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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Man Savarin and Other Stories, by 
+Edward William Thomson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Old Man Savarin and Other Stories
+
+Author: Edward William Thomson
+
+Release Date: January 12, 2007 [EBook #20345]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD MAN SAVARIN AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Diane Monico, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by the Canadian Institute for
+Historical Microreproductions (www.canadiana.org).)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+OFF-HAND STORIES
+
+
+OLD MAN SAVARIN
+
+And Other Stories
+
+BY
+
+EDWARD WILLIAM THOMSON
+
+
+TORONTO:
+
+WILLIAM BRIGGS, WESLEY BUILDINGS.
+
+C. W. COATES, MONTREAL, QUE.      S. F. HUESTIS, HALIFAX, N.S.
+
+1895.
+
+
+
+
+Entered, according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year
+one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five, by WILLIAM BRIGGS,
+Toronto, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture, at Ottawa.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+                                    PAGE
+
+I. OLD MAN SAVARIN                     7
+
+II. THE PRIVILEGE OF THE LIMITS       29
+
+III. MCGRATH'S BAD NIGHT              45
+
+IV. GREAT GODFREY'S LAMENT            67
+
+V. THE RED-HEADED WINDEGO             89
+
+VI. THE SHINING CROSS OF RIGAUD      109
+
+VII. LITTLE BAPTISTE                 125
+
+VIII. THE RIDE BY NIGHT              152
+
+IX. DRAFTED                          174
+
+X. A TURKEY APIECE                   199
+
+XI. GRANDPAPA'S WOLF STORY           219
+
+XII. THE WATERLOO VETERAN            239
+
+XIII. JOHN BEDELL                    251
+
+XIV. VERBITZSKY'S STRATAGEM          271
+
+
+
+
+_For liberty to issue these stories in present form the author has to
+thank_ THE YOUTHS' COMPANION, _Boston; the proprietors of "Two Tales,"
+in which "Old Man Savarin" and "Great Godfrey's Lament" first
+appeared; and "Harper's Weekly" and Mr. S. S. McClure's syndicate of
+newspapers, which, respectively, first published "The Privilege of the
+Limits" and "John Bedell"_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OLD MAN SAVARIN.
+
+
+Old Ma'ame Paradis had caught seventeen small doré, four suckers, and
+eleven channel-catfish before she used up all the worms in her
+tomato-can. Therefore she was in a cheerful and loquacious humor when
+I came along and offered her some of my bait.
+
+"Merci; non, M'sieu. Dat's 'nuff fishin' for me. I got too old now for
+fish too much. You like me make you present of six or seven doré? Yes?
+All right. Then you make me present of one quarter dollar."
+
+When this transaction was completed, the old lady got out her short
+black clay pipe, and filled it with _tabac blanc_.
+
+"Ver' good smell for scare mosquitoes," said she. "Sit down, M'sieu.
+For sure I like to be here, me, for see the river when she's like
+this."
+
+Indeed the scene was more than picturesque. Her fishing-platform
+extended twenty feet from the rocky shore of the great Rataplan Rapid
+of the Ottawa, which, beginning to tumble a mile to the westward,
+poured a roaring torrent half a mile wide into the broader, calm brown
+reach below. Noble elms towered on the shores. Between their trunks we
+could see many whitewashed cabins, whose doors of blue or green or red
+scarcely disclosed their colors in that light.
+
+The sinking sun, which already touched the river, seemed somehow the
+source of the vast stream that flowed radiantly from its blaze.
+Through the glamour of the evening mist and the maze of June flies we
+could see a dozen men scooping for fish from platforms like that of
+Ma'ame Paradis.
+
+Each scooper lifted a great hoop-net set on a handle some fifteen feet
+long, threw it easily up stream, and swept it on edge with the
+current to the full length of his reach. Then it was drawn out and at
+once thrown upward again, if no capture had been made. In case he had
+taken fish, he came to the inshore edge of his platform, and upset the
+net's contents into a pool separated from the main rapid by an
+improvised wall of stones.
+
+"I'm too old for scoop some now," said Ma'ame Paradis, with a sigh.
+
+"You were never strong enough to scoop, surely," said I.
+
+"No, eh? All right, M'sieu. Then you hain't nev' hear 'bout the time
+Old Man Savarin was catched up with. No, eh? Well, I'll tol' you 'bout
+that." And this was her story as she told it to me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Der was fun dose time. Nobody ain't nev' catch up with dat old rascal
+ony other time since I'll know him first. Me, I'll be only fifteen
+den. Dat's long time 'go, eh? Well, for sure, I ain't so old like
+what I'll look. But Old Man Savarin was old already. He's old, old,
+old, when he's only thirty; an' _mean--baptême!_ If de old Nick ain'
+got de hottest place for dat old stingy--yes, for sure!
+
+"You'll see up dere where Frawce Seguin is scoop? Dat's the Laroque
+platform by right. Me, I was a Laroque. My fader was use for scoop
+dere, an' my gran'fader--the Laroques scoop dere all de time since
+ever dere was some Rapid Rataplan. Den Old Man Savarin he's buyed the
+land up dere from Felix Ladoucier, an' he's told my fader, 'You can't
+scoop no more wisout you pay me rent.'
+
+"'Rent!' my fader say. '_Saprie!_ Dat's my fader's platform for scoop
+fish! You ask anybody.'
+
+"'Oh, I'll know all 'bout dat,' Old Man Savarin is say. 'Ladoucier let
+you scoop front of his land, for Ladoucier one big fool. De lan's mine
+now, an' de fishin' right is mine. You can't scoop dere wisout you pay
+me rent.'
+
+"'_Baptême!_ I'll show you 'bout dat,' my fader say.
+
+"Next mawny he is go for scoop same like always. Den Old Man Savarin
+is fetch my fader up before de magistrate. De magistrate make my fader
+pay nine shillin'!
+
+"'Mebbe dat's learn you one lesson,' Old Man Savarin is say.
+
+"My fader swear pretty good, but my moder say: 'Well, Narcisse, dere
+hain' no use for take it out in _malediction_. De nine shillin' is
+paid. You scoop more fish--dat's the way.'
+
+"So my fader he is go out early, early nex' mawny. He's scoop, he's
+scoop. He's catch plenty fish before Old Man Savarin come.
+
+"'You ain't got 'nuff yet for fishin' on my land, eh? Come out of
+dat,' Old Man Savarin is say.
+
+"'_Saprie!_ Ain' I pay nine shillin' for fish here?' my fader say.
+
+"'_Oui_--you pay nine shillin' for fish here _wisout_ my leave. But
+you ain't pay nothin' for fish here _wis_ my leave. You is goin' up
+before de magistrate some more.'
+
+"So he is fetch my fader up anoder time. An' de magistrate make my
+fader pay twelve shillin' more!
+
+"'Well, I s'pose I can go fish on my fader's platform now,' my fader
+is say.
+
+"Old Man Savarin was laugh. 'Your honor, dis man tink he don't have
+for pay me no rent, because you'll make him pay two fines for trespass
+on my land.'
+
+"So de magistrate told my fader he hain't got no more right for go on
+his own platform than he was at the start. My fader is ver' angry.
+He's cry, he's tear his shirt; but Old Man Savarin only say, 'I guess
+I learn you one good lesson, Narcisse.'
+
+"De whole village ain't told de old rascal how much dey was angry
+'bout dat, for Old Man Savarin is got dem all in debt at his big
+store. He is grin, grin, and told everybody how he learn my fader two
+good lesson. An' he is told my fader: 'You see what I'll be goin' for
+do wis you if ever you go on my land again wisout you pay me rent.'
+
+"'How much you want?' my fader say.
+
+"'Half de fish you catch.'
+
+"'_Monjee!_ Never!'
+
+"'Five dollar a year, den.'
+
+"'_Saprie_, no. Dat's too much.'
+
+"'All right. Keep off my lan', if you hain't want anoder lesson.'
+
+"'You's a tief,' my fader say.
+
+"'Hermidas, make up Narcisse Laroque bill,' de old rascal say to his
+clerk. 'If he hain't pay dat bill to-morrow, I sue him.'
+
+"So my fader is scare mos' to death. Only my moder she's say, '_I'll_
+pay dat bill, me.'
+
+"So she's take the money she's saved up long time for make my weddin'
+when it come. An' she's paid de bill. So den my fader hain't scare no
+more, an' he is shake his fist good under Old Man Savarin's ugly nose.
+But dat old rascal only laugh an' say, 'Narcisse, you like to be fined
+some more, eh?'
+
+"'_Tort Dieu_. You rob me of my place for fish, but I'll take my
+platform anyhow,' my fader is say.
+
+"'Yes, eh? All right--if you can get him wisout go on my land. But you
+go on my land, and see if I don't learn you anoder lesson,' Old
+Savarin is say.
+
+"So my fader is rob of his platform, too. Nex' ting we hear, Frawce
+Seguin has rent dat platform for five dollar a year.
+
+"Den de big fun begin. My fader an Frawce is cousin. All de time
+before den dey was good friend. But my fader he is go to Frawce
+Seguin's place an' he is told him, 'Frawce, I'll goin' lick you so
+hard you can't nev' scoop on my platform.'
+
+"Frawce only laugh. Den Old Man Savarin come up de hill.
+
+"'Fetch him up to de magistrate an' learn him anoder lesson,' he is
+say to Frawce.
+
+"'What for?' Frawce say.
+
+"'For try to scare you.'
+
+"'He hain't hurt me none.'
+
+"'But he's say he will lick you.'
+
+"'Dat's only because he's vex,' Frawce say.
+
+"'_Baptême! Non!_' my fader say. 'I'll be goin' for lick you good,
+Frawce.'
+
+"'For sure?' Frawce say.
+
+"'_Saprie!_ Yes; for sure.'
+
+"'Well, dat's all right den, Narcisse. When you goin' for lick me?'
+
+"'First time I'll get drunk. I'll be goin' for get drunk dis same
+day.'
+
+"'All right, Narcisse. If you goin' get drunk for lick me, I'll be
+goin' get drunk for lick you'--_Canadien_ hain't nev' fool 'nuff for
+fight, M'sieu, only if dey is got drunk.
+
+"Well, my fader he's go on old Marceau's hotel, an' he's drink all
+day. Frawce Seguin he's go cross de road on Joe Maufraud's hotel, an'
+_he's_ drink all day. When de night come, dey's bose stand out in
+front of de two hotel for fight.
+
+"Dey's bose yell an' yell for make de oder feller scare bad before dey
+begin. Hermidas Laronde an' Jawnny Leroi dey's hold my fader for fear
+he's go 'cross de road for keel Frawce Seguin dead. Pierre Seguin an'
+Magloire Sauve is hold Frawce for fear he's come 'cross de road for
+keel my fader dead. And dose men fight dat way 'cross de road, till
+dey hain't hardly able for stand up no more.
+
+"My fader he's tear his shirt and he's yell, 'Let me at him!' Frawce
+he's tear his shirt and he's yell, 'Let me at him!' But de men hain't
+goin' for let dem loose, for fear one is strike de oder ver' hard. De
+whole village is shiver 'bout dat offle fight--yes, seh, shiver bad!
+
+"Well, dey's fight like dat for more as four hours, till dey hain't
+able for yell no more, an' dey hain't got no money left for buy
+wheeskey for de crowd. Den Marceau and Joe Maufraud tol' dem bose it
+was a shame for two cousins to fight so bad. An' my fader he's say
+he's ver' sorry dat he lick Frawce so hard, and dey's bose sorry. So
+dey's kiss one anoder good--only all their close is tore to pieces.
+
+"An' what you tink 'bout Old Man Savarin? Old Man Savarin is just
+stand in front of his store all de time, an' he's say: 'I'll tink I'll
+fetch him _bose_ hup to de magistrate, an' I'll learn him _bose_ a
+lesson.'
+
+"Me, I'll be only fifteen, but I hain't scare 'bout dat fight same
+like my moder is scare. No more is Alphonsine Seguin scare. She's
+seventeen, an' she wait for de fight to be all over. Den she take her
+fader home, same like I'll take my fader home for bed. Dat's after
+twelve o'clock of night.
+
+"Nex' mawny early my fader he's groaned and he's groaned:
+'Ah--ugh--I'm sick, sick, me. I'll be goin' for die dis time, for
+sure.'
+
+"'You get up an' scoop some fish,' my moder she's say, angry. 'Den you
+hain't be sick no more.'
+
+"'Ach--ugh--I'll hain't be able. Oh, I'll be so sick. An' I hain' got
+no place for scoop fish now no more. Frawce Seguin has rob my
+platform.'
+
+"'Take de nex' one lower down,' my moder she's say.
+
+"'Dat's Jawnny Leroi's.'
+
+"'All right for dat. Jawnny he's hire for run timber to-day.'
+
+"'Ugh--I'll not be able for get up. Send for M'sieu le Curé--I'll be
+goin' for die for sure.'
+
+"'_Mis re_, but dat's no _man_! Dat's a drunk pig,' my moder she's
+say, angry. 'Sick, eh? Lazy, lazy--dat's so. An' dere hain't no fish
+for de little chilluns, an' it's Friday mawny.' So my moder she's
+begin for cry.
+
+"Well, M'sieu, I'll make de rest short; for de sun is all gone now.
+What you tink I do dat mawny? I take de big scoop-net an' I'll come up
+here for see if I'll be able for scoop some fish on Jawnny Leroi's
+platform. Only dere hain't nev' much fish dere.
+
+"Pretty quick I'll look up and I'll see Alphonsine Seguin scoop, scoop
+on my fader's old platform. Alphonsine's fader is sick, sick, same
+like my fader, an' all de Seguin boys is too little for scoop, same
+like my brudders is too little. So dere Alphonsine she's scoop, scoop
+for breakfas'.
+
+"What you tink I'll see some more? I'll see Old Man Savarin. He's
+watchin' from de corner of de cedar bush, an' I'll know ver' good what
+he's watch for. He's watch for catch my fader go on his own platform.
+He's want for learn my fader anoder lesson. _Saprie!_ dat's make me
+ver' angry, M'sieu!
+
+"Alphonsine she's scoop, scoop plenty fish. I'll not be scoop none.
+Dat's make me more angry. I'll look up where Alphonsine is, an' I'll
+talk to myself:--
+
+"'Dat's my fader's platform,' I'll be say. 'Dat's my fader's fish what
+you catch, Alphonsine. You hain't nev' be my cousin no more. It is
+mean, mean for Frawce Seguin to rent my fader's platform for please
+dat old rascal Savarin.' Mebby I'll not be so angry at Alphonsine,
+M'sieu, if I was able for catch some fish; but I hain't able--I don't
+catch none.
+
+"Well, M'sieu, dat's de way for long time--half-hour mebby. Den I'll
+hear Alphonsine yell good. I'll look up de river some more. She's try
+for lift her net. She's try hard, hard, but she hain't able. De net is
+down in de rapid, an' she's only able for hang on to de hannle. Den
+I'll know she's got one big sturgeon, an' he's so big she can't pull
+him up.
+
+"_Monjee!_ what I care 'bout dat! I'll laugh me. Den I'll laugh good
+some more, for I'll want Alphonsine for see how I'll laugh big. And
+I'll talk to myself:--
+
+"'Dat's good for dose Seguins,' I'll say. 'De big sturgeon will pull
+away de net. Den Alphonsine she will lose her fader's scoop wis de
+sturgeon. Dat's good 'nuff for dose Seguins! Take my fader platform,
+eh?'
+
+"For sure, I'll want for go an' help Alphonsine all de same--she's my
+cousin, an' I'll want for see de sturgeon, me. But I'll only just
+laugh, laugh. _Non, M'sieu_; dere was not one man out on any of de
+oder platform dat mawny for to help Alphonsine. Dey was all sleep ver'
+late, for dey was all out ver' late for see de offle fight I told you
+'bout.
+
+"Well, pretty quick, what you tink? I'll see Old Man Savarin goin' to
+my fader's platform. He's take hold for help Alphonsine an' dey's bose
+pull, and pretty quick de big sturgeon is up on de platform. I'll be
+more angry as before.
+
+"Oh, _tort Dieu!_ What you tink come den? Why, dat Old Man Savarin is
+want for take de sturgeon!
+
+"First dey hain't speak so I can hear, for de Rapid is too loud. But
+pretty quick dey's bose angry, and I hear dem talk.
+
+"'Dat's my fish,' Old Man Savarin is say. 'Didn't I save him? Wasn't
+you goin' for lose him, for sure?'
+
+"Me--I'll laugh good. Dass _such_ an old rascal.
+
+"'You get off dis platform, quick!' Alphonsine she's say.
+
+"'Give me my sturgeon,' he's say.
+
+"'Dat's a lie--it hain't your sturgeon. It's _my_ sturgeon,' she's
+yell.
+
+"'I'll learn you one lesson 'bout dat,' he's say.
+
+"Well, M'sieu, Alphonsine she's pull back de fish just when Old Man
+Savarin is make one grab. An' when she's pull back, she's step to one
+side, an' de old rascal he is, grab at de fish, an' de heft of de
+sturgeon is make him fall on his face, so he's tumble in de Rapid when
+Alphonsine let go de sturgeon. So dere's Old Man Savarin floating in
+de river--and _me_! I'll don' care eef he's drown one bit!
+
+"One time he is on his back, one time he is on his face, one time he
+is all under de water. For sure he's goin' for be draw into de
+_culbute_ an' get drown' dead, if I'll not be able for scoop him when
+he's go by my platform. I'll want for laugh, but I'll be too much
+scare.
+
+"Well, M'sieu, I'll pick up my fader's scoop and I'll stand out on de
+edge of de platform. De water is run so fast, I'm mos' 'fraid de old
+man is boun' for pull me in when I'll scoop him. But I'll not mind for
+dat, I'll throw de scoop an' catch him; an' for sure, he's hold on
+good.
+
+"So dere's de old rascal in de scoop, but when I'll get him safe, I
+hain't able for pull him in one bit. I'll only be able for hold on an'
+laugh, laugh--he's look _ver_' queer! All I can do is to hold him dere
+so he can't go down de _culbute_. I'll can't pull him up if I'll want
+to.
+
+"De old man is scare ver' bad. But pretty quick he's got hold of de
+cross-bar of de hoop, an' he's got his ugly old head up good.
+
+"'Pull me in,' he say, ver' angry.
+
+"'I'll hain't be able,' I'll say.
+
+"Jus' den Alphonsine she come 'long, an' she's laugh so she can't
+hardly hold on wis me to de hannle. I was laugh good some more. When
+de old villain see us have fun, he's yell: 'I'll learn you bose one
+lesson for this. Pull me ashore!'
+
+"'Oh! you's learn, us bose one lesson, M'sieu Savarin, eh?' Alphonsine
+she's say. 'Well, den, us bose will learn M'sieu Savarin one lesson
+first. Pull him up a little,' she's say to me.
+
+"So we pull him up, an' den Alphonsine she's say to me: 'Let out de
+hannle, quick'--and he's under de water some more. When we stop de
+net, he's got hees head up pretty quick.
+
+"'_Monjee!_ I'll be drown' if you don't pull me out,' he's mos' _cry_.
+
+"'Ver' well--if you's drown, your family be ver' glad,' Alphonsine
+she's say. 'Den they's got all your money for spend quick, quick.'
+
+"M'sieu, dat scare him offle. He's begin for cry like one baby.
+
+"'Save me out,' he's say. 'I'll give you anything I've got.'
+
+"'How much?' Alphonsine she's say.
+
+"He's tink, and he's say, 'Quarter dollar.'
+
+"Alphonsine an' me is laugh, laugh.
+
+"'Save me,' he's cry some more. 'I hain't fit for die dis mawny.'
+
+"'You hain' fit for live no mawny,' Alphonsine she's say. 'One quarter
+dollar, eh? Where's my sturgeon?'
+
+"'He's got away when, I fall in,' he's say.
+
+"'How much you goin' give me for lose my big sturgeon?' she's ask.
+
+"'How much you'll want, Alphonsine?'
+
+"'Two dollare.'
+
+"'Dat's too much for one sturgeon,' he's say. For all he was not feel
+fit for die, he was more 'fraid for pay out his money.
+
+"'Let him down some more,' Alphonsine she's say.
+
+"'Oh. _misère, misère_! I'll pay de two dollare,' he's say when his
+head come up some more.
+
+"'Ver' well, den,' Alphonsine she's say; 'I'll be willin' for save
+you, _me_. But you hain't scooped by _me_. You's in Marie's net. I'll
+only come for help Marie. You's her sturgeon;' an' Alphonsine she's
+laugh an' laugh.
+
+"'I didn't lose no sturgeon for Marie,' he's say.
+
+"'No, eh?" I'll say mysef. 'But you's steal my fader's platform. You's
+take his fishin' place. You's got him fined two times. You's make my
+moder pay his bill wis _my_ weddin' money. What you goin' pay for all
+dat? You tink I'll be goin' for mos' kill mysef pullin' you out for
+noting? When you ever do someting for anybody for noting, eh, M'sieu
+Savarin?'
+
+"'How much you want?' he's say.
+
+"'Ten dollare for de platform, dat's all.'
+
+"'Never--dat's robbery,' he's say, an' he's begin to cry like _ver_'
+li'll baby.
+
+"'Pull him hup, Marie, an' give him some more,' Alphonsine she's say.
+
+"But de old rascal is so scare 'bout dat, dat he's say he's pay right
+off. So we's pull him up near to de platform, only we hain't big 'nuff
+fool for let him out of de net till he's take out his purse an' pay de
+twelve dollare.
+
+"_Monjee_, M'sieu! If ever you see one angry old rascal! He not even
+stop for say: 'T'ank you for save me from be drown' dead in the
+_culbute_!' He's run for his house an' he's put on dry clo'es, an'
+he's go up to de magistrate first ting for learn me an' Alphonsine one
+big lesson.
+
+"But de magistrate hain' ver' bad magistrate. He's only laugh an' he's
+say:--
+
+"'M'sieu Savarin, de whole river will be laugh at you for let two
+young girl take eet out of smart man like you like dat. Hain't you
+tink your life worth twelve dollare? Didn't dey save you from de
+_culbute_? _Monjee!_ I'll tink de whole river not laugh so ver' bad if
+you pay dose young girl one hunder dollare for save you so kind.'
+
+"'One hunder dollare!' he's mos' cry. 'Hain't you goin' to learn dose
+girl one lesson for take advantage of me dat way?'
+
+"'Didn't you pay dose girl yoursef? Didn't you took out your purse
+yoursef? Yes, eh? Well, den, I'll goin' for learn you one lesson
+yoursef, M'sieu Savarin.' de magistrate is say. 'Dose two young girl
+is ver' wicked, eh? Yes, dat's so. But for why? Hain't dey just do to
+you what you been doin' ever since you was in beesness? Don' I know?
+You hain' never yet got advantage of nobody wisout you rob him all you
+can, an' dose wicked young girl only act just like you give dem a
+lesson all your life.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"An' de best fun was de whole river _did_ laugh at M'sieu Savarin. An'
+my fader and Frawce Seguin is laugh most of all, till he's catch hup
+wis bose of dem anoder time. You come for see me some more, an' I'll
+tol' you 'bout dat."
+
+
+
+
+THE PRIVILEGE OF THE LIMITS.
+
+
+"Yes, indeed, my grandfather wass once in jail," said old Mrs.
+McTavish, of the county of Glengarry, in Ontario, Canada; "but that
+wass for debt, and he wass a ferry honest man whateffer, and he would
+not broke his promise--no, not for all the money in Canada. If you
+will listen to me, I will tell chust exactly the true story about that
+debt, to show you what an honest man my grandfather wass.
+
+"One time Tougal Stewart, him that wass the poy's grandfather that
+keeps the same store in Cornwall to this day, sold a plough to my
+grandfather, and my grandfather said he would pay half the plough in
+October, and the other half whateffer time he felt able to pay the
+money. Yes, indeed, that was the very promise my grandfather gave.
+
+"So he was at Tougal Stewart's store on the first of October early in
+the morning pefore the shutters wass taken off, and he paid half chust
+exactly to keep his word. Then the crop wass ferry pad next year, and
+the year after that one of his horses wass killed py lightning, and
+the next year his brother, that wass not rich and had a big family,
+died, and do you think wass my grandfather to let the family be
+disgraced without a good funeral? No, indeed. So my grandfather paid
+for the funeral, and there was at it plenty of meat and drink for
+eferypody, as wass the right Hielan' custom those days; and after the
+funeral my grandfather did not feel chust exactly able to pay the
+other half for the plough that year either.
+
+"So, then, Tougal Stewart met my grandfather in Cornwall next day
+after the funeral, and asked him if he had some money to spare.
+
+"'Wass you in need of help, Mr. Stewart?' says my grandfather, kindly.
+'For if it's in any want you are, Tougal,' says my grandfather, 'I
+will sell the coat off my back, if there is no other way to lend you a
+loan;' for that was always the way of my grandfather with all his
+friends, and a bigger-hearted man there never wass in all Glengarry,
+or in Stormont, or in Dundas, moreofer.
+
+"'In want!' says Tougal--'in want, Mr. McTavish!' says he, very high.
+'Would you wish to insult a gentleman, and him of the name of Stewart,
+that's the name of princes of the world?' he said, so he did.
+
+"Seeing Tougal had his temper up, my grandfather spoke softly, being a
+quiet, peaceable man, and in wonder what he had said to offend Tougal.
+
+"'Mr. Stewart,' says my grandfather, 'it wass not in my mind to anger
+you whatefer. Only I thought, from your asking me if I had some money,
+that you might be looking for a wee bit of a loan, as many a gentleman
+has to do at times, and no shame to him at all,' said my grandfather.
+
+"'A loan?' says Tougal, sneering. 'A loan, is it? Where's your memory,
+Mr. McTavish? Are you not owing me half the price of the plough you've
+had these three years?'
+
+"'And wass you asking me for money for the other half of the plough?'
+says my grandfather, very astonished.
+
+"'Just that,' says Tougal.
+
+"'Have you no shame or honor in you?' says my grandfather, firing up.
+'How could I feel able to pay that now, and me chust yesterday been
+giving my poor brother a funeral fit for the McTavishes' own
+grand-nephew, that wass as good chentleman's plood as any Stewart in
+Glengarry. You saw the expense I wass at, for there you wass, and I
+thank you for the politeness of coming, Mr. Stewart,' says my
+grandfather, ending mild, for the anger would never stay in him more
+than a minute, so kind was the nature he had.
+
+"'If you can spend money on a funeral like that, you can pay me for my
+plough,' says Stewart; for with buying and selling he wass become a
+poor creature, and the heart of a Hielan'man wass half gone out of
+him, for all he wass so proud of his name of monarchs and kings.
+
+"My grandfather had a mind to strike him down on the spot, so he often
+said; but he thought of the time when he hit Hamish Cochrane in anger,
+and he minded the penances the priest put on him for breaking the
+silly man's jaw with that blow, so he smothered the heat that wass in
+him, and turned away in scorn. With that Tougal Stewart went to court,
+and sued my grandfather, puir mean creature.
+
+"You might think that Judge Jones--him that wass judge in Cornwall
+before Judge Jarvis that's dead--would do justice. But no, he made it
+the law that my grandfather must pay at once, though Tougal Stewart
+could not deny what the bargain wass.
+
+"'Your Honor,' says my grandfather, 'I said I'd pay when I felt able.
+And do I feel able now? No, I do not,' says he. 'It's a disgrace to
+Tougal Stewart to ask me, and himself telling you what the bargain
+was,' said my grandfather. But Judge Jones said that he must pay, for
+all that he did not feel able.
+
+"'I will nefer pay one copper till I feel able,' says my grandfather;
+'but I'll keep my Hielan' promise to my dying day, as I always done,'
+says he.
+
+"And with that the old judge laughed, and said he would have to give
+judgment. And so he did; and after that Tougal Stewart got out an
+execution. But not the worth of a handful of oatmeal could the bailiff
+lay hands on, because my grandfather had chust exactly taken the
+precaution to give a bill of sale on his gear to his neighbor,
+Alexander Frazer, that could be trusted to do what was right after the
+law play was over.
+
+"The whole settlement had great contempt for Tougal Stewart's conduct;
+but he was a headstrong body, and once he begun to do wrong against
+my grandfather, he held on, for all that his trade fell away; and
+finally he had my grandfather arrested for debt, though you'll
+understand, sir, that he was owing Stewart nothing that he ought to
+pay when he didn't feel able.
+
+"In those times prisoners for debt was taken to jail in Cornwall, and
+if they had friends to give bail that they would not go beyond the
+posts that was around the sixteen acres nearest the jail walls, the
+prisoners could go where they liked on that ground. This was called
+'the privilege of the limits.' The limits, you'll understand, wass
+marked by cedar posts painted white about the size of hitching-posts.
+
+"The whole settlement was ready to go bail for my grandfather if he
+wanted it, and for the health of him he needed to be in the open air,
+and so he gave Tuncan-Macdonnell of the Greenfields, and Æneas
+Macdonald of the Sandfields, for his bail, and he promised, on his
+Hielan' word of honor, not to go beyond the posts. With that he went
+where he pleased, only taking care that he never put even the toe of
+his foot beyond a post, for all that some prisoners of the limits
+would chump ofer them and back again, or maybe swing round them,
+holding by their hands.
+
+"Efery day the neighbors would go into Cornwall to give my grandfather
+the good word, and they would offer to pay Tougal Stewart for the
+other half of the plough, only that vexed my grandfather, for he was
+too proud to borrow, and, of course, every day he felt less and less
+able to pay on account of him having to hire a man to be doing the
+spring ploughing and seeding and making the kale-yard.
+
+"All this time, you'll mind, Tougal Stewart had to pay five shillings
+a week for my grandfather's keep, the law being so that if the debtor
+swore he had not five pound's worth of property to his name, then the
+creditor had to pay the five shillings, and, of course, my grandfather
+had nothing to his name after he gave the bill of sale to Alexander
+Frazer. A great diversion it was to my grandfather to be reckoning up
+that if he lived as long as his father, that was hale and strong at
+ninety-six, Tougal would need to pay five or six hundred pounds for
+him, and there was only two pound five shillings to be paid on the
+plough.
+
+"So it was like that all summer, my grandfather keeping heartsome,
+with the neighbors coming in so steady to bring him the news of the
+settlement. There he would sit, just inside one of the posts, for to
+pass his jokes, and tell what he wished the family to be doing next.
+This way it might have kept going on for forty years, only it came
+about that my grandfather's youngest child--him that was my
+father--fell sick, and seemed like to die.
+
+"Well, when my grandfather heard that bad news, he wass in a terrible
+way, to be sure, for he would be longing to hold the child in his
+arms, so that his heart was sore and like to break. Eat he could not,
+sleep he could not: all night he would be groaning, and all day he
+would be walking around by the posts, wishing that he had not passed
+his Hielan' word of honor not to go beyond a post; for he thought how
+he could have broken out like a chentleman, and gone to see his sick
+child, if he had stayed inside the jail wall. So it went on three days
+and three nights pefore the wise thought came into my grandfather's
+head to show him how he need not go beyond the posts to see his little
+sick poy. With that he went straight to one of the white cedar posts,
+and pulled it up out of the hole, and started for home, taking great
+care to carry it in his hands pefore him, so he would not be beyond it
+one bit.
+
+"My grandfather wass not half a mile out of Cornwall, which was only a
+little place in those days, when two of the turnkeys came after him.
+
+"'Stop, Mr. McTavish,' says the turnkeys.
+
+"'What for would I stop?' says my grandfather.
+
+"'You have broke your bail,' says they.
+
+"'It's a lie for you,' says my grandfather, for his temper flared up
+for anybody to say he would broke his bail. 'Am I beyond the post?'
+says my grandfather.
+
+"With that they run in on him, only that he knocked the two of them
+over with the post, and went on rejoicing, like an honest man should,
+at keeping his word and overcoming them that would slander his good
+name. The only thing pesides thoughts of the child that troubled him
+was questioning whether he had been strictly right in turning round
+for to use the post to defend himself in such a way that it was nearer
+the jail than what he wass. But when he remembered how the jailer
+never complained of prisoners of the limits chumping ofer the posts,
+if so they chumped back again in a moment, the trouble went out of his
+mind.
+
+"Pretty soon after that he met Tuncan Macdonnell of Greenfields,
+coming into Cornwall with the wagon.
+
+"'And how is this, Glengatchie?' says Tuncan. 'For you were never the
+man to broke your bail.'
+
+"Glengatchie, you'll understand, sir, is the name of my grandfather's
+farm.
+
+"'Never fear, Greenfields,' says my grandfather, 'for I'm not beyond
+the post.'
+
+"So Greenfields looked at the post, and he looked at my grandfather,
+and he scratched his head a wee, and he seen it was so; and then he
+fell into a great admiration entirely.
+
+"'Get in with me, Glengatchie--it's proud I'll be to carry you home;'
+and he turned his team around. My grandfather did so, taking great
+care to keep the post in front of him all the time; and that way he
+reached home. Out comes my grandmother running to embrace him; but she
+had to throw her arms around the post and my grandfather's neck at the
+same time, he was that strict to be within his promise. Pefore going
+ben the house, he went to the back end of the kale-yard which was
+farthest from the jail, and there he stuck the post; and then he went
+back to see his sick child, while all the neighbors that came round
+was glad to see what a wise thought the saints had put into his mind
+to save his bail and his promise.
+
+"So there he stayed a week till my father got well. Of course the
+constables came after my grandfather, but the settlement would not let
+the creatures come within a mile of Glengatchie. You might think, sir,
+that my grandfather would have stayed with his wife and weans, seeing
+the post was all the time in the kale-yard, and him careful not to go
+beyond it; but he was putting the settlement to a great deal of
+trouble day and night to keep the constables off, and he was fearful
+that they might take the post away, if ever they got to Glengatchie,
+and give him the name of false, that no McTavish ever had. So Tuncan
+Greenfields and Æneas Sandfield drove my grandfather back to the jail,
+him with the post behind him in the wagon, so as he would be between
+it and the jail. Of course Tougal Stewart tried his best to have the
+bail declared forfeited; but old Judge Jones only laughed, and said
+my grandfather was a Hielan' gentleman, with a very nice sense of
+honor, and that was chust exactly the truth.
+
+"How did my grandfather get free in the end? Oh, then, that was
+because of Tougal Stewart being careless--him that thought he knew so
+much of the law. The law was, you will mind, that Tougal had to pay
+five shillings a week for keeping my grandfather in the limits. The
+money wass to be paid efery Monday, and it was to be paid in lawful
+money of Canada, too. Well, would you belief that Tougal paid in four
+shillings in silver one Monday, and one shilling in coppers, for he
+took up the collection in church the day pefore, and it wass not till
+Tougal had gone away that the jailer saw that one of the coppers was a
+Brock copper,--a medal, you will understand, made at General Brock's
+death, and not lawful money of Canada at all. With that the jailer
+came out to my grandfather.
+
+"'Mr. McTavish,' says he, taking off his hat, 'you are a free man, and
+I'm glad of it.' Then he told him what Tougal had done.
+
+"'I hope you will not have any hard feelings toward me, Mr. McTavish,'
+said the jailer; and a decent man he wass, for all that there wass not
+a drop of Hielan' blood in him. 'I hope you will not think hard of me
+for not being hospitable to you, sir,' says he; 'but it's against the
+rules and regulations for the jailer to be offering the best he can
+command to the prisoners. Now that you are free, Mr. McTavish,' says
+the jailer, 'I would be a proud man if Mr. McTavish of Glengatchie
+would do me the honor of taking supper with me this night. I will be
+asking your leave to invite some of the gentlemen of the place, if you
+will say the word, Mr. McTavish,' says he.
+
+"Well, my grandfather could never bear malice, the kind man he was,
+and he seen how bad the jailer felt, so he consented, and a great
+company came in, to be sure, to celebrate the occasion.
+
+"Did my grandfather pay the balance on the plough? What for should you
+suspicion, sir, that my grandfather would refuse his honest debt? Of
+course he paid for the plough, for the crop was good that fall.
+
+"'I would be paying you the other half of the plough now, Mr.
+Stewart,' says my grandfather, coming in when the store was full.
+
+"'Hoich, but YOU are the honest McTavish!' says Tougal, sneering.
+
+"But my grandfather made no answer to the creature, for he thought it
+would be unkind to mention how Tougal had paid out six pounds four
+shillings and eleven pence to keep him in on account of a debt of two
+pound five that never was due till it was paid."
+
+
+
+
+McGRATH'S BAD NIGHT.
+
+
+"Come then, childer," said Mrs. McGrath, and took the big iron pot
+off. They crowded around her, nine of them, the eldest not more than
+thirteen, the youngest just big enough to hold out his yellow crockery
+bowl.
+
+"The youngest first," remarked Mrs. McGrath, and ladled out a portion
+of the boiled corn-meal to each of the deplorable boys and girls.
+Before they reached the stools from which they had sprung up, or
+squatted again on the rough floor, they all burned their mouths in
+tasting the mush too eagerly. Then there they sat, blowing into their
+bowls, glaring into them, lifting their loaded iron spoons
+occasionally to taste cautiously, till the mush had somewhat cooled.
+
+Then, _gobble-de-gobble-de-gobble_, it was all gone! Though they had
+neither sugar, nor milk, nor butter to it, they found it a remarkably
+excellent sample of mush, and wished only that, in quantity, it had
+been something more.
+
+Peter McGrath sat close beside the cooking-stove, holding Number Ten,
+a girl-baby, who was asleep, and rocking Number Eleven, who was trying
+to wake up, in the low, unpainted cradle. He never took his eyes off
+Number Eleven; he could not bear to look around and see the nine
+devouring the corn-meal so hungrily. Perhaps McGrath could not, and
+certainly he would not,--he was so obstinate,--have told why he felt
+so reproached by the scene. He had felt very guilty for many weeks.
+
+Twenty, yes, a hundred times a day he looked in a dazed way at his big
+hands, and they reproached him, too, that they had no work.
+
+"Where is our smooth, broad-axe handle?" asked the fingers, "and why
+do not the wide chips fly?"
+
+He was ashamed, too, every time he rose up, so tall and strong, with
+nothing to do, and eleven children and his wife next door to
+starvation; but if he had been asked to describe his feelings, he
+would merely have growled out angrily something against old John
+Pontiac.
+
+"You'll take your sup now, Peter?" asked Mrs. McGrath, offering him
+the biggest of the yellow bowls. He looked up then, first at her
+forlorn face, then at the pot. Number Nine was diligently scraping off
+some streaks of mush that had run down the outside; Numbers Eight,
+Seven, Six, and Five were looking respectfully into the pot; Numbers
+Four, Three, Two, and One were watching the pot, the steaming bowl,
+and their father at the same time. Peter McGrath was very hungry.
+
+"Yourself had better eat, Mary Ann," he said. "I'll be having mine
+after it's cooler."
+
+Mrs. McGrath dipped more than a third of the bowlful back into the
+pot, and ate the rest with much satisfaction. The numerals watched her
+anxiously but resignedly.
+
+"Sure it'll be cold entirely, Peter dear," she said, "and the warmth
+is so comforting. Give me little Norah now, the darlint! and be after
+eating your supper."
