RETRIBUTION A Tale of the CANADIAN B O R D E, R JAMES B.KENYON RETRIBUTION A Tale of the Canadian Border JAMES B. KENYON : The evil that men do lives after them ' ' CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND PYE NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY JENNINGS AND FYK So deeply inherent is it in this life of ours that men have to suffer for each other's sins, so inevitably diffusive is human suffering, that even justice makes its victims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsations of unmerited pain. GEORGE ELIOT. BOOKS BY MR. KENYON In Terse THE FALLEN, AND OTHER POEMS Our OF THE SHADOWS SONGS IN ALL SEASONS IN REALMS OF GOLD AT THE GATE OF DREAMS AN OATEN PIPE A LITTLE BOOK OF LULLABIES POEMS In prose LOITERINGS IN OLD FIELDS REMEMBERED DAYS RETRIBUTION CONTENTS CHAPTER PAG I. THE RESCUE, - - 4 II. THE LEGEND, ... 12 III. A HAUNTED MIND, - - - - - 20 IV. A WILD ROSE, ... 26 V. THE NEW EDEN, - 33 VI. A SHATTERED DREAM, - 4 1 VII. THE CAPTURE OF THE CITADEL, ... 50 VIII. STORM AND STRESS, - 5* IX. THE BLIGHT, - ..... 64 X. THE Loss OF THE PHOSPHOR, ... 73 CHAPTER I Hetfcue "The isle is full of noises, Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not." THE TEMPEST, ACT III. "The serene and placid glassy deep, Which fain would lull its river-child to sleep." BYRON. N the bosom of a mighty river, which in its descent to the ocean washes our border on the north, lies hard by the Canadian shore, and among uncounted others, the goodly island of St. Eustace. Broad and fertile farms extend across it from water to water, and the varied landscape is beautiful with patches of golden grain and waving woods and glimpses of the river between. On a summer day, reclining upon a mild declivity in the grateful umbrage of the trees, one may see the white sails of the smaller craft fluttering like vanes of butterflies across the stream, while often a black-hulled freighter pants steadily on its seaward way. Then, too, if the drowsy beauty of the scene has not steeped the senses overmuch, one can hear, faint and far like the melodious measures of a dream, the untutored song of the fisherman 9 Retribution: A Tale of the Canadian Border as he rounds the miniature cape below, seeking cooler waters in the shadow of the cliff. Looking down the river, on the left may be clearly descried the blue line of the Canadian shore, and further on the right, though soft- ened by distance, the rolling landscape of the American coast. A few gauzelike clouds drift along the azure expanse overhead; and in the river below, reflected as if in a mirror, tremble the uncertain images of the earth and sky. Now and then a gray gull or two will take a circling flight over the sleeping waters, or a swallow will shatter for a moment the inverted landscape in the river's quivering world as she dips one rapid wing on her passage from shore to shore. Unnumbered larger and smaller islands lie grouped about, stretching onward in the dis- tance far as the eye can see, as though some Titanic hand had hurled a planet out of the heavens and scattered its emerald fragments upon the bosom of the stream. It is both like and unlike a picture. A lovelier scene has 10 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border never greeted mortal vision, and human ears have never heard a sweeter music than the fisher's song mellowed by distance, and the silvery tinkling of the waves upon the beach. One need not travel far to find an earthly Paradise. Unlike poor Pilgrim's journey to the Celestial City, with little discomfort and less vicissitude, the traveler may now arrive at almost as fair a bourne. How sweet it would be in such a place to live a life relieved of sordidness and exempt from human suffering ; from childhood to child- hood, with the space between one long bright dream of innocence and love! "Heaven lies about us in our infancy;" but life's morning skies, flushed with hope and the promise of a beneficent future, too soon are overcast with the imminent clouds of destiny. Happy he who learns duly to value the present, and await the future as a doubtful boon. Could we con- tinue as a little child in sinlessness, unques- tioning faith, and fresh outlook upon life then indeed might the world return to its ii Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border primal purity and simplicity, as in the days be- fore man's sad undoing. Such were the reflections awakened in the mind as the details of the glorious scene be- came one by one more sensibly denned. For on a gentle eminence, adding an exquisite touch to surroundings which were already of surpassing loveliness, sat a little maid, of eight or nine summers, overlooking the panorama of shining sails and glimmering oars below. It could be seen at a glance that she was a pre- cocious child. Day after day she had gazed upon that same unrivaled landscape, and day by day its marvelous beauty had entered into her spirit, until it had become incorporate with her being a thing of gladness and abundant light. Indeed, she herself seemed to be in- separable from the scene which framed her; there was that about her lissome body, and the swinging, graceful motion of her limbs, which was of the river; its murmur was in her voice and its changing shadows in her eyes. There was a harmony between a daisy and 12 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border the child that caused the beholder to wonder whether she also had not been fed on sunshine and dew, under the liberal skies, and nour- ished by the generous earth, as had the flower itself; and when she climbed the rocky prom- ontory and stood among the gray bowlders under a storm-scarred pine, there was nothing in its gnarled bole and her small lithe figure that did not fairly comport. She lost her iden- tity amid the things around her, and every com- ponent of her environment took a subtle char- acter from her presence. Her complexion was very fair, and its fairness was not lessened by the freckles sprinkled over her tiny nose and flower-like cheeks. A child born of wind and water, of sun and rain a strange sweet child even the most casual observer must confess. Long she sat looking out over the bright reaches of the river, with longing in her eyes and unconscious impatience revealed in her pouted lips. That river and that island were all she knew of the world. She had heard of huge cities, of mountains so high that their Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border tbpmost peaks were piled against the clouds, of larger ships than ever yet her eyes had rested on, of iron steeds that, snorting smoke and fire, trod an iron track with the speed of the wind she had heard of all these, and she yearned to test their reality by personal experience. She loved her island home, but inwardly she fretted to know what wonders lay beyond the tremulous line that bounded the horizon of her own familiar realm. In her aspect and in her manner there was something faint and indefinable which impressed one, even in a child so young, with a sense of inconstancy; not that which always attaches in some degree to childhood, but of a purposelessness, an elf- like willfulness, that was not an accident of im- maturity, but rather an incident of tempera- ment. Tired at last of inactivity, she rose and glided down the slope, filling her pinafore with buttercups and daisies as she went, and entered a small brightly-painted skiff that lay swaying upon the water below. The skiff was moored Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border to the shore, but the chain was of sufficient length to allow the boat to play wholly clear of the land, though at no time was it so far from the bank that an athlete could not have leaped into it at a single bound. The child chose the seat in that end of the skiff farthest from the shore, and there she wove her flowers into a kind of chaplet which she bound about her hat. Then she took other blossoms and made a necklace which she looped about her neck, the while fancying herself a naiad just such a being as Jasper had told her dwelt in the water. In truth she seemed to be a nymph an airy, evanescent shape that might at any moment vanish out of sight. Perhaps it was the thought of the water sprite that caused her to lean out from the boat and gaze down into the dusk mirror of the stream ; or it may be that the latent vanity of the woman asserted itself in the child, and that she looked with satisfaction at her own sweet image reflected in the wave, admiring her sunny beauty, the adornment of her hat, and 15 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border the flowers about her neck. How pretty! True, the little girl in the water was duskier than the little girl in the boat, and seemed to quiver constantly, yet for all that she was very pretty. But she observed that a flower had become displaced in the garland about her hat. She must straightway adjust it. "Jasper! Jasper!" Leaning too far out from the careening skiff the child lost her balance. Vainly she clutched at the gunwale of the boat. The day was sud- denly extinguished, and the huge darkness, flecked with fire, spun round her. There was a rushing sound in her ears. She remembered the events of her brief life. She dimly speculated, and without any touch of sorrow, as to what her friends would say when they should find her drowned. She had time to send forth only one shrill and terrified cry it was wholly involuntary when the waters closed over her ere the echo of her voice had died among the rocks. There were a few concentric circles upon the water, an eddy or 16 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border two, and the treacherous stream was placid as before. A bird ruffled its soft throat as it sang to its nesting mate cloistered amid the leaves. Midges danced in the wavy air. Small black beetles, disturbed for a moment by the splash, returned to skate their delirious mazes amid arrowheads and water arums. From afar was borne the drowsy crowing of a cock. In the distance a steamer, with the brown smoke trail- ing from her funnel, long to hang midway be- tween sky and wave, throbbed along her course. Life pursued its way in gladness, nor recked that death was busy in the world. Only the wide hat with its wreath of flowers floating above the spot where the child had disappeared hinted at what had befallen her. An instant later there was a crashing among the bushes near the shore, and a boy with white and frightened face came leaping down the slope. "Margy ! Margy !" There was no need to call again. He saw 2 17 Retribution: A Tale of the Canadian Border the girl's hat with its crown of flowers floating upon the water, and understood the disaster. The next moment, with lusty strokes he was swimming to the shore, bearing the lifeless form of the beautiful child. Tenderly laying her down upon the green sward, he chafed the cold hands and wet brow, kissed the closed eyes and pale lips, and called again and again : "Margy! Margy! look up, dear! Speak to me, Margy !" Still she did not move nor utter a sound, but lay with her hands white as marble upon her little breast. Her fair hair, from which the water trickled down her temples, was filled with weeds and sand. The boy was in a frenzy of despair. He shouted until he was hoarse. He would catch up the unconscious child in his arms, bear her a short distance, when the dead weight of his burden becoming too heavy for him to carry further, he would lay the dear body gently down and dart swiftly away, then pausing and looking backward, he would wheel about and 18 Retribution: A Tale of the Canadian Border rush to the child's side, shouting with renewed vigor. At length a fisherman, attracted by the boy's cries, hastened to the spot, took the child in his arms, and carried her to her home. It was but two or three minutes from the time the little maid was rescued from the water until the fisherman came, yet to the agonized boy they seemed endless ages. Homeward he followed the fisherman and his precious burden, weeping all the way. Up a graveled walk, through a wilderness of flowers and blooming shrubs, the man hurried, with the boy, dog like, at his heels. A gray and weather-beaten mansion was before them. Not long they tarried at its oaken door, but, with the informality begotten of the hour's need, they knocked and entered. In a moment the household was in con- fusion. There were inquiries, importunities, reproaches, calls for various medicines, cries of "silence," "stand back," "more air," heeded by no one and all mingled in a babel of sound. 19 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border But the confusion did not continue long: a dark, proud-looking gentleman appeared, and chaos was instantly reduced to order. Hastily dispatching a servant for a physician and giving the necessary directions for restor- atives, flannels, and quilts, he sat down by the insensible child, whom the distracted attend- ants had placed upon a couch, and began to chafe her hands and her feet. Then in an agi- tated voice he inquired of the fisherman how it had happened. "Indeed, sir," said the fisherman, thickly, "I cawn't tell 'ee. I hearn th' boy a-yellin' roun' the cape, and when I got where he wos, she was dead. An 'I jest took her up and brung her heere." "All right, my good man, you may go now ; come to me to-morrow," replied the gentleman. Then turning to the boy who, pulling at his cap, stood near with strained eyes full of an- guish, "Jasper, can you tell me how this hap- pened?" Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border "I do n't know, sir," answered the boy, choking with sobs; "I was coming across the lower field by the cape, when I heard Margy scream, 'J as P er ' Jasper!' and running down to the little skiff, I saw her hat with flowers around it floating on the water. Then I knew that she had fallen in, and diving down by the boat, sir, I was just in time to get her out of the current that was taking her under the shelf. But O sir, is she dead will she die?" asked the boy, his tears bursting forth afresh. "We hope not, Jasper; but you too had better go just now ; you 're a brave lad, and I think you have saved the life of my little girl." Over the dark features of Henry Lesage passed a spasm of love and grief, and the man's voice broke as he answered the lad. The quilts and flannels and other appliances having arrived, with the utmost anxiety upon the part of all, the work of resuscitation pro- ceeded. In a short time the child began to discover signs of returning animation, and when the physician arrived and medical knowl- 21 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border edge was added to household skill, the little life that had been so nearly extinct once more revived. All this while the faithful Jasper had been lingering about the outer door, with a mingled solicitude and dread in his eyes, and whenever a servant appeared and persuaded him to go he would only question in an intense whisper, "Is she dead will she die?" Assured, at last, that she was not dead, and that with proper care she would probably re- cover, the loyal little fellow consented to go home, although it was not until the shadows of evening had deepened into night and all the fields were drenched with falling dew. Next morning, hardly had the early dawn tipped the white-caps on the river with flame when Jasper was in wait at the door of the mansion to learn the condition of his little friend. For weeks the child hovered between life and death. But the devotion of the boy knew Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border no weariness. Day after day, from the first glimpse of morning to the deep dusk of night he was constantly there, sometimes sitting dis- consolately on the doorstep, sometimes wander- ing about the lawn, always waiting, always patient, always anxious, nor was he ever absent from his self-appointed watch except at night and at brief intervals during the day. He seemed to have lost something to have missed out of his life that which heretofore he had always known, and in his aimless excursions about the garden walks he was forever in quest of that which he never found. Once during the child's illness he was per- mitted to see her, and his rapture knew no bounds. With great sorrowful eyes, he stood looking at her emaciated face, until a big tear slid down his brown cheek, leaving a shining wet furrow behind it. He would have wiped it away, but he was afraid to stir lest he might disturb the girl. But when she turned her sweet face toward him, and reached out her Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border little wasted hand to clasp his own, his heart thumped so wildly against his bosom that he thought she must surely hear it. He did not remain long in the sick room. The doctor had said that the child must be kept quiet, and remembering this the boy crept softly out of her presence without essaying a single word. Thenceforth he was very restful and con- tent, and through all the weary days of his after-waiting the memory of her smile and touch was manna to his soul. CHAPTER II iUgrno "Though those that are betray'd Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor Stands in worse case of woe." HERE ran a curious legend among the small aristocracy of the island, as well as among the humble fisher- men and their gossiping wives a legend related only at nightwatch, within the garrulous influence of the chimney-corner, and over the friendly pipe and mug. It was said that Abner Forsyth, a remote ancestor of the Forsyths then resident in that neighborhood, had been the original owner of the entire island of St. Eustace. The island had come into his possession by virtue of a grant, awarded in recognition of some valu- able services rendered the government, and signed by the viceroy of Canada and several Huron sagamores. After having obtained this reward of merit, Forsyth erected upon a pic- turesque portion of the island a mansion of 27 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border spacious dimensions for himself and his pos- terity. There also dwelt at this time, upon a small tract of the island not far from Forsyth's residence, a Frenchman who bore the patro- nymic of Lesage. This man Lesage had a son Leonard, a young man of doubtful repute, concerning whom untoward things were hinted from time to time by various residents of the then sparsely settled countryside untoward things, such as pirating on the waters of the lake and river; a secret alliance with British soldiers whereby he had engaged to furnish a portion of the supplies for the British fort gar- risoned near the head of the river; a spy, a smuggler in fact, nearly every phase of dis- loyalty toward the government to which he pro- fessed allegiance. However, amid all these disreputable charges, nothing definite had been proved ; for the good people of that day, as now bearing witness to the essential unity of human nature in all ages and among all peoples busied them- 28 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border selves with the circulation of derogatory reports rather than with the accumulation of positive evidence. Hence at the period of the erection of the Forsyth mansion upon the island near his father's humble habitation, it was no more than a dark suspicion which rested upon the character of Leonard Lesage. Abner Forsyth occupied important places in certain departments of both the army and the State, which were then nearly identical, and which demanded the larger share of his attention at the seat of government; hence he was absent from his island home a consider- able portion of the time. In view of this cir- cumstance, it so fell out that the elder Lesage, who was by profession a gardener though small opportunity he found for the exercise of his function at that date and in that locality was engaged to perform all tasks requiring masculine strength and care which might arise on the Forsyth estate. Thus Lesage and his hopeful son were very frequently at the new mansion. 