BY FRANK PARKER DAY
Harper’s
Magazine, September 1923, Vol. CXLVII—No. 880.Frank Parker Day
AGES ago a glacier
slid over Marble Mountain and dropped granite boulders everywhere. These
boulders generations of red MacDonalds had torn from the hillside with crowbar,
chain and oxen, and builded them by the strength of their hands into fences
that circumscribed their farm. The first red MacDonald from the Western Isles
had been a man of strength and violence, and the conflict with nature, the
struggle with the rocks, had made the thews and sinews of each generation
mightier.
Sandy MacDonald, the
fifth lineal descendant of the original red MacDonald, acknowledged leader of
the clan against all comers, was a giant—a renowned bully and fighter, the
champion of Cape Breton Island sixty years ago in tossing the caber and putting
the stone. He could throw a steer with ease, and had once on a wager lifted an
anchor weighing seven hundred pounds. He was thick and broad through shoulders
and chest, straight in the back, narrow in the hips, and like all his
predecessors who had owned Stone Farm, his ruddy, bearded face was crowned with
a shaggy mop of copper-red hair. He lived in the open, drank much whisky—for in
the manner of our time he operated a private still—and had a tendency toward
religion, which was not Christianity but a kind of savage Hebraism. When very
drunk he used to read to his cowed and silent family fierce denunciatory
chapters, stormy Jeremiads from the Old Testament, and they must perforce listen
to his thunder as long as the whim was on him.
Stone Farm when Sandy
won the inheritance consisted of two hundred acres of cleared land with no tree
left standing.
It lay in a dip of the
hills halfway up the mountain side and, except a few acres ploughed up for root
and garden crops, was all in hay and pasture land. Sheep, cattle, and horses,
had always been the wealth of the MacDonalds. Each generation had cleared a few
acres to the northward and marked its progress with a new stone fence. The
house, barn, and outhouses gray with age and moss, and open to every wind that
blew, stood on a slight rise near the southern limit. High up above the farm, was
the steep mountain side peppered with boulders and mangy with clumps of dwarfed
firs and spruces, that turned tail to the northwest like herds of horses in a
driving rain. Below the farm a wide bog stretched to the foot of the next
range. This bog, a place of quaking mud, was evil and sinister in appearance
and in summer exhaled a sickening smell. Drunken Jock Sutherland cursing,
swearing, and vowing vengeance against all who bore the name MacDonald, had
last been seen on the road to Stone Farm. Sandy had been tried for his murder
and acquitted. Jock’s body was never found and local gossip whispered that Sandy
had killed him and thrown his body into the black, hungry mud of the bog.
Such was Stone Farm,
the somber home of the red MacDonalds over which Sandy ruled with a tyrant’s
hand. He would brook no opposition; his slightest suggestion must be obeyed to
the letter. His wife he had beaten and broken to his will in the first year of
their marriage. He begot two sons, Alex and Murdock, who lived in daily dread
of his fist or stick. Even when they were little boys he had, on his departure
for the village, set them tasks beyond their strength and beaten them cruelly
with his ox-whip if the tasks were not completed on his return. Through their
period of serfdom they were sustained by the knowledge that it could not be
otherwise, for they dared not run away, and by the thought that some day they
might be big and strong enough to strike their father to the ground. As they
grew to manhood they were giants in stature. Alex with his big hairy hands and
shock of red hair, was as like his father as are two peas in a pod; Murdock was
dark—black Murdock the people called him—favoring his mother, a Macintosh. Both
were mighty men, but Murdock lacked the tapering grace of Alex, for he was
round in chest and shoulder, heavy in lower leg and ankle and had the fatal
weakness of a hollowed back. Like their father, they were terrible to behold in
anger, and when they fought none could withstand them. Fights and quarrels were
meat and drink to them and they managed to provoke plenty of these through
imagined family insults, or by stealing girls from rival giants at dances.
One night when Alex
was in his twenty-first year, he was milking the red heifer that he had found
unbranded in the forest. He was in a bad temper, for his father had that day
forbidden him the use of the driving mare and cursed him roundly. While he was
wondering how long he could endure the old man’s treatment, the heifer switched
her tail across his eyes. He struck her savagely in the ribs, and she in turn
kicked over the pail of milk. Sandy passed by at that moment.
“You great lout,” he
cried, slapping Alex on the cheek. “Can you no milk a cow?”
Up sprang Alex flushed
with rage to meet his father. For a little they glared at each other, both
knowing that the great moment had come. It was a tradition with the red MacDonalds
that the farm passed on by conquest. Thirty years before, Sandy had fought his
father for the acquisition, and now Alex had thrown down the gauntlet. There
among the cows, milk pails, stools, and piles of manure, by the light of a
swinging lantern they fought a savage battle for the mastery. Though they
wasted no breath in words, the barn rang with their groans, with the thud of
their blows, and their sounds of wild-beast anger. Black Murdock came and
looked on in silence; with him it was merely the alternative of an old or new
master. Once Sandy grasped Alex suddenly around the knees and threw him with
all his strength against the studding of the barn. He sprang forward to
complete his conquest, but in his eagerness slipped and fell sprawling upon the
floor. Before he could recover himself the dazed and half-stunned Alex was on
his feet again. The fall and the great effort in throwing Alex had shaken
Sandy, and from that point the fight went against him. Five minutes later Alex
had his father’s head wedged between two stanchions, while his hairy paw
clutched his throat. Sandy held up his right hand limply as a signal of defeat.
Alex let him up and silently they helped each other clean the straw and manure
from their clothing. The three knew who was master now. Henceforth Alex might
harness the mare when he pleased and drive where he listed.
After that night Alex
directed the work of the farm and Sandy humbly took his orders. Murdock, too,
was submissive, but Alex was not yet satisfied. Murdock, though weaker, must
also be beaten and made to feel his mastery. He cast about in his mind for some
ground for a quarrel and at last hit upon a plan. For some time prior to the
fight between Alex and Sandy Murdock had been paying court to Mary MacIvor,
daughter of the innkeeper of Scottdale. Mary, a strapping, rosy-cheeked lass
with masses of black curly hair, the prettiest girl in the parish, was very
fond of Murdock and meant to marry him. This situation made a vulnerable point
in Murdock’s armor which Alex decided to attack. He, too, began to court Mary
with the sole purpose of inciting a quarrel. Mary stood in deadly terror of the
red-haired ruffian but, fearing for Murdock, she tried to assume an attitude of
sisterly friendliness. At parties Alex often claimed Mary as a partner when she
was dancing with Murdock, and though Murdock’s pride was stung to the quick, he
laughed and made no protest. Mary and he had agreed on a policy of
non-resistance in the hope that Alex would soon turn his attentions elsewhere.
In this they were disappointed, for as time went on Alex forgot his original
intent as a kind of rough passion possessed him.
One spring night when
Murdock was taking Mary home from church Alex waylaid them on the wooded road
half a mile above the village. The lovers, walking arm in arm, were talking of
their difficulties through Alex’s interference and of how they might escape
him, run away to the States, and marry. Suddenly Alex sprang from the shadow of
the trees, snatched Mary away from Murdock, and threw his arm about her.
