaunting air, and got her hat. At first she thought she would go to the House with the Tall Porch, but she changed her mind, and went to the Bois Noir instead. Parpon followed her a distance off. Behind, in the mill, Farette was chuckling and rubbing his hands. ]\Ieanwhile, Armand was making his way towards the Bois Noir. All at once, in the shade of a great pine, he stopped. He looked about him astonished. " This is the old place ! What a fool I was, then ! " he said. At that moment Julie came quickly, and lifted her hands towards him. " Armand — beloved Armand ! " she said. Armand looked at her sternly, from her feet to her pit- ted forehead, then wheeled, and left her without a word. She sank in a heap on the ground. There was a sudden burst of tears, and then she clenched her hands v/ith fury. Some one laughed in the trees above her — a shrill, wild laugh. She looked up frightened. Parpon presently dropped down beside her. " It was as I said," whispered the dwarf, and he touched her shoulder. This was the full cup of shame. She was silent. 15 226 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING " There are others," he whispered again. She could not see his strange smile ; but she noticed that his voice was not as usual. " Listen," he urged, and he sang softly over her shoulder for quite a minute. She was amazed. " Sing again," she said. " I have wanted to sing to you like that for many years," he replied ; and he sang a little more. " He cannot sing like that," he wheedled, and he stretched his arm around her shoulder. She hung her head, then flung it back again as she thought of Armand. " I hate him ! " she cried ; " I hate him ! " " You will not throw meal on me any more, or call me idiot ? " he pleaded. " No, Parpon," she said. He kissed her on the cheek. She did not resent it. But now he drew away, smiled wickedly at her, and said : " See, we are even now, poor Julie ! " Then he laughed, holding his little sides with huge hands. "Imbecile!" he added, and, turning, trotted away towards the Rock of Red Pigeons. She threw herself, face forward, in the dusty needles of the pines. When she rose from her humiliation, her face was as one who has seen the rags of harlequinade stripped from that mummer Life, leaving only naked being. She had touched the limits of the endurable ; her sor- did little hopes had split into fragments. But when a human soul faces upon its past, and sees a gargoyle at every milestone where an angel should be, and in one flash of illumination — the touch of genius to the small- est mind — understands the pitiless comedy, there comes the still stoic outlook. PARPON THE DWARF 227 Julie was transformed. All the possible years of her life were gathered into the force of one dreadful mo- ment — dreadful and wonderful. Her mean vanity was lost behind the pale sincerity of her face — she was sin- cere at last ! The trivial commonness was gone from her coquetting shoulders and drooping eyelids ; and from her body had passed its flexuous softness. She was a woman ; suffering, human, paying the price. She walked slowly the way that Parpon had gone. Looking ncitlier to right nor left, she climbed the long hillside, and at last reached the summit, where, bundled in a steep corner, Vvas the Rock of Red Pigeons. As she emerged from the pines, she stood for a moment, and leaned with outstretched hand against a tree, look- ing into the sunlight. Slowly her eyes shifted from the Rock to the great ravine, to whose farther side the sun was giving bastions of gold. She was quiet. Presently she stepped into the light and came softly to the Rock. She v/alked slowly round it as though looking for some one. At the lowest side of the Rock, rude narrow hollows were cut for the feet. With a singular ease she climbed to the top of it. It had a kind of hollow, in which was a rude seat, carved out of the stone. Seeing this, a set look came to her face: she was thinking of Parpon, the master of this place. Her business was with him. She got down slowly, and came over to the edge of the precipice. Steadying herself against a sapling, she looked over. Down below was a whirlpool, rising and falling — a hungry funnel of death. She drew back. Presently she peered again, and once more withdrew. She gazed round, and then made another tour of the hill, searching. She returned to the preci- pice. As she did so she heard a voice. She looked 228 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING and saw Parpon seated upon a ledge of rock not far below. A mocking laugh floated up to her. But there was trouble in the laugh too — a bitter sickness. She did not notice that. She looked about her. Not far away was a stone, too heavy to carry but perhaps not too heavy to roll ! Foot by foot she rolled it over. She looked. He was still there. She stepped back. As she did so a few pebbles crumbled away from her feet and fell where Parpon perched. She did not see or hear them fall. He looked up, and saw the stone creeping upon the edge. Like a flash he was on his feet, and, spring- ing into the air to the right, caught a tree steadfast in the rock. The stone fell upon the ledge and bounded ofif again. The look of the woman did not follow the stone. She ran to the spot above the whirlpool, and sprang out and down. From Parpon there came a vi^ail such as the hills of the north never heard before. Dropping upon a ledge beneath, and from that to a jutting tree, which gave way, he shot down into the whirlpool. He caught Julie's body as it v.-as churned from life to death: and then he fought. There was a demon in the whirlpool, but God and demon were working in the man. Noth- ing on earth could have unloosed that long, brown arm from Julie's drenched body. The sun lifted an eyelid over the yellow bastions of rock, and saw the fight. Once, twice, the shaggy head was caught be- neath the surface — but at last the man conquered ! Inch by inch, foot by foot, Parpon, with the lifeless Julie clamped in one arm, climbed the rough wall, on, on, up to the Rock of Red Pigeons. He bore her to the top of it. Then he laid her down, and pillowed her head on his wet coat. PARPON THE DWARF 229 The huge hands came slowly down Julie's soaked hair, along her blanched cheek and shoulders, caught her arms and held them. He peered into her face. The eyes had the film which veils Here from Hereafter. On the lips was a mocking smile. He stooped as if to kiss her. The smile stopped him. He drew back for a time, then he leaned forward, shut his eyes, and her cold lips w^ere his. Twilight — dusk — night came upon Parpon and his dead — the woman whom an impish fate had put into his heart with mockery and futile pain. TIMES WERE HARD IN PONTIAC TIMES WERE HARD IN PONTIAC IT was soon after the Rebellion, and there was little food to be had and less money, and winter was at hand. Pontiac, ever most loyal to old France, though obedient to the English, had herself sent few recruits to be shot down by Colborne, but she had emptied her pockets in sending to the front the fulness of her barns and the best cattle of her fields. She gave her all ; she was frank in giving, hid nothing ; and when her own trouble came there was no voice calling on her behalf. And Pontiac would rather starve than beg. So, as the winter went on, she starved in silence, and no one had more than sour milk and bread and a potato now and then. The Cure, the Avocat, and the Little Chemist fared no better than the habitants, for they gave all they had right and left, and themselves often went hungry to bed. And the truth is that few out- side Pontiac knew of her suffering ; she kept the secret of it close. It seemed at last, however, to the Cure that he must, after all, write to the world outside for help. That was when he saw the faces of the children get pale and drawn. There never was a time when there were so few fish in the river and so little game in the woods. At last, from the altar steps one Sunday, the Cure, with a calm, sad voice, told the people that, for " the dear children's sake," they must sink their pride and ask help from without. He v/ould write first to the Bishop 234 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING of Quebec ; " for," said he, " Mother Church will help us ; she will give us food, and money to buy seed in the spring; and, please God, we will pay all back in a year or two ! " He paused a minute, then contin- ued : " Some one must go, to speak plainly and wisely of our trouble, that there be no mistake — we are not beggars, we are only borrowers. Who will go? I may not myself, for who would give the Blessed Sac- rament, and speak to the sick, or say Mass and com- fort you ? " There was silence in the church for a moment, and many faces meanwhile turned instinctively to M. Garon the Avocat, and some to the Little Chemist. "Who will go?" asked the Cure again. "It is a bitter journey, but our pride must not be our shame in the end. Who will go? " Every one expected that the Avocat or the Little Chemist would rise ; but while they looked at each other, waiting and sorrowful, and the Avocat's fingers fluttered to the seat in front of him, to draw himself up, a voice came from the corner opposite, saying : " M'sieu' le Cure, I will go." A strange, painful silence fell on the people for a moment, and then went round an almost incredulous whisper : " Parpon, the dwarf ! " Parpon's deep eyes were fixed on the Cure, his hunched body leaning on the railing in front of him, his long, strong arms stretched out as if he were beg- ging for some good thing. The murmur among the people increased, but the Cure raised his hand to com- mand silence, and his eyes gazed steadily at the dwarf. It might seem that he was noting the huge head, the shaggy hair, the overhanging brows, the weird face of this distortion of a thing made in God's own image. TIMES WERE HARD IN PONTIAC 235 But he was thinking instead of how the angel and the devil may live side by side in a man and neither be entirely driven out — and the angel conquer in great times and seasons. He beckoned to Parpon to come over, and the dwarf trotted with a sidelong motion to the chancel steps. Every face in the congregation was eager, and some were mystified, even anxious. They all knew the singular power of the little man — his knowledge, his deep wit, his judgment, his occasional fierceness, his infrequent malice; but he was kind to children and the sick, and the Cure and the Avocat and their little cote- rie respected him. Once everybody had worshipped him : that was when he had sung in the Mass, the day of the funeral of the wife of Farette the miller, for whom he worked. It had been rumoured that in his hut by the Rock of Red Pigeons, up at Dalgrothe Mountain, a voice of most wonderful power and sweet- ness had been heard singing ; but this was only rumour. Yet when the body of the miller's wife lay in the church, he had sung so that men and women wept and held each other's hands for joy. He had never sung since, however; his voice of silver was locked away in the cabinet of secret purposes which every man has some- where in his own soul. " What will you say to the Bishop, Parpon ? " asked the Cure. The congregation stirred in their seats, for they saw that the Cure intended Parpon to go. Parpon went up two steps of the chancel quietly and caught the arm of the Cure, drawing him down to whisper in his ear. A fiush and then a peculiar soft light passed over the Cure's face, and he raised his hand over Parpon's head 236 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING in benediction and said : " Go, my son, and the blessing of God and of His dear Son be with you." Then suddenly he turned to the altar, and, raising his hands, he tried to speak, but only said: " O Lord, Thou knowest our pride and our vanity, hear us, and " Soon afterward, with tearful eyes, he preached from the text: ^^ And the Light shine th in darkness, and the dark- ness comprehendetJi it iiot^ Five days later a little, uncouth man took off his hat in the chief street of Quebec, and began to sing a song of Picardy to an air which no man in French Canada had ever heard. Little farmers on their way to the market by the Place de Cathedral stopped, listening, though every moment's delay lessened their chances of getting a stand in the market-place. Butchers and milkmen loitered, regardless of waiting customers ; a little company of soldiers caught up the chorus, and to avoid involuntary revolt, their sergeant halted them, that they might listen. Gentlemen strolling by — doctor, lawyer, officer, idler — paused and forgot the raw climate, for this marvellous voice in the unshapely body v/armed them, and they pushed in among the fast-gathering crowd. Ladies hurrying by in their sleighs lost their hearts to the thrilling notes of : " Little grey fisherman, Where is your daughter? Where is your daughter so sweet ? Little gray man who comes Over the water, I have knelt down at her feet, Knelt at your Gabrielle's feet — ci ci ! " TIMES WERE HARD IN PONTIAC 237 Presently the wife of the governor stepped out from her sleigh, and, coming over, quickly took Parpon's cap from his hand and went round among the crowd with it, gathering money. " He is hungry, he is poor," she said with tears in her eyes. She had known the song in her childhood, and he who used to sing it to her was in her sight no more. In vain the gentlemen would have taken the cap from her; she gathered the money herself, and others followed, and Parpon sang on. A night later a crowd gathered in the great hall of the city, filling it to the doors, to hear the dwarf sing. He came on the platform dressed as he had entered the city, with heavy, home-made coat and trousers, and moccasins, and a red woollen comforter about his neck — but this comforter he took ofif when he began to sing. Old France and New France, and the loves and hates and joys and sorrows of all lands, met that night in the soul of this dwarf with the divine voice, who did not give thern his name, so that they called him, for want of a better title, the Provencal. And again two nights afterwards it was the same, and yet again a third night and a fourth, and the simple folk, and wise folk also, went mad after Parpon the dwarf. Then, suddenly, he disappeared from Quebec City, and the next Sunday morning, while the Cure was saying the last words of the Mass, he entered the Church of St. Saviour at Pontiac. Going up to the chancel steps he waited. The murmuring of the peo- ple drew the Cure's attention, and then, seeing Parpon, he came forward. Parpon drew from his breast a bag, and put it in his hands, and beckoning down the Cure's head, he whis- pered. 238 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING The Cure turned to the aUar and raised the bag to- wards it in ascription and thanksgiving, then he turned to Parpon again, but the dwarf was trotting away down the aisle and from the church. " Dear children," said the Cure, " we are saved, and we are not shamed." He held up the bag. " Parpon has brought us two thousand dollars: we shall have food to eat, and there shall be more money against seed-time. The giver of this good gift demands that his name be not known. Such is all true charity. Let us pray." So hard times passed from Pontiac as the months went on, but none save the Cure and the Avocat knew who had helped her in her hour of need. MEDALLION'S WHIM MEDALLION'S WHIM WHEN the Avocat began to lose his health and spirits, and there crept through his shrewd gravity and kindliness a petulance and dejection, ]\Ie- dallion was the only person who had an inspiriting ef- fect upon him. The Little Chemist had decided that the change in him was due to bad circulation and fail- ing powers : which was only partially true. Medallion made a deeper guess. '" Want to know what's the matter with him ? " he said. " Ha ! I'll tell you : Woman." " Woman ! God bless me ! " said the Little Chemist, in a frightened way. " Woman, little man ; I mean the want of a woman," said Medallion. The Cure, who was present, shrugged his shoul- ders. " He has an excellent cook, and his bed and jackets are well aired ; I see them constantly at the windows." A laugh gurgled in ^Medallion's throat. He loved these innocent folk ; but himself went twice a year to Quebec City and had more expanded views. " Woman, Padre " — nodding to the priest, and rub- bing his chin so that it rasped like sand-paper — " wo- man ! my druggist " — throwing a sly look at the Chem- ist — " woman, neither as cook nor bottle-washer, is what he needs. Every man — out of holy orders " — this in deference to his good friend the Cure — " arrives 16 242 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING at the time when his youth must be renewed or he be- comes as dry bones — like an empty house — furniture sold off. Can only be renewed one way — Woman. Well, here's our Avocat, and there's his remedy. He's got the cooking and the clean fresh linen, he must have a wife, the very best." " Ah, my friend, you are droll," said the Cure, arch- ing his long fingers at his lips and blowing gently through them, but not smiling in the least; rather serious, almost reproving. " It is such a whim, such a whim ! " said the Little Chemist, shaking his head and looking through his glasses sideways like a wise bird. " Ha ! You shall see. The man must be saved ; our Cure shall have his fees ; our druggist shall pro- vide the finest essences for the feast — no more pills. And we shall dine with our Avocat once a week — with asparagus in season for the Cure, and a little good wine for all. Ha ! " His Ha! was never a laugh ; it was unctuous, abrupt, an ejaculation of satisfaction, knowledge, solid enjoy- ment, final solution. The Cure shook his head doubtfully ; he did not see the need ; he did not believe in Medallion's whim ; still he knew that the man's judgment was shrewd in most things, and he would be silent and wait. But he shrank from any new phase of life likely to alter the conditions of that old companionship, which included themselves, the Avocat, and the young Doctor, who, like the Little Chemist, was married. The Chemist sharply said : " Well, well, perhaps. I hope. There is a poetry " (his English was not perfect, and at times he mixed it with French in an amusing manner), " a little chanson, which runs : MEDALLION'S WHIM 243 *' ' Sorrowful is the little house, The little house by the winding stream ; All the laughter has died away Out of the little house. But down there come from the lofty hills Footsteps and eyes agleam, Bringing the laughter of yesterday Into the little house, By the winding stream and the hills. £)i ro>i, di ron, di roii, di ron-don t ' " The Little Chemist bhished faintly at the silence that followed his timid, quaint recital. The Cure looked calm and kind, and drawn away as if in thought ; but IMedallion presently got up, stooped, and laid his long fingers on the shoulder of the apothecary. " Exactly, little man," he said ; " we've both got the same idea in our heads ; I've put it hard fact, you've put it soft sentiment, and it's God's truth either way." Presently the Cure asked, as if from a great distance, so meditative was his voice, " Who will be the woman, Medallion ? " " I've got one in my eye — the very righi one for our Avocat ; not here, not out of Pontiac, but from St. Jean in the hills — fulfilling your verses, gentle apothe- cary. She must bring what is fresh — he must feel that the hills have come to him, she that the valley is hers for the first time. A new world for them both. Ha ! " '■^ Regardczqa! you are a great man," said the Little Chemist. There was a strange, inscrutable look in the kind priest's eyes. The Avocat had confessed to him in his time. Medallion took up his hat. " Where are you going? " said the Little Chemist. 