29 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border We are here constrained to record a rumor which was freely circulated at that time touch- ing this same Lesage; though it should not be understood that credence is to be given to a report so obnoxious to this gentleman's moral heritage. It was told, and with no apparent reluctance, that a paternal ancestor of Lesage had been released from a French prison, wherein he had been incarcerated for homicide, on that fortunate or unfortunate occasion when Le Roque undertook to colonize New France. If this were so, Lesage had forgotten it, or chose to ignore it, for he never alluded to it in the remotest manner. Affairs had maintained these relative po- sitions for upwards of two years when it came to be whispered abroad, whence originating no one knew, that Abner Forsyth had been de- tected in questionable transactions affecting the government which he served. At that early day the most primitive modes of traveling were observed, and often Forsyth would drop down the river in a canoe as far as the rude and em- 30 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border bryonic city where were then held the deliber- ations of State. On other occasions he would proceed to the mainland by a rough, narrow bridge, and on horseback pursue through trackless forests the weary miles that lay between his own fair island and the distant town. Abner Forsyth was a silent man. Kind, courteous, wearing always a countenance calm in its strength, he seemed not unmeet to dwell amid those vast solitudes through which he moved. The primeval forests had no terrors for him. The towering, many- wintered trees seemed to spread above him palms of benedic- tion. The little red mosses at his feet glowed upon him like loving eyes. The squirrels bark- ing from the pendant boughs, and the nut- hatches beating their light tattoos upon the shaggy trunks, made for him pleasant sounds. In the open, the tall fire-weed caressed his stir- rup as he rode by; St. John's wort and blue vervain nodded like friends, and the umbels of the swamp milkweed shook out perfume for Retribution: A Tale of the Canadian Border him as from censers swung by invisible hands. He loved the things of nature, and found com- panionship in loneliest places. When the waters of the river rippled be- neath his canoe, there was deep contentment in his heart. He was a simple gentleman, just in all his ways, trying to do his duty as he understood it; so he could not discern any malevolent forces round him to work him ill. The river sang to him as it flowed. The dusky, half-naked children of the forest he did not fear, for he treated them like fellow-men whom he would not injure, and from whom injury could not come to him. What wonder then that sometimes, in a waking dream, amid the enormous manifesta- tions of elemental things, hearing the unfettered winds like a limitless surf murmuring in in- numerable treetops, or the surges of the angry river, scourged by sudden storms, leaping against the granite shoulders of the world ; see- ing the planets rolling in splendor through the purple darkness of the heavens, or sunset 32 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border clouds, bank beyond bank, glowing above the embers of the day whose fires slowly died below the glooming verges of the west, what wonder if he sometimes lingered and fed his soul upon great thoughts amid the majesty and the beauty that beat in upon his life? It was on these solitary journeys, it was said, that Forsyth met certain British officers to impart to them information of great conse- quence respecting French fortifications and movements, as well as other matters vital to the old regime. In fact, it was declared by those who most actively interested themselves in the supposed defection, that the distance had been carefully measured and the time noted in which the journey could be accomplished between the island and the town, by either land or water, and that on several occasions Forsyth had failed within a reasonable period to make his appearance at the town, when it was known precisely at what hour he had set out from the island. 3 33 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border At length it was determined that Forsyth should be watched; and, as persons possess- ing the necessary caution and finesse, Lesage and his son Leonard were commissioned with this charge. It is not to be supposed that Forsyth did not hear of these reports touch- ing his alleged treason; but he was a man of lofty and unbending pride, and uniformly met with a scornful silence all remarks involving his fair reputation. Such behavior, of course, tended to increase rather than diminish the public mistrust concerning him. It is a singular trait of human nature that when once suspicion is aroused toward an in- dividual, people are disregardful of the truth or falsity of the alleged wrong-doing propor- tionately to the degree of favor which that in- dividual has reached in public and private esti- mation; so that the self-same charge, which preferred against an obscure person would be listened to with indifference, or be set aside as mere hearsay, pronounced against one occu- 34 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border pying a prominent place in the world is deemed a fact already established. Moreover, it is a strange perversion of the moral instinct, that we hear with a kind of inward gratification of the misfortunes of an- other, and silently exult in the ruin of one who has long received the honors of mankind. It is true, the lips are often ready to frame words of deprecation and sometimes excuse, and to deplore the frailty of human kind, but, never- theless, the heart is secretly glad when the icon- oclastic tongue of slander has shattered some public idol. It was so in the present instance. When obloquy became positively attached to the name of Abner Forsyth people did not hesitate to regard as true all that was uttered against him, and to brand as a traitor the same man to whom a brief period before they had yielded liberal homage. It became notorious, moreover, that Lesage and his son Leonard were the chief wit- nesses to the treacherous practices of Abner 35 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border Forsyth; though at first it was impossible to tell whence the accusation had originated. As Forsyth declined, Lesage seemed to rise in the esteem of his neighbors. It appeared that his real deserts were only now beginning to be known. Men seemed to have forgotten the uncertain character which the old man and his son had previously borne; or if they re- membered it, they discreetly held their peace, not caring to risk their own popularity in stem- ming the current of public opinion which had set so strongly against Forsyth. The fact that Forsyth himself was an alien by birth, and that national animosity had so long existed between the English and the French it being peculiarly bitter at that pe- riod of our colonial history might have in- tensified the suspicion against him. Be that as it may, one thing was indisputable; whereas before he had been honored as a public bene- factor, now he was looked upon as an outlaw and traitor. Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border One night, under the guidance of the old gardener and his son, a party of government officials swooped down upon the mansion of Abner Forsyth, where they discovered, much to their astonishment and indignation, a small detachment of British red coats making merry over Forsyth's wine ; boisterous, roystering fel- lows, toasting themselves, the British army, and each other, and fulminating loud curses against every Frenchman in the new world or the old. But where was Forsyth ? Not anywhere to be found. Strange as it may seem, too, when the members of his family, who were in an- other part of the mansion quite out of reach of the sound of the noisy soldiers, were ap- prised of the officials' visit, they were equally surprised and distressed; surprised at the un- seasonable hour in which the magnates had come, and distressed that their distrust had taken such a hostile expression. But when they were questioned regarding the British sol- diery that had been found in the house, their 37 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border grief and consternation knew no bounds ; and mother, daughters, and sons declared with one voice that it was all a wicked conspiracy to bring about the ruin of their household. Thenceforward Forsyth's guilt seemed es- tablished beyond a doubt. He was straight- way apprehended, hurriedly tried, and sen- tenced to be executed. Justice, crude and un- certain in those pioneer days, could yet claim one redeeming quality she moved not always upon laggard feet. It is averred that the younger Lesage, being detailed to assist in the execution, exhibited great alacrity and satisfaction in obeying the summons. The appointed hour having arrived, as the doomed man stood confronting the ten grim riflemen who were to launch him into eternity, it is said that, ere they were bound, he lifted his hands toward heaven, then turning to Leonard Lesage, uttered in a voice as from the grave these heart-shaking words: Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border "God will yet visit retribution on you and yours." The fatal signal was given, ten rifles were simultaneously discharged, and Abner Forsyth fell to the ground with a half -score of bullets buried in his breast. A little cloud of smoke rose and drifted lazily away ; the sunlight twinkled on grass and trees; the river bared its gleaming bosom to the eye of day ; lofty rocks doubled their bulks in the glassy tide; birds caroled in sequestered places; a crow cawed sleepily from a distant pine; life flowed on as before; and naught hinted of that tragedy of shameful death, save the still quivering form which lay face down- wards where it had fallen. It is added further that, in compensation of his distinguished services to his country, the entire island of St. Eustace bating about a hundred acres, which, by an act of clemency on the part of the government, were reserved for the otherwise destitute family of Abner 39 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border Forsyth was conferred upon the elder Lesage and his heirs forever. Every building of the dead traitor was con- fiscated; nothing was left his unhappy family but a scant hundred acres of uncultivated glebe in an extreme part of the island. But the strangest portion of the legend is yet to follow. 40 CHAPTER III OauntrD "To write the poem of the human conscience, were the subject only one man, and he the lowest of men, would be reducing all epic poems into one supreme and final epos." VICTOR HUGO, "Les Miserables.' T so fell out that, after three or four generations had passed, the Lesage estate came into the possession of one Clement Lesage. This worthy gentleman, who had been early be- reaved of his faithful consort, but who for some reason known only to himself had not deemed it prudent to wed again, was the happy, or more truly unhappy, father of a little son and daughter. He was a person re- tired in his habits, quiet, and given to reading Holy Writ and to taking solitary and nocturnal rambles, during which he often indulged in the oddest freaks and eccentricities of behavior. It was affirmed by those who knew him best, that he was burdened with a ceaseless melancholy. The canker of a diseased con- science was apparently gnawing at his soul. He would sit for hours brooding in the sun- shine before his door, sometimes perusing the 43 Retribution: A Tale of the Canadian Border Sacred Page, at other times mumbling to him- self of treachery and an ancient curse. The house cat purred comfortably at his feet. In the bloom-starred vine above his head a yellow warbler gurgled its joy into the lan- guid ear of 'day. Self-heal, as conscious of the irony in its name, in purple ranks trooped to his very seat; and his gaze, turn it whithersoever he would, was never free from the obsessions of the daisy fleabane and the pale muskmallow. Once he had loved these common things ; now they were to him a source of irritation and dis- like. He seemed to be the victim of the fan- tasies of a morbid mind. He was wont to tell those about him of strange visions and mysterious sounds, seen and heard only in the chambers of his troubled brain. Yet there were not infrequent hours of lucidity, when he would converse with the urbanity and the confidence of an accomplished scholar, and give evidence of an exquisite refinement and fervor of nature. 44 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border One phantasm more than all others ob- truded itself upon him with a persistency that rendered wretched his very existence. It was of an old and faded man, attired in antique regimentals and with an ugly wound at his breast, who seemed ceaselessly to invoke from heaven some dreadful fatality upon him and his. "There! Do you not see him?" he would shout, "that old man with the bloody hole in his breast! O, he will curse my life!" and then he would froth at the lips, and become livid in his horror and fright. His nervous disorder grew upon him; he would babble for hours with himself, asking and answering unintelligible questions, or maintain long colloquies with the dead and buried worthies of another age. Betimes he became hotly vexed, and, beside himself with uncontrollable rage, would strike at the airy images which he alone discerned, at the same time applying to them the most 45 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border opprobrious epithets. Then, repentant of his folly, he would become dull and moody, and fall into silence. There were occasions, too, on which he would strenuously, and with a challenging de- fiance, hint of poverty, and an amendment of an old-time wrong and usurpation. Yet he was never known to harm the smallest living creature, while to all around him he was most affectionate and as docile as a lamb. Often, with drooping head and vacant eye, he would mutter under his breath : "Go back, Clement, go back to the cabin of old Gerard. Your home is there, not here. You are but a pauper, born of a race of pau- pers. Under that* rotting roof, and beside that grass-grown doorstep, you may find peace." And then from a bosom that seemed nigh to bursting he would heave a great sigh, and fall dumb in pitiful collapse. This state of affairs prevailed for a con- siderable period, until, at length, through the incessant waste of nervous energy and the ulti- 46 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border mate exhaustion of his malady, Clement Lesage was brought to the very gates of death. Then befell a scene, the like of which may never have occurred before. A messenger came riding post-haste to the dwelling of Basil Forsyth, a lineal descendant of the alleged traitor, with the announcement that Clement Lesage lay at the point of death, and, ere his decease, implored an interview with Forsyth on matters of great moment. Obeying the message, Basil Forsyth was ushered into a darkened chamber, where, propped upon pillows, the long-time hypo- chondriac lay dying. Thus, laden with sorrow and tortured by memory, fearing to bear the burden of another's crime into an unknown world, maddened by his continued malady, and terrified by the shadow of approaching death, Clement Lesage made a revelation such as the most daring speculation in the island had never achieved. The revelation in question concerned the present Lesage's ancestors, old Gerard Lesage 47 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border and his son Leonard ; how they had first essayed to fasten upon Abner Forsyth the suspicion of treason; how, to carry out their dark design, they had formed an elaborate plan whereby a number of British regulars had been decoyed to the Forsyth mansion in the absence of its master, treated by the faithless hirelings of the place to wine and such other good cheer as the house afforded, and then, to render the conclu- sion of Forsyth's guilt beyond a doubt, at the very hour the red-coats were toasting each other over the wine, the two Frenchmen had guided the government officials to the spot. It seems incredible at the present period of adroitness in evil, that such a clumsy, trans- parent plot should have succeeded so well ; but the ignorant and ready credulity of the people of that time should be remembered. It was this same credulity that begot the Salem witchcraft, and prompted our worthy great-great-grand- mothers to sever a handful of hair from a cow's forelock and cast it into the fire with a pinch of salt to guard the animal from the dire effects of 48 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border the evil eye. Side by side with the superstitious characteristics of the age was that bitter na- tional jealousy so quick to rise into deadly hatred upon the slightest provocation or pre- text. Clement Lesage, to expiate the guilt en- tailed upon him by his long-concealed knowl- edge of his ancestor's crime, and by his pro- tracted residence upon an estate belonging rightfully to another, was now fain to make what reparation he could. He therefore caused papers to be legally drawn and executed, deed- ing the entire Lesage estate to Basil Forsyth, but with one condition ; namely, that a covenant of marriage should be instituted between the eldest son of Basil Forsyth and the only daugh- ter of Clement Lesage; or, in case of the de- cease of either during the interval of their non- age, that the contract should be fulfilled be- tween the next nearest kin of the present parties. The reason for this stipulation is obvious. With native astuteness, quickened into morbid 4 49 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border action by the nearness of death and