+
+She had ladled out the last spoonful of mush, and the pot was being
+scraped inside earnestly by Nine, Eight, Seven, and Six. Peter took
+the bowl, and looked at his children.
+
+The earlier numbers were observing him with peculiar sympathy, putting
+themselves in his place, as it were, possessing the bowl in
+imagination; the others now moved their spoons absent-mindedly around
+in the pot, brought them empty to their mouths, mechanically, now and
+again, sucked them more or less, and still stared steadily at their
+father.
+
+His inner walls felt glued together, yet indescribably hollow; the
+smell of the mush went up into his nostrils, and pungently provoked
+his palate and throat. He was famishing.
+
+"Troth, then, Mary Ann," he said, "there's no hunger in me to-night.
+Sure, I wish the childer wouldn't leave me the trouble of eating it.
+Come, then, all of ye!"
+
+The nine came promptly to his call. There were just twenty-two large
+spoonfuls in the bowl; each child received two; the remaining four
+went to the four youngest. Then the bowl was skilfully scraped by
+Number Nine, after which Number Seven took it, whirled a cup of water
+artfully round its interior, and with this put a fine finish on his
+meal.
+
+Peter McGrath then searched thoughtfully in his trousers pockets,
+turning their corners up, getting pinches of tobacco dust out of their
+remotest recesses; he put his blouse pocket through a similar process.
+He found no pockets in his well-patched overcoat when he took it down,
+but he pursued the dust into its lining, and separated it carefully
+from little dabs of wool. Then he put the collection into an extremely
+old black clay pipe, lifted a coal in with his fingers, and took his
+supper.
+
+It would be absurd to assert that, on this continent, a strong man
+could be so poor as Peter, unless he had done something very wrong or
+very foolish. Peter McGrath was, in truth, out of work because he had
+committed an outrage on economics. He had been guilty of the enormous
+error of misunderstanding, and trying to set at naught in his own
+person, the immutable law of supply and demand.
+
+Fancying that a first-class hewer in a timber shanty had an
+inalienable right to receive at least thirty dollars a month, when the
+demand was only strong enough to yield him twenty-two dollars a month,
+Peter had refused to engage at the beginning of the winter.
+
+"Now, Mr. McGrath, you're making a mistake," said his usual employer,
+old John Pontiac. "I'm offering you the best wages going, mind that.
+There's mighty little squared timber coming out this winter."
+
+"I'm ready and willing to work, boss, but I'm fit to arn thirty
+dollars, surely."
+
+"So you are, so you are, in good times, neighbor, and I'd be glad if
+men's wages were forty. That could only be with trade active, and a
+fine season for all of us; but I couldn't take out a raft this winter,
+and pay what you ask."
+
+"I'd work extra hard. I'm not afeard of work."
+
+"Not you, Peter. There never was a lazy bone in your body. Don't I
+know that well? But look, now: if I was to pay you thirty, I should
+have to pay all the other hewers thirty; and that's not all. Scorers
+and teamsters and road-cutters are used to getting wages in proportion
+to hewers. Why, it would cost me a thousand dollars a month to give
+you thirty! Go along, now, that's a good fellow, and tell your wife
+that you've hired with me."
+
+But Peter did not go back. "I'm bound to have my rights, so I am," he
+said sulkily to Mary Ann when he reached the cabin. "The old boss is
+getting too hard like, and set on money. Twenty-two dollars! No! I'll
+go in to Stambrook and hire."
+
+Mary Ann knew that she might as well try to convince a saw-log that
+its proper course was up-stream, as to protest against Peter's
+obstinacy. Moreover, she did think the offered wages very low, and had
+some hope he might better himself; but when he came back from
+Stambrook, she saw trouble ahead. He did not tell her that there,
+where his merit's were not known, he had been offered only twenty
+dollars, but she surmised his disappointment.
+
+"You'd better be after seeing the boss again, maybe, Peter dear," she
+said timidly.
+
+"Not a step," he answered. "The boss'll be after me in a few days,
+you'll see." But there he was mistaken, for all the gangs were full.
+
+After that Peter McGrath tramped far and wide, to many a backwoods
+hamlet, looking vainly for a job at any wages. The season was the
+worst ever known on the river, and before January the shanties were
+discharging men, so threatening was the outlook for lumbermen, and so
+glutted with timber the markets of the world.
+
+Peter's conscience accused him every hour, but he was too stubborn to
+go back to John Pontiac. Indeed, he soon got it into his stupid head
+that the old boss was responsible for his misfortunes, and he
+consequently came to hate Mr. Pontiac very bitterly.
+
+After supping on his pipeful of tobacco-dust, Peter sat,
+straight-backed, leaning elbows on knees and chin on hands, wondering
+what on earth was to become of them all next day. For a man out of
+work there was not a dollar of credit at the little village store; and
+work! why, there was only one kind of work at which money could be
+earned in that district in the winter.
+
+When his wife took Number Eleven's cradle into the other room, she
+heard him, through the thin partition of upright boards, pasted over
+with newspapers, moving round in the dim red flickering fire-light
+from the stove-grating.
+
+The children were all asleep, or pretending it; Number Ten in the big
+straw bed, where she lay always between her parents; Number Eleven in
+her cradle beside; Nine crosswise at the foot; Eight, Seven, Six,
+Five, and Four in the other bed; One, Two, and Three curled up,
+without taking off their miserable garments, on the "locks" of straw
+beside the kitchen stove.
+
+Mary Ann knew very well what Peter was moving round for. She heard him
+groan, so low that he did not know he groaned, when he lifted off the
+cover of the meal barrel, and could feel nothing whatever therein. She
+had actually beaten the meal out of the cracks to make that last pot
+of mush. He knew that all the fish he had salted down in the summer
+were gone, that the flour was all out, that the last morsel of the pig
+had been eaten up long ago; but he went to each of the barrels as
+though he could not realize that there was really nothing left. There
+were four of those low groans.
+
+"O God, help him! do help him! please do!" she kept saying to
+herself. Somehow, all her sufferings and the children's were light to
+her, in comparison, as she listened to that big, taciturn man groan,
+and him sore with the hunger.
+
+When at last she came out, Peter was not there. He had gone out
+silently, so silently that she wondered, and was scared. She opened
+the door very softly, and there he was, leaning on the rail fence
+between their little rocky plot and the great river. She closed the
+door softly, and sat down.
+
+There was a wide steaming space in the river, where the current ran
+too swiftly for any ice to form. Peter gazed on it for a long while.
+The mist had a friendly look; he was soon reminded of the steam from
+an immense bowl of mush! It vexed him. He looked up at the moon. The
+moon was certainly mocking him; dashing through light clouds, then
+jumping into a wide, clear space, where it soon became motionless, and
+mocked him steadily.
+
+He had never known old John Pontiac to jeer any one, but there was his
+face in that moon,--Peter made it out quite clearly. He looked up the
+road to where he could see, on the hill half a mile distant, the
+shimmer of John Pontiac's big tin-roofed house. He thought he could
+make out the outlines of all the buildings,--he knew them so
+well,--the big barn, the stable, the smoke-house, the store-house for
+shanty supplies.
+
+Pork barrels, flour barrels, herring kegs, syrup kegs, sides of frozen
+beef, hams and flitches of bacon in the smoke-house, bags of beans,
+chests of tea,--he had a vision of them all! Teamsters going off to
+the woods daily with provisions, the supply apparently inexhaustible.
+
+And John Pontiac had refused to pay him fair wages!
+
+Peter in exasperation shook his big fist at the moon; it mocked him
+worse than ever. Then out went his gaze to the space of mist; it was
+still more painfully like mush steam. His pigsty was empty, except of
+snow; it made him think again of the empty barrels in the cabin.
+
+The children empty too, or would be to-morrow,--as empty as he felt
+that minute. How dumbly the elder ones would reproach him! and what
+would comfort the younger ones crying with hunger?
+
+Peter looked again up the hill, through the walls of the store-house.
+He was dreadfully hungry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"John! John!" Mrs. Pontiac jogged her husband. "John, wake up! there's
+somebody trying to get into the smoke-house."
+
+"Eh--ugh--ah! I'm 'sleep--ugh." He relapsed again.
+
+"John! John! wake up! There _is_ somebody!"
+
+"What--ugh--eh--what you say?"
+
+"There's somebody getting into the smoke-house."
+
+"Well, there's not much there."
+
+"There's ever so much bacon and ham. Then there's the store-house
+open."
+
+"Oh, I guess there's nobody."
+
+"But there is, I'm sure. You must get up!"
+
+They both got up and looked out of the window. The snow-drifts, the
+paths through them, the store-house, the smoke-house, and the other
+white-washed out-buildings could be seen as clearly as in broad day.
+The smoke-house door was open!
+
+Old John Pontiac was one of the kindest souls that ever inhabited a
+body, but this was a little too much. Still he was sorry for the man,
+no matter who, in that smoke-house,--some Indian probably. He must be
+caught and dealt with firmly; but he did not want the man to be too
+much hurt.
+
+He put on his clothes and sallied forth. He reached the smoke-house;
+there was no one in it; there was a gap, though, where two long
+flitches of bacon _had_ been!
+
+John Pontiac's wife saw him go over to the store-house, the door of
+which was open too. He looked in, then stopped, and started back as if
+in horror. Two flitches tied together with a rope were on the floor,
+and inside was a man filling a bag with flour from a barrel.
+
+"Well, well! this is a terrible thing," said old John Pontiac to
+himself, shrinking around a corner. "Peter McGrath! Oh, my! oh, my!"
+
+He became hot all over, as if he had done something disgraceful
+himself. There was nobody that he respected more than that pigheaded
+Peter. What to do? He must punish him of course; but how? Jail--for
+him with eleven children! "Oh, my! oh, my!" Old John wished he had not
+been awakened to see this terrible downfall.
+
+"It will never do to let him go off with it," he said to himself after
+a little reflection. "I'll put him so that he'll know better another
+time."
+
+Peter McGrath, as he entered the store-house had felt that bacon
+heavier than the heaviest end of the biggest stick of timber he had
+ever helped to cant. He felt guilty, sneaking, disgraced; he felt that
+the literal Devil had first tempted him near the house, then all
+suddenly--with his own hunger pangs and thoughts of his starving
+family--swept him into the smoke-house to steal. But he had consented
+to do it; he had said he would take flour too,--and he would, he was
+so obstinate! And withal, he hated old John Pontiac worse than ever;
+for now he accused him of being the cause of his coming to this.
+
+Then all of a sudden he met the face of Pontiac looking in at the
+door.
+
+Peter sprang back; he saw Stambrook jail--he saw his eleven children
+and his wife--he felt himself a detected felon, and that was worst of
+all.
+
+"Well, Peter, you'd ought to have come right in," were the words that
+came to his ears, in John Pontiac's heartiest voice. "The missis
+would have been glad to see you. We did go to bed a bit early, but
+there wouldn't have been any harm in an old neighbor like you waking
+us up. Not a word of that--hold on! listen to me. It would be a pity
+if old friends like you and me, Peter, couldn't help one another to a
+trifling loan of provisions without making a fuss over it." And old
+John, taking up the scoop, went on filling the bag as if that were a
+matter of course.
+
+Peter did not speak; he could not.
+
+"I was going round to your place to-morrow," resumed John, cheerfully,
+"to see if I couldn't hire you again. There's a job of hewing for you
+in the Conlonge shanty,--a man gone off sick. But I can't give more 'n
+twenty-two, or say twenty-three, seeing you're an old neighbor. What
+do you say?"
+
+Peter still said nothing; he was choking.
+
+"You had better have a bit of something more than bacon and flour,
+Peter," he went on, "and I'll give you a hand to carry the truck
+home. I guess your wife won't mind seeing me with you; then she'll
+know that you've taken a job with me again, you see. Come along and
+give me a hand to hitch the mare up. I'll drive you down."
+
+"Ah--ah--Boss--Boss!" spoke Peter then, with terrible gasps between.
+"Boss--O my God, Mr. Pontiac--I can't never look you in the face
+again!"
+
+"Peter McGrath--old neighbor,"--and John Pontiac laid his hand on the
+shaking shoulder,--"I guess I know all about it; I guess I do.
+Sometimes a man is driven he don't know how. Now we will say no more
+about it. I'll load up, and you come right along with me. And mind,
+I'll do the talking to your wife."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mary Ann McGrath was in a terrible frame of mind. What had become of
+Peter?
+
+She had gone out to look down the road, and had been recalled by
+Number Eleven's crying. Number Ten then chimed in; Nine, too, awoke,
+and determined to resume his privileges as an infant. One after
+another they got up and huddled around her--craving, craving--all but
+the three eldest, who had been well practised in the stoical
+philosophy by the gradual decrease of their rations. But these bounced
+up suddenly at the sound of a grand jangle of bells.
+
+Could it be? Mr. Pontiac they had no doubt about; but was that real
+bacon that he laid on the kitchen table? Then a side of beef, a can of
+tea; next a bag of flour, and again an actual keg of sirup. Why, this
+was almost incredible! And, last, he came in with an immense round
+loaf of bread! The children gathered about it; old John almost
+sickened with sorrow for them, and hurrying out his jacknife, passed
+big hunks around.
+
+"Well, now, Mrs. McGrath," he said during these operations, "I don't
+hardly take it kindly of you and Peter not to have come up to an old
+neighbor's house before this for a bit of a loan. It's well I met
+Peter to-night. Maybe he'd never have told me your troubles--not but
+what I blame myself for not suspecting how it was a bit sooner. I just
+made him take a little loan for the present. No, no; don't be talking
+like that! Charity! tut! tut! it's just an advance of wages. I've got
+a job for Peter; he'll be on pay to-morrow again."
+
+At that Mary Ann burst out crying again. "Oh, God bless you, Mr.
+Pontiac! it's a kind man you are! May the saints be about your bed!"
+
+With that she ran out to Peter, who still stood by the sleigh; she put
+the baby in his arms, and clinging to her husband's shoulder, cried
+more and more.
+
+And what did obstinate Peter McGrath do? Why, he cried, too, with
+gasps and groans that seemed almost to kill him.
+
+"Go in," he said; "go in, Mary Ann--go in--and kiss--the feet of him.
+Yes--and the boards--he stands on. You don't know what he's done--for
+me. It's broke I am--the bad heart of me--broke entirely--with the
+goodness of him. May the heavens be his bed!"
+
+"Now, Mrs. McGrath," cried old John, "never you mind Peter; he's a bit
+light-headed to-night. Come away in and get a bite for him. I'd like a
+dish of tea myself before I go home." Didn't that touch on her Irish
+hospitality bring her in quickly!
+
+"Mind you this, Peter," said the old man, going out then, "don't you
+be troubling your wife with any little secrets about to-night; that's
+between you and me. That's all I ask of you."
+
+Thus it comes about that to this day, when Peter McGrath's fifteen
+children have helped him to become a very prosperous farmer, his wife
+does not quite understand the depth of worship with which he speaks of
+old John Pontiac.
+
+Mrs. Pontiac never knew the story of the night.
+
+"Never mind who it was, Jane," John said, turning out the light, on
+returning to bed, "except this,--it was a neighbor in sore trouble."
+
+"Stealing--and you helped him! Well, John, such a man as you are!"
+
+"Jane, I don't ever rightly know what kind of a man I might be,
+suppose hunger was cruel on me, and on you, and all of us! Let us
+bless God that he's saved us from the terriblest temptations, and
+thank him most especially when he inclines our hearts--inclines our
+hearts--that's all."
+
+
+
+
+GREAT GODFREY'S LAMENT.
+
+
+"Hark to Angus! Man, his heart will be sore the night! In five years I
+have not heard him playing 'Great Godfrey's Lament,'" said old
+Alexander McTavish, as with him I was sitting of a June evening, at
+sundown, under a wide apple-tree of his orchard-lawn.
+
+When the sweet song-sparrows of the Ottawa valley had ceased their
+plaintive strains, Angus McNeil began on his violin. This night,
+instead of "Tullochgorum" or "Roy's Wife" or "The March of the
+McNeils," or any merry strathspey, he crept into an unusual movement,
+and from a distance came the notes of an exceeding strange strain
+blent with the meditative murmur of the Rataplan Rapids.
+
+I am not well enough acquainted with musical terms to tell the method
+of that composition in which the wail of a Highland coronach seemed
+mingled with such mournful crooning as I had heard often from Indian
+voyageurs north of Lake Superior. Perhaps that fancy sprang from my
+knowledge that Angus McNeil's father had been a younger son of the
+chief of the McNeil clan, and his mother a daughter of the greatest
+man of the Cree nation.
+
+"Ay, but Angus is wae," sighed old McTavish. "What will he be seeing
+the now? It was the night before his wife died that he played yon
+last. Come, we will go up the road. He does be liking to see the
+people gather to listen."
+
+We walked, maybe three hundred yards, and stood leaning against the
+ruined picket-fence that surrounds the great stone house built by
+Hector McNeil, the father of Angus, when he retired from his position
+as one of the "Big Bourgeois" of the famous Northwest Fur Trading
+Company.
+
+The huge square structure of four stories and a basement is divided,
+above the ground floor, into eight suites, some of four, and some of
+five rooms. In these suites the fur-trader, whose ideas were all
+patriarchal, had designed that he and his Indian wife, with his seven
+sons and their future families, should live to the end of his days and
+theirs. That was a dream at the time when his boys were all under nine
+years old, and Godfrey little more than a baby in arms.
+
+The ground-floor is divided by a hall twenty-five feet wide into two
+long chambers, one intended to serve as a dining-hall for the
+multitude of descendants that Hector expected to see round his old
+age, the other as a withdrawing-room for himself and his wife, or for
+festive occasions. In this mansion Angus McNeil now dwelt alone.
+
+He sat out that evening on a balcony at the rear of the hall, whence
+he could overlook the McTavish place and the hamlet that extends a
+quarter of a mile further down the Ottawa's north shore. His right
+side was toward the large group of French-Canadian people who had
+gathered to hear him play. Though he was sitting, I could make out
+that his was a gigantic figure.
+
+"Ay--it will be just exactly 'Great Godfrey's Lament,'" McTavish
+whispered. "Weel do I mind him playing yon many's the night after
+Godfrey was laid in the mools. Then he played it no more till before
+his ain wife died. What is he seeing now? Man, it's weel kenned he has
+the second sight at times. Maybe he sees the pit digging for himself.
+He's the last of them."
+
+"Who was Great Godfrey?" I asked, rather loudly.
+
+Angus McNeil instantly cut short the "Lament," rose from his chair,
+and faced us.
+
+"Aleck McTavish, who have you with you?" he called imperiously.
+
+"My young cousin from the city, Mr. McNeil," said McTavish, with
+deference.
+
+"Bring him in. I wish to spoke with you, Aleck McTavish. The young man
+that is not acquaint with the name of Great Godfrey McNeil can come
+with you. I will be at the great door."
+
+"It's strange-like," said McTavish, as we went to the upper gate. "He
+has not asked me inside for near five years. I'm feared his wits is
+disordered, by his way of speaking. Mind what you say. Great Godfrey
+was most like a god to Angus."
+
+When Angus McNeil met us at the front door I saw he was verily a
+giant. Indeed, he was a wee bit more than six and a half feet tall
+when he stood up straight. Now he was stooped a little, not with age,
+but with consumption,--the disease most fatal to men of mixed white
+and Indian blood. His face was dark brown, his features of the Indian
+cast, but his black hair had not the Indian lankness. It curled
+tightly round his grand head.
+
+Without a word he beckoned us on into the vast withdrawing room.
+Without a word he seated himself beside a large oaken centre-table,
+and motioned us to sit opposite.
+
+Before he broke silence, I saw that the windows of that great chamber
+were hung with faded red damask; that the heads of many a bull moose,
+buck, bear, and wolf grinned among guns and swords and claymores from
+its walls; that charred logs, fully fifteen feet long, remained in the
+fireplace from the last winter's burning; that there were three dim
+portraits in oil over the mantel; that the room contained much frayed
+furniture, once sumptuous of red velvet; and that many skins of wild
+beasts lay strewn over a hard-wood floor whose edges still retained
+their polish and faintly gleamed in rays from the red west.
+
+That light was enough to show that two of the oil paintings must be
+those of Hector McNeil and his Indian wife. Between these hung one of
+a singularly handsome youth with yellow hair.
+
+"Here my father lay dead," cried Angus McNeil, suddenly striking the
+table. He stared at us silently for many seconds, then again struck
+the table with the side of his clenched fist. "He lay here dead on
+this table--yes! It was Godfrey that straked him out all alone on this
+table. You mind Great Godfrey, Aleck McTavish."
+
+"Well I do, Mr. McNeil; and your mother yonder,--a grand lady she
+was." McTavish spoke with curious humility, seeming wishful, I
+thought, to comfort McNeil's sorrow by exciting his pride.
+
+"Ay--they'll tell hereafter that she was just exactly a squaw," cried
+the big man, angrily. "But grand she was, and a great lady, and a
+proud. Oh, man, man! but they were proud, my father and my Indian
+mother. And Godfrey was the pride of the hearts of them both. No
+wonder; but it was sore on the rest of us after they took him apart
+from our ways."
+
+Aleck McTavish spoke not a word, and big Angus, after a long pause,
+went on as if almost unconscious of our presence:--
+
+"White was Godfrey, and rosy of the cheek like my father; and the blue
+eyes of him would match the sky when you'll be seeing it up through a
+blazing maple on a clear day of October. Tall, and straight and grand
+was Godfrey, my brother. What was the thing Godfrey could not do? The
+songs of him hushed the singing-birds on the tree, and the fiddle he
+would play to take the soul out of your body. There was no white one
+among us till he was born.
+
+"The rest of us all were just Indians--ay, Indians, Aleck McTavish.
+Brown we were, and the desire of us was all for the woods and the
+river. Godfrey had white sense like my father, and often we saw the
+same look in his eyes. My God, but we feared our father!"
+
+Angus paused to cough. After the fit he sat silent for some minutes.
+The voice of the great rapid seemed to fill the room. When he spoke
+again, he stared past our seat with fixed, dilated eyes, as if tranced
+by a vision.
+
+"Godfrey, Godfrey--you hear! Godfrey, the six of us would go over the
+falls and not think twice of it, if it would please you, when you were
+little. Oich, the joy we had in the white skin of you, and the fine
+ways, till my father and mother saw we were just making an Indian of
+you, like ourselves! So they took you away; ay, and many's the day the
+six of us went to the woods and the river, missing you sore. It's then
+you began to look on us with that look that we could not see was
+different from the look we feared in the blue eyes of our father. Oh,
+but we feared him, Godfrey! And the time went by, and we feared and we
+hated you that seemed lifted up above your Indian brothers!"
+
+"Oich, the masters they got to teach him!" said Angus, addressing
+himself again to my cousin. "In the Latin and the Greek they trained
+him. History books he read, and stories in song. Ay, and the manners
+of Godfrey! Well might the whole pride of my father and mother be on
+their one white son. A grand young gentleman was Godfrey,--Great
+Godfrey we called him, when he was eighteen.
+
+"The fine, rich people that would come up in bateaux from Montreal to
+visit my father had the smile and the kind word for Godfrey; but they
+looked upon us with the eyes of the white man for the Indian. And that
+look we were more and more sure was growing harder in Godfrey's eyes.
+So we looked back at him with the eyes of the wolf that stares at the
+bull moose, and is fierce to pull him down, but dares not try, for the
+moose is too great and lordly.
+
+"Mind you, Aleck McTavish, for all we hated Godfrey when we thought he
+would be looking at us like strange Indians--for all that, yet we were
+proud of him that he was our own brother. Well, we minded how he was
+all like one with us when he was little; and in the calm looks of
+him, and the white skin, and the yellow hair, and the grandeur of him,
+we had pride, do you understand? Ay, and in the strength of him we
+were glad. Would we not sit still and pleased when it was the talk how
+he could run quicker than the best, and jump higher than his head--ay,
+would we! Man, there was none could compare in strength with Great
+Godfrey, the youngest of us all!
+
+"He and my father and mother more and more lived by themselves in this
+room. Yonder room across the hall was left to us six Indians. No
+manners, no learning had we; we were no fit company for Godfrey. My
+mother was like she was wilder with love of Godfrey the more he grew
+and the grander, and never a word for days and weeks together did she
+give to us. It was Godfrey this, and Godfrey that, and all her thought
+was Godfrey!
+
+"Most of all we hated him when she was lying dead here on this table.
+We six in the other room could hear Godfrey and my father groan and
+sigh. We would step softly to the door and listen to them kissing her
+that was dead,--them white, and she Indian like ourselves,--and us not
+daring to go in for the fear of the eyes of our father. So the
+soreness was in our hearts so cruel hard that we would not go in till
+the last, for all their asking. My God, my God, Aleck McTavish, if you
+saw her! she seemed smiling like at Godfrey, and she looked like him
+then, for all she was brown as November oak-leaves, and he white that
+day as the froth on the rapid.
+
+"That put us farther from Godfrey than before. And farther yet we were
+from him after, when he and my father would be walking up and down, up
+and down, arm in arm, up and down the lawn in the evenings. They would
+be talking about books, and the great McNeils in Scotland. The six of
+us knew we were McNeils, for all we were Indians, and we would listen
+to the talk of the great pride and the great deeds of the McNeils
+that was our own kin. We would be drinking the whiskey if we had it,
+and saying: 'Godfrey to be the only McNeil! Godfrey to take all the
+pride of the name of us!' Oh, man, man! but we hated Godfrey sore."
+
+Big Angus paused long, and I seemed to see clearly the two
+fair-haired, tall men walking arm in arm on the lawn in the twilight,
+as if unconscious or careless of being watched and overheard by six
+sore-hearted kinsmen.
+
+"You'll mind when my father was thrown from his horse and carried into
+this room, Aleck McTavish? Ay, well you do. But you nor no other
+living man but me knows what came about the night that he died.
+
+"Godfrey was alone with him. The six of us were in yon room. Drink we
+had, but cautious we were with it, for there was a deed to be done
+that would need all our senses. We sat in a row on the floor--we were
+Indians--it was our wigwam--we sat on the floor to be against the
+ways of them two. Godfrey was in here across the hall from us; alone
+he was with our white father. He would be chief over us by the will,
+no doubt,--and if Godfrey lived through that night it would be
+strange.
+
+"We were cautious with the whiskey, I told you before. Not a sound
+could we hear of Godfrey or of my father. Only the rapid, calling and
+calling,--I mind it well that night. Ay, and well I mind the striking
+of the great clock,--tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,--I listened and I
+dreamed on it till I doubted but it was the beating of my father's
+heart.
+
+"Ten o'clock was gone by, and eleven was near. How many of us sat
+sleeping I know not; but I woke up with a start, and there was Great
+Godfrey, with a candle in his hand, looking down strange at us, and us
+looking up strange at him.
+
+"'He is dead,' Godfrey said.
+
+"We said nothing.
+
+"'Father died two hours ago,' Godfrey said.
+
+"We said nothing.
+
+"'Our father is white,--he is very white,' Godfrey said, and he
+trembled. 'Our mother was brown when she was dead.'
+
+"Godfrey's voice was wild.
+
+"'Come, brothers, and see how white is our father,' Godfrey said.
+
+"No one of us moved.
+
+"'Won't you come? In God's name, come,' said Godfrey. 'Oich--but it is
+very strange! I have looked in his face so long that now I do not know
+him for my father. He is like no kin to me, lying there. I am alone,
+alone.'
+
+"Godfrey wailed in a manner. It made me ashamed to hear his voice like
+that--him that looked like my father that was always silent as a
+sword--him that was the true McNeil.
+
+"'You look at me, and your eyes are the eyes of my mother,' says
+Godfrey, staring wilder. 'What are you doing here, all so still?
+Drinking the whiskey? I am the same as you. I am your brother. I will
+sit with you, and if you drink the whiskey, I will drink the whiskey,
+too.'
+
+"Aleck McTavish! with that he sat down on the floor in the dirt and
+litter beside Donald, that was oldest of us all.
+
+"'Give me the bottle,' he said. 'I am as much Indian as you, brothers.
+What you do I will do, as I did when I was little, long ago.'
+
+"To see him sit down in his best,--all his learning and his grand
+manners as if forgotten,--man, it was like as if our father himself
+was turned Indian, and was low in the dirt!
+
+"What was in the heart of Donald I don't know, but he lifted the
+bottle and smashed it down on the floor.
+
+"'God in heaven! what's to become of the McNeils! You that was the
+credit of the family, Godfrey!' says Donald with a groan.
+
+"At that Great Godfrey jumped to his feet like he was come awake.
+
+"'You're fitter to be the head of the McNeils than I am, Donald,'
+says he; and with that the tears broke out of his eyes, and he cast
+himself into Donald's arms. Well, with that we all began to cry as if
+our hearts would break. I threw myself down on the floor at Godfrey's
+feet, and put my arms round his knees the same as I'd lift him up when
+he was little. There I cried, and we all cried around him, and after a
+bit I said:--
+
+"'Brothers, this was what was in the mind of Godfrey. He was all alone
+in yonder. We are his brothers, and his heart warmed to us, and he
+said to himself, it was better to be like us than to be alone, and he
+thought if he came and sat down and drank the whiskey with us, he
+would be our brother again, and not be any more alone.'
+
+"'Ay, Angus, Angus, but how did you know that?' says Godfrey, crying;
+and he put his arms round my neck, and lifted me up till we were
+breast to breast. With that we all put our arms some way round one
+another and Godfrey, and there we stood sighing and swaying and
+sobbing a long time, and no man saying a word.
+
+"'Oh, man, Godfrey dear, but our father is gone, and who can talk with
+you now about the Latin, and the history books, and the great
+McNeils--and our mother that's gone?' says Donald; and the thought of
+it was such pity that our hearts seemed like to break.
+
+"But Godfrey said: 'We will talk together like brothers. If it shames
+you for me to be like you, then I will teach you all they taught me,
+and we will all be like our white father.'
+
+"So we all agreed to have it so, if he would tell us what to do. After
+that we came in here with Godfrey, and we stood looking at my father's
+white face. Godfrey all alone had straked him out on this table, with
+the silver-pieces on the eyes that we had feared. But the silver we
+did not fear. Maybe you will not understand it, Aleck McTavish, but
+our father never seemed such close kin to us as when we would look at
+him dead, and at Godfrey, that was the picture of him, living and
+kind.
+
+"After that you know what happened yourself."
+
+"Well I do, Mr. McNeil. It was Great Godfrey that was the father to
+you all," said my cousin.
+
+"Just that, Aleck McTavish. All that he had was ours to use as we
+would,--his land, money, horses, this room, his learning. Some of us
+could learn one thing and some of us could learn another, and some
+could learn nothing, not even how to behave. What I could learn was
+the playing of the fiddle. Many's the hour Godfrey would play with me
+while the rest were all happy around.
+
+"In great content we lived like brothers, and proud to see Godfrey as
+white and fine, and grand as the best gentleman that ever came up to
+visit him out of Montreal. Ay, in great content we lived all together
+till the consumption came on Donald, and he was gone. Then it came
+and came back, and came back again, till Hector was gone, and Ranald
+was gone, and in ten years' time only Godfrey and I were left. Then
+both of us married, as you know. But our children died as fast as they
+were born, almost,--for the curse seemed on us. Then his wife died,
+and Godfrey sighed and sighed ever after that.
+
+"One night I was sleeping with the door of my room open, so I could
+hear if Godfrey needed my help. The cough was on him then. Out of a
+dream of him looking at my father's white face I woke and went to his
+bed. He was not there at all.
+
+"My heart went cold with fear, for I heard the rapid very clear, like
+the nights they all died. Then I heard the music begin down stairs,
+here in this chamber where they were all laid out dead,--right here on
+this table where I will soon lie like the rest. I leave it to you to
+see it done, Aleck McTavish, for you are a Highlandman by blood. It
+was that I wanted to say to you when I called you in. I have seen
+myself in my coffin three nights. Nay, say nothing; you will see.
+
+"Hearing the music that night, down I came softly. Here sat Godfrey,
+and the kindest look was on his face that ever I saw. He had his
+fiddle in his hand, and he played about all our lives.
+
+"He played about how we all came down from the North in the big canoe
+with my father and mother, when we were little children and him a
+baby. He played of the rapids we passed over, and of the rustling of
+the poplar-trees and the purr of the pines. He played till the river
+you hear now was in the fiddle, with the sound of our paddles, and the
+fish jumping for flies. He played about the long winters when we were
+young, so that the snow of those winters seemed falling again. The
+ringing of our skates on the ice I could hear in the fiddle. He played
+through all our lives when we were young and going in the woods yonder
+together--and then it was the sore lament began!
+
+"It was like as if he played how they kept him away from his brothers,
+and him at his books thinking of them in the woods, and him hearing
+the partridges' drumming, and the squirrels' chatter, and all the
+little birds singing and singing. Oich, man, but there's no words for
+the sadness of it!"
+
+Old Angus ceased to speak as he took his violin from the table and
+struck into the middle of "Great Godfrey's Lament." As he played, his
+wide eyes looked past us, and the tears streamed down his brown
+cheeks. When the woful strain ended, he said, staring past us: "Ay,
+Godfrey, you were always our brother."
+
+Then he put his face down in his big brown hands, and we left him
+without another word.
+
+
+
+
+THE RED-HEADED WINDEGO.
+
+
+Big Baptiste Seguin, on snow-shoes nearly six feet long, strode
+mightily out of the forest, and gazed across the treeless valley
+ahead.
+
+"Hooraw! No choppin' for two mile!" he shouted.
+
+"Hooraw! Bully! Hi-yi!" yelled the axemen, Pierre, "Jawnny," and
+"Frawce," two hundred yards behind. Their cries were taken up by the
+two chain-bearers still farther back.
+
+"Is it a lake, Baptiste?" cried Tom Dunscombe, the young surveyor, as
+he hurried forward through balsams that edged the woods and concealed
+the open space from those among the trees.
+
+"No, seh; only a beaver meddy."
+
+"Clean?"
+
+"Clean! Yesseh! Clean 's your face. Hain't no tree for two mile if de
+line is go right."
+
+"Good! We shall make seven miles to-day," said Tom, as he came forward
+with immense strides, carrying a compass and Jacob's-staff. Behind him
+the axemen slashed along, striking white slivers from the pink and
+scaly columns of red pines that shot up a hundred and twenty feet
+without a branch. If any underbrush grew there, it was beneath the
+eight-feet-deep February snow, so that one could see far away down a
+multitude of vaulted, converging aisles.
+
+Our young surveyor took no thought of the beauty and majesty of the
+forest he was leaving. His thoughts and those of his men were set
+solely on getting ahead; for all hands had been promised double pay
+for their whole winter, in case they should succeed in running a line
+round the disputed Moose Lake timber berth before the tenth of April.
+
+Their success would secure the claim of their employer, Old Dan
+McEachran, whereas their failure would submit him perhaps to the loss
+of the limit, and certainly to a costly lawsuit with "Old Rory"
+Carmichael, another potentate of the Upper Ottawa.
+
+At least six weeks more of fair snow-shoeing would be needed to
+"blaze" out the limit, even if the unknown country before them should
+turn out to be less broken by cedar swamps and high precipices than
+they feared. A few days' thaw with rain would make slush of the eight
+feet of snow, and compel the party either to keep in camp, or risk
+_mal de raquette_,--strain of legs by heavy snow-shoeing. So they were
+in great haste to make the best of fine weather.
+
+Tom thrust his Jacob's-staff into the snow, set the compass sights to
+the right bearing, looked through them, and stood by to let Big
+Baptiste get a course along the line ahead. Baptiste's duty was to
+walk straight for some selected object far away on the line. In
+woodland the axemen "blazed" trees on both sides of his snow-shoe
+track.
+
+Baptiste was as expert at his job as any Indian, and indeed he looked
+as if he had a streak of Iroquois in his veins. So did "Frawce,"
+"Jawnny," and all their comrades of the party.
+
+"The three pines will do," said Tom, as Baptiste crouched.
+
+"Good luck to-day for sure!" cried Baptiste, rising with his eyes
+fixed on three pines in the foreground of the distant timbered ridge.
+He saw that the line did indeed run clear of trees for two miles along
+one side of the long, narrow beaver meadow or swale.
+
+Baptiste drew a deep breath, and grinned agreeably at Tom Dunscombe.
+
+"De boys will look like dey's all got de double pay in dey's pocket
+when dey's see _dis_ open," said Baptiste, and started for the three
+pines as straight as a bee.
+
+Tom waited to get from the chainmen the distance to the edge of the
+wood. They came on the heels of the axemen, and all capered on their
+snow-shoes to see so long a space free from cutting.
+
+It was now two o'clock; they had marched with forty pound or "light"
+packs since daylight, lunching on cold pork and hard-tack as they
+worked; they had slept cold for weeks on brush under an open tent
+pitched over a hole in the snow; they must live this life of hardship
+and huge work for six weeks longer, but they hoped to get twice their
+usual eighty-cents-a-day pay, and so their hearts were light and
+jolly.
+
+But Big Baptiste, now two hundred yards in advance, swinging along in
+full view of the party, stopped with a scared cry. They saw him look
+to the left and to the right, and over his shoulder behind, like a man
+who expects mortal attack from a near but unknown quarter.
+
+"What's the matter?" shouted Tom.
+
+Baptiste went forward a few steps, hesitated, stopped, turned, and
+fairly ran back toward the party. As he came he continually turned
+his head from side to side as if expecting to see some dreadful thing
+following.
+
+The men behind Tom stopped. Their faces were blanched. They looked,
+too, from side to side.
+
+"Halt, Mr. Tom, halt! Oh, _monjee_, M'sieu, stop!" said Jawnny.
+
+Tom looked round at his men, amazed at their faces of mysterious
+terror.
+
+"What on earth has happened?" cried he.
+
+Instead of answering, the men simply pointed to Big Baptiste, who was
+soon within twenty yards.
+
+"What is the trouble, Baptiste?" asked Tom.
+
+Baptiste's face was the hue of death. As he spoke he shuddered:--
+
+"_Monjee_, Mr. Tom, we'll got for stop de job!"
+
+"Stop the job! Are you crazy?"
+
+"If you'll not b'lieve what I told, den you go'n' see for you'se'f."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"De track, seh."
+
+"What track? Wolves?"
+
+"If it was only wolfs!"
+
+"Confound you! can't you say what it is?"
+
+"Eet's de--It ain't safe for told its name out loud, for dass de way
+it come--if it's call by its name!"
+
+"Windego, eh?" said Tom, laughing.
+
+"I'll know its track jus' as quick 's I see it."
+
+"Do you mean you have seen a Windego track?"
+
+"_Monjee_, seh, _don't_ say its name! Let us go back," said Jawnny.
+"Baptiste was at Madores' shanty with us when it took Hermidas
+Dubois."
+
+"Yesseh. That's de way I'll come for know de track soon 's I see it,"
+said Baptiste. "Before den I mos' don' b'lieve dere was any of it. But
+ain't it take Hermidas Dubois only last New Year's?"
+
+"That was all nonsense about Dubois. I'll bet it was a joke to scare
+you all."
+
+"Who 's kill a man for a joke?" said Baptiste.