244 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING " To our Avocat, and then to St. Jean." He opened the door and vanished. The two that were left shook their heads and wondered. ChuckHng softly to himself, Medallion strode away through the lane of white-board houses and the smoke of strong tabac from these houses, now and then pulling suddenly up to avoid stumbling over a child, where children are numbered by the dozen to every house. He came at last to a house unlike the others, in that it was of stone and larger. He leaned for a moment over the gate, and looked through a window into a room where the Avocat sat propped up with cushions in a great chair, staring gloomily at two candles burn- ing on the table before him. Medallion watched him for a long time. The Avocat never changed his posi- tion ; he only stared at the candle, and once or twice his lips moved. A woman came in and put a steaming bowl before him, and laid a pipe and matches beside the bowl. She was a very little, thin old woman, quick and quiet and watchful — his housekeeper. The Avocat took no notice of her. She looked at him several times anxiously, and passed backwards and forwards behind him as a hen moves upon the flank of her brood. All at once she stopped. Her small, white fingers with their large rheumatic knuckles lay fiat on her lips as she stood for an instant musing; then she trotted lightly to a bureau, got pen and paper and ink, reached down a bunch of keys from the mantel, and came and put them all beside the bowl and the pipe. Still the Avocat did not stir, or show that he recognized her. She went to the door, turned, and looked back, her fingers again at her lips, then slowly sidled out of the room. It was long before the Avocat moved. His MEDALLION'S WHIM 245 eyes had not wavered from the space between the candles. At last, however, he glanced down. His eye caught the bowl, then the pipe. He reached out a slow hand for the pipe, and was taking it up, when his glance fell on the keys and the writing material. He put the pipe down, looked up at the door through which the little old woman had gone, gazed round the room, took up the keys, but soon put them down again with a sigh, and settled back in his chair. Now his gaze alternated between that long lane sloping into shadow between the candles, and the keys. Medallion threw a leg over the fence and came in a few steps to the door. He opened it quietly and en- tered. In the dark he felt his way along the wall to the door of the Avocat's room, opened it, and thrust in his ungainly, whimsical face. " Ha ! " he laughed with quick-winking eyes. " Evening, Garon. Live the Code Napoleon ! Pipes for two." A change came slowly over the Avocat. His eyes drew away from that vista between the candles, and the strange distant look faded out of them. " Great is the Code Napoleon ! " he said mechan- ically. Then, presently : " Ah, my friend, Medallion ! " His first words were the answer to a formula which always passed between them on meeting. As soon as Garon had said them, Medallion's lanky body followed his face, and in a moment he had the Avocat's hand in his, swallowing it, of purpose crushing it, so that Monsieur Garon waked up smartly and gave his visitor a pensive smile. Medallion's cheerful nervous vitality seldom failed to inspire whom he chose to inspire with something of his own life and cheerfulness. In a few moments both the Avocat and himself were smoking, 246 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING and the contents of the steaming bowl were divided be- tween them. MedaUion talked on many things. The little old housekeeper came in, chirped a soft good- evening, flashed a small thankful smile at Medallion, and, after renewing the bowl and lighting two more tall candles, disappeared. Medallion began with the parish, passed to the law, from the law to Napoleon, from Napoleon to France, and from France to the world, drawing out from the Avocat something of his old vivacity and fire. At last Medallion, seeing that the time was ripe, turned his glass round musingly in his fingers before him, and said : " Benoit, Annette's husband, died to-day, Garon. You knew him. He went singing — gone in the head, but singing as he used to do before he married — or got drunk ! Perhaps his youth came back to him when he was going to die, just for a minute." The Avocat 's eye gazed at Medallion earnestly now, and Medallion went on : " As good singing as you want to hear. You've heard the words of the song — the river-drivers sing it : " ' What is there like to the cry of the bird That sings in its nest in the lilac tree ? A voice the sweetest you ever have heard ; It is there, it is here, ci, ci ! It is there, it is here, it must roam and roam, And wander from shore to shore, Till I go forth and bring it home, And enter and close my door — Row along, row along home, ci, ci ! ' " When Medallion had finished saying the first verse he waited, but the Avocat said nothing; his eyes were now fastened again on that avenue between the candles MEDALLION'S WHIM 247 leading out into the immortal part of him — his past; he was busy with a Hfe that had once been spent in the fields of Fontainebleau and in the shadow of the Pan- theon. MedalHon went on : " ' What is there like to the laughing star, Far up from the lilac tree ? A face that's brighter and finer far ; It laughs and it shines, ci, ci! It laughs and it shines, it must roam and roam And travel from shore to shore. Till I go forth and bring it home. And house it within my door — Row along, row along home, ci, ci ! ' " When MedalHon had finished he raised his glass and said : " Garon, I drink to home and woman ! " He waited. The Avocat's eyes drew away from tlie candles again, and he came to his feet suddenly, sway- ing slightly as he did so. He caught up a glass and, lifting it, said : " I drink to home and " a little cold burst of laughter came from him, he threw his head back with something like disdain — " and the Code Na- poleon ! " he added abruptly. ■ Then he put the glass down without drinking, wheeled back, and dropped into his chair. Presently he got up, took his keys, went over, opened the bureau, and brought back a well-worn note-book which looked like a diary. He seemed to have forgotten Medallion's presence, but it was not so ; he had reached the moment of disclosure which comes to every man, no matter how secretive, when he must tell what is on his mind or die. He opened the book with trembling fingers, took a pen and wrote, at first slowlv, while Medallion smoked : 248 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING " September 13th. — It is five-and-twenty years ago to-day — Mon Dieii, how we danced that night on the flags before the Sorbonne ! How gay we were in the Maison Bleu! We were gay and happy — Lulie and I — two rooms and a few francs ahead every week. That night we danced and poured out the hght wine, because we were to be married to-morrow. Perhaps there would be a child, if the priest blessed us, she whispered to me as we watched the soft-travelling moon in the gardens of the Luxembourg. Well, we danced. There was an artist with us. I saw him catch Lulie about the waist, and kiss her on the neck. She was angry, but I did not think of that ; I was mad with wine. I quar- relled with her, and said to her a shameful thing. Then I rushed away. We were not married the next day ; I could not find her. One night, soon after, there was a revolution of students at Mont Parnasse. I was hurt. I remember that she came to me then and nursed me, but when I got well she was gone. Then came the secret word from the Government that I must leave the country or go to prison. I came here. Alas ! it is long since we danced before the Sorbonne, and supped at the Maison Bleu. I shall never see again the gar- dens of the Luxembourg. Well, that was a mad night five-and-twenty years ago ! " His pen went faster and faster. His eyes lighted up, he seemed quite forgetful of Medallion's presence. When he finished a fresh change came over him. He gathered his thin fingers in a bunch at his lips, and made an airy salute to the warm space between the candles. He drew himself together with a youthful air, and held his grey head gallantly. Youth and aq-e in him seemed almost grotesquely mingled. Sprightly notes from the song of a cafe chantant hovered on his MEDALLION'S WHIM 249 thin, dry lips. Medallion, amused, yet with a hushed kind of feeling through all his nerves, pushed the Avo- cat's tumbler till it touched his fingers. The thin lingers twined round it, and once more he came to his feet. He raised the glass. " To — " for a minute he got no further — " To the wedding-eve ! " he said, and sipped the hot wine. Presently he pushed the little well-worn book over to Medallion. " I have known you fifteen years — read ! " he said. He gave Medal- lion a meaning look out of his now flashing eyes. Medallion's bony face responded cordially. " Of course," he answered, picked up the book, and read what the Avocat had written. It was on the last page. When he had finished reading, he held the book mus- ingly. His whim had suddenly taken on a new colour. The Avocat, who had been walking up and down the room, with the quick step of a young man, stopped be- fore him, took the book from him, turned to the first page, and handed it back silently. Medallion read : "Quebec: September 13th, 18 — . It is one year since. I shall learn to laugh some day." Medallion looked up at him. The old man threw back his head, spread out the last page in the book which he had just written, and said defiantly, as though expecting contradiction to his self-deception : " I have learned." Then he laughed, but the laugh was dry and hollow and painful. It suddenly passed from his wrinkled lips, and he sat down again ; but now with an air as of shyness and shame. " Let us talk," he said, " of — of the Code Napoleon." The next morning Medallion visited St. Jean in the hills. Five years before he had sold to a new-comer. 250 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING at St. Jean — ^Madame Lecyr — the furniture of a little house, and there had sprung up between them a quiet friendship, not the less admiring on Medallion's part because Madame Lecyr was a good friend to the poor and sick. She never tired, when they met, of hearing him talk of the Cure, the Little Chemist, and the Avo- cat; and in the Avocat she seemed to take the most interest, making countless inquiries — countless when spread over many conversations — upon his life during the time Medallion had known him. He knew also that she came to Pontiac, occasionally, but only in the evening; and once of a moonlight night he had seen her standing before the window of the Avocat's house. Once also he had seen her veiled in the little crowded court-room of Pontiac when an interesting case was being tried, and noticed how she watched Monsieur Garon, standing so very still that she seemed lifeless ; and how she stole out as soon as he had done speaking. Medallion had acute instincts, and was supremely a man of self-counsel. What he thought he kept to himself until there seemed necessity to speak. A few days before the momentous one herebefore described he had called at Madame Lecyr's house, and, in course of conversation, told her that the Avocat's health was breaking; that the day before he had got completely fogged in court over the simplest business, and was quite unlike his old, shrewd, kindly self. By this time he was almost prepared to see her turn pale and her fingers flutter at the knitting-needles she held. She made an excuse to leave the room for a moment. He saw a little book lying near the chair from which she had risen. Perhaps it had dropped from her pocket. He picked it up. It was a book of French songs — Beranger's and others less notable. On the fly-leaf MEDALLION'S WHIM 251 was written: " From Victor to Lulie, September 13th, 18—." Presently she came back to him quite recovered and calm, inquired how the Avocat was cared for, and hoped he would have every comfort and care. Me- dallion grew on the instant bold. He was now certain that Victor was the Avocat, and Lulie was Madame Lecyr. He said abruptly to her : " Why not come and cheer him up — such old friends as you are? " At that she rose with a little cry, and stared anx- iously at him. He pointed to the book of songs. " Don't be angry — I looked," he said. She breathed quick and hard, and said nothing, but her fingers laced and interlaced nervously in her lap. " If you were friends why don't you go to him ? " he said. She shook her head mournfully. " We were more than friends, and that is different." " You were his wife? " said Medallion gently. " It was different," she replied, flushing. " France is not the same as here. We were to be married, but on the eve of our wedding-day there was an end to it all. Only five years ago I found out he was here." Then she became silent, and would, or could, speak no more ; only, she said at last before he went : " You will not tell him, or any one? " She need not have asked Medallion. He knew many secrets and kept them — ^which is not the usual way of good-humoured people. But now, with the story told by the Avocat himself in his mind, he saw the end of the long romance. He came once more to the house of Madame Lecyr, and 252 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING being admitted, said to her : " You must come at once with me." She trembled towards him. " He is worse — he is dying!" He smiled. " Not dying at all. He needs you ; come along. I'll tell you as we go." But she hung back. Then he told her all he had seen and heard the evening before. Without a word further she prepared to go. On the way he turned to her, and said, " You are Madame Lecyr? " " I am as he left me," she replied timidly, but with a kind of pride, too. " Don't mistake me," he said. " I thought perhaps you had been married since." The Avocat sat in his little office, feebly fumbling among his papers, as Medallion entered on him and called to him cheerily : " We are coming to see you to- night, Garon-^the Cure, our Little Chemist, and the Seigneur; coming to supper." The Avocat put out his hand courteously; but he said in a shrinking, pained voice, " No, no, not to- night. Medallion. I would wish no visitors this night —of all." Medallion stooped over him and caught him by both' arms gently. " We shall see," he said. " It is the anniversary," he whispered. "Ah, pardon!" said the Avocat, with a reproving pride, and shrank back as if all his nerves had been laid bare. But Medallion turned, opened the door, went out, and let in a woman, who came forward and timidly raised her veil. " Victor ! " Medallion heard, then " Lulie ! " and then he shut the door, and, with supper in his mind, went into the kitchen to see the housekeeper, who, in MEDALLION'S WHIM 253 this new joy, had her own tragedy — humming to him- self: " But down there come from the lofty hills Footsteps and eyes agleam, Bringing the laughter of yesterday Into the little house." THE PRISONER THE PRISONER HIS chief occupation in the daytime was to stand on the bencli by the small barred window and watch the pigeons on the roof and in the eaves of the house opposite. For five years he had done this. In the summer a great fire seemed to burn beneath the tin of the roof, for a quivering hot air rose from them, and the pigeons never alighted on them, save in the early morning or in the evening. Just over the peak could be seen the topmost branch of a maple, too slight to bear the weight of the pigeons, but the eaves were dark and cool, and there his eyes rested when he tired of the hard blue sky and the glare of the slates. In winter the roof was covered for weeks and months by a 1)lanket of snow which looked like a shawl of im- pacted wool, white and restful, and the windows of the house were spread with frost. But the pigeons were always gay, walking on the ledges or crowding on the shelves of the lead pipes. He studied them much, but he loved them more. His prison was less a prison be- cause of them, and during those long five years he found himself more in touch with them than with the wardens of the prison or with any of his fellow-pris- oners. To the former he was respectful, and he gave them no trouble at all ; with the latter he had nothing in common, for they were criminals, and he — so wild and mad with drink and anger was he at the time, that he 17 258 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING had no remembrance, absolutely none, of how Jean Gamache lost his life. He remembered that they had played cards far into the night; that they had quarrelled, then made their peace; that the others had left; that they had begun gaming and drinking and quarrelling again — and then everything was blurred, save for a vague recollection that he had won all Gamache's money and had pock- eted it. Afterwards came a blank. He waked to find two officers of the law beside him, and the body of Jean Gamache, stark and dreadful, a few feet away. When the oflficers put their hands upon him he shook them ofT ; when they did it again he would have fought them to the death had it not been for his friend, tall Medallion, the auctioneer, who laid a strong hand on his arm and said, " Steady, Turgeon, steady ! " and he had yielded to the firm friendly pressure. Medallion had left no stone unturned to clear him at the trial, had himself played detective unceasingly. But the hard facts remained, and on a chain of circum- stantial evidence Blaze Turgeon was convicted of manslaughter and sent to prison for ten years. Blaze himself had said that he did not remember, but he could not believe that he had committed the crime. Robbery? He shrugged his shoulders at that, he in- sisted that his lawyer should not reply to the foolish and insulting suggestion. But the evidence went to show that Gamache had all the winnings when the other members of the party retired, and this very money had been found in Blaze's pocket. There was only Blaze's word that they had played cards again. Anger? Possibly. Blaze could not recall, though he knew they had quarrelled. The judge himself, charg- THE PRISONER 259 ing the jury, said that he never before had seen a prisoner so frank, so outwardly honest, but he warned them that they must not lose sight of the crime itself, the taking of a human life, whereby a woman was made a widow and a child fatherless. The jury found him guilty. With few remarks the judge delivered his sentence, and then himself, shaken and pale, left the court-room hurriedly, for Blaze Turgeon's father had been his friend from boyhood. Blaze took his sentence calmly, looking the jury squarely in the eyes, and when the judge stopped, he bowed to him, and then turned to the jury, and said: " Gentlemen, you have ruined my life. You don't know, and I don't know, who killed the man. You have guessed, and I take the penalty. Suppose I'm in- nocent — how will you feel when the truth comes out? You've known me more or less these twenty years, and you've said, with evidently no more knowledge than I've got, that I did this horrible thing. I don't know but that one of you did it. But you are safe, and I take my ten years ! " He turned from them, and, as he did so, he saw a woman looking at him from a corner of the court- room, with a strange, wild expression. At the moment he saw no more than an excited, bewildered face, but afterwards this face came and went before him, flashing in and out of dark places in a kind of mockery. As he went from the court-room another woman made her way to him in spite of the guards. It was the Little Chemist's wife who, years before, had been his father's housekeeper, who knew him when his eyes first opened on the world. 26o THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING " My poor Blaze ! my poor Blaze ! " she said, clasp- ing his manacled hands. In prison he refused to see all visitors, even Medal- lion, the Little Chemist's wife, and the good Father Fabre. Letters, too, he refused to accept and read. He had no contact, wished no contact with the outer world, but lived his hard, lonely life by himself, silent, studious — for now books were a pleasure to him. He had entered his prison a wild, excitable, dissipated youth, and he had become a mature, brooding man. Five years had done the work of twenty. The face of the woman who looked at him so strangely in the court-room haunted him so that at last it became a part of his real life, lived largely at the win- dow where he looked out at the pigeons on the roof of the hospital. " She was sorry for me," he said many a time to him- self. He was shaken with misery often, so that he rocked to and fro as he sat on his bed, and a warder heard him cry out even in the last days of his imprison- ment : " O God, canst thou do everything but speak ! " And again : " That hour ! the memory of that hour, in exchange for my ruined life ! " One day the gaoler came to him and said : " M'sieu' Turgeon, you are free. The Governor has cut off five years from your sentence." Then he was told that people were waiting without — Medallion, the Little Chemist and his wife, and others more important. But he would not go to meet them, and he stepped into the open world alone at dawn the next morning, and looked out upon a still sleeping village. Suddenly there stood before him a THE PRISONER 261 woman, who had watched by the prison gates all night ; and she put out her hand in entreaty, and said with a breaking voice : " You are free at last ! " He remembered her — the woman who had looked at him so anxiously and sorrowfully in the court- room. " Why did you come to meet me? " he asked. " I was sorry for you." " But that is no reason." " I once committed a crime," she whispered, with shrinking bitterness. "That's bad," he said. "Were you punished?" He looked at her keenly, almost fiercely, for a curious suspicion shot into his mind. She shook her head and answered no. " That's worse ! " " I let some one else take my crime upon him and be punished for it," she said, an agony in her eyes. "Why was that?" " I had a little child," was her reply. " And the man who was punished instead ? " " He was alone in the world," she said. A bitter smile crept to his lips, and his face was afire. He shut his eyes, and when they opened again dis- covery was in them. " I remember you now," he said. " I remember now I waked and saw you looking at me tfiat night! ,Who was the father of your child? " " Jean Gamache," she replied. " He ruined me and left me to starve." " I am innocent of his death ! " he said quietly and gladly. She nodded. He was silent for a moment. " The child still lives ? " he asked. She nodded again. " Well, 262 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING let it be so," he said. " But you owe me five years — and a good name." " I wish to God I could give them back ! " she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. " It was for my child ; he was so young." " It can't be helped now," he said, sighing, and he turned away from her. " Won't you forgive me? " she asked bitterly. " Won't you give me back those five years ? " " If the child did not need me I would give my life," she answered. " I owe it to you." Her haggard, hunted face made him sorry ; he, too, had suffered. " It's all right," he answered gently. " Take care of your child." Again he moved away from her, and went down the little hill, with a cloud gone from his face that had rested there five years. Once he turned to look back. The woman was gone, but over the prison a flock of pigeons were flying. He took off his hat to them. Then he went through the town, looking neither to right nor left, and came to his own house, where the summer morning was already entering the open win- dows, though he had thought to find the place closed and dark. The Little Chemist's wife met him in the doorway. She could not speak, nor could he, but he kissed her as he had done when he went condemned to prison. Then he passed on to his own room, and entering, sat down before the open window, and peacefully drank in the glory of a new world. But more than once he choked down a sob rising in his throat. AN UPSET PRICE AN UPSET PRICE ONCE Secord was as fine a man to look at as you would care to see : with a large, intelligent eye, a clear, healthy skin, and a full, brown beard. He walked with a spring, had the gift of conversation, and took life as he found it : never too seriously, yet never carelessly. That was before he left the village of Pontiac in Quebec to offer himself as a surgeon to the American Army. When he came back there was a change in him. He was still handsome, but something of the spring had gone from his walk, the quick light of his eyes had given place to a dark, dreamy expression, his skin became a little dulled, and his talk slower, though not less musical or pleasant. In- deed, his conversation had distinctly improved. Pre- viously there was an undercurrent of self-conscious- ness ; it was all gone now. He talked as one knowing his audience. His office became again, as it had been before, a rendezvous for the few interesting --^n of the place, including the Avocat, the Cure, the Little Chemist, and Medallion. They played chess and ecarte for certain hours of certain evenings in the week at Secord's house. Medallion was the first to notice that the wife — whom