the thought that he was parting with the larger portion of his possessions, the moribund Frenchman took good care to make provision for his offspring. Doubtless he judged that expediency should have no quarrel with justice, but that the twain should go side by side and hand in hand. The dying man, having thus fulfilled his pious duty, was now at peace. The sunset of his life was very calm, and unobscured by a single cloud. The end came on apace, and in a little time, from out the haunting shadows among which he had moved so long, he was gathered unto those fathers the burden of whose sins had well-nigh crushed his life. Having come into possession of unexpected wealth, Basil Forsyth became prodigal in the extreme; not seldom is it thus with the chil- dren of pride who suddenly find themselves in the midst of unlooked-for riches. Generous to a fault, and with a disposition naturally inclined to indolence, Basil Forsyth's fortune slipped from him as easily as it had 50 Retribution: A Tale of the Canadian Border come. He was also surrounded by those para- sites which wait upon affluence, an easy temper- ament, and abundant good cheer. These, to- gether with the indulgence of an expensive taste and an inordinate desire for luxury, com- bined to dissipate his substance. He razed the time- honored mansion that his worthy ancestor had built when the island to Frenchmen. and to Englishmen alike was new, and erected an im- posing modern dwelling on the same site. Here he ran riot with his fortune. All things come to a term in this mutable world, and in due season Basil Forsyth learned that there was a not impossible end to his riches. Coincidently with the depletion of his coffers, his son Guy came to maturity. Hester Lesage, the lovely daughter of the departed hypochondriac, was likewise come to woman- hood. Her brother Henry, a few years her senior, had already entered the conjugal state and was the father of a blooming little girl who bore the name of Margaret. In compliance with the desire expressed in Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border the last will and testament of her deceased father, Hester Lesage and Guy Forsyth were betrothed. But with the accustomed paradox of fate, even while the bridal robes were fash- ioning, death came as the actual bridegroom, and her marriage song was the funeral dirge. A few years later Guy Forsyth, through ir- regular habits and reckless exposure of his health, followed his first love into the grave, leaving a young wife and a little son Jasper to lament his loss and the sadly dilapidated con- dition of his pecuniary affairs. As field after field of the Forsyth estate was disposed of for its mortgage, Henry Lesage, who had long abided this opportunity to add to his slender possessions, bid them all in, nor could Guy Forsyth, upon seeing better days, persuade Lesage to relinquish one of them in his favor. Notwithstanding his retrenchment of ex- penses and the frugality which marked the latter years of his life, at his death Guy For- syth left but a few scores of acres as the full 52 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border extent of his patrimony, with barely enough of available cash to place his widow and only son beyond the verge of want. Such is the tradition of the island of St. Eustace. Vague, time-worn, well-nigh im- probable, gathering to itself new incidents and new interest year by year, it has outlived many a tongue that has repeated it, to inspire the pen of the present writer to give it form and coherence. 53 CHAPTER IV ixosr "I saw her upon nearer view, A spirit, yet a woman tool Her household motions light and free, And steps of virgin liberty: A countenance in which did meet Sweet records, promises as sweet; A creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles." WORDSWORTH. EARS have passed since the inci- dents occurred which were recorded in our opening chapter. The faith- ful little fellow who watched so disconsolately at the sick girl's door has climbed to the stature of a man. And the girl a woman now moves through the orbit of a woman's life, shedding about her joy and light, and blessing and ani- mating everything upon which falls the sun- shine of her love. There is sweetness in her countenance, and warmth in her smile, wherein it is a boon to bask for even one fortunate hour. Vivacious, light-hearted, affectionate in her being she closes the mystery of both the woman and the child. Who among the race of men shall attempt to depict the unfolding of such a miracle? Were similitudes of avail, it might be likened 57 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border to a single star, seen dimly through a twilight haze, till, parting the curtain of darkness, it bursts into a blaze of light ; or to a flower in the bud that suddenly swells into loveliness and fragrance even while our eyes are turned upon it. Such a mystery is Margaret Lesage ; sweet and simple as a wild rose; a marvel of purity and grace; a being too fair to perish, yet too fragile to survive the frost and gloom of earth. To the masculine mind the feminine char- acter is at all times a mystery. It refuses to be fathomed. Place a woman among the sor- rows of life; place her where are needed un- wearying patience, long-suffering, and meek endurance; beside the sick-bed; amid the hor- rors of a plague, where she moves like a strong angel disputing inch by inch the dominion of death ; place her among the mournfulest and most tragic scenes of life, most tragic because often the humblest, where the courage of love is tried to the uttermost as the wolf snarls at the door place her in these conditions, and 58 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border then may be realized in some measure the heavenly qualities of her nature. Into so splendid a heritage has entered Margaret Lesage. Yet in her fresh young womanhood, as in her childhood, traits are apparent which set her apart from other women. Having been early bereft of a mother's loving watchcare, she has come up as a flower, as one of nature's own beauteous wildings. There is about her something anomalous; something that defies analysis; that may be instantly felt, but can not be ac- curately defined. All her life she has breathed the sweet air that has wandered over leagues of woodland and meadow, freighted with the wild pure odors of nature's own distilling. She has been made thoughtful by bird and bee, by flower and herb, by simple-hearted men and women, unspoiled by the petty and absorbing selfish- ness which is the outgrowth of the mean ar- tifices and conventions of the modern world. Her personal charms are also peculiar and 59 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border instantly striking. Not over-ripe as to the redness of her lips, yet these latter are dainty and delicate in their chiseling. The mobility of her mouth is an index of her character, portraying in that which would elude the touch of an artist the emotions of her soul. In the depths of her eyes there is the same strange, shifting color which they possessed in child- hood, impressing the beholder that in each iris have been caught and prisoned the lights and shadows that play upon the bosom of the great river which she loves. As morning dew she is sweet and fresh, and that she is a daughter of music her voice declares. Let it not be thought, however, that she is faultless. Even her personal beauty is not without its saving flaw. For upon her face the freckles of her childhood are still scattered here and there, though well-nigh drowned in a damask sea upon her cheeks, and she is, per- haps, a thought too tall; yet in every propor- tion of her finely-rounded figure she is pure 60 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border womanly, lacking neither the grace nor the symmetry of motion. Yet it must be confessed that Margaret Lesage has one frailty greatly human ; not that she is more than a sweet mortal woman, but that against the bright background of abundant beauty a defect like hers becomes painfully marked. She seems to have reached womanhood possessed of a will strangely at variance with itself ; or, rather, so strongly in- fluenced by daily circumstances as to be thrown into constant confusion. The dancing shad- ows, the flitting butterfly, the fitful wind these are the symbols of such a nature. Somehow with Margaret the rich promise of the girl seems to have failed of fulfillment in the woman. For glancing back to that eventful day when she sat in the painted skiff, nearer to death than ever before or since, and contrasting the present affluent woman with the dear prophecy of the child, we feel a name- less but emphatic discrepancy. 61 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border But Margaret has other qualities that, per- haps, atone for this one notable defect in her character; such qualities as gentleness, woman- liness, a courageous spirit of endurance in times of trial though as yet but few of these has she known and a heart susceptible of pure affection. Such individuality of character as Margaret possesses is paradoxical. She is capable of inflicting a sore wound upon a lover's heart, yet she can not bear to see a beetle crushed. She is very tender and joyous by nature, and can not brook the contemplation of death in any form. Doubtless she is morbidly sensitive in this respect; she will rescue a drowning fly from the water, and take a wide circuit to avoid treading a worm under her foot. Her previous life and education have gone far to the shaping of her character. The sole offspring of a wealthy but indifferent parent, reared without a mother's fostering care, yet not knowing that necessity of self-dependence 62 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border which is the basis of firmness and stability, she has come up like a lily, receiving and assimilating all the beauty about her as the flower drinks light and dew, but with no sufficient purpose in life to maintain the equipoise of her nature. Margaret was not wanting in the frugal thrift that marked the maidenhood of her day. Her hands were not strangers to the distaff and the spinning-wheel. "Dearie," her old nurse would say to her, "have you finished your task for to-day?" To the gray-haired, kind-eyed woman who had watched over the motherless child for so many years, Margaret was still a little girl, and as dear as an own daughter could have been. "My sweetheart mustn't forget that to be industrious is an important part of every young lady's education," the gentle old voice would continue. "I have finished my stint for to-day, Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border auntie," Margaret would reply as her nimble fingers twinkled over the ivory keys of her ancient harpsichord. Doubtless because Margaret's father was generally so self-absorbed, and though really fond of his sunny-faced little daughter seemed always stern and cold, a hunger had grown up in the child's heart which the love of the old nurse did not wholly satisfy. And now, at the age of twenty, Margaret has arrived at womanhood, with only one ex- perience beyond the routine of her ordinary life, and even that experience has become to her almost a consequence of existence. Jasper Forsyth had been the only boy play- mate that Margaret had known from her early childhood to within the last few years of her life. Indeed he mingled with her earliest mem- ories as the one companion to whom she had confided her childish hopes and fears, and of whose ready sympathy she was always sure. His father having been at one time considered 64 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border well-to-do, though not to such an extent as Margaret's father, who boasted his long de- scent, his bank stock, his mortgages, and the honor of his family which latter, if the whole of the legend be true which has been related in the preceding chapter, was rather imaginary than otherwise and the Forsyth estate lying contiguous to the Lesage estate, Jasper and Mar- garet had been almost constantly as children in each other's society. They played together, rowed together on the river, went to school together hand in hand, studied the same les- sons, recited from the same books; until, at length, it seemed that the existence of the one could scarcely continue independent of the other. Thus a human being will tread his narrow round year after year, without a shadow of variation, until it seems that custom has be- come petrified into an unalterable condition. But suddenly a crisis arrives. Another chap- ter in the story of life is reached. The usages Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border of many years are annulled at a single stroke, and new surroundings with new experiences succeed. The season drew near when it was neces- sary that Jasper should attend college to con- tinue his education which had begun under very auspicious circumstances. Naturally pos- sessed of an alert intellect and a retentive memory, and with a heart filled to overflowing with a love of the beautiful, his inclinations were to aesthetic culture and the study of the fine arts. Probably the mental aliment on which he had been nurtured from his early youth, ali- ment gathered from river, field, and sky, had served to nourish within him an inherited pas- sion for the beautiful ; and with its growth had arisen a desire, which had quickly mounted into an all-absorbing ambition, to give that passion an outward expression. A snowflake set him dreaming. The velvet curve of a roseleaf gave him food for thought. Sometimes he was well-nigh beside himself 66 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border with joy as he marked the hues of orange, amethyst, violet, and emerald, where the dawn kindled above the shadowy hills, or the torches of evening flared along the turquoise sky. The young man was already possessed of no mean skill in both painting and sculpture. Still, it can not be truthfully said that his performances in this kind were extraordinary; but his friends fondly persuaded themselves that his was a talent which only required de- velopment to command the attention of the world. So now, after having secured a liberal education, it was Jasper's purpose to improve himself in both these departments of art. The fashion of the world changeth. But amid external mutations the heart preserves its fidelity to the things long familiar and fer- vently beloved. There are those whose affec- tion goes forth to one or two dear objects and no more; but that affection is all the deeper, all the stronger, all the more enduring, be- cause in its great outflowing it is undivided. Jasper was one of these. Through all his 67 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border college life, there had been before him a single bright image the image of Margaret. Her face, her voice, her words were stamped upon his memory; they became his inspiration, his daily comfort, his sufficient hope. He had said in his heart: "If ever I win praise, it shall be for Mar- garet's sake. If Margaret herself shall ever praise my work, it will be the one priceless recompense worth years of toil and exile to obtain." In all their good fellowship and camarad- erie, Jasper had not as yet uttered to Margaret any word of love. He had taken it for granted that his thoughts were understood. His was one of those shy, sensitive natures that seek to make their deep affection felt rather than attempt to express it in words. His love was not a thing which sought to clothe itself with language ; it found its satisfaction only in loyal and unremitting service. Regularly during his absence at college a correspondence had been maintained between 68 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border himself and Margaret, and it was undoubtedly the cherished belief of each that the destiny of the one was indissolubly linked to that of the other. At length, pausing for a moment at the portal of a new life, buoyant with youth and eager with expectation, we find him about to set out for Rome, that Mecca of artistic en- thusiasts, in order to realize what seemed to him the fairest and sweetest dream of life. 69 CHAPTER V " Love is merely a madness ; and, 1 tell you, deserves as well a dark house and whip, as madmen do : and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary, that the whippers are in love too." As You LIKE IT. HERE are moments in every human life when the aspect of nature, whether it be gloomy or gay, seems to be in perfect accord with the various moods of the soul. The full heart, though bursting with anguish or bounding with joy, feels that it has something in common with the great mother-heart of nature, and an answering cry comes back to the wailing of a wounded spirit, or the deep pulse of the world throbs in ecstasy with our own delight. It was beneath the "vitreous pour" of the full moon, and in the wide calm of a Northern summer night, that Jasper and Margaret sat in a leafy nook opening upon the river, the waters of which lay silvern and smiling under a cloudless sky. Through the interlacing boughs the moonbeams sifted down, making a pale tessellation of shadows upon the turf 73 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border below. The ripples upon the broad bosom of the stream were tipped with light, and shivered themselves into myriads of flashing gems as they washed against the smooth-worn pebbles upon the beach. On this night, as never before, were those two watchers by the riverside impressed with the loveliness and mysterious sympathy of nature. It was the evening preceding Jas- per's departure from his native shores. A gentle melancholy pervaded the scene, befit- ting well the tender sorrow that lay like a burden on their souls. The lisping of the waters and the calling of the hylas were mingled in a single thread of sound. Katydids rasped the silence, and far away a whip-poor-will threshed the shadows with his incessant iterations. A few leaves trembled together on a near-by bough, as though some capricious zephyr had kissed them as he fled. Dew was falling upon thirsty slopes, and evening primroses, like pale stars, glimmered through the dusk. 74 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border In moist, warm nooks braids of dancing insects blew elfin horns ; there, amid last year's rotting leaves, the pallid Indian pipe gleamed ghostly white. At the oozy bases of granite ledges Oswego tea and wild columbine stood with vivid colors dulled in the pallor of the night. Fireflies struck wizard sparks in unexpected places, while now and again, as the eye swept its bright surface, the shining mirror of the river was shattered as a fish leaped into the air, descending again in a silver crescent and scattering seed-pearls around him. As yet no word of love had fallen from Jasper's lips. But a moment of destiny was at hand. In the heart of both there was that which clamored for utterance. Each longed to