“Get home, you loon,
she’s my girl from now on,” he shouted.
Murdock saw that the
time for passive resistance was gone. He had in his hand a heavy thorn stick
and as Alex turned, he struck him with full force across the back of the head.
The blow might have killed an ordinary man, and though Alex went down like a
poled ox, he was on his feet in a second and dashed at Murdock, red anger
blazing in his eyes. They struck, grappled and wrestled in the half light of
the roadway: they fell to the ground, now one on top, now the other; they tore
the clothing from each other’s backs. In the black shadow of the trees the
fight was like a primitive struggle between bear and giant leopard. Mary,
trembling with terror, had not even power to scream. At last the fighters
rolled from the roadway to the ditch and with the last roll Alex was on top. In
the muddy ditch Alex battered Murdock’s face and head with his great fists,
until he felt the body beneath him relax and go limp. When he knew that Murdock
had lost consciousness he sprang up to seize Mary.
“I’ve beaten Murdock
for you, you’re my girl now.”
“I hate you,” cried
Mary, struggling to free herself. “You have killed your brother who loved me.”
“I love you, too,
Mary,” sneered Alex.
Mary pulled back and
struck him in the face with all her strength. Alex laughed. Women’s blows meant
love to him, and this blow only increased his desire already blazing high.
“I’ve won you by
fight; I’ll do with you what I will,” he cried.
Mary struggled in
vain. Throwing one arm beneath her hips, he gathered her loosely in his arms,
and leaping over Murdock’s body, he parted the dark spruces and ran far into
the heart of the wood, with wild, lustful laughter.
An hour later Alex
took Mary to her father’s home in the village, saying as he left her, “Don’t
worry, lass, I’ll marry you in a fortnight’s time.” Then he returned swiftly to
grope along the dark and muddy ditch for his brother. If Murdock were dead he
must break quickly for cover. He found in roadway and ditch the marks of the
fight, but no sign of Murdock who, bruised and battered as he was, had
recovered sufficiently to stagger homeward.
For two days Murdock
moped about the house, a sick and broken man. When he learned that Alex
intended to marry Mary and what had happened after the fight he determined to
go away. His only fear was that Alex might forbid him that privilege and compel
him to stay at home with Mary in the house. On the third day, when Sandy and
Alex were employed in some work on the mountainside, he lifted his stiff,
bruised body from the kitchen sofa and silently left the house. His mother
watched him as he passed down the road, and when he topped the hill without
once looking back she put her apron to her eyes and shed bitter tears. Poor
woman, she had no joy in her men folk! She loved her two giant boys because she
had borne them, she even loved the brutal Sandy in a dumb, faithful way.
Alex had his way and
married Mary, though she was unwilling and though the innkeeper swore at first
that he would shoot him like a dog. No one in the parish dared resist Alex, and
in a fortnight’s time he brought Mary home as his wife to Stone Farm. Sandy
accepted the sorrowful bride as an inmate of the house, for Alex was master. At
the wedding feast all of the neighboring MacDonalds were present and very
drunk; they hailed themselves as members of the greatest family in the world,
and red Alex as the king of all the MacDonalds. Murdock, tramping the roads to
the northward, was forgotten.
During the following
summer and autumn Alex and Sandy were very busy with the hay, the roots, and
the stock. Each could do a prodigious amount of labor and each was proud of his
achievement. Two men did the work of three. In the winter they lumbered and got
the year’s supply of firewood. They missed Murdock, but they never spoke of his
absence. Alex, with a burning jealousy of Murdock in his heart, was enraged
because he could find no ground of complaint against Mary. She obeyed him
meekly and followed to the letter his slightest suggestion. Once he beat her
for what he called sullen silence. Mary made no resistance; she felt herself in
the grip of fate and lived in mortal terror of her husband.
Nothing was heard of
Murdock until the following spring, when a lumberjack, returning to Marble
Mountain from the north, brought word that Murdock had spent the winter working
in the woods on Baie Chaleur, and that there he had fought and been cruelly
beaten by Hercule Le Blanc, the bully of Quebec.
This piece of news
spread quickly about the parish and was gladly heard by the many enemies of the
red MacDonalds. Alex imagined a malicious gleam of triumph in every eye and
whisperings behind his back. For a week he brooded on this terrible insult to
his name. Once in the midst of their labors he turned fiercely on Sandy with,
“How could you breed a loon like that?” How dare a Frenchman lay hands upon his brother!
To be beaten by anyone seemed to him impossible; to be beaten by a frog-eating
Frenchman the depth of infamy.
After breakfast one
morning Alex took from the wall his gun, ax, and hunting bag. He put in the bag
his black teapot, a loaf of rye bread, and a piece of bacon.
“The ducks will be far
out in midbog to-day,” said Sandy.
“I’m not going duck
shooting.”
“Where then?”
“To Baie Chaleur.”
“Ay, I thought you
wouldn’t stand that insult forever. You should have moved sooner.”
“I move when I’m
ready,” said Alex. “Don’t work the black mare over hard, her off fore leg’s
strained.” This he said merely to show his authority.
“No.”
“I’ll be back for the
hay.”
“Ay.”
Alex said no word of
good-by to Mary or his mother, for it was not the way of the red MacDonalds to
say good-by to women or to inform them of their destination, their coming or
going.
He set off down the
road with his bag and blanket on his back, his light ax in his belt, his gun
over his shoulder. He meant to tramp four hundred miles and crush and trample
into the dust Hercule Le Blanc, who had dared to beat a MacDonald. Though the
weather was cold and rainy, he avoided the villages and always camped at night
in the woods, for he was penurious, resentful of strangers, and proud of his
hardihood. No knight in search of the Grail moved more eagerly, nor kept more
steadily to his single purpose. Day in and day out, he averaged thirty miles, and
on the late afternoon of the sixteenth day he reached the Jacquet River Camp on
Baie Chaleur, where Murdock had worked and been beaten.
He entered the dining
shanty just as the men were sitting down to tea, and as strangers were not
uncommon at the time of the spring drive, his advent created no comment. He was
invited to sit down and eat with the others. Alex accepted the invitation and
took a place at the lumberjacks’ table which was loaded with plates of bread,
pitchers of tea, and great steaming dishes of pork and beans. He helped himself
lightly— for he knew that one fought better after a scanty meal—and looked
about to select his antagonist from the crowd. The men were nearly all French
Canadians and he understood their patois but slightly.
“Which
is Hercule Le Blanc?” he asked of an English speaker who sat next him.
“That’s him with the
black beard— him that’s wavin’ his knife in his hand.”
“Is he the man that
licked black Murdock MacDonald?”
“He’s the boy.”
“Was it a good fight?”
“A dandy! MacDonald did
well till Hercule lashed him in the face with his foot. Nobody can beat
Hercule.”