Secord had married soon after he came back from the war — occasionally put down her work and looked with a curious inquiring expression at her husband as he talked. It struck 266 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING Medallion that she was puzzled by some change in Secord. Secord was a brilliant surgeon, and with the knife in his hand, or beside a sick bed, was admirable. His intuitive perception, so necessary in a physician, was very fine : he appeared to get at the core of a patient's trouble, and to decide upon necessary action with in- stant and absolute confidence. Some delicate opera- tion performed by him was recorded and praised in the Lancet, and he was offered a responsible post in a medical college and, at the same time, the good-will of a valuable practice. He declined both, to the last- ing astonishment, yet personal joy, of the Cure and the Avocat ; but, as time went on, not so much to the sur- prise of the Little Chemist and Medallion. After three years, the sleepy Little Chemist waked up suddenly in his chair one day and said: " Par bleu! God bless me ! " (he loved to mix his native language with Eng- lish), got up and went over to Secord's office, adjusted his glasses, looked at Secord closely, caught his hand with both of his own, shook it with shy abruptness, came back to his shop, sat down, and said : " God bless my soul ! Regarded ga! " Medallion made his discovery sooner. Watching closely he had seen a pronounced deliberation infused through all Secord's indolence of manner, and noticed that often, before doing anything, the big eyes debated steadfastly, and the long, slender fingers ran down the beard softly. At times there was a deep meditative- ness in the eye, again a dusky fire. But there was a certain charm through it all — a languid precision, a slumbering look in the face, a vague undercurrent in the voice, a fantastical fiavour to the thought. The change had come so gradually that only Medallion AN UPSET PRICE 267 and the wife had a real conception of how great it was. Medalhon had studied Secord from every standpoint. At the very first he wondered if there was a woman in it. Much thinking on a woman, whose influence on his hfe was evil or disturbing, might account some- what for the change in Secord. But, seeing how fond the man was of his wife, Medallion gave up that idea. It was not liquor, for Secord never touched it. One day, however, when Medallion was selling the furniture of a house, he put up a feather bed, and, as was his custom — for he was a whimsical fellow — let his hu- mour have play. He used many metaphors as to the virtue of the bed, crowning them with the statement that you slept in it dreaming as delicious dreams as though you had eaten poppy, or mandragora, or He stopped short, said, '' By jingo, that's it ! " knocked the bed down instantly, and was an utter failure for the rest of the day. The wife was longer in discovering the truth, but a certain morning, as her husband lay sleeping after an all-night sitting with a patient, she saw lying beside him — it had dropped from his waistcoat pocket — a little bottle full of a dark liquid. She knew that he always carried his medicine-phials in a pocket-case. She got the case, and saw that none was missing. She noticed that the cork of the phial was well-worn. She took it out and smelled the liquid. Then she understood. She waited and watched. She saw him after he waked look watchfully round, quietly take a wineglass, and let the liquid come drop by drop into it from the point of his forefinger. Henceforth she read with under- standing the changes in his manner, and saw behind the mingled abstraction and fanciful meditation of his talk. 268 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING She had not yet made up her mind what to do. She saw that he hid it from her assiduously. He did so more because he wished not to pain her than from furtiveness. By nature he was open and brave, and had always had a reputation for plainness and sincerity. She was in no sense his equal in intelligence or judg- ment, nor even in instinct. She was a woman of more impulse and constitutional good-nature than depth. It is probable that he knew that, and refrained from letting her into the knowledge of this vice, contracted in the war when, seriously ill, he was able to drag him- self about from patient to patient only by the help of opium. He was alive to his position and its conse- quences, and faced it. He had no children, and he was glad of this for one reason. He could do nothing now without the drug ; it was as necessary as light to him. The little bottle had been his friend so long that, with his finger on its smooth-edged cork, it was as though he held the tap of life. The Little Chemist and Medallion kept the thing to themselves, but they understood each other in the mat- ter, and wondered what they could do to cure him. The Little Chemist only shrank back, and said, " No, no, pardon, my friend ! " when Medallion suggested that he should speak to Secord. But the Little Chemist was greatly concerned — for had not Secord saved his beloved wife by a clever operation ? and was it not her custom to devote a certain hour every week to the welfare of Secord's soul and body, before the shrine of the Virgin ? Her husband told her now that Secord was in trouble, and though he was far from being devout himself, he had a shy faith in the great sincerity of his wife. She did her best, and increased her ofiferings of flowers to the shrine ; also, in her AN UPSET PRICE 269 simplicity, she sent Secord's wife little jars of jam to comfort him. One evening the little coterie met by arrangement at the doctor's house. After waiting an hour or two for Secord, who had been called away to a critical case, the Avocat and the Cure went home, leaving polite old- fashioned messages for their absent host ; but the Little Chemist and Aledallion remained. For a time Mrs. Secord remained with them, then retired, begging them to await her husband, who, she knew, would be grateful if they stayed. The Little Chemist, with timid courtes}-, showed her out of the room, then came back and sat down. They were very silent. The Little Chemist took off his glasses a half-dozen times, wiped them, and put them back. Then suddenly turned on Medallion. "You mean to speak to-night?" " Yes, that's what I intend, just here." " Regardca ca — well, well ! " Medallion never smoked harder than he did then. The Little Chemist looked at him nervously again and again, listened towards the door, fingered with his tumbler, and at last hearing the sound of sleigh-bells, suddenly came to his feet,* and said: " Voila, I will go to my wife." And catching up his cap, and forgetting his overcoat, he trotted away home in fright. What Medallion did or said to Secord that night neither ever told. But it must have been a singular scene, for when the humourist pleads or prays there is no pathos like it ; and certainly Medallion's eyes were red when he rapped up the Little Chemist at dawn, caught him by the shoulders, turned him round several times, thumped him on the back, and called him a bully old boy ; and then, seeing the old wife in her quaint padded nightgown, suddenly hugged her, threw 2;o THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING liimself into a chair and almost shouted for a cup of coffee. At the same time Mrs. Secord was alternately crying and laughing in her husband's arms, and he was saying to her : " I'll make a fight for it, Lesley, a big fight ; but you must be patient, for I expect I'll be a devil some- times without it. Why, I've eaten a drachm a day of the stuflf, or drunk its equivalent in the tincture. No, never mind praying ; be a brick and fight with me : that's the game, my girl." He did make a fight for it, such an one as few men have made and come out safely. For those who dwell in the Pit never sufifer as do they who struggle with this appetite. He was too wise to give it up all at once. He diminished the dose gradually, but still very perceptibly. As it was, it made a marked change in him. The necessary effort of the will gave a kind of hard coldness to his face, and he used to walk his garden for hours at night in conflict with his enemy. His nerves were uncertain, but, strange to say, when (it was not often) any serious case of illness came under his hands, he was somehow able to pull himself to- gether and do his task gallantly enough. But he had had no important surgical case since he began his cure. In his heart he lived in fear of one ; for he was not quite sure of himself. In spite of effort to the contrary he became irritable, and his old pleasant fantasies changed to gloomy and bizarre imaginings. The wife never knew what it cost her husband thus, day by day, to take a foe by the throat and hold him in check. She did not guess that he knew if he dropped back even once he could not regain himself: this was his idiosyncrasy. He did not find her a great help to him in his trouble. She was affectionate, but she had AN UPSET PRICE 271 not much penetration even where he was concerned, and she did not grasp how much was at stake. She thought indeed that he should be able to give it up all at once. He was tender with her, but he wished often that she could understand him without explanation on his part. Many a time he took out the little bottle with a reckless hand, but conquered himself. He got most help, perhaps, from the honest, cheerful eye of Medallion and the stumbling, timorous affection of the Little Chemist. They were perfectly disinterested friends — his wife at times made him aware that he had done her a wrong, for he had married her with this appetite on him. He did not defend himself, but he wished she would — even if she had to act it — make him believe in himself more. One morning against his will he was irritable with her, and she said something that burnt like caustic. He smiled ironically and pushed his newspaper over to her, pointing to a paragraph. It was the announcement that an old admirer of hers whom she had passed by for her husband, had come into a fortune. " Perhaps you've made a mistake," he said. She answered nothing, but the look she gave was unfortunate for both. He muffled his mouth in his long, silken beard as if to smother what he felt impelled to say, then suddenly rose and left the table. At this time he had reduced his dose of the drug to eight drops twice a day. With a grim courage he resolved to make it five all at once. He did so, and held to it. ISIedallion was much with him in these days. One morning in the spring he got up. went out in his garden, drew in the fresh, sweet air with a great gulp, picked some lovely crab-apple blossoms, and,, with a strange glowing look in his eyes, came in to 272 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING his wife, put them into her hands, and kissed her. It was the anniversary of their wedding-day. Then, without a word, he took from his pocket the httle phial that he had carried so long, rolled it for an instant in his palm, felt its worn, discoloured cork musingly, and threw it out of the window. " Now, my dear," he whispered, " we will be happy again." He held to his determination with a stern anxiety. He took a month's vacation, and came back better. He was not so happy as he hoped to be ; yet he would not whisper to himself the reason why. He felt that some- thing had failed him somewhere. One day a man came riding swiftly up to his door to say that his wife's father had met with a bad accident in his great mill. Secord told his wife. A peculiar troubled look came into his face as he glanced carefully over his instruments and through his medicine case. " God ! I must do it alone," he said. The old man's injury was a dangerous one : a skilful operation was necessary. As Secord stood beside the sufferer, he felt his nerves suddenly go — just as they did in the War before he first took the drug. His wife was in the next room — he could hear her; he wished she would make no sound at all. Unless this opera- tion was performed successfully the sufiferer would die — he might die anyhow. Secord tried to gather him- self up to his task, but he felt it was of no use. A month later when he was more recovered physically he would be able to perform the operation, but the old man was dying now, while he stood helplessly stroking his big brown beard. He took up his pocket medicine- case, and went out where his wife was. Excited and tearful, she started up to meet him, AN UPSET PRICE 273 painfully inquiring. " Can you save him ? " she said. " Oh, James, what is the matter ? You are trembling." " It's just this way, Lesley : my nerve is broken ; I can't perform the operation as 1 am, and he will die in an hour if I don't." She caught him by the arm. " Can you not be strong? You have a will. Will you not try to save my father, James? Is there no way? " " Yes, there is one way," he said. He opened the pocket-case and took out a phial of laudanum. " This is the way. I can pull myself together with it. It will save his life." There was a dogged look in his face. " Well ? well ? " she said. " Oh, my dear father !— will you not keep him here ? " A peculiar cold smile hovered about his lips. " But there is danger to me in this . . . and remember, he is very old ! " " Oh," she cried, " how can you be so shocking, so cruel ! " She rocked herself to and fro. " If it will save him — and vou need not take it again, ever ! " " But, I tell you " " Do you not hear him — he is dying ! " She was mad with grief ; she hardly knew what she said. Without a word he dropped the tincture swiftly in a wineglass of water, drank it off, shivered, drew him- self up with a start, gave a sigh as if some huge struggle was over, and went in to where the old man was. Three hours after he told his wife that her father was safe. When, after a hasty kiss, she left him and went into the room of sickness, and the door closed after her, standing where she had left him he laughed a hard crackling laugh, and said between his teeth: " An upset price ! " 18 274 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING Then he poured out another portion of the dark tincture — the largest he had ever taken— and tossed it off. That night he might have been seen feehng about the grass in a moon-Ht garden. At last he put some- thing in his pocket with a quick, harsh chuckle of satisfaction. It was a little black bottle with a well- worn cork. A FRAGMENT OF LIVES A FRAGMENT OF LIVES THEY met at last, Dubarre, and Villiard the man who had stolen from him the woman he loved. Both had wronged the woman, but Villiard most, for he had let her die because of jealousy. They were now in a room alone in the forest of St. Sebastian. Both were quiet, and both knew that the end of their hatred was near. Going to a cupboard Dubarre brought out four glasses and put them on the table. Then from two bottles he poured out what looked like red wine, two glasses from each bottle. Putting the bottles back he returned to the table. " Do you dare to drink with me? " Dubarre asked, nodding towards the glasses, " Two of the glasses have poison in them, two have good red wine only. We will move them about and then drink. Both may die, or only one of us." Villiard looked at the other with contracting, ques- tioning eyes. " You would play that game with me?" he asked in a mechanical voice. " It would give me great pleasure." The voice had a strange, ironical tone. " It is a grand sport — as one would take a run at a crevasse and clear it, or fall. If we both fall, we are in good company; if you fall, I have the greater joy of escape ; if I fall, you have the same joy." 278 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING " I am ready," was the answer, " But let us eat first." A great fire burned in the chimney, for the night was cool. It filled the room with a gracious heat and with huge, comfortable shadows. Here and there on the wall a tin cup flashed back the radiance of the fire, the barrel of a gun glistened soberly along a rafter, and the long, wiry hair of an otter-skin in the corner sent out little needles of light. Upon the fire a pot was simmering, and a good savour came from it. A wind went lilting by outside the hut in tune with the singing of the kettle. The ticking of a huge, old- fashioned repeating-watch on the wall was in unison with these. Dubarre rose from the table, threw himself upon the little pile of otter-skins, and lay watching Villiard and mechanically studying the little room. Villiard took the four glasses filled with the wine and laid them on a shelf against the wall, then began to put the table in order for their supper, and to take the pot from the fire. Dubarre noticed that just above where the glasses stood on the shelf a crucifix was hanging, and that red crystal sparkled in the hands and feet where the nails should be driven in. There was a painful humour in the association. He smiled, then turned his head away, for old memories flashed through his brain — he had been an acolyte once : he had served at the altar. Suddenly Dubarre rose, took the glasses from the shelf and placed them in the middle of the table — the death's head for the feast. As they sat down to eat, the eyes of both men un- consciously wandered to the crucifix, attracted by the red sparkle of the rubies. They drank water with the A FRAGMENT OF LIVES 279 well-cooked meat of the wapiti, though red wine faced them on the table. Each ate heartily; as though a long day were before them and not the shadow of the Long Night. There was no speech save that of the usual courtesies of the table. The fire, and the wind, and the watch seemed the only living things besides themselves, perched there between heaven and earth. At length the meal was finished, and the two turned in their chairs towards the lire. There was no other light in the room, and on the faces of the two, still and cold, the flame played idly. " When ? " said Dubarre at last. " Not yet," was the quiet reply. " I was thinking of my first theft — an apple from my brother's plate," said Dubarre with a dry smile. " You ? " " I, of my first lie." " That apple was the sweetest fruit I ever tasted." " And I took the penalty of the lie, but I had no sorrow." Again there was silence. " Now ? " asked Villiard, after an hour had passed. " I am ready." They came to the table. " Shall we bind our eyes ? " asked Dubarre. " I do not know the glasses that hold the poison." " Nor I the bottles that held it. I will turn my back, and do you change about the glasses." Villiard turned his face towards the timepiece on the wall. As he did so it began to strike — a clear, silvery chime : " One ! two ! three " Before it had finished striking both men were facing the glasses again. " Take one," said Dubarre. 280 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING Villiard took the one nearest himself. Dubarre took one also. Without a word they lifted the glasses and drank. " Again," said Dubarre. " You choose," responded Villiard. Dubarre lifted the one nearest himself, and Villiard picked up the other. Raising their glasses again, they bowed to each other and drank. The watch struck twelve, and stopped its silvery chiming. They both sat down, looking at each other, the light of an enormous chance in their eyes, the tragedy of a great stake in their clenched hands ; but the deeper, intenser power was in the face of Dubarre, the ex- plorer. There was more than power ; malice drew down the brows and curled the sensitive upper lip. Each man watched the other for knowledge of his own fate. The glasses lay straggling along the table, emptied of death and life. All at once a horrible pallor spread over the face of Villiard, and his head jerked forward. He grasped the table with both hands, twitching and trembling. His eyes stared wildly at Dubane, to whose face the flush of wine had come, whose look was now mali- ciously triumphant. Villiard had drunk both glasses of the poison ! " I win ! " Dubarre stood up. Then, leaning over the table towards the dying man, he added : " You let her die — well ! Would you know the truth ? She loved you — always ! " Villiard gasped, and his look wandered vaguely along the opposite wall. Dubarre went on. " I played the game with you A FRAGMENT OF LIVES 281 honestly, because — because it was the greatest man could play. And I, too, sinned against her. Now die ! She loved you — murderer ! " The man's look still wandered distractedly along the wall. The sweat of death was on his face; his lip5 were moving spasmodically. Suddenly his look became fixed ; he found voice. " Pardon — Jcsu! " he said, and stiffened where he sat. His eyes were fixed on the jewelled crucifix. Du- barre snatched it from the wall, and hastening to him held it to his lips : but the warm sparkle of the rubies fell on eyes that were cold as frosted glass. Dubarre saw that he was dead. " Because the woman loved him ! " he said, gazing curiously at the dead man. He turned, went to the door and opened it, for his breath choked him. All was still on the wooded heights and in the wide valley. " Because the woman loved him he repented," said Dubarre again with a half-cynical gentleness as he placed the crucifix on the dead man's breast. THE MAN THAT DIED AT ALMA THE MAN THAT DIED AT ALMA THE man who died at Alma had a Kilkenny brogue that you could not cut with a knife, but he was called Kilquhanity, a name as Scotch as Mac- Gregor. Kilquhanity was a retired soldier, on pension, and Pontiac was a place of peace and poverty. The only gentry were the Cure, the Avocat, and the young Seigneur, but of the three the only one with a private income was the young Seigneur. What should such a common man as Kilquhanity do with a private income! It seemed almost sus- picious, instead of creditable, to the minds of the simple folk at Pontiac ; for they were French, and poor, and laborious, and Kilquhanity drew his pension from the headquarters of the English Government, which they only knew by legends wafted to them over great tracts of country from the city of Quebec. When Kilquhanity first came with his wife, it was without introductions from anywhere — unlike every- body else in Pontiac, whose family history could be instantly reduced to an exact record by the Cure. He had a smattering of French, which he turned off with oily brusqueness, he was not close-mouthed, he talked freely of events in his past life, and he told some really wonderful tales of his experiences in the British army. He was no braggart, however, and his one great story which gave him the nickname by which he was called at Pontiac, was told far more in a spirit 286 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING of laughter at himself than in praise of his own part in the incident. The first time he told the story was in the house of Medallion the auctioneer. "Aw the night it was!" said Kilquhanity, after a pause, blowing a cloud of tobacco smoke into the air, "the night it was, me darlins! Bitther cowld in that Roosian counthry, though but late summer, and noth- in' to ate but a lump of bread, no bigger than a dicky- bird's skull; nothin' to drink but wather. Turrible! turrible! and for clothes to wear — Mother of Moses! that was a bad day for clothes ! We got betune no bar- rick quilts that night. No stockin' had I insoide me boots, no shirt had I but a harse's quilt sewed an to me; no heart I had insoide me body; nothin' at all but duty an' shtandin' to orders, me b'ys! " Says Sergeant-Major Kilpatrick to me, ' Kil- quhanity,' says he, ' there's betther places than River Alma to live by,' says he. ' Faith! an' by the Lififey I wish I was this moment ' — Lififey's in ould Ireland, Frenchies! 