speak, to say something that might lead to the subject uppermost in their thoughts, but neither dared to break the silence that seemed to have laid upon them an almost fatal spell. The habit of silent affection, which had grown upon them for years, was too strong to 75 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border yield to any sudden impulse of disclosure. Yet within them certain elements were gathering force and uniting to form an imperative resolution. At length, unable longer to bear the still- ness and suspense, a scarce-audible sigh flut- tered up from Margaret's heart, stirring her bosom as a dreaming bird might ruffle its small breast to send forth a single plaintive note. But Jasper heard the sigh; it was enough; it dispelled the sorcery of the hour, and he at last found words in which to speak his desire. "Margaret," he said, "do you remember when, at the foot of yonder slope I rescued you half-drowned from the river? Do you recall my boyish anxiety, as you lay betwixt life and death, and the deep misery of my heart, torn with the fear that the cruel waters had robbed me of my little friend ? That was the beginning, Margaret; and though too young to understand it then, steadily it has 76 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border grown upon me. I know it now. As your image is stamped upon the past, and as the past is linked to the present, so I have no hope for future days that is not connected with the thought of you. I have wished long to say this ; yet even now I can not speak as I would. My little playmate of long ago, are we going to loose hands at length ? Tell me if you share the feelings that prompt me to this avowal? Dear heart, something assures me that you care for me! Speak! is it not so?" His words fell rapidly, and his voice trembled with emotion. "Jasper," replied Margaret, paler than the moonlight in which she sat, "why should I smother the longings of my heart ? I could not now if I tried. I am not ashamed of them. I will not affect a coyness that I do not feel. Our lives have run together too closely not to understand each other. Do not think I speak coldly. I owe you so much. God for- bid that I should be false to myself, and false 77 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border to all that is good and true, in flippantly hiding away from its chosen object the sweetest desire of a woman's heart." "Ay, God forbid !" said Jasper fervently. "You have touched in my heart," con- tinued Margaret, "a chord that makes the music of my life. This is not an hour for dalliance with the purest gift a human being may bestow; and though, perhaps, a diffidence I could never understand should hush the word at this moment, still I must say that I love you wholly, love you as I can never love another being upon earth. But O, my friend, I am afraid to yield! I tremble to drop down into so great an abyss of surrender. We have so long kept silence, that I could stay my foot- steps forever on this sweet verge of expecta- tion." "Nay, say not so, dearest," returned Jas- per, "the fledgling must sometime try its wings, and love that has learned to speak must utter its tender word, though the eye be dim with watching and the head white with years. But, 78 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border Margaret, I want your promise ; I want to take your dear hand, and hear you say that it shall be always mine; and that, come life or death, come weal or woe, your love shall be my own, undivided forever." He held out his hand toward her ; she lifted her own, doubtfully for a moment, and then slipped it trustfully into his. She nestled against his shoulder. Their eyes met and re- flected that magic light which dawns but once this side of heaven, and then but let us turn away, for we have no right to be curious spectators in their new Eden of young love. And while they whisper to one another foolish words beneath the happy stars, and while for them the earth begins to wear a brightness that it never knew before, permit us to implore our matter-of-fact readers not to be too hard upon the young things. Let not overmuch scorn be visited upon their un- knowing heads, nor upon the head of their faithful historian. Let it be remembered that 79 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border out of their lives had not yet vanished the dew of youth, and that they were still devoid of that experience which banishes soft-eyed sentiment and begets disillusionment with the world and with each other. So bear with them in their lyric hour. But now after the first transports of their new-found joy are past, we may return to them once more. Yet let us be considerate listeners to their words, not forgetting the time when life with us, too, was in its spring and love not a memory, but a sweet reality, long before the green mantle of the sod had hidden from our sight the beloved face. "My Margaret," said Jasper, clasping her warm hand, "if the dwellers in the unseen world be mindful of this world's losses and gains, will the present moment, think you, fail to afford satisfaction to those old ancestors of ours ? See how the heart of the heavens throbs and glows. Yet it does not seem that the gladness of yonder stars when they first sang together could equal our delight. And I am 80 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border sure that the pearls of Egypt's ancient queen never sat with such mild luster on her dark brow as the beauty of this soft moonlight on your dear face." "But Jasper, remember that you see me now in the transforming light of this sweet hour. When the years of youth are past and time shall have plowed ugly wrinkles " "Hush! dearest, you will always be fair to me. Do not speak of faded cheeks and time- blurred eyes. Away with such thoughts ! Let us think of bright and happy things. One moment of such rapture as this could atone for years of waiting and even misery. To- morrow I leave for Italy. I could almost wish that the vessel were not to sail so soon. Yet this early parting has urged us to speak words that might not have been spoken otherwise; and the coming separation gives keener edge to our present joy. Alas! the pleasure, the pain, that the heart can endure!" "O Jasper, it is too soon! You go too soon!" exclaimed Margaret, as she suddenly 6 81 Retribution: A Tale of the Canadian Border realized how brief was the duration of her new happiness, and what a long period of waiting lay beyond that fleeting interval ; "can you not delay your departure a week a single day?" "I can not, Margaret. All the necessary preparations have been made, and my passage is already engaged. To-morrow morning at eight o'clock I hasten to Quebec, whence I shall sail the following morning for Italy. Yet, my bride-to-be, in the midst of this great joy I could tarry all my life. But something urges me onward. I wish to be a motive in the world. Future years shall certainly know that I have lived. Pray, do not weep. I shall return the sooner because of my early depar- ture return to claim my wife. My purpose achieved and now that I have something defi- nite to work for, I can labor with the greater zeal with merited honor, and I hope with a measure of wealth. I shall come back to lay all my gains at your feet." "Forgive me, Jasper," answered Margaret 82 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border through her sobs, "forgive these foolish tears, but the parting seems cruelly long. It is self- ish, I know, to wish to keep you here. Yet I fear your art may claim a larger place in your affections than the maiden whom you may half forget." "Dear girl, can you doubt me thus?" cried Jasper. "By my art I shall prove how much you are to me. For your sake I shall strive to win praise. I would be strong and true, that I may be worthy of your affection as well as of men's applause. Help me, Margaret, to be a man. I almost fail in my resolve, in spite of my brave words. But you would not have me mope the years away in this narrow island, nor go creeping through life like a slug, while the pulse of the world beats faster and faster in great pursuits. I must enter into the spirit of the times. I must do or perish. There is a place for me somewhere in the world, and I must find it. It would be hateful to me to live, Margaret, possessing your sacred promise and knowing I had done nothing to deserve it." 83 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border There followed a moment's pause, but Margaret was silent, her white lips quivering, and her eyes looking out across the wan stretches of the river with a far-away expres- sion as if gazing into the future. O fiery heart of youth! how late in life we learn to go slowly! There is fever in the brain, and fire is in the blood, until the fever has died in repeated disappointments and the fire has been quenched with bitter tears. In the stern school of experience one thing is surely taught, one thing which the sad old prophet learned centuries ago how to go slowly all one's days. "Margaret," again spoke Jasper in a troubled tone, "will you not give me one little word of encouragement?" "Yes, Jasper," at length rejoined Mar- garet, though her voice trembled as she spoke, "such as I can I will give. I honor your ambition. I applaud your purpose, yet it seems so long !" and thick tears choked her utterance. "Never mind, Margaret/' responded Jas- 84 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border per, struggling with his own heart, which mis- gave him, "never mind, our next meeting will be all the sweeter for this prolonged separation. The moment has come when we must part. Before I go, I entreat you to accept this small gift this little band of gold as the symbol of our united lives. It is the ring my father placed upon the ringer of the dead Hester, long ago. My faith in you is perfect; I think that death alone could part us now." "I will never betray your trust," whispered Margaret. "Years since our destinies were joined together by those old men who are dust in their graves. Our lives can never be dis- entwined." They rose bewildered and unseeing, and stood for a moment with clinging hands ; their lips were crushed together in one long swoon of agony and bliss; then, as with anguished voice he uttered the single word "Farewell!" Jasper turned and plunged into the shadows. In every leave-taking there is some element of eternity. The moon had slowly sunk behind 85 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border the darkling pines. Only the steadfast stars, the unspeaking rocks and trees, and the ever- flowing river, had heard the plighted vows. The sward was matted and a few flowers crushed where the lovers had lingered. In the distance a solitary owl sent its weird chal- lenge into the listening ear of night. No other sound was audible, save the soughing of the wind through the tree-tops, and the lapping of the little waves upon the beach. So Jasper Forsyth passed away from his boyhood's home: so early expectations pass in the fading brightness of our youth. Yet, over the pain of parting, over the sorrow of that long separation, Jasper's heart rose up and was happy. His hopes were buoyant, and his active fancy painted a future brilliant with honor and unstinted love, while he rested his faith on the just conviction that no endeavor is in vain. It was in the long bright hours of an Italian afternoon, when Jasper caught his first glimpse of Rome Rome, the immortal city, haunted by a thousand colossal shades, some 86 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border whom an envious oblivion has robbed of even a name Rome, the proud, the eager, the ever- changeful, the never-destroyed. As her towers and palaces rose more distinctly into view, his ardent imagination, like that fabled touch- stone of old, transmuted them into pure gold. "Who can tell," he thought, "what I may not achieve in yonder blessed city?" In that glorious spot his good angel had alighted, and with folded wings was waiting to lead him up the gleaming heights of a toil- ful but well-earned success. No doubt ob- scured his vision of the" future. As he cast the horoscope of his destiny, he beheld not one ill-boding star. Down the clear far-reaching track of the years before him he saw no evil chances like lurking banditti waiting to de- spoil him of his hopes. It was a pleasant sleep which our weary Jasper slept that night beneath the mellow skies and in the soothing dissonance of un- familiar sounds. Happy, tired Jasper! the same serene orbs 87 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border that had looked down upon his far-off island home, and had gladdened that one fair night when Margaret had plighted to him her troth, shone upon him now through the soft Italian darkness. Palpitating like sentient things, those dear old constellations were like loved companions who kept fresh and real his sweet past life in the midst of the strange new sur- roundings which seemed so unreal. Unvexed by the prevalent odor of garlic, Jasper's dreams were mixed with the perfume of unknown flowers, while faunlike youths hand in hand with laughing maidens danced past him in scant array; and evermore above them all floated the vision of a face he loved, wear- ing a halo as bright as the sun. Wonderful alchemy of youth ! What dross will it not refine into silver? What evil will it not transmute into good? Great Shepherd of the sheep, still temper the winds unto the shorn lamb ! Sweet Fountain of all Pity, flow unto him upon whose tenderest hopes falls a withering blight at their very bourgeoning! 88 CHAPTER VI 2>l)attr rrti Dream "Dreams in their development have breath, And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy. They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts, . . . They do divide our being." T was but a dream let it pass let it vanish like so many others! What I thought was a flower, is only a weed, and is worthless." LONGFELLOW. ENRY LESAGE was a sordidly selfish and mercenary person. De- void of genuine manhood, he had so long neglected his few native vir- tues that they had all but perished of inanition. Systematically throt- tling his conscience, he had brought it in such complete subjection that it was seldom known to annoy him. There were evil tales abroad that in many ways he had oppressed the poor of that vicinity to obtain the splendid compe- tency which he boasted. Still, among his neighbors, Henry Lesage was a man of eminent respectability. Often, so perverse and contradictory is human judg- ment, that, when a man has stifled the best emotions of his heart, and has become little more than an animate machine, only then does he seem to challenge the last degree of the confidence and good will of the world. Retribution: A Tale of the Canadian Border There are some rare spirits who appreciate the ruffianly and the bestial alone; there are others who applaud naught save wiliness and guile, and the oftener they are deceived the oftener they bepraise the very craft that has undone them. Therefore, in the eyes of men of his own kidney, Henry Lesage was a hero, and in this fact he found a sufficient justifica- tion of his methods of dealing with his fellows. The world did obeisance to him. Was he not the richest man in all that countryside? Would it not be almost certain destruction to incur the enmity of Henry Lesage? Hence, they reasoned, it is better to endure what can not be helped, than to bring down a speedy ruin upon one's head by an unwise and profit- less opposition to a man so powerful, cunning, and relentless. Of some, we say, Henry Lesage won the warm approbation. The man who is pleased with such applause invariably holds in scorn those sensitive souls who pursue exalted ideals ; he denounces them as dreamers, as nincom- 92 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border poops, as weaklings who have subverted the true object of existence. Such a man likewise regards all that makes for the refinement of human nature, and the elevation of intellect and morality, as puerile or effeminate, and unworthy the attention of a master mind. For men of this stamp pride themselves on their strength of mind. Noth- ing deserves their efforts save getting and hav- ing; all else is vain and childish. They fail to recognize that genuine power is born not of things earthy. While men like Henry Lesage find their ultimate satisfaction in the material world, men of the higher type seek their crowning joys in the realm of the spirit. The one kind creeps like a mole through the dust of earth; the other kind soars like an eagle in the eye of the sun. Thus it is not surprising that Henry Lesage looked coldly upon Jasper Forsyth and his chosen life work; in fact, an old contempt for the Forsyth race ran in his blood. Despite 93 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border the unfilled covenant of marriage that united his own family with the family of the Forsyths, after Jasper's arrival at his majority Lesage had steadily discouraged all familiarity be- tween the young enthusiast and his daughter. He was not the man to be betrayed into an alliance involving an impecunious son-in-law; no small fry would satisfy his ambition, when there were larger fish to be netted. But it was too late. The habits and mem- ories of former years were dominant, and the fondness of early friendship had ripened into later love. It will be readily conceived with what bit- terness a man like Henry Lesage would per- ceive the evidence of a frustrated design touching him so closely as this; his first step, therefore, toward retrieving his influence with Margaret was to forbid, with many darkling menaces, any further intercourse with Jasper. But in this case it was mutual though un- avowed affection pitted against heartless craft ; love was triumphant, and the lovers met. 94 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border Howbeit, after Jasper's departure for Italy, Henry Lesage judged that he had much less cause for anxiety than before; and by watch- fulness on his own part, together with the sub- ornation of underlings, all communication be- tween Jasper and Margaret was prevented. So month after month rolled away, and the poor maiden received no word from her absent lover. Jasper, on the other hand, having written repeatedly, began to chafe at Margaret's de- lay in responding to his appeals for the tidings which he craved. Yet, frequent as the young man's missives were, no one of them escaped the father's unwearying vigilance. At first Margaret was filled with anxiety for the safety of her lover ; then deeply pained at his continued silence and neglect; then in- dignant and distrustful, until at length her in- sulted womanhood began to meditate upon revenge. One late September afternoon when under the feeble sunlight the river flowed chill and gray, Margaret, who had waited expectantly 95 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border for weeks