Alex then sat in
silence, nibbling at his bread. When he thought of how he should begin the
struggle, his heart beat fast and he felt a curious emptiness in his stomach. Heretofore
he had fought men whose strength, tricks, and methods had long been talked of
and considered; now for the first time he would face some one from outside his
familiar world.
Tea was soon over and
the men drew back from the tables and lighted their pipes while the cooks
cleared up. Laughing and talking noisily, they separated into parties, the
largest group surrounding Hercule their hero, who tossed back the black curls
from his forehead, waved his arms, snapped his fingers, and boasted louder than
any. Alex could not understand wholly, but he gathered that Hercule was
reciting some epic of his conquests, perhaps his victory over Murdock. He rose
from his seat, crossed the room, parted the group about Le Blanc, and struck
him with his open hand upon the cheek. Silence fell upon the room; everyone
stood still until Hercule, mad with rage and astonishment, sprang forward with
a roar, and the two giants clinched. They strained, tugged, and swayed to and
fro. A table was overset and the broken dishes crashed to the ground. The boss
rushed in and with the help of several men tore the wrestlers apart.
“Let me at him,”
yelled Hercule as he struggled for freedom.
Alex released, stood
quiet, reserving his strength for the fight he had provoked.
“Who are you? ” said
the boss to Alex.
“I’m Alex MacDonald
from Cape Breton, Murdock’s brother, and I’ve strolled north to lick him,” said
Alex, pointing to the furious Frenchman.
“I’ll kill him, he
struck me,” screamed Hercule.
“Any fightin’ around
here has got to be done in an orderly fashion. I won’t have the tables and
dishes broke up,” said the boss.
“I’m ready to fight,”
growled Alex.
“Only let me get at
him,” screamed Le Blanc as he struggled for freedom.
“Keep quiet, Hercule,
wait until we get the room cleared; then you can have all the fight you want.”
The tables were pushed
back against the walls, the dishes packed away in cupboards, and the forms
piled high about the stove, so that the fighters might not be burned. The
lumberjacks in expectant mood ranged themselves around the room and improvised
a ring by half sitting, half leaning, against the tables. Lanterns hung from
the rafters made dull blurs of yellow light in the air heavy with the fumes of
Quebec-grown tobacco. In diagonally opposite corners were placed buckets of
water, boxes of sawdust, and chairs for the fighters.
Hercule, stripped to
the waist, took his seat in the east corner. His body was gleaming white and
the great muscles of his arms, back, and shoulders rippled beneath the skin on
his slightest movement. On his chest was a mass of shaggy black hair. He was
hard and fit after his winter spent swinging the ax in the open. He wore the
short knee trousers adopted by river men on the drive and about his waist some
admirer had tied a red scarf. On his feet he retained his driving shoes, which
bristled with dangerous spikes.
Stripped to the waist,
Alex revealed himself as a red MacDonald. He retained the heavy corduroy
trousers and worn boots in which he had made the long journey, because he had
nothing else to wear. When he stood up for a moment to scuff his feet in the
sawdust the strength and beauty of his build was apparent. Though perhaps
twenty pounds lighter than Le
Blanc, he carried his weight high, for he tapered from feet to shoulders, the
great breadth and power of which made his waist look slim and shapely. A thick
lock of red hair dangled over his forehead and half hid his sullen yet alert
eyes that watched Le Blanc carefully. He noted the swelling biceps of the
Frenchman and hoped that he might be muscle bound like Jock Campbell of the
Dale. He saw, too, in a flash, that Hercule’s reach was not as long as his arm.
He must depend on his quickness of foot and watch those powerful arms in the
clinches.
A Scotchman and
Welshman—the only two of British descent in the camp —moved by a sporting
spirit, stood behind Alex, and the Welshman offered to swing a towel in his
corner.
“I want no second,”
growled the ungracious Alex. “I’m a MacDonald from Cape Breton against the
world.”
His heart at once misgave
him for the refusal of friendship, but it was too late to retract his words. He
was glad that, in spite of his rudeness, the two Britishers continued to stand
behind his chair.
The boss, who
appointed himself referee and timekeeper, named the rules, which were simple in
the extreme. The rounds were to be three minutes long, with one minute for rest
between them. A fighter knocked down was to have ten seconds to get on his
feet. Beyond these restrictions the fighters were free to punish each other to
the limit of their capacities.
At the sound of the
bell Alex and Hercule sprang from their corners, struck fierce blows, then
clinched to wrestle about the room. Neither could throw the other, but as they
broke, Hercule hooked his right to Alex’s cheek and crashed him to the floor.
For a moment it looked as if the fight were over before getting fairly under
way. In a flat monotonous voice the boss began to count. One, two, three, four
. . . No other sound was heard in that tense moment. Alex lay quiet till he heard
seven and then sprang up quickly to face his opponent. Le Blanc with a grin of
triumph dashed in to finish his work and was met full in the teeth by a
straight left, that shot out with the strength and precision of an engine’s
piston. His smile of victory faded, rage spread over his face, and with a
savage growl, he rushed in again to meet Alex’s machine-like left. They
clinched and wrestled until the bell rang.
That minute of rest
was a blessed time for Alex, whose head buzzed and rang from the terrific blow
he had received. When he stood up for the second round his brain was clear and
he had resolved to carry on the fight at long range and depend on his quickness
of foot. Le Blanc, on the other hand, sought to bring the battle to close
quarters, so that he might employ his mighty swings and hooks. Alex danced
about and darted in with straight rights or lefts. The first round had taught
him caution, and in the breaks he kept his hands on the outside of Hercule’s
arms until he was ready to step back out of range. Blood flowed freely from
both and streaked Hercule’s white body, already marked with purple blotches
where Alex had landed heavy blows. When the bell closed the round, the fighters
were even in honors, but Le Blanc was sullen while Alex was growing in
confidence.
In the third round
Hercule tried holding, wrestling, rubbing with his chin, and butting with his
head, but Alex was his equal at any of those tricks. Once the Frenchman tried
to get his hand into Alex’s mouth in order to rip his cheek open, but all he
achieved was a badly bitten thumb. In wrestling neither secured a true fall,
though several times they were upon the floor. They rolled over and over
against the watchers’ legs; once they disappeared from sight beneath a table,
to be dragged out and stood upon their feet. Thus the fight swayed on, waged
with intense bitterness and hatred.
As they stepped from
their corners for the sixth round, Alex caught a curious glint in the
Frenchman’s eye and sensed a new plan on his antagonist’s part. Earlier in the
fight he had heard Hercule’s backers cry, “Tirez la savate, Hercule.”
He had heard that phrase in Arichat and knew its meaning well. Probably this
was the round for Le Blanc’s master stroke. Sure enough, as Alex darted in with
left and right, Hercule threw himself upon his hands and lashed out with his
feet. Alex forewarned, dropped upon his knees and the spiked boots whirled over
his head. A second later he was upon Le Blanc, gripping hard and punching
before the Frenchman could recover his balance. Again in this round Hercule
attempted the savate, and though Alex stepped back quickly,
the spikes caught his chest muscles and tore the flesh cruelly. The dexterity
of the Frenchman, who had the marvelous co-ordination of a cat, was
bewildering.