'But, Kilquhanity,' says he, 'faith, an' it's the Lififey we'll never see again, an' put that in yer pipe an' smoke it! ' And thrue for him. " But that night, aw that night! Ivery bone in me body was achin', and shure me heart was achin' too, for the poor b'ys that were fightin' hard an' gettin' little for it. Bitther cowld it was, aw, bitther cowld! and the b'ys droppin' down, droppin', droppin', drop- pin', wid the Roosian bullets in thim! " ' Kilquhanity,' says Sergeant-Major Kilpatrick to me, ' it's this shtandin' still, while we do be droppin', droppin', that girds the soul av yer.' Aw! the sight it was, the sight it was! The b'ys of the rigimint shtand- in' shoulder to shoulder, an' the faces av 'm blue wid THE MAN THAT DIED AT ALMA 287 powder, an' red wid blood, an' the bits o' b'ys droppin' round me loike twigs of an ould tree in a shtorm. Just a cry an' a bit av a gurgle tru the teeth, an' divil the wan o' thim would see the Liffey side anny more. " * The Roosians are chargin' ! ' shouts Sergeant- Major Kilpatrick. ' The Roosians are chargin' — here they come! ' Shtandin' besoide me was a bit of a lump of a b'y, as foine a lad as ever shtood in the boots of me rigimint — aw! the look of his face was the look o' the dead. 'The Roosians are comin'! they're charg- in'! ' says Sergeant-Major Kilpatrick, and the bit av a b'y, that had nothin' to eat all day, throws down his gun and turns round to run. Eighteen years old he was, only eighteen! just a straight slip of a lad from Malahide. ' Hould on! Teddie,' says I, ' hould on! How'll yer face yer mother if yer turn yer back on the inimy of yer counthry? ' The b'y looks me in the eyes long enough to wink three times, picks up his gun, an' shtood loike a rock, he did, till the Roosians charged us, roared on us, an' I saw me slip of a b'y go down under the sabre of a damned Cossack! 'Mother!' I heard him say, ' Mother! ' an' that's all I heard him say — and the mother waitin' away aff there by the Lififey soide ! Aw ! wurra ! wurra ! the b'ys go down to battle and the mothers wait at home. Some of the b'ys came back, but the most of thim shtay where the battle laves 'em. Wurra! wurra! many's the b'y wint down that day by Alma River, an' niver come back! " There I was shtandin', when hell broke loose on the b'ys of me rigimint, and divil the wan o' me knows if I killed a Roosian that day or not. But Sergeant- Major Kilpatrick — a bit of a liar was the Sergeant- Major — says he, ' It was tin ye killed, Kilquhanity.' He says that to me the noight that I left the rigimint 288 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING for ever, and all the b'ys shtandin' round and liftin' glasses an' saying, ' Kilquhanity ! Kilquhanity ! Kil- quhanity ! ' as if it was sugar and honey in their mouths. Aw ! the sound of it ! ' Kilquhanity,' says he, ' it was tin ye killed ! ' but aw, b'ys, the Sergeant-Major was an awful liar. If he could be doin' annybody anny good by lyin', shure he would be lyin' all the time. " But it's little I know how many I killed, for I was killed meself that day. A Roosian sabre claved the shoulder and neck av me, an' down I wint, and over me trampled a squadron of Roosian harses, an' I stopped thinkin! Aw! so aisy, so aisy, I slipped away out av the fight. The shriekin' and roarin' kept dwindlin' and dwindlin', an' I dropped all into a foine shlape, so quiet, so aisy! An' I thought that slip av a lad from the Liffey soide was houlding me hand, and sayin' ' Mother! Mother! ' and we both wint ashlape; an' the b'ys of the rigimint when Alma was over, they said to each other, the b'ys they said, ' Kilquhanity's dead! ' An' the trinches was dug, an' all we foine dead b'ys was laid in long rows loike candles in the trinches. An' I was laid in among thim, and Sergeant-Major Kilpatrick shtandin' there an' looking at me an' sayin', ' Poor b'y! poor b'y! ' " But when they threw another man on tap of me, I waked up out o' that beautiful shlape, and gave him a kick. ' Yer not polite,' says I to mesilf. Shure, I couldn't shpake — there was no strength in me. An' they threw another man on, an' I kicked again, and the Sergeant-Major he sees it, an' shouts out : ' Kil- (luhanity's leg is kickin' ! ' says he. An' they pulled aff the two poor divils that had been thrown o' tap o' me, and the Sergeant-Major lifts me head, an' he says, ' Yer not killed, Kilquhanity? ' says he. THE MAN THAT DIED AT ALMA 289 Divil a word could I shpake, but I winked at him, and Captain Masham shtandin' by whips out a flask. * Put that betune his teeth,' says he. Whin I got it there, trust me fur not lettin" it go. An' the Sergeant- Major says to me, ' I have hopes of you, Kilquhanity, when you do be drinkin' loike that ! ' "A foine lieakhy corpse I am; an' a foine thirsty heaUhy corpse I am ! " says I, A dozen hands stretched out to give Kilquhanity a drink, for even the best story-teller of Pontiac could not have told his tale so well. Yet the success achieved by Kilquhanity at such moments was discounted through long months of mingled suspicion and doubtful tolerance. Although both he and his wife were Catholics (so they said, and so it seemed), Kilquhanity never went to confession or took the Blessed Sacrament. The Cure spoke to Kilquhanity 's wife about it, and she said she could do nothing with her husband. Her tongue once loosed, she spoke freely, and what she said was little to the credit of Kilquhanity. Not that she could urge any horrible things against him ; but she railed at minor faults till the Cure dismissed her with some good ad- vice upon wives rehearsing their husband's faults, even to the parish priest. Mrs. Kilquhanity could not get the Cure to listen to her, but she was more successful elsewhere. One day she came to get Kilquhanity 's pension, which was sent every three months through M. Garon, the Avo- cat. After she had handed over the receipt prepared beforehand by Kilquhanity, she replied to M. Garon's inquiry concerning her husband, in these words: " Misther Garon, sir, such a man it is — enough to break the heart of anny woman. And the timper o£ 19 290 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING him — Misther Garon, the timper of him's that awful, awful ! No conshideration, and that ugly-hearted, got whin a soldier b'y ! The things he does — my, my, the things he does ! " She threw up her hands with an air of distraction. " Well, and what does he do, Madame? " asked the Avocat simply. "An' what he says, too — the awful of it! Ah, the bad sour heart in him! What's he lyin' in his bed for now — an' the New Year comin' on, whin we ought to be praisin' God an' enjoyin' each other's company in this blessed wurruld? What's he lying betune the quilts now fur, but by token of the bad heart in him! It's a wicked cowld he has, an' how did he come by it? I'll tell ye, Misther Garon. So wild was he, yesterday it was a week, so black mad wid somethin' I'd said to him and somethin' that shlipped from me hand at his head, that he turns his back on me, throws opin the dure, shteps out into the shnow, and shtandin' there alone, he curses the wide wurruld — oh, dear Misther Garon, he cursed the wide wurruld, shtandin' there: in the snow. God forgive the black heart of him, shtandin' out there cursin' the wide wurruld ! " The Avocat looked at the Sergeant's wife musingly, the fingers of his hands tapping together, but he did not speak : he was becoming wiser all in a moment as to the ways of women. " An' now, he's in bed, the shtrappin' blasphemer, fur the cowld he got shtandin' there in the snow cursin* the wide wurruld. Ah, Misther Garon, pity a poor woman that has to live wid the loikes o' that! " The Avocat still did not speak. He turned his face away and looked out of the window, where his eyes could see the little house on the hill, which to-day had THE MAN THAT DIED AT ALMA 291 the Union Jack flying in honour of some battle or some victory, dear to Kilquhanity's heart. It looked peaceful enough, the little house lying there in the waste of snow, banked up with earth, and sheltered on the northwest by a little grove of pines. At last M. Garon rose, and lifting himself up and down on his toes as if about to deliver a legal opinion, he coughed slightly, and then said in a dry little voice : " Madame, I shall have pleasure in calling on your husband. You have not seen the matter in the true light. Madame, I bid you good-day! " That night the Avocat, true to his promise, called ori Sergeant Kilquhanit3\ Kilquhanity was alone in the house. His wife had gone to the village for the Little Chemist. She had been roused at last to the serious nature of Kilquhanity's illness. M. Garon knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again more loudly, and still no answer. He opened the door and entered into a clean, warm living room, so hot that the heat came to him in waves, buffet- ing his face. Dining, sitting, and drawing room, it was also a sort of winter kitchen ; and side by side with relics of Kilquhanity's soldier-life were clean, bright tins, black saucepans, strings of dried fruit, and well- cured hams. Certainly the place had the air of home; it spoke for the absent termagant. M. Garon looked round and saw a half-opened door, through which presently came a voice speaking in a laboured whisper. The Avocat knocked gently at the door. " May I come in, Sergeant? " he asked, and entered. There was no light in the room, but the fire in the kitchen stove threw a glow over the bed where 292 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING the sick man lay. The big hands of the soldier moved restlessly on the quilt. " Aw, it's the koind av ye ! " said Kilquhanity, with difficulty, out of the half shadows. The Avocat took one burning hand in both of his, held it for a moment, and pressed it two or three times. He did not know what to say. " We must have a light," said he at last, and taking a candle from the shelf he lighted it at the stove and came into the bedroom again. This time he was startled. Even in this short illness, Kilquhanity's flesh had dropped away from him, leaving him but a bundle of bones, on which the skin quivered with fever. Every word the sick man tried to speak cut his chest like a knife, and his eyes half started from his head with the agony of it. The Avocat's heart sank within him, for he saw that a life was hanging in the balance. Not knowing what to do, he tucked in the bedclothes gently. " I do be thinkin'," said the strained, whispering voice — " I do be thinkin' I could shmoke ! " The Avocat looked round the room, saw the pipe on the window, and cutting some tobacco from a " plug," he tenderly filled the old black corn-cob. Then he put the stem in Kilquhanity's mouth and held the candle to the bowl. Kilquhanity smiled, drew a long breath, and blew out a cloud of thick smoke. For a moment he puffed vigorously, then, all at once, the pleasure of it seemed to die away, and presently the bowl dropped down on his chin. M. Garon lifted it away. Kil- quhanity did not speak, but kept saying something over and over again to himself, looking beyond M. Garon abstractedly. At that moment the front door of the house opened. THE MAN THAT DIED AT ALMA 293 and presently a shrill voice came through the door. " Shmokin,' shmokin', are ye, Kilquhanity? As soon as me back's turned, it's playin' the fool " She stopped short, seeing the Avocat. " Beggin' yer pardon, Misther Garon," she said, " I thought it was only Kilquhanity here, an' he wid no more sense than a babby." Kilquhanity's eyes closed, and he buried one side of his head in the pillow, that her shrill voice should not pierce his ears. *' The Little Chemist 'II be comin' in a minit, dear Misther Garon," said the wife presently, and she began to fuss with the bedclothes and to be nervously and uselessly busy. " Aw, lave thim alone, darlin'," whispered Kilquha- nity, tossing. Her ofBciousness seemed to hurt him more than the pain in his chest. M. Garon did not wait for the Little Chemist to ar- rive, but after pressing the Sergeant's hand he left the house and went straight to the house of the Cure, and told him in what condition was the black sheep of his flock. When M. Garon returned to his own home he found a visitor in his library. It was a woman, and be- tween forty and fifty years of age, who rose slowly to her feet as the Avocat entered, and, without prelimi- nary, put into his hands a document. " That is who I am," she said. " Mary Muddock that was, ]\Iary Kilquhanity that is." The Avocat held in his hands the marriage lines of Matthew Kilquhanity of the parish of Malahide and Mary Muddock of the parish of St. Giles, London. The Avocat was completely taken back. He blew ner- vously through his pale fingers, raised himself up and 294 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING down on his toes, and grew pale through suppressed excitement. He examined the certificate carefully, though from the first he had no doubt of its accuracy and correctness. " Well! " said the woman, with a hard look in her face and a hard note in her voice. " Well! " The Avocat looked at her musingly for a moment. All at once there had been unfolded to him Kilquha- nity's story. In his younger days Kilquhanity had married this woman with a face of tin and a heart of leather. It needed no confession from Kilquhanity's own lips to explain by what hard paths he had come to the reckless hour when, at Blackpool, he had left her for ever, as he thought. In the flush of his criminal freedom he had married again — with the woman who shared his home on the little hillside, behind the Parish Church, she believing him a widower. Mary Mud- dock, with the stupidity of her class, had never gone to the right quarters to discover his whereabouts until a year before this day when she stood in the Avo- cat's library. At last, through the War Office, she had found the whereabouts of her missing Matthew. She had gathered her little savings together, and, after due preparation, had sailed away to Canada to find the soldier boy whom she had never given anything but bad hours in all the days of his life with her. " Well," said the woman, " you're a lawyer — have you nothing to say ? You pay his pension — next time you'll pay it to me. I'll teach him to leave me and my kid and go ofT with an Irish cook! " The Avocat looked her steadily in the eyes, and then delivered the strongest blow that was possible from the opposite side of the case. " Madame," said THE MAN THAT DIED AT ALMA 295 he, " Madame, I regret to inform you that Matthew Kilquhanity is dying." "Dying, is he?" said the woman with a sudden change of voice and manner, but her whine did not ring true. " The poor darhn' ! and only that Irish hag to care for him ! Has he made a will ? " she added eagerly. Kilquhanity had made no will, and the little house on the hillside, and all that he had, belonged to this woman who had spoiled the first part of his life, and had come now to spoil the last part. An hour later the Avocat, the Cure, and the two women stood in the chief room of the little house on the hillside. The door was shut between the two rooms, and the Little Chemist was with Kilquhanity. The Cure's hand was on the arm of the first wife and the Avocat's upon the arm of the second. The two women were glaring eye to eye, having just finished as fine a torrent of abuse of each other and of Kilquha- nity as can be imagined. Kilquhanity himself, with the sorrow of death upon him, though he knew it not, had listened to the brawl, his chickens come home to roost at last. The first INIrs. Kilquhanity had sworn, with an oath that took no account of the Cure's pres- ence, that not a stick nor a stone nor a rag nor a penny should that Irish slattern have of Matthew Kilquha- nity's ! The Cure and the Avocat had quieted them at last, and the Cure spoke sternly now to both women: " In the presence of death," said he, " have done with your sinful clatter. Stop quarrelling over a dying man. Let him go in peace! Let him go in peace! If I hear one word more," he added sternly, " I will 296 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING turn you both out of the house into the night. I will have the man die in peace! " Opening the door of the bedroom, the Cure went in and shut the door, bolting it quietly behind him. The Little Chemist sat by the bedside, and Kilquhanity lay as still as a babe upon the bed. His eyes were half closed, for the Little Chemist had given him an opiate to quiet the terrible pain. The Cure saw that the end was near. He touched Kilquhanity 's arm. " My son," said he, " look up. You have sinned, you must confess your sins, and repent." Kilquhanity looked up at him with dazed but halfr smiling eyes. " Are they gone? Are the women gone? " The Cure nodded his head. Kilquhanity's eyes closed and opened again. " They're gone, thin ! Oh, the foine of it ! the foine of it ! " he whispered. " So quiet, so aisy, so quiet! Faith, I'll just be shlaping! I'll be shlaping now ! " His eyes closed, but the Cure touched his arm again. " My son," said he, " look up. Do you thoroughly and earnestly repent you of your sins? " His eyes opened again. " Yis, father, oh, yis. There's been a dale o' noise — there's been a dale o' noise in the wurruld, father," said he. " Oh, so quiet, so quiet now ! I do be shlaping ! " A smile crossed his face. " Oh, the foine of it ! I do be shlaping — shlaping." And he fell into a noiseless Sleep. THE BARON OF BEAUGARD THE BARON OF BEAUGARD THE Manor House at Beaugard, monsieur ? Ah, certainlee, I mind it very well. It was the first in Quebec, and there are many tales. It had a chapel and a gallows. Its baron, he had the power of life and death, and the right of the seigneur — you under- stand ! — which he used only once ; and then what trouble it made for him and the woman, and the bar- ony, and the parish, and all the country ! " " What is the whole story, Larue ? " said Medallion, who had spent months in the seigneur's company, stalking game, and tales, and legends of the St. Law- rence. Larue spoke English very well — his mother was English. " Mais, I do not know for sure ; but the Abbe Fron- tone, he and I were snowed up together in that same house which now belongs to the Church, and in the big fireplace, where we sat on a bench, toasting our knees and our bacon, he told me the tale as he knew it. He was a great scholar — there is none greater. He had found papers in the wall of the house, and from the Gover'ment chest he got more. Then there were the tales handed down, and the records of the Church — for she knows the true story of every man that has come to New France from first to last. So, because I have a taste for tales, and gave him some, he told me of the 300 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING Baron of Beaugard and that time he took the right of the seigneur, and the end of it all. " Of course it was a hundred and fifty years ago, when Bigot was Intendant — ah, what a rascal was that Bigot, robber and deceiver! He never stood by a friend, and never fought fair a foe — so the Abbe said. Well, Beaugard was no longer young. He had built the Manor House, he had put up his gallows, he had his vassals, he had been made a lord. He had quar- relled with Bigot, and had conquered, but at great cost ; for Bigot had such power, and the Governor had trouble enough to care for himself against Bigot, though he was Beaugard's friend, " Well, there was a good lump of a fellow who had been a soldier, and he picked out a girl in the Sei- gneury of Beaugard to make his wife. It is said the girl herself was not set for the man, for she was of finer stuff than the peasants about her, and showed it. But her father and mother had a dozen other children, and what was this girl, this Falise, to do ? She said yes to the man, the time was fixed for the marriage, and it came along. " So. At the very hour of the wedding Beaugard came by, for the church was in mending, and he had given leave it should be in his own chapel. Well, he rode by just as the bride was coming out with the man — Garoche. When Beaugard saw Falise he gave a whistle, then spoke in his throat, reined up his horse, and got down. He fastened his eyes on the girl's. A strange look passed between them — he had never seen her before, but she had seen him often, and when he was gone had helped the housekeeper with his rooms. She had carried away with her a stray glove of his. Of course it sounds droll, and they said of her when all THE BARON OF BEAUGARD 301 came out that it was wicked ; but evil is according- to a man's own heart, and the girl had hid this glove as she hid whatever was in her soul — hid it even from the priest. " Well, the Baron looked and she looked, and he took off his hat, stepped forward, and kissed her on the cheek. She turned pale as a ghost, and her eyes took the colour that her cheeks lost. When he stepped back he looked close at the husband. ' What is your name? ' he said. ' Garoche, m'sieu' le Baron,' was the reply. * Garoche ! Garoche ! ' he said, eyeing him up and down. ' You have been a soldier? ' ' Yes, m'sieu' le Baron.' ' You have served with me ? ' ' Against you, m'sieu' le Baron . . . when Bigot came fighting.' * Better against me than for me,' said the Baron, speaking to himself, though he had so strong a voice that what he said could be heard by those near him — that is, those who were tall, for he was six and a half feet, with legs and shoulders like a bull. " He stooped and stroked the head of his hound for a moment, and all the people stood and watched him, wondering what next. At last he said : ' And what part played you in that siege, Garoche ? ' Garoche looked troubled, but answered : ' It was in the way of duty, m'sieu' le Baron — I with five others captured the relief- party sent from your cousin the Seigneur of Vadrome.