+
+"Did you see Hermidas Dubois killed? Did you see him dead? No! I heard
+all about it. All you know is that he went away on New Year's morning,
+when the rest of the men were too scared to leave the shanty, because
+some one said there was a Windego track outside."
+
+"Hermidas never come back!"
+
+"I'll bet he went away home. You'll find him at Saint Agathe in the
+spring. You can't be such fools as to believe in Windegos."
+
+"Don't you say dat name some more!" yelled Big Baptiste, now fierce
+with fright. "Hain't I just seen de track? I'm go'n' back, me, if I
+don't get a copper of pay for de whole winter!"
+
+"Wait a little now, Baptiste," said Tom, alarmed lest his party should
+desert him and the job. "I'll soon find out what's at the bottom of
+the track."
+
+"Dere's blood at de bottom--I seen it!" said Baptiste.
+
+"Well, you wait till _I_ go and see it."
+
+"No! I go back, me," said Baptiste, and started up the slope with the
+others at his heels.
+
+"Halt! Stop there! Halt, you fools! Don't you understand that if there
+was any such monster it would as easily catch you in one place as
+another?"
+
+The men went on. Tom took another tone.
+
+"Boys, look here! I say, are you going to desert me like cowards?"
+
+"Hain't goin' for desert you, Mr. Tom, no seh!" said Baptiste,
+halting. "Honly I'll hain' go for cross de track." They all faced
+round.
+
+Tom was acquainted with a considerable number of Windego
+superstitions.
+
+"There's no danger unless it's a fresh track," he said. "Perhaps it's
+an old one."
+
+"Fresh made dis mornin'," said Baptiste.
+
+"Well, wait till I go and see it. You're all right, you know, if you
+don't cross it. Isn't that the idea?"
+
+"No, seh. Mr. Humphreys told Madore 'bout dat. Eef somebody cross de
+track and don't never come back, _den_ de magic ain't in de track no
+more. But it's watchin', watchin' all round to catch somebody what
+cross its track; and if nobody don't cross its track and get catched,
+den de--de _Ting_ mebby get crazy mad, and nobody don' know what it's
+goin' for do. Kill every person, mebby."
+
+Tom mused over this information. These men had all been in Madore's
+shanty; Madore was under Red Dick Humphreys; Red Dick was Rory
+Carmichael's head foreman; he had sworn to stop the survey by hook or
+by crook, and this vow had been made after Tom had hired his gang from
+among those scared away from Madore's shanty. Tom thought he began to
+understand the situation.
+
+"Just wait a bit, boys," he said, and started.
+
+"You ain't surely go'n' to cross de track?" cried Baptiste.
+
+"Not now, anyway," said Tom. "But wait till I see it."
+
+When he reached the mysterious track it surprised him so greatly that
+he easily forgave Baptiste's fears.
+
+If a giant having ill-shaped feet as long as Tom's snow-shoes had
+passed by in moccasins, the main features of the indentations might
+have been produced. But the marks were no deeper in the snow than if
+the huge moccasins had been worn by an ordinary man. They were about
+five and a half feet apart from centres, a stride that no human legs
+could take at a walking pace.
+
+Moreover, there were on the snow none of the dragging marks of
+striding; the gigantic feet had apparently been lifted straight up
+clear of the snow, and put straight down.
+
+Strangest of all, at the front of each print were five narrow holes
+which suggested that the mysterious creature had travelled with bare,
+claw-like toes. An irregular drip or squirt of blood went along the
+middle of the indentations! Nevertheless, the whole thing seemed of
+human devising.
+
+This track, Tom reflected, was consistent with the Indian superstition
+that Windegos are monsters who take on or relinquish the human form,
+and vary their size at pleasure. He perceived that he must bring the
+maker of those tracks promptly to book, or suffer his men to desert
+the survey, and cost him his whole winter's work, besides making him a
+laughingstock in the settlements.
+
+The young fellow made his decision instantly. After feeling for his
+match-box and sheath-knife, he took his hatchet from his sash, and
+called to the men.
+
+"Go into camp and wait for me!"
+
+Then he set off alongside of the mysterious track at his best pace. It
+came out of a tangle of alders to the west, and went into such another
+tangle about a quarter of a mile to the east. Tom went east. The men
+watched him with horror.
+
+"He's got crazy, looking at de track," said Big Baptiste, "for that's
+the way,--one is enchanted,--he must follow."
+
+"He was a good boss," said Jawnny, sadly.
+
+As the young fellow disappeared in the alders the men looked at one
+another with a certain shame. Not a sound except the sough of pines
+from the neighboring forest was heard. Though the sun was sinking in
+clear blue, the aspect of the wilderness, gray and white and severe,
+touched the impressionable men with deeper melancholy. They felt
+lonely, masterless, mean.
+
+"He was a good boss," said Jawnny again.
+
+"_Tort Dieu!_" cried Baptiste, leaping to his feet. "It's a shame to
+desert the young boss. I don't care; the Windego can only kill me. I'm
+going to help Mr. Tom."
+
+"Me also," said Jawnny.
+
+Then all wished to go. But after some parley it was agreed that the
+others should wait for the portageurs, who were likely to be two miles
+behind, and make camp for the night.
+
+Soon Baptiste and Jawnny, each with his axe, started diagonally across
+the swale, and entered the alders on Tom's track.
+
+It took them twenty yards through the alders, to the edge of a warm
+spring or marsh about fifty yards wide. This open, shallow water was
+completely encircled by alders that came down to its very edge. Tom's
+snow-shoe track joined the track of the mysterious monster for the
+first time on the edge--and there both vanished!
+
+Baptiste and Jawnny looked at the place with the wildest terror, and
+without even thinking to search the deeply indented opposite edges of
+the little pool for a reappearance of the tracks, fled back to the
+party. It was just as Red Dick Humphreys had said; just as they had
+always heard. Tom, like Hermidas Dubois, appeared to have vanished
+from existence the moment he stepped on the Windego track!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dimness of early evening was in the red-pine forest through which
+Tom's party had passed early in the afternoon, and the belated
+portageurs were tramping along the line. A man with a red head had
+been long crouching in some cedar bushes to the east of the "blazed"
+cutting. When he had watched the portageurs pass out of sight, he
+stepped over upon their track, and followed it a short distance.
+
+A few minutes later a young fellow, over six feet high, who strongly
+resembled Tom Dunscombe, followed the red-headed man.
+
+The stranger, suddenly catching sight of a flame far away ahead on the
+edge of the beaver meadow, stopped and fairly hugged himself.
+
+"Camped, by jiminy! I knowed I'd fetch 'em," was the only remark he
+made.
+
+"I wish Big Baptiste could see that Windego laugh," thought Tom
+Dunscombe, concealed behind a tree.
+
+After reflecting a few moments, the red-headed man, a wiry little
+fellow, went forward till he came to where an old pine had recently
+fallen across the track. There he kicked off his snow-shoes, picked
+them up, ran along the trunk, jumped into the snow from among the
+branches, put on his snow-shoes, and started northwestward. His new
+track could not be seen from the survey line.
+
+But Tom had beheld and understood the purpose of the manoeuvre. He
+made straight for the head of the fallen tree, got on the stranger's
+tracks and cautiously followed them, keeping far enough behind to be
+out of hearing or sight.
+
+The red-headed stranger went toward the wood out of which the
+mysterious track of the morning had come. When he had reached the
+little brush-camp in which he had slept the previous night, he made a
+small fire, put a small tin pot on it, boiled some tea, broiled a
+venison steak, ate his supper, had several good laughs, took a long
+smoke, rolled himself round and round in his blanket, and went to
+sleep.
+
+Hours passed before Tom ventured to crawl forward and peer into the
+brush camp. The red-headed man was lying on his face, as is the custom
+of many woodsmen. His capuchin cap covered his red head.
+
+Tom Dunscombe took off his own long sash. When the red-headed man woke
+up he found that some one was on his back, holding his head firmly
+down.
+
+Unable to extricate his arms or legs from his blankets, the red-headed
+man began to utter fearful threats. Tom said not one word, but
+diligently wound his sash round his prisoner's head, shoulders, and
+arms.
+
+He then rose, took the red-headed man's own "tump-line," a leather
+strap about twelve feet long, which tapered from the middle to both
+ends, tied this firmly round the angry live mummy, and left him lying
+on his face.
+
+Then, collecting his prisoner's axe, snow-shoes, provisions, and tin
+pail, Tom started with them back along the Windego track for camp.
+
+Big Baptiste and his comrades had supped too full of fears to go to
+sleep. They had built an enormous fire, because Windegos are reported,
+in Indian circles, to share with wild beasts the dread of flames and
+brands. Tom stole quietly to within fifty yards of the camp, and
+suddenly shouted in unearthly fashion. The men sprang up, quaking.
+
+"It's the Windego!" screamed Jawnny.
+
+"You silly fools!" said Tom, coming forward. "Don't you know my voice?
+Am I a Windego?"
+
+"It's the Windego, for sure; it's took the shape of Mr. Tom, after
+eatin' him," cried Big Baptiste.
+
+Tom laughed so uproariously at this, that the other men scouted the
+idea, though it was quite in keeping with their information concerning
+Windegos' habits.
+
+Then Tom came in and gave a full and particular account of the
+Windego's pursuit, capture, and present predicament.
+
+"But how'd he make de track?" they asked.
+
+"He had two big old snow-shoes, stuffed with spruce tips underneath,
+and covered with dressed deerskin. He had cut off the back ends of
+them. You shall see them to-morrow. I found them down yonder where he
+had left them after crossing the warm spring. He had five bits of
+sharp round wood going down in front of them. He must have stood on
+them one after the other, and lifted the back one every time with the
+pole he carried. I've got that, too. The blood was from a deer he had
+run down and killed in the snow. He carried the blood in his tin pail,
+and sprinkled it behind him. He must have run out our line long ago
+with a compass, so he knew where it would go. But come, let us go and
+see if it's Red Dick Humphreys."
+
+Red Dick proved to be the prisoner. He had become quite philosophic
+while waiting for his captor to come back. When unbound he grinned
+pleasantly, and remarked:--
+
+"You're Mr. Dunscombe, eh? Well, you're a smart young feller, Mr.
+Dunscombe. There ain't another man on the Ottaway that could 'a' done
+that trick on me. Old Dan McEachran will make your fortun' for this,
+and I don't begrudge it. You're a man--that's so. If ever I hear any
+feller saying to the contrayry he's got to lick Red Dick Humphreys."
+
+And he told them the particulars of his practical joke in making a
+Windego track round Madore's shanty.
+
+"Hermidas Dubois?--oh, he's all right," said Red Dick. "He's at home
+at St. Agathe. Man, he helped me to fix up that Windego track at
+Madore's; but, by criminy! the look of it scared him so he wouldn't
+cross it himself. It was a holy terror!"
+
+
+
+
+THE SHINING CROSS OF RIGAUD.
+
+I.
+
+
+When Mini was a fortnight old his mother wrapped her head and
+shoulders in her ragged shawl, snatched him from the family litter of
+straw, and, with a volley of cautionary objurgations to his ten
+brothers and sisters, strode angrily forth into the raw November
+weather. She went down the hill to the edge of the broad, dark Ottawa,
+where thin slices of ice were swashing together. There sat a
+hopeless-looking little man at the clumsy oars of a flat-bottomed
+boat.
+
+"The little one's feet are out," said the man.
+
+"So much the better! For what was another sent us?" cried Mini's
+mother.
+
+"But the little one must be baptized," said the father, with mild
+expostulation.
+
+"Give him to me, then," and the man took off his own ragged coat.
+Beneath it he had nothing except an equally ragged guernsey, and the
+wind was keen. The woman surrendered the child carelessly, and drawing
+her shawl closer, sat frowning moodily in the stern. Mini's father
+wrapped him in the wretched garment, carefully laid the infant on the
+pea-straw at his feet, and rowed wearily away.
+
+They took him to the gray church on the farther shore, whose tall
+cross glittered coldly in the wintry sun. There Madame Lajeunesse, the
+skilful washerwoman, angry to be taken so long from her tubs, and
+Bonhomme Hamel, who never did anything but fish for _barbotes_, met
+them. These highly respectable connections of Mini's mother had a
+disdain for her inferior social status, and easily made it understood
+that nothing but a Christian duty would have brought them out. Where
+else, indeed, could the friendless infant have found sponsors? It was
+disgraceful, they remarked, that the custom of baptism at three days
+old should have been violated. While they answered for Mini's
+spiritual development he was quiet, neither crying nor smiling till
+the old priest crossed his brow. Then he smiled, and that, Bonhomme
+Hamel remarked, was a blessed sign.
+
+"Now he's sure of heaven when he does die!" cried Mini's mother,
+getting home again, and tossed him down on the straw, for a conclusion
+to her sentence.
+
+But the child lived, as if by miracle. Hunger, cold, dirt, abuse,
+still left him a feeble vitality. At six years old his big dark eyes
+wore so sad a look that mothers of merry children often stopped to
+sigh over him, frightening the child, for he did not understand
+sympathy. So unresponsive and dumb was he that they called him
+half-witted. Three babies younger than he had died by then, and the
+fourth was little Angélique. They said she would be very like Mini,
+and there was reason why in her wretched infancy. Mini's was the only
+love she ever knew. When she saw the sunny sky his weak arms carried
+her, and many a night he drew over her the largest part of his
+deplorable coverings. She, too, was strangely silent. For days long
+they lay together on the straw, quietly suffering what they had known
+from the beginning. It was something near starvation.
+
+When Mini was eight years old his mother sent him one day to beg food
+from Madame Leclaire, whose servant she had been long ago.
+
+"It's Lucile's Mini," said Madame, taking him to the door of the cosey
+sitting-room, where Monsieur sat at _solitaire_.
+
+"_Mon Dieu_, did one ever see such a child!" cried the retired notary.
+"For the love of Heaven, feed him well, Marie, before you let him go!"
+
+But Mini could scarcely eat. He trembled at the sight of so much food,
+and chose a crust as the only thing familiar.
+
+"Eat, my poor child. Have no fear," said Madame.
+
+"But Angélique," said he.
+
+"Angélique? Is it the baby?"
+
+"Yes, Madame, if I might have something for her."
+
+"Poor little loving boy," said Madame, tears in her kind eyes. But
+Mini did not cry; he had known so many things so much sadder.
+
+When Mini reached home his mother seized the basket. Her wretched
+children crowded around. There were broken bread and meat in plenty.
+"Here--here--and here!" She distributed crusts, and chose a
+well-fleshed bone for her own teeth. Angélique could not walk, and did
+not cry, so got nothing. Mini, however, went to her with the tin pail
+before his mother noticed it.
+
+"Bring that back!" she shouted.
+
+"Quick, baby!" cried Mini, holding it that Angélique might drink. But
+the baby was not quick enough. Her mother seized the pail and tasted;
+the milk was still almost warm. "Good," said she, reaching for her
+shawl.
+
+"For the love of God, mother!" cried Mini, "Madame said it was for
+Angélique." He knew too well what new milk would trade for. The woman
+laughed and flung on her shawl.
+
+"Only a little, then; only a cupful," cried Mini, clutching her,
+struggling weakly to restrain her. "Only a little cupful for
+Angélique."
+
+"Give her bread!" She struck him so that he reeled, and left the
+cabin. _Then_ Mini cried, but not for the blow.
+
+He placed a soft piece of bread and a thin shred of meat in
+Angélique's thin little hand, but she could not eat, she was so weak.
+The elder children sat quietly devouring their food, each ravenously
+eying that of the others. But there was so much that when the father
+came he also could eat. He, too, offered Angélique bread. Then Mini
+lifted his hand which held hers and showed beneath the food she had
+refused.
+
+"If she had milk!" said the boy.
+
+"My God, if I could get some," groaned the man, and stopped as a
+shuffling and tumbling was heard at the door.
+
+"She is very drunk," said the man, without amazement. He helped her
+in, and, too far gone to abuse them, she soon lay heavily breathing
+near the child she had murdered.
+
+Mini woke in the pale morning thinking Angélique very cold in his
+arms, and, behold, she was free from all the suffering forever. So he
+_could_ not cry, though the mother wept when she awoke, and shrieked
+at his tearlessness as hardhearted.
+
+Little Angélique had been rowed across the great river for the last
+time; night was come again, and Mini thought he _must_ die; it could
+not be that he should be made to live without Angélique! Then a
+wondrous thing seemed to happen. Little Angélique had come back. He
+could not doubt it next morning, for, with the slowly lessening glow
+from the last brands of fire had not her face appeared?--then her
+form?--and lo! she was closely held in the arms of the mild Mother
+whom Mini knew from her image in the church, only she smiled more
+sweetly now in the hut. Little Angélique had learned to smile, too,
+which was most wonderful of all to Mini. In their heavenly looks was a
+meaning of which he felt almost aware; a mysterious happiness was
+coming close and closer; with the sense of ineffable touches near his
+brow, the boy dreamed. Nothing more did Mini know till his mother's
+voice woke him in the morning. He sprang up with a cry of "Angélique,"
+and gazed round upon the familiar squalor.
+
+
+II.
+
+From the summit of Rigaud Mountain a mighty cross flashes sunlight all
+over the great plain of Vaudreuil. The devout _habitant_, ascending
+from vale to hill-top in the county of Deux Montagnes, bends to the
+sign he sees across the forest leagues away. Far off on the brown
+Ottawa, beyond the Cascades of Carillon and the Chute à Blondeau, the
+keen-eyed _voyageur_ catches its gleam, and, for gladness to be
+nearing the familiar mountain, more cheerily raises the _chanson_ he
+loves. Near St. Placide the early ploughman--while yet mist wreathes
+the fields and before the native Rossignol has fairly begun his
+plaintive flourishes--watches the high cross of Rigaud for the first
+glint that shall tell him of the yet unrisen sun. The wayfarer marks
+his progress by the bearing of that great cross, the hunter looks to
+it for an unfailing landmark, the weatherwise farmer prognosticates
+from its appearances. The old watch it dwindle from sight at evening
+with long thoughts of the well-beloved vanished, who sighed to its
+vanishing through vanished years; the dying turn to its beckoning
+radiance; happy is the maiden for whose bridal it wears brightness;
+blessed is the child thought to be that holds out tiny hands for the
+glittering cross as for a star. Even to the most worldly it often
+seems flinging beams of heaven, and to all who love its shining that
+is a dark day when it yields no reflection of immortal meaning.
+
+To Mini the Cross of Rigaud had as yet been no more than an indistinct
+glimmering, so far from it did he live and so dulled was he by his
+sufferings. It promised him no immortal joys, for how was he to
+conceive of heaven except as a cessation of weariness, starvation, and
+pain? Not till Angélique had come, in the vision did he gain certainty
+that in heaven she would smile on him always from the mild Mother's
+arms. As days and weeks passed without that dream's return, his
+imagination was ever the more possessed by it. Though the boy looked
+frailer than ever, people often remarked with amazement how his eyes
+wore some unspeakable happiness.
+
+Now it happened that one sunny day after rain Mini became aware that
+his eyes were fixed on the Cross of Rigaud. He could not make out its
+form distinctly, but it appeared to thrill toward him. Under his
+intent watching the misty cross seemed gradually to become the centre
+of such a light as had enwrapped the figures of his dream. While he
+gazed, expecting his vision of the night to appear in broad day on the
+far summit, the light extended, changed, rose aloft, assumed clear
+tints, and shifted quickly to a great rainbow encircling the hill.
+
+Mini believed it a token to him. That Angélique had been there by the
+cross the little dreamer doubted not, and the transfiguration to that
+arch of glory had some meaning that his soul yearned to apprehend. The
+cross drew his thoughts miraculously; for days thereafter he dwelt
+with its shining; more and more it was borne in on him that he could
+always see dimly the outline of little Angélique's face there;
+sometimes, staring very steadily for minutes together, he could even
+believe that she beckoned and smiled.
+
+"Is Angélique really there, father?" he asked one day, looking toward
+the hill-top.
+
+"Yes, there," answered his father, thinking the boy meant heaven.
+
+"I will go to her, then," said Mini to his heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Birds were not stirring when Mini stepped from the dark cabin into
+gray dawn, with firm resolve to join Angélique on the summit. The
+Ottawa, with whose flow he went toward Rigaud, was solemnly shrouded
+in motionless mist, which began to roll slowly during the first hour
+of his journey. Lifting, drifting, clinging, ever thinner and more
+pervaded by sunlight, it was drawn away so that the unruffled flood
+reflected a sky all blue when he had been two hours on the road. But
+Mini took no note of the river's beauty. His eyes were fixed on the
+cloudy hill-top, beyond which the sun was climbing. As yet he could
+see nothing of the cross, nor of his vision; yet the world had never
+seemed so glad, nor his heart so light with joy. _Habitants_, in
+their rattling _calèches_, were amazed by the glow in the face of a
+boy so ragged and forlorn. Some told afterward how they had half
+doubted the reality of his rags; for might not one, if very pure at
+heart, have been privileged to see such garments of apparent meanness
+change to raiment of angelic texture? Such things had been, it was
+said, and certainly the boy's face was a marvel.
+
+His look was ever upward to where fibrous clouds shifted slowly, or
+packed to level bands of mist half concealing Rigaud Hill, as the sun
+wheeled higher, till at last, in mid-sky, it flung rays that trembled
+on the cross, and gradually revealed the holy sign outlined in upright
+and arms. Mini shivered with an awe of expectation; but no nimbus was
+disclosed which his imagination could shape to glorious significance.
+Yet he went rapturously onward, firm in the belief that up there he
+must see Angélique face to face.
+
+As he journeyed the cross gradually lessened in height by
+disappearance behind the nearer trees, till only a spot of light was
+left, which suddenly was blotted out too. Mini drew a deep breath, and
+became conscious of the greatness of the hill,--a towering mass of
+brown rock, half hidden by sombre pines and the delicate greenery of
+birch and poplar. But soon, because the cross _was_ hidden, he could
+figure it all the more gloriously, and entertain all the more
+luminously the belief that there were heavenly presences awaiting him.
+He pressed on with all his speed, and began to ascend the mountain
+early in the afternoon.
+
+"Higher," said the women gathering pearly-bloomed blueberries on the
+steep hillside. "Higher," said the path, ever leading the tired boy
+upward from plateau to plateau,--"higher, to the vision and the
+radiant space about the shining cross!"
+
+Faint with hunger, worn with fatigue, in the half-trance of physical
+exhaustion, Mini still dragged himself upward through the afternoon.
+At last he knew he stood on the summit level very near the cross.
+There the child, awed by the imminence of what he had sought, halted
+to control the rapturous, fearful trembling of his heart. Would not
+the heavens surely open? What words would Angélique first say? Then
+again he went swiftly forward through the trees to the edge of the
+little cleared space. There he stood dazed.
+
+The cross was revealed to him at a few yards' distance. With woful
+disillusionment Mini threw himself face downward on the rock, and wept
+hopelessly, sorely; wept and wept, till his sobs became fainter than
+the up-borne long notes of a hermit-thrush far below on the edge of
+the plain.
+
+A tall mast, with a shorter at right angles, both covered by tin
+roofing-plates, held on by nails whence rust had run in streaks,--that
+was the shining Cross of Rigaud! Fragments of newspaper, crusts of
+bread, empty tin cans, broken bottles, the relics of many picnics
+scattered widely about the foot of the cross; rude initial letters cut
+deeply into its butt where the tin had been torn away;--these had Mini
+seen.
+
+The boy ceased to move. Shadows stole slowly lengthening over the
+Vaudreuil champaign; the sun swooned down in a glamour of painted
+clouds; dusk covered from sight the yellows and browns and greens of
+the August fields; birds stilled with the deepening night; Rigaud
+Mountain loomed from the plain, a dark long mass under a flying and
+waning moon; stars came out from the deep spaces overhead, and still
+Mini lay where he had wept.
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE BAPTISTE.
+
+A STORY OF THE OTTAWA RIVER.
+
+
+Ma'ame Baptiste Larocque peered again into her cupboard and her flour
+barrel, as though she might have been mistaken in her inspection
+twenty minutes earlier.
+
+"No, there is nothing, nothing at all!" said she to her old
+mother-in-law. "And no more trust at the store. Monsieur Conolly was
+too cross when I went for corn-meal yesterday. For sure, Baptiste
+stays very long at the shanty this year."
+
+"Fear nothing, Delima," answered the bright-eyed old woman. "The good
+God will send a breakfast for the little ones, and for us. In seventy
+years I do not know Him to fail once, my daughter. Baptiste may be
+back to-morrow, and with more money for staying so long. No, no; fear
+not, Delima! _Le bon Dieu_ manages all for the best."
+
+"That is true; for so I have heard always," answered Delima, with
+conviction; "but sometimes _le bon Dieu_ requires one's inside to pray
+very loud. Certainly I trust, like you, _Memere_; but it would be
+pleasant if He would send the food the day before."
+
+"Ah, you are too anxious, like little Baptiste here," and the old
+woman glanced at the boy sitting by the cradle. "Young folks did not
+talk so when I was little. Then we did not think there was danger in
+trusting _Monsieur le Curé_ when he told us to take no heed of the
+morrow. But now! to hear them talk, one might think they had never
+heard of _le bon Dieu_. The young people think too much, for sure.
+Trust in the good God, I say. Breakfast and dinner and supper too we
+shall all have to-morrow."
+
+"Yes, _Memere_," replied the boy, who was called little Baptiste to
+distinguish him from his father. "_Le bon Dieu_ will send an excellent
+breakfast, sure enough, if I get up very early, and find some good
+_doré_ (pickerel) and catfish on the night-line. But if I did not bait
+the hooks, what then? Well, I hope there will be more to-morrow than
+this morning, anyway."
+
+"There were enough," said the old woman, severely. "Have we not had
+plenty all day, Delima?"
+
+Delima made no answer. She was in doubt about the plenty which her
+mother-in-law spoke of. She wondered whether small André and Odillon
+and 'Toinette, whose heavy breathing she could hear through the thin
+partition, would have been sleeping so peacefully had little Baptiste
+not divided his share among them at supper-time, with the excuse that
+he did not feel very well?
+
+Delima was young yet,--though little Baptiste was such a big boy,--and
+would have rested fully on the positively expressed trust of her
+mother-in-law, in spite of the empty flour barrel, if she had not
+suspected little Baptiste of sitting there hungry.
+
+However, he was such a strange boy, she soon reflected, that perhaps
+going empty did not make him feel bad! Little Baptiste was so decided
+in his ways, made what in others would have been sacrifices so much as
+a matter of course, and was so much disgusted on being offered credit
+or sympathy in consequence, that his mother, not being able to
+understand him, was not a little afraid of him.
+
+He was not very formidable in appearance, however, that clumsy boy of
+fourteen or so, whose big freckled, good face was now bent over the
+cradle where _la petite_ Seraphine lay smiling in her sleep, with soft
+little fingers clutched round his rough one.
+
+"For sure," said Delima, observing the baby's smile, "the good angels
+are very near. I wonder what they are telling her?"
+
+"Something about her father, of course; for so I have always heard it
+is when the infants smile in sleep," answered the old woman.
+
+Little Baptiste rose impatiently and went into the sleeping-room.
+Often the simplicity and sentimentality of his mother and grandmother
+gave him strange pangs at heart; they seemed to be the children, while
+he felt very old. They were always looking for wonderful things to
+happen, and expecting the saints and _le bon Dieu_ to help the family
+out of difficulties that little Baptiste saw no way of overcoming
+without the work which was then so hard to get. His mother's remark
+about the angels talking to little Seraphine pained him so much that
+he would have cried had he not felt compelled to be very much of a man
+during his father's absence.
+
+If he had been asked to name the spirit hovering about, he would have
+mentioned a very wicked one as personified in John Conolly, the
+village storekeeper, the vampire of the little hamlet a quarter of a
+mile distant. Conolly owned the tavern too, and a sawmill up river,
+and altogether was a very rich, powerful, and dreadful person in
+little Baptiste's view. Worst of all, he practically owned the cabin
+and lot of the Larocques, for he had made big Baptiste give him a bill
+of sale of the place as security for groceries to be advanced to the
+family while its head was away in the shanty; and that afternoon
+Conolly had said to little Baptiste that the credit had been
+exhausted, and more.
+
+"No; you can't get any pork," said the storekeeper. "Don't your mother
+know that, after me sending her away when she wanted corn-meal
+yesterday? Tell her she don't get another cent's worth here."
+
+"For why not? My fader always he pay," said the indignant boy, trying
+to talk English.
+
+"Yes, indeed! Well, he ain't paid this time. How do I know what's
+happened to him, as he ain't back from the shanty? Tell you what: I'm
+going to turn you all out if your mother don't pay rent in advance for
+the shanty to-morrow,--four dollars a month."
+
+"What you talkin' so for? We doan' goin pay no rent for our own
+house!"
+
+"You doan' goin' to own no house," answered Conolly, mimicking the
+boy. "The house is mine any time I like to say so. If the store bill
+ain't paid to-night, out you go to-morrow, or else pay rent. Tell your
+mother that for me. Mosey off now. '_Marche, donc!_' There's no other
+way."
+
+Little Baptiste had not told his mother of this terrible threat, for
+what was the use? She had no money. He knew that she would begin
+weeping and wailing, with small André and Odillon as a puzzled,
+excited chorus, with 'Toinette and Seraphine adding those baby cries
+that made little Baptiste want to cry himself; with his grandmother
+steadily advising, in the din, that patient trust in _le bon Dieu_
+which he could not always entertain, though he felt very wretched that
+he could not.
+
+Moreover, he desired to spare his mother and grandmother as long as
+possible. "Let them have their good night's sleep," said he to
+himself, with such thoughtfulness and pity as a merchant might feel in
+concealing imminent bankruptcy from his family. He knew there was but
+one chance remaining,--that his father might come home during the
+night or next morning, with his winter's wages.
+
+Big Baptiste had "gone up" for Rewbell the jobber; had gone in
+November, to make logs in the distant Petawawa woods, and now the
+month was May. The "very magnificent" pig he had salted down before
+going away had been eaten long ago. My! what a time it seemed now to
+little Baptiste since that pig-killing! How good the _boudin_ (the
+blood-puddings) had been, and the liver and tender bits, and what a
+joyful time they had had! The barrelful of salted pike and catfish was
+all gone too,--which made the fact that fish were not biting well this
+year very sad indeed.
+
+Now on top of all these troubles this new danger of being turned out
+on the roadside! For where are they to get four dollars, or two, or
+one even, to stave Conolly off? Certainly his father was away too
+long; but surely, surely, thought the boy, he would get back in time
+to save his home! Then he remembered with horror, and a feeling of
+being disloyal to his father for remembering, that terrible day, three
+years before, when big Baptiste had come back from his winter's work
+drunk, and without a dollar, having been robbed while on a spree in
+Ottawa. If that were the reason of his father's delay now, ah, then
+there would be no hope, unless _le bon Dieu_ should indeed work a
+miracle for them!
+
+While the boy thought over the situation with fear, his grandmother
+went to her bed, and soon afterward Delima took the little Seraphine's
+cradle into the sleeping-room. That left little Baptiste so lonely
+that he could not sit still; nor did he see any use of going to lie
+awake in bed by André and Odillon.
+
+So he left the cabin softly, and reaching the river with a few steps,
+pushed off his flat-bottomed boat, and was carried smartly up stream
+by the shore eddy. It soon gave him to the current, and then he
+drifted idly down under the bright moon, listening to the roar of the
+long rapid, near the foot of which their cabin stood. Then he took to
+his oars, and rowed to the end of his night-line, tied to the wharf.
+He had an unusual fear that it might be gone, but found it all right,
+stretched taut; a slender rope, four hundred feet long, floated here
+and there far away in the darkness by flat cedar sticks,--a rope
+carrying short bits of line, and forty hooks, all loaded with
+excellent fat, wriggling worms.
+
+That day little Baptiste had taken much trouble with his night-line;
+he was proud of the plentiful bait, and now, as he felt the tightened
+rope with his fingers, he told himself that his well-filled hooks
+_must_ attract plenty of fish,--perhaps a sturgeon! Wouldn't that be
+grand? A big sturgeon of seventy-five pounds!
+
+He pondered the Ottawa statement that "there are seven kinds of meat
+on the head of a sturgeon," and, enumerating the kinds, fell into a
+conviction that one sturgeon at least would surely come to his line.
+Had not three been caught in one night by Pierre Mallette, who had no
+sort of claim, who was too lazy to bait more than half his hooks,
+altogether too wicked to receive any special favors from _le bon
+Dieu_?
+
+Little Baptiste rowed home, entered the cabin softly, and stripped for
+bed, almost happy in guessing what the big fish would probably weigh.
+
+Putting his arms around little André, he tried to go to sleep; but the
+threats of Conolly came to him with new force, and he lay awake, with
+a heavy dread in his heart.
+
+How long he had been lying thus he did not know, when a heavy step
+came upon the plank outside the door.
+
+"Father's home!" cried little Baptiste, springing to the floor as the
+door opened.
+
+"Baptiste! my own Baptiste!" cried Delima, putting her arms around her
+husband as he stood over her.
+
+"Did I not say," said the old woman, seizing her son's hand, "that the
+good God would send help in time?"
+
+Little Baptiste lit the lamp. Then they saw something in the father's
+face that startled them all. He had not spoken, and now they perceived
+that he was haggard, pale, wild-eyed.
+
+"The good God!" cried big Baptiste, and knelt by the bed, and bowed
+his head on his arms, and wept so loudly that little André and
+Odillon, wakening, joined his cry. "_Le bon Dieu_ has forgotten us!
+For all my winter's work I have not one dollar! The concern is failed.
+Rewbell paid not one cent of wages, but ran away, and the timber has
+been seized."
+
+Oh, the heartbreak! Oh, poor Delima! poor children! and poor little
+Baptiste, with the threats of Conolly rending his heart!
+
+"I have walked all day," said the father, "and eaten not a thing.
+Give me something, Delima."
+
+"O holy angels!" cried the poor woman, breaking into a wild weeping.
+"O Baptiste, Baptiste, my poor man! There is nothing; not a scrap; not
+any flour, not meal, not grease even; not a pinch of tea!" but still
+she searched frantically about the rooms.
+
+"Never mind," said big Baptiste then, holding her in his strong arms.
+"I am not so hungry as tired, Delima, and I can sleep."
+
+The old woman, who had been swaying to and fro in her chair of rushes,
+rose now, and laid her aged hands on the broad shoulders of the man.
+
+"My son Baptiste," she said, "you must not say that God has forgotten
+us, for He has not forgotten us. The hunger is hard to bear, I
+know,--hard, hard to bear; but great plenty will be sent in answer to
+our prayers. And it is hard, hard to lose thy long winter's work; but
+be patient, my son, and thankful, yes, thankful for all thou hast."
+
+"Behold, Delima is well and strong. See the little Baptiste, how much
+a man! Yes, that is right; kiss the little André and Odillon; and see!
+how sweetly 'Toinette sleeps! All strong and well, son Baptiste! Were
+one gone, think what thou wouldst have lost! But instead, be thankful,
+for behold, another has been given,--the little Seraphine here, that
+thou hast not before seen!"
+
+Big, rough, soft-hearted Baptiste knelt by the cradle, and kissed the
+babe gently.
+
+"It is true, _Memere_," he answered, "and I thank _le bon Dieu_ for
+his goodness to me."
+
+But little Baptiste, lying wide awake for hours afterwards, was not
+thankful. He could not see that matters could be much worse. A big
+hard lump was in his throat as he thought of his father's hunger, and
+the home-coming so different from what they had fondly counted on.
+Great slow tears came into the boy's eyes, and he wiped them away,
+ashamed even in the dark to have been guilty of such weakness.
+
+In the gray dawn little Baptiste suddenly awoke, with the sensation of
+having slept on his post. How heavy his heart was! Why? He sat dazed
+with indefinite sorrow. Ah, now he remembered! Conolly threatening to
+turn them out! and his father back penniless! No breakfast! Well, we
+must see about that.
+
+Very quietly he rose, put on his patched clothes, and went out. Heavy
+mist covered the face of the river, and somehow the rapid seemed
+stilled to a deep, pervasive murmur. As he pushed his boat off, the
+morning fog was chillier than frost about him; but his heart got
+lighter as he rowed toward his night-line, and he became even eager
+for the pleasure of handling his fish. He made up his mind not to be
+much disappointed if there were no sturgeon, but could not quite
+believe there would be none; surely it was reasonable to expect _one_,
+perhaps two--why not three?--among the catfish and _doré_.
+
+How very taut and heavy the rope felt as he raised it over his
+gunwales, and letting the bow swing up stream, began pulling in the
+line hand over hand! He had heard of cases where every hook had its
+fish; such a thing might happen again surely! Yard after yard of rope
+he passed slowly over the boat, and down into the water it sank on his
+track.
+
+Now a knot on the line told him he was nearing the first hook; he
+watched for the quiver and struggle of the fish,--probably a big one,
+for there he had put a tremendous bait on and spat on it for luck,
+moreover. What? the short line hung down from the rope, and the baited
+hook rose clear of the water!
+
+Baptiste instantly made up his mind that that hook had been placed a
+little too far in-shore; he remembered thinking so before; the next
+hook was in about the right place!
+
+Hand over hand, ah! the second hook, too! Still baited, the big worm
+very livid! It must be thus because that worm was pushed up the shank
+of the hook in such a queer way: he had been rather pleased when he
+gave the bait that particular twist, and now was surprised at himself;
+why, any one could see it was a thing to scare fish!
+
+Hand over hand to the third,--the hook was naked of bait! Well, that
+was more satisfactory; it showed they had been biting, and, after all,
+this was just about the beginning of the right place.
+
+Hand over hand; _now_ the splashing will begin, thought little
+Baptiste, and out came the fourth hook with its livid worm! He held
+the rope in his hand without drawing it in for a few moments, but
+could see no reasonable objection to that last worm. His heart sank a
+little, but pshaw! only four hooks out of forty were up yet! wait till
+the eddy behind the shoal was reached, then great things would be
+seen. Maybe the fish had not been lying in that first bit of current.
+
+Hand over hand again, now! yes, certainly, _there_ is the right swirl!
+What? a _losch_, that unclean semi-lizard! The boy tore it off and
+flung it indignantly into the river. However, there was good luck in a
+_losch_; that was well known.
+
+But the next hook, and the next, and next, and next came up baited and
+fishless. He pulled hand over hand quickly--not a fish! and he must
+have gone over half the line! Little Baptiste stopped, with his heart
+like lead and his arms trembling. It was terrible! Not a fish, and his
+father had no supper, and there was no credit at the store. Poor
+little Baptiste!
+
+Again he hauled hand over hand--one hook, two, three--oh! ho!
+Glorious! What a delightful sheer downward the rope took! Surely the
+big sturgeon at last, trying to stay down on the bottom with the hook!
+But Baptiste would show that fish his mistake. He pulled, pulled,
+stood up to pull; there was a sort of shake, a sudden give of the
+rope, and little Baptiste tumbled over backward as he jerked his line
+up from under the big stone!
+
+Then he heard the shutters clattering as Conolly's clerk took them off
+the store window; at half-past five to the minute that was always
+done. Soon big Baptiste would be up, that was certain. Again the boy
+began hauling in line: baited hook! baited hook! naked hook! baited
+hook!--such was still the tale.
