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

The man sat for a long time looking at the pale, shining face, at the blue veins showing painfully dark on the temples and forehead, at the firm little white hand, which was as brown as a b.u.t.ternut a few weeks before. The longer he sat, the deeper did his misery sink into his soul.

His wife had gone, he knew not where, his child was wasting to death, and he had for his sorrows no inner consolation. He had ever had that touch of mystical imagination inseparable from the far north, yet he had none of that religious belief which swallowed up natural awe and turned it to the refining of life, and to the advantage of a man's soul. Now it was forced in upon him that his child was wiser than himself, wiser and safer. His life had been spent in the wastes, with rough deeds and rugged habits, and a youth of hardship, danger, and almost savage endurance, had given him a half-barbarian temperament, which could strike an angry blow at one moment and fondle to death at the next.

When he married sweet Lucette Barbond his religion reached little farther than a belief in the Scarlet Hunter of the Kimash Hills and those voices that could be heard calling in the night, till their time of sleep be past, and they should rise and reconquer the north.

Not even Father Corraine, whose ways were like those of his Master, could ever bring him to a more definite faith. His wife had at first striven with him, mourning yet loving. Sometimes the savage in him had broken out over the little creature, merely because barbaric tyranny was in him--torture followed by the pa.s.sionate kiss. But how was she philosopher enough to understand the cause?

When she fled from their hut one bitter day, as he roared some wild words at her, it was because her nerves had all been shaken from threatened death by wild beasts (of which he did not know), and his violence drove her mad. She had run out of the house, and on, and on, and on--and she had never come back. That was weeks ago, and there had been no word nor sign of her since. The man was now busy with it all, in a slow, c.u.mbrous way. A nature more to be touched by things seen than by things told, his mind was being awakened in a ma.s.sive kind of fashion.

He was viewing this crisis of his life as one sees a human face in the wide searching light of a great fire. He was restless, but he held himself still by a strong effort, not wishing to disturb the sleeper.

His eyes seemed to retreat farther and farther back under his s.h.a.ggy brows.

The great logs in the chimney burned brilliantly, and a bra.s.s crucifix over the child's head now and again reflected soft little flashes of light. This caught the hunter's eye. Presently there grew up in him a vague kind of hope that, somehow, this symbol would bring him luck--that was the way he put it to himself. He had felt this--and something more--when Dominique prayed. Somehow, Dominique's prayer was the only one he had ever heard that had gone home to him, had opened up the big sluices of his nature, and let the light of G.o.d flood in. No, there was another: the one Lucette made on the day that they were married, when a wonderful timid reverence played through his hungry love for her.

Hours pa.s.sed. All at once, without any other motion or gesture, the boy's eyes opened wide with a strange, intense look.

"Father," he said slowly, and in a kind of dream, "when you hear a sweet horn blow at night, is it the Scarlet Hunter calling?"

"P'r'aps. Why, Dominique?" He made up his mind to humour the boy, though it gave him strange aching forebodings. He had seen grown men and women with these fancies--and they had died.

"I heard one blowing just now, and the sounds seemed to wave over my head. Perhaps he's calling someone that's lost."

"Mebbe."

"And I heard a voice singing--it wasn't a bird tonight."

"There was no voice, Dominique."

"Yes, yes." There was something fine in the grave, courteous certainty of the lad. "I waked and you were sitting there thinking, and I shut my eyes again, and I heard the voice. I remember the tune and the words."

"What were the words?" In spite of himself the hunter felt awed.

"I've heard mother sing them, or something most like them:

"Why does the fire no longer burn?

(I am so lonely.) Why does the tent-door swing outward?

(I have no home.) Oh, let me breathe hard in your face!

(I am so lonely.) Oh, why do you shut your eyes to me?

(I have no home.)"

The boy paused.

"Was that all, Dominique?"

"No, not all."

"Let us make friends with the stars; (I am so lonely.) Give me your hand, I will hold it.

(I have no home.) Let us go hunting together.

(I am so lonely.) We will sleep at G.o.d's camp to-night.

(I have no home.)"

Dominique did not sing, but recited the words with a sort of chanting inflection.

"What does it mean when you hear a voice like that, father?"

"I don't know. Who told--your mother--the song?"

"Oh, I don't know. I suppose she just made them up--she and G.o.d....

There! There it is again? Don't you hear it--don't you hear it, daddy?"

"No, Dominique, it's only the kettle singing."

"A kettle isn't a voice. Daddy--" He paused a little, then went on, hesitatingly--"I saw a white swan fly through the door over your shoulder, when you came in to-night."

"No, no, Dominique; it was a flurry of snow blowing over my shoulder."

"But it looked at me with two shining eyes."

"That was two stars shining through the door, my son."

"How could there be snow flying and stars shining too, father?"

"It was just drift-snow on a light wind, but the stars were shining above, Dominique."

The man's voice was anxious and unconvincing, his eyes had a hungry, hunted look. The legend of the White Swan had to do with the pa.s.sing of a human soul. The swan had come in--would it go out alone? He touched the boy's hand--it was hot with fever; he felt the pulse--it ran high; he watched the face--it had a glowing light. Something stirred within him, and pa.s.sed like a wave to the farthest courses of his being.

Through his misery he had touched the garment of the Master of Souls. As though a voice said to him there, "Someone hath touched me," he got to his feet, and, with a sudden blind humility, lit two candles, placed them on a shelf in a corner before a porcelain figure of the Virgin, as he had seen his wife do. Then he picked a small handful of fresh spruce twigs from a branch over the chimney, and laid them beside the candles.

After a short pause he came slowly to the head of the boy's bed. Very solemnly he touched the foot of the Christ on the cross with the tips of his fingers, and brought them to his lips with an indescribable reverence. After a moment, standing with eyes fixed on the face of the crucified figure, he said, in a shaking voice:

"Pardon, bon Jesu! Sauvez mon enfant! Ne me laissez pas seul!"

The boy looked up with eyes again grown unnaturally heavy, and said:

"Amen!... Bon Jesu!... Encore! Encore, mon pere!"

The boy slept. The father stood still by the bed for a time, but at last slowly turned and went toward the fire.

Outside, two figures were approaching the hut--a man and a woman; yet at first glance the man might easily have been taken for a woman, because of the long black robe which he wore, and because his hair fell loose on his shoulders and his face was clean-shaven.

"Have patience, my daughter," said the man. "Do not enter till I call you. But stand close to the door, if you will, and hear all."

So saying he raised his hand as in a kind of benediction, pa.s.sed to the door, and after tapping very softly, opened it, entered, and closed it behind him-not so quickly, however, but that the woman caught a glimpse of the father and the boy. In her eyes there was the divine look of motherhood.

"Peace be to this house!" said the man gently as he stepped forward from the door.

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

"M'sieu' le cure!" he said in French, with an accent much poorer than that of the priest, or even of his own son. He had learned French from his wife; he himself was English.

The priest's quick eye had taken in the lighted candles at the little shrine, even as he saw the painfully changed aspect of the man.