* ' Oh,' said the Baron, looking sharp, ' you were in that, were you? Then you know what happened to the young Marmette ? ' Garoche trembled a little, but drew himself up and said : ' M'sieu' le Baron, he tried to kill the Intendant — there was no other way.' ' What part played you in that, Garoche?' Some trembled, for they knew the truth, and they feared the mad will 302 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING of the Baron. ' I ordered the firing-party, m'sieu' le Baron,' he answered. " The Baron's eyes got fierce and his face hardened, but he stooped and drew the ears of the hound through his hand softly. ' Marmette was my cousin's son, and had Hved with me,' he said. ' A brave lad, and he had a nice hatred of vileness — else he had not died.' A strange smile played on his lips for a moment, then he looked at Falise steadily. Who can tell what was working in his mind ! ' War is war,' he went on, ' and Bigot was your master, Garoche ; but the man pays for his master's sins this way or that. Yet I would not have it different, no, not a jot.' Then he turned round to the crowd, raised his hat to the Cure, who stood on the chapel steps, once more looked steadily at Falise, and said : ' You shall all come to the Manor House, and have your feastings there, and we will drink to the home-coming of the fairest woman in my barony.' With that he turned round, bowed to Falise, put on his hat, caught the bridle through his arm, and led his horse to the Manor House. " This was in the afternoon. Of course, whether they wished or not, Garoche and Falise could not re- fuse, and the people were glad enough, for they would have a free hand at meat and wine, the Baron being liberal of table. And it was as they guessed, for though the time was so short, the people at Beaugard soon had the tables heavy with food and drink. It was just at the time of candle-lighting the Baron came in and gave a toast. ' To the dwellers in Eden to-night,' he said — ' Eden against the time of the Angel and the Sword.' I do not think that any except the Cure and the woman understood, and she, maybe, only be- cause a woman feels the truth about a thing, even when THE BARON OF BEAUGARD 303 her brain does not. After they had done shouting to his toast, he said a good-night to all, and they began to leave, the Cure among the first to go, with a troubled look in his face. " As the people left, the Baron said to Garoche and Falise, ' A moment with me before you go.' The wom- an started, for she thought of one thing, and Garoche started, for he thought of another — the siege of Beau- gard and the killing of young Marmette. But they followed the Baron to his chamber. Coming in, he shut the door on them. Then he turned to Garoche. 'You will accept the roof and bed of Beaugard to- night, my man,' he said, ' and come to me here at nine to-morrow morning.' Garoche stared hard for an in- stant. ' Stay here ! ' said Garoche, ' Falise and me stay here in the manor, m'sieu' le Baron! ' ' Here, even here, Garoche ; so good-night to you,' said the Baron. Garoche turned towards the girl. ' Then come, Falise,' he said, and reached out his hand. ' Your room shall be shown you at once,' the Baron added softly, ' the lady's at her pleasure.' " Then a cry burst from Garoche, and he sprang forward, but the Baron waved him back. ' Stand ofif,' he said, ' and let the lady choose between us.' ' She is my wife,' said Garoche. ' I am your Seigneur,' said the other. ' And there is more than that,' he went on ; ' for damn me, she is too fine stuff for you, and the Church shall untie what she has tied to-day ! ' At that Falise fainted, and the Baron caught her as she fell. He laid her on a couch, keeping an eye on Garoche the while. ' Loose her gown,' he said, ' while I get brandy.' Then he turned to a cupboard, poured liquor, and came over. Garoche had her dress open at the neck and bosom, and was staring at something 304 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING on her breast. The Baron saw also, stooped with a strange sound in his throat, and picked it up. ' My glove ! ' he said, ' And on her wedding-day ! ' He pointed. ' There on the table is its mate, fished this morning from my hunting coat — a pair the Governor gave me. You see, man, you see her choice.' " At that he stooped and put some brandy to her lips. Garoche drew back sick and numb, and did noth- ing, only stared. Falise came to herself soon, and when she felt her dress open, gave a cry. Garoche could have killed her then, when he saw her shudder from him, as if afraid, over towards the Baron, who held the glove in his hand, and said : ' See, Garoche, you had better go. In the next room they will tell you where to sleep. To-morrow, as I said, you will meet me here. We shall have things to say, you and I.' Ah, that Baron, he had a queer mind, but in truth he loved the woman, as you shall see. " Garoche got up without a word, went to the door and opened it, the eyes of the Baron and the woman following him, for there was a devil in his eye. In the other room there were men waiting, and he was taken to a chamber and locked in. You can guess what that night must have been to him ! " What was it to the Baron and Falise ? " asked Me- dallion. " M'sieu', what do you think? Beaugard had never had an eye for women ; loving his hounds, fighting, quarrelling, doing wild, strong things. So, all at once, he was face to face with a woman who has the look of love in her face, who was young, and fine of body, so the Abbe said, and was walking to marriage, at her father's will and against her own, carrying the Baron's glove in her bosom. What should Beaugard do? THE BARON OF BEAUGARD 305 But no, ah, no, m'sieu', not as you think, not quite. Wild, with the bit in his teeth, yes ; but at heart — well, here was the one woman for him. He knew it all in a minute, and he would have her once and for all, and till death should come their way. And so he said to her, as he raised her, she drawing back afraid, her heart hungering for him, yet fear in her eyes, and her fingers trembling as she softly pushed him from her. You see, she did not know quite what was in his heart. She was the daughter of a tenant vassal, who had lived in the family of a grand seigneur in her youth, the friend of his child — that was all, and that was where she got her manners and her mind. " She got on her feet and said : ' M'sieu' le Baron, you will let me go — to my husband. I cannot stay here. Oh, you are great, you are noble, you would not make me sorry, make me to hate myself — and you. I have only one thing in the world of any price — you would not steal my happiness ? ' He looked at her steadily in the eyes, and said : * Will it make you happy to go to Garoche? ' She raised her hands and wrung them. ' God knows, God knows, I am his wife,' she said helplessly, ' and he loves me.' ' And God knows, God knows,' said the Baron, ' it is all a question of whether one shall feed and two go hungry, or two gather and one have the stubble. Shall not he stand in the stubble ? What has he done to merit you ? What would he do? You are for the master, not the man; for love, not the feeding on ; for the manor house and the hunt, not the cottage and the loom.' " She broke into tears, her heart thumping in her throat. ' I am for what the Church did for me this day,' she said. ' Oh, sir, I pray you, forgive me and let me go. Do not punish me, but forgive me — and let me 3o6 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING go. I was wicked to wear your glove — wicked, wicked/ ' But no,' was his reply, ' I shall not forgive you so good a deed, and you shall not go. And what the Church did for you this day she shall undo — by all the saints, she shall ! You came sailing into my heart this hour past on a strong wind, and you shall not slide out on an ebb-tide. I have you here, as your Seigneur, but I have you here as a man who will ' " He sat down by her at that point, and whispered softly in her ear: at which she gave a cry which had both gladness and pain. ' Surely, even that,' he said, catching her to his breast. ' And the Baron of Beau- gard never broke his word.' What should be her re- ply ? Does not a woman when she truly loves, always beHeve? That is the great sign. She slid to her knees and dropped her head into the hollow of his arm. ' I do not understand these things,' she said, ' but I know that the other was death, and this is life. And yet I know, too, for my heart says so, that the end — the end, will be death.' " ' Tut, tut, my flower, my wild-rose,' he said. ' Of course the end of all is death, but we will go a-Maying first, come October and let the world break over us when it must. We are for Maying now, my rose of all the world! ' It was as if he meant more than he said, as if he saw what would come in that October which all New France never forgot, when, as he said, the world broke over them. " The next morning the Baron called Garoche to him. The man was like some mad buck harried by the hoimds, and he gnashed his teeth behind his shut lips. The Baron eyed him curiously, yet kindly, too, as well he might, for when was ever man to hear such a speech as came to Garoche the morning after THE BARON OF BEAUGARD 307 his marriage. ' Garoche,' the Baron said, having waved his men away, ' as you see, the lady made her choice — and for ever. You and she have said your last farewell in this world — for the wife of the Baron of Beaugard can have nothing to say to Garoche the soldier.' At that Garoche snarled out, ' The wife of the Baron of Beaugard ! That is a lie to shame all hell.' The Baron wound the lash of a riding-whip round and round his fingers quietly, and said : ' It is no lie, my man, but the truth.' Garoche eyed him savagely, and growled : ' The Church made her my wife yesterday. And you ! — you ! — you ! — ah, you who had all — you with your money and place, which could get all easy, you take the one thing I have. You, the grand seigneur, are only a common robber ! Ah, Jesu — if you would but fight me ! ' " The Baron, very calm, said, ' First, Garoche, the lady was only your wife by a form which the Church shall set aside — it could never have been a true mar- riage. Second, it is no stealing to take from you what you did not have. I took what was mine — remember the glove ! For the rest — to fight you ? No, my churl, you know that's impossible. You may shoot me from behind a tree or a rock, but swording with you? — Come, come, a pretty gossip for the Court! Then, why wish a fight? Where would you be, as you stood before me — you! The Baron stretched himself up, and smiled down at Garoche. ' You have your life, man ; take it and go — to the farthest corner of New France, and show not your face here again. If I find you ever again in Beaugard, I will have you whipped from parish to parish. Here is money for you — good gold coins. Take them, and go.' " Garoche got still and cold as stone. He said in a 3o8 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING low, harsh voice, ' M'sieu' le Baron, you are a common thief, a wolf, a snake. Such men as you come lower than Judas. As God has an eye to see, you shall pay all one day. I do not fear you nor your men nor your gallows. You are a jackal, and the woman has a filthy heart — a ditch of sham.e.' " The Baron drew up his arm like lightning, and the lash of his whip came singing across Garoche's pale face. Where it passed, a red welt rose, but the man never stirred. The arm came up again, but a voice behind the Baron said, ' Ah, no, no, not again ! ' There stood Falise. Both men looked at her. ' I have heard Garoche,' she said. ' He does not judge me right. My heart is no filthy ditch of shame. But it was break- ing when I came from the altar with him yesterday. Yet I would have been a true wife to him after all. A ditch of shame — ah, Garoche — Garoche ! And you said you loved me, and that nothing could change you ! " " The Baron said to her : ' Why have you come, Falise? I forbade you.' ' Oh, my lord,' she answered, ' I feared — for you both. When men go mad because of women a devil enters into them.' The Baron, taking her by the hand, said, ' Permit me,' and he led her to the door for her to pass out. She looked back sadly at Garoche, standing for a minute very still. Then Garoche said, ' I command you, come with me ; you are my wife.' She did not reply, but shook her head at him. Then he spoke out high and fierce : ' May no child be born to you. May a curse fall on you. May your field be barren, and your horses and cattle die. May you never see nor hear good things. ]\Iay the waters leave their courses to drown you, and the hills their bases to bury you, and no hand lay you in decent graves ! ' THE BARON OF BEAUGARD 309 " The woman put her hands to her ears and gave a little cry, and the Baron pushed her gently on, and closed the door after her. Then he turned on Garoche. ' Have you said all you wish ? ' he asked. ' For, if not, say on, and then go ; and go so far you cannot see the sky that covers Beaugard. We are even now — we can cry quits. But that I have a little injured you, you should be done for instantly. But hear me : if I ever see you again, my gallows shall end you straight. Your tongue has been gross before the mistress of this manor ; I will have it torn out if it so much as syllables her name to me or to the world again. She is dead to you. Go, and go for ever ! ' " He put a bag of money on the table, but Garoche turned away from it, and without a word left the room, and the house, and the parish, and said nothing to any man of the evil that had come to him. " But what talk was there, and what dreadful things were said at first ! — that Garoche had sold his wife to the Baron ; that he had been killed and his wife taken ; that the Baron kept him a prisoner in a cellar under the Manor House. And all the time there was Falise with the Baron — very quiet and sweet and fine to see, and going to Chapel every day, and to Mass on Sundays — which no one could understand, any more than they could see why she should be called the Baroness of Beaugard ; for had they all not seen her married to Garoche ? And there were many people who thought her vile. Yet truly, at heart, she was not so — not at all. Then it was said that there was to be a new mar- riage ; that the Church would let it be so, doing and un- doing, and doing again. But the weeks and the months went by, and it was never done. For, powerful as the Baron was, Bigot, the Intendant, was powerful also, 3IO THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING and fought the thing with all his might. The Baron went to Quebec to see the Bishop and the Governor, and though promises were made, nothing was done. It must go to the King and then to the Pope, and from the Pope to the King again, and so on. And the months and the years went by as they waited, and with them came no child to the Manor House of Beangard. That was the only sad thing — that and the waiting, so far as man could see. For never were man and woman truer to each other than these, and never was a lady of the manor kinder to the poor, or a lord freer of hand to his vassals. Pie would bluster sometimes, and string a peasant up by the heels, but his gallows was never used, and, what was much in the minds of the people, the Cure did not refuse the woman the Sacrament. " At last the Baron, fierce because he knew that Bigot was the cause of the great delay, so that he might not call Falise his wife, seized a transport on the river, which had been sent to brutally levy upon a poor gentleman, and when Bigot's men resisted, shot them down. Then Bigot sent against Beaugard a company of artillery and some soldiers of the line. The guns were placed on a hill looking down on the Manor House across the little river. In the evening the can- nons arrived, and in the morning the fight was to begin. The guns were loaded and everything was ready. At the Manor all was making ready also, and the Baron had no fear. " But Falise's heart was heavy, she knew not why. * Eugene,' she said, ' if anything should happen ! * * Nonsense, my Falise,' he answered ; ' what should happen ? ' ' If — if you were taken — were killed ! ' she said. ' Nonsense, my rose,' he said again, ' I shall not be killed. But if I were, you should be at peace here.' THE BARON OF BEAUGARD 311 * Ah, no, no ! ' said she. ' Never. Life to me is only- possible with you. I have had nothing but you — none of those things which give peace to other women — none. But I have been happy — oh, yes, very happy. And, God forgive me ! Eugene, I cannot regret, and I never have. But it has been always and always my prayer that, when you die, I may die with you — at the same moment. For I cannot live without you, and, besides, I would like to go to the good God with you to speak for us both ; for oh, I loved you, I loved you, and I love you still, my husband, my adored ! ' " He stooped — he was so big, and she but of middle height — kissed her, and said, ' S?e, my Falise, I am of the same mind. We have been happy in life, and we could well be happy in death together.' So they sat long, long into the night and talked to each other — of the days they had passed together, of cheerful things, she trying to comfort herself, and he trying to bring smiles to her lips. At last they said good-night, and he lay down in his clothes ; and after a few mo- ments she was sleeping like a child. But he could not sleep, for he lay thinking of her and of her life — how she had come from humble things and fitted in with the highest. At last, at break of day, he arose and went outside. He looked up at the hill where Bigot's two guns were. jSIen were already stirring there. One man was standing beside the gun, and another not far behind. Of course the Baron could not know that the man behind the gunner said : ' Yes, you may open the dance with an early salute ' ; and he smiled up boldly at the hill and went into the house, and stole to the bed of his wife to kiss her before he began the day's fighting. He looked at her a moment, 312 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING standing over her, and then stooped and softly put his Hps to hers. " At that moment the gunner up on the hill used the match, and an awful thing happened. With the loud roar the whole hillside of rock and gravel and sand split down, not ten feet in front of the gun, moved with horrible swiftness upon the river, filled its bed, turned it from its course, and, sweeping on, swal- lowed the Manor House of Beaugard. There had been a crack in the hill, the water of the river had sapped its foundations, and it needed only this shock to send it down. " And so, as the woman wished : the same hour for herself and the man ! And when at last their prison was opened by the hands of Bigot's men, they were found cheek by cheek, bound in the sacred marriage of death. " But another had gone the same road, for, at the awful moment, beside the bursted gun, the dying gun- ner, Garoche, lifted up his head, saw the loose travel- ling hill, and said with his last breath : ' The waters drown them, and the hills bury them, and ' He had his way with them, and after that perhaps the great God had His way with him — ^perhaps." PARABLES OF A PROVINCE THE GOLDEN PIPES THEY hung all bronzed and shining, on the side of Margath Mountain — the tall and perfect pipes of the organ which was played by some son of God when the world was young. At least Hepnon the cripple said this was so, when he was but a child, and when he got older he said that even now a golden music came from the pipes at sunrise and sunset. And no one laughed at Hepnon, for you could not look into the dark warm eyes, dilating with his fancies, nor see the transparent temper of his face, the look of the dreamer over all, without believing him, and reproving your own judgment. You felt that he had travelled ways you could never travel, that he had had dreams beyond you, that his fanciful spirit had had adventures you would give years of your dull life to know. And yet he was not made only as women are made, fragile and trembling in his nerves. For he was strong of arm, and there was no place in the hills to be climbed by venturesome man, which he could not climb with crutch and shrivelled leg. And he was a gallant horse- man, riding with his knees and one foot in stirrup, his crutch slung behind him. It may be that was why rough men listened to his fancies about the Golden Pipes. Indeed they would go out at sunrise and look across to where the pipes hung, taking the rosy glory of the morning, and steal away alone at sunset, and in some lonely spot lean out towards the framing instru- 3i6 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING ment to hear if any music rose from them. The legend tliat one of the Mighty Men of the Kimash Hills came here to play, with invisible hands, the music of the first years of the world, became a truth, though a truth that none could prove. And by-and-by, no man ever travelled the valley without taking off his hat as he passed the Golden Pipes — so had a cripple with liis whimsies worked upon the land. Then too perhaps his music had to do with it. As a child he had only a poor concertina, but by it he drew the traveller and the mountaineer and the worker in the valley to him like a magnet. Some touch of the mysterious, some sweet fantastical melody in all he played, charmed them, even when he gave them old familiar airs. From the concertina he passed to the violin, and his skill and mastery over his followers grew ; and then there came a notable day when up over a thousand miles of country a melodeon was brought him. Then a wanderer, a minstrel outcast from a far country, taking refuge in those hills, taught him, and there was one long year of loving labour together, and merry whisperings between the two, and secret drawings, and worship of the Golden Pipes; and then the minstrel died, and left Hepnon alone. And now they said that Hepnon tried to coax out of the old melodeon the music of the Golden Pipes. But a look of sorrow grew upon his face, and stayed for many months. Then there came a change, and he went into the woods, and began working there in the perfect summer weather, and