+
+"Surely, surely," implored little Baptiste, silently, "I shall find
+some fish!" Up! up! only four remained! The boy broke down. Could it
+be? Had he not somehow skipped many hooks? Could it be that there was
+to be no breakfast for the children? Naked hook again! Oh, for some
+fish! anything! three, two!
+
+"Oh, send just one for my father!--my poor, hungry father!" cried
+little Baptiste, and drew up his last hook. It came full baited, and
+the line was out of the water clear away to his outer buoy!
+
+He let go the rope and drifted down the river, crying as though his
+heart would break. All the good hooks useless! all the labor thrown
+away! all his self-confidence come to naught!
+
+Up rose the great sun; from around the kneeling boy drifted the last
+of the morning mists; bright beams touched his bowed head tenderly. He
+lifted his face and looked up the rapid. Then he jumped to his feet
+with sudden wonder; a great joy lit up his countenance.
+
+Far up the river a low, broad, white patch appeared on the sharp
+sky-line made by the level dark summit of the long slope of tumbling
+water. On this white patch stood many figures of swaying men black
+against the clear morning sky, and little Baptiste saw instantly that
+an attempt was being made to "run" a "band" of deals, or many cribs
+lashed together, instead of single cribs as had been done the day
+before.
+
+The broad strip of white changed its form slowly, dipped over the
+slope, drew out like a wide ribbon, and soon showed a distinct slant
+across the mighty volume of the deep raft-channel. When little
+Baptiste, acquainted as he was with every current, eddy, and shoal in
+the rapid, saw that slant, he knew that his first impression of what
+was about to happen had been correct. The pilot of the band _had_
+allowed it to drift too far north before reaching the rapid's head.
+
+Now the front cribs, instead of following the curve of the channel,
+had taken slower water, while the rear cribs, impelled by the rush
+under them, swung the band slowly across the current. All along the
+front the standing men swayed back and forth, plying sweeps full forty
+feet long, attempting to swing into channel again, with their strokes
+dashing the dark rollers before the band into wide splashes of white.
+On the rear cribs another crew pulled in the contrary direction; about
+the middle of the band stood the pilot, urging his gangs with gestures
+to greater efforts.
+
+Suddenly he made a new motion; the gang behind drew in their oars and
+ran hastily forward to double the force in front. But they came too
+late! Hardly had the doubled bow crew taken a stroke when all drew in
+their oars and ran back to be out of danger. Next moment the front
+cribs struck the "hog's-back" shoal.
+
+Then the long broad band curved downward in the centre, the rear cribs
+swung into the shallows on the opposite side of the raft-channel,
+there was a great straining and crashing, the men in front huddled
+together, watching the wreck anxiously, and the band went speedily to
+pieces. Soon a fringe of single planks came down stream, then cribs
+and pieces of cribs; half the band was drifting with the currents, and
+half was "hung up" on the rocks among the breakers.
+
+Launching the big red flat-bottomed bow boat, twenty of the raftsmen
+came with wild speed down the river, and as there had been no rush to
+get aboard, little Baptiste knew that the cribs on which the men
+stood were so hard aground that no lives were in danger. It meant much
+to him; it meant that he was instantly at liberty to gather in
+_money_! money, in sums that loomed to gigantic figures before his
+imagination.
+
+He knew that there was an important reason for hurrying the deals to
+Quebec, else the great risk of running a band at that season would not
+have been undertaken; and he knew that hard cash would be paid down as
+salvage for all planks brought ashore, and thus secured from drifting
+far and wide over the lake-like expanse below the rapid's foot. Little
+Baptiste plunged his oars in and made for a clump of deals floating in
+the eddy near his own shore. As he rushed along, the raftsmen's boat
+crossed his bows, going to the main raft below for ropes and material
+to secure the cribs coming down intact.
+
+"Good boy!" shouted the foreman to Baptiste. "Ten cents for every deal
+you fetch ashore above the raft!" Ten cents! he had expected but
+five! What a harvest!
+
+Striking his pike-pole into the clump of deals,--"fifty at least,"
+said joyful Baptiste,--he soon secured them to his boat, and then
+pulled, pulled, pulled, till the blood rushed to his head, and his
+arms ached, before he landed his wealth.
+
+"Father!" cried he, bursting breathlessly into the sleeping household.
+"Come quick! I can't get it up without you."
+
+"Big sturgeon?" cried the shantyman, jumping into his trousers.
+
+"Oh, but we shall have a good fish breakfast!" cried Delima.
+
+"Did I not say the blessed _le bon Dieu_ would send plenty fish?"
+observed _Memere_.
+
+"Not a fish!" cried little Baptiste, with recovered breath. "But look!
+look!" and he flung open the door. The eddy was now white with planks.
+
+"Ten cents for each!" cried the boy. "The foreman told me."
+
+"Ten cents!" shouted his father. "_Baptême!_ it's my winter's wages!"
+
+And the old grandmother! And Delima? Why, they just put their arms
+round each other and cried for joy.
+
+"And yet there's no breakfast," said Delima, starting up. "And they
+will work hard, hard."
+
+At that instant who should reach the door but Monsieur Conolly! He was
+a man who respected cash wherever he found it, and already the two
+Baptistes had a fine show ashore.
+
+"Ma'ame Larocque," said Conolly, politely, putting in his head, "of
+course you know I was only joking yesterday. You can get anything you
+want at the store."
+
+What a breakfast they did have, to be sure! the Baptistes eating while
+they worked. Back and forward they dashed till late afternoon, driving
+ringed spikes into the deals, running light ropes through the rings,
+and, when a good string had thus been made, going ashore to haul in.
+At that hauling Delima and _Memere_, even little André and Odillon
+gave a hand.
+
+Everybody in the little hamlet made money that day, but the Larocques
+twice as much as any other family, because they had an eddy and a low
+shore. With the help of the people "the big _Bourgeois_" who owned the
+broken raft got it away that evening, and saved his fat contract after
+all.
+
+"Did I not say so?" said "_Memere_," at night, for the hundredth time.
+"Did I not say so? Yes, indeed, _le bon Dieu_ watches over us all."
+
+"Yes, indeed, grandmother," echoed little Baptiste, thinking of his
+failure on the night-line. "We may take as much trouble as we like,
+but it's no use unless _le bon Dieu_ helps us. Only--I don' know what
+de big Bourgeois say about that--his raft was all broke up so bad."
+
+"Ah, _oui_," said _Memere_, looking puzzled for but a moment. "But he
+didn't put his trust in _le bon Dieu_; that's it, for sure. Besides,
+maybe _le bon Dieu_ want to teach him a lesson; he'll not try for run
+a whole band of deals next time. You see that was a tempting of
+Providence; and then--the big Bourgeois is a Protestant."
+
+
+
+
+THE RIDE BY NIGHT.
+
+
+Mr. Adam Baines is a little Gray about the temples, but still looks so
+young that few could suppose him to have served in the Civil War.
+Indeed, he was in the army less than a year. How he went out of it he
+told me in some such words as these:--
+
+An orderly from the direction of Meade's headquarters galloped into
+our parade ground, and straight for the man on guard before the
+colonel's tent. That was pretty late in the afternoon of a bright
+March day in 1865, but the parade ground was all red mud with shallow
+pools. I remember well how the hind hoofs of the orderly's galloper
+threw away great chunks of earth as he splashed diagonally across the
+open.
+
+His rider never slowed till he brought his horse to its haunches
+before the sentry. There he flung himself off instantly, caught up his
+sabre, and ran through the middle opening of the high screen of
+sapling pines stuck on end, side by side, all around the acre or so
+occupied by the officers' quarters.
+
+The day, though sunny, was not warm, and nearly all the men of my
+regiment were in their huts when that galloping was heard. Then they
+hurried out like bees from rows of hives, ran up the lanes between the
+lines of huts, and collected, each company separately, on the edge of
+the parade ground opposite the officers' quarters.
+
+You see we had a notion that the orderly had brought the word to break
+camp. For five months the Army of the Potomac had been in winter
+quarters, and for weeks nothing more exciting than vidette duty had
+broken the monotony of our brigade. We understood that Sheridan had
+received command of all Grant's cavalry, but did not know but the
+orderly had rushed from Sheridan himself. Yet we awaited the man's
+re-appearance with intense curiosity.
+
+Soon, instead of the orderly, out ran our first lieutenant, a small,
+wiry, long-haired man named Miller. He was in undress uniform,--just a
+blouse and trousers,--and bare-headed. Though he wore low shoes, he
+dashed through mud and water toward us, plainly in a great hurry.
+
+"Sergeant Kennedy, I want ten men at once--mounted," Miller said.
+"Choose the ten best able for a long ride, and give them the best
+horses in the company. You understand,--no matter whose the ten best
+horses are, give 'em to the ten best riders."
+
+"I understand, sir," said Kennedy.
+
+By this time half the company had started for the stables, for fully
+half considered themselves among the best riders. The lieutenant
+laughed at their eagerness.
+
+"Halt, boys!" he cried. "Sergeant, I'll pick out four myself. Come
+yourself, and bring Corporal Crowfoot, Private Bader, and Private
+Absalom Gray."
+
+Crowfoot, Bader, and Gray had been running for the stables with the
+rest. Now these three old soldiers grinned and walked, as much as to
+say, "We needn't hurry; we're picked anyhow;" while the others hurried
+on. I remained near Kennedy, for I was so young and green a soldier
+that I supposed I had no chance to go.
+
+"Hurry up! parade as soon as possible. One day's rations; light
+marching order--no blankets--fetch over-coats and ponchos," said
+Miller, turning; "and in choosing your men, favor light weights."
+
+That was, no doubt, the remark which brought me in. I was lanky,
+light, bred among horses, and one of the best in the regiment had
+fallen to my lot. Kennedy wheeled, and his eye fell on me.
+
+"Saddle up, Adam, boy," said he; "I guess you'll do."
+
+Lieutenant Miller ran back to his quarters, his long hair flying wide.
+When he reappeared fifteen minutes later, we were trotting across the
+parade ground to meet him. He was mounted, not on his own charger, but
+on the colonel's famous thorough-bred bay. Then we knew a hard ride
+must be in prospect.
+
+"What! one of the boys?" cried Miller, as he saw me. "He's too young."
+
+"He's very light, sir; tough as hickory. I guess he'll do," said
+Kennedy.
+
+"Well, no time to change now. Follow me! But, hang it, you've got your
+carbines! Oh, I forgot! Keep pistols only! throw down your sabres and
+carbines--anywhere--never mind the mud!"
+
+As we still hesitated to throw down our clean guns, he shouted: "Down
+with them--anywhere! Now, boys, after me, by twos! Trot--gallop!"
+
+Away we went, not a man jack of us knew for where or what. The colonel
+and officers, standing grouped before regimental headquarters,
+volleyed a cheer at us. It was taken up by the whole regiment; it was
+taken up by the brigade; it was repeated by regiment after regiment of
+infantry as we galloped through the great camp toward the left front
+of the army. The speed at which Miller led over a rough corduroy road
+was extraordinary, and all the men suspected some desperate enterprise
+afoot.
+
+Red and brazen was the set of the sun. I remember it well, after we
+got clear of the forts, clear of the breastworks, clear of the
+reserves, down the long slope and across the wide ford of Grimthorpe's
+Creek, never drawing rein.
+
+The lieutenant led by ten yards or so. He had ordered each two to take
+as much distance from the other two in advance; but we rode so fast
+that the water from the heels of his horse and from the heels of each
+two splashed into the faces of the following men.
+
+From the ford we loped up a hill, and passed the most advanced
+infantry pickets, who laughed and chaffed us, asking us for locks of
+our hair, and if our mothers knew we were out, and promising to report
+our last words faithfully to the folks at home.
+
+Soon we turned to the left again, swept close by several cavalry
+videttes, and knew then that we were bound for a ride through a
+country that might or might not be within Lee's outer lines, at that
+time extended so thinly in many places that his pickets were far out
+of touch with one another. To this day I do not know precisely where
+we went, nor precisely what for. Soldiers are seldom informed of the
+meaning of their movements.
+
+What I do know is what we did while I was in the ride. As we were
+approaching dense pine woods the lieutenant turned in his saddle,
+slacked pace a little, and shouted, "Boys, bunch up near me!"
+
+He screwed round in his saddle so far that we could all see and hear,
+and said:--
+
+"Boys, the order is to follow this road as fast as we can till our
+horses drop, or else the Johnnies drop us, or else we drop upon three
+brigades of our own infantry. I guess they've got astray somehow; but
+I don't know myself what the trouble is. Our orders are plain. The
+brigades are supposed to be somewhere on this road. I guess we shall
+do a big thing if we reach those men to-night. All we've got to do is
+to ride and deliver this despatch to the general in command. You all
+understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Yes, sir!"
+
+"It's necessary you all should. Hark, now! We are not likely to strike
+the enemy in force, but we are likely to run up against small parties.
+Now, Kennedy, if they down me, you are to stop just long enough to
+grab the despatch from my breast; then away you go,--always on the
+main road. If they down you after you've got the paper, the man who
+can grab it first is to take it and hurry forward. So on right to the
+last man. If they down him, and he's got his senses when he falls,
+he's to tear the paper up, and scatter it as widely as he can. You all
+understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir! Yes, sir!"
+
+"All right, then. String out again!"
+
+He touched the big bay with the spur, and shot quickly ahead.
+
+With the long rest of the winter our horses were in prime spirits,
+though mostly a little too fleshy for perfect condition. I had cared
+well for my horse; he was fast and sound in wind and limb. I was
+certainly the lightest rider of the eleven.
+
+I was still thinking of the probability that I should get further on
+the way than any comrade except the lieutenant, or perhaps Crowfoot
+and Bader, whose horses were in great shape; I was thinking myself
+likely to win promotion before morning, when a cry came out of the
+darkness ahead. The words of the challenge I was not able to catch,
+but I heard Miller shout, "Forward, boys!"
+
+We shook out more speed just as a rifle spat its long flash at us from
+about a hundred yards ahead. For one moment I plainly saw the
+Southerner's figure. Kennedy reeled beside me, flung up his hands with
+a scream, and fell. His horse stopped at once. In a moment the
+lieutenant had ridden the sentry down.
+
+Then from the right side of the road a party, who must have been lying
+round the camp-fire that we faintly saw in among the pines, let fly at
+us. They had surely been surprised in their sleep. I clearly saw them
+as their guns flashed.
+
+"Forward! Don't shoot! Ride on," shouted Miller. "Bushwhackers! Thank
+God, not mounted! Any of you make out horses with them?"
+
+"No, sir! No, sir!"
+
+"Who yelled? who went down?"
+
+"Kennedy, sir," I cried.
+
+"Too bad! Any one else?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"All safe?"
+
+"I'm touched in my right arm; but it's nothing," I said. The twinge
+was slight, and in the fleshy place in front of my shoulder. I could
+not make out that I was losing blood, and the pain from the hurt was
+scarcely perceptible.
+
+"Good boy! Keep up, Adam!" called the lieutenant with a kind tone. I
+remember my delight that he spoke my front name. On we flew.
+
+Possibly the shots had been heard by the party half a mile further on,
+for they greeted us with a volley. A horse coughed hard and pitched
+down behind me. His rider yelled as he fell. Then two more shots came:
+Crowfoot reeled in front of me, and somehow checked his horse. I saw
+him no more. Next moment we were upon the group with our pistols.
+
+"Forward, men! Don't stop to fight!" roared Miller, as he got clear. A
+rifle was fired so close to my head that the flame burned my back
+hair, and my ears rang for half an hour or more. My bay leaped high
+and dashed down a man. In a few seconds I was fairly out of the
+scrimmage.
+
+How many of my comrades had gone down I knew not, nor beside whom I
+was riding. Suddenly our horses plunged into a hole; his stumbled, the
+man pitched forward, and was left behind. Then I heard a shot, the
+clatter of another falling horse, the angry yell of another thrown
+rider.
+
+On we went,--the relics of us. Now we rushed out of the pine forest
+into broad moonlight, and I saw two riders between me and the
+lieutenant,--one man almost at my shoulder and another galloping ten
+yards behind. Very gradually this man dropped to the rear. We had lost
+five men already, and still the night was young.
+
+Bader and Absalom Gray were nearest me. Neither spoke a word till we
+struck upon a space of sandy road. Then I could hear, far behind the
+rear man, a sound of galloping on the hard highway.
+
+"They're after us, lieutenant!" shouted Bader.
+
+"Many?" He slacked speed, and we listened attentively.
+
+"Only one," cried Miller. "He's coming fast."
+
+The pursuer gained so rapidly that we looked to our pistols again.
+Then Absalom Gray cried:
+
+"It's only a horse!"
+
+In a few moments the great gray of fallen Corporal Crowfoot overtook
+us, went ahead, and slacked speed by the lieutenant.
+
+"Good! He'll be fresh when the rest go down!" shouted Miller. "Let the
+last man mount the gray!"
+
+By this time we had begun to think ourselves clear of the enemy, and
+doomed to race on till the horses should fall.
+
+Suddenly the hoofs of Crowfoot's gray and the lieutenant's bay
+thundered upon a plank road whose hollow noise, when we all reached
+it, should have been heard far. It took us through wide orchard lands
+into a low-lying mist by the banks of a great marsh, till we passed
+through that fog, strode heavily up a slope, and saw the shimmer of
+roofs under the moon. Straight, through the main street we pounded
+along.
+
+Whether it was wholly deserted I know not, but not a human being was
+in the streets, nor any face visible at the black windows. Not even a
+dog barked. I noticed no living thing except some turkeys roosting on
+a fence, and a white cat that sprang upon the pillar of a gateway and
+thence to a tree.
+
+Some of the houses seemed to have been ruined by a cannonade. I
+suppose it was one of the places almost destroyed in Willoughby's
+recent raid. Here we thundered, expecting ambush and conflict every
+moment, while the loneliness of the street imposed on me such a sense
+as might come of galloping through a long cemetery of the dead.
+
+Out of the village we went off the planks again upon sand. I began to
+suspect that I was losing a good deal of blood. My brain was on fire
+with whirling thoughts and wonder where all was to end. Out of this
+daze I came, in amazement to find that we were quickly overtaking our
+lieutenant's thoroughbred.
+
+Had he been hit in the fray, and bled to weakness? I only know that,
+still galloping while we gained, the famous horse lurched forward,
+almost turned a somersault, and fell on his rider.
+
+"Stop--the paper!" shouted Bader.
+
+We drew rein, turned, dismounted, and found Miller's left leg under
+the big bay's shoulder. The horse was quite dead, the rider's long
+hair lay on the sand, his face was white under the moon!
+
+We stopped long enough to extricate him, and he came to his senses
+just as we made out that his left leg was broken.
+
+"Forward!" he groaned. "What in thunder are you stopped for? Oh, the
+despatch! Here! away you go! Good-bye."
+
+In attending to Miller we had forgotten the rider who had been long
+gradually dropping behind. Now as we galloped away,--Bader, Absalom
+Gray, myself, and Crowfoot's riderless horse,--I looked behind for
+that comrade; but he was not to be seen or heard. We three were left
+of the eleven.
+
+From the loss of so many comrades the importance of our mission seemed
+huge. With the speed, the noise, the deaths, the strangeness of the
+gallop through that forsaken village, the wonder how all would end,
+the increasing belief that thousands of lives depended on our success,
+and the longing to win, my brain was wild. A raging desire to be first
+held me, and I galloped as if in a dream.
+
+Bader led; the riderless gray thundered beside him; Absalom rode
+stirrup to stirrup with me. He was a veteran of the whole war. Where
+it was that his sorrel rolled over I do not remember at all, though I
+perfectly remember how Absalom sprang up, staggered, shouted, "My
+foot is sprained!" and fell as I turned to look at him and went racing
+on.
+
+Then I heard above the sound of our hoofs the voice of the veteran of
+the war. Down as he was, his spirit was unbroken. In the favorite song
+of the army his voice rose clear and gay and piercing:--
+
+"Hurrah for the Union!
+Hurrah, boys, hurrah!
+Shouting the battle-cry of freedom!"
+
+We turned our heads and cheered him as we flew, for there was
+something indescribably inspiriting in the gallant and cheerful lilt
+of the fallen man. It was as if he flung us, from the grief of utter
+defeat, a soul unconquerable; and I felt the life in me strengthened
+by the tone.
+
+Old Bader and I for it! He led by a hundred yards, and Crowfoot's gray
+kept his stride. Was I gaining on them? How was it that I could see
+his figure outlined more clearly against the horizon? Surely dawn was
+not coming on!
+
+No; I looked round on a world of naked peach-orchards, and corn-fields
+ragged with last year's stalks, all dimly lit by a moon that showed
+far from midnight; and that faint light on the horizon was not in the
+east, but in the west. The truth flashed on me,--I was looking at such
+an illumination of the sky as would be caused by the camp-fires of an
+army.
+
+"The missing brigade!" I shouted.
+
+"Or a Southern division!" Bader cried. "Come on!"
+
+"Come on!" I was certainly gaining on him, but very slowly. Before the
+nose of my bay was beyond the tail of his roan, the wide illuminations
+had become more distinct; and still not a vidette, not a picket, not a
+sound of the proximity of an army.
+
+Bader and I now rode side by side, and Crowfoot's gray easily kept the
+pace. My horse was in plain distress, but Bader's was nearly done.
+
+"Take the paper, Adam," he said; "my roan won't go much further.
+Good-bye, youngster. Away you go!" and I drew now quickly ahead.
+
+Still Bader rode on behind me. In a few minutes he was considerably
+behind. Perhaps the sense of being alone increased my feeling of
+weakness. Was I going to reel out of the saddle? Had I lost so much
+blood as that? Still I could hear Bader riding on. I turned to look at
+him. Already he was scarcely visible. Soon he dropped out of sight;
+but still I heard the laborious pounding of his desperate horse.
+
+My bay was gasping horribly. How far was that faintly yellow sky
+ahead? It might be two, it might be five miles. Were Union or Southern
+soldiers beneath it? Could it be conceived that no troops of the enemy
+were between me and it?
+
+Never mind; my orders were clear. I rode straight on, and I was still
+riding straight on, marking no increase in the distress of my bay,
+when he stopped as if shot, staggered, fell on his knees, tried to
+rise, rolled to his side, groaned and lay.
+
+I was so weak I could not clear myself. I remember my right spur
+catching in my saddle-cloth as I tried to free my foot; then I pitched
+forward and fell. Not yet senseless, I clutched at my breast for the
+despatch, meaning to tear it to pieces; but there my brain failed, and
+in full view of the goal of the night I lay unconscious.
+
+When I came to, I rose on my left elbow, and looked around. Near my
+feet my poor bay lay, stone dead. Crowfoot's gray!--where was
+Crowfoot's gray? It flashed on me that I might mount the fresh horse
+and ride on. But where was the gray? As I peered round I heard faintly
+the sound of a galloper. Was he coming my way? No; faintly and more
+faintly I heard the hoofs.
+
+Had the gray gone on then, without the despatch? I clutched at my
+breast. My coat was unbuttoned--the paper was gone!
+
+Well, sir, I cheered. My God! but it was comforting to hear those
+far-away hoofs, and know that Bader must have come up, taken the
+papers, and mounted Crowfoot's gray, still good for a ten-mile ride!
+The despatch was gone forward; we had not all fallen in vain; maybe
+the brigades would be saved!
+
+How purely the stars shone! When I stifled my groaning they seemed to
+tell me of a great peace to come. How still was the night! and I
+thought of the silence of the multitudes who had died for the Union.
+
+Now the galloping had quite died away. There was not a sound,--a
+slight breeze blew, but there were no leaves to rustle. I put my head
+down on the neck of my dead horse. Extreme fatigue was benumbing the
+pain of my now swelling arm; perhaps sleep was near, perhaps I was
+swooning.
+
+But a sound came that somewhat revived me. Far, low, joyful, it crept
+on the air. I sat up, wide awake. The sound, at first faint, died as
+the little breeze fell, then grew in the lull, and came ever more
+clearly as the wind arose. It was a sound never to be forgotten,--the
+sound of the distant cheering of thousands of men.
+
+Then I knew that Bader had galloped into the Union lines, delivered
+the despatch, and told a story which had quickly passed through
+wakeful brigades.
+
+Bader I never saw again, nor Lieutenant Miller, nor any man with whom
+I rode that night. When I came to my senses I was in hospital at City
+Point. Thence I went home invalided. No surgeon, no nurse, no soldier
+at the hospital could tell me of my regiment, or how or why I was
+where I was. All they could tell me was that Richmond was taken, the
+army far away in pursuit of Lee, and a rumor flying that the great
+commander of the South had surrendered near Appomattox Court House.
+
+
+
+
+"DRAFTED."
+
+
+Harry Wallbridge, awaking with a sense of some alarming sound,
+listened intently in the darkness, seeing overhead the canvas roof
+faintly outlined, the darker stretch of its ridge-pole, its two thin
+slanting rafters, and the gable ends of the winter hut. He could not
+hear the small, fine drizzle from an atmosphere surcharged with water,
+nor anything but the drip from canvas to trench, the rustling of hay
+bunched beneath his head, the regular breathing of his "buddy,"
+Corporal Bader, and the stamping of horses in stables. But when a
+soldier in a neighboring tent called indistinguishably in the accents
+of nightmare, Bader's breathing quieted, and in the lull Harry fancied
+the soaked air weighted faintly with steady picket-firing. A month
+with the 53d Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteer Cavalry had not quite
+disabused the young recruit of his schoolboy belief that the men of
+the Army of the Potomac must live constantly within sound of the
+out-posts.
+
+Harry sat up to hearken better, and then concluded that he had
+mistaken for musketry the crackle of haystalks under his poncho sheet.
+Beneath him the round poles of his bed sagged as he drew up his knees
+and gathered about his shoulders the gray blanket damp from the spray
+of heavy rain against the canvas earlier in the night. Soon, with slow
+dawn's approach, he could make out the dull white of his carbine and
+sabre against the mud-plastered chimney. In that drear dimness the boy
+shivered, with a sense of misery rather than from cold, and yearned as
+only sleepy youth can for the ease of a true bed and dry warm swooning
+to slumber. He was sustained by no mature sense that this too would
+pass; it was with a certain bodily despair that he felt chafed and
+compressed by his rough garments, and pitied himself, thinking how his
+mother would cry if she could see him crouched so wretchedly that wet
+March morning, pressed all the more into loneliness by the regular
+breathing of veteran Bader in the indifference of deep sleep.
+
+Harry's vision of his mother coming into his room, shading her candle
+with her hand to see if he were asleep, passed away as a small gust
+came, shaking the canvas, for he was instantly alert with a certainty
+that the breeze had borne a strong rolling of musketry.
+
+"Bader, Bader!" he said. "Bader!"
+
+"Can't you shut up, you Wallbridge?" came Orderly Sergeant Gravely's
+sharp tones from the next tent.
+
+"What's wrong with you, Harry, boy?" asked Bader, turning.
+
+"I thought I heard heavy firing closer than the picket lines; twice
+now I've thought I heard it."
+
+"Oh, I guess not, Harry. The Johnnies won't come out no such night as
+this. Keep quiet, or you'll have the sergeant on top of you. Better
+lie down and try to sleep, buddy; the bugles will call morning soon
+now."
+
+Again Harry fell to his revery of home, and his vision became that of
+the special evening on which his boyish wish to go to the war had, for
+the family's sake, become resolve. He saw his mother's spectacled and
+lamp-lit face as she, leaning to the table, read in the familiar
+Bible; little Fred and Mary, also facing the table's central lamp,
+bent sleepy heads over their school-books; the father sat in the
+rocking-chair, with his right hand on the paper he had laid down, and
+gazed gloomily at the coals fallen below the front doors of the
+wood-burning stove. Harry dreamed himself back in his own chair,
+looking askance, and feeling sure his father was inwardly groaning
+over the absence of Jack, the eldest son. Then nine o'clock struck,
+and Fred and Mary began to put their books away in preparation for
+bed.
+
+"Wait a little, children," Mrs. Wallbridge said, serene in tone from
+her devotional reading. "Father wants that I should tell you
+something. You mustn't feel bad about it. It's that we may soon go out
+West. Your Uncle Ezra is doing well in Minnesota. Aunt Elvira says so
+in her letter that came to-day."
+
+"It's this way, children," said Mr. Wallbridge, ready to explain, now
+that the subject was opened. "Since ever your brother Jack went away
+South, the store expenses have been too heavy. It's near five years
+now he's been gone. There's a sheaf of notes coming due the third of
+next month; twice they've been renewed, and the Philadelphia men say
+they'll close me up this time sure. If I had eight hundred
+dollars--but it's no use talking; we'll just have to let them take
+what we've got. Times have been bad right along around here, anyhow,
+with new competition, and so many farmers gone to the war, and more
+gone West. If Jack had stopped to home--but I've had to pay two
+clerks to do his work, and then they don't take any interest in the
+business. Mind, I'm not blaming Jack, poor fellow,--he'd a right to go
+where he'd get more'n his keep, and be able to lay up something for
+himself,--but what's become of him, God knows; and such a smart, good
+boy as he was! He'd got fond of New Orleans,--I guess some nice girl
+there, maybe, was the reason; and there he'd stay after the war began,
+and now it's two years and more since we've heard from him. Dead,
+maybe, or maybe they'd put him in jail, for he said he'd never join
+the Confederates, nor fight against them either--he felt that
+way--North and South was all the same to him. And so he's gone; and I
+don't see my way now at all. Ma, if it wasn't for my lame leg, I'd
+take the bounty. It'd be _something_ for you and the children after
+the store's gone."
+
+"Sho, pa! don't talk that way! You're too down-hearted. It'll all come
+right, with the Lord's help," said Harry's mother. How clearly he, in
+the damp cold tent, could see her kind looks as she pushed up her
+spectacles and beamed on her husband; how distinctly, in the still dim
+dawn, he heard her soothing tones!
+
+It was that evening's talk which had sent Harry, so young, to the
+front. Three village boys, little older than he, had already contrived
+to enlist. Every time he saw the Flag drooping, he thought shame of
+himself to be absent from the ranks of its upholders; and now, just as
+he was believing himself big and old enough to serve, he conceived
+that duty to his parents distinctly enjoined him to go. So in the
+night, without leave-taking or consent of his parents, he departed.
+The combined Federal, State, and city bounties offered at Philadelphia
+amounted to nine hundred dollars cash that dreadful winter before
+Richmond fell, and Harry sent the money home triumphantly in time to
+pay his father's notes and save the store.
+
+While the young soldier thought it all over, carbine and sabre came
+out more and more distinctly outlined above the mud-plastered
+fireplace. The drizzle had ceased, the drip into the trench was almost
+finished, intense stillness ruled; Harry half expected to hear cocks
+crow from out such silence.
+
+Listening for them, his dreamy mind brooded over both hosts, in a
+vision even as wide as the vast spread of the Republic in which they
+lay as two huddles of miserable men. For what were they all about him
+this woful, wet night? they all fain, as he, for home and industry and
+comfort. What delusion held them? How could it be that they could not
+all march away and separate, and the cruel war be over? Harry caught
+his breath at the idea,--it seemed so natural, simple, easy, and good
+a solution. Becoming absorbed in the fancy, tired of listening, and
+soothed by the silence, he was falling asleep as he sat, when a heavy
+weight seemed to fall, far away. Another--another--the fourth had the
+rumble of distant thunder, and seemed followed by a concussion of the
+air.
+
+"Hey--Big Guns! What's up toward City Point?" cried Bader, sitting up.
+"I tell you they're at it. It can't be so far away as Butler. What? On
+the left too! That was toward Hatcher's Run! Harry, the rebs are out
+in earnest! I guess you did hear the pickets trying to stop 'em. What
+a morning! Ha--Fort Hell! see that!"
+
+The outside world was dimly lighted up for a moment. In the
+intensified darkness that followed Bader's voice was drowned by the
+crash of a great gun from the neighboring fort. _Flash, crash--flash,
+crash--flash, crash_ succeeded rapidly. Then the intervals of Fort
+Hell's fire lengthened to the regular periods for loading, and between
+her roars were heard the sullen boom of more distant guns, while
+through all the tumult ran a fierce undertone,--the infernal hurrying
+of musketry along the immediate front.
+
+"The Johnnies must have got in close somehow," cried Bader. "Hey,
+Sergeant?"
+
+"Yes," shouted Gravely. "Scooped up the pickets and supports too in
+the rain, I guess. Turn out, boys, turn out! there'll be a wild day.
+Kid! Where's the Kid? Kid Sylvester!"
+
+"Here! All right, Barney; I'll be out in two shakes," shouted the
+bugler.
+
+"Hurry, then! I can hear the Colonel shouting already. Man, listen to
+that!"--as four of Fort Hell's guns crashed almost simultaneously.
+"Brownie! Greasy Cook! O Brownie!"
+
+"Here!" shouted the cook.
+
+"Get your fire started right away, and see what salt horse and biscuit
+you can scare up. Maybe we'll have time for a snack."
+
+"Turn out, Company K!" shouted Lieutenant Bradley, running down from
+the officers' quarters. "Where's the commissary sergeant? There?--all
+right--give out feed right away! Get your oats, men, and feed
+instantly! We may have time. Hullo! here's the General's orderly."
+
+As the trooper galloped, in a mud-storm, across the parade ground, a
+group of officers ran out behind the Colonel from the screen of pine
+saplings about Regimental Headquarters. The orderly gave the Colonel
+but a word, and, wheeling, was off again as "Boot and saddle" blared
+from the buglers, who had now assembled on parade.
+
+"But leave the bits out--let your horses feed!" cried the Lieutenant,
+running down again. "We're not to march till further orders."
+
+Beyond the screen of pines Harry could see the tall canvas ridges of
+the officers' cabins lighted up. Now all the tents of the regiment,
+row behind row, were faintly luminous, and the renewed drizzle of the
+dawn was a little lightened in every direction by the canvas-hidden
+candles of infantry regiments, the glare of numerous fires already
+started, and sparks showering up from the cook-houses of company after
+company.
+
+Soon in the cloudy sky the cannonade rolled about in broad day, which
+was still so gray that long wide flashes of flame could be seen to
+spring far out before every report from the guns of Fort Hell, and in
+the haze but few of the rebel shells shrieking along their high curve
+could be clearly seen bursting over Hancock's cheering men.
+Indistinguishably blent were the sounds of hosts on the move,
+field-guns pounding to the front, troops shouting, the clink and
+rattle of metal, officers calling, bugles blaring, drums rolling,
+mules screaming,--all heard as a running accompaniment to the cannon
+heavily punctuating the multitudinous din.
+
+"Fwat sinse in the ould man bodderin' us?" grumbled Corporal Kennedy,
+a tall Fenian dragoon from the British army. "Sure, ain't it as plain
+as the sun--and faith the same's not plain this dirthy mornin'--that
+there's no work for cavalry the day, barrin' it's escortin' the
+doughboys' prisoners, if they take any?--bad 'cess to the job. Sure
+it's an infantry fight, and must be, wid the field-guns helpin', and
+the siege pieces boomin' away over the throops in the mud betwigst
+our own breastworks and the inner line of our forts.
+
+"Oh, by this and by that," the corporal grumbled on, "ould Lee's not
+the gintleman I tuk him for at all, at all,--discomfortin' us in the
+rain,--and yesterday an illigant day for fightin'. Couldn't he wait,
+like the dacint ould boy he's reported, for a dhry mornin', instead av
+turnin' his byes out in the shlush and destroyin' me chanst av
+breakfast? It's spring chickens I'd ordhered."
+
+"You may get up to spring-chicken country soon, now," said Bader. "I'm
+thinking this is near the end; it's the last assault that Lee will
+ever deliver."
+
+"Faith, I dunno," said the corporal; "that's what we've been saying
+sinst last fall, but the shtay of them Johnnies bates Banagher and the
+prophets. Hoo--ow! by the powers! did you hear them yell? Fwat? The
+saints be wid us! who'd 'a' thought it possible? Byes! Bader! Harry!
+luk at the Johnnies swarmin' up the face of Hell!"
+
+Off there Harry could dimly see, rising over the near horizon made by
+tents, a straggling rush of men up the steep slope, while the rebel
+yell came shrill from a multitude behind on the level ground that was
+hidden from the place occupied by the cavalry regiment. In the next
+moment the force mounting Fort Hell's slope fell away, some lying
+where shot down, some rolling, some running and stumbling in heaps;
+then a tremendous musketry and field-gun fire growled to and fro under
+the heavy smoke round and about and out in front of the embrasures,
+which had never ceased their regular discharge over the heads of the
+fort's defenders and immediate assailants.
+
+Suddenly Harry noted a slackening of the battle; it gradually but soon
+dropped away to nothing, and now no sound of small-arms in any
+direction was heard in the lengthening intervals of reports from the
+siege pieces far and near.
+
+"And so that's the end of it," said Kennedy. "Sure it was hot work for
+a while! Faix, I thought onct the doughboys was nappin' too long, and
+ould Hell would be bullyin' away at ourselves. Now, thin, can we have
+a bite in paice? I'll shtart wid a few sausages, Brownie, and you may
+send in the shpring chickens wid some oyshters the second coorse. No!
+Oh, by the powers, 'tis too mane to lose a breakfast like that!" and
+Corporal Kennedy shook his fist at the group of buglers calling the
+regiment to parade.
+
+In ten minutes the Fifty-third had formed in column of companies. "Old
+Jimmy," their Colonel, had galloped down at them and once along their
+front; then the command, forming fours from the right front, moved off
+at a trot through the mud in long procession.
+
+"Didn't I know it?" said Kennedy; "it's escortin' the doughboys'
+prisoners, that's all we're good for this outrageous day. Oh, wirra,
+wirrasthru! Police duty! and this calls itself a cavalry rigiment.
+Mounted Police duty,--escortin' doughboys' prisoners! Faix, I might as
+well be wid Her Majesty's dhragoons, thramplin' down the flesh and
+blood of me in poor ould Oireland. Begor, Harry, me bhy, it's a mane
+job to be setting you at, and this the first day ye're mounted to save
+the Union!"
+
+"Stop coddin' the boy, Corporal," said Bader, angrily. "You can't
+think how an American boy feels about this war."
+
+"An Amerikin!--an Amerikin, is it? Let me insthruct ye thin, Misther
+Bader, that I'm as good an Amerikin as the next man. Och, be jabers,
+me that's been in the color you see ever since the Prisident first
+called for men! It was for a three months' dance he axed us first. Me,
+that's re-enlishted twice, don't know the feelin's of an Amerikin!
+What am I here for? Not poverty! sure I'd enough of that before ever I
+seen Ameriky! What am I wallopin' through the mud for this mornin'?"
+
+"It's your trade, Kennedy," said Bader, with disgust.
+
+"Be damned to you, man!" said the corporal, sternly. "When I touched
+fut in New York, didn't I swear that I'd never dhraw swoord more,
+barrin' it was agin the ould red tyrant and oprissor of me counthry?