When the bell rang
Alex had one minute to rest and think. Unless he could meet this new attack he
would lose the fight. In that event he could never return to Cape Breton. His
chest pained and was bleeding freely. Le Blanc’s backers looked at him and grinned
as they rubbed the legs and shoulders of their champion. Rage and pride welled
up within him; he would at any rate fight until he died. When he stood up for
the seventh round he had decided on a desperate line of action. As they met in
the center of the ring Alex feinted an attack with his left. In a fraction of a
second Hercule was upon his hands and had lashed out with his feet. But Alex
had not darted in, he had stepped back, with his feet well apart in a firm
balance. At the moment of Le Blanc’s greatest extension, Alex caught the Frenchman’s
ankles in his great hands and with a giant effort whirled him waist high until
he crashed his head and shoulders against the stove and piled-up forms. Over
went the stove in a shower of red coals; down rattled the stovepipe. Alex
dropped the Frenchman’s ankles and Hercule lay still. Some one threw a bucket
of water upon the hot coals that seared the floor. A cloud of smoke and vapor
arose, filling the room. When the smoke cleared Hercule still lay motionless.
The fight was over!
As Hercule’s friends
gathered him up and placed him in his bunk, Alex returned to his corner, dipped
some water from his bucket, and washed the blood from his face and breast. He
then pulled on his shirt and coat, gathered up his equipment, and turned to the
door. The lumberjacks were so dazed by the colossal proportions of the fight
and by its unexpected outcome that they stood gaping in silence. The Scotchman,
however, held out a friendly hand, which Alex disregarded, and the boss said, “You’re
welcome to sleep with us tonight.”
“When I’m away from
home I always sleep under a tree,” said Alex, and he stepped out and vanished
in the darkness of the wood. He looked up at the stars a moment to get his
bearings and struck off on a southern trail. He staggered as he walked, for he
was sore and faint. He said over and over to himself, “I have beaten him, I
have beaten him, now I must get home to help the old man with the hay.” After a
little he crept into a thicket like a wounded bear and nursed his bruises till
weariness conquered pain and sleep stole over him.
When Alex awoke in the
morning the ground mists lay so heavy around him that he could scarcely see
anything ten yards distant. The spruce under which he had slept was dripping
and festooned with spiders’ webs beaded with moisture. His clothing was soaked
with the night’s heavy dew. He rolled over and startled himself with his deep
groan. The muscles of his arms and shoulders were bruised and cramped: the
clotted wound on his breast burned and smarted. By slow degrees he got upon his
feet; his legs were all right at any rate. Luckily, he found a red spruce
nearby, and with a great effort he got a fire going and boiled his kettle. He
crouched close over the blaze, drank some tea, and ate a hunk of bread. Fire
and hot tea warmed him, and before he had finished his meager breakfast the May
sun broke through the low-hanging fog. If only his chest would stop aching. He
opened his shirt to look at his wound. It was angry and beginning to fester.
Bah! What were a few scratches across the chest; he had borne more when a
child! He would reach Cape Breton unaided: a red MacDonald must never fail!
Again he got upon his feet, strapped on bag, gun and ax, and took the southerly
woodroad. For an hour he traveled down a long slope to the bottom where a brook
rippled across the trail. From the brook he drank thirstily before he began the
ascent of the ridge in front of him.
When he had gone part
way up the slope the strap of his hunting bag began to gall his chest. He
shifted the bag to the other shoulder, but the gnawing ache never ceased. After
a hundred yards he sat down upon a fallen tree; when he tried again it was only
to go fifty yards without a rest. The stages became shorter and shorter; a mist
swam before his eyes, and in a half-delirium he saw Hercule dance triumphantly
before him. He groped dimly up the ridge, swaying and staggering from side to
side, striking wildly at spruce branches that brushed against his face. He cast
away his gun, his bag, and last of all his ax, the woodman’s treasure. If only
a man from home were there to help him he might still make Cape Breton! His
knees sagged, he staggered wildly, and fell prone by the roadside.
It was noon when Alex
fell and before twilight some sentinel crows perched upon a near-by fir, to
stake their claim to the treasure. From time to time one fluttered down, to hop
near the fallen man and then to wing back with the intelligence, “He is not yet
dead.” Night fell and with it came furtive brown and gray things that sniffed
the scent of man and slipped silently away.
Nanette, with a black
kerchief over her head, walked joyfully along the wooded path. The spring was
really come at last and, except for gray patches under the spruces, the wood
was almost free of snow. Though the hardwood trees were bare and gaunt, their
limbs made wonderful patterns against the heaven’s blue. The maple buds showed
a touch of magenta and the unfolded birch leaves a tender yellow. The air was
clear and strong, stirring the blood like wine.
When she came to a
sharp turn in the wood-road, she sensed something strange in the forest. She
stopped, stood erect, and wrinkled her little nostrils. What were those crows
so solemn and so silent doing in that fir tree? Perhaps a deer was down with a
broken leg, or a sheep had wandered from the farm and been torn by bears.
Quietly, cautiously, she tiptoed round the bend and to her great astonishment,
saw a giant with a mass of tousled red hair lying by the roadside. Her heart
gave a great throb: she stood trembling like a young poplar at noontide. A dead
man in the forest was a terrifying spectacle; it was out of tune with
everything springing into life!
Slowly she approached
Alex and laid her hand upon his neck. It was warm.
Thanks to the Good God,
the giant had life in him! She thrust her hand toward his heart and the hurt
body twitched visibly. Whence had he come? Had he dropped from the sky? He was
unlike any Quebec man she had ever seen! It was indeed a wonder that he had not
smothered with his face buried in that soaking moss. With a great effort she
turned his shoulder and face, and the sun touched his brown cheek. She ran to
the brook, fetched water in a twisted piece of birch bark, and dashed it in his
face, pried open his teeth, and poured some in his mouth, but beyond a deep
groan there was no response.
She must get help to
save him! She tore two strips from her white petticoat, drove a stake in the
ground, and tied the strips so that they would flutter in the breeze. That
would keep off all the forest folk until her return. She cast one loving glance
upon the man she had found and then, holding her skirt high, she began to run.
She burst from the
wood crying, “Father, father, a man is dying in the forest.”
Father Amirault
dropped his tools and waited.
“A giant, a giant with
wonderful red hair,” she panted.
The whole household
was soon in commotion. An ox was brought from the barn and harnessed to a drag,
on which were lashed four stout boards, a pillow and wool comforter from mother
Amirault’s bed. Father Amirault and Pierre, the oldest boy, took their axes,
for Nanette had reminded them that the big pine was down across the trail.
Nanette fluttered about in a frantic effort to hurry the preparations. At last
they were off, the drag grinding over stones, the ox lumbering along,
unutterably slow.