only to meet disappointment after disappointment in receiving no word from Jasper, seized her hat and, eluding as by a miracle the eyes that spied upon her move- ments, took a short cut through the fields to the little vine-bowered cottage where Jasper's mother dwelt. Mrs. Forsyth, a sedate, motherly woman of gentle voice and manners, was much pleased at receiving a visit from Margaret ; for latterly, since Jasper had declared his love and she had promised to be his wife, with that strange reticence born of the tender passion in women, Margaret had avoided meeting her to whose fond arms and warm nestling cheek she had been wont to flee in other years with little cries of joy. But Margaret could resist no longer; she yearned to hear the mother of her betrothed say something, if it were but one little word, of the absent lover. Yet, a morbid sensitive- ness, the result of long waiting and repressed grieving, withheld her from asking frankly 96 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border what her heart clamored to know. And the mother did not once mention her son's name. For Jasper, having heard nothing from Mar- garet herself, had ceased to speak of her in his letters to his mother; and Mrs. Forsyth, be- lieving that the lovers had come to some mis- understanding, and that the trouble would be the sooner healed by her silence, made no al- lusion to her distant boy. Heavy was Margaret's heart as with lag- ging footsteps she turned homeward a little later amid the dewy shadows of evening. The old familiar sounds of her rustic world, sounds that she had loved and which were sweeter than music to her ears, fell unheeding upon her. A white-throat's vesper notes, and the tentative fluting of a hermit thrush, awakened no responsive thrill in her beaten and weary soul. "I am so tired," she murmured. "Life is too. difficult. Why should love bring with it so much of suffering?" And then with that sudden hopelessness 7 97 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border not unusual in the young, she cried through thickening tears, "O I wish that I might die!" Henry Lesage observed his daughter's approach through the gathering darkness, and as he watched her hastening across the fields from the direction of Mrs. Forsyth's cottage, he divined instantly the object of her visit. Impatiently he awaited her arrival. He knew that some decided and probably harsh meas- ure must be taken immediately. And when, at length, Margaret entered the door, her head bowed upon her breast and her step weary and despondent, he knew that now was his time to close effectually this one avenue lead- ing to the past. Therefore, calling Margaret to him, and sharply inquiring the whereabouts of her late journey, he learned that his sur- mises were correct ; and then and there he for- bade her ever again to speak to Jasper's mother without his consent. "You understand, my daughter," he said, "that I am your natural and legal guardian. 98 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border I choose to judge for you in this matter; nor is it necessary that I should explain myself. I shall say no more." Henry Lesage was not given to many words. He was a man coarsely direct and cruelly implacable. There was something in the suppressed truculence of his nature that was dreadful. Above all his fatherly kindness there towered oppressively the distorted shape of an inexorable egoism. So his huge crush- ing will took her own, like a grain of wheat between the upper and the nether millstone, and ground it to powder. Margaret's lips were ashen as she listened to his icy words, yet she made no reply; she humbled her head to the stroke of destiny ; but there was an anguish in her heart that forced hot tears from her eyelids, and she hurried swiftly to her chamber to weep half the night away. There are crises in life, when we tremble between two uncertainties the uncertain pres- ent and the uncertain future; when the fore- 99 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border boding heart shudders under its twofold bur- den of doubt. Then despair succeeds, a despair that smks into indifference, when, though some sudden change seems to be imminent, the sensi- bilities are numbed, and no anxiety is felt for the future. Miserable hours are these, for in them the light of hope flickers and dies. We become puppets in the grasp of some gigantic hand, and move or remain quiescent according to a volition other than our own. In such a state was Margaret. Impassivity had followed hard upon passionate desire and importunate pain. Her life was poised, as it were, upon a narrow point. Like those stu- pendous masses far up among mountains in the old world, so nicely balanced that a single shout will destroy their equipoise and send them crashing into the valley below; so Mar- garet felt her life to be balanced upon the verge of an unknown gulf; a word, a breath, might precipitate her into the depths below, but her soul was paralyzed and she could not fear. Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border At this juncture, Henry Lesage suffered to pass no opportunity to utter a word in dis- paragement of Jasper. He sought to impress upon Margaret the worthlessness of a man with so poor an aim in life as that of an artist. "A dauber of paint!" he would sneer; "a puddler in plaster! Long hair, a greasy coat- collar, and threadbare elbows there is a man for you!" And he would laugh with a scorn that was fairly withering. Again he used indirectly to taunt her with Jasper's infidelity, saying that doubtless the fel- low had married some sloe-eyed Italian gypsy, and was even then eating garlics with her in a mud hut on the outskirts of Rome. Henry Lesage was a wily man. He knew not a little of the human heart, at least, of Margaret's heart. He never mentioned Jas- per's name that he did not speak lightly of him, or attribute to him base intentions and baser deeds. In fact, without compunction he was wont to associate the name of the poor boy with that of every scapegoat of the neighbor- 101 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border hood, until Margaret could hardly think of Jas- per without equal distress and disgust, induced by her father's repeated slanders. It seems strange that she should not have readily per- ceived the motives which prompted her father's words. In fact, she was far from placing confi- dence in the truth of what she heard. But life is linked with habit, and Margaret at last came habitually to connect Jasper's name with the odious character which her father gave him. And moreover poor thing! she be- lieved in her father was he not still her father ? while she had begun to doubt Jasper. Still, her heart and her reason, at concord in this in- stance, refused to disbelieve utterly in the up- rightness of him whom she had known from her earliest childhood, and who seemed to be always so pure and noble in nature. Thus the winter wore away. The dead white flat of the ice-bound river, and the wild winds careering round the dreary islands, were in singular consonance with Margaret's barren heart. Deep on the near croft, and deep on the 102 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border far-wooded headland, lay the drifted snow. This long monotony of colorless landscape, too, was in peculiar keeping with Margaret's listless life. She was most oppressed when there was a great silence in the air and upon the earth, deep- ened perhaps by the baying of a distant hound. Ragged weeds upthrust their brown mournful stalks through the crusted blanket of the snow. To the shivering branches clung a few dry and shrunken leaves, making now and again a soft and husky rustling in the stark hushed woods. Gray rocks bared their seamed and lichened masses like the shoulders of giants washed free from ancient graves. Margaret sought nothing, longed for noth- ing, since the whole wide world contained no bud of promise that had not shriveled before untimely frosts. As she gazed out on the cold wide waste around her, and swept her eye along the leaden sky line, seeing not a single vernal sign, her own life seemed to be pictured forth with startling clearness. For she looked into 103 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border the coming years and beheld only an unbroken, wintry expanse; life contained nothing good for her. Yet, deep beneath the snow and ice the rhythmic pulsation of nature's heart goes stead- ily on, while small forces silent and potent are at work, causing myriads of hidden germs to wake, and stir, and thrust tender but invincible shoots, like splintered emeralds, upward through the ungenial mold till spring is fairly ushered into the rejoicing world ; so in the deso- late heart there are unconscious influences that act on slumbering hopes, until they push them- selves up and are felt, and a new season of bloom and fruitage is born in human life. The winter slowly but surely passed, since time and the stars sweep steadily on in their courses, without a thought or care for broken hearts and lives. It is the soul of man that vibrates forever betwixt the blessing and the bane. The maiden spring with laughter and danc- ing came up the southern slope, gemming the 104 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border fields with cowslips and dandelions, breathing upon the lingering snow-banks in the hollows of the woods where wake-robins sprang into beauty, transforming the sere hillocks of the pastures into mounds of living green, hanging catkins upon the willows, touching the sky into a deeper blue, and filling the earth with mel- odies of brook and bird. With the advent of spring, another spring had birth in Margaret's sad young heart. She began to experience a lifting of the dull weight that had so cumbered her spirit. Youth makes its own gladness; and by the time the leaves had fairly clothed the trees, and nesting birds were warbling among the boughs, they were singing, too, in her heart, not with loud and joyous notes, but with faint snatches of song that were presage of fuller strains. Her vision seemed to be anointed anew for the dear common things of her island world. Once more she found comfort amid the fields where her garments brushed the beaded cob- webs as she passed. On either hand daisies 105 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border and buttercups nodded in the breeze. The cory- dalis lifted its pale and dreamlike blossom in hidden places, and the evening primrose scat- tered its wizard gold where there was none to see or heed. Bees hummed in the bells of cam- panulas. Insects droned and danced in the shimmering air. The pearl-white clouds lay soft and light along the horizon, their opaline edges dashed with hues of rose and pink and violet. At length, blue-eyed May departed, and in her stead reigned passion-shaken June. Mar- garet was rushing onward into the vortex of a new fate. 106 CHAPTER VII Capture of tty Cita&el "A pressing lover seldom wants success, Whilst the respectful, like the Greeks, sits down And wastes a ten years' siege before one town." Rows. To THE INCONSTANT. 1 So, with decorum all things carry'd ; Miss frowned, and blushed, and then was married." GOLDSMITH. OR several years St. Eustace had been growing in favor as a summer resort, offering exceptional advan- tages of rest and recreation. More than a year had elapsed since Jas- per's departure for Italy. The bright season had again thrown its flower- wrought mantle over the beautiful island. To St. Eustace came the usual throng, some pale- faced and weary, some proud and vain, to breathe the sweet air of the sun-flecked fields and of the sparkling river. Fashions change, but one fashion remains ever the same. The great purpose of the idle rich in every age is to discover, if possible, some new and untried happiness. Such was the motive of many who hastened to the cool, de- licious embraces of this island retreat. Yet, it was not so with air who came. For some were pallid invalids, some were harassed 109 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border clergymen, and others were care-worn busi- ness men, who were trying to get back a little of the old sweetness and joy of life in a loving communion with nature, and who were long since past pursuing the iridescent bubble of merely fashionable amusement. Among those who sojourned at St. Eustace during this particular season was a young man named Philip Fordham. He was vivacious, well-looking, and apparently open-hearted, with the prestige of patrician descent, and the repu- tation of abundant wealth. He had visited St. Eustace once or twice before, and having then met Margaret at her father's home, had been strongly attracted by the fine and uncommon quality of her beauty. Through all his subse- quent travels he had remembered the island girl, and now that he saw her after she had devel- oped into a richer and maturer beauty, he was smitten anew and determined to win her. Henry Lesage looked with unmistakable complacence upon the evident interest which the ingenuous Fordham manifested toward his Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border daughter. On the other hand, Margaret re- ceived his addresses with such indifference that it would have cooled the warmest passion of a less resolute and more sensitive man than Ford- ham. Yet, nothing daunted, he continued to press his attentions upon her ; moreover, he per- ceived that he had a faithful and, as he had good reason to believe, powerful ally in her father. His earnestness grew apace, and he began ardently to urge his cause. Fordham had one fair quality, often inherent in obtuse natures, which was highly commendable ; it was that of perseverance. He knew that to succeed in an undertaking in affairs of the heart as well as other affairs it is necessary to keep the enter- prise always in view ; to work steadily towards it as an end, no matter what obstructing com- plications may arise. So he continued to ad- vance his claims on such scores as only a lover can invent, and, as he soon perceived, with an encouraging degree of success. Margaret, subject to that curious perver- iii Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border sity of will which we have already described, influenced by her father's wishes and Jasper's still unbroken silence, at length began to re- lent. A nature like hers makes its own phi- losophy; she sought no excuse for herself, for she seemed to need none. She loved her father with that unreasoning feminine devotion which constitutes the mystery and the glory of a wo- man's nature ; and in all matters save her prefer- ence for Jasper he was indulgent towards her. Secretly he was quite proud of her. She de- lighted to hear him call her by the old child- ish name of "Margy." This he did when he was specially pleased with her. "You have been a good girl to-day, Margy." To hear these words from her father's lips, as if still spoken to a child, was to thrill her with a sudden happiness which nothing else could afford her. And these words generally followed some kindness which she had be- stowed upon Philip Fordham. Yet Margaret's love for her father was mixed with a covert fear, because his soften- Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border ings toward her were still tempered by a con- scious severity. She longed to gratify ; her na- ture drooped and languished under rebuke ; and she was glad to purchase her father's approval at almost any cost. She was miserable when- ever his dark eyes were bent on her with any look other than that of approbation. No doubt, too, like all other women, Mar- garet wished to be personally admired ; she was not ignorant of her own attractions, and her maiden vanity was flattered by the addresses of a handsome and wealthy man who was so much more fervid and aggressive than Jasper. Margaret was one of those women the citadels of whose hearts can be taken by storm. She used sadly to think that perhaps if there had been more of the ordinary open inter- changes of love between herself and Jasper, she could have braved more for his sake. She could have dared to cross her father's will if she had had something wildly sweet and irresistible to which her memory might have clung for support. But the recollection of that 8 113 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border one fair night when they had first kissed and last parted was now little more than a dream. Memory could draw no courage, and love no sustenance, from that source, for it had become too mistlike and unreal. Still, it was strange, she thought, that the remembrance of that far dear hour, when she gave Jasper her parting promise and felt his warm, glad lips upon her own, should haunt her so continually. There was the betrothal ring upon a ribbon about her neck (for she dared not wear it upon her finger lest her father should discover it) ; yes, there was the ring, but its significance had become as shadowy as had the moment in which she had received it. But now she reflected that she ought to lay the ring aside; Jasper would never return to her again. The past was beyond recall, and she stood upon the border of a new life; not an altogether peaceful life, but one that prom- ised at least forgetfulness. "O," she was wont to cry out in her heart, 114 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border "if only the memory of that old tender night would leave me, I could be happy !" Now and then she would go down to the bank of the river, and gaze at the water as it glided past her to the ocean, and think that perhaps the very waves beneath her eyes would sometime lave the distant shore where Jasper lived and moved. Would that the river, the bewitching old river she had loved from early childhood, and whose mighty heart pulsed in unison with her own, might bear a message to the wanderer over the sea, that Margaret still was true ! "True?" she asked herself, "was she true?" Cjod only knew, for she had ceased to trust in her own heart. And Jasper where was he? He was wait- ing, still waiting, beneath bright but mocking skies for a word that never came. What a magnitude of misery is measured in the earth by the span of the wide arch above us ! There is many a care-darkened soul mov- Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border . ing blindly through the world in the light, but seeing it not, the darkness rendered the deeper by the ever-increasing contrast between the blackness within and the brightness without. At first Jasper's mind was kept from prey- ing upon itself by his absorption in his art. Renowned masters in Rome spoke of him as a most promising pupil. But gradually the in- terest in his art was swallowed up by the one great longing of his life; then, losing the sacred impulse that had urged him on, his hand also seemed to lose its cunning with chisel and brush. In the early period of his life abroad he had written to Margaret very often; then, less and less