+Wasn't I glad to be dhrivin' me own hack next year in Philamedink like
+a gintleman? Oh, the paice and the indipindence of it! But what cud I
+do when the counthry that tuk me and was good to me wanted an ould
+dhragoon? An Amerikin, ye say! Faith, the heart of me is Amerikin, if
+I'm a bog throtter by the tongue. Mind that now, me bould man!"
+
+Harry heard without heeding as the horses spattered on. Still wavered
+in his ears the sounds of the dawn; still he saw the ghostlike forms
+of Americans in gray tumbling back from their rush against the sacred
+flag that had drooped so sadly over the smoke; and still, far away
+beyond all this puddled and cumbered ground the dreamy boy saw
+millions of white American faces, all haggard for news of the
+armies--some looking South, some North, yearning for the Peace that
+had so long ago been the boon of the Nation.
+
+Now the regiment was upon the red clay of the dead fight, and brought
+to halt in open columns. After a little they moved off again in fours,
+and, dropping into single file, surrounded some thousands of disarmed
+men, the remnant of the desperate brigades that Lee had flung through
+the night across three lines of breastworks at the great fort they had
+so nearly stormed. Poor drenched, shivering Johnnies! there they
+stood, not a few of them in blue overcoats, but mostly in butternut,
+generally tattered; some barefoot, some with feet bound in ragged
+sections of blanket, many with toes and skin showing through crazy
+boots lashed on with strips of cotton or with cord; many stoutly on
+foot, streaming blood from head wounds.
+
+Some lay groaning in the mud, while their comrades helped Union
+surgeons to bind or amputate. Here and there groups huddled together
+in earnest talk, or listened to comrades gesticulating and storming as
+they recounted incidents of the long charge. But far the greater
+number faced outward, at gaze upon the cavalry guard, and, silently
+munching thick flat cakes of corn-bread, stared into the faces of the
+horsemen. Harry Wallbridge, brought to the halt, faced half-round in
+the saddle, and looked with quick beatings of pity far and wide over
+the disorderly crowd of weather-worn men.
+
+"It's a Louisiana brigade," said Bader.
+
+"Fifty-three, P. V. V. C.," spoke a prisoner, as if in reply, reading
+the letters about the little crossed brass sabres on the Union hats.
+"Say, you men from Pennsylvany?"
+
+"Yes, Johnny; we come down to wake up Dixie."
+
+"I reckon we got the start at wakin' you this mornin'," drawled the
+Southerner. "But say,--there's one of our boys lyin' dyin' over
+yonder; his folks lives in Pennsylvany. Mebbe some of you 'ud know
+'em."
+
+"What's his name?" asked Bader.
+
+"Wallbridge--Johnny Wallbridge."
+
+"Why, Harry--hold on!--you ain't the only Wallbridges there is. What's
+up?" cried Bader, as the boy half reeled, half clambered from his
+saddle.
+
+"Hold on, Harry!" cried Corporal Kennedy.
+
+"Halt there, Wallbridge!" shouted Sergeant Gravely.
+
+"Stop that man!" roared Lieutenant Bradley.
+
+But, calling, "He's my brother!" Harry, catching up his sabre as he
+ran, followed the Southerner, who had instantly divined the situation.
+The forlorn prisoners made ready way for them, and closing in behind,
+stretched in solid array about the scene.
+
+"It's not Jack," said the boy; but something in the look of the dying
+man drew him on to kneel in the mud. "Is it _you_, Jack? Oh, now I
+know you! Jack, I'm Harry! don't you know me? I'm Harry--your brother
+Harry."
+
+The Southern soldier stared rigidly at the boy, seeming to grow paler
+with the recollections that he struggled for.
+
+"_What's_ your name?" he asked very faintly.
+
+"Harry Wallbridge--I'm your brother."
+
+"Harry Wallbridge! Why, I'm _John_ Wallbridge. Did you say Harry? _Not
+Harry!_" he shrieked hoarsely. "No; Harry's only a little fellow!" He
+paused, and looked meditatively into the boy's eyes. "It's nearly five
+years I've been gone,--he was near twelve then. Boys," lifting his
+head painfully and casting his look slowly round upon his comrades, "I
+know him by the eyes; yes, he's my brother! Let me speak to him
+alone--stand back a bit," and at once the men pushed backward into the
+form of a wide circle.
+
+"Put down your head, Harry. Kiss me! Kiss me again!--how's mother? Ah,
+I was afraid she might be dead--don't tell her I'm dead, Harry." He
+groaned with the pain of the groin wound. "Closer, Harry; I've got to
+tell you this first--maybe it's all I've time to tell. Say,
+Harry,"--he began to gasp,--"they didn't ought to have killed me, the
+Union soldiers didn't. I never fired--high enough--all these years.
+They drafted me, Harry--tell mother that--down in New Orleans--and
+I--couldn't get away. Ai--ai! how it hurts! I must die soon 's I can
+tell you. I wanted to come home--and help father--how's poor father,
+Harry? Doing well now? Oh. I'm glad of that--and the baby? there's a
+new baby! Ah, yes, I'll never see it, Harry."
+
+His eyes closed, the pain seemed to leave him, and he lay almost
+smiling happily as his brother's tears fell on his muddy and
+blood-clotted face. As if from a trance his eyes opened, and he spoke
+anxiously but calmly.
+
+"You'll be sure to tell them I was drafted--conscripted, you
+understand. And I never fired at any of us--of you--tell all the boys
+_that_." Again the flame of life went down, and again flickered up in
+pain.
+
+"Harry--you'll stay by father--and help him, won't you? This cruel
+war--is almost over. Don't cry. Kiss me. Say--do you remember--the old
+times we had--fishing? Kiss me again, Harry--brother in blue--you're
+on--_my_ side. Oh I wish--I had time--to tell you. Come close--put
+your arms around--my neck--it's old times--again." And now the wound
+tortured him for a while beyond speech. "You're with me, aren't you,
+Harry?
+
+"Well, there's this," he gasped on, "about my chums--they've been as
+good and kind--marching, us, all wet and cold together--and it wasn't
+their fault. If they had known--how I wanted--to be shot--for the
+Union! It was so hard--to be--on the wrong side! But--"
+
+He lifted his head and stared wildly at his brother, screamed rapidly,
+as if summoning all his life for the effort to explain, "Drafted,
+_drafted, drafted_--Harry, tell mother and father _that_. I was
+_drafted_. O God, O God, what suffering! Both sides--I was on both
+sides all the time. I loved them all, North and South, all,--but the
+Union most. O God, it was so hard!"
+
+His head fell back, his eyes closed, and Harry thought it was the end.
+But once more Jack opened his blue eyes, and slowly said in a steady,
+clear, anxious voice, "Mind you tell them I never fired high enough!"
+Then he lay still in Harry's arms, breathing fainter and fainter till
+no motion was on his lips, nor in his heart, nor any tremor in the
+hands that lay in the hand of his brother in blue.
+
+"Come, Harry," said Bader, stooping tenderly to the boy, "the order is
+to march. He's past helping now. It's no use; you must leave him here
+to God. Come, boy, the head of the column is moving already."
+
+Mounting his horse, Harry looked across to Jack's form. For the first
+time in two years the famous Louisiana brigade trudged on without
+their unwilling comrade. There he lay, alone, in the Union lines,
+under the rain, his marching done, a figure of eternal peace; while
+Harry, looking backward till he could no longer distinguish his
+brother from the clay of the field, rode dumbly on and on beside the
+downcast procession of men in gray.
+
+
+
+
+A TURKEY APIECE.
+
+
+Not long ago I was searching files of New York papers for 1864, when
+my eye caught the headline, "Thanksgiving Dinner for the Army." I had
+shared that feast. The words brought me a vision of a cavalry brigade
+in winter quarters before Petersburg; of the three-miles-distant and
+dim steeples of the besieged city; of rows and rows of canvas-covered
+huts sheltering the infantry corps that stretched interminably away
+toward the Army of the James. I fancied I could hear again the great
+guns of "Fort Hell" infrequently punctuating the far-away
+picket-firing.
+
+Rain, rain, and rain! How it fell on red Virginia that November of
+'64! How it wore away alertness! The infantry-men--whom we used to
+call "doughboys," for there was always a pretended feud between the
+riders and the trudgers--often seemed going to sleep in the night in
+their rain-filled holes far beyond the breastworks, each with its
+little mound of earth thrown up toward the beleaguered town. Their
+night-firing would slacken almost to cessation for many minutes
+together. But after the b-o-o-oom of a great gun it became brisker
+usually; often so much so as to suggest that some of Lee's ragged
+brigades, their march silenced by the rain, had pierced our fore-front
+again, and were "gobbling up" our boys on picket, and flinging up new
+rifle-pits on the acres reclaimed for a night and a day for the
+tottering Confederacy.
+
+Sometimes the _crack-a-rac-a-rack_ would die down to a slow fire of
+dropping shots, and the forts seemed sleeping; and patter, patter,
+patter on the veteran canvas we heard the rain, rain, rain, not unlike
+the roll of steady musketry very far away.
+
+I think I sit again beside Charley Wilson, my sick "buddy," and hear
+his uneven breathing through all the stamping of the rows of wet
+horses on their corduroy floor roofed with leaky pine brush.
+
+That _squ-ush, squ-ush_ is the sound of the stable-guard's boots as he
+paces slowly through the mud, to and fro, with the rain rattling on
+his glazed poncho and streaming corded hat. Sometimes he stops to
+listen to a frantic brawling of the wagon-train mules, sometimes to
+the reviving picket-firing. It crackles up to animation for causes
+that we can but guess; then dies down, never to silence, but warns,
+warns, as the distant glow of the sky above a volcano warns of the
+huge waiting forces that give it forth.
+
+I think I hear Barney Donahoe pulling our latch-string that November
+night when we first heard of the great Thanksgiving dinner that was
+being collected in New York for the army.
+
+"Byes, did yez hear phwat Sergeant Cunningham was tellin' av the
+Thanksgivin' turkeys that's comin'?"
+
+"Come in out of the rain, Barney," says Charley, feebly.
+
+"Faith, I wish I dar', but it's meself is on shtable-guard. Bedad,
+it's a rale fire ye've got. Divil a better has ould Jimmy himself (our
+colonel). Ye've heard tell of the turkeys, then, and the pois?"
+
+"Yes. Bully for the folks at home!" says Charley. "The notion of
+turkey next Thursday has done me good already. I was thinking I'd go
+to hospital to-morrow, but now I guess I won't."
+
+"Hoshpital! Kape clear av the hoshpital, Char-les, dear. Sure, they'd
+cut a man's leg off behind the ears av him for to cure him av
+indigestion."
+
+"Is it going to rain all night, Barney?"
+
+"It is, bad 'cess to it; and to-morrow and the day afther, I'm
+thinkin'. The blackness av night is outside; be jabers! you could cut
+it like turf with a shpade! If it wasn't for the ould fort flamin' out
+wanst in a whoile, I'd be thinkin' I'd never an oi in my head, barrin'
+the fires in the tints far an' near gives a bit of dimness to the
+dark. Phwat time is it?"
+
+"Quarter to twelve, Barney."
+
+"Troth, then, the relief will be soon coming. I must be thramping the
+mud av Virginia to save the Union. Good-night, byes. I come to give
+yez the good word. Kape your heart light an' aisy, Char-les, dear.
+D'ye moind the turkeys and the pois? Faith, it's meself that has the
+taste for thim dainties!"
+
+"I don't believe I'll be able to eat a mite of the Thanksgiving," says
+Charley, as we hear Barney _squ-ush_ away; "but just to see the brown
+on a real old brown home turkey will do me a heap of good."
+
+"You'll be all right by Thursday, Charley, I guess; won't you? It's
+only Sunday night now."
+
+Of course I cannot remember the very words of that talk in the night,
+so many years ago. But the coming of Barney I recollect well, and the
+general drift of what was said.
+
+Charley turned on his bed of hay-covered poles, and I put my hand
+under his gray blanket to feel if his legs were well covered by the
+long overcoat he lay in. Then I tucked the blanket well in about his
+feet and shoulders, pulled his poncho again to its full length over
+him, and sat on a cracker-box looking at our fire for a long time,
+while the rain spattered through the canvas in spray.
+
+My "buddy" Charley, the most popular boy of Company I, was of my own
+age,--seventeen,--though the rolls gave us a year more each, by way of
+compliance with the law of enlistment. From a Pennsylvania farm in the
+hills he came forth to the field early in that black fall of '64,
+strong, tall, and merry, fit to ride for the nation's life,--a mighty
+wielder of an axe, "bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade."
+
+We were "the kids" to Company I. To "buddy" with Charley I gave up my
+share of the hut I had helped to build as old Bader's "pard." Then the
+"kids" set about the construction of a new residence, which stood
+farther from the parade ground than any hut in the row except the big
+cabin of "old Brownie," the "greasy cook," who called us to
+"bean--oh!" with so resonant a shout, and majestically served out our
+rations of pork, "salt horse," coffee long-boiled and sickeningly
+sweet, hardtack, and the daily loaf of a singularly despondent-looking
+bread.
+
+My "buddy" and I slept on opposite sides of our winter residence. The
+bedsteads were made of poles laid lengthwise and lifted about two feet
+from the ground. These were covered thinly with hay from the bales
+that were regularly delivered for horse-fodder. There was a space of
+about two feet between bedsteads, and under them we kept our saddles
+and saddlecloths.
+
+Our floor was of earth, with a few flour-barrel staves and cracker-box
+sides laid down for rugs. We had each an easy-chair in the form of a
+cracker-box, besides a stout soap-box for guests. Our carbines and
+sabres hung crossed on pegs over the mantel-piece, above our Bibles
+and the precious daguerreotypes of the dear folks at home. When we
+happened to have enough wood for a bright fire, we felt much snugger
+than you might suppose.
+
+Before ever that dark November began, Charley had been suffering from
+one of those wasting diseases that so often clung to and carried off
+the strongest men of both armies. Sharing the soldiers' inveterate
+prejudice against hospitals attended by young doctors, who, the men
+believed, were addicted to much surgery for the sake of practice, my
+poor "buddy" strove to do his regular duties. He paraded with the sick
+before the regimental doctor as seldom as possible. He was favored by
+the sergeants and helped in every way by the men, and so continued to
+stay with the company at that wet season when drill and parades were
+impracticable.
+
+The idea of a Thanksgiving dinner for half a million men by sea and
+land fascinated Charley's imagination, and cheered him mightily. But I
+could not see that his strength increased, as he often alleged.
+
+"Ned, you bet I'll be on hand when them turkeys are served out," he
+would say. "You won't need to carry my Thanksgiving dinner up from
+Brownie's. Say, ain't it bully for the folks at home to be giving us a
+Thanksgiving like this? Turkeys, sausages, mince-pies! They say
+there's going to be apples and celery for all hands!"
+
+"S'pose you'll be able to eat, Charley?"
+
+"Able! Of course I'll be able! I'll be just as spry as you be on
+Thanksgiving. See if I don't carry my own turkey all right. Yes, by
+gum, if it weighs twenty pounds!"
+
+"There won't be a turkey apiece."
+
+"No, eh? Well, that's what I figure on. Half a turkey, anyhow. Got to
+be; besides chickens, hams, sausages, and all that kind of fixin's.
+You heard what Bill Sylvester's girl wrote from Philamadink-a-daisy-oh?
+No, eh? Well, he come in a-purpose to read me the letter. Says there's
+going to be three or four hundred thousand turkeys, besides them
+fixin's! Sherman's boys can't get any; they're marched too far away,
+out of reach. The Shenandoah boys'll get some, and Butler's crowd, and
+us chaps, and the blockading squadrons. Bill's girl says so. We'll get
+the whole lot between us. Four hundred thousand turkeys! Of course
+there'll be a turkey apiece; there's got to be, if there's any sense
+in arithmetic. Oh, I'll be choosin' between breast-meat and hind-legs
+on Thanksgiving,--you bet your sweet life on that!"
+
+This expectation that there would be a turkey a-piece was not shared
+by Company I; but no one denied it in Charley's hearing. The boy held
+it as sick people often do fantastic notions, and all fell into the
+humor of strengthening the reasoning on which he went.
+
+It was clear that no appetite for turkey moved my poor "buddy," but
+that his brain was busy with the "whole-turkey-a-piece" idea as one
+significant of the immense liberality of the folks at home, and their
+absorbing interest in the army.
+
+"Where's there any nation that ever was that would get to work and fix
+up four hundred thousand turkeys for the boys?" he often remarked,
+with ecstatic patriotism.
+
+I have often wondered why "Bill Sylvester's girl" gave that
+flourishing account of the preparations for our Thanksgiving dinner.
+It was only on searching the newspaper files recently that I surmised
+her sources of information. Newspapers seldom reached our regiment
+until they were several weeks old, and then they were not much read,
+at least by me. Now I know how enthusiastic the papers of November,
+'64, were on the great feast for the army.
+
+For instance, on the morning of that Thanksgiving day, the 24th of
+November, the New York Tribune said editorially:--
+
+     "Forty thousand turkeys, eighty thousand turkeys, one
+     hundred and sixty thousand turkeys, nobody knows how many
+     turkeys have been sent to our soldiers. Such masses of
+     breast-meat and such mountains of stuffing; drumsticks
+     enough to fit out three or four Grand Armies, a perfect
+     promontory of pope's noses, a mighty aggregate of wings. The
+     gifts of their lordships to the supper which Grangousier
+     spread to welcome Gargantua were nothing to those which our
+     good people at home send to their friends in the field; and
+     no doubt every soldier, if his dinner does not set him
+     thinking too intently of that home, will prove himself a
+     valiant trencherman."
+
+Across the vast encampment before Petersburg a biting wind blew that
+Thanksgiving day. It came through every cranny of our hut; it bellied
+the canvas on one side and tightened it on the other; it pressed flat
+down the smoke from a hundred thousand mud chimneys, and swept away so
+quickly the little coals which fell on the canvas that they had not
+time to burn through.
+
+When I went out towards noon, for perhaps the twentieth time that day,
+to learn whether our commissary wagons had returned from City Point
+with the turkeys, the muddy parade ground was dotted with groups of
+shivering men, all looking anxiously for the feast's arrival. Officers
+frequently came out, to exchange a few cheery words with their men,
+from the tall, close hedge of withering pines stuck on end that
+enclosed the officers' quarters on the opposite side of the parade
+ground.
+
+No turkeys at twelve o'clock! None at one! Two, three, four, five
+o'clock passed by, and still nothing had been heard of our absent
+wagons. Charley was too weak to get out that day, but he cheerfully
+scouted the idea that a turkey for each man would not arrive sooner or
+later.
+
+The rest of us dined and supped on "commissary." It was not good
+commissary either, for Brownie, the "greasy cook," had gone on leave
+to visit a "doughboy" cousin of the Sixth Corps.
+
+"You'll have turkey for dinner, boys," he had said, on serving out
+breakfast. "If you're wanting coffee, Tom can make it." Thus we had to
+dine and sup on the amateur productions of the cook's mate.
+
+A multitude of woful rumors concerning the absent turkeys flew round
+that evening. The "Johnnies," we heard, had raided round the army, and
+captured the fowls! Butler's colored troops had got all the turkeys,
+and had been feeding on fowl for two days! The officers had "gobbled"
+the whole consignment for their own use! The whole story of the
+Thanksgiving dinner was a newspaper hoax! Nothing was too incredible
+for men so bitterly disappointed.
+
+Brownie returned before "lights out" sounded, and reported facetiously
+that the "doughboys" he had visited were feeding full of turkey and
+all manner of fixings. There were so many wagons waiting at City Point
+that the roads round there were blocked for miles. We could not fail
+to get our turkeys to-morrow. With this expectation we went, pretty
+happy, to bed.
+
+"There'll be a turkey apiece, you'll see, Ned," said Charley, in a
+confident, weak voice, as I turned in. "We'll all have a bully
+Thanksgiving to-morrow."
+
+The morrow broke as bleak as the preceding day, and without a sign of
+turkey for our brigade. But about twelve o'clock a great shouting came
+from the parade ground.
+
+"The turkeys have come!" cried Charley, trying to rise. "Never mind
+picking out a big one for me; any one will do. I don't believe I can
+eat a bite, but I want to see it. My! ain't it kind of the folks at
+home!"
+
+I ran out and found his surmise as to the return of the wagons
+correct. They were filing into the enclosure around the
+quartermaster's tent. Nothing but an order that the men should keep
+to company quarters prevented the whole regiment helping to unload the
+delicacies of the season.
+
+Soon foraging parties went from each company to the quartermaster's
+enclosure. Company I sent six men. They returned, grinning, in about
+half an hour, with one box on one man's shoulders.
+
+It was carried to Sergeant Cunningham's cabin, the nearest to the
+parade ground, the most distant from that of "the kids," in which
+Charley lay waiting. We crowded round the hut with some sinking of
+enthusiasm. There was no cover on the box except a bit of cotton in
+which some of the consignment had probably been wrapped. Brownie
+whisked this off, and those nearest Cunningham's door saw
+disclosed--two small turkeys, a chicken, four rather disorganized
+pies, two handsome bologna sausages, and six very red apples.
+
+We were nearly seventy men. The comical side of the case struck the
+boys instantly. Their disappointment was so extreme as to be absurd.
+There might be two ounces of feast to each, if the whole were equally
+shared.
+
+All hands laughed; not a man swore. The idea of an equal distribution
+seemed to have no place in that company. One proposed that all should
+toss up for the lot. Another suggested drawing lots; a third that we
+should set the Thanksgiving dinner at one end of the parade ground and
+run a race for it, "grab who can."
+
+At this Barney Donahoe spoke up.
+
+"Begorra, yez can race for wan turkey av yez loike. But the other wan
+is goin' to Char-les Wilson!"
+
+There was not a dissenting voice. Charley was altogether the most
+popular member of Company I, and every man knew how he had clung to
+the turkey apiece idea.
+
+"Never let on a word," said Sergeant Cunningham. "He'll think there's
+a turkey for every man!"
+
+The biggest bird, the least demoralized pie, a bologna sausage, and
+the whole six apples were placed in the cloth that had covered the
+box. I was told to carry the display to my poor "buddy."
+
+As I marched down the row of tents a tremendous yelling arose from the
+crowd round Cunningham's tent. I turned to look behind. Some man with
+a riotous impulse had seized the box and flung its contents in the air
+over the thickest of the crowd. Next moment the turkey was seized by
+half a dozen hands. As many more helped to tear it to pieces. Barney
+Donahoe ran past me with a leg, and two laughing men after him. Those
+who secured larger portions took a bite as quickly as possible, and
+yielded the rest to clutching hands. The bologna sausage was shared in
+like fashion, but I never heard of any one who got a taste of the
+pies.
+
+"Here's your turkey, Charley," said I, entering with my burden.
+
+"Where's yours, Ned?"
+
+"I've got my turkey all right enough at Cunningham's tent."
+
+"Didn't I tell you there'd be a turkey apiece?" he cried gleefully, as
+I unrolled the lot. "And sausages, apples, a whole pie--oh, _say_,
+ain't they bully folks up home!"
+
+"They are," said I. "I believe we'd have had a bigger Thanksgiving yet
+if it wasn't such a trouble getting it distributed."
+
+"You'd better believe it! They'd do anything in the world for the
+army," he said, lying back.
+
+"Can't you eat a bite, buddy?"
+
+"No; I'm not a mite hungry. But I'll look at it. It won't spoil before
+to-morrow. Then you can share it all out among the boys."
+
+Looking at the turkey, the sick lad fell asleep. Barney Donahoe softly
+opened our door, stooped his head under the lintel, and gazed a few
+moments at the quiet face turned to the Thanksgiving turkey. Man after
+man followed to gaze on the company's favorite, and on the fowl
+which, they knew, tangibly symbolized to him the immense love of the
+nation for the flower of its manhood in the field. Indeed, the people
+had forwarded an enormous Thanksgiving feast; but it was impossible to
+distribute it evenly, and we were one of the regiments that came
+short.
+
+Grotesque, that scene was? Group after group of hungry, dirty
+soldiers, gazing solemnly, lovingly, at a lone brown turkey and a
+pallid sleeping boy! Yes, very grotesque. But Charley had his
+Thanksgiving dinner, and the men of Company I, perhaps, enjoyed a
+profounder satisfaction than if they had feasted more materially.
+
+I never saw Charley after that Thanksgiving day. Before the afternoon
+was half gone the doctor sent an ambulance for him, and insisted that
+he should go to City Point. By Christmas his wasted body had lain for
+three weeks in the red Virginia soil.
+
+
+
+
+GRANDPAPA'S WOLF STORY.
+
+
+"Tell us a story, grandpapa."
+
+"One that will last all the evening, chickens?"
+
+"Yes, grandpapa, darling," said Jenny, while Jimmy clapped hands.
+
+"What about?" said the old lumber king.
+
+"About when you were a boy."
+
+"When I was a boy," said the old gentleman, taking Jenny on his knee
+and putting his arm round Jimmy, "the boys and girls were as fond of
+stories as they are now. Once when I was a boy I said to my
+grandfather, 'Tell me a story, grandpa,' and he replied, 'When I was a
+boy the boys were as fond of stories as they are now; for once when I
+was a boy I said to my grandfather, "Tell me a story, grandpa,--"'".
+
+"Why, it seems to go on just the same story, grandpapa," said Jenny.
+
+"That's not the end of it, Jenny, dear," said grandpapa.
+
+"No-o?" said Jenny, dubiously.
+
+Jimmy said nothing. He lived with his grandfather, and knew his ways.
+Jenny came on visits only, and was not well enough acquainted with the
+old gentleman to know that he would soon tire of the old joke, and
+reward patient children by a good story.
+
+"Shall I go on with the story, Jenny?" said grandpapa.
+
+"Oh, yes, grandpapa!"
+
+"Well, then, when _that_ grandpa was a boy, he said to _his_
+grandfather, 'Tell me a story, grandpapa,' and his grandfather
+replied--"
+
+Jenny soon listened with a demure smile of attention.
+
+"Do you like this story, dear?" said grandpapa, after pursuing the
+repetition for some minutes longer.
+
+"I shall, grandpapa, darling. It must be very good when you come to
+the grandfather that told it. I like to think of all my grandfathers,
+and great, great, great, greater, greatest, great, great-grandpapas
+all telling the same story."
+
+"Yes, it's a genuine family story, Jenny, and you're a little witch."
+The old gentleman kissed her. "Well, where was I? Oh, now I remember!
+And _that_ grandpapa said to his grandfather, 'Tell me a story,
+grandpapa,' and his grandpapa replied, 'When I was a young fellow--'"
+
+"Now it's beginning!" cried Jimmy, clapping his hands, and shifting to
+an easier attitude by the old man's easy-chair.
+
+Grandpapa looked comically at Jimmy, and said, "His grandfather
+replied, 'When I was a young fellow--'"
+
+The faces of the children became woful again.
+
+"'One rainy day I took my revolver--'"
+
+"Revolver! Grandpapa!" cried Jenny.
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"An American revolver, grandpapa?"
+
+"Certainly, dear."
+
+"And did he tell the story in English?"
+
+"Yes, pet."
+
+"But, grandpapa, _darling_, that grandpapa was seventy-three
+grandpapas back!"
+
+"About that, my dear."
+
+"I kept count, grandpapa."
+
+"And don't you like good old-fashioned stories, Jenny?"
+
+"Oh, yes, grandpapa, but _revolvers_--and _Americans_--and the
+_English_ language! Why, it was more than twenty-two hundred years
+ago, grandpapa, darling!"
+
+"Ha! ha! You never thought of that, Jimmy! Oh, you've been at school,
+Miss Bright-eyes! Kiss me, you little rogue. Now listen!
+
+"When _I_ was a young fellow--"
+
+"You yourself, grandpapa?"
+
+"Yes, Jenny."
+
+"I'm so glad it was you yourself! I like my _own_ grandpapa's stories
+best of all."
+
+"Thank you, my dear. After that I must be _very_ entertaining. Yes,
+I'll tell my best story of all--and Jimmy has never heard it. Well,
+when I was a young fellow of seventeen I was clerk in a lumber shanty
+on the Sheboiobonzhe-gunpashageshickawigamog River."
+
+"How did you _ever_ learn that name, grandpapa, darling?" cried Jenny.
+
+"Oh, I could learn things in those days. Remembering it is the
+difficulty, dear--see if it isn't. I'll give you a nice new ten-dollar
+bill if you tell me that name to-morrow."
+
+Jenny bent her brows and tried so hard to recall the syllables that
+she almost lost part of the story. Grandpapa went steadily on:--
+
+"One day in February, when it was too rainy for the men to work, and
+just rainy enough to go deer-shooting if you hadn't had fresh meat for
+five months, I took to the woods with my gun, revolver, hatchet, and
+dinner. All the fore part of the day I failed to get a shot, though I
+saw many deer on the hemlock ridges of Sheboi--that's the way it
+begins, Jenny, and Sheboi we called it.
+
+"But late in the afternoon I killed a buck. I cut off a haunch, lifted
+the carcass into the low boughs of a spruce, and started for camp, six
+miles away, across snowy hills and frozen lakes. The snow-shoeing was
+heavy, and I feared I should not get in before dark. The Sheboi
+country was infested with wolves--"
+
+"Bully! It's a wolf story!" said Jimmy. Jenny shuddered with delight.
+
+"As I went along you may be sure I never thought my grandchildren
+would be pleased to have me in danger of being eaten up by wolves."
+
+Jenny looked shocked at the imputation. Grandpapa watched her with
+twinkling eyes. When she saw he was joking, she cried: "But you
+weren't eaten, grandpapa. You were too brave."
+
+"Ah, I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps I'd better not tell the story.
+You'll have a worse opinion of my courage, my dear."
+
+"Of course you _had_ to run from _wolves_, grandpapa!" said the little
+girl.
+
+"I'll bet grandpapa didn't run then, miss," said Jimmy. "I'll bet he
+shot them with his gun."
+
+"He couldn't--could you, grandpapa? There were too many. Of course
+grandpapa _had_ to run. That wasn't being cowardly. It was
+just--just--_running_."
+
+"No, Jenny, I didn't run a yard."
+
+"Didn't I tell you?" cried Jimmy. "Grandpapa shot them with his gun."
+
+"You're mistaken, Jimmy."
+
+"Then you must--No, for you're here--you weren't eaten up?" said
+wondering Jenny.
+
+"No, dear, I wasn't eaten up."
+
+"Oh, I know! The wolves didn't come!" cried Jimmy, who remembered one
+of his grandpapa's stories as having ended in that unhappy way.
+
+"Oh, but they did, Jimmy!"
+
+"Why, grandpapa, what _did_ you do?"
+
+"I climbed into a hollow tree."
+
+"_Of course!_" said both children.
+
+"Now I'm going to tell you a true wolf story, and that's what few
+grandpapas can do out of their own experience.
+
+"I was resting on the shore of a lake, with my snow-shoes off to ease
+my sore toes, when I saw a pack of wolves trotting lazily toward me on
+the snow that covered the ice. I was sure they had not seen me. Right
+at my elbow was a big hollow pine. It had an opening down to the
+ground, a good deal like the door of a sentry-box.
+
+"There was a smaller opening about thirty feet higher up. I had looked
+up and seen this before I saw the wolves. Then I rose, stood for a
+moment in the hollow, and climbed up by my feet, knees, hands, and
+elbows till I thought my feet were well above the top of the opening.
+Dead wood and dust fell as I ascended, but I hoped the wolves had not
+heard me."
+
+"Did they, grandpapa?"
+
+"Perhaps not at first, Jenny. But maybe they got a scent of the
+deer-meat I was carrying. At any rate, they were soon snapping and
+snarling over it and my snow-shoes. _Gobble-de-gobble, yip, yap, snap,
+growl, snarl, gobble_--the meat was all gone in a moment, like little
+Red Riding Hood."
+
+"Why, grandpapa! The wolf didn't eat little Red Riding Hood. The boy
+came in time--don't you remember?"
+
+"Perhaps you never read _my_ Red Riding Hood, Jenny," said the old
+gentleman, laughing. "At any rate, the wolves lunched at my expense;
+yet I hoped they wouldn't be polite enough to look round for their
+host. But they did inquire for me--not very politely, I must say. They
+seemed in bad humor--perhaps there hadn't been enough lunch to go
+round."
+
+"The greedy things! A whole haunch of venison!" cried Jenny.
+
+"Ah, but I had provided no currant jelly with it, and of
+course they were vexed. If you ever give a dinner-party to wolves,
+don't forget the currant jelly, Jenny. How they yelled for
+it--_Cur-r-r-rant-jell-yell-yell-elly-yell!_ That's the way they went.
+
+"And they also said,
+_Yow--yow--there's--yow--no--desser-r-rt--either--yow--yow!_ Perhaps
+they wanted me to explain. At any rate, they put their heads into the
+opening--how many at once I don't know, for I could not see down; and
+then they screamed for me. It was an uncomfortably close scream,
+chickens. My feet must have been nearer them than I thought, for one
+fellow's nose touched my moccasin as he jumped."
+
+"O grandpapa! If he had caught your foot!"
+
+"But he didn't, Jenny, dear. He caught something worse. When he
+tumbled back he must have fallen on the other fellows, for there was a
+great snapping and snarling and yelping all at once.
+
+"Meantime I tried to go up out of reach. It was easy enough; but with
+every fresh hold I took with shoulders, elbows, hands, and feet, the
+dead old wood crumbled and broke away, so that thick dust filled the
+hollow tree.
+
+"I was afraid I should be suffocated. But up I worked till at last I
+got to the upper hole and stuck out my head for fresh air. There I
+was, pretty comfortable for a little while, and I easily supported my
+weight by bending my back, thrusting with my feet, and holding on the
+edge of the hole by my hands.
+
+"After getting breath I gave my attention to the wolves. They did not
+catch sight of me for a few moments. Some stood looking much
+interested at the lower opening, as terriers do at the hole where a
+rat has disappeared.
+
+"Dust still came from the hole to the open air. Some wolves sneezed;
+others sat and squealed with annoyance, as Bruno does when you close
+the door on him at dinner-time. They were disgusted at my concealment.
+Of course you have a pretty good idea of what they said, Jenny."
+
+"No, grandpapa. The horrid, cruel things! What did they say?"
+
+"Well, of course wolf talk is rude, even savage, and dreadfully
+profane. As near as I could make out, one fellow screamed, 'Shame,
+boy, taking an unfair advantage of poor starving wolves!' It seemed as
+if another fellow yelled, 'You young coward!' A third cried, 'Oh, yes,
+you think you're safe, do you?' A fourth, '_Yow--yow_--but we can wait
+till you come down!'"
+
+Grandpapa mimicked the wolfish voices and looks so effectively that
+Jenny was rather alarmed.
+
+"One old fellow seemed to suggest that they should go away and look
+for more venison for supper, while he kept watch on me. At that there
+was a general howl of derision. They seemed to me to be telling the
+old fellow that they were just as fond of boy as he, and that they
+understood his little game.
+
+"The old chap evidently tried to explain, but they grinned with all
+their teeth as he turned from one to another. You must not suppose,
+chickens, that wolves have no sense of humor. Yet, poor things--"
+
+"Poor things! Why, grandpapa!"
+
+"Yes, Jenny; so lean and hungry, you know. Then one of them suddenly
+caught sight of my head, and didn't he yell! 'There he is--look up the
+tree!' cried Mr. Wolf.
+
+"For a few moments they were silent. Then they sprang all at once,
+absurdly anxious to get nearer to me, twenty-five feet or so above
+their reach. On falling, they tumbled into several heaps of mouths and
+legs and tails. After scuffling and separating, they gazed up at me
+with silent longing. I should have been very popular for a few minutes
+had I gone down."
+
+Jenny shuddered, and then nestled closer to her grandfather.
+
+"Don't be afraid, Jenny. They didn't eat me--not that time. After a
+few moments' staring I became very impolite. 'Boo-ooh!' said I.
+'Yah-ha-ha!' said I. 'You be shot!' I cried. They resented it. Even
+wolves love to be gently addressed.
+
+"They began yelling, snarling, and howling at me worse than
+politicians at a sarcastic member of the opposite party. I imitated
+them. Nevertheless, I was beginning to be frightened. The weather was
+turning cold, night was coming on, and I didn't like the prospect of
+staying till morning.
+
+"All of a sudden I began laughing. I had till then forgotten my pistol
+and pocketful of cartridges. There were seventeen nice wolves--"
+
+"Nice! Why, grandpa!"
+
+"They seemed _very_ nice wolves when I recollected the county bounty
+of six dollars for a wolf's head. Also, their skins would fetch two
+dollars apiece. 'Why,' said I, 'my dear wolves, you're worth one
+hundred and thirty-six dollars.'
+
+"'Don't you wish you may get it!' said they, sneering.
+
+"'You're worth one hundred and thirty-six dollars,' I repeated, 'and
+yet you want to sponge on a poor boy for a free supper! Shame!'"
+
+"Did you say it out loud, grandpapa?"
+
+"Well--no, Jenny. It's a thing I might have said, you know; but I
+didn't exactly think of it at the time. I was feeling for my pistol.
+Just as I tugged it out of its case at my waist, my knees, arms, and
+all lost their hold, and down I fell."
+
+"Grandpapa, _dear!_" Jenny nervously clutched him.
+
+"I didn't fall far, pet. But the dust! Talk of sweeping floors! The
+whole inside of the tree below me, borne down by my weight, had fallen
+in chunks and dust. There I was, gasping for breath, and the hole
+eight feet above my head. The lower entrance was of course blocked up
+by the rotten wood."
+
+"And they couldn't get at you?"
+
+"No, Jimmy; but I was in a dreadful situation. At first I did not
+fully realize it. Choking for air, my throat filled with particles of
+dry rot, I tried to climb up again. But the hollow had become too
+large. Nothing but a round shell of sound wood, a few inches thick,
+was left around me. With feet, hands, elbows, and back, I strove to
+ascend as before. But I could not. I was stuck fast!
+
+"When I pushed with my feet I could only press my back against the
+other side of the enlarged hole. I was horrified. Indeed, I thought
+the tree would be my coffin. There I stood, breathing with difficulty
+even when I breathed through my capuchin, which I took off of my
+blanket overcoat. And there, I said to myself, I was doomed to stand
+till my knees should give way and my head fall forward, and some day,
+after many years, the old tree would blow down, and out would fall my
+white and r-rattling bo-o-nes."
+
+"Don't--_please_, grandpapa!" Jenny was trying to keep from crying.
+
+"In spite of my vision of my own skull and cross-bones," went on
+grandpapa, solemnly, "I was too young to despair wholly. I was at
+first more annoyed than desperate. To be trapped so, to die in a hole
+when I might have shot a couple of wolves and split the heads of one
+or two more with my hatchet before they could have had boy for
+supper--this thought made me very angry. And that brought me to
+thinking of my hatchet.
+
+"It was, I remembered, beneath my feet at the bottom of the lower
+opening. If I could get hold of it, I might use it to chop a hole
+through my prison wall.
+
+"But to burrow down was clearly impossible. Nevertheless, I knelt to
+feel the punky stuff under my feet. The absurdity of trying to work
+down a hole without having, like a squirrel, any place to throw out
+the material, was plain.