Nanette, equipped with
a flask of whiskey, finding their progress too slow, ran ahead, reached Alex,
and knelt by his side. As she chafed his wrists and temples and dropped the
liquor in his mouth, she heard the ring of axes attacking the big pine. She
worked incessantly to warm him back to life and prayed with her whole heart to
the Good God to save him. She wondered how he had become so battered about the
face and neck. When she opened his shirt the angry wound, that looked like the
stroke of a bear’s paw, told the secret of his collapse.
At last father
Amirault and Pierre arrived with the dagan. They rolled the giant upon the
boards, wrapped him in the comforter, placed the pillow under his head, and
lashed everything securely to the drag. Then they set out for the farm with
father Amirault in front, twirling his whip and uttering great shouts to
encourage the ox, Pierre walking near Alex’s head and secretly goading the ox
with a short pointed stick when father Amirault was not looking, and Nanette
behind, her eyes fixed upon the strange man she had found in the wood.
When this procession
arrived in the clearing they unlashed the tackle from the drag, and mother
Amirault and Nanette helped the men carry Alex into the house, where they laid
him on the bed behind the stove. That meant that the two little boys must find
quarters in the loft. The bed was too short, but father Amirault soon
lengthened it with two soap boxes, while mother Amirault sewed a yard-wide hem
on one of father Amirault’s nightgowns to make a garment for the sick man. They
undressed and washed the giant, marveling at his thews and muscles, and mother
Amirault placed a fat warm poultice of bread upon his wounded breast. They
poured warm bean soup into his mouth together with some spoonfuls of whisky blanc,
the universal remedy for all ills. Then they dispatched Pierre to the village
at Jacquet River for the doctor and the priest.
All day long as Alex
lay on the bed behind the stove, father Amirault and the boys were out of doors
while mother Amirault and Nanette washed, scrubbed, and baked within the house.
Now and then Nanette stopped to gaze at the massive head crowned with a shock
of red till her mother said,
“How slow you are
to-day, Nanette.”
“I cannot put the
strange man out of my mind. What was he doing in the wood, and where did he
come from?”
“Think of nothing
until Father Saulnier arrives. He will know everything.”
Toward evening they
heard the tinkle of bells, and Pierre, the priest, and the doctor arrived. The
priest was a slender dark man with a humorous eye. As he entered with, “God be
within this house and His grace upon you all,” his glance caught the huge
figure on the bed behind the stove. His eyes twinkled as he said jovially, “Ah,
ah, mother Amirault, what kind of a babe is this you have brought our good Jean
in the springtime? ’Twill take a big spruce to make a cradle for that boy.”
“He is near death,
Father.”
“Not with that color
in his cheek.”
The doctor had
lingered in the yard to pass the day with father Amirault. He was something of
a fop and proud of his knowledge of sport. He lorded it over the country people
and when he scolded them for not following his instructions he twirled and chewed
the black cigar between his lips. At length he entered the house and stood by
the bed. He bared Alex’s arm and felt its shaggy strength, then opened his
shirt, removed the poultice, and looked fixedly at the wound.
“This is the man who
beat Hercule Le Blanc.”
“He has the scratch of
a bear’s paw over his heart,” said mother Amirault.
“Those are the marks
of Hercules spikes.”
After having made his
examination he said, “He may live if blood poisoning does not set in. He is
suffering from shock, exposure, and fatigue. Keep him warm, give him a little
whiskey and warm soup, and put poultices on as you have done.”
Then the doctor told
them how this giant, Alex MacDonald by name, had walked four hundred miles from
Cape Breton to Jacquet River, to fight Hercule Le Blanc because Hercule had beaten
Murdock his brother.
“Four hundred miles
through the woods to fight the bully of Quebec!” thought little Nanette. “He is
my man since but for me he would have died.”
The doctor recited the
epic of the contest. When he told at last how Alex had swung Hercule by the
ankles about the room and dashed him against the stove, his little audience was
breathless.
“He is a violent man,”
said mother Amirault, “and not one of ours, father.”
“No,” said the priest,
“but the Good God has sent him to you and you must nurse him back to life. He
is what the Acadiennes call a protestant. Perhaps he may see the light. It is
not unlawful for you to pray for his spirit.”
For two days Alex lay
still upon his bed. The stove gave out a constant glow, for in the chill hours
before dawn Nanette crept from her bed to throw gnarled hardwood knots upon the
dull embers. Rest and warmth of bed and stove set the blood restirring within
the body of the giant. Alex began to move and turn, to lapse again into
unconsciousness. Nature was awakening in him as in the wood. Once he looked
into a pair of brown eyes watching by his bedside. He thought of the beseeching
look of a fawn whose throat he had once cut, and fell asleep again.
When he awoke and
looked about him he saw first upon the wall some colored prints of saints and
martyrs. A big cooking stove occupied the center of the room. In a neat row
near the door were sabots of varying sizes. A rifle, shotgun, and
two double-bitted axes hung on birch hooks over the dark recess that had once been
a fireplace.
The bewildered Alex
turned his head cautiously to get a further view. Near the table, set for
supper with a white cloth and shining dishes, sat two women sewing. One was
perhaps thirty-five, the other a girl of eighteen. Both had dark eyes and
placid oval faces. They were obviously French, mother and daughter. They spoke
in low tones to each other, unaware that the sick man’s eyes were upon them.
Where was he? Had he
lost the fight to Le Blanc? No, he remembered the winning coup! He remembered
leaving the camp, sleeping in the wood, getting his breakfast and setting off
homeward. He remembered crossing the brook, the great pain in his breast and
the difficulty of the climb up the ridge. He had sat down upon a tree to rest
and staggered when he began to walk—then he remembered nothing more. What was
he, Alex MacDonald, doing in bed in the middle of the day? He stirred and tried
to raise himself on his elbows.
“Stay still,” called
mother Amirault sharply. A woman giving him orders, that was too much! He
heaved himself up a little, but fell back trembling as a great pain shot
through him. He suddenly realized that he was weak as a child.
“You must not move,
but lie flat upon your back. Death has peered into your face. Nanette, bring
the barley broth.”
Alex missed many words
of the patois as he meekly sipped spoonfuls of the rich soup. “Water,” he
murmured. It was the first word he had spoken. Nanette ran to the spring and
fetched a dipperful. He drank greedily.
“Where am I?”
“In Jean Amirault’s house
at Petite Riviere. I am his wife and this is my daughter Nanette, who found you
in the wood. Now lie quiet and speak no more.”
The women went back to
their sewing and Alex to reflection. Why had these people rescued an enemy and
what would they do with him? What was the motive for their kindness? Probably
robbery! They must have found the money sewn in the lining of his coat!
Strange, there were his boots and clothes piled neatly on the box beside his
bed! Against the wall were his gun, ax, and bag which he had thrown away near
the brook. Well, he was in their power as long as he was sick. Had they
intended murdering him they would have done it before he woke. He must use
cunning and lie there until he was strong, then spring up suddenly, seize his
equipment and money, and set out for home.