the tale went abroad that he was building an organ, so that he might play for all who came, the music he heard on the Golden Pipes — for they had ravished his ear since childhood, and now THE GOLDEN PIPES 317 he must know the wonderful melodies all by heart, they said. With consummate patience Hepnon dried the wood and fashioned it into long tuneful tubes, beating out soft metal got from the forge in the valley to case the lips of them, tanning the leather for the bellows, stretching it, and exposing all his work to the sun of early morning, which gave every fibre and valve a rich sweetness, like a sound fruit of autumn. People also ^aid that he set all the pieces out at sunrise and sunset that the tone of the Golden Pipes might pass into them, so that when the organ was built, each part should be saturated with such melody as it had drawn in, according to its temper and its fibre. So the building of the organ went on, and a year passed, and then another, and it was summer again, and soon Hepnon began to build also — while yet it was sweet weather — a home for his organ, a tall nest of cedar added to his father's house. And in it every piece of wood, and every board had been made ready by his own hands, and set in the sun and dried slowly to a healthy soundness ; and he used no nails of metal, but wooden pins of the ironwood or hickory tree, and it was all polished, and there was no paint or varnish anywhere, and when you spoke in this nest your voice sounded pure and strong. At last the time came when, piece by piece, the organ was set up in its home ; and as the days and weeks went by, and autumn drew to winter, and the music of the Golden Pipes stole down the flumes of snow to their ardent lover, and spring came with its sap, and small purple blossoms, and yellow apples of mandrake, and summer stole on luxurious and dry, the face of Hepnon became thinner and thinner, a 3i8 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING strange deep light shone in his eyes, and all his person seemed to exhale a kind of glow. He ceased to ride, to climb, to lift weights with his strong arms as he had — poor cripple — been once so proud to do. A delicacy came upon him, and more and more he with- drew himself to his organ, and to those lofty and lonely places where he could see — and hear — the Golden Pipes boom softly over the valley. At last it all was done, even to the fine-carved stool of cedar whereon he should sit when he played his organ. Never yet had he done more than sound each note as he made it, trying it, softening it by tender devices with the wood; but now the hour was come when he should gather down the soul of the Golden Pipes to his fingers, and give to the ears of the world the song of the morning stars, the music of Jubal and his comrades, the affluent melody to which the sons of men, in the first days, paced the world in time with the thoughts of God. For days he lived alone in the cedar-house, — and who may know what he was doing : dreaming, listening, or praying? Then the word went through the valley and the hills, that one evening he would play for all who came ; — and that day was " Toussaint " or the Feast of All Souls. So they came both old and young, and they did not enter the house, but waited outside, upon the mossy rocks, or sat among the trees, and watched the heavy sun roll down and the Golden Pipes flame in the light of evening. Far beneath in the valley the water ran lightly on, but there came no sound from it, none from anywhere ; only a general pervasive murmur quieting to the heart. Now they heard a note come from the organ — a soft low sound that seemed to rise out of the good earth THE GOLDEN PIPES 319 and mingle with the vibrant air, the song of birds, the whisper of trees, and the murmuring water. Then came another, and another note, then chords, and chords upon these, and by-and-by rolHng tides of melody, until, as it seemed to the listeners, the air ached with the incomparable song; and men and women wept, and children hid their heads in the laps of their mothers, and young men and maidens dreamed dreams never to be forgotten. For one short hour the music went on, then twilight came. Presently the sounds grew fainter, and exquisitely painful, and now a low sob seemed to pass through all the heart of the organ, and then silence fell, and in the sacred pause, Hepnon came out among them all, pale and desolate. He looked at them a minute most sadly, and then lifting up his arms towards the Golden Pipes, now hidden in the dusk, he cried low and brokenly : *' Oh my God, give me back my dream ! " Then his crutch seemed to give way beneath him, and he sank upon the ground, faint and gasping. They raised him up, and women and men whispered in his ear: " Ah, the beautiful, beautiful music, Hepnon ! " But he only said : " Oh my God, Oh my God, give me back my dream ! " When he had said it thrice, he turned his face to where his organ was in the cedar-house, and then his eyes closed, and he fell asleep. And they could not wake him. But at sunrise the next morning a shiver passed through him, and then a cold quiet stole over him, and Hepnon and the music of the Golden Pipes departed from the Voshti Hills, and came again no more. THE GUARDIAN OF THE FIRE '^'' Height unto height answereth knoivledge." HIS was the first watch, the farthest fire, for Shak- non Hill towered above the great gulf, and looked back also over thirty leagues of country towards the great city. There came a time again when all the land was threatened. From sovereign lands far ofT, two fleets were sailing hard to reach the wide basin before the walled city, the one to save, the other to de- stroy. If Tinoir, the Guardian of the Fire, should sight the destroying fleet, he must light two fires on Shaknon Hill, and then, at the edge of the wide basin, in a treacherous channel, the people would send out fire- rafts to burn the ships of the foe. Five times in the past had Tinoir been the Guardian of the Fire, and five times had the people praised him ; but praise and his scanty wage were all he got. The hut in which he lived with his wife on another hill, ten miles from Shaknon, had but two rooms, and their little farm and the garden gave them only enough' to live, no more. Elsewhere there was good land in abundance, but it had been said years ago to Tinoir by the great men, that he should live not far from Shak- non, so that in times of peril he might guard the fire, and be the sentinel for all the people. Perhaps Tinoir was too dull to see that he was giving all and getting naught ; that while he waited and watched he was always poor, and also was getting old. There was no THE GUARDIAN OF THE FIRE 321 house or home within fifty miles of them, and only now and then some wandering Indians lifted the latch, and drew in beside their hearth, or a good priest with a soul of love for others, came and said Mass in the room where a little Calvary had been put up. Two children had come and gone, and Tinoir and Dalice had dug their graves and put them in a warm nest of maple leaves, and afterwards lived upon the memories of them. But after these two, children came no more ; and Tinoir and Dalice grew close and closer to each other, coming to look alike in face, as they had long been alike in mind and feeling. None ever lived nearer to nature than they, and wild things grew to be their friends ; so that you might see Dalice at her door, toss- ing crumbs with one hand to birds, and with the other bits of meat to foxes, martins, and wild dogs, that came and went unharmed by them. Tinoir shot no wild animals for profit — only for food and for skins and furs to wear. Because of this he was laughed at by all who knew, save the priest of St. Sulpice, who, on Easter Day, when the little man came yearly to Mass over two hundred miles of country, praised him to his people and made much of him, though Tinoir was not vain enough to see it. When word came down the river, and up over the hills to Tinoir that war was come and that he must go to watch for the hostile fleet and for the friendly fleet as well, he made no murmur, though it was the time of harvest, and Dalice had had a sickness from which she was not yet recovered. " Go, my Tinoir," said Dalice, with a little smile, " and I will reap the grain. If your eyes are sharp you shall see my bright sickle moving in the sun." " There is the churning of the milk too, Dalice," 322 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING answered Tinoir ; " you are not strong, and sometimes the butter comes slow; and there's the milking also." " Strength is coming to me fast, Tinoir," she said, and drew herself up ; but her dress lay almost flat on her bosom. Tinoir took her arm and felt it above the elbow. " It is like the muscle of a little child," he said. " But I will drink those bottles of red wine rhe Governor sent the last time you watched the fire on Shaknon," she said, brightening up, and trying to cheer him. He nodded, for he saw what she was trying to do, and said : " And a little of the gentian and orange root three times a day — eh, Dalice ? " After arranging for certain signs, by little fires, which they were to light upon the hills and so speak with each other, they said, " Good day, Dalice," and " Good day, Tinoir," drank a glass of the red wine, and added, " Thank the good God ; " then Tinoir wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and went away, leaving Dalice with a broken glass at her feet, and a look in her eyes which it is well that Tinoir did not see. But as he went he was thinking how, the night before, Dalice had lain with her arm round his neck hour after hour as she slept, as she did before they ever had a child ; and that even in her sleep, she kissed him as she used to kiss him before he brought her away from the parish of Ste. Genevieve to be his wife. And the more he thought about it the happier he became, and more than once he stopped and shook his head in pleased retrospection. And Dalice thought of it too as she hung over the churn, her face drawn and tired and shining with sweat; and she shook her head, and tears came into her eyes, for she saw further into things THE GUARDIAN OF THE FIRE 323 than Tinoir. And once as she passed his coat on the wall, she rubbed it softly with her hand, as she might his curly head when he lay beside her. From Shaknon Tinoir watched, but of course, he could never see her bright sickle shining, and he could not know whether her dress still hung loose upon her breast, or whether the flesh of her arms was still like a child's. If all was well with Dalice a little fire should be lighted at the house door just at the going down of the sun, and it should be at once put out. If she were ill, a fire should be lit and then put out two hours after sundown. If she should be ill beyond any help, this fire should burn on till it went out. Day after day Tinoir, as he watched for the coming fieet, saw the fire lit at sundown, and then put out. But one night the fire did not come till two hours after sundown, and it was put out at once. He fretted much, and he prayed that Dalice might be better, and he kept to his post, looking for the fleet of the foe. Evening after evening was this other fire lighted and then put out at once, and a great longing came to him to leave this guarding of the fire, and go to her — " For half a day," he said — " just for half a day." But in that half day the fleet might pass, and then it would be said that Tinoir had betrayed his country. At last sleep left him and he fought a demon night and day, and always he remembered Dalice's arm about his neck, and her kisses that last night they were together. Twice he started away from his post to go to her, but before he had gone a hundred paces he came back. At last one afternoon he saw ships, not far off, rounding the great cape in the gulf, and after a time, at sunset, he knew by their shape it was the fleet of the foe, and so he lighted his great fires, and they were 324 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING answered leagues away towards the city by another beacon. Two hours after sunset of this day the fire in front of Tinoir's home was Hghted, and was not put out, and Tinoir sat and watched it till it died away. So he lay in the light of his own great war-fire till morning, for he could not travel at night, and then, his duty over, he went back to his home. He found Dalice lying beside the ashes of her fire, past hearing all he said in her ear, unheeding the kiss he set upon her lips. Two nights afterwards, coming back from laying her beside her children, he saw a great light in the sky towards the city, as of a huge fire. When the courier came to him bearing the Governor's message and the praise of the people, and told of the enemy's fleet destroyed by the fire-rafts, he stared at the man, then turned his head to a place where a pine cross showed against the green grass, and said : " Dalice — my wife — is dead." " You have saved your country, Tinoir," answered the courier kindly. " What is that to me ! " he said, and fondled the rosary Dalice used to carry when she lived ; and he would speak to the man no more. BY THAT PLACE CALLED PERAD- VENTURE BY that place called Peradventure in the Voshti Hills dwelt Golgothar the strong man, who, it was said, could break an iron pot with a blow, or pull a tall sapling from the ground. " If I had a hundred men so strong," said Golgothar, " I would go and conquer Nooni the city of our foes." Because he had not the hundred men he did not go, and Nooni still sent insults to the country of Golgo- thar, and none could travel safe between the capitals. And Golgothar was sorry. " If I had a hundred men so strong," said Golgothar, " I would build a dyke to keep the floods back from the people crowded on the lowlands." Because he had not the hundred men, now and again the floods came down, and swept the poor folk out to sea, or laid low their habitations. And Golgothar pitied them. " If I had a hundred men so strong," said Golgo- thar, " I would clear the wild boar from the forests, that the children should not fear to play among the trees." Because he had not the hundred men the graves of children multiplied, and countless mothers sat by empty beds and mourned. And Golgothar put his head between his knees in trouble for them. " If I had a hundred men so strong," said Golgo- thar, " I would with great stones mend the broken 326 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING pier, and the bridge between the islands should not fall." Because he had not the hundred men, at last the bridge gave way, and a legion of the King's army were carried to the whirlpool, where they fought in vain. And Golgothar made a feast of remembrance to them, and tears dripped on his beard when he said, " Hail and Farewell ! " " If I had a hundred men so strong," said Golgo- thar, " I would go against the walls of chains our rebels built, and break them one by one." Because he had not the hundred men, the chain walls blocked the only pass between the hills, and so cut in two the kingdom : and they who pined for corn went wanting, and they who wished for fish went hungry. And Golgothar, brooding, said his heart bled for his country. " If I had a hundred men so strong," said Golgo- thar, " I would go among the thousand brigands of Mirnan, and bring again the beloved daughter of our city." Because he had not the hundred men the beloved lady languished in her prison, for the brigands asked as ransom the city of Talgone which they hated. And Golgothar carried in his breast a stone image she had given him, and for very grief let no man speak her name before him. " If I had a hundred men so strong — " said Golgo- thar, one day, standing on a great point of land and looking down the valley. As he said it, he heard a laugh, and looking down he saw Sapphire, or Laugh of the Hills, as she was called. A long staff of ironwood was in her hands, with which she jumped the dykes and streams and PLACE CALLED PERADVENTURE 327 rocky fissures ; in her breast were yellow roses, and there was a tuft of pretty feathers in her hair. She reached up and touched him on the breast with her staflf, then she laughed again, and sang a snatch of song in mockery : " I am a king, I have no crown, I have no throne to sit in — " " Pull me up, boy," she said. She wound a leg about the staff, and, taking hold, he drew her up as if she had been a feather. " If I had a hundred mouths I would kiss you for that," she said, still mocking, " but having only one I'll give it to the cat, and weep for Golgothar." " Silly jade," he said, and turned towards his tent. As they passed a slippery and dangerous place, where was one strong solitary tree, she suddenly threw a noose over him, drew it fast and sprang far out over the precipice into the air. Even as she did so, he jumped behind the tree, and clasped it, else on the slippery place he would have gone over with her. The rope came taut, and presently he drew her up again to safety, and while she laughed at him and mocked him, he held her tight under his arm, and carried her to his lodge, where he let her go. " Why did you do it, devil's madcap? " he said. " Why didn't you wait for the hundred men so strong? " she laughed. " Why did you jump behind the tree? " * If I had a hundred men, higho, I would buy my corn for a penny a gill. If I had a hundred men or so, I would dig a grave for the maid of the hill, higho ! ' " 328 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING He did not answer her, but stirred the soup in the pot and tasted it, and hung a great piece of meat over the fire. Then he sat down, and only once did he show anger as she mocked him, and that was when she thrust her hand into his breast, took out the Httle stone image, and said : " If a little stone god had a hundred hearts, Would a little stone goddess trust in one ?" Then she made as if she would throw it into the fire, but he caught her hand and crushed it, so that she cried out for pain and anger, and said : " Brute of iron, go break the posts in the brigands' prison-house, but leave a poor girl's wrist alone. If I had a hundred men — " she added, mocking wildly again, and then, springing at him, put her two thumbs at the corners of his eyes, and cried : " Stir a hand, and out they will come — your eyes, for my bones ! " He did not stir till her fury was gone. Then he made her sit down and eat with him, and afterwards she said softly to him, and without a laugh : " Why should the people say, * Golgothar is our shame, for he has great strength, and yet he does nothing but throw great stones for sport into the sea' ? " He had the simple mind of a child, and he listened to her patiently, and at last got up and began preparing for a journey, cleaning all his weapons, and gathering them together. She understood him, and she said, with a little laugh like music : " One strong man is better than a hundred — a little key will open a great door easier than a hundred hammers. What is the strength of a hundred bullocks without this ? " she added, tapping him on the forehead. PLACE CALLED PERADVENTURE 329 Then they sat down and talked together quietly for a long time, and at sunset she saw him start away upon great errands. Before two years had gone, Nooni, the city of their foes, was taken, the chain wall of the rebels opened to the fish and corn of the poor, the children wandered in the forest without fear of wild boars, the dyke was built to save the people in the lowlands, and Golgothar carried to the castle the King had given him the daughter of the city, freed from Mirnan. " If Golgothar had a hundred wives — " said a voice to the strong man as he entered the castle gates. Looking up he saw Sapphire. He stretched out his hand to her in joy and friendship. " — I would not be one of them," she added with a mocking laugh, as she dropped from the wall, leaped the moat by the help of her staff, and danced away laughing. There are those who say, however, that tears fell down her cheeks as she laughed. THE SINGING OF THE BEES " A /r OTHER, didst thou not say thy prayers last iVl night?" " Twice, my child." " Once before the little shrine, and once beside my bed — is it not so ? " " It is so, my Fanchon. What hast thou in thy mind?" " Thou didst pray that the storm die in the hills, and the flood cease, and that my father come before it was again the hour of prayer. It is now the hour. Canst thou not hear the storm and the wash of the flood ? And my father does not come ! " " My Fanchon, God is good." " When thou wast asleep, I rose from my bed, and in the dark I kissed the feet of — Him — on the little Calvary, and I did not speak, but in my heart I called." " What didst thou call, my child ? " " I called to my father : ' Come back ! come back ! ' " " Thou shouldst have called to God, my Fanchon." " I loved my father, and I called to him." " Thou shouldst love God." " I knew my father first. If God loved thee, He would answer thy prayer. Dost thou not hear the cracking of the cedar trees and the cry of the wolves — they are afraid. All day and all night the rain and wind come down, and the birds and wild fowl have no peace. I kissed — His feet, and my throat was full of THE SINGING OF THE BEES 331 tears, but I called in my heart. Yet the storm and the dark stay, and my father does not come." " Let us be patient, my Fanchon." " He went to guide the priest across the hills. Why does not God guide him back? " " My Fanchon, let us be patient." " The priest was young, and my father has grey hair." " Wilt thou not be patient, my child ! " " He filled the knapsack of the priest with food better than his own, and — thou didst not see it — put money in his hand." " My own, the storm may pass." '* He told the priest to think upon our home as a little nest God set up here for such as he." " There are places of shelter in the hills for thy father, my Fanchon." " And when the priest prayed, ' That Thou mayst bring us safely to this place where we would go,' my father said so softly, 'We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord f "My Fanchon, thy father hath gone this trail many times." " The prayer was for the out-trail, not the in-trail, my mother." " Nay, I do not understand thee." " A swarm of bees came singing through the room last night, my mother. It was dark and I could not see, but there was a sweet smell, and I heard the voices." " My child, thou art tired with watching, and thy mind is full of fancies. Thou must sleep." " I am tired of watching. Through the singing of the bees as they passed over