+
+"But something more cheerful occurred to me. As I knelt, an object at
+my back touched my heels. It was the brass point of my hunting-knife
+sheath. Instantly I sprang to my feet, thrust my revolver back into
+its case, drew the stout knife, and drove the blade into the shell of
+pine.
+
+"In two minutes I had scooped the blade through. In five minutes I had
+my face at a small hole that gave me fresh air. In half an hour I had
+hacked out a space big enough to put my shoulders through.
+
+"The wolves, when they saw me again, were delighted. As for me, I was
+much pleased to see them, and said so. At the compliment they licked
+their jaws. They thought I was coming down, but I had something
+important to do first.
+
+"I drew my pistol. It was a big old-fashioned Colt's revolver. With
+the first round of seven shots I killed three, and wounded another
+badly."
+
+"Then the rest jumped on them and ate them all up, didn't they,
+grandpapa?"
+
+"No, Jimmy, I'm glad to say they didn't. Wolves in Russian stories
+do, but American wolves are not cannibalistic; for this is a civilized
+country, you know.
+
+"These wolves didn't even notice their fallen friends. They devoted
+their attention wholly to me, and I assure you, chickens, that I was
+much gratified at that.
+
+"I loaded again. It was a good deal of trouble in those days, when
+revolvers wore caps. I aimed very carefully, and killed four more. The
+other ten then ran away--at least some did; three could drag
+themselves but slowly.
+
+"After loading again I dropped down, and started for camp. Next
+morning we came back and got ten skins, after looking up the three
+wounded."
+
+"And you got only eighty dollars, instead of one hundred and
+thirty-six, grandpapa," said Jimmy, ruefully.
+
+"Well, Jimmy, that was better than furnishing the pack with raw boy
+for supper."
+
+"Is that all, grandpapa?"
+
+"Yes, Jenny, dear."
+
+"Do tell us another story."
+
+"Not to-night, chickens. Not to-night. Grandpapa is old and sleepy.
+Good night, dears; and if you begin to dream of wolves, be sure you
+change the subject."
+
+Grandpapa walked slowly up stairs.
+
+"Can _you_ make different dreams come, Jimmy?" said Jenny.
+
+"You goose! Grandpapa was pretending."
+
+
+
+
+THE WATERLOO VETERAN.
+
+
+Is Waterloo a dead word to you? the name of a plain of battle, no
+more? Or do you see, on a space of rising ground, the little
+long-coated man with marble features, and unquenchable eyes that
+pierce through rolling smoke to where the relics of the old Guard of
+France stagger and rally and reach fiercely again up the hill of St.
+Jean toward the squares, set, torn, red, re-formed, stubborn, mangled,
+victorious beneath the unflinching will of him behind there,--the Iron
+Duke of England?
+
+Or is your interest in the fight literary? and do you see in a pause
+of the conflict Major O'Dowd sitting on the carcass of Pyramus
+refreshing himself from that case-bottle of sound brandy? George
+Osborne lying yonder, all his fopperies ended, with a bullet through
+his heart? Rawdon Crawley riding stolidly behind General Tufto along
+the front of the shattered regiment where Captain Dobbin stands
+heartsick for poor Emily?
+
+Or maybe the struggle arranges itself in your vision around one figure
+not named in history or fiction,--that of your grandfather, or his
+father, or some old dead soldier of the great wars whose blood you
+exult to inherit, or some grim veteran whom you saw tottering to the
+roll-call beyond when the Queen was young and you were a little boy.
+
+For me the shadows of the battle are so grouped round old John Locke
+that the historians, story-tellers, and painters may never quite
+persuade me that he was not the centre and real hero of the action.
+The French cuirassiers in my thought-pictures charge again and again
+vainly against old John; he it is who breaks the New Guard; upon the
+ground that he defends the Emperor's eyes are fixed all day long. It
+is John who occasionally glances at the sky with wonder if Blucher
+has failed them. Upon Shaw the Lifeguardsman, and John, the Duke
+plainly most relies, and the words that Wellington actually speaks
+when the time comes for advance are, "Up, John, and at them!"
+
+How fate drifted the old veteran of Waterloo into our little Canadian
+Lake Erie village I never knew. Drifted him? No; he ever marched as if
+under the orders of his commander. Tall, thin, white-haired,
+close-shaven, and always in knee-breeches and long stockings, his was
+an antique and martial figure. "Fresh white-fish" was his cry, which
+he delivered as if calling all the village to fall in for drill.
+
+So impressive was his demeanor that he dignified his occupation. For
+years after he disappeared, the peddling of white-fish by horse and
+cart was regarded in that district as peculiarly respectacle. It was a
+glorious trade when old John Locke held the steelyards and served out
+the glittering fish with an air of distributing ammunition for a long
+day's combat.
+
+I believe I noticed, on the first day I saw him, how he tapped his
+left breast with a proud gesture when he had done with a lot of
+customers and was about to march again at the head of his horse. That
+restored him from trade to his soldiership--he had saluted his
+Waterloo medal! There beneath his threadbare old blue coat it lay,
+always felt by the heart of the hero.
+
+"Why doesn't he wear it outside?" I once asked.
+
+"He used to," said my father, "till Hiram Beaman, the druggist, asked
+him what he'd 'take for the bit of pewter.'"
+
+"What did old John say, sir?"
+
+"'Take for the bit of pewter!' said he, looking hard at Beaman with
+scorn. 'I've took better men's lives nor ever yours was for to get it,
+and I'd sell my own for it as quick as ever I offered it before.'
+
+"'More fool you,' said Beaman.
+
+"'You're nowt,' said old John, very calm and cold, 'you're nowt but
+walking dirt.' From that day forth he would never sell Beaman a fish;
+he wouldn't touch his money."
+
+It must have been late in 1854 or early in 1855 that I first saw the
+famous medal. Going home from school on a bright winter afternoon, I
+met old John walking very erect, without his usual fish-supply. A dull
+round white spot was clasped on the left breast of his coat.
+
+"Mr. Locke," said the small boy, staring with admiration, "is that
+your glorious Waterloo medal?"
+
+"You're a good little lad!" He stooped to let me see the noble pewter.
+"War's declared against Rooshia, and now it's right to show it. The
+old regiment's sailed, and my only son is with the colors."
+
+Then he took me by the hand and led me into the village store, where
+the lawyer read aloud the news from the paper that the veteran gave
+him. In those days there was no railway within fifty miles of us. It
+had chanced that some fisherman brought old John a later paper than
+any previously received in the village.
+
+"Ay, but the Duke is gone," said he, shaking his white head, "and it's
+curious to be fighting on the same side with another Boney."
+
+All that winter and the next, all the long summer between, old John
+displayed his medal. When the report of Alma came, his remarks on the
+French failure to get into the fight were severe. "What was they
+_ever_, at best, without Boney?" he would inquire. But a letter from
+his son after Inkermann changed all that.
+
+"Half of us was killed, and the rest of us clean tired with fighting,"
+wrote Corporal Locke. "What with a bullet through the flesh of my
+right leg, and the fatigue of using the bayonet so long, I was like to
+drop. The Russians was coming on again as if there was no end to them,
+when strange drums came sounding in the mist behind us. With that we
+closed up and faced half-round, thinking they had outflanked us and
+the day was gone, so there was nothing more to do but make out to die
+hard, like the sons of Waterloo men. You would have been pleased to
+see the looks of what was left of the old regiment, father. Then all
+of a sudden a French column came up the rise out of the mist,
+screaming, '_Vive l'Empereur!_' their drums beating the charge. We
+gave them room, for we were too dead tired to go first. On they went
+like mad at the Russians, so that was the end of a hard morning's
+work. I was down,--fainted with loss of blood,--but I will soon be fit
+for duty again. When I came to myself there was a Frenchman pouring
+brandy down my throat, and talking in his gibberish as kind as any
+Christian. Never a word will I say agin them red-legged French again."
+
+"Show me the man that would!" growled old John. "It was never in them
+French to act cowardly. Didn't they beat all the world, and even stand
+up many's the day agen ourselves and the Duke? They didn't beat,--it
+wouldn't be in reason,--but they tried brave enough, and what more'd
+you ask of mortal men?"
+
+With the ending of the Crimean War our village was illuminated. Rows
+of tallow candles in every window, fireworks in a vacant field, and a
+torchlight procession! Old John marched at its head in full
+regimentals, straight as a ramrod, the hero of the night. His son had
+been promoted for bravery on the field. After John came a dozen gray
+militiamen of Queenston Heights, Lundy's Lane, and Chippewa; next some
+forty volunteers of '37. And we boys of the U. E. Loyalist settlement
+cheered and cheered, thrilled with an intense vague knowledge that the
+old army of Wellington kept ghostly step with John, while aerial
+trumpets and drums pealed and beat with rejoicing at the fresh glory
+of the race and the union of English-speaking men unconsciously
+celebrated and symbolized by the little rustic parade.
+
+After that the old man again wore his medal concealed. The Chinese War
+of 1857 was too contemptible to celebrate by displaying his badge of
+Waterloo.
+
+Then came the dreadful tale of the Sepoy mutiny--Meerut, Delhi,
+Cawnpore! After the tale of Nana Sahib's massacre of women and
+children was read to old John he never smiled, I think. Week after
+week, month after month, as hideous tidings poured steadily in, his
+face became more haggard, gray, and dreadful. The feeling that he was
+too old for use seemed to shame him. He no longer carried his head
+high, as of yore. That his son was not marching behind Havelock with
+the avenging army seemed to cut our veteran sorely. Sergeant Locke had
+sailed with the old regiment to join Outram in Persia before the
+Sepoys broke loose. It was at this time that old John was first heard
+to say, "I'm 'feared something's gone wrong with my heart."
+
+Months went by before we learned that the troops for Persia had been
+stopped on their way and thrown into India against the mutineers. At
+that news old John marched into the village with a prouder air than he
+had worn for many a day. His medal was again on his breast.
+
+It was but the next month, I think, that the village lawyer stood
+reading aloud the account of the capture of a great Sepoy fort. The
+veteran entered the post-office, and all made way for him. The reading
+went on:--
+
+"The blowing open of the Northern Gate was the grandest personal
+exploit of the attack. It was performed by native sappers, covered by
+the fire of two regiments, and headed by Lieutenants Holder and Dacre,
+Sergeants Green, Carmody, Macpherson, and Locke."
+
+The lawyer paused. Every eye turned to the face of the old Waterloo
+soldier. He straightened up to keener attention, threw out his chest,
+and tapped the glorious medal in salute of the names of the brave.
+
+"God be praised, my son was there!" he said. "Read on."
+
+"Sergeant Carmody, while laying the powder, was killed, and the native
+havildar wounded. The powder having been laid, the advance party
+slipped down into the ditch to allow the firing party, under
+Lieutenant Dacre, to do its duty. While trying to fire the charge he
+was shot through one arm and leg. He sank, but handed the match to
+Sergeant Macpherson, who was at once shot dead. Sergeant Locke,
+already wounded severely in the shoulder, then seized the match, and
+succeeded in firing the train. He fell at that moment, literally
+riddled with bullets."
+
+"Read on," said old John, in a deeper voice. All forbore to look twice
+upon his face.
+
+"Others of the party were falling, when the mighty gate was blown to
+fragments, and the waiting regiments of infantry, under Colonel
+Campbell, rushed into the breach."
+
+There was a long silence in the post-office, till old John spoke once
+more.
+
+"The Lord God be thanked for all his dealings with us! My son,
+Sergeant Locke, died well for England, Queen, and Duty."
+
+Nervously fingering the treasure on his breast, the old soldier
+wheeled about, and marched proudly straight down the middle of the
+village street to his lonely cabin.
+
+The villagers never saw him in life again. Next day he did not appear.
+All refrained from intruding on his mourning. But in the evening, when
+the Episcopalian minister heard of his parishioner's loss, he walked
+to old John's home.
+
+There, stretched upon his straw bed, he lay in his antique
+regimentals, stiffer than At Attention, all his medals fastened below
+that of Waterloo above his quiet heart. His right hand lay on an open
+Bible, and his face wore an expression as of looking for ever and ever
+upon Sergeant Locke and the Great Commander who takes back unto Him
+the heroes He fashions to sweeten the world.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN BEDELL, U. E. LOYALIST.[A]
+
+
+"A renegade! A rebel against his king! A black-hearted traitor! You
+dare to tell me that you love George Winthrop! Son of canting, lying
+Ezra Winthrop! By the Eternal, I'll shoot him on sight if he comes
+this side!"
+
+While old John Bedell was speaking, he tore and flung away a letter,
+reached for his long rifle on its pins above the chimney-place, dashed
+its butt angrily to the floor, and poured powder into his palm.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, father! You would not! You could not! The war is
+over. It would be murder!" cried Ruth Bedell, sobbing.
+
+"Wouldn't I?" He poured the powder in. "Yes, by gracious, quicker'n
+I'd kill a rattlesnake!" He placed the round bullet on the little
+square of greased rag at the muzzle of his rifle. "A rank
+traitor--bone and blood of those who drove out loyal men!"--he crowded
+the tight lead home, dashed the ramrod into place, looked to the
+flint. "Rest there,--wake up for George Winthrop!" and the fierce old
+man replaced rifle and powder-horn on their pegs.
+
+Bedell's hatred for the foes who had beaten down King George's cause,
+and imposed the alternative of confiscation or the oath of allegiance
+on the vanquished, was considered intense, even by his brother
+Loyalists of the Niagara frontier.
+
+"The Squire kind o' sees his boys' blood when the sky's red," said
+they in explanation. But Bedell was so much an enthusiast that he
+could almost rejoice because his three stark sons had gained the prize
+of death in battle. He was too brave to hate the fighting-men he had
+so often confronted; but he abhorred the politicians, especially the
+intimate civic enemies on whom he had poured scorn before the armed
+struggle began. More than any he hated Ezra Winthrop, the lawyer,
+arch-revolutionist of their native town, who had never used a weapon
+but his tongue. And now his Ruth, the beloved and only child left to
+his exiled age, had confessed her love for Ezra Winthrop's son! They
+had been boy and girl, pretty maiden and bright stripling together,
+without the Squire suspecting--he could not, even now, conceive
+clearly so wild a thing as their affection! The confession burned in
+his heart like veritable fire,--a raging anguish of mingled loathing
+and love. He stood now gazing at Ruth dumbly, his hands clenched,
+head sometimes mechanically quivering, anger, hate, love, grief,
+tumultuous in his soul.
+
+Ruth glanced up--her father seemed about to speak--she bowed again,
+shuddering as though the coming words might kill. Still there was
+silence,--a long silence. Bedell stood motionless, poised, breathing
+hard--the silence oppressed the girl--each moment her terror
+increased--expectant attention became suffering that demanded his
+voice--and still was silence--save for the dull roar of Niagara that
+more and more pervaded the air. The torture of waiting for the
+words--a curse against her, she feared--overwore Ruth's endurance. She
+looked up suddenly, and John Bedell saw in hers the beloved eyes of
+his dead wife, shrinking with intolerable fear. He groaned heavily,
+flung up his hands despairingly, and strode out toward the river.
+
+How crafty smooth the green Niagara sweeps toward the plunge beneath
+that perpetual white cloud above the Falls! From Bedell's clearing
+below Navy Island, two miles above the Falls, he could see the swaying
+and rolling of the mist, ever rushing up to expand and overhang. The
+terrible stream had a profound fascination for him, with its racing
+eddies eating at the shore; its long weeds, visible through the clear
+water, trailing close down to the bottom; its inexorable, eternal,
+onward pouring. Because it was so mighty and so threatening, he
+rejoiced grimly in the awful river. To float, watching cracks and
+ledges of its flat bottom-rock drift quickly upward; to bend to his
+oars only when white crests of the rapids yelled for his life; to win
+escape by sheer strength from points so low down that he sometimes
+doubted but the greedy forces had been tempted too long; to stake his
+life, watching tree-tops for a sign that he could yet save it, was the
+dreadful pastime by which Bedell often quelled passionate promptings
+to revenge his exile. "The Falls is bound to get the Squire, some
+day," said the banished settlers. But the Squire's skiff was clean
+built as a pickerel, and his old arms iron-strong. Now when he had
+gone forth from the beloved child, who seemed to him so traitorous to
+his love and all loyalty, he went instinctively to spend his rage upon
+the river.
+
+Ruth Bedell, gazing at the loaded rifle, shuddered, not with dread
+only, but a sense of having been treacherous to her father. She had
+not told him all the truth. George Winthrop himself, having made his
+way secretly through the forest from Lake Ontario, had given her his
+own letter asking leave from the Squire to visit his newly made cabin.
+From the moment of arrival her lover had implored her to fly with him.
+But filial love was strong in Ruth to give hope that her father would
+yield to the yet stronger affection freshened in her heart. Believing
+their union might be permitted, she had pledged herself to escape with
+her lover if it were forbidden. Now he waited by the hickory wood for
+a signal to conceal himself or come forward.
+
+When Ruth saw her father far down the river, she stepped to the
+flagstaff he had raised before building the cabin--his first duty
+being to hoist the Union Jack! It was the largest flag he could
+procure; he could see it flying defiantly all day long; at night he
+could hear its glorious folds whipping in the wind; the hot old
+Loyalist loved to fancy his foeman cursing at it from the other side,
+nearly three miles away. Ruth hauled the flag down a little, then ran
+it up to the mast-head again.
+
+At that, a tall young fellow came springing into the clearing, jumping
+exultantly over brush-heaps and tree-trunks, his queue waggling, his
+eyes bright, glad, under his three-cornered hat. Joying that her
+father had yielded, he ran forward till he saw Ruth's tears.
+
+"What, sweetheart!--crying? It was the signal to come on," cried he.
+
+"Yes; to see you sooner, George. Father is out yonder. But no, he
+will never, never consent."
+
+"Then you will come with me, love," he said, taking her hands.
+
+"No, no; I dare not," sobbed Ruth. "Father would overtake us. He
+swears to shoot you on sight! Go, George! Escape while you can! Oh, if
+he should find you here!"
+
+"But, darling love, we need not fear. We can escape easily. I know the
+forest path. But--" Then he thought how weak her pace.
+
+"We might cross here before he could come up!" cried Winthrop, looking
+toward where the Squire's boat was now a distant blotch.
+
+"No, no," wailed Ruth, yet yielding to his embrace. "This is the last
+time I shall see you forever and forever. Go, dear,--good-bye, my
+love, my love."
+
+But he clasped her in his strong arms, kissing, imploring, cheering
+her,--and how should true love choose hopeless renunciation?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tempting, defying, regaining his lost ground, drifting down again,
+trying hard to tire out and subdue his heart-pangs, Bedell dallied
+with death more closely than ever. He had let his skiff drift far down
+toward the Falls. Often he could see the wide smooth curve where the
+green volume first lapses vastly on a lazy slope, to shoulder up below
+as a huge calm billow, before pitching into the madness of waves whose
+confusion of tossing and tortured crests hurries to the abyss. The
+afternoon grew toward evening before he pulled steadily home, crawling
+away from the roarers against the cruel green, watching the ominous
+cloud with some such grim humor as if under observation by an
+overpowering but baffled enemy.
+
+Approaching his landing, a shout drew Bedell's glance ashore to a
+group of men excitedly gesticulating. They seemed motioning him to
+watch the American shore. Turning, he saw a boat in midstream, where
+no craft then on the river, except his own skiff, could be safe,
+unless manned by several good men. Only two oars were flashing.
+Bedell could make out two figures indistinctly. It was clear they were
+doomed,--though still a full mile above the point whence he had come,
+they were much farther out than he when near the rapids. Yet one life
+might be saved! Instantly Bedell's bow turned outward, and cheers
+flung to him from ashore.
+
+At that moment he looked to his own landing-place, and saw that his
+larger boat was gone. Turning again, he angrily recognized it, but
+kept right on--he must try to rescue even a thief. He wondered Ruth
+had not prevented the theft, but had no suspicion of the truth. Always
+he had refused to let her go out upon the river--mortally fearing it
+for _her_.
+
+Thrusting his skiff mightily forward,--often it glanced, half-whirled
+by up-whelming and spreading spaces of water,--the old Loyalist's
+heart was quit of his pangs, and sore only with certainty that he must
+abandon one human soul to death. By the time that he could reach the
+larger boat his would be too near the rapids for escape with three!
+
+When George Winthrop saw Bedell in pursuit, he bent to his ash-blades
+more strongly, and Ruth, trembling to remember her father's threats,
+urged her lover to speed. They feared the pursuer only, quite
+unconscious that they were in the remorseless grasp of the river. Ruth
+had so often seen her father far lower down than they had yet drifted
+that she did not realize the truth, and George, a stranger in the
+Niagara district, was unaware of the length of the cataracts above the
+Falls. He was also deceived by the stream's treacherous smoothness,
+and instead of half-upward, pulled straight across, as if certainly
+able to land anywhere he might touch the American shore.
+
+Bedell looked over his shoulder often. When he distinguished a woman,
+he put on more force, but slackened soon--the pull home would tax his
+endurance, he reflected. In some sort it was a relief to know that
+one _was_ a woman; he had been anticipating trouble with two men
+equally bent on being saved. That the man would abandon himself
+bravely, the Squire took as a matter of course. For a while he thought
+of pulling with the woman to the American shore, more easily to be
+gained from the point where the rescue must occur. But he rejected the
+plan, confident he could win back, for he had sworn never to set foot
+on that soil unless in war. Had it been possible to save both, he
+would have been forced to disregard that vow; but the Squire knew that
+it was impossible for him to reach the New York Shore with two
+passengers--two would overload his boat beyond escape. Man or
+woman--one must go over the Falls.
+
+Having carefully studied landmarks for his position, Bedell turned to
+look again at the doomed boat, and a well-known ribbon caught his
+attention! The old man dropped his oars, confused with horror. "My
+God, my God! it's Ruth!" he cried, and the whole truth came with
+another look, for he had not forgotten George Winthrop.
+
+"Your father stops, Ruth. Perhaps he is in pain," said George to the
+quaking girl.
+
+She looked back. "What can it be?" she cried, filial love returning
+overmasteringly.
+
+"Perhaps he is only tired." George affected carelessness,--his first
+wish was to secure his bride,--and pulled hard away to get all
+advantage from Bedell's halt.
+
+"Tired! He is in danger of the Falls, then!" screamed Ruth. "Stop!
+Turn! Back to him!"
+
+Winthrop instantly prepared to obey. "Yes, darling," he said, "we must
+not think of ourselves. We must go back to save him!" Yet his was a
+sore groan at turning; what Duty ordered was so hard,--he must give up
+his love for the sake of his enemy.
+
+But while Winthrop was still pulling round, the old Loyalist resumed
+rowing, with a more rapid stroke that soon brought him alongside.
+
+In those moments of waiting, all Bedell's life, his personal hatreds,
+his loves, his sorrows, had been reviewed before his soul. He had seen
+again his sons, the slain in battle, in the pride of their young
+might; and the gentle eyes of Ruth had pleaded with him beneath his
+dead wife's brow. Into those beloved, unforgotten, visionary eyes he
+looked with an encouraging, strengthening gaze,--now that the deed to
+be done was as clear before him as the face of Almighty God. In
+accepting it the darker passions that had swayed his stormy life fell
+suddenly away from their hold on his soul. How trivial had been old
+disputes! how good at heart old well-known civic enemies! how poor
+seemed hate! how mean and poor seemed all but Love and Loyalty!
+
+Resolution and deep peace had come upon the man.
+
+The lovers wondered at his look. No wrath was there. The old eyes were
+calm and cheerful, a gentle smile flickered about his lips. Only that
+he was very pale, Ruth would have been wholly glad for the happy
+change.
+
+"Forgive me, father," she cried, as he laid hand on their boat.
+
+"I do, my child," he answered. "Come now without an instant's delay to
+me."
+
+"Oh, father, if you would let us be happy!" cried Ruth, heart-torn by
+two loves.
+
+"Dear, you shall be happy. I was wrong, child; I did not understand
+how you loved him. But come! You hesitate! Winthrop, my son, you are
+in some danger. Into this boat instantly! both of you! Take the oars,
+George. Kiss me, dear, my Ruth, once more. Good-bye, my little girl.
+Winthrop, be good to her. And may God bless you both forever!"
+
+As the old Squire spoke, he stepped into the larger boat, instantly
+releasing the skiff. His imperative gentleness had secured his object
+without loss of time, and the boats were apart with Winthrop's
+readiness to pull.
+
+"Now row! Row for her life to yonder shore! Bow well up! Away, or the
+Falls will have her!" shouted Bedell.
+
+"But you!" cried Winthrop, bending for his stroke. Yet he did not
+comprehend Bedell's meaning. Till the last the old man had spoken
+without strong excitement. Dread of the river was not on George; his
+bliss was supreme in his thought, and he took the Squire's order for
+one of exaggerated alarm.
+
+"Row, I say, with all your strength!" cried Bedell, with a flash of
+anger that sent the young fellow away instantly. "Row! Concern
+yourself not for me. I am going home. Row! for her life, Winthrop! God
+will deliver you yet. Good-bye, children. Remember always my blessing
+is freely given you."
+
+"God bless and keep you forever, father!" cried Ruth, from the
+distance, as her lover pulled away.
+
+They landed, conscious of having passed a swift current, indeed, but
+quite unthinking of the price paid for their safety. Looking back on
+the darkling river, they saw nothing of the old man.
+
+"Poor father!" sighed Ruth, "how kind he was! I'm sore-hearted for
+thinking of him at home, so lonely."
+
+Left alone in the clumsy boat, Bedell stretched with the long, heavy
+oars for his own shore, making appearance of strong exertion. But when
+he no longer feared that his children might turn back with sudden
+understanding, and vainly, to his aid, he dragged the boat slowly,
+watching her swift drift down--down toward the towering mist. Then as
+he gazed at the cloud, rising in two distinct volumes, came a thought
+spurring the Loyalist spirit in an instant. He was not yet out of
+American water! Thereafter he pulled steadily, powerfully, noting
+landmarks anxiously, studying currents, considering always their trend
+to or from his own shore. Half an hour had gone when he again dropped
+into slower motion. Then he could see Goat Island's upper end between
+him and the mist of the American Fall.
+
+Now the old man gave himself up to intense curiosity, looking over
+into the water with fascinated inquiry. He had never been so far down
+the river. Darting beside their shadows, deep in the clear flood, were
+now larger fishes than he had ever taken, and all moved up as if
+hurrying to escape. How fast the long trailing, swaying, single weeds,
+and the crevices in flat rock whence they so strangely grew, went up
+stream and away as if drawn backward. The sameness of the bottom to
+that higher up interested him--where then _did_ the current begin to
+sweep clean? He should certainly know that soon, he thought, without a
+touch of fear, having utterly accepted death when he determined it
+were base to carry his weary old life a little longer, and let Ruth's
+young love die. Now the Falls' heavy monotone was overborne by
+terrible sounds--a mingled clashing, shrieking, groaning, and
+rumbling, as of great bowlders churned in their beds.
+
+Bedell was nearing the first long swoop downward at the rapids' head
+when those watching him from the high bank below the Chippewa River's
+mouth saw him put his boat stern with the current and cease rowing
+entirely, facing fairly the up-rushing mist to which he was being
+hurried. Then they observed him stooping, as if writing, for a time.
+Something flashed in his hands, and then he knelt with head bowed
+down. Kneeling, they prayed, too.
+
+Now he was almost on the brink of the cascades. Then he arose, and,
+glancing backward to his home, caught sight of his friends on the high
+shore. Calmly he waved a farewell. What then? Thrice round he flung
+his hat, with a gesture they knew full well. Some had seen that
+exultant waving in front of ranks of battle. As clearly as though the
+roar of waters had not drowned his ringing voice, they knew that old
+John Bedell, at the poise of death, cheered thrice, "Hurrah! Hurrah!
+Hurrah for the King!"
+
+They found his body a week afterward, floating with the heaving water
+in the gorge below the Falls. Though beaten almost out of recognition,
+portions of clothing still adhered to it, and in a waistcoat pocket
+they found the old Loyalist's metal snuff-box, with this inscription
+scratched by knife-point on the cover: "God be praised, I die in
+British waters! JOHN BEDELL."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote A: The United Empire Loyalists were American Tories who
+forsook their homes and property after the Revolution in order to live
+in Canada under the British Flag. It is impossible to understand
+Canadian feeling for the Crown at the present day without
+understanding the U. E. Loyalist spirit, which, though Canadians are
+not now unfriendly to the United States, is still the most important
+political force in the Dominion, and holds it firmly in allegiance to
+the Queen.]
+
+
+
+
+VERBITZSKY'S STRATAGEM.
+
+
+What had Alexander Verbitzsky and I done that the secret service of
+our father, the Czar, should dog us for five months, and in the end
+drive us to Siberia, whence we have, by the goodness of God, escaped
+from Holy Russia, our mother? They called us Nihilists--as if all
+Nihilists were of one way of thinking!
+
+We did not belong to the Terrorists,--the section that believes in
+killing the tyrant or his agents in hope that the hearts of the mighty
+may be shaken as Pharaoh's was in Egypt long ago. No; we were two
+students of nineteen years old, belonging to the section of
+"peasantists," or of Peaceful Education. Its members solemnly devote
+all their lives to teaching the poor people to read, think, save,
+avoid _vodka_, and seek quietly for such liberty with order as here in
+America all enjoy. Was that work a crime in Verbitzsky and me?
+
+Was it a crime for us to steal to the freight-shed of the Moscow and
+St. Petersburg Railway that night in December two years ago? We sat in
+the superintendent's dark office, and talked to the eight trainmen
+that were brought in by the guard of the eastern gate, who had
+belonged to all the sections, but was no longer "active."
+
+We were there to prevent a crime. At the risk of our lives, we two
+went to save the Czar of all the Russias, though well we knew that
+Dmitry Nolenki, chief of the secret police, had offered a reward on
+our capture.
+
+Boris Kojukhov and the other seven trainmen who came with him had been
+chosen, with ten others who were not Nihilists, to operate the train
+that was to bear His Imperial Majesty next day to St. Petersburg. Now
+Boris was one of the Section of Terror, and most terrible was his
+scheme. Kojukhov was not really his name I may tell you. Little did
+the Czar's railway agents suspect that Boris was a noble, and brother
+to the gentle girl that had been sent to Siberia. No wonder the heart
+of Boris was hot and his brain partly crazed when he learned of Zina's
+death in the starvation strike at the Olek Mines.
+
+Verbitzsky was cousin to Zina and Boris, and as his young head was a
+wise one, Boris wished to consult him. We both went, hoping to
+persuade him out of the crime he meditated.
+
+"No," said Boris, "my mind is made up. I may never have such another
+chance. I will fling these two bombs under the foremost car at the
+middle of the Volga Bridge. The tyrant and his staff shall all plunge
+with us down to death in the river."
+
+"The bombs--have you them here?" asked Verbitzsky in the dark.
+
+"I have them in my hands," said Boris, tapping them lightly together.
+"I have carried them in my inner clothing for a week. They give me
+warmth at my heart as I think how they shall free Holy Russia."
+
+There was a stir of dismay in the dark office. The comrades, though
+willing to risk death at the Volga Bridge, were horrified by
+Kojukhov's tapping of the iron bombs together, and all rose in fear of
+their explosion, all except Verbitzsky and me.
+
+"For God's sake, be more careful, Boris!" said my friend.
+
+"Oh, you're afraid, too?" said Kojukhov. "Pah! you cowards of the
+Peace Section!" He tapped the bombs together again.
+
+"I _am_ afraid," said Verbitzsky. "Why should I die for your reckless
+folly? Will any good happen if you explode the bombs here? You will
+but destroy all of us, and our friends the watchmen, and the
+freight-sheds containing the property of many worthy people."
+
+"You are a fool, Verbitzsky!" said his cousin. "Come here. Whisper."
+
+Something Boris then whispered in my comrade's ear. When Verbitzsky
+spoke again his voice seemed calmer.
+
+"Let me feel the shape," he said.
+
+"Here," said Boris, as if handing something to Verbitzsky.
+
+At that moment the outer door of the freight-shed resounded with a
+heavy blow. The next blow, as from a heavy maul, pounded the door
+open.
+
+"The police!" shouted Boris. "They must have dogged you, Alexander,
+for they don't suspect me." He dashed out of the dark office into the
+great dark shed.
+
+As we all ran forth, glancing at the main door about seventy feet
+distant, we saw a squad of police outlined against the moonlit sky
+beyond the great open space of railway yard. My eyes were dazzled by a
+headlight that one of them carried. By that lamp they must have seen
+us clearly; for as we started to run away down the long shed they
+opened fire, and I stumbled over Boris Kojukhov, as he fell with a
+shriek.
+
+Rising, I dodged aside, thinking to avoid bullets, and then dashed
+against a bale of wool, one of a long row. Clambering over it, I
+dropped beside a man crouching on the other side.
+
+"Michael, is it you?" whispered Verbitzsky.
+
+"Yes. We're lost, of course?"
+
+"No. Keep still. Let them pass."
+
+The police ran past us down the middle aisle left between high walls
+of wool bales. They did not notice the narrow side lane in which we
+were crouching.
+
+"Come. I know a way out," said Verbitzsky. "I was all over here this
+morning, looking round, in case we should be surprised to-night."
+
+"What's this?" I whispered, groping, and touching something in his
+hand.
+
+"Kojukhov's bombs. I have them both. Come. Ah, poor Boris, he's with
+Zina now!"
+
+The bomb was a section of iron pipe about two inches in diameter and
+eighteen inches long. Its ends were closed with iron caps. Filled
+with nitroglycerine, such pipes are terrible shells, which explode by
+concussion. I was amazed to think of the recklessness of Boris in
+tapping them together.
+
+"Put them down, Verbitzsky!" I whispered, as we groped our way between
+high walls of bales.
+
+"No, no, they're weapons!" he whispered. "We may need them."
+
+"Then for the love of the saints, be careful!"
+
+"Don't be afraid," he said, as we neared a small side door.
+
+Meantime, we heard the police run after the Terrorists, who brought up
+against the great door at the south end. As they tore away the bar and
+opened the door they shouted with dismay. They had been confronted by
+another squad of police! For a few moments a confusion of sounds came
+to us, all somewhat muffled by passing up and over the high walls of
+baled wool.
+
+"Boris! Where are you?" cried one.
+
+"He's killed!" cried another.
+
+"Oh, if we had the bombs!"
+
+"He gave them to Verbitzsky."
+
+"Verbitzsky, where are you? Throw them! Let us all die together!"
+
+"Yes, it's death to be taken!"
+
+Then we heard shots, blows, and shrieks, all in confusion. After a
+little there was clatter of grounded arms, and then no sound but the
+heavy breathing of men who had been struggling hard. That silence was
+a bad thing for Verbitzsky and me, because the police heard the
+opening of the small side door through which Alexander next moment
+led. In a moment we dashed out into the clear night, over the tracks,
+toward the Petrovsky Gardens.
+
+As we reached the railway yard the police ran round their end of the
+wool-shed in pursuit--ten of them. The others stayed with the
+prisoners.
+
+"Don't fire! Don't shoot!" cried a voice we knew well,--the voice of
+Dmitry Nolenki, chief of the secret police.
+
+"One of them is Verbitzsky!" he cried to his men. "The conspirator
+I've been after for four months. A hundred roubles for him who first
+seizes him! He must be taken alive!"
+
+That offer, I suppose, was what pushed them to such eagerness that
+they all soon felt themselves at our mercy. And that offer was what
+caused them to follow so silently, lest other police should overhear a
+tumult and run to head us off.
+
+Verbitzsky, though encumbered by the bombs, kept the lead, for he was
+a very swift runner. I followed close at his heels. We could hear
+nothing in the great walled-in railway yard except the clack of feet
+on gravel, and sometimes on the network of steel tracks that shone
+silvery as the hard snow under the round moon.
+
+My comrade ran like a man who knows exactly where he means to go.
+Indeed, he had already determined to follow a plan that had long
+before occurred to him. It was a vision of what one or two desperate
+men with bombs might do at close quarters against a number with
+pistols.
+
+As Verbitzsky approached the south end of the yard, which is excavated
+deeply and walled in from the surrounding streets, he turned, to my
+amazement, away from the line that led into the suburbs, and ran along
+four tracks that led under a street bridge.
+
+This bridge was fully thirty feet overhead, and flanked by wings of
+masonry. The four tracks led into a small yard, almost surrounded by
+high stone warehouses; a yard devoted solely to turn-tables for
+locomotives. There was no exit from it except under the bridge that we
+passed beneath.
+
+"Good!" we heard Nolenki cry, fifty yards behind. "We have them now in
+a trap!"
+
+At that, Verbitzsky, still in the moonlight, slackened speed,
+half-turned as if in hesitation, then ran on more slowly, with zigzag
+steps, as if desperately looking for a way out. But he said to me in a
+low, panting voice:--
+
+"We shall escape. Do exactly as I do."
+
+When the police were not fifty feet behind us, Verbitzsky jumped down
+about seven feet into a wide pit. I jumped to his side. We were now
+standing in the walled-in excavation for a new locomotive turn-table.
+This pit was still free from its machinery and platform.
+
+"We are done now!" I said, staring around as Verbitzsky stopped in the
+middle of the circular pit, which was some forty feet wide.
+
+Just as the police came crowding to the edge, Verbitzsky fell on his
+knees as if in surrender. In their eagerness to lay first hands, on
+him, all the police jumped down except the chief, Dmitry Nolenki. Some
+fell. As those who kept their feet rushed toward us, Verbitzsky sprang
+up and ran to the opposite wall, with me at his heels.
+
+Three seconds later the foremost police were within fifteen feet of
+us. Then Verbitzsky raised his terrible bombs.
+
+From high above the roofs of the warehouses the full moon so clearly
+illuminated the yard that we could see every button on our
+assailants' coats, and even the puffs of fat Nolenki's breath. He
+stood panting on the opposite wall of the excavation.
+
+"Halt, or die!" cried Verbitzsky, in a terrible voice.
+
+The bombs were clearly to be seen in his hands. Every policeman in
+Moscow knew of the destruction done, only six days before, by just
+such weapons. The foremost men halted instantly. The impetus of those
+behind brought all together in a bunch--nine expectants of instant
+death. Verbitzsky spoke again:--
+
+"If any man moves hand or foot, I'll throw these," he cried. "Listen!"
+
+"Why, you fool," said Nolenki, a rather slow-witted man, "you can't
+escape. Surrender instantly."
+
+He drew his revolver and pointed it at us.
+
+"Michael," said Verbitzsky to me, in that steely voice which I had
+never before heard from my gentle comrade; "Michael, Nolenki can
+shoot but one of us before he dies. Take this bomb. Now if he hits me
+you throw your bomb at him. If he hits you I will throw mine."
+
+"Infernal villains!" gasped the chief; but we could see his pistol
+wavering.
+
+"Michael," resumed Verbitzsky, "we will give Nolenki a chance for his
+life. Obey me exactly! Listen! If Dmitry Nolenki does not jump down
+into this pit before I say five, throw your bomb straight at him! I
+will, at the moment I say five, throw mine at these rascals."