About supper time
father Amirault and Pierre came in from their work. When father Amirault
learned that the giant was awake and had spoken he approached the bed grinning.
“Well, giant, how are
you? You were a big load on the drag. You are a great fighter, heh, and beat
our good Hercule. Well, many will be glad that that bully’s mouth is stopped. I
wish I had seen the fight. You are welcome here, but you must soon get well and
return to your folks.”
Alex gave him a surly
look and tried in vain to turn his face to the wall.
Father Amirault,
nothing daunted, grinned more widely. “To-morrow,” he said, “the doctor will be
here again to cure you.”
They sat down to
supper, and Alex watched them curiously as they drank mugs of tea with their
simple meal of homemade bread and bacon. They were strange folk! They laughed
and talked at table and beamed at one another. Even the little boys joined in
the conversation and were listened to. Sometimes they all talked at once with
great enthusiasm.
After supper father
Amirault and Pierre sat by the stove and smoked their pipes while the women
washed the dishes and the boys played at still-hunting moose in the dark
corners behind the table and Alex’s bed. At eight o’clock mother Amirault gave
the sick man some broth, placed a glass of water on the box near him, and laid
a fresh poultice upon his breast. Then the family knelt down and prayed with
simple devotion. Father Amirault filled the stove with hardwood sticks, closed
the draughts, and sprinkled ashes upon the glowing coals. After that the family
retired, father and mother Amirault in the front room, Nanette to a tiny room
adjoining, not much larger than a closet, while Pierre and the little boys
climbed the ladder to the loft.
Alex lay still with
wide-open eyes listening to the creaking of beds and the patter of feet above
him. “They must have reckoned,” he thought, “that I am too weak to escape, for
they have not even locked the door. They are deep and cunning, but some morning
they will wake and find the bird flown. Till then I am in their power.” He
lapsed gradually into sleep.
Next day the doctor
arrived and examined Alex’s wound. He shook his head and looked very serious.
“You are in for a long
siege, my bold giant. Keep quiet if you want to live. When you are stronger, I
will cut away the proud poisoned flesh so that the edges may heal.”
June came warm and
bright, July nights were warm and mellow, and the August sunshine gilded the
heads of the wheat in the patch in the clearing, and still Alex lay upon his
back, slowly gathering strength as the ugly wound healed. The doctor had been
with him weekly, and the Amiraults had tended him as if he
had been their son. At first he
understood little of their talk and spoke hardly at all, except to ask for food
or water. Day after day he listened and finally understood all. He heard their
prayers with which they began and concluded each day. In them there was always
a petition for the sick stranger whom God had sent them. No blows were struck in
that household nor were any cross words spoken. He saw only happiness, mutual
helpfulness, kindness, and laughter. Gradually it was borne in upon him that
these people were not playing a part for his benefit, but that this was their
natural mode of life. This idea broke upon him as a great revelation. He had
never realized that some people are habitually kind and gentle to one another.
Perhaps their religion had a softening influence upon them. He compared it with
the drunken Jeremiads of his father, and remembered how he had cowered as a
boy, when Sandy, in the role of the Almighty, had denounced the degeneracy of
Jerusalem.
Mother Amirault and
Nanette were so untiring in their attentions to him, that, in spite of himself
as he got better, he began to talk with them a little and sometimes to smile.
Something softened within him and he told the women of his home in Cape Breton,
praising it as does every man among strangers far from the land of his
nativity. He told them of the rich acres that his ancestors from the Western
Isles had won on the rocky hills. He spoke of his father and mother and of
Murdock but, though he tried to tell of Mary, his tongue faltered and he could
not.
Nanette often sat by
his bed and related her simple adventures. As she had been seven times to
Jacquet River for mass, she counted herself a great traveler. She had kept her
eyes open and observed the Sunday dress of every woman in the parish. Moreover,
she had always picked up some news at the church door while waiting for father
Amirault to come with the horse. Once while so waiting she had seen Hercule Le
Blanc, whom everyone knew. She
had interpreted sweetly every thing she had met in her little world; she had
seen life at its best and dreamed a little of romance. Better than anything
else, she understood the spirit of the forest and the ways of wild animals. She
could not think how Alex dared sleep alone in the woods, for she said archly,
“A man of your
experience must know that the loup-garou stalks at
night.”
Alex never tired of her
artless tales— sometimes like a child he asked her to repeat a special story—or
of looking at the simple innocence of her face.
It was the middle of
August before Alex tottered out of doors to sit on a bench in the sunshine. His
wound was healed, but his strength came slowly. He had hoped to be able to make
the journey homeward in September, but in that he was disappointed. The
slightest exertion threw him into a fever and perspiration. Snow fell in the
last of September, there was no Indian summer, and with the snow vanished the
hope of a homeward journey until spring. He wrote a letter to Sandy, telling of
his illness and whereabouts, and dispatched it by the doctor to be posted in
the village.
Since he must perforce
spend the winter with the Amiraults, he resolved to show that he was no
sluggard but worth his bed and board. As soon as he was fully strong he began
to work with the men. What a day’s work the giant could do! He tore out
boulders that had defied father and grandfather Amirault. He built a stone wall
under the barn and laid new sills under the sagging floor. Alex could do
anything with a broadax. In a week he and Pierre hewed out the timber for a
shed planned for many years. They cut a pile of wood whose top towered above
the ridge pole of the house. In the tiny forge he welded broken tools,
resharpened the picks, and relinked worn chains. They cut in that winter eight
hundred spruce logs, hauled them, and rolled them down the brow. Alex was never
idle for a moment of daylight, and they all wondered at his vigor, strength,
and activity.
He gloried in the work
that he could do because he had learned to love those simple people in the
forest clearing. Constant association with them changed him. The lowering,
quarrelsome ruffian became gradually a man. Sometimes in the evenings he joined
their songs in a low voice and laughed and played with the children. He began
to dread a relapse into his former life that belonged to another world. For his
right hand he would have not brought fear to Nanette and mother Amirault, who
had nursed him back to life.
At the time of the
Christmas celebration, however, he came dangerously near to his old self. The
Amiraults had invited their cousins, the Boudreaus, to visit them on Christmas
day. One of the Boudreaus, Jacques by name, was a big handsome fellow whom Alex
instinctively hated. Perhaps he was jealous of a rival in physique or thought that
the habitant’s glances at Nanette were too friendly. At
any rate, after dinner when the whisky blanc went round, he drank deeply
but remained sullenly silent and refused to join in the singing. When Jacques
Boudreau began a solo part of his special song, Alex sprang up and roared that
the man sang like a frog and that the red MacDonalds could beat all the
Frenchmen in the world. With that he struck the table with his fist and split
the middle board of good spruce— the Amiraults can show you the crack to this
day. The habitant who knew him as the renowned conqueror
of Hercule Le Blanc, stopped short in the midst of his song. Father Amirault’s
eyes gleamed ominously and his fingers drummed a swift tattoo upon the table.