my bed, I heard my father's 332 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING voice. I could not hear the words, they seemed so far away, Hke the voices of the bees ; and I did not cry out, for the tears were in my throat. After a moment the room was so still that it made my heart ache." " Oh, my Fanchon, my child, thou dost break my heart ! Dost thou not know the holy words ? — '"And their souls do pass like singing bees, where no man may follow. These are they whom God gathereth out of the whirlwind and the desert, and bringeth home in a goodly swarm. Night drew close to the earth, and as suddenly as a sluice-gate drops and holds back a flood, the storm ceased. Along the crest of the hills there slowly grew a line of light, and then the serene moon came up and on, persistent to give the earth love where it had had punishment. Divers flocks of clouds, camp-followers of the storm, could not abash her. But once she drew shrinking back behind a slow troop of them, for down at the bottom of a gorge lay a mountaineer, face up- ward and unmoving, as he had lain since a rock loos- ened beneath him, and the depths swallowed him. If he had had ears to hear, he would have answered the soft, bitter cries which rose from a hut on the Voshti Hills above him : " Michel, Michel, art thou gone? " " Come back, oh, my father, come back ! " But perhaps it did avail that there were lighted candles before a little shrine, and that a mother, in her darkness, kissed the feet of One on a Calvary. THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY, IT lay between the mountains and the sea, and a river ran down past it, carrying its good and ill news to a pacific shore, and out upon soft winds, travel- ling lazily to the scarlet east. All white and a tem- pered red, it nestled in a valley with other valleys on lower steppes, which seemed as if built by the gods, that they might travel easily from the white-topped mountains, jMargath, Shaknon, and the rest, to wash their feet in the sea. In the summer a hot but gracious mistiness softened the green of the valleys, the varying colours of the hills, the blue of the river, the sharp out- lines of the clifTs. Along the high shelf of the moun- tain, mule-trains travelled like a procession seen in dreams — slow, hazy, graven, yet moving, a part of the ancient hills themselves ; upon the river great rafts, manned with scarlet-vested crews, swerved and swam, guided by the gigantic oars which needed five men to lift and sway — argonauts they from the sweet-smelling forests to the salt-smelling main. In winter the little city lay still under a coverlet of pure white, with the mists from the river and the great falls above frozen upon the trees, clothing them as graciously as with white samite, so that far as eye could see there was a heavenly purity upon all, covering every mean and distorted thing. There were days when no wind stirred anywhere, and the gorgeous sun made the little city and all the land roundabout a pretty silver king- 334 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING dom, where Oberon and his courtiers might have danced and been glad. Often, too, you could hear a distant woodcutter's axe make a pleasant song in the air, and the wood- cutter himself, as the hickory and steel swung in a shining half-circle to the bole of balsam, was clad in the bright livery of frost, his breath issuing in gray smoke like life itself, mystic and peculiar, man, axe, tree, and breath, one common being. And when, by- and-by, the woodcutter added a song of his own to the song his axe made, the illusion was not lost, but rather heightened ; for it, too, was part of the unassuming pride of nature, childlike in its simplicity, primeval in its suggestion and expression. The song had a soft monotony, swinging backwards and forwards to the waving axe like the pendulum of a clock. It began with a low humming, as one could think man made before he heard the Voice which taught him how to speak. And then came the words : " None shall stand in the way of the lord, The lord of the Earth — of the rivers and trees, Of the cattle and fields and vines ! Hew! Here shall I build me my cedar home, A city with gates, a road to the sea — For I am the lord of the Earth ! Hew ! Hew ! Hew and hew, and the sap of the tree Shall be yours, and your bones shall be strong, Shall be yours, and your heart shall rejoice, Shall be yours, and the city be yours, And the key of its gates be the key Of the home where your little ones dwell. Hew, and be strong ! Hew and rejoice ! For man is the lord of the Earth, And God is the Lord over all ! " THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 335 And so long as the little city stands will this same woodcutter's name and history stand also. He had camped where it stood now, when nothing was there save the wild duck in the reeds, the antelopes upon the hills, and all manner of furred and feathered things ; and it all was his. He had seen the yellow flashes of gold in the stream called Pipi, and he had not gathered it, for his lite was simple, and he was young enough to cherish in his heart the love of the open world, beyond the desire of cities and the stir of the market- place. In those days there was not a line in his face, not an angle in his body — all smoothly rounded and lithe and alert, like him that was called " the young lion of Dedan." Day by day he drank in the wisdom of the hills and the valleys, and he wrote upon the dried barks of trees the thoughts that came as he lay upon the bearskin in his tent, or cooled his hands and feet, of a hot summer day, in the moist, sandy earth, and watched the master of the deer lead his cohorts down the passes of the hills. But by-and-by mule-trains began to crawl along the ledges of Margath IMountain, and over Shaknon came adventurers, and after them, wandering men seeking a new home, women and children coming also. But when these came he had passed the spring-time of his years, and had grown fixed in the love of the valley, where his sole visitors had been passing tribes of Indians, who knew his moods and trespassed not at all on his domain. The adventurers hungered for the gold in the rivers, and they made it one long washing- trough, where the disease that afiflicted them passed on from man to man like poison down a sewer. Then the little city grew, and with the search for gold came other seekings and findings and toilings, and men who 336 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING came as one stops at an inn to feed, stayed to make their home, and women made the valley cheerful, and children were born, and the pride of the place was as great as that of some village of the crimson East, where every man has ancestors to Mahomet and beyond. And he, Felion, who had been lord and master of the valley, worked with them, but did not seek for riches, and more often drew away into the hills to find some newer place unspoiled by man. But again and again he returned, for no fire is like the old fire, and no trail like the old trail. And at last it seemed as if he had driven his tent-peg in the Pipi Valley forever ; for from among the women who came he chose one comely and wise and kind, and for five years the world grew older, and Felion did not know it. When he danced his little daughter on his knee, he felt that he had found a new world. But a day came when trouble fell upon the little city, for of a sudden the reef of gold was lost, and the great crushing mills stood idle, and the sound of the hammers was stayed. And they came to Felion, because in his youth he had been of the best of the schoolmen ; and he got up from his misery — only the day before his wife had taken a great and lonely journey to that Country which welcomes, but never yields again — and leaving his little child behind, he went down to the mines. And in three days they found the reef once more ; for it had curved like the hook of a sickle, and the first arc of the yellow circle had dropped down into the bowels of the earth. And so he saved the little city from disaster, and the people blessed him at the moment ; and the years went on. THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 337 Then there came a time when the Httle city was threatened with a woeful flood, because of a breaking flume ; but by a simple and wise device Felion stayed the danger. And again the people blessed him ; and the years went on. By-and-by an awful peril came, for two score chil- dren had set a great raft loose upon the river, and they drifted down towards the rapids in the sight of the people ; and mothers and helpless fathers wrung their hands, for on the swift tide no boat could reach them, and none could intercept the raft. But Felion, seeing, ran out upon the girders of a bridge that v/as being builded, and there, before them all, as the raft passed under, he let himself fall, breaking his leg as he dropped among the timbers of the fore-part of the raft ; for the children were all gathered at the back, where the great oars lay motionless, one dragging in the water behind. Felion drew himself over to the huge oar, and with the strength of five men, while the people watched and prayed, he kept the raft straight for the great slide, else it had gone over the dam and been lost, and all that were thereon. A mile below, the raft was brought to shore, and again the people said that Felion had saved the little city from disaster. And they blessed him for the moment ; and the years went on. Felion's daughter grew towards womanhood, and her beauty was great, and she was welcome everywhere in the valley, the people speaking well of her for her own sake. But at last a time came when of the men of the valley one called, and Felion's daughter came quickly to him, and with tears for her father and smiles for her husband, she left the valley and journeyed into 338 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING the east, having sworn to love and cherish him v^^hile she lived. And her father, left solitary, mourned for her, and drew away into a hill above the valley in a cedar house that he built ; and having little else to love, loved the earth, and sky, and animals, and the children from the little city when they came his way. But his heart was sore ; for by-and-by no letters came from his daughter, and the little city, having prospered, con- cerned itself no more with him. When he came into its streets there were those who laughed, for he was very tall and rude, and his grey hair hung loose on his shoulders, and his dress was still a hunter's. They had not long remembered the time when a grievous disease, like a plague, fell upon the place, and people died by scores, as sheep fall in a murrain. And again they had turned to him, and he, because he knew of a miraculous medicine got from Indian sachems, whose people had suffered of this sickness, came into the little city, and by his medicines and fearless love and kindness he stayed the plague. And thus once more he saved the little city from disaster, and they blessed him for the moment ; and the years went on. In time they ceased to think of Felion at all, and he was left alone ; even the children came no more to visit him, and he had pleasure only in hunting and shoot- ing and in felling trees, with which he built a high stockade and a fine cedar house within it. And all the work of this he did with his own hands, even to the polishing of the floors and the carved work of the large fireplaces. Yet he never lived in the house, nor in any room of it, and the stockade gate was always shut ; and when any people passed that way they stared and shrugged their shoulders, and thought Felion mad or THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 339 a fool. But he was wise in his own way, which was not the way of those who had reason to bless him for ever, and who forgot him, though he had served them through so many years. Against the Httle city he had an exceeding bitterness ; and this grew, and had it not been that his heart was kept young by the love of the earth, and the beasts about him in the hills, he "must needs have cursed the place and died. But the sight of a bird in the nest with her young, and the smell of a lair, and the light of the dawn that came out of the east, and the winds that came up from the sea, and the hope that would not die kept him from being of those who love not life for life's sake, be it in ease or in sor- row. He was of those who find all worth the doing, even all worth the sufifering; and so, though he frowned and his lips drew tight with anger when he looked down at the little city, he felt that elsewhere in the world there was that which made it worth the saving. If his daughter had been with him he would have laughed at that which his own hands had founded, protected, and saved. But no word came from her, and laughter was never on his lips — only an occasional smile when, perhaps, he saw two sparrows fighting, or watched the fish chase each other in the river, or a toad, too lazy to jump, walk stupidly like a convict, dragging his long, green legs behind him. And when he looked up towards Shaknon and Margath, a light came in his eyes, for they were wise and quiet, and watched the world, and something of their grandeur drew about him like a cloak. As age cut deep lines in his face and gave angles to his figure, a strange, settled dignity grew upon him, whether he swung his axe by the balsams or dressed the skins of the animals he had! 340 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING killed, piling up the pelts in a long shed in the stockade, a goodly heritage for his daughter, if she ever came back. Every day at sunrise he walked to the door of his house and looked eastward steadily, and sometimes there broke from his lips the words, " My daughter — Malise ! " Again, he would sit and brood with his chin in his hand, and smile, as though remembering pleasant things. One day at last, in the full tide of summer, a man, haggard and troubled, came to Felion's house, and knocked, and, getting no reply, waited, and whenever he looked down at the little city he wrung his hands, and more than once he put them up to his face and shuddered, and again looked for Felion. Just when the dusk was rolling down, Felion came back, and, see- ing the man, would have passed him without a word, but that the man stopped with an eager, sorrowful gesture and said : " The plague has come upon us again, and the people, remembering how you healed them long ago, beg you to come." At that Felion leaned his fishing-rod against the door, and answered : " What people ? " The other then replied : " The people of the little city below, Felion." " I do not know your name," was the reply ; " I know naught of you or of your city." " Are you mad ? " cried the man. " Do you forget the little city down there ? Have you no heart ? " A strange smile passed over Felion's face, and he answered : " When one forgets why should the other remember? " He turned and went into the house and shut the door, and though the man knocked, the door was not opened, and he went back angry and miserable, and THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 341 the people could not believe that Felion would not come to help them, as he had done all his life. At dawn three others came, and they found Felion look- ing out towards the east, his lips moving as though he prayed. Yet it was no prayer, only a call, that was on his lips. They felt a sort of awe in his presence, for now he seemed as if he had lived more than a century, so wise and old was the look of his face, so white his hair, so set and distant his dignity. They begged him to come, and, bringing his medicines, save the people, for death was galloping through the town, knocking at many doors. " One came to heal you," he answered — " the young man of the schools, who wrote mystic letters after his name ; it swings on a brass by his door — where is he? " " He is dead of the plague," they replied, " and the other also that came with him, who fled before the sickness, fell dead Of it on the roadside, going to the sea." "Why should I go?" he replied, and he turned threateningly to his weapon, as if in menace of their presence. " You have no one to leave behind," they answered eagerly, " and 3'ou are old." " Liars ! " he rejoined, " let the little city save itself," and he wheeled and went into his house, and they saw that they had erred in not remembering his daughter, whose presence they had once prized. They saw that they had angered him beyond soothing, and they went back in grief, for two of them had lost dear relatives by the fell sickness. When they told what had hap- pened, the people said : " We will send the women ; he will listen to them — he had a daughter." That afternoon, when all the hills lay still and dead, 342 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING and nowhere did bird or breeze stir, the women came, and they found him seated with his back turned to the town. He was looking into the deep woods, into the hot shadows of the trees. " We have come to bring you to the Httle city," they said to him ; " the sick grow in numbers every hour." " It is safe in the hills," he answered, not looking at them. " Why do the people stay in the valley ? " " Every man has a friend, or a wife, or a child, ill or dying, and every woman has a husband, or a child, or a friend, or a brother. Cowards have fled, and many of them have fallen by the way." " Last summer I lay sick here many weeks and none came near me ; why should I go to the little city ? " he replied austerely. " Four times I saved it, and of all that I saved none came to give me water to drink, or food to eat, and I lay burning with fever, and thirsty and hungry — God of Heaven, how thirsty ! " " We did not know," they answered humbly ; " you came to us so seldom, we had forgotten ; we were fools." " I came and went fifty years," he answered bitterly, " and I have forgotten how to rid the little city of the plague ! " At that one of the women, mad with anger, made as if to catch him by his beard, but she forbore, and said : " Liar ! the men shall hang you to your own roof- tree." His eyes had a wild light, but he waved his hand quietly, and answered : " Begone, and learn how great a sin is ingratitude." He turned away from them gloom.ily, and would have entered his home, but one of the women, who THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 343 was young, plucked his sleeve, and said sorrowfully: " I loved ^ialise, your daughter." " And forgot her and her father. I am three score and ten years, and she has been gone fifteen, and for the first time I see your face," was his scornful reply. She was tempted to say : " I was ever bearing chil- dren and nursing them, and the hills were hard to climb, and my husband would not go ; " but she saw how dark his look was, and she hid her face in her hands and turned away to follow after the others. She had five little children, and her heart was anxious for them and her eyes full of tears. Anger and remorse seized on the little city, and there were those who would have killed Felion, but others saw that the old man had been sorely wronged in the past, and these said : " Wait until the morrow and we will devise something." That night a mule-train crept slowly down the mountain side and entered the little city, for no one who came with them knew of the plague. The cara- van had come from the east across the great plains, and not from the west, which was the travelled highway to the sea. Among them was a woman who already was ill of a fever, and knew naught of what passed round her. She had with her a beautiful child; and one of the women of the place devised a thing. " This woman," she said, " does not belong to the little city, and he can have nothing against her ; she is a stranger. Let one of us take this beautiful lad to him, and he shall ask Felion to come and save his mother." Every one approved the woman's wisdom, and in the early morning she herself, with another, took the child and went up the long hillside in the gross heat ; and when they came near Felion's house the women 344 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING stayed behind, and the child went forward, having been taught what to say to the old man. Felion sat just within his doorway, looking out into the sunlight which fell upon the red and white walls of the little city, flanked by young orchards, with great, oozy meadows beyond these, where cattle ate, knee- deep in the lush grass and cool reed-beds. Along the riverside, far up on the high banks, were the tall couches of dead Indians, set on poles, their useless weapons laid along the deerskin pall. Down the hurry- ing river there passed a raft, bearing a black flag on a pole, and on it were women and children who were being taken down to the sea from the doomed city. These were they who had lost fathers and brothers, and now were going out alone with the shadow of the plague over them, for there was none to say them nay. The tall oarsmen bent to their task, and Felion felt his blood beat faster when he saw the huge oars swing high, then drop and bend in the water, as the raft swung straight in its course and passed on safe through the narrow slide into the white rapids below, which licked the long timbers as with white tongues, and tossed spray upon the sad voyagers. Felion remem- bered the day when he left his own child behind and sprang from the bridge to the raft whereon were the children of the little city, and saved them. And when he tried to be angry now, the thought of the children as they watched him, with his broken leg striving against their peril, softened his heart. He shook his head, for suddenly there came to him the memory of a time, three-score years before, when he and the foundryman's daughter had gone hunting flag-flowers by the little trout stream, of the songs they sang together at the festivals, she in her sweet THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 345 Quaker garb and demure Quaker beauty, he lithe, alert, and full of the joy of life and loving. As he sat so, thinking, he wondered where she was, and why he should be thinking of her now, facing the dreary sorrow of this pestilence and his own anger and ven- geance. He nodded softly to the waving trees far down in the valley, for his thoughts had drifted on to his wife as he first saw her. She was standing bare- armed among the grapevines by a wall of rock, the dew of rich life on her lip and forehead, her grey eyes swimming with a soft light ; and looking at her he had loved her at once, as he had loved, on the instant, the little child that came to him later; as he had loved the girl into which the child grew, till she left him and came back no more. Why had he never gone in search of her? He got to his feet involuntarily and stepped towards the door, looking down into the valley. As his eyes rested on the little city his face grew dark, but his eyes were troubled and presently grew bewildered, for out of a green covert near there stepped a pretty boy, who came to him with frank, unabashed face and a half-shy smile. Felion did not speak at first, but stood looking, and presently the child said : " I have come to fetch you." "To fetch me where, little man?" asked Felion, a light coming into his face, his heart beating faster. " To my mother. She is sick." " Where is your mother? " " She's in the village down there," answered the boy, pointing. In spite of himself, Felion smiled in a sour sort of way, for the boy had called the place a village, and he relished the unconscious irony. 