+
+"Madman!" cried Nolenki. "Do you think to--"
+
+He stopped as if paralyzed. I suppose he had suddenly understood that
+the explosion of a bomb in that small, high-walled yard would kill
+every man in it.
+
+"One!" cried Verbitzsky.
+
+"But I may not hit him!" said I.
+
+"No matter. If it explodes within thirty feet of him he will move no
+more."
+
+I took one step forward and raised the bomb. Did I mean to throw it? I
+do not know. I think not. But I knew we must make the threat or be
+captured and hung. And I felt certain that the bomb would be exploded
+anyway when Verbitzsky should say "Five." He would then throw his, and
+mine would explode by the concussion.
+
+"Two!" said Verbitzsky.
+
+Dmitry Nolenki had lowered his pistol. He glanced behind him uneasily.
+
+"If he runs, throw it!" said Verbitzsky, loudly. "THREE!"
+
+The chief of the Moscow secret police was reputed a brave man, but he
+was only a cruel one. Now his knees trembled so that we could see them
+shake, and his teeth chattered in the still cold night. Verbitzsky
+told me afterward that he feared the man's slow brain had become so
+paralyzed by fright that he might not be able to think and obey and
+jump down. That would have placed my comrade and me in a dreadful
+dilemma, but quite a different one from what you may suppose.
+
+As if to make Nolenki reflect, Verbitzsky spoke more slowly:--
+
+"If Dmitry Nolenki jumps down into this pit _before_ I say five, do
+_not_ throw the bomb at him. You understand, Michael, do not throw if
+he jumps down instantly. FOUR!"
+
+Nolenki's legs were so weak that he could not walk to the edge. In
+trying to do so he stumbled, fell, crawled, and came in head first, a
+mere heap.
+
+"Wise Nolenki!" said my comrade, with a laugh. Then in his tone of
+desperate resolution, "Nolenki, get down on your hands and knees, and
+put your head against that wall. Don't move now--if you wish to live."
+
+"Now, men," he cried to the others in military fashion, "right about,
+face!"
+
+They hesitated, perhaps fearful that he would throw at them when they
+turned.
+
+"About! instantly!" he cried. They all turned.
+
+"Now, men, you see your chief. At the word 'March,' go and kneel in a
+row beside him, your heads against that wall. Hump your backs as high
+as you can. If any man moves to get out, all will suffer together. You
+understand?"
+
+"Yes! yes! yes!" came in an agony of abasement from their lips.
+
+"March!"
+
+When they were all kneeling in a row, Verbitzsky said to me clearly:--
+
+"Michael, you can easily get to the top of that wall from any one of
+their backs. No man will dare to move. Go! Wait on the edge! Take your
+bomb with you!"
+
+I obeyed. I stood on a man's back. I laid my bomb with utmost care on
+the wall, over which I could then see. Then I easily lifted myself out
+by my hands and elbows.
+
+"Good!" said Verbitzsky. "Now, Michael, stand there till I come. If
+they try to seize me, throw your bomb. We can all die together."
+
+In half a minute he had stepped on Nolenki's back. Nolenki groaned
+with abasement. Next moment Verbitzsky was beside me.
+
+"Give me your bomb. Now, Michael," he said loudly, "I will stand guard
+over these wretches till I see you beyond the freight-sheds. Walk at
+an ordinary pace, lest you be seen and suspected."
+
+"But you? They'll rise and fire at you as you run," I said.
+
+"Of course they will. But you will escape. Here! Good-bye!"
+
+He embraced me, and whispered in my ear:
+
+"Go the opposite way from the freight-sheds. Go out toward the
+Petrovsky Gardens. There are few police there. Run hard after you've
+walked out under the bridge and around the abutments. You will then be
+out of hearing."
+
+"Go, dear friend," he said aloud, in a mournful voice. "I may never
+see you again. Possibly I may have to destroy myself and all here.
+Go!"
+
+I obeyed precisely, and had not fairly reached the yard's end when
+Verbitzsky, running very silently, came up beside me.
+
+"I think they must be still fancying that I'm standing over them," he
+chuckled. "No, they are shooting! Now, out they come!"
+
+From where we now stood in shadow we could see Nolenki and his men
+rush furiously out from under the bridge. They ran away from us toward
+the freight-sheds, shouting the alarm, while we calmly walked home to
+our unsuspected lodgings.
+
+Not till then did I think of the bombs.
+
+"Where are they?" I asked in alarm.
+
+"I left them for the police. They will ruin Nolenki--it was he who
+sent poor Zina to Siberia and her death."
+
+"Ruin him?" I said, wondering.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"They were not loaded."
+
+"Not loaded!"
+
+"That's what Boris whispered to me in the wool-shed office. He meant
+to load them to-morrow before going to His Imperial Majesty's train.
+Nolenki will be laughed to death in Moscow, if not sent to Siberia."
+
+Verbitzsky was right. Nolenki, after being laughed nearly to death,
+was sent to Siberia in disgrace, and we both worked in the same gang
+with him for eight months before we escaped from the Ural Mines. No
+doubt he is working there yet.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+_JUST ISSUED_....
+
+=ETCHINGS=
+FROM A
+=PARSONAGE VERANDA=
+BY
+MRS. E. JEFFERS GRAHAM
+Illustrated by J. W. BENGOUGH
+
+=CLOTH,--$1.00=
+
+=Contents=: THE PARSONAGE--SOLOMON WISEACRE--TWO WOMEN--MARION
+FULLER--JACOB WHINELY--CARLO--A PENSIONER--MRS TAFFETY--THE KNIGHT AND
+THE DOVE--A CROSS--UNDER A CLOUD--JOY IN THE MORNING--A SUPPLY--ONLY A
+CHILD--MISS PRIMPERTY--A TEMPERANCE MEETING--A DINNER PARTY--AU
+REVOIR--PARTING.
+
+The following words from the closing sketch of this charming book are
+representative of the spirit and style of the whole: "The moon is
+shining in calm majesty. Her children, the stars, are laughing and
+twinkling around her. Earth's children are sleeping, carousing and
+suffering. I am writing in the moonlight. I am so glad we have lived
+here--so happy that we have known all these good, heroic, sweet
+characters. We need not read novels to find heroes. They are living
+all around us. We are talking to them every day. They pass us on the
+street, they sit by us in the church and hall. There is no historian
+to write of them, only a book of remembrance in heaven, where all
+their good deeds are recorded."
+
+Smiles and tears alternate as the delicate humor and tender pathos
+succeed each other through these delightful character sketches. We do
+not hope for popularity for the book--we are _sure of it_.
+
+
+For Sale by all Booksellers
+
+WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher
+29-33 Richmond Street West, TORONTO
+Montreal: C. W. COATES.       Halifax: S. F. HUESTIS.
+
+
+
+
+_TWO NEW BOOKS_
+
+=Forest, Lake AND Prairie=
+
+_TWENTY YEARS OF FRONTIER LIFE IN WESTERN CANADA, 1842-1862._
+
+BY
+
+=REV. JOHN McDOUGALL=
+
+_With Twenty-seven Full-page Original Illustrations by J. E.
+LAUGHLIN._
+
+Strongly bound in English Cloth, with handsome original design in ink
+and gold.
+
+=PRICE,--$1.00=
+
+
+A Companion Book to "Black Beauty."
+
+LION, THE MASTIFF
+
+=FROM LIFE=
+
+By A. G. SAVIGNY
+
+With Introduction by REV. PRINCIPAL CAVEN, D.D.
+
+=CLOTH, 50 CENTS NET=
+
+An ingenious and clever humane story in which "Lion" tells the
+narrative of his life, to quote Principal Caven, "with more vivacity
+than some famous men have exemplified in memoirs of themselves." It
+should be in the hands of every boy and girl in Canada. The author has
+woven into her story a great deal of useful information to guide us in
+our treatment of dumb animals.
+
+WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher
+Wesley Buildings, Toronto
+Montreal: C. W. COATES.          Halifax: S. F. HUESTIS.
+
+
+
+
+=SOME RECENT ISSUES.=
+
+=A Veteran of 1812.= By Mary Agnes FitzGibbon               $1.00
+
+=Cape Breton, Historic, Picturesque and Descriptive.=
+By John M. Gow                                               3.00
+
+=Birds of Ontario.= By Thomas McIlwraith                     2.00
+
+=Pearls and Pebbles; or, Notes of an Old Naturalist.=
+By Mrs. Catharine Parr Traill. With Biographical
+Sketch by Mary Agnes FitzGibbon                              1.50
+
+=The Life and Times of Major-General Sir Isaac
+Brock.= By D. B. Read, Q.C.                                  1.50
+
+=The History of British Columbia.= From its Earliest
+Discovery to the Present Time. By Alexander Begg.            3.00
+
+=China and its People.= By W. H. Withrow, D.D.               1.00
+
+=The Native Races of North America.= By W. H.
+Withrow, D.D.                                                0.75
+
+=Japan, the Land of the Morning.= By Rev. J. W.
+Saunby, B.A.                                                 1.00
+
+=Motley: Verses Grave and Gay.= By J. W. Bengough.
+Illustrated by the Author                                    1.00
+
+=Forest, Lake and Prairie=: Twenty Years of Frontier
+Life in Western Canada--1842-62. By Rev. John McDougall      1.00
+
+=The Catholic Church in the Niagara Peninsula.= By
+Rev. Dean Harris                                             2.00
+
+=Etchings from a Parsonage Veranda.= By Mrs. E.
+Jeffers Graham. Illustrated by J. W. Bengough                1.00
+
+=Lion the Mastiff.= By A. G. Savigny                         0.50
+
+=The Red, Red Wine.= By J. Jackson Wray. Illustrated.        1.00
+
+WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher,
+29-33 Richmond St. West, Toronto.
+MONTREAL: C. W. COATES.   HALIFAX: S. F. HUESTIS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Pg. 241: Respectacle is possibly a typo for respectable, or the
+author's coined word combining respectable and spectacle.
+(... cart was regarded in that district as peculiarly respectacle.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Man Savarin and Other Stories, by 
+Edward Wilson Thomson
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD MAN SAVARIN AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
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+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Old Man Savarin and Other Stories, by Edward William Thomson
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
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+
+    body{margin-left: 10%;
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+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Man Savarin and Other Stories, by 
+Edward William Thomson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Old Man Savarin and Other Stories
+
+Author: Edward William Thomson
+
+Release Date: January 12, 2007 [EBook #20345]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD MAN SAVARIN AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Diane Monico, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
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+Historical Microreproductions (www.canadiana.org).)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h3>OFF-HAND STORIES</h3>
+
+
+<h1><span class="smcap">Old Man Savarin</span></h1>
+
+<h2>And Other Stories<br /><br /><br /></h2>
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h2>EDWARD WILLIAM THOMSON<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></h2>
+
+
+<h5>TORONTO:</h5>
+
+<h5>WILLIAM BRIGGS, WESLEY BUILDINGS.</h5>
+
+<p class="center">C. W. COATES, <span class="smcap">Montreal, Que</span>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;      S. F. HUESTIS, <span class="smcap">Halifax</span>, N.S.</p>
+
+<h5>1895.</h5>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>Entered, according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year
+one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five, by <span class="smcap">William Briggs</span>, Toronto,
+in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture, at Ottawa.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="toc">
+<tr><td align='right'></td><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Old Man Savarin</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Privilege of the Limits</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">McGrath's Bad Night</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Great Godfrey's Lament</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Red-headed Windego</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Shining Cross of Rigaud</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Little Baptiste</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Ride by Night</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_152">152</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>IX.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Drafted</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>X.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Turkey Apiece</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Grandpapa's Wolf Story</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Waterloo Veteran</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_239">239</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIII.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">John Bedell</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_251">251</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>XIV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Verbitzsky's Stratagem</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><i>For liberty to issue these stories in present
+form the author has to thank</i> <span class="smcap">The Youths'
+Companion</span>, <i>Boston; the proprietors of "Two
+Tales," in which "Old Man Savarin" and "Great
+Godfrey's Lament" first appeared; and "Harper's
+Weekly" and Mr. S. S. McClure's syndicate of
+newspapers, which, respectively, first published
+"The Privilege of the Limits" and "John Bedell"</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="OLD_MAN_SAVARIN" id="OLD_MAN_SAVARIN"></a>OLD MAN SAVARIN.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Old Ma'ame Paradis had caught seventeen
+small dor&eacute;, four suckers, and eleven
+channel-catfish before she used up all the
+worms in her tomato-can. Therefore she was
+in a cheerful and loquacious humor when I
+came along and offered her some of my bait.</p>
+
+<p>"Merci; non, M'sieu. Dat's 'nuff fishin'
+for me. I got too old now for fish too much.
+You like me make you present of six or seven
+dor&eacute;? Yes? All right. Then you make me
+present of one quarter dollar."</p>
+
+<p>When this transaction was completed, the
+old lady got out her short black clay pipe,
+and filled it with <i>tabac blanc</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Ver' good smell for scare mosquitoes," said
+she. "Sit down, M'sieu. For sure I like to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+be here, me, for see the river when she's like
+this."</p>
+
+<p>Indeed the scene was more than picturesque.
+Her fishing-platform extended twenty feet from
+the rocky shore of the great Rataplan Rapid
+of the Ottawa, which, beginning to tumble a
+mile to the westward, poured a roaring torrent
+half a mile wide into the broader, calm brown
+reach below. Noble elms towered on the
+shores. Between their trunks we could see
+many whitewashed cabins, whose doors of blue
+or green or red scarcely disclosed their colors
+in that light.</p>
+
+<p>The sinking sun, which already touched the
+river, seemed somehow the source of the vast
+stream that flowed radiantly from its blaze.
+Through the glamour of the evening mist and
+the maze of June flies we could see a dozen
+men scooping for fish from platforms like that
+of Ma'ame Paradis.</p>
+
+<p>Each scooper lifted a great hoop-net set on
+a handle some fifteen feet long, threw it easily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+up stream, and swept it on edge with the current
+to the full length of his reach. Then it
+was drawn out and at once thrown upward
+again, if no capture had been made. In case
+he had taken fish, he came to the inshore edge
+of his platform, and upset the net's contents into
+a pool separated from the main rapid by an
+improvised wall of stones.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm too old for scoop some now," said
+Ma'ame Paradis, with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"You were never strong enough to scoop,
+surely," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"No, eh? All right, M'sieu. Then you
+hain't nev' hear 'bout the time Old Man Savarin
+was catched up with. No, eh? Well, I'll
+tol' you 'bout that." And this was her story
+as she told it to me.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Der was fun dose time. Nobody ain't nev'
+catch up with dat old rascal ony other time
+since I'll know him first. Me, I'll be only fifteen
+den. Dat's long time 'go, eh? Well,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+for sure, I ain't so old like what I'll look.
+But Old Man Savarin was old already. He's
+old, old, old, when he's only thirty; an' <i>mean</i>&mdash;<i>bapt&ecirc;me!</i>
+If de old Nick ain' got de hottest
+place for dat old stingy&mdash;yes, for sure!</p>
+
+<p>"You'll see up dere where Frawce Seguin
+is scoop? Dat's the Laroque platform by
+right. Me, I was a Laroque. My fader was
+use for scoop dere, an' my gran'fader&mdash;the
+Laroques scoop dere all de time since ever
+dere was some Rapid Rataplan. Den Old Man
+Savarin he's buyed the land up dere from Felix
+Ladoucier, an' he's told my fader, 'You can't
+scoop no more wisout you pay me rent.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Rent!' my fader say. '<i>Saprie!</i> Dat's
+my fader's platform for scoop fish! You ask
+anybody.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, I'll know all 'bout dat,' Old Man
+Savarin is say. 'Ladoucier let you scoop front
+of his land, for Ladoucier one big fool. De
+lan's mine now, an' de fishin' right is mine.
+You can't scoop dere wisout you pay me rent.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p><p>"'<i>Bapt&ecirc;me!</i> I'll show you 'bout dat,' my
+fader say.</p>
+
+<p>"Next mawny he is go for scoop same like
+always. Den Old Man Savarin is fetch my
+fader up before de magistrate. De magistrate
+make my fader pay nine shillin'!</p>
+
+<p>"'Mebbe dat's learn you one lesson,' Old
+Man Savarin is say.</p>
+
+<p>"My fader swear pretty good, but my moder
+say: 'Well, Narcisse, dere hain' no use for take
+it out in <i>malediction</i>. De nine shillin' is paid.
+You scoop more fish&mdash;dat's the way.'</p>
+
+<p>"So my fader he is go out early, early nex'
+mawny. He's scoop, he's scoop. He's catch
+plenty fish before Old Man Savarin come.</p>
+
+<p>"'You ain't got 'nuff yet for fishin' on my
+land, eh? Come out of dat,' Old Man Savarin
+is say.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Saprie!</i> Ain' I pay nine shillin' for fish
+here?' my fader say.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Oui</i>&mdash;you pay nine shillin' for fish here
+<i>wisout</i> my leave. But you ain't pay nothin' for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
+fish here <i>wis</i> my leave. You is goin' up before
+de magistrate some more.'</p>
+
+<p>"So he is fetch my fader up anoder time.
+An' de magistrate make my fader pay twelve
+shillin' more!</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, I s'pose I can go fish on my fader's
+platform now,' my fader is say.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Man Savarin was laugh. 'Your honor,
+dis man tink he don't have for pay me no rent,
+because you'll make him pay two fines for trespass
+on my land.'</p>
+
+<p>"So de magistrate told my fader he hain't
+got no more right for go on his own platform
+than he was at the start. My fader is ver'
+angry. He's cry, he's tear his shirt; but
+Old Man Savarin only say, 'I guess I learn
+you one good lesson, Narcisse.'</p>
+
+<p>"De whole village ain't told de old rascal
+how much dey was angry 'bout dat, for Old Man
+Savarin is got dem all in debt at his big store.
+He is grin, grin, and told everybody how he
+learn my fader two good lesson. An' he is told<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+my fader: 'You see what I'll be goin' for do
+wis you if ever you go on my land again wisout
+you pay me rent.'</p>
+
+<p>"'How much you want?' my fader say.</p>
+
+<p>"'Half de fish you catch.'</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Monjee!</i> Never!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Five dollar a year, den.'</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Saprie</i>, no. Dat's too much.'</p>
+
+<p>"'All right. Keep off my lan', if you hain't
+want anoder lesson.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You's a tief,' my fader say.</p>
+
+<p>"'Hermidas, make up Narcisse Laroque bill,'
+de old rascal say to his clerk. 'If he hain't
+pay dat bill to-morrow, I sue him.'</p>
+
+<p>"So my fader is scare mos' to death. Only
+my moder she's say, '<i>I'll</i> pay dat bill, me.'</p>
+
+<p>"So she's take the money she's saved up long
+time for make my weddin' when it come. An'
+she's paid de bill. So den my fader hain't
+scare no more, an' he is shake his fist good
+under Old Man Savarin's ugly nose. But dat
+old rascal only laugh an' say, 'Narcisse, you
+like to be fined some more, eh?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p><p>"'<i>Tort Dieu</i>. You rob me of my place for
+fish, but I'll take my platform anyhow,' my
+fader is say.</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, eh? All right&mdash;if you can get him
+wisout go on my land. But you go on my
+land, and see if I don't learn you anoder
+lesson,' Old Savarin is say.</p>
+
+<p>"So my fader is rob of his platform, too.
+Nex' ting we hear, Frawce Seguin has rent dat
+platform for five dollar a year.</p>
+
+<p>"Den de big fun begin. My fader an Frawce
+is cousin. All de time before den dey was good
+friend. But my fader he is go to Frawce
+Seguin's place an' he is told him, 'Frawce,
+I'll goin' lick you so hard you can't nev' scoop
+on my platform.'</p>
+
+<p>"Frawce only laugh. Den Old Man Savarin
+come up de hill.</p>
+
+<p>"'Fetch him up to de magistrate an' learn
+him anoder lesson,' he is say to Frawce.</p>
+
+<p>"'What for?' Frawce say.</p>
+
+<p>"'For try to scare you.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'He hain't hurt me none.'</p>
+
+<p>"'But he's say he will lick you.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Dat's only because he's vex,' Frawce
+say.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Bapt&ecirc;me! Non!</i>' my fader say. 'I'll
+be goin' for lick you good, Frawce.'</p>
+
+<p>"'For sure?' Frawce say.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Saprie!</i> Yes; for sure.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Well, dat's all right den, Narcisse. When
+you goin' for lick me?'</p>
+
+<p>"'First time I'll get drunk. I'll be goin'
+for get drunk dis same day.'</p>
+
+<p>"'All right, Narcisse. If you goin' get drunk
+for lick me, I'll be goin' get drunk for lick
+you'&mdash;<i>Canadien</i> hain't nev' fool 'nuff for fight,
+M'sieu, only if dey is got drunk.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my fader he's go on old Marceau's
+hotel, an' he's drink all day. Frawce Seguin
+he's go cross de road on Joe Maufraud's hotel,
+an' <i>he's</i> drink all day. When de night come,
+dey's bose stand out in front of de two hotel for
+fight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Dey's bose yell an' yell for make de oder
+feller scare bad before dey begin. Hermidas
+Laronde an' Jawnny Leroi dey's hold my fader
+for fear he's go 'cross de road for keel Frawce
+Seguin dead. Pierre Seguin an' Magloire Sauve
+is hold Frawce for fear he's come 'cross de
+road for keel my fader dead. And dose men
+fight dat way 'cross de road, till dey hain't
+hardly able for stand up no more.</p>
+
+<p>"My fader he's tear his shirt and he's yell,
+'Let me at him!' Frawce he's tear his shirt
+and he's yell, 'Let me at him!' But de men
+hain't goin' for let dem loose, for fear one is strike
+de oder ver' hard. De whole village is shiver
+'bout dat offle fight&mdash;yes, seh, shiver bad!</p>
+
+<p>"Well, dey's fight like dat for more as four
+hours, till dey hain't able for yell no more, an'
+dey hain't got no money left for buy wheeskey
+for de crowd. Den Marceau and Joe Maufraud
+tol' dem bose it was a shame for two cousins to
+fight so bad. An' my fader he's say he's ver'
+sorry dat he lick Frawce so hard, and dey's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+bose sorry. So dey's kiss one anoder good&mdash;only
+all their close is tore to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>"An' what you tink 'bout Old Man Savarin?
+Old Man Savarin is just stand in front of his
+store all de time, an' he's say: 'I'll tink I'll
+fetch him <i>bose</i> hup to de magistrate, an' I'll
+learn him <i>bose</i> a lesson.'</p>
+
+<p>"Me, I'll be only fifteen, but I hain't scare
+'bout dat fight same like my moder is scare.
+No more is Alphonsine Seguin scare. She's
+seventeen, an' she wait for de fight to be all
+over. Den she take her fader home, same like
+I'll take my fader home for bed. Dat's after
+twelve o'clock of night.</p>
+
+<p>"Nex' mawny early my fader he's groaned
+and he's groaned: 'Ah&mdash;ugh&mdash;I'm sick, sick,
+me. I'll be goin' for die dis time, for sure.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You get up an' scoop some fish,' my
+moder she's say, angry. 'Den you hain't be
+sick no more.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Ach&mdash;ugh&mdash;I'll hain't be able. Oh, I'll
+be so sick. An' I hain' got no place for scoop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+fish now no more. Frawce Seguin has rob my
+platform.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Take de nex' one lower down,' my moder
+she's say.</p>
+
+<p>"'Dat's Jawnny Leroi's.'</p>
+
+<p>"'All right for dat. Jawnny he's hire for
+run timber to-day.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Ugh&mdash;I'll not be able for get up. Send for
+M'sieu le Cur&eacute;&mdash;I'll be goin' for die for sure.'</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Mis re</i>, but dat's no <i>man</i>! Dat's a drunk
+pig,' my moder she's say, angry. 'Sick,
+eh? Lazy, lazy&mdash;dat's so. An' dere hain't
+no fish for de little chilluns, an' it's Friday
+mawny.' So my moder she's begin for cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, M'sieu, I'll make de rest short; for
+de sun is all gone now. What you tink I do
+dat mawny? I take de big scoop-net an' I'll
+come up here for see if I'll be able for scoop
+some fish on Jawnny Leroi's platform. Only
+dere hain't nev' much fish dere.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty quick I'll look up and I'll see
+Alphonsine Seguin scoop, scoop on my fader's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
+old platform. Alphonsine's fader is sick, sick,
+same like my fader, an' all de Seguin boys is
+too little for scoop, same like my brudders is
+too little. So dere Alphonsine she's scoop,
+scoop for breakfas'.</p>
+
+<p>"What you tink I'll see some more? I'll
+see Old Man Savarin. He's watchin' from de
+corner of de cedar bush, an' I'll know ver'
+good what he's watch for. He's watch for
+catch my fader go on his own platform. He's
+want for learn my fader anoder lesson. <i>Saprie!</i>
+dat's make me ver' angry, M'sieu!</p>
+
+<p>"Alphonsine she's scoop, scoop plenty fish.
+I'll not be scoop none. Dat's make me more
+angry. I'll look up where Alphonsine is, an'
+I'll talk to myself:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Dat's my fader's platform,' I'll be say.
+'Dat's my fader's fish what you catch, Alphonsine.
+You hain't nev' be my cousin no more.
+It is mean, mean for Frawce Seguin to rent
+my fader's platform for please dat old rascal
+Savarin.' Mebby I'll not be so angry at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+Alphonsine, M'sieu, if I was able for catch some
+fish; but I hain't able&mdash;I don't catch none.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, M'sieu, dat's de way for long time&mdash;half-hour
+mebby. Den I'll hear Alphonsine
+yell good. I'll look up de river some more.
+She's try for lift her net. She's try hard, hard,
+but she hain't able. De net is down in de
+rapid, an' she's only able for hang on to de
+hannle. Den I'll know she's got one big
+sturgeon, an' he's so big she can't pull him up.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Monjee!</i> what I care 'bout dat! I'll laugh
+me. Den I'll laugh good some more, for I'll
+want Alphonsine for see how I'll laugh big.
+And I'll talk to myself:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Dat's good for dose Seguins,' I'll say.
+'De big sturgeon will pull away de net. Den
+Alphonsine she will lose her fader's scoop wis
+de sturgeon. Dat's good 'nuff for dose Seguins!
+Take my fader platform, eh?'</p>
+
+<p>"For sure, I'll want for go an' help Alphonsine
+all de same&mdash;she's my cousin, an' I'll
+want for see de sturgeon, me. But I'll only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
+just laugh, laugh. <i>Non, M'sieu</i>; dere was not
+one man out on any of de oder platform dat
+mawny for to help Alphonsine. Dey was all
+sleep ver' late, for dey was all out ver' late for
+see de offle fight I told you 'bout.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, pretty quick, what you tink? I'll see
+Old Man Savarin goin' to my fader's platform.
+He's take hold for help Alphonsine an' dey's
+bose pull, and pretty quick de big sturgeon is
+up on de platform. I'll be more angry as
+before.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>tort Dieu!</i> What you tink come den?
+Why, dat Old Man Savarin is want for take de
+sturgeon!</p>
+
+<p>"First dey hain't speak so I can hear, for
+de Rapid is too loud. But pretty quick dey's
+bose angry, and I hear dem talk.</p>
+
+<p>"'Dat's my fish,' Old Man Savarin is say.
+'Didn't I save him? Wasn't you goin' for
+lose him, for sure?'</p>
+
+<p>"Me&mdash;I'll laugh good. Dass <i>such</i> an old
+rascal.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p><p>"'You get off dis platform, quick!' Alphonsine
+she's say.</p>
+
+<p>"'Give me my sturgeon,' he's say.</p>
+
+<p>"'Dat's a lie&mdash;it hain't your sturgeon.
+It's <i>my</i> sturgeon,' she's yell.</p>
+
+<p>"'I'll learn you one lesson 'bout dat,' he's
+say.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, M'sieu, Alphonsine she's pull back de
+fish just when Old Man Savarin is make one
+grab. An' when she's pull back, she's step to
+one side, an' de old rascal he is, grab at de fish,
+an' de heft of de sturgeon is make him fall on
+his face, so he's tumble in de Rapid when
+Alphonsine let go de sturgeon. So dere's Old
+Man Savarin floating in de river&mdash;and <i>me</i>!
+I'll don' care eef he's drown one bit!</p>
+
+<p>"One time he is on his back, one time he is
+on his face, one time he is all under de water.
+For sure he's goin' for be draw into de <i>culbute</i>
+an' get drown' dead, if I'll not be able for
+scoop him when he's go by my platform.
+I'll want for laugh, but I'll be too much
+scare.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p><p>"Well, M'sieu, I'll pick up my fader's scoop
+and I'll stand out on de edge of de platform.
+De water is run so fast, I'm mos' 'fraid de old
+man is boun' for pull me in when I'll scoop
+him. But I'll not mind for dat, I'll throw de
+scoop an' catch him; an' for sure, he's hold
+on good.</p>
+
+<p>"So dere's de old rascal in de scoop, but
+when I'll get him safe, I hain't able for pull
+him in one bit. I'll only be able for hold
+on an' laugh, laugh&mdash;he's look <i>ver</i>' queer!
+All I can do is to hold him dere so he can't
+go down de <i>culbute</i>. I'll can't pull him up if
+I'll want to.</p>
+
+<p>"De old man is scare ver' bad. But pretty
+quick he's got hold of de cross-bar of de hoop,
+an' he's got his ugly old head up good.</p>
+
+<p>"'Pull me in,' he say, ver' angry.</p>
+
+<p>"'I'll hain't be able,' I'll say.</p>
+
+<p>"Jus' den Alphonsine she come 'long, an'
+she's laugh so she can't hardly hold on wis me
+to de hannle. I was laugh good some more.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+When de old villain see us have fun, he's yell:
+'I'll learn you bose one lesson for this. Pull
+me ashore!'</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh! you's learn, us bose one lesson,
+M'sieu Savarin, eh?' Alphonsine she's say.
+'Well, den, us bose will learn M'sieu Savarin
+one lesson first. Pull him up a little,' she's
+say to me.</p>
+
+<p>"So we pull him up, an' den Alphonsine she's
+say to me: 'Let out de hannle, quick'&mdash;and
+he's under de water some more. When we
+stop de net, he's got hees head up pretty quick.</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>Monjee!</i> I'll be drown' if you don't pull
+me out,' he's mos' <i>cry</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ver' well&mdash;if you's drown, your family
+be ver' glad,' Alphonsine she's say. 'Den
+they's got all your money for spend quick,
+quick.'</p>
+
+<p>"M'sieu, dat scare him offle. He's begin
+for cry like one baby.</p>
+
+<p>"'Save me out,' he's say. 'I'll give you
+anything I've got.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p><p>"'How much?' Alphonsine she's say.</p>
+
+<p>"He's tink, and he's say, 'Quarter dollar.'</p>
+
+<p>"Alphonsine an' me is laugh, laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"'Save me,' he's cry some more. 'I hain't
+fit for die dis mawny.'</p>
+
+<p>"'You hain' fit for live no mawny,' Alphonsine
+she's say. 'One quarter dollar, eh? Where's
+my sturgeon?'</p>
+
+<p>"'He's got away when, I fall in,' he's say.</p>
+
+<p>"'How much you goin' give me for lose my
+big sturgeon?' she's ask.</p>
+
+<p>"'How much you'll want, Alphonsine?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Two dollare.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Dat's too much for one sturgeon,' he's
+say. For all he was not feel fit for die, he
+was more 'fraid for pay out his money.</p>
+
+<p>"'Let him down some more,' Alphonsine
+she's say.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh. <i>mis&egrave;re, mis&egrave;re</i>! I'll pay de two
+dollare,' he's say when his head come up some
+more.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ver' well, den,' Alphonsine she's say; 'I'll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+be willin' for save you, <i>me</i>. But you hain't
+scooped by <i>me</i>. You's in Marie's net. I'll
+only come for help Marie. You's her sturgeon;'
+an' Alphonsine she's laugh an' laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"'I didn't lose no sturgeon for Marie,' he's
+say.</p>
+
+<p>"'No, eh?" I'll say mysef. 'But you's
+steal my fader's platform. You's take his
+fishin' place. You's got him fined two times.
+You's make my moder pay his bill wis <i>my</i>
+weddin' money. What you goin' pay for all
+dat? You tink I'll be goin' for mos' kill mysef
+pullin' you out for noting? When you ever
+do someting for anybody for noting, eh, M'sieu
+Savarin?'</p>
+
+<p>"'How much you want?' he's say.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ten dollare for de platform, dat's all.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Never&mdash;dat's robbery,' he's say, an' he's
+begin to cry like <i>ver</i>' li'll baby.</p>
+
+<p>"'Pull him hup, Marie, an' give him some
+more,' Alphonsine she's say.</p>
+
+<p>"But de old rascal is so scare 'bout dat, dat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+he's say he's pay right off. So we's pull him
+up near to de platform, only we hain't big
+'nuff fool for let him out of de net till he's take
+out his purse an' pay de twelve dollare.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Monjee</i>, M'sieu! If ever you see one angry
+old rascal! He not even stop for say: 'T'ank
+you for save me from be drown' dead in the
+<i>culbute</i>!' He's run for his house an' he's put
+on dry clo'es, an' he's go up to de magistrate
+first ting for learn me an' Alphonsine one big
+lesson.</p>
+
+<p>"But de magistrate hain' ver' bad magistrate.
+He's only laugh an' he's say:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'M'sieu Savarin, de whole river will be laugh
+at you for let two young girl take eet out of
+smart man like you like dat. Hain't you tink
+your life worth twelve dollare? Didn't dey
+save you from de <i>culbute</i>? <i>Monjee!</i> I'll tink
+de whole river not laugh so ver' bad if you pay
+dose young girl one hunder dollare for save
+you so kind.'</p>
+
+<p>"'One hunder dollare!' he's mos' cry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
+'Hain't you goin' to learn dose girl one lesson
+for take advantage of me dat way?'</p>
+
+<p>"'Didn't you pay dose girl yoursef? Didn't
+you took out your purse yoursef? Yes, eh?
+Well, den, I'll goin' for learn you one lesson
+yoursef, M'sieu Savarin.' de magistrate is say.
+'Dose two young girl is ver' wicked, eh? Yes,
+dat's so. But for why? Hain't dey just do to
+you what you been doin' ever since you was in
+beesness? Don' I know? You hain' never
+yet got advantage of nobody wisout you rob
+him all you can, an' dose wicked young girl
+only act just like you give dem a lesson all your
+life.'</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"An' de best fun was de whole river <i>did</i>
+laugh at M'sieu Savarin. An' my fader and
+Frawce Seguin is laugh most of all, till he's
+catch hup wis bose of dem anoder time. You
+come for see me some more, an' I'll tol' you
+'bout dat."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_PRIVILEGE_OF_THE_LIMITS" id="THE_PRIVILEGE_OF_THE_LIMITS"></a>THE PRIVILEGE OF THE LIMITS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed, my grandfather wass once in
+jail," said old Mrs. McTavish, of the
+county of Glengarry, in Ontario, Canada; "but
+that wass for debt, and he wass a ferry honest
+man whateffer, and he would not broke his
+promise&mdash;no, not for all the money in Canada.
+If you will listen to me, I will tell chust exactly
+the true story about that debt, to show you what
+an honest man my grandfather wass.</p>
+
+<p>"One time Tougal Stewart, him that wass the
+poy's grandfather that keeps the same store in
+Cornwall to this day, sold a plough to my grandfather,
+and my grandfather said he would pay
+half the plough in October, and the other half
+whateffer time he felt able to pay the money.
+Yes, indeed, that was the very promise my
+grandfather gave.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p><p>"So he was at Tougal Stewart's store on the
+first of October early in the morning pefore the
+shutters wass taken off, and he paid half chust
+exactly to keep his word. Then the crop wass
+ferry pad next year, and the year after that one
+of his horses wass killed py lightning, and the
+next year his brother, that wass not rich and
+had a big family, died, and do you think wass
+my grandfather to let the family be disgraced
+without a good funeral? No, indeed. So my
+grandfather paid for the funeral, and there was
+at it plenty of meat and drink for eferypody,
+as wass the right Hielan' custom those days;
+and after the funeral my grandfather did not
+feel chust exactly able to pay the other half for
+the plough that year either.</p>
+
+<p>"So, then, Tougal Stewart met my grandfather
+in Cornwall next day after the funeral,
+and asked him if he had some money to
+spare.</p>
+
+<p>"'Wass you in need of help, Mr. Stewart?'
+says my grandfather, kindly. 'For if it's in any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+want you are, Tougal,' says my grandfather, 'I
+will sell the coat off my back, if there is no
+other way to lend you a loan;' for that was
+always the way of my grandfather with all his
+friends, and a bigger-hearted man there never
+wass in all Glengarry, or in Stormont, or in
+Dundas, moreofer.</p>
+
+<p>"'In want!' says Tougal&mdash;'in want, Mr.
+McTavish!' says he, very high. 'Would you
+wish to insult a gentleman, and him of the name
+of Stewart, that's the name of princes of the
+world?' he said, so he did.</p>
+
+<p>"Seeing Tougal had his temper up, my
+grandfather spoke softly, being a quiet, peaceable
+man, and in wonder what he had said to
+offend Tougal.</p>
+
+<p>"'Mr. Stewart,' says my grandfather, 'it wass
+not in my mind to anger you whatefer. Only
+I thought, from your asking me if I had some
+money, that you might be looking for a wee bit
+of a loan, as many a gentleman has to do at
+times, and no shame to him at all,' said my
+grandfather.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p><p>"'A loan?' says Tougal, sneering. 'A loan,
+is it? Where's your memory, Mr. McTavish?
+Are you not owing me half the price of the
+plough you've had these three years?'</p>
+
+<p>"'And wass you asking me for money for
+the other half of the plough?' says my grandfather,
+very astonished.</p>
+
+<p>"'Just that,' says Tougal.</p>
+
+<p>"'Have you no shame or honor in you?'
+says my grandfather, firing up. 'How could I
+feel able to pay that now, and me chust yesterday
+been giving my poor brother a funeral fit
+for the McTavishes' own grand-nephew, that
+wass as good chentleman's plood as any Stewart
+in Glengarry. You saw the expense I wass at,
+for there you wass, and I thank you for the
+politeness of coming, Mr. Stewart,' says my
+grandfather, ending mild, for the anger would
+never stay in him more than a minute, so kind
+was the nature he had.</p>
+
+<p>"'If you can spend money on a funeral like
+that, you can pay me for my plough,' says<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
+Stewart; for with buying and selling he wass
+become a poor creature, and the heart of a
+Hielan'man wass half gone out of him, for all
+he wass so proud of his name of monarchs and
+kings.</p>
+
+<p>"My grandfather had a mind to strike him
+down on the spot, so he often said; but he
+thought of the time when he hit Hamish Cochrane
+in anger, and he minded the penances the
+priest put on him for breaking the silly man's
+jaw with that blow, so he smothered the heat
+that wass in him, and turned away in scorn.