The tinder was ready for a spark when the gentle Nanette laid her hand upon
Alex’s arm and said, “Alex, you must be polite to our guests.” Then he was
ashamed and took his cap and rushed out of doors, and walked in the snowy
forest, returning only after they were all in bed. Next morning it seemed that
all was forgotten, for there was never a mention made of the incident in the
household.
At last April came,
the ice in the river began to crack, the run above the salmon pool roared like
thunder, and snow melted in the wood-roads and cleared places. Alex knew that
it was time for him to go, but he lingered on with the pretext that he must
help father Amirault with his sugar. They had tapped many maple trees and the
sap ran richly that spring. Alex carried the brimming sap buckets from the
trees to the great sugar pot. He sought excuses to stay, for with the thought
of the dour land of his birth and the savagery of his youth came a curious
sinking of heart. However, he was well and strong and he could not live with
the Amiraults forever and, though he had earned his keep, they had many mouths
to fill and they had no room for him in their tiny house.
When May came and the
warm south wind melted all the snow among the hardwoods and the arbutus
blossomed again in the moss, Alex said one day to father Amirault, “I must walk
homeward now. You will not lose by having harbored me, for though I have little
money with me, my people are well-to-do and will repay you for my bed, board
and nursing.”
Father Amirault
laughed merrily. “You have already repaid me, giant. Look at our wood-pile and
the stone foundation, and the new sills under the barn and the logs on the
brow. You have paid many times. Mother Amirault will have more pork in the
barrel next winter than ever before, and besides you are good company. At first
you were cross, giant, but now you are bon camarade. No, no, the
Good God sent you to us for reasons of His own and we want no pay from you. In
fact, we shall miss you, giant, and you are welcome to stay always, but, of
course, your mother and father are yearning to see you. So take our blessing
and go. When you come north again to fight another Hercule—poor fellow, I hear
he never boasts now—our poor house is always yours.” Father Amirault completed
this long speech with a circular swing of his arms that signified the end of a
discussion.
“You are a kind man,”
said Alex. “Did you do all this for me expecting nothing in return?”
“Return, heh! Did we
not find you in the wood? ‘It is lucky to find a man in the spring,’ the women
say. The Good God who sent you will repay. Perhaps sometime a stranger will be
good to one of my boys.”
“I have been very
lucky, but I am a poor hand at thanking,” said Alex. “These have been the
happiest months of all my life, but I must return to my people. I shall leave
to-morrow morning.”
The last night, as
they sat together about the kitchen stove, was like many others they had
passed, but it had an added touch of solemnity because it was their last
together. Nanette sat close to Alex, in whom she assumed in her simple way that
she had some proprietary right, and linked her arm through his. Father Amirault
played on his accordion: “Malbrouck s’en va-t-en guerre,” “En roulant ma
boule,” and “Isabeau s’y promène,”
melodies their forefathers had brought from old France.
When they knelt down
for prayer that night Alex knelt with them. They besought the Blessed Virgin
and Saint Raphael, friend of travelers, to take especial care of Alex on his
long journey to the land of the Acadians.
For a long time that
night Alex tossed sleeplessly. He watched the firelight make strange patterns
on the wall and heard the great beech trees rustle and brush their branches
against the roof. Starting with a false ideal, he had missed the whole point of
life. He almost hated great strength and physical prowess; bears and lions had
more than he and lived in a world of hunted insecurity. Why had he never
learned of gentleness and love? How could he leave Nanette? How would he greet
Mary whom he had beaten and never loved? What good had come from destroying
Hercule? He thought of one of mother Amirault’s sayings, “Everyone has a cross
to bear, my son; some are heavy and some light, but no one goes through the
world without a cross.” Surely his was a heavy cross! An ember snapped sharply
in the stove and a floor board creaked. He turned and his heart leaped with a
throb of passion as he saw a white figure standing in the middle of the kitchen
floor. It was Nanette, her black hair falling about her shoulders. The stove
threw a patch of red light upon her nightgown; her feet were bare.
“Alex,” she whispered.
“Yes, Nanette.”
“I may not have a
chance to speak to you to-morrow, so I have come now.”
“Yes, Nanette.”
“You will not forget
that I found you in the wood?”
“No, Nanette.”
“You
will never forget me?”
“Never.”
“I love you, Alex.”
“I love you, too,
Nanette.”
“Good-night.”
“Good-night,” and she
was gone as noiselessly as she had come.
Alex turned his face
to the wall, a miserable man. If he had been unhappy before, he was thrice
unhappy now. Here was his great chance in life and he must throw it away, to
return to a woman who hated him and whom he did not love. He sprang from his
bed, pulled on coat and boots, and wandered out into the night. The wind was
cool against his hot brow. Far off he heard the rapid roar. He took the road to
the river and on its bank sat down to watch the violence of the waters.
Like the river was the
tumult in Alex’s soul. It gave him a strange comfort to watch this violence of
nature. “Perhaps,” he thought, “a man could fight a thing like this.” There was
nothing at home so frankly violent, nothing but the great bog equally dangerous
but silent and sullen. He so convinced himself of his uselessness in life that
he was about to leap into the river, when the moon broke from a ragged cloud
and flooded the valley with cold moonlight. Far off at the foot of the run a
light flickered—some Indian spearing salmon. Something within him said, “These
angry waters will some day find peace and quiet in the sea and be dissolved in
mists and seek again the great lakes in the forest. Life is like that.” He
turned on his heel, walked back, reached father Amirault’s house and slept
restlessly till dawn.
They talked little at
breakfast. When the meal was over Alex hung on his shoulder the bag well
stuffed by mother Amirault with bread and cakes, took his gun and ax, and was
ready to depart. He stood awkwardly, not knowing how to say adieu. Mother
Amirault suddenly threw her arms about him, pulled down his head, and kissed
him on both cheeks. He bent down and touched Nanette’s forehead with his lips.
“Remember us to your
good mother.”
“You will sleep in
villages when you can,” pleaded Nanette. “A lonely wood is no place for a man
when the loup-garou walks.”
“She is afraid some
other girl will find you, giant,” laughed father Amirault.
Alex reddened and
promised to do as Nanette wished. He turned and held out his hand to father
Amirault.
“No, no, giant, the
boys and I have planned to walk with you as far as Red Brook.”
So he set out with the
boys and father Amirault, who waved his hands and chattered volubly. Mother
Amirault stood in the doorway and Nanette upon the slate flagstone to watch his
departure. The morning sun had just cleared the tree tops. Alex was sick at
heart, but he gave no sign of his sorrow. As he entered the wood he turned to
wave his hand. In one quick glance he saw what remained forever in his mind,
the little gray house and barn, the giant wood-pile that the sun colored a
gleaming yellow, and on the doorstep the slender figure of Nanette clad in
black, a black kerchief upon her head, watching until the forest should swallow
him again. She loved him—what a wonder, what a pity! He plodded doggedly on,
his heart filled with a kind of sweet sorrow. He looked up at the May sun and
the swelling buds of the maples and a vague hope kindled in his heart. Could he
begin now? Could he be gentle with Mary? His was a heavy cross to bear.