frequently, until, his heart grown sick unto death with hope long deferred, he ceased writing altogether. He grew poorer, and yet more poor. He could not support himself by his work. Buyers were scarce and artists abounded in Rome. The income which he re- ceived from his patrimony was insufficient to meet even his modest requirements. He could 116 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border not bear to think of returning home and ac- knowledging to Margaret that he had failed. "Margaret!" he thought, "what did he know of Margaret? Was she dead or alive? If alive, was she married?" He concluded that the latter was probably the case, as his mother had never written to him that his affianced bride was dead. Well, if she had forsaken him, he would never per- mit her to look upon the ruin of his life. He would remain in a foreign land until he per- ished. Alas, the blind mistakes of youth! Could we only live over again even half of our life, how different it would be ! But we are hurried along with the years, and leave forever behind us the opportunities we have missed. Jasper changed his lodgings again and again, always going a little further into the poorer quarter of the city, where wretched- ness and squalor held carnival, and where nameless foul odors mixed with the stench of garlics was well-nigh intolerable. His 117 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border health rapidly declined. He was pale and thin, and moved about like a shadow. As he slipped along, wan and ghostlike, with hungry hollow eyes that seemed to be seeking for what they never found, those who knew him best whis- pered to one another that the young Americano hid in his heart a secret of which he was dying. Philip Fordham never relaxed his efforts to win Margaret's affections, but pressed his suit vigorously from week to week. One day Henry Lesage called his daughter into his pres- ence, and asked her if she had heard that Jasper Forsyth was dead. Margaret blanched with a sudden spasm at her heart, and for an instant the world reeled round her; but she answered nothing. She feared to speak lest her voice should betray her emotion. The father was not deceived; his quick eye perceived her agitation; but he continued as coolly as though relating any ordinary bit of news. He told her that, during his passage 118 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border homeward several months before, Jasper For- syth had died of a malignant fever on ship- board, and that, fearing the spread of the dis- ease among the remaining passengers upon the vessel, his body had been hastily buried at sea. Of course, it was a sheer fabrication. But Lesage took this bold and somewhat danger- ous method of destroying any lingering hope that Margaret might entertain of Jasper's re- turn. It was evident, too, that this procedure was not repudiated by Philip Fordham. Doubtless the young gentleman maintained that "all is fair in love and war." Yet it should not be understood that he actively aided the deception. Far from it! he was on his good behavior now, and was bound to appear unex- ceptionable in Margaret's eyes. So he scorned to take any mean advantage of an absent rival which, be it observed, was extremely mag- nanimous ! But if he did not assist in the de- ceit, he at least connived at it. Meanwhile he lost no opportunity to be at Margaret's side. 119 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border Somehow, too, the rumor became current that Fordham and Margaret had been form- ally betrothed. Yet no one could remember that the banns had been published. However, the rumor was not without its effect upon Mar- garet. Possessing all a woman's sensitiveness to matrimonial affairs touching herself, to- gether with that mystery of caprice character- istic of the sex, she came to desire that gossip of this kind should not circulate unsupported by fact; and this the more, inasmuch as it was hinted that the report had originated with her own father. Then, too, though in her heart she said peace to the dead, pique against Jasper, be- cause of his perfidy toward her, was mingled with this feeling; unconsciously, it is true, though none the less effectively. Moreover, she had long since ceased to look coldly upon Philip. He had become something more to her than a friend, and she began to treat him like a privileged lover. Poor Margaret! her heart had been very desolate. Companionship and 120 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border sympathy were sweet to her, and her need was sore. When Philip became aware of Margaret's altered disposition toward him he did not fail to act promptly and present his heart and hand at the favoring moment. And need we say they were accepted ? Margaret's impassive, tacit acquiescence could hardly be called an ac- ceptance. Yet Philip chose to consider it so. A near time in the future was named for the wedding, and Margaret did not dissent. All the nuptial arrangements were hurriedly made. Suddenly Margaret was seized with some wild ardor, and for a single month she was in a whirl of excitement. She had little space for reflection. Half the time it seemed to her that she was in a dream. Yet she was not unhappy. On the contrary, she looked for- ward to her marriage day with blissful hopes and a throbbing heart. Had she known of that lonely, hopeless life, creeping upon a broken wing so far away, how different her wedding would have been ! Limitations have been mer- 121 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border ci fully set to our human powers, and time and distance kindly debar us from many a cause of sorrow. The auspicious day quickly arrived. The island from end to end was a brilliant scene of holiday and festivity. The bride was radi- ant in her snowy robes, though her face was pale, and close observers noticed that it was shadowed with melancholy. Nothing could have been more beautiful than the passage of the bridal train to the little church. Even at this day, in describing it the islanders reach a pitch of enthusiasm quite incredible. A strange incident is said to have occurred immediately at the close of the marriage cere- mony. Whether it were but the superstition of illiterate people, ready always to construe every circumstance, however trivial, into an omen, or whether it were the result of a natu- ral and easily explainable cause, it is not in the province of this narrator to discuss. It is related that, upon the conclusion of the nuptial rites, while the guests were leaving 122 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border the sacred portals, the bells of the church in the little hamlet refused to sound a wedding peal, but, baffling the efforts of the sexton to ring them merrily, insisted upon tolling as if for a funeral. It is added, also, that upon this fateful day the heavens were suddenly overcast with angry clouds, and even while the priest invoked a blessing upon the twain made one, there came an ear-splitting crash that seemed to rend the earth asunder. Soon after, it was observed that an immemorial elm standing before the Lesage mansion, and said to have been planted by the founder of the family, had been cloven trunk and branch. Thus Margaret Lesage and Philip Fordham were married. And while from their brazen throats the bells sent forth their doleful chal- lenge, in a narrow cottage across the fields there sat a lonely widow in her weeds, think- ing of a beloved boy between whom and her- self the waters of the wide ocean rolled thinking, thinking, while a mother's tears 123 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border slipped through her faded ringers, blistering anew the already blurred pages of his last ten- der and sorrowful letter. But the bells, re- morseless as the voice of doom, kept ringing, though every stroke was a knell of despair to her loving heart. 124 CHAPTER VIII ana 'To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares; To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs; To fawn, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne, To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne." SPENSER. " Life treads on life, and heart on heart We press too close in church and mart, To keep a dream or grave apart." MRS. BROWNING. O Philip Fordham and Margaret Lesage were married. To the wife, weary were the months that with- ered the bridal roses and crumbled the orange blossoms to dust; still, it were not truth to say that her life was void of prospective gleams of joy. But she had entered an arid land, where often the scant waters were bitter of which she drank ! Some- times a green oasis would appear, when her delighted eyes would rest themselves on the emerald coolness, and she would quaff of purl- ing streams with eager lips, and gather mellow fruits with happy hands. What a mystery is this which we call life! The world keeps its eternal balance, and for every loss there is far or near some commen- surate gain. There is no sorrow that over- takes us which has not somewhere a kindred joy. Nature is not niggardly of her bless- 127 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border ings, though often they come to us in disguise. Shall we ever learn to entertain our angels awares? Not until we catch a last receding view as they leave us forever, do we recognize in them the supreme ministers of Divine grace to us. Yet there is a wise Benignity over all, and we shall not fail out of the everlasting Love and Care. To Margaret nature brought a sweet solace ; when the first feeble cry of her infant fell upon her ears, it entered her heart like a healing. Those were joyful days, replete with peace and contentment, yet, like sunshine checkered with shade, not unmixed with pain and affectionate foreboding, as she lay with her babe's waxen fingers nestled against her bosom and its little breath upon her cheek. O sanctity of motherhood! The young wife felt that the Good Father did not alto- gether refuse to smile upon her; the sunlight streamed about her, and the birds sang in her heart. To live was to love, and to love so pure a being was to draw near to heaven. The tears 128 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border that bedewed the mother's Gethsemane were the tears of her heart's redemption from de- spair. The pangs and the peril of travail were past, and now hers was an estate of bliss as- sured. The child sweetly throve, and as it daily grew in strength, so grew Margaret's affec- tion and tranquillity. What though the father's habits were irregular? What though, the edge of his passion already dulled, he became stolid and reticent ? Did she not nurse at her throb- bing breast a purer life and a fonder love than all others? The outreaching tendrils of her heart owned a new object around which to twine. In the days that were past these ten- drils had been torn and trampled, but now they should cling desperately to this young life, and need no other human support. Already her im- agination was busy with the child's future. It was a strange fatality that Margaret should have named her baby Jasper; yet with an alien tenacity of will she adhered to her pur- pose, and the husband must needs comply. 9 129 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border "Why call the brat Jasper ?" he asked. "Do you wish him to become the kind of a man that his namesake was? O yes, I understand my lady's little sickly sentiment" and he laughed coarsely, while a sneer distorted the features of his still handsome but dissipated face. Before the coming of her child, tempestu- ous seasons had dawned upon Margaret and her husband. He, hard, imperious, half- drunken, would overbear her finer nature with all the rude aggressions of an increasing boor- ishness ; she, driven to the verge of desperation, would turn fiercely upon him, like a hunted creature at bay. These hours of domestic in- felicity became more frequent, and the pride which had at first concealed them was already wearing away. Henry Lesage was not blind to his daugh- ter's sorrow; but, conscious that he had been largely instrumental in bringing it upon her, hesitated to interfere. One day, in the midst of a scene of un- usual turbulence between the husband and the 130 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border wife, Margaret's father suddenly appeared at the door. "How now, Phil? What does this mean?" he asked. "While I am alive I will suffer no one to ill-treat my daughter, whether it be her husband or any other person. I have heard you, my friend, and I warn you that this occa- sion must never be repeated." There was in the father's eye a dangerous glint which the tipsy husband perceived, and he slunk away without a word in reply. Lesage crossed the room to the sofa where the outraged wife had thrown herself white and trembling. He took the poor girl in his arms, softly patting her head and stroking her hair. This unwonted tenderness, in one so tac- iturn and undemonstrative as her father, broke up the deep fountains of Margaret's tortured heart ; the tears gushed from her eyes, and her frame was shaken with convulsive sobs. "Never mind, my little girl," said Lesage, with quivering lips, "while I am on earth you shall never lack a protector." Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border Thereafter, between father and daughter sprang up a voiceless but satisfying sympathy, which secretly comforted the hearts of both. In the days of his courtship Philip Fordham had been finical to a degree in his tastes and dress; now he was quite the reverse. Appa- rently he could conceive of no loftier ambition in life than to support between his teeth the small end of a meerschaum pipe, while it was being variously stained with tobacco smoke at the other end; or, standing in the door of Scrogg's Tavern, surrounded by an admiring group of kindred spirits, to launch with un- erring accuracy an amber-colored stream of tobacco juice into a dog's eye, greatly to his admirers' vociferous delight; which pleasant and remarkable feat accomplished, he would convulse them with an ingenious oath, and then go on in to take another drink at the bar. Sad, infinitely sad, is the decline of a human soul! It is seldom easy to acknowledge an error after it has once been committed. Henry Le- 132 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border sage saw that he had overshot the mark in clearing the way for Philip Fordham to secure Margaret's hand. But, sorely as he was con- scious of this fact, he was the last one who would confess it. He himself had always been highly respect- able. He had never been seen dram drinking, gambling, or cock-fighting, nor had he ever been heard to blaspheme save upon very ex- traordinary and in his view justifiable occa- sions! He despised the sottish habits of his son-in-law ; but he had voluntarily, nay eagerly, placed his own head in the noose, and now he was not the man to whimper because the latter was tightening in a manner as uncomfortable as unexpected. So for many months Ford- ham had gone on unreproved except by his wife for whose reproofs he cared nothing and Margaret's life had grown darker and darker. Often she felt impelled to kneel and pray that the knotted coil of her troubles some- how might be dissolved. But now a little one had come. Once more 133 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border there was sunshine and dew in the wife's glad heart. It was a mystical light and a mysteri- ous wisdom that shone out from the child's blue eyes. He did not like his father, and Philip at first was piqued and then embittered against his boy. The child clung to his mother with an instinctive love that would brook no separation. The undercurrent of their beings seemed to meet and flow together deep down in those occult channels of life which are hid- den forever from mortal search. The most perfect sympathy blended their two lives into one, and they were remote in nothing save in years. How is it that not infrequently, as the precursor of some fell misfortune, the heart seems to be lulled into an unwonted peace and security? It is not always true that "coming events cast their shadows before." Time passed by. A year rolled away a bright, even blissful year to Margaret, notwith- standing her husband's abuses. The love of her little son could cancel all Philip's indiffer- ence. 134 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border They had continued to dwell in her father's house, for somehow Margaret felt safer there. But this was not the only reason why she did not go to the distant city where her husband's parents dwelt. Now and then there are small incidents which discover the fact that in hearts the most jejune the milk of human kindness has not become altogether acid. Henry Lesage was a lonely man ; perverted as had been the sanctities of his life, still he cherished his only daughter. True, his love found a selfish expression, and he tried to make his ambition her ambition; yet he never for- got that her eyes were blue like her mother's, and that her voice was of the same silvery ca- dence. Therefore he could not bear that she should leave him after her marriage ; hence she and her husband had remained at the island home. Once in the midsummer month, after a day of unusual calm, the twilight fell and deep- ened into night, bringing with it such a gra- cious sense of unending repose as almost to 135 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border induce the fancy that Time had lost his hour- glass and had somewhere stolen away for a perpetual sleep. The heavy perfume of roses and jasmine was in the air. Deep quiescence was upon Margaret's spirit. All day long, since early morning, she had breathed such restfulness and contentment as she had not known in many months before ; and now this one supreme hour, when night had closed down over the earth like a mother-bird over her nestlings, had brought the culmination of her peace. She sat with the child in her arms, and on its little heart the spell had also fallen, for it was lapsing into slumber. Then blest in her inmost soul, and soothing to balmy dreams her darling boy, she sang to a tender melody of her own these words of lullaby : Sleep, O my babe, not thine a manger Where cradled lies thy helpless head: No oxen low, dear, little stranger, And wondering stare above thy bed ; Thou need'st not weep ; Ah, slumber deep, 136 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border For fond hearts wake while thou dost sleep, And light as dews shed from the skies, Love shuts the violets of thine eyes : Not in a stall Love's kisses all As soft as rose leaves on thee fall. Sing, Margaret Fordham, sing while yet you may; for the time draws near when the song shall be frozen in your heart. Yea, sing for as yet the music is neither frenzied nor broken; and another has heard your song, to whom your voice has been silent through ruined and wasted years, but in whose heart are