346 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING "What is the matter with her?" asked FeUon, beckoning the lad inside. The lad came and stood in the doorway, gazing round curiously, while the old man sat down and looked at him, moved, he knew not why. The bright steel of Felion's axe, standing in the corner, caught the lad's eye and held it. Felion saw, and said : " What are you thinking of ? " The lad answered : " Of the axe. When I'm bigger I will cut down trees and build a house, a bridge, and a city. Aren't you coming quick to help my mother? She will die if you don't come." Felion did not answer, and from the trees without two women watched him anxiously. " Why should I come ? " asked Felion, curiously. " Because she's sick, and she's my mother." " Why should I do it because she's your mother ? " " I don't know," the lad answered, and his brow knitted in the attempt to think it out, " but I like you." He came and stood beside the old man and looked into his face with a pleasant confidence. " If your mother was sick, and I could heal her, I would — I know I would — I wouldn't be afraid to go down into the village." Here were rebuke, love, and impeachment, all in one, and the old man half started from his seat. " Did you think I was afraid ? " he asked of the boy, as simply as might a child of a child, so near are chil- dren and wise men in their thoughts. " I knew if you didn't it'd be because you were angry or were afraid, and you didn't look angry." " How does one look when one is angry? " " Like my father." " And how does your father look ? " THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 347 " My father's dead." " Did he die of the plague ? " asked Felion, laying his hand on the lad's shoulder. " No," said the lad quickly, and shut his lips tight. " Won't you tell me ? " asked Felion, with a strange inquisitiveness. " No. Mother'll tell you, but I won't ; " and the lad's eyes filled with tears. " Poor boy ! poor boy ! " said Felion, and his hand tightened on the small shoulder. " Don't be sorry for me ; be sorry for mother, please," said the boy, and he laid a hand on the old man's knee, and that touch went to a heart long closed against the little city below ; and Felion rose and said : " I will go with you to your mother." Then he went into another room, and the boy came near the axe and ran his fingers along the bright steel, and fondled the handle, as does a hunter the tried weapon which has been his through many seasons. \\'hen the old man came back he said to the boy : " Why do you look at the axe ? " " I don't know," was the answer ; " maybe because my mother used to sing a song about the woodcutters." Without a word, and thinking much, he stepped out into the path leading to the little city, the lad holding one hand. Years afterwards men spoke with a sort of awe or reverence of seeing the beautiful stranger lad leading old Felion into the plague-stricken place, and how, as they passed, women threw themselves at Felion's feet, begging him to save their loved ones. And a drunkard cast his arm round the old man's shoulder and sputtered foolish pleadings in his ear; but Felion only waved them back gently, and said : " By-and-by, by-and-by — God help us all ! " 348 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING Now a fevered hand snatched at him from a door- way, meanings came from everywhere, and more than once he almost stumbled over a dead body; others he saw being carried away to the graveyard for hasty burial. Few were the mourners that followed, and the faces of those who watched the processions go by were set and drawn. The sunlight and the green trees seemed an insult to the dead. They passed into the house where the sick woman lay, and some met him at the door with faces of joy and meaning; for now they knew the woman and would have spoken to him of her ; but he waved them ofif, and put his fingers upon his lips and went where a fire burned in a kitchen, and brewed his medicines. And the child entered the room where his mother lay, and presently he came to the kitchen and said : " She is asleep — my mother." The old man looked down on him a moment steadily, and a look of bewilderment came into his face. But he turned away again to the simmering pots. The boy went to the window, and, leaning upon the sill, began to hum softly a sort of chant, while he watched a lizard running hither and thither in the sun. As he hummed, the old man listened, and presently, with his medicines in his hands and a half-startled look, he came over to the lad. " What are you humming? " he asked. The lad answered : " A song of the woodcutters." " Sing it again," said Felion. The lad began to sing : " Here shall I build me my cedar house, A city with gates, a road to the sea — For I am the lord of the Earth ! Hew ! Hew ! " THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 349 The old man stopped him. " What is your name? " " ]\Iy name is Felion," answered the lad, and he put his face close to the jug that held the steaming tinc- tures, but the old man caught the little chin in his huge hand and bent back the head, looking long into the lad's eyes. At last he caught little Felion's hand and hurried into the other room, where the woman lay in a stupor. The old man came quickly to her and looked into her face. Seeing, he gave a broken cry and said : " Malise, my daughter ! Malise ! " He drew her to his breast, and as he did so he groaned aloud, for he knew that inevitable Death was waiting for her at the door. He straightened himself up, clasped the child to his breast, and said : " I, too, am Felion, my little son." And then he set about to defeat that dark, hovering Figure at the door. For three long hours he sat beside her, giving her little by little his potent medicines ; and now and again he stopped his mouth with his hand, lest he should cry out ; and his eyes never wavered from her face, not even to the boy, who lay asleep in the corner. At last his look relaxed its vigilance, for a dewy look passed over the woman's face, and she opened her eyes and saw him, and gave a little cry of " Father ! " and was straightway lost in his arms. " I have come home to die," she said. " No, no, to live," he answered firmly. " Why did you not send me word all these long years ? " " My husband was in shame, in prison, and I in sorrow," she answered sadly. " I could not." " He is " he paused. " He did evil ? " " He is dead," she said. " It is better so." Her eyes wandered round the room restlessly, and then 350 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING fixed upon the sleeping child, and a smile passed over her face. She pointed to the lad. The old man nodded. " He brought me here," he said gently. Then he got to his feet. " You must sleep now," he added, and he gave her a cordial. " I must go forth and save the sick." " Is it a plague? " she asked. He nodded. " They said you would not come to save them," she continued reproachfully. " You came to me because I was your Malise, only for that ? " " No, no," he answered ; " I knew not who you were ; I came to save a mother to her child." " Thank God, my father," she said. With a smile she hid her face in the pillow. At last, leaving her and the child asleep, old Felion went forth into the little city, and the people flocked to him, and for many days he came and went ceaselessly. And once more he saved the city, and the people blessed him ; and the years go on. H THE FORGE IN THE VALLEY E lay where he could see her working at the forge. As she worked she sang : " When God was making the world, (^Sivift is the ivind and white is the Jire') The feet of his people danced the stars ; There was laughter and swinging bells, And clanging iron and breaking breath, The hammers of heaven making the hills, The vales on the anvil of God. ( Wild is the fire and low is the wind.) " His eyes were shining, and his face had a pale radi- ance from the reflected light, though he lay in the shadow where he could watch her, while she could not see him. Now her hand was upon the bellows, and the low, white fire seethed hungrily up, and set its teeth upon the iron she held ; now it turned the iron about upon the anvil, and the sparks showered about her very softly and strangely. There was a cheerful gravity in her motions, a high, fine look in her face. They two lived alone in the solitudes of Megalon Valley. It was night now, and the pleasant gloom of the valley was not broken by any sound save the hum of the stream near by, and the song, and the ringing anvil. But into the workshop came the moist, fragrant smell of the acacia and the maple, and a long brown lizard 352 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING stretched its neck sleepily across the threshold of the door opening into the valley. The song went on : " When God had finished the world, {Bright was the Jire and sweet was the wind) Up from the valleys came song, To answer the morning stars, And the hand of man on the anvil rang. His breath was big in his breast, his life Beat strong on the walls of the world. {Glad is the wind and tall is the fire.) " He put his hands to his eyes, and took them away again, as if to make sure that the song was not a dream. Wonder grew upon his thin, bearded face, he ran his fingers through his thick hair in a dazed way. Then he lay and looked, and a rich warm flush crept over his cheek, and stayed there. There was a great gap in his memory. The evening wore on. Once or twice the woman turned towards the room where the man lay, and lis- tened — she could not see his face from where she stood. At such times he lay still, though his heart beat quickly, like that of an expectant child. His lips opened to speak, but still they remained silent. As yet he was like a returned traveller who does not quickly recog- nise old familiar things, and who is struggling with vague suggestions and forgotten events. As time went on, the woman turned towards the doorway oftener, and shifted her position so that she faced it, and the sparks, flying up, lighted her face with a wonderful irregular brightness. " Samantha," he said at last, and his voice sounded so strange to him that the word quivered timidly towards her. THE FORGE IN THE VALLEY 353 She paused upon a stroke, and some new note in his voice sent so sudden a thrill to her heart that she caught her breath with a painful kind of joy. The hammer dropped upon the anvil, and, in a moment, she stood in the doorway of his room. " Francis, Francis," she said in a low whisper. He started up from his couch of skins. " Samantha, my wife ! " he cried in a strong proud voice. She dropped beside him and caught his head, like a mother, to her shoulder, and set her warm lips on his forehead and hair with a kind of hunger ; and then he drew her face down and kissed her on the lips. Tears hung at her eyes, and presently dropped on her cheeks, a sob shook her, and then she was still, her hands grasping his shoulders. " Flave I been ill ? " he said. " You have been very ill, Francis." " Has it been long? " Her fingers passed tenderly through his grizzled hair. " Too long, too long, my husband," she replied. " Is it summer now? " " Yes, Francis, it is summer." "Was it in the spring, Samantha? — Yes, I think it was in the spring," he added, musing. " It was in a spring." " There was snow still on the mountain-top, the river was running high, and wild-fowl were gathered on the island in the lake — yes, I remember, I think." " And the men were working at the mine," she whispered, her voice shaking a little, and her eyes eagerly questioning his face. " Ah ! the mine — it was the mine. Samantha," he said abruptly, his eyes flashing up, " I was working at the forge to make a great bolt for the machinery, 23 354 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING and someone forgot and set the engine in motion. I ran out, but it was too late . . . and then , . ." " And then you tried to save them, Francis, and you were hurt." " What month is this, my wife ? " " It is December." " And that was in October? " " Yes, in October." "I have been ill since? What happened?" " Many were killed, Francis, and you and I came away." " Where are we now? I do not know the place." " This is Megalon Valley. You and I live alone here." " Why did you bring me here ? " " I did not bring you, Francis ; you wished me to come. One day you said to me, ' There is a place in Megalon Valley where, long ago, an old man lived, who had become a stranger among men — a place where the blackbird stays, and the wolf-dog troops and hides, and the damson grows as thick as blossoms on the acacia tree; we will go there.' And I came with you." " I do not remember, my wife. What of the mine ? Was I a coward and left the mine ? There was no one imderstood the ways of the wheel, and rod, and steam, but me." ** The mine is closed, Francis," she answered gently. " You were no coward, but — but you had strange fancies." " When did the mine close? " he said with a kind of sorrow ; " I put hard work and good years into it." At that moment, when her face drew close to his, the vision of her as she stood at the anvil came to him THE FORGE IN THE VALLEY 355 with a new impression, and he said again in a half- frightened way, " When did it close, Samantha? " " The mine was closed — twelve years ago, my hus- band." He got to his feet and clasped her to his breast. A strength came to him which had eluded him twelve years, and she, womanlike, delighted in that strength, and, with a great gladness, changed eyes and hands with him ; keeping her soul still her own, brooding and lofty, as is the soul of every true woman, though, like this one, she labours at a forge, and in a far, un- tenanted country is faithful friend, ceaseless apothecary to a comrade with a disordered mind ; living on savage meats, clothing herself and the other in skins, and, with a divine persistence, keeping a cheerful heart, certain that the intelligence which was frightened from its home would come back one day. It should be hers to watch for the great moment, and give the wan- derer loving welcome, lest it should hurry madly away again into the desert, never to return. She had her reward, yet she wept. She had carried herself before him with the bright ways of an unvexed girl these twelve years past ; she had earned the salt of her tears. He was dazed still, but, the doublet of his mind no longer unbraced, he understood what she had been to him, and how she had tended him in absolute loneliness, her companions the wild things of the valley — these and God. He drew her into the workshop, and put his hand upon the bellows and churned them, so that the fire roared joyously up, and the place was red with the light. In this light he turned her to him and looked at her. The look was as that of one who had come back from the dead — that naked, profound, uncon- 356 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING ditional gaze which is as deep and honest as the prime- val sense. His eyes fell upon her rich, firm, stately body, it lingered for a moment on the brown fulness of her hair, then her look was gathered to his, and they fell into each other's arms. For long they sat in the solemn silence of their joy, and so awed were they by the thing which had come to them that they felt no surprise when a wolf-dog crawled over the lizard on the threshold, and stole along the wall with shining, bloody eyes to an inner room, and stayed there munching meat to surfeit and drowsiness, and at last crept out and lay beside the forge in a thick sleep. These two had lived so much with the untamed things of nature, the bellows and the fire had been so long there, and the clang of the anvil was so familiar, that there was a kinship among them, man and beast, with the woman as ruler. " Tell me, my wife," he said at last, " what has hap- pened during these twelve years, all from the first. Keep nothing back. I am strong now." He looked around the workshop, then, suddenly, at her, with a strange pain, and they both turned their heads away for an instant, for the same thought was on them. Then, presently, she spoke, and answered his shy, sor- rowful thought before all else. " The child is gone," she softly said. He sat still, but a sob was in his throat. He looked at her with a kind of fear. He wondered if his mad- ness had cost the life of the child. She understood. " Did I ever see the child? " he said. " Oh, yes, I sometimes thought that through the babe you would be yourself again. When you were near her you never ceased to look at her and fondle her, as I thought very timidly ; and you would start some- THE FORGE IN THE VALLEY 357 times and gaze at me with the old wise look hovering at your eyes. But the look did not stay. The child was fond of you, but she faded and pined, and one day as you nursed her you came to me and said, ' See, my wife, the little one will not wake. She pulled at my beard and said " Daddy," and fell asleep.' And I took her from your arms . . . There is a chestnut iree near the door of our cottage at the mine. One night you and I buried her there ; but you do not remember her, do you? " " My child ! Aly child ! " he said, looking out into the night, and he lifted up his arms and looked at them. " I held her here, and still I never held her; I fondled her, and yet I never fondled her ; I buried her, yet — to me — she never was born." " You have been far away, Francis ; you have come back home. I waited, and prayed, and worked with you, and was patient . . . It is very strange," she continued. " In all these twelve years you cannot remember our past, though you remembered about this place — the one thing, as if God had made it so — and now you cannot remember these twelve years." " Tell me now of the twelve years," he urged. " It was the same from day to day. When we came from the mountain, we brought with us the implements of the forge upon a horse. Now and again as we trav- elled we cut our way through the heavy woods. You were changed for the better then ; a dreadful trouble seemed to have gone from your face. There was a strong kind of peace in the valley, and there were so many birds and animals, and the smell of the trees was so fine, that we were not lonely, neither you nor I." She paused, thinking, her eyes looking out to where the Evening Star was sailing slowly out of the wooded 358 THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING horizon, his look on her. In the pause the wolf-dog raised its big, sleepy eyes at them, then plunged its head into its paws, its wildness undisturbed by their presence. Presently the wife continued : " At last we reached here, and here we have lived, where no human being, save one, has ever been. We put up the forge, and in a little hill not far away we found coal for it. The days went on. It was always summer, though there came at times a sharp frost, and covered the ground with a coverlet of white. But the birds were always with us, and the beasts were our friends. I learned to love even the shrill cry of the reed hens, and the soft tap-tap of the woodpecker is the sweetest music to my ear after the song of the anvil. How often have you and I stood here at the anvil, the fire heating the iron, and our hammers falling constantly ! Oh, my husband, I knew that only here with God and His dumb creatures, and His wonderful healing world, all sun, and wind, and flowers, and blossoming trees, working as you used to work, as the first of men worked, would the sane wandering soul return to you. The thought was in you, too, for you led me here, and have been patient also in the awful exile of your mind." " I have been as a child, and not as a man," he said gravely. " Shall I ever again be a man, as I once was, Samantha ? " " You cannot see yourself," she said. " A week ago you fell ill, and since then you have been pale and worn ; but your body has been, and is, that of a great strong man. In the morning I will take you to a spring in the hills, and you shall see yourself, my hus- band." " He stood up, stretched himself, went to the door, THE FORGE IN THE VALLEY. 359 and looked out into the valley flooded with moonlight. He drew in a great draught of air, and said, " The world ! the great, wonderful world, where men live, and love work, and do strong things ! " — he paused, and turned with a trouble in his face. " My wife," he said, " you have lived with a dead man twelve years, and I have lost twelve years in the world. I had a great thought once — an invention — but now — " he hung his head bitterly. She came to him, and her hands slid up along his breast to his shoulders, and rested there ; and she said, with a glad smile : " Francis, you have lost nothing. The thing — the invention — was all but finished when you fell ill a week ago. We have worked at it for these twelve years ; through it, I think, you have been brought back to me. Come, there is a little work yet to do upon it ; " and she drew him to where a machine of iron lay in the corner. With a great cry he fell upon his knees beside it, and fondled it. Then presently, he rose, and caught his wife to his breast. Together, a moment after, they stood beside the anvil. The wolf-dog fled out into the night from the shower of sparks, as, in the red light, the two sang to the clanging of the hammers : " When God was making the world, {Swift is the wind and white is the fire) — " \^ 9^ iimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii I ii|iiii|i!iii|iiiii, 3 1205 02089 4604 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A A 001 423 670 7