At Red Brook the party
halted and the friends shook hands in good-by. Father Amirault fumbled
shamefacedly in his pocket and produced a knife with a carved handle.
“Here is this knife, a
present; it will bring you luck. My father and grandfather had it before me,
and it has been used to bleed many a buck and steer. Granddad said that it came
from old France, and certainly there is no such steel nowadays. Take it; we
have all agreed that you must have it for it was a lucky day when the Good God
sent you to us. See how the potatoes grew in the burnt land last summer, clean
and white, and how in September the bog was red with cranberries. Take the
knife, Alex, it is lucky, and it will be a souvenir of your time with us.”
Alex was so touched
that he took the gift and said never a word.
“Come back some day,”
shouted father Amirault as they parted.
“Be sure to come back,
giant,” echoed the boys.
He was alone, plodding
southeastward as the wood-road wound and doubled. The parting gift which all
the family had agreed upon had moved him to the bottom of his nature. It was an
heirloom, perhaps their most treasured possession, and should have gone to
Pierre.
“I will repay them, I
will repay them,” said Alex to himself, “but how? Money and lands are of no
avail.” Then he spoke in a voice that was not his own, “I have been a man of
violence and hell. I must become like a little child again.”
When he sat down upon
a log by the roadside to eat the lunch mother Amirault had prepared, a terrible
temptation came to him. Why might he not return to the clearing, marry Nanette,
build a house and live with them forever in the forest? They knew nothing of
Mary. Once he sprang to his feet with the resolution to return. Then something
smote him on the forehead and a vague consciousness of a general rightness in
human affairs, that could not be ignored without disaster, grew in his mind. He
sat down again and thought of all the loving kindness they had lavished upon
him. He had done enough evil; he must bring no blight upon that one bright spot
in his world. He shouldered his bag and tramped homeward sturdily.
At night he entered
the village of Petit Rocher, sought out the inn, spoke gently to the woman who
kept the house, and was amazed at her kindness and attention. There was gentleness
in the wide world as well as in the forest clearing! Once when he passed
through a straggling village at noonday he saw some little boys making
whistles. He cut a branch from a willow with his lucky knife and taught them
how to beat the bark until the bruised skin, lubricated by the sap, turned
easily upon the stick. He made a capital whistle for each child. Heretofore
children had fled screaming from the red giant; these boys piped him through
their village and waved their caps until he disappeared down the road. One day
he overtook an Indian woman carrying a load of baskets and a sack of meal. He
took the burden from the weary woman and when they reached the encampment
received her simple blessing.
Day after day as he
plodded homeward he found a strange pleasure in the budding trees, the wild
flowers, the song of birds, and the play of light and shadow on the hills. The
world seemed new and reborn to him: he did not realize that his new world lay
within himself. At last he reached the Straits of Canso, where a fisherman set
him across in his dory, refusing payment. He was only one day from Marble
Mountain. He rested for the night at an inn, but slept little, tossing
restlessly at the thought of his strange homecoming.
Next morning he took
the road bright and early, but it was nine in the evening before he topped the
mountain and his eyes caught the gray buildings of Stone Farm. He halted on the
great hill for a moment to look down over the homestead that his forefathers
had made. The rising full moon glinted on the ponds of the bog, silvered the
granite walls and stunted spruces of the hillside and clad the old buildings in
a monotone of gray. A faint light glimmered from the kitchen window. “It’s bare
but none so bad,” thought Alex. All seemed friendly save the evil bog that
grinned at him and flung out a challenge. Alex knew its secret. He remembered
as a little boy being awakened by the scuffle and uproar of a fight, of
springing out of bed and peeping through the window to see his father going in
the direction of the bog with a limp body across his shoulders. It seemed to
him that that sinister place had cast a blight upon all who had dwelt in Stone
Farm. He accepted the challenge as an inspiration of something he could do
flashed through his brain.
He strode forward till
he reached the house and peeped in at the window. The old man was busy
whittling out an ax handle. The mother sat with downcast eyes. Mary was not in
the room. His mother looked old and broken.
He opened the door and
stepped into the kitchen. The two candles upon the long table flickered as the
draft of night air struck them. His mother looked around quickly to see who was
entering. Terror spread over her face, and she gave a strange cry half joy and
half despair as she clasped her hands upon her breast. Sandy sprang to his
feet, the ax handle rattled upon the floor.
“Alex boy, we thought
you dead.”
His expression changed
rapidly from surprise to sullen hatred, to a grin of feigned welcome.
“Did you get no
letter; the doctor promised to post it?”
asked Alex.
“No,” said Sandy,
showing his yellow teeth. “Letters seldom come here. Sometimes they are
destroyed by the postmaster,” he added lamely.
“Aren’t you glad to
see me, mother?”
“Yes, lad,” she
answered timidly, staring at the floor and without moving from her seat.
“Did you lick the
Frenchman?” asked Sandy.
“Ay,” said Alex with
his heart nearly bursting, “but where’s Mary?”
Father and mother
stood silent. Finally Sandy spoke,
“Murdock’s been home.
We all thought you dead, so he married your wife and took her away to the
States.”
The parents were both
in terror. Sandy, with his guilty conscience because of the letter he had
destroyed, expected Alex to fall upon him and throttle him with his great
hands. The mother awaited an outburst of fierce passion such as she had often
witnessed in her household. Alex stood still as if frozen. His heart gave a
great bound, for he knew that the law would set him free.
“Married and gone with
Murdock! Well, it’s right, they loved each other, she never cared for me and I
was cruel to her.”
“What’s the matter,
man? Will you stand that insult to your name? Won’t you go after them?”
“No,” said Alex. “I’ve
learned something in the Northland that you could never understand. I’ve done
her a great wrong. Now I’ll gladly give Mary her freedom and let her go with
the man she loves.”
Sandy’s jaw dropped in
surprise. What had transformed the fierce Alex? He had planned at least another
year as master with Alex absent.
“Mother,” said Alex,
“make me some hot tea and put bread and meat on the table, for I am hungry
after my long tramp. While the kettle boils I want you and father to come out
into the yard and I will tell you what I have been planning as I came over the
hills.”
His mother drew the
kettle to the front of the stove, and the three stepped out into the moonlit
yard.
“This summer,” said
Alex, “we will paint the house, barn and sheds, plant flowers and shrubs around
the buildings and some willows and lombardy poplars near the barn. They are
quick growers. The man and I will build a stone-work beside the brook and
around the spring house. It is high time that we make this old place look
better.”
Sandy stood still in
open-mouthed surprise. For a moment Alex turned his face to the north and
though his lips were silent his heart sang;
Lui
ya longtemps que je t’aime,
Jamais
je ne t’bublierai.
His mother caught the
smile about his lips and understood.
“The red MacDonalds,
father, have always striven to win land on the hillside. To-morrow we will
begin to drain the bog. It will make famous timothy land. The deepest part we
cannot reclaim, but our side is good. We will turn those stagnant ponds into
shining lakes.”
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