still whispering the words of a solemn promise never to be fulfilled. See, even now he comes ghostlike across the fields! Ah, why upon this night of all others should he appear, an accusing wraith from a "vast and wandering grave," to vex with sorrow and misgiving a life already so grievously tried ? Be at peace, young mother, do not fear. The quiet flowers spill their heavy incense at your door. The tranquil night is a talisman Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border that will serve to guard you at this moment from aught that might harry your memory. Yonder indistinct figure, faltering across the dew-wet lawn, comes not to trouble you with shattered hopes and sundered promises in this your hour of joy. It will be brief enough at the longest. That bowed and broken form, retaining only the semblance of past manhood and power, would awaken in your heart the pain which has not been banished, but lies dormant only. And now, while the low notes of your lul- laby are yet tremulous on the night, like a wounded thing that seeks sympathy and re- lief, he eagerly draws nigh. Start not! You shall not see his face, though he pauses an instant before the vine- screened window, revealing a countenance hag- gard with woe. Be at rest, we say, for he utters no cry, but trails away again into the darkness, and is seen no more. Fond singer, already the chill shadow of the death angel has fallen athwart your hearth- 138 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border stone. Merciful is the Providence that denies to mortals prevision of their destiny. Were it otherwise the misery to be would serve to annihilate the joy of the present. Almost the highest manifestation of Divine love for hu- mankind is revealed in our ignorance of the future. CHAPTER IX " Tis not a life; Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away." BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER Philaster. " A simple child, That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death?" WORDSWORTH. AVE 'E heerd that Jap Forsyth has been seen in the Island?" "Ay, that I hev, but can't find no one who 's seen 'im 'zactly." "Well, they do say ez he was here, lookin' ez peaked and chalky ez a dead man. Seems he did n't die on ship- board 't all. The hull thing was a lie, but prob'ly them ez told the lie wish't 'ud ben true." "Prob'ly. I 've heerd that old lady Forsyth is turr'ble broke up. She thought Jap 'ud come home to stay, but he left agin right off betwixt two days." "Poor feller ! I 'spose he could n't abear to see another man in the place where he orter ben hisself." "I allus did like Jap, but he did n't never seem to hev no force 'bout 'im. Wheer 's he gone to now?" 143 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border "Don't know. Shouldn't wonder if he did n't come back no more." "Should n't wonder. Well, so long, Cal ! I must git down to the Lower Bay before noon." Such was the conversation that took place between two boatmen at the small landing not far from Mrs. Forsyth's cottage. Evidently there was a widespread impression among the inhabitants of the Island that Jasper had lately returned to his boyhood's home, but had de- parted again without delay. Brief and evanescent was Margaret's peace- ful happiness; for even while he slept in her arms a subtle change wrapped in its coils the tiny boy, and already he was withering in its mortal grip. At first, Margaret noticed nothing amiss with the child; but when the little sufferer, disquieted in his sleep, uttered a low moan of pain it pierced her like the thrust of a poniard. It was a singular circumstance, that, almost coincidently with the appearance of that pallid 144 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border face at the window, sickness should have seized Margaret's golden-haired little son. A physician was hastily summoned; but perplexed and baffled he could afford no ap- preciable aid. The malady was a strange one, and defied diagnosis. The child seemed sud- denly to grow old; its piteous little face ex- hibited all the marks of advanced age. The most striking symptom connected with the case was, that the small sufferer gradually shriv- eled and faded away, as it were by the breath of some fatal blight ; for his soft skin was like parchment yellowed by time, his features be- came hollow and sunken, and his throat sallow and wrinkled as that of a decrepit woman's. The rosy, dimpled hands grew bony and claw- like, the fragile arms seamed and cadaverous, and the sweet voice subsided to a mere croak. Dissolution appeared actually to have begun. During all those watchful nights of wretch- edness and despair in which the child lay dying, Margaret rarely slept, but sat mutely by the Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border little one's cradle, filled with a strange conflict of horror and disgust, yet through it all dis- covering the agony and solicitude of a mother's love. Betimes she would take the child's skele- ton hand in her own, with all the hunger of her heart shining through her eyes ; then shivering at its unaccustomed touch, she would drop it again and moan in the impotence of her woe. It is always a mournful thing when an in- fant dies, when a sweet bud that has no part in life but a frail promise, is suddenly blasted forever. But the passing of Margaret's child was not mitigated by those tender circum- stances commonly attendant upon an infant's death. Its little body was dreadful to look upon. This was the sharpest pang of the poor mother's heart, that her baby had become re- pulsive in death. Throughout that dark hour, and through the ordeal of the funeral, Margaret made no sound of weeping. Dumbly she sat and saw the little form which she had nourished at her bosom placed in its small casket, heard 146 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border without comfort the solemn words of the serv- ice for the dead, and moved with the mourners to the grave. As Margaret walked through the grass- grown church-yard, she regarded not the gath- ering of her friends; she did not see the kind faces and tear-filled eyes of the Rachels who sympathized with her, nor the hard, unfeeling glances of idle curiosity. She was truly alone with her grief and her dead. The fair fields lay smiling on either hand, but they were noth- ing to her. The sky had a remote appearance, as though it were a sky seen in a dream. In the azure distance fir-crowned heights melted into the blue of heaven. The river slept in the dreamy splendor of the day. Countless little lives chirked and chattered and purred on tilted grass blades and beneath screening leaves. Somewhere far off rose the mellow lowing of cattle, and scarce heard, even by the attentive ear, fragments of a boatman's chant were borne along upon a breath of air too faint to lift a thistle's down-fledged seed. 147 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border The sunlight mocked her as it fell, but the sorrowing mother heeded not. The pungent mint and aromatic herbs, whispering together in the dusk of their own green world, possessed no healing for her. She was nature's child, but nature seemed to afford her no ministry of comfort in this hour of her supreme need. "I am the resurrection and the life." She heard the words, but stood like a woman of stone. Those who watched her knew that her surging woe must somehow find a vent, or that death or madness would ensue. She stood leaning upon her husband's arm, and beheld, as if suddenly waking out of sleep, the busy undertaker remove the coffin-lid, and the throng of inquisitive spectators draw near. It was too much. Kneeling with her arms ex- tended over the little body, she bowed her head upon her dead child's breast. "O my baby, my darling," she wailed ; "come back to me, my wee, helpless lamb! How can I live without my little boy?" That was all; she shed no tear; but when 148 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border she rose to her feet her face was white as marble, and she leaned more heavily upon her husband's arm. They buried her darling out of sight, her own baby, her one sweet child; for her mem- ory, sharpened by her suffering, brought back the image of her babe and dwelt upon it as it was before illness had robbed it of beauty. But now she was childless childless in heart and in hope. It was enough ; life was a void ; she was ready to die. Margaret moved away from the new-made mound, with a dazed and stricken mien, as though her conscious life had been closed with her child in the grave. She returned to her cheerless home repeating to herself : "Dead buried dead buried,*" as though they were words too hard to understand. Yes, her baby had been buried where earthly love could never reach it more, and with it was buried all the hope of Margaret Fordham's life. Thereafter she dwelt in the past. Neither the present nor the future contained a single 149 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border object to awaken interest in her desolate soul. There was another funeral in the island not long after Margaret's baby died. Few were the mourners at this burial. No one knew whither Jasper's errant footsteps had strayed; for that he was still alive was now generally believed. Though it was declared that he had recently visited the island, it was also said that he had departed as suddenly as he had come. So gentle Mrs. Forsyth was borne to the tomb without any of those real manifestations of sorrow which spring from kinship. But there was a heart-broken wanderer in a foreign land who would feel that the last possible drop had been added to his bitter cup, when he should learn that the only being upon earth of whose love he was certain had been borne by unloving hands to her final resting- place. Upon so delicate and sensitive an organ- ism as Margaret's, the stress of her loss, with 15 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border its attendant aggravating circumstances, was too poignant. Intense in her nature, prone to experience pain or pleasure to the uttermost, and with the taint of hypochondria in her blood, it can not be regarded as surprising that her mental faculties began to yield under the vio- lent strain. This was first apparent in a singular hal- lucination under which she labored; she per- sistently believed her child to be alive, in an invisible though not intangible form, and she would sit for hours with her arms curved to her bosom as if still holding her babe, while she crooned a lullaby, and her eyes were brimmed with maternal love. At other times she would sit in grieving silence, her trans- parent hands folded in her lap, and her eyes fixed upon the floor with a far-away expres- sion, as if gazing into another world. Such moments always terminated, either by her breaking forth into a song almost wild in its gayety, or by indulging in a fit of the most pas- sionate weeping. Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border Her aberration of mind continued to de- velop as the days wore on. She obtained most comfort from looking upon the portrait of her dead child, painted when the boy was in health. Nothing soothed her so much as this. Ah, the pity of it, that the glorious human intellect should be so easily eclipsed! That life through a shadowy vista should walk with specters perpetually! That the real and the unreal should be hopelessly confused, and mock each other in the darkness and terror ! It is in this dim region, this twilight of our being, that the unseen touches the seen and the finite melts into the infinite. Dreams and madness are near akin. What wonder, then, if Margaret called upon the name of her child, and held loving communion with a spirit of the air? Never a day passed that she did not have her babe, fondle it with the sweet arts of maternity, press it to her yearning bosom, or hush it into a dewy sleep. Yet the world called her mad. But who 152 Retribution: A Tale of the Canadian Border shall say that she was not wise beyond the wisdom of this world as, still cherishing the holy mother-care God had given her, she fol- lowed the normal leadings of her woman's heart ? Oftentimes misfortune opens in human na- ture fountains of pity that have long been sealed, and the sweet waters gush forth anew, making the wilderness of this world and the wasteplaces of life blossom fresh and beau- tiful as the rose. Tears many times wash away otherwise impregnable barriers. Henry Lesage began to experience remorse for the misery he had brought upon his child. The indomitable Achilles was vulnerable in his heel. There is in the heart of every man some quick spot where he may be touched and made to respond. Already the doubt began to assail Lesage, whether he had not cursed his daugh- ter's life. Perhaps he recalled a lovely blue- eyed woman who had been sleeping for years beneath the turf in the little churchyard of the island; who had said to him with her failing Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border breath, while the light of love was growing dim in her dovelike eyes : "Henry, always be good to our little girl." "Had he been good to his child ?" He put the unwonted question to his own soul. "Had he not selfishly imposed upon her his own stern will, till he had crushed hers into shrinking submission? Had he studied the highest inter- est of his only daughter in dragooning her on to her unfortunate marriage? Had he not rather overshadowed her whole life with an un- lifting darkness?" These self accusations now beat in upon his mind, like healthful sunlight streaming through the noisome twilight of a sick-cham- ber. Bless God ! there are springs of redemp- tion in every soul; they may be overlaid and choked by long years of neglect and misdoing; but sometimes a sudden sorrow, a stroke of pain, a word of truth, will reveal them clear and unpolluted as Siloam's rill. Margaret's mental alienation became grad- ually more pronounced. Her life had become 154 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border a tragic and piteous thing. There was a lesion in her heart that was always bleeding. A va- cancy of the eye, a purposelessness of move- ment, indicated more plainly than words, that some vital cord had snapt in her being. Phy- sicians advised an immediate change of climate and surroundings. Philip Fordham had in a degree given over his habits of dissipation. Moved by his wife's sad condition, and influenced more strongly still by certain significant changes in the con- duct of his father-in-law, he now partly re- formed. However, it was an impossible achievement that he should become all at once morally cor- rect. He must needs indulge in some few freaks of knavishness, if it were for no other purpose than to retain the high opinion of cer- tain interesting characters of the island. Still, his present deportment was a marked improve- ment upon his previous behavior. It was now determined to secure, if pos- sible, Margaret's restoration to mental health Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border by a trip abroad. A new era dawned for her the day she first caught sight of the ocean. But when the long blue line of the continent and the last dim speck of an isle had disap- peared from view, her gratification was com- plete. She was almost childish in her gladness, and would clap her hands in delight as the smooth, swelling billows came rolling toward the vessel, seeming to melt away as if by magic when they touched the keen dividing prow. As the voyage lengthened, and she drew nearer "that old world which is the new," the majesty and wonder of the great deep wrought a spell upon her spirit, and she sank into quiet. It was a prosperous voyage ; day after day, the wide calm sea, terrible with latent power even in its calmness, seemed to absorb her more and more until, at last, like a butterfly from its prisoning chrysalis, she broke away from the old life, away from the tormenting remembrance of her sorrow, away from all that bound her to the troubled and dreary past, and 156 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border began to experience a sense of renewal and good cheer. She loved to stand at night and see the stars in the dark deep above reflected in the darker deep below, to feel the fresh salt wind against her cheek, and the free, buoyant motion of the waves beneath her feet. A soothing came upon her and the breath of peace. Morning by morning she wakened before the sunrise. When the glory gathered under the edges of the half-blind world, she hastened from her berth to thrill with the harmonic splendors spreading over water and sky. She saw the first faint amber glow in the purple east; she watched the sapphire rays slowly open upward and outward like a gigantic fan ; the stars paled and died in the zenith, and in the west one by one they slipped behind the curtain of the growing light. Crimson and ocher flames began to burn upon the crests of every ripple, while in the little hollows of the waves green and yellow shadows flickered and danced. Suddenly the huge disk of the sun Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border pushed itself up above the ocean's weltering verge, and the vessel bore sheer onward along a path of molten gold. Both her father and Philip were with her; both were very gentle toward her. Philip seemed to love her as in days gone by, for he was no longer indifferent to her happiness or grief. Well did Borne declare: "Es ist leicht den Hass, schwer die Liebe, am schwersten die Gleichgiiltigkeit zu verbergen." She could not remember distinctly what had happened of late ; she did not wish to do so ; she was satis- fied to enjoy the passing hour. She knew that a change had occurred. It was a bright world after all. One thing dimly troubled her, however; she felt that in having wedded Philip she had done another human soul a wrong which she could never hope to rectify. But that too was past; she would be true to Philip even in thought ; though if Jasper were not dead, how earnestly would she ask forgiveness at his hands! forgiveness of her shallow faith, her 158 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border false pride that had deterred her from trying to reach him with assurance of her devotion; forgiveness of all the pain which she might have caused his loving heart. They had told her that somewhere, too, be- neath these dark waters Jasper was asleep. "O sea, what treasures hast thou in thy keeping!" But why meditate upon these things ? Were they not all a "portion and parcel of the dread- ful past?" A fair, fresh prospect was before her ; she did not care to die until she had com- passed its alluring promise. CHAPTER X of tlje But hark! what shriek of death comes in the gale, And in the distant ray what glimmering sail Bends to the storm? Now sinks the note of fear! Ah! wretched mariners! - no more shall day Unclose his cheering eye to light ye on your way. MRS. RADCUFFE. ARGARET was recovering the equi- librium of her mind. That this was so became more apparent as the journey extended. Along the waters of the Rhine, at Lucerne, at Geneva, on the snow-capped heights of Mont Blanc, through the valley of Chamouni, in the spacious halls of the Alhambra, as Mar- garet wooed back the sunshine of her old girl- life, the assurance strengthened daily that her mental restoration was well-nigh complete. It is to be remarked that Italy, with its numberless and time-hallowed objects of beauty and art, was left out of the itinerary. From Seville our travelers retraced their footsteps through France and England, turning their faces homeward at length, nor was Italy once mentioned. It was at Liverpool, after Margaret with her husband and father had taken passage on 163 Retribution: A Tale of the Canadian Border the Phosphor, Captain Jenkyns, that a sick man was brought on board the vessel. Mar- garet stood leaning over the rail as he was carried into the ship on a litter. She did not discover his features, but gained a glimpse of the pallor of his face as it disappeared below. It was not an unusual circumstance which she had just witnessed; yet there was something in the attenuated form of this sick man, as he lay helpless upon the litter, that wrought strangely upon her. By what mysterious force does an object unknown, and, it may be, scarcely seen, set vibrating a chord in our hearts, causing us to feel that we have suddenly come upon a new factor, or an old one disguised, in the problem of life? Margaret visibly shuddered as she looked upon the pale blotch of that dimly-described countenance, and an unac- countable chill crept about her heart as from a death chamber. She was stirred with desire to see this man. Obeying the impulse of her heart, she would 164 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border have hastened nearer to look upon him, but already he had been borne out of her sight. Thenceforward she was rilled with a forebod- ing restlessness, an indefinite dread, anxiously desirous of gazing into the face of the ill stranger, yet curiously reluctant to do so. One morning, having been several days at sea, Margaret was strolling about the deck, conscious of the sweetness of the morning and the bracing ocean breeze, yet with her mind bent upon that deathlike face which haunted her. Suddenly, in the shelter of heaped-up cordage and sails she came upon the identical subject of her thoughts. Before her upon his litter lay the sick man who had been brought on board the vessel at Liverpool. She could not yet see his visage distinctly. By some oc- cult and irresistible law, Margaret was drawn slowly forward until she leaned over the pros- trate form of the ailing one. For an instant her eyes were fixed and glassy, her countenance was suffused with crim- son, which ebbed into a deathly grayness, while 165 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border she pressed her hands to her heart as though it had been struck through with a mortal agony. That face into which she gazed, that face so wan, so sadly altered, that forehead, fur- rowed with pain and marred by disease, the thin wind-lifted hair all were familiar, de- spite their pitiful change; for behind the mask of sickness, back of the lines that suffering had traced upon his countenance, Margaret's startled vision beheld the features of Jasper Forsyth. "O heart," she silently prayed, "be still! Break not, but endure a little longer! Be still, be strong!" For a moment she was unable to utter a syllable audibly, almost doubting the evidence of her own eyes ; then, the first sharp paroxysm past of pain and surprise, she bent low over the recumbent form before her, and half in anguish, whispered : "Jasper! Jasper! is it you? is it you? I thought you were dead, Jasper!" "Yes, Margaret," he replied in his old sweet 1 66 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border voice, though it shook with combined weak- ness and emotion, "if I am not dreaming one of my sad, false dreams and you are the same Margaret I used to know, it is I. Dead! Dead! How could you? . . . Who told you I was dead?" "Do not I beseech you, do not upbraid me," she cried; "I can not bear it from you. Indeed, I believed you were dead, Jasper ; they told me so, father and Philip did Philip, my husband; they said that you had died on ship- board, and that your body had been buried in the sea." "Did they tell you that?" He spoke in that subdued and measured voice which marks a struggle ended and resig- nation won. "I know why it was. Your father never liked me. He could not bear to think that we should love each other. So he told you I was dead to destroy any hope which you might cherish of my return. But O, my Margaret, my Margaret no longer do you remember that 167 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border far-off night when you promised to be my wife ? In the presence of our old loved river which I think I shall not see again you vowed that you would never be untrue to me." "Jasper! Jasper!" she cried with anguish, "for the sake of our past do not condemn me; do not quite break my heart. I loved you I love you still; but when weeks, and months, and even more than a year had passed and you did not write to me, I thought that you had forgotten me. I would have written to you, but father watched me so persistently that I could not. O, Jasper, my only love, we have been cruelly wronged! I have not been happy;" here her voice broke into a sob; "say that you forgive my want of trust in you." To and fro she weaved in her grief, while down Jasper's wasted cheeks the tears were slipping freely. "I forgive you, Margaret," he said, "I, too, doubted you not altogether unjustly. But what is past is past. I came home once, more 168 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border 4 than a year ago; I went stealthily to your father's house; it was summer-time, and through the open window I saw you with a little child in your arms not my child, but another's! Then I thought I should die. I fled from the island and from the country. I hurried back to Europe anywhere, anywhere away from my sorrow. But now the end is near. I shall soon forget and be forgotten. The thought of such a death used to be fright- ful to me ; but now I look upon it with anxious desire. My morning was full of hope and love and ambition; but these have passed from me forever. It is well; my precious mother is no more, my life is a wreck; I have nothing to live for." "And I I have been the cause," sobbed Margaret; "but Jasper, dear Jasper, my heart goes with you into the hereafter." The sluices of her love were open now, and all the old affection rushed forth anew, as waters that have long been held in restraint burst their barriers at last, sweeping everything 169 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border before them. Tears bathed her cheeks. The remembrance of her dead child, too, came upon her, aiding in the strong revulsion of her feel- ings. "My baby is dead, Jasper," she gasped, "my baby is dead. You will go to my little one in heaven. He will know you and love you, Jasper, for I called him by your name. Dead . . . dead," she wept, rocking in her grief, "all things die that I love. O why can I not die, too ?" Passengers and sailors had been passing back and forth, attracted by the spectacle of that beautiful woman bending, with stream- ing eyes, over the haggard face of the sick man. But with true delicacy of feeling not one paused to stare at the strange tableau, though filled with wonder at what it could mean. "Margaret," said Jasper, "abide God's will. Our days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle. What we have missed in this world may come to us in eternity. I shall meet you there." 170 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border "Then farewell," she said, with a sudden flush, hastily drying her tears and with a scared look of remembrance. "Neither Philip nor father must find me here. I would not have them know that I had seen you, Jasper. I must go. Farewell !" How often finely-wrought natures, upon the discovery of deception in another, will shrink from revealing a knowledge of the deceit ! The rather they make haste to conceal the fact that the falsehood has been detected. Particularly is this so if the untruth is discovered in one who is loved, though never so unworthy. Thus it was with Margaret. She felt that she could not permit her father nor her husband to know that she was at last acquainted with their baseness. She rose swiftly from her kneeling posture, and was about to turn away, when Jasper spoke. "Wait, Margaret," he said, "what token am I to have that yonder I shall not watch for you in vain?" She hesitated for an instant, and then bent low and pressed her lips to his worn forehead. 171 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border "Farewell, Jasper," she whispered, and he an- swering whispered, "Farewell !" Only once more in this world did she see him on a bleak and rock-bound shore, where he lay cold and rigid with staring eyes, and sand and seaweed in his hair. Who will dare carp at our heroine's thus taking leave of the lover who had been betrayed to his and her own irremediable loss? Love an old love whose craving has been for years unsatisfied and repressed knows no conven- tions in the ultimate hour of parting; it has a high and just code of its own. In that su- preme crisis, when two passionate and fated hearts separate forever upon earth, love over- leaps all artificial restraints as easily and scorn- fully as in the ancient fable Remus overleaped his brother's wall. Margaret need not have abridged this last interview with Jasper for fear of either her husband or her father. They were aware that the sick man on board the vessel was none other than Jasper Forsyth, and by mutual consent 172 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border they avoided him as though he had been a leper. Jasper was seen no more above deck dur- ing the remainder of the voyage. The old monotony of the ocean, unchanged since the birth of time, went on. The bright morning sprang up from behind the waters in the east, and the red evening sun was quenched under the waters in the west. A solitary gull, a dis- tant sail, a wing- weary bird wandering be- wildered from its native woodlands, the limit- less expanse of unresting billows, a fragment of a wreck bearing into silence forever its un- written history of suffering and terror and death such are the diurnal scenes of those who "go down to the sea in ships." The vessel was now hardly four days from her destination. On the following morning she was enveloped by a dense fog, and extreme caution was necessary to her safety. In the early afternoon of the same day a brisk wind arose, and the fog was dispelled. Toward nightfall Margaret, who was restlessly moving Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border about the deck, observed Captain Jenkyns to be viewing the heavens with an anxious eye. The sky was of a dull leaden color, growing darker near the horizon, and where clouds and water seemed to meet was a lurid fringe of light. Margaret approached the captain and asked, "Are there indications of a storm, do you think, sir?" "There is nothing, madam, nothing but a capful of wind yonder," answered the captain politely, and with assumed indifference; but immediately he added, "However, madam, I think it would be prudent for you to go below at present ; we may have something of a breeze soon." ! Margaret turned away and went below. . The wind now increased to a gale, and the vessel bowled swiftly along. A high sea was running, and the waves at every moment gath- ered force and volume. None but officers and crew could be seen above deck, the passengers remaining below by order of the captain. Soon 174 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border a violent storm was raging, and the hoarse rumbling of thunder, mixed with the howling of the blast, made the war of the elements terri- ble. Inky darkness covered the heavens. Every instant in the blinding glare of the light- ning huge billows were seen like mountains toppling down and threatening to overwhelm the vessel with destruction. Wreckers were all alert on such a night as this, eagerly scanning the offing for the flot- sam of the sea. The lighthouse-keepers, too, along the grim Atlantic seaboard, faithfully trimmed their lamps in the lofty towers, and listened with anxious hearts to catch above the uproar of the tempest the signal guns of ships in distress. Suddenly where long breakers bared their white fangs, and the desolate coast rose up in many a rocky spur and crag, a band of wreck- ers caught the hollow booming which they un- derstood so well. Quickly a huge fire was kindled above the spume-drenched beach. In the red light of the leaping flames the uncer- '75 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border tain outlines of the rapidly moving figures sug- gested a company of evil spirits in a dance of death. Hardly had the reflection of the fire beaten back the darkness upon the foaming waters, before the wreckers descried the mas- sive bulk of a vessel driving helplessly into the midst of the seething breakers. In the fitful gleams of the fire, and the in- cessant flashes of the lightning, women could be seen upon the doomed vessel, some clasp- ing babes in their arms, others kneeling with hands outstretched in prayer. To the rigging men were clinging, their faces strained toward the friendly beacon ; others were rushing about the deck in a frenzy of activity. It was evident that, too late, the cargo was being jettisoned. There followed a dreadful moment, in which the ship appeared to pause and tremble; the signal gun again flashed through the murk, and the peal was faintly heard above the roar- ing tempest ; the vessel was seen to lift and leap forward, when instantly she stopped and stag- gered as from a mortal blow. Like a living 176 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border thing she seemed to feel the shock through all her tortured fabric, and recoiled shivering from bow-sprit to rudder. Then, with a crash that was audible above the shrieking of the wind and the pounding of the sea, she parted asunder and disappeared beneath the engulfing waves. That night, amid the debris of the wreck, a woman, with a life-buoy attached to her body, was washed ashore. The men who found hor at once perceived that life was not extinct, and conveyed her gently to a rude cabin near. After unremitted efforts on the part of the wreckers' wives, the woman was restored to conscious- ness. Far better would it have been had she found an ocean grave, though it were forever " To toss with tangles and with shells." At the first approach of morning, Margaret Fordham, deaf to all appeals to remain quietly upon the rough pallet where she had been placed, arose and began to move about. Neither commands nor entreaties served to de- tain her. She went down from the little cabin 12 177 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border to the beach, up which the long rollers were sweeping as if still hungry for prey. From Margaret's mind the impressions of the past night's terrors and struggles were nevermore to be effaced. Broken in body and spirit, she reeled as she walked. Round her lay scattered planks and casks and fragments of rope, but there was no interest to her in these. Suddenly, in a narrow bight where they had been tossed by the waves, Margaret encountered the bodies of two men lying side by side. With an eager, almost fierce, expression in her eyes she sprang forward. It seemed as if it were in mockery that the spirit of the tempest had brought these dead men face to face. Bending over the prostrate form nearest her, Margaret recognized the countenance of Jasper Forsyth. Pale and emaciated he lay, his unsatisfied aspirations, his hopeless affection, his heart- sickness forever past. Poor Jasper! his had been a sorrowful life in this world; but who can doubt that there is reserved a recompense for the just? 178 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border A single step onward lay the body of Henry Lesage, and on the features of the hard but not wholly unloving man, with the mysterious emphasis of death, was stamped the impress of a perverted soul. Unable to endure a scene which so taxed her exhausted energies, with a quavering cry she fell swooning on the strand ; and when, at length, the wreckers found her there, it was to find a hopeless and gibbering maniac. Our story is nearly done. The body of Philip Fordham was never recovered ; and, un- claimed by friends, with little ceremony and much dispatch the body of Jasper Forsyth and the body of Henry Lesage were buried side by side. It is a dismal spot where the winds are neyer hushed to silence, and where the breakers make their undying moan. And what of Margaret Fordham, the last of her race? Alas! it is related that she ended her unhappy days in a mad-house. It was upon the selfsame night of the wreck 179 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border of the Phosphor that the Lesage mansion on the island of St. Eustace was burned to the ground. The origin of the fire is involved in obscurity. By some it was declared to have been due to the carelessness of a drunken care-taker. By others the superstitious a supernatural agency was intimated ; for it was alleged that, as the man- sion burst into flames, an old and withered man, attired in antique regimentals and with a bloody wound in his breast, was seen to pass upward with the smoke and sparks and fade away amid the shadows of the night. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the Lesage man- sion was totally consumed; and of it nothing now remains, save a few charred timbers and the nearly obliterated foundation, to indicate where it had once been reared. Yesterday, standing by the grass-grown ruins, the writer's heart was oppressed with the desolation of the scene. Not a living thing was visible save a spotted lizard which lay sun- ning itself on a moss-covered stone that had once formed the lintel of a door. At the ap- 180 Retribution : A Tale of the Canadian Border proach of footsteps the reptile slid away into the dank weeds like the symbol of an unhal- lowed memory. And there, on a wild and storm-swept coast, the wronged lover and the mistaken father lie together in death. By wreckers and fisher-folk it is said that when a tempest shakes the shores and the rag- ing ocean bellows in its wrath, the figure of a distraught woman, with disheveled hair and piteous face, may be seen kneeling by those two neglected graves. They also say that sometimes in lulls of the storm, when the winds whine and the breakers sob, the listener may hear, audible through the confusion of the sinking tumult, the muttered words of an ancient malediction, God will yet visit retribution on you and yours. 181 000 03772?