+With that Tougal Stewart went to court, and
+sued my grandfather, puir mean creature.</p>
+
+<p>"You might think that Judge Jones&mdash;him
+that wass judge in Cornwall before Judge Jarvis
+that's dead&mdash;would do justice. But no, he
+made it the law that my grandfather must pay
+at once, though Tougal Stewart could not deny
+what the bargain wass.</p>
+
+<p>"'Your Honor,' says my grandfather, 'I
+said I'd pay when I felt able. And do I feel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
+able now? No, I do not,' says he. 'It's a
+disgrace to Tougal Stewart to ask me, and himself
+telling you what the bargain was,' said my
+grandfather. But Judge Jones said that he
+must pay, for all that he did not feel able.</p>
+
+<p>"'I will nefer pay one copper till I feel
+able,' says my grandfather; 'but I'll keep my
+Hielan' promise to my dying day, as I always
+done,' says he.</p>
+
+<p>"And with that the old judge laughed, and
+said he would have to give judgment. And so
+he did; and after that Tougal Stewart got out
+an execution. But not the worth of a handful
+of oatmeal could the bailiff lay hands on, because
+my grandfather had chust exactly taken
+the precaution to give a bill of sale on his gear
+to his neighbor, Alexander Frazer, that could
+be trusted to do what was right after the law
+play was over.</p>
+
+<p>"The whole settlement had great contempt
+for Tougal Stewart's conduct; but he was a
+headstrong body, and once he begun to do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+wrong against my grandfather, he held on, for
+all that his trade fell away; and finally he had
+my grandfather arrested for debt, though you'll
+understand, sir, that he was owing Stewart
+nothing that he ought to pay when he didn't
+feel able.</p>
+
+<p>"In those times prisoners for debt was taken
+to jail in Cornwall, and if they had friends to
+give bail that they would not go beyond the
+posts that was around the sixteen acres nearest
+the jail walls, the prisoners could go where they
+liked on that ground. This was called 'the
+privilege of the limits.' The limits, you'll
+understand, wass marked by cedar posts painted
+white about the size of hitching-posts.</p>
+
+<p>"The whole settlement was ready to go bail
+for my grandfather if he wanted it, and for the
+health of him he needed to be in the open air,
+and so he gave Tuncan-Macdonnell of the
+Greenfields, and &AElig;neas Macdonald of the
+Sandfields, for his bail, and he promised, on his
+Hielan' word of honor, not to go beyond the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+posts. With that he went where he pleased,
+only taking care that he never put even the toe
+of his foot beyond a post, for all that some
+prisoners of the limits would chump ofer them
+and back again, or maybe swing round them,
+holding by their hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Efery day the neighbors would go into
+Cornwall to give my grandfather the good word,
+and they would offer to pay Tougal Stewart for
+the other half of the plough, only that vexed my
+grandfather, for he was too proud to borrow,
+and, of course, every day he felt less and less
+able to pay on account of him having to hire
+a man to be doing the spring ploughing and
+seeding and making the kale-yard.</p>
+
+<p>"All this time, you'll mind, Tougal Stewart
+had to pay five shillings a week for my grandfather's
+keep, the law being so that if the debtor
+swore he had not five pound's worth of property
+to his name, then the creditor had to pay the
+five shillings, and, of course, my grandfather had
+nothing to his name after he gave the bill of sale<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+to Alexander Frazer. A great diversion it was
+to my grandfather to be reckoning up that if he
+lived as long as his father, that was hale and
+strong at ninety-six, Tougal would need to pay
+five or six hundred pounds for him, and there
+was only two pound five shillings to be paid
+on the plough.</p>
+
+<p>"So it was like that all summer, my grandfather
+keeping heartsome, with the neighbors
+coming in so steady to bring him the news of
+the settlement. There he would sit, just inside
+one of the posts, for to pass his jokes, and tell
+what he wished the family to be doing next.
+This way it might have kept going on for forty
+years, only it came about that my grandfather's
+youngest child&mdash;him that was my father&mdash;fell
+sick, and seemed like to die.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, when my grandfather heard that bad
+news, he wass in a terrible way, to be sure, for
+he would be longing to hold the child in his
+arms, so that his heart was sore and like to
+break. Eat he could not, sleep he could not:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+all night he would be groaning, and all day he
+would be walking around by the posts, wishing
+that he had not passed his Hielan' word of
+honor not to go beyond a post; for he thought
+how he could have broken out like a chentleman,
+and gone to see his sick child, if he had
+stayed inside the jail wall. So it went on three
+days and three nights pefore the wise thought
+came into my grandfather's head to show him
+how he need not go beyond the posts to see his
+little sick poy. With that he went straight to
+one of the white cedar posts, and pulled it up
+out of the hole, and started for home, taking
+great care to carry it in his hands pefore him,
+so he would not be beyond it one bit.</p>
+
+<p>"My grandfather wass not half a mile out of
+Cornwall, which was only a little place in those
+days, when two of the turnkeys came after him.</p>
+
+<p>"'Stop, Mr. McTavish,' says the turnkeys.</p>
+
+<p>"'What for would I stop?' says my grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>"'You have broke your bail,' says they.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p><p>"'It's a lie for you,' says my grandfather, for
+his temper flared up for anybody to say he
+would broke his bail. 'Am I beyond the
+post?' says my grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>"With that they run in on him, only that he
+knocked the two of them over with the post, and
+went on rejoicing, like an honest man should,
+at keeping his word and overcoming them that
+would slander his good name. The only thing
+pesides thoughts of the child that troubled him
+was questioning whether he had been strictly
+right in turning round for to use the post to
+defend himself in such a way that it was nearer
+the jail than what he wass. But when he
+remembered how the jailer never complained of
+prisoners of the limits chumping ofer the posts,
+if so they chumped back again in a moment,
+the trouble went out of his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty soon after that he met Tuncan Macdonnell
+of Greenfields, coming into Cornwall
+with the wagon.</p>
+
+<p>"'And how is this, Glengatchie?' says Tuncan.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+'For you were never the man to broke
+your bail.'</p>
+
+<p>"Glengatchie, you'll understand, sir, is the
+name of my grandfather's farm.</p>
+
+<p>"'Never fear, Greenfields,' says my grandfather,
+'for I'm not beyond the post.'</p>
+
+<p>"So Greenfields looked at the post, and he
+looked at my grandfather, and he scratched his
+head a wee, and he seen it was so; and then
+he fell into a great admiration entirely.</p>
+
+<p>"'Get in with me, Glengatchie&mdash;it's proud
+I'll be to carry you home;' and he turned his
+team around. My grandfather did so, taking
+great care to keep the post in front of him all
+the time; and that way he reached home. Out
+comes my grandmother running to embrace
+him; but she had to throw her arms around
+the post and my grandfather's neck at the same
+time, he was that strict to be within his promise.
+Pefore going ben the house, he went to the
+back end of the kale-yard which was farthest
+from the jail, and there he stuck the post; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+then he went back to see his sick child, while
+all the neighbors that came round was glad to
+see what a wise thought the saints had put into
+his mind to save his bail and his promise.</p>
+
+<p>"So there he stayed a week till my father got
+well. Of course the constables came after my
+grandfather, but the settlement would not let
+the creatures come within a mile of Glengatchie.
+You might think, sir, that my grandfather would
+have stayed with his wife and weans, seeing the
+post was all the time in the kale-yard, and him
+careful not to go beyond it; but he was putting
+the settlement to a great deal of trouble day
+and night to keep the constables off, and he
+was fearful that they might take the post away,
+if ever they got to Glengatchie, and give him
+the name of false, that no McTavish ever had.
+So Tuncan Greenfields and &AElig;neas Sandfield
+drove my grandfather back to the jail, him with
+the post behind him in the wagon, so as he
+would be between it and the jail. Of course
+Tougal Stewart tried his best to have the bail<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
+declared forfeited; but old Judge Jones only
+laughed, and said my grandfather was a Hielan'
+gentleman, with a very nice sense of honor, and
+that was chust exactly the truth.</p>
+
+<p>"How did my grandfather get free in the
+end? Oh, then, that was because of Tougal
+Stewart being careless&mdash;him that thought he
+knew so much of the law. The law was, you
+will mind, that Tougal had to pay five shillings
+a week for keeping my grandfather in the limits.
+The money wass to be paid efery Monday, and
+it was to be paid in lawful money of Canada,
+too. Well, would you belief that Tougal paid
+in four shillings in silver one Monday, and one
+shilling in coppers, for he took up the collection
+in church the day pefore, and it wass not till
+Tougal had gone away that the jailer saw that
+one of the coppers was a Brock copper,&mdash;a
+medal, you will understand, made at General
+Brock's death, and not lawful money of Canada
+at all. With that the jailer came out to my
+grandfather.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p>
+<p>"'Mr. McTavish,' says he, taking off his hat,
+'you are a free man, and I'm glad of it.' Then
+he told him what Tougal had done.</p>
+
+<p>"'I hope you will not have any hard feelings
+toward me, Mr. McTavish,' said the jailer; and
+a decent man he wass, for all that there wass not
+a drop of Hielan' blood in him. 'I hope you
+will not think hard of me for not being hospitable
+to you, sir,' says he; 'but it's against the
+rules and regulations for the jailer to be offering
+the best he can command to the prisoners.
+Now that you are free, Mr. McTavish,' says the
+jailer, 'I would be a proud man if Mr. McTavish
+of Glengatchie would do me the honor of taking
+supper with me this night. I will be asking
+your leave to invite some of the gentlemen of
+the place, if you will say the word, Mr. McTavish,'
+says he.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my grandfather could never bear
+malice, the kind man he was, and he seen how
+bad the jailer felt, so he consented, and a great
+company came in, to be sure, to celebrate the
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p><p>"Did my grandfather pay the balance on the
+plough? What for should you suspicion, sir,
+that my grandfather would refuse his honest
+debt? Of course he paid for the plough, for
+the crop was good that fall.</p>
+
+<p>"'I would be paying you the other half of
+the plough now, Mr. Stewart,' says my grandfather,
+coming in when the store was full.</p>
+
+<p>"'Hoich, but <span class="smcap">you</span> are the honest McTavish!'
+says Tougal, sneering.</p>
+
+<p>"But my grandfather made no answer to the
+creature, for he thought it would be unkind to
+mention how Tougal had paid out six pounds
+four shillings and eleven pence to keep him in
+on account of a debt of two pound five that
+never was due till it was paid."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="McGRATHS_BAD_NIGHT" id="McGRATHS_BAD_NIGHT"></a>McGRATH'S BAD NIGHT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Come then, childer," said Mrs. McGrath,
+and took the big iron pot off. They
+crowded around her, nine of them, the eldest
+not more than thirteen, the youngest just big
+enough to hold out his yellow crockery bowl.</p>
+
+<p>"The youngest first," remarked Mrs. McGrath,
+and ladled out a portion of the boiled corn-meal
+to each of the deplorable boys and girls.
+Before they reached the stools from which they
+had sprung up, or squatted again on the rough
+floor, they all burned their mouths in tasting
+the mush too eagerly. Then there they sat,
+blowing into their bowls, glaring into them, lifting
+their loaded iron spoons occasionally to
+taste cautiously, till the mush had somewhat
+cooled.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p><p>Then, <i>gobble-de-gobble-de-gobble</i>, it was all
+gone! Though they had neither sugar, nor
+milk, nor butter to it, they found it a remarkably
+excellent sample of mush, and wished only
+that, in quantity, it had been something more.</p>
+
+<p>Peter McGrath sat close beside the cooking-stove,
+holding Number Ten, a girl-baby, who
+was asleep, and rocking Number Eleven, who
+was trying to wake up, in the low, unpainted
+cradle. He never took his eyes off Number
+Eleven; he could not bear to look around and
+see the nine devouring the corn-meal so hungrily.
+Perhaps McGrath could not, and certainly
+he would not,&mdash;he was so obstinate,&mdash;have
+told why he felt so reproached by the
+scene. He had felt very guilty for many weeks.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty, yes, a hundred times a day he
+looked in a dazed way at his big hands, and
+they reproached him, too, that they had no
+work.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is our smooth, broad-axe handle?"
+asked the fingers, "and why do not the wide
+chips fly?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+<p>He was ashamed, too, every time he rose up,
+so tall and strong, with nothing to do, and
+eleven children and his wife next door to starvation;
+but if he had been asked to describe
+his feelings, he would merely have growled out
+angrily something against old John Pontiac.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll take your sup now, Peter?" asked
+Mrs. McGrath, offering him the biggest of the
+yellow bowls. He looked up then, first at her
+forlorn face, then at the pot. Number Nine
+was diligently scraping off some streaks of
+mush that had run down the outside; Numbers
+Eight, Seven, Six, and Five were looking respectfully
+into the pot; Numbers Four, Three,
+Two, and One were watching the pot, the steaming
+bowl, and their father at the same time.
+Peter McGrath was very hungry.</p>
+
+<p>"Yourself had better eat, Mary Ann," he
+said. "I'll be having mine after it's cooler."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. McGrath dipped more than a third of
+the bowlful back into the pot, and ate the rest
+with much satisfaction. The numerals watched
+her anxiously but resignedly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Sure it'll be cold entirely, Peter dear," she
+said, "and the warmth is so comforting. Give
+me little Norah now, the darlint! and be after
+eating your supper."</p>
+
+<p>She had ladled out the last spoonful of mush,
+and the pot was being scraped inside earnestly
+by Nine, Eight, Seven, and Six. Peter took the
+bowl, and looked at his children.</p>
+
+<p>The earlier numbers were observing him with
+peculiar sympathy, putting themselves in his
+place, as it were, possessing the bowl in imagination;
+the others now moved their spoons
+absent-mindedly around in the pot, brought
+them empty to their mouths, mechanically, now
+and again, sucked them more or less, and still
+stared steadily at their father.</p>
+
+<p>His inner walls felt glued together, yet indescribably
+hollow; the smell of the mush went
+up into his nostrils, and pungently provoked his
+palate and throat. He was famishing.</p>
+
+<p>"Troth, then, Mary Ann," he said, "there's
+no hunger in me to-night. Sure, I wish the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+childer wouldn't leave me the trouble of eating
+it. Come, then, all of ye!"</p>
+
+<p>The nine came promptly to his call. There
+were just twenty-two large spoonfuls in the
+bowl; each child received two; the remaining
+four went to the four youngest. Then the bowl
+was skilfully scraped by Number Nine, after
+which Number Seven took it, whirled a cup of
+water artfully round its interior, and with this
+put a fine finish on his meal.</p>
+
+<p>Peter McGrath then searched thoughtfully in
+his trousers pockets, turning their corners up,
+getting pinches of tobacco dust out of their
+remotest recesses; he put his blouse pocket
+through a similar process. He found no pockets
+in his well-patched overcoat when he took it
+down, but he pursued the dust into its lining,
+and separated it carefully from little dabs of
+wool. Then he put the collection into an
+extremely old black clay pipe, lifted a coal in
+with his fingers, and took his supper.</p>
+
+<p>It would be absurd to assert that, on this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
+continent, a strong man could be so poor as
+Peter, unless he had done something very wrong
+or very foolish. Peter McGrath was, in truth,
+out of work because he had committed an outrage
+on economics. He had been guilty of
+the enormous error of misunderstanding, and
+trying to set at naught in his own person, the
+immutable law of supply and demand.</p>
+
+<p>Fancying that a first-class hewer in a timber
+shanty had an inalienable right to receive at
+least thirty dollars a month, when the demand
+was only strong enough to yield him twenty-two
+dollars a month, Peter had refused to engage at
+the beginning of the winter.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mr. McGrath, you're making a mistake,"
+said his usual employer, old John Pontiac.
+"I'm offering you the best wages going,
+mind that. There's mighty little squared timber
+coming out this winter."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm ready and willing to work, boss, but
+I'm fit to arn thirty dollars, surely."</p>
+
+<p>"So you are, so you are, in good times,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+neighbor, and I'd be glad if men's wages were
+forty. That could only be with trade active,
+and a fine season for all of us; but I couldn't
+take out a raft this winter, and pay what you
+ask."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd work extra hard. I'm not afeard of
+work."</p>
+
+<p>"Not you, Peter. There never was a lazy
+bone in your body. Don't I know that well?
+But look, now: if I was to pay you thirty, I
+should have to pay all the other hewers thirty;
+and that's not all. Scorers and teamsters and
+road-cutters are used to getting wages in proportion
+to hewers. Why, it would cost me a
+thousand dollars a month to give you thirty!
+Go along, now, that's a good fellow, and tell
+your wife that you've hired with me."</p>
+
+<p>But Peter did not go back. "I'm bound to
+have my rights, so I am," he said sulkily to
+Mary Ann when he reached the cabin. "The
+old boss is getting too hard like, and set on
+money. Twenty-two dollars! No! I'll go in
+to Stambrook and hire."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
+<p>Mary Ann knew that she might as well try to
+convince a saw-log that its proper course was
+up-stream, as to protest against Peter's obstinacy.
+Moreover, she did think the offered
+wages very low, and had some hope he might
+better himself; but when he came back from
+Stambrook, she saw trouble ahead. He did not
+tell her that there, where his merit's were not
+known, he had been offered only twenty dollars,
+but she surmised his disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better be after seeing the boss again,
+maybe, Peter dear," she said timidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a step," he answered. "The boss'll
+be after me in a few days, you'll see." But
+there he was mistaken, for all the gangs were
+full.</p>
+
+<p>After that Peter McGrath tramped far and
+wide, to many a backwoods hamlet, looking
+vainly for a job at any wages. The season was
+the worst ever known on the river, and before
+January the shanties were discharging men, so
+threatening was the outlook for lumbermen,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
+and so glutted with timber the markets of the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>Peter's conscience accused him every hour,
+but he was too stubborn to go back to John
+Pontiac. Indeed, he soon got it into his stupid
+head that the old boss was responsible for his
+misfortunes, and he consequently came to hate
+Mr. Pontiac very bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>After supping on his pipeful of tobacco-dust,
+Peter sat, straight-backed, leaning elbows on
+knees and chin on hands, wondering what on
+earth was to become of them all next day. For
+a man out of work there was not a dollar of
+credit at the little village store; and work!
+why, there was only one kind of work at which
+money could be earned in that district in the
+winter.</p>
+
+<p>When his wife took Number Eleven's cradle
+into the other room, she heard him, through
+the thin partition of upright boards, pasted
+over with newspapers, moving round in the
+dim red flickering fire-light from the stove-grating.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
+<p>The children were all asleep, or pretending
+it; Number Ten in the big straw bed, where she
+lay always between her parents; Number Eleven
+in her cradle beside; Nine crosswise at the
+foot; Eight, Seven, Six, Five, and Four in the
+other bed; One, Two, and Three curled up,
+without taking off their miserable garments, on
+the "locks" of straw beside the kitchen stove.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Ann knew very well what Peter was
+moving round for. She heard him groan, so
+low that he did not know he groaned, when he
+lifted off the cover of the meal barrel, and could
+feel nothing whatever therein. She had actually
+beaten the meal out of the cracks to make that
+last pot of mush. He knew that all the fish he
+had salted down in the summer were gone, that
+the flour was all out, that the last morsel of the
+pig had been eaten up long ago; but he went to
+each of the barrels as though he could not
+realize that there was really nothing left. There
+were four of those low groans.</p>
+
+<p>"O God, help him! do help him! please<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+do!" she kept saying to herself. Somehow,
+all her sufferings and the children's were light
+to her, in comparison, as she listened to that
+big, taciturn man groan, and him sore with the
+hunger.</p>
+
+<p>When at last she came out, Peter was not
+there. He had gone out silently, so silently
+that she wondered, and was scared. She opened
+the door very softly, and there he was, leaning
+on the rail fence between their little rocky plot
+and the great river. She closed the door
+softly, and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>There was a wide steaming space in the
+river, where the current ran too swiftly for any
+ice to form. Peter gazed on it for a long while.
+The mist had a friendly look; he was soon
+reminded of the steam from an immense bowl
+of mush! It vexed him. He looked up at the
+moon. The moon was certainly mocking him;
+dashing through light clouds, then jumping into
+a wide, clear space, where it soon became
+motionless, and mocked him steadily.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p>
+<p>He had never known old John Pontiac to
+jeer any one, but there was his face in that
+moon,&mdash;Peter made it out quite clearly. He
+looked up the road to where he could see, on
+the hill half a mile distant, the shimmer of
+John Pontiac's big tin-roofed house. He
+thought he could make out the outlines of all
+the buildings,&mdash;he knew them so well,&mdash;the
+big barn, the stable, the smoke-house, the
+store-house for shanty supplies.</p>
+
+<p>Pork barrels, flour barrels, herring kegs,
+syrup kegs, sides of frozen beef, hams and
+flitches of bacon in the smoke-house, bags of
+beans, chests of tea,&mdash;he had a vision of them
+all! Teamsters going off to the woods daily
+with provisions, the supply apparently inexhaustible.</p>
+
+<p>And John Pontiac had refused to pay him
+fair wages!</p>
+
+<p>Peter in exasperation shook his big fist at
+the moon; it mocked him worse than ever.
+Then out went his gaze to the space of mist;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
+it was still more painfully like mush steam.
+His pigsty was empty, except of snow; it
+made him think again of the empty barrels in
+the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>The children empty too, or would be to-morrow,&mdash;as
+empty as he felt that minute.
+How dumbly the elder ones would reproach
+him! and what would comfort the younger
+ones crying with hunger?</p>
+
+<p>Peter looked again up the hill, through the
+walls of the store-house. He was dreadfully
+hungry.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"John! John!" Mrs. Pontiac jogged her
+husband. "John, wake up! there's somebody
+trying to get into the smoke-house."</p>
+
+<p>"Eh&mdash;ugh&mdash;ah! I'm 'sleep&mdash;ugh." He
+relapsed again.</p>
+
+<p>"John! John! wake up! There <i>is</i> somebody!"</p>
+
+<p>"What&mdash;ugh&mdash;eh&mdash;what you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's somebody getting into the smoke-house."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Well, there's not much there."</p>
+
+<p>"There's ever so much bacon and ham.
+Then there's the store-house open."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I guess there's nobody."</p>
+
+<p>"But there is, I'm sure. You must get
+up!"</p>
+
+<p>They both got up and looked out of the
+window. The snow-drifts, the paths through
+them, the store-house, the smoke-house, and
+the other white-washed out-buildings could be
+seen as clearly as in broad day. The smoke-house
+door was open!</p>
+
+<p>Old John Pontiac was one of the kindest
+souls that ever inhabited a body, but this was a
+little too much. Still he was sorry for the man,
+no matter who, in that smoke-house,&mdash;some
+Indian probably. He must be caught and
+dealt with firmly; but he did not want the man
+to be too much hurt.</p>
+
+<p>He put on his clothes and sallied forth. He
+reached the smoke-house; there was no one in
+it; there was a gap, though, where two long
+flitches of bacon <i>had</i> been!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+<p>John Pontiac's wife saw him go over to the
+store-house, the door of which was open too.
+He looked in, then stopped, and started back
+as if in horror. Two flitches tied together with
+a rope were on the floor, and inside was a man
+filling a bag with flour from a barrel.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well! this is a terrible thing," said old
+John Pontiac to himself, shrinking around a
+corner. "Peter McGrath! Oh, my! oh, my!"</p>
+
+<p>He became hot all over, as if he had done
+something disgraceful himself. There was
+nobody that he respected more than that pigheaded
+Peter. What to do? He must punish
+him of course; but how? Jail&mdash;for him with
+eleven children! "Oh, my! oh, my!" Old
+John wished he had not been awakened to see
+this terrible downfall.</p>
+
+<p>"It will never do to let him go off with it,"
+he said to himself after a little reflection. "I'll
+put him so that he'll know better another
+time."</p>
+
+<p>Peter McGrath, as he entered the store-house<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+had felt that bacon heavier than the
+heaviest end of the biggest stick of timber he had
+ever helped to cant. He felt guilty, sneaking,
+disgraced; he felt that the literal Devil had first
+tempted him near the house, then all suddenly&mdash;with
+his own hunger pangs and thoughts of
+his starving family&mdash;swept him into the smoke-house
+to steal. But he had consented to do it;
+he had said he would take flour too,&mdash;and he
+would, he was so obstinate! And withal, he
+hated old John Pontiac worse than ever; for
+now he accused him of being the cause of his
+coming to this.</p>
+
+<p>Then all of a sudden he met the face of
+Pontiac looking in at the door.</p>
+
+<p>Peter sprang back; he saw Stambrook jail&mdash;he
+saw his eleven children and his wife&mdash;he
+felt himself a detected felon, and that was
+worst of all.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Peter, you'd ought to have come
+right in," were the words that came to his ears,
+in John Pontiac's heartiest voice. "The missis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+would have been glad to see you. We did go
+to bed a bit early, but there wouldn't have
+been any harm in an old neighbor like you
+waking us up. Not a word of that&mdash;hold on!
+listen to me. It would be a pity if old friends
+like you and me, Peter, couldn't help one
+another to a trifling loan of provisions without
+making a fuss over it." And old John, taking
+up the scoop, went on filling the bag as if that
+were a matter of course.</p>
+
+<p>Peter did not speak; he could not.</p>
+
+<p>"I was going round to your place to-morrow,"
+resumed John, cheerfully, "to see if
+I couldn't hire you again. There's a job of
+hewing for you in the Conlonge shanty,&mdash;a
+man gone off sick. But I can't give more 'n
+twenty-two, or say twenty-three, seeing you're
+an old neighbor. What do you say?"</p>
+
+<p>Peter still said nothing; he was choking.</p>
+
+<p>"You had better have a bit of something
+more than bacon and flour, Peter," he went on,
+"and I'll give you a hand to carry the truck<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+home. I guess your wife won't mind seeing
+me with you; then she'll know that you've
+taken a job with me again, you see. Come
+along and give me a hand to hitch the mare
+up. I'll drive you down."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah&mdash;ah&mdash;Boss&mdash;Boss!" spoke Peter
+then, with terrible gasps between. "Boss&mdash;O
+my God, Mr. Pontiac&mdash;I can't never look you
+in the face again!"</p>
+
+<p>"Peter McGrath&mdash;old neighbor,"&mdash;and
+John Pontiac laid his hand on the shaking
+shoulder,&mdash;"I guess I know all about it; I
+guess I do. Sometimes a man is driven he don't
+know how. Now we will say no more about it.
+I'll load up, and you come right along with me.
+And mind, I'll do the talking to your wife."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Mary Ann McGrath was in a terrible frame
+of mind. What had become of Peter?</p>
+
+<p>She had gone out to look down the road, and
+had been recalled by Number Eleven's crying.
+Number Ten then chimed in; Nine, too, awoke,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
+and determined to resume his privileges as an
+infant. One after another they got up and
+huddled around her&mdash;craving, craving&mdash;all
+but the three eldest, who had been well
+practised in the stoical philosophy by the
+gradual decrease of their rations. But these
+bounced up suddenly at the sound of a grand
+jangle of bells.</p>
+
+<p>Could it be? Mr. Pontiac they had no doubt
+about; but was that real bacon that he laid on
+the kitchen table? Then a side of beef, a can
+of tea; next a bag of flour, and again an actual
+keg of sirup. Why, this was almost incredible!
+And, last, he came in with an immense round
+loaf of bread! The children gathered about
+it; old John almost sickened with sorrow for
+them, and hurrying out his jacknife, passed big
+hunks around.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, Mrs. McGrath," he said during
+these operations, "I don't hardly take it kindly
+of you and Peter not to have come up to an old
+neighbor's house before this for a bit of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+loan. It's well I met Peter to-night. Maybe
+he'd never have told me your troubles&mdash;not
+but what I blame myself for not suspecting how
+it was a bit sooner. I just made him take a
+little loan for the present. No, no; don't be talking
+like that! Charity! tut! tut! it's just an
+advance of wages. I've got a job for Peter;
+he'll be on pay to-morrow again."</p>
+
+<p>At that Mary Ann burst out crying again.
+"Oh, God bless you, Mr. Pontiac! it's a kind
+man you are! May the saints be about your
+bed!"</p>
+
+<p>With that she ran out to Peter, who still
+stood by the sleigh; she put the baby in his
+arms, and clinging to her husband's shoulder,
+cried more and more.</p>
+
+<p>And what did obstinate Peter McGrath do?
+Why, he cried, too, with gasps and groans that
+seemed almost to kill him.</p>
+
+<p>"Go in," he said; "go in, Mary Ann&mdash;go
+in&mdash;and kiss&mdash;the feet of him. Yes&mdash;and
+the boards&mdash;he stands on. You don't know<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+what he's done&mdash;for me. It's broke I am&mdash;the
+bad heart of me&mdash;broke entirely&mdash;with
+the goodness of him. May the heavens be his
+bed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mrs. McGrath," cried old John,
+"never you mind Peter; he's a bit light-headed
+to-night. Come away in and get a bite
+for him. I'd like a dish of tea myself before I
+go home." Didn't that touch on her Irish
+hospitality bring her in quickly!</p>
+
+<p>"Mind you this, Peter," said the old man,
+going out then, "don't you be troubling your
+wife with any little secrets about to-night;
+that's between you and me. That's all I ask
+of you."</p>
+
+<p>Thus it comes about that to this day, when
+Peter McGrath's fifteen children have helped
+him to become a very prosperous farmer, his
+wife does not quite understand the depth of
+worship with which he speaks of old John
+Pontiac.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+<p>Mrs. Pontiac never knew the story of the
+night.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind who it was, Jane," John said,
+turning out the light, on returning to bed, "except
+this,&mdash;it was a neighbor in sore trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Stealing&mdash;and you helped him! Well,
+John, such a man as you are!"</p>
+
+<p>"Jane, I don't ever rightly know what kind
+of a man I might be, suppose hunger was cruel
+on me, and on you, and all of us! Let us bless
+God that he's saved us from the terriblest
+temptations, and thank him most especially
+when he inclines our hearts&mdash;inclines our
+hearts&mdash;that's all."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="GREAT_GODFREYS_LAMENT" id="GREAT_GODFREYS_LAMENT"></a>GREAT GODFREY'S LAMENT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Hark to Angus! Man, his heart will be
+sore the night! In five years I have
+not heard him playing 'Great Godfrey's Lament,'"
+said old Alexander McTavish, as with
+him I was sitting of a June evening, at sundown,
+under a wide apple-tree of his orchard-lawn.</p>
+
+<p>When the sweet song-sparrows of the Ottawa
+valley had ceased their plaintive strains, Angus
+McNeil began on his violin. This night, instead
+of "Tullochgorum" or "Roy's Wife" or
+"The March of the McNeils," or any merry
+strathspey, he crept into an unusual movement,
+and from a distance came the notes of an exceeding
+strange strain blent with the meditative
+murmur of the Rataplan Rapids.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p>
+<p>I am not well enough acquainted with musical
+terms to tell the method of that composition
+in which the wail of a Highland coronach
+seemed mingled with such mournful crooning as
+I had heard often from Indian voyageurs north
+of Lake Superior. Perhaps that fancy sprang
+from my knowledge that Angus McNeil's father
+had been a younger son of the chief of the
+McNeil clan, and his mother a daughter of the
+greatest man of the Cree nation.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, but Angus is wae," sighed old McTavish.
+"What will he be seeing the now? It
+was the night before his wife died that he played
+yon last. Come, we will go up the road. He
+does be liking to see the people gather to
+listen."</p>
+
+<p>We walked, maybe three hundred yards, and
+stood leaning against the ruined picket-fence
+that surrounds the great stone house built by
+Hector McNeil, the father of Angus, when he
+retired from his position as one of the "Big
+Bourgeois" of the famous Northwest Fur Trading
+Company.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p>
+<p>The huge square structure of four stories and
+a basement is divided, above the ground floor,
+into eight suites, some of four, and some of five
+rooms. In these suites the fur-trader, whose
+ideas were all patriarchal, had designed that he
+and his Indian wife, with his seven sons and
+their future families, should live to the end of
+his days and theirs. That was a dream at the
+time when his boys were all under nine years
+old, and Godfrey little more than a baby in
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>The ground-floor is divided by a hall twenty-five
+feet wide into two long chambers, one
+intended to serve as a dining-hall for the multitude
+of descendants that Hector expected to
+see round his old age, the other as a withdrawing-room
+for himself and his wife, or for festive
+occasions. In this mansion Angus McNeil now
+dwelt alone.</p>
+
+<p>He sat out that evening on a balcony at the
+rear of the hall, whence he could overlook the
+McTavish place and the hamlet that extends a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+quarter of a mile further down the Ottawa's
+north shore. His right side was toward the
+large group of French-Canadian people who
+had gathered to hear him play. Though he
+was sitting, I could make out that his was a
+gigantic figure.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay&mdash;it will be just exactly 'Great Godfrey's
+Lament,'" McTavish whispered. "Weel
+do I mind him playing yon many's the night
+after Godfrey was laid in the mools. Then he
+played it no more till before his ain wife died.
+What is he seeing now? Man, it's weel kenned
+he has the second sight at times. Maybe he
+sees the pit digging for himself. He's the last
+of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Who was Great Godfrey?" I asked, rather
+loudly.</p>
+
+<p>Angus McNeil instantly cut short the "Lament,"
+rose from his chair, and faced us.</p>
+
+<p>"Aleck McTavish, who have you with you?"
+he called imperiously.</p>
+
+<p>"My young cousin from the city, Mr. McNeil,"
+said McTavish, with deference.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Bring him in. I wish to spoke with you,
+Aleck McTavish. The young man that is not
+acquaint with the name of Great Godfrey McNeil
+can come with you. I will be at the great
+door."</p>
+
+<p>"It's strange-like," said McTavish, as we
+went to the upper gate. "He has not asked
+me inside for near five years. I'm feared his
+wits is disordered, by his way of speaking.
+Mind what you say. Great Godfrey was most
+like a god to Angus."</p>
+
+<p>When Angus McNeil met us at the front
+door I saw he was verily a giant. Indeed, he
+was a wee bit more than six and a half feet tall
+when he stood up straight. Now he was
+stooped a little, not with age, but with consumption,&mdash;the
+disease most fatal to men of
+mixed white and Indian blood. His face was
+dark brown, his features of the Indian cast, but
+his black hair had not the Indian lankness. It
+curled tightly round his grand head.</p>
+
+<p>Without a word he beckoned us on into the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+vast withdrawing room. Without a word he
+seated himself beside a large oaken centre-table,
+and motioned us to sit opposite.</p>
+
+<p>Before he broke silence, I saw that the windows
+of that great chamber were hung with
+faded red damask; that the heads of many a
+bull moose, buck, bear, and wolf grinned among
+guns and swords and claymores from its walls;
+that charred logs, fully fifteen feet long, remained
+in the fireplace from the last winter's
+burning; that there were three dim portraits
+in oil over the mantel; that the room contained
+much frayed furniture, once sumptuous of red
+velvet; and that many skins of wild beasts lay
+strewn over a hard-wood floor whose edges still
+retained their polish and faintly gleamed in
+rays from the red west.</p>
+
+<p>That light was enough to show that two of
+the oil paintings must be those of Hector McNeil
+and his Indian wife. Between these hung
+one of a singularly handsome youth with yellow
+hair.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Here my father lay dead," cried Angus
+McNeil, suddenly striking the table. He stared
+at us silently for many seconds, then again
+struck the table with the side of his clenched
+fist. "He lay here dead on this table&mdash;yes!
+It was Godfrey that straked him out all alone
+on this table. You mind Great Godfrey, Aleck
+McTavish."</p>
+
+<p>"Well I do, Mr. McNeil; and your mother
+yonder,&mdash;a grand lady she was." McTavish
+spoke with curious humility, seeming wishful, I
+thought, to comfort McNeil's sorrow by exciting
+his pride.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay&mdash;they'll tell hereafter that she was
+just exactly a squaw," cried the big man,
+angrily. "But grand she was, and a great lady,
+and a proud. Oh, man, man! but they were
+proud, my father and my Indian mother. And
+Godfrey was the pride of the hearts of them
+both. No wonder; but it was sore on the
+rest of us after they took him apart from our
+ways."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p>
+<p>Aleck McTavish spoke not a word, and big
+Angus, after a long pause, went on as if almost
+unconscious of our presence:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"White was Godfrey, and rosy of the cheek
+like my father; and the blue eyes of him would
+match the sky when you'll be seeing it up
+through a blazing maple on a clear day of
+October. Tall, and straight and grand was
+Godfrey, my brother. What was the thing Godfrey
+could not do? The songs of him hushed
+the singing-birds on the tree, and the fiddle he
+would play to take the soul out of your body.
+There was no white one among us till he was
+born.</p>
+
+<p>"The rest of us all were just Indians&mdash;ay,
+Indians, Aleck McTavish. Brown we were,
+and the desire of us was all for the woods and
+the river. Godfrey had white sense like my
+father, and often we saw the same look in his
+eyes. My God, but we feared our father!"</p>
+
+<p>Angus paused to cough. After the fit he sat
+silent for some minutes. The voice of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+great rapid seemed to fill the room. When he
+spoke again, he stared past our seat with fixed,
+dilated eyes, as if tranced by a vision.</p>
+
+<p>"Godfrey, Godfrey&mdash;you hear! Godfrey,
+the six of us would go over the falls and not
+think twice of it, if it would please you, when
+you were little. Oich, the joy we had in the
+white skin of you, and the fine ways, till my
+father and mother saw we were just making an
+Indian of you, like ourselves! So they took you
+away; ay, and many's the day the six of us went
+to the woods and the river, missing you sore.
+It's then you began to look on us with that
+look that we could not see was different from
+the look we feared in the blue eyes of our
+father. Oh, but we feared him, Godfrey! And
+the time went by, and we feared and we hated
+you that seemed lifted up above your Indian
+brothers!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oich, the masters they got to teach him!"
+said Angus, addressing himself again to my
+cousin. "In the Latin and the Greek they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
+trained him. History books he read, and
+stories in song. Ay, and the manners of
+Godfrey! Well might the whole pride of my
+father and mother be on their one white son.
+A grand young gentleman was Godfrey,&mdash;Great
+Godfrey we called him, when he was eighteen.</p>
+
+<p>"The fine, rich people that would come up
+in bateaux from Montreal to visit my father
+had the smile and the kind word for Godfrey;
+but they looked upon us with the eyes of the
+white man for the Indian. And that look
+we were more and more sure was growing
+harder in Godfrey's eyes. So we looked back
+at him with the eyes of the wolf that stares at
+the bull moose, and is fierce to pull him down,
+but dares not try, for the moose is too great
+and lordly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mind you, Aleck McTavish, for all we
+hated Godfrey when we thought he would be
+looking at us like strange Indians&mdash;for all that,
+yet we were proud of him that he was our own
+brother. Well, we minded how he was all like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+one with us when he was little; and in the
+calm looks of him, and the white skin, and the
+yellow hair, and the grandeur of him, we had
+pride, do you understand? Ay, and in the
+strength of him we were glad. Would we not
+sit still and pleased when it was the talk how
+he could run quicker than the best, and jump
+higher than his head&mdash;ay, would we! Man,
+there was none could compare in strength with
+Great Godfrey, the youngest of us all!</p>
+
+<p>"He and my father and mother more and
+more lived by themselves in this room. Yonder
+room across the hall was left to us six Indians.
+No manners, no learning had we; we were no
+fit company for Godfrey. My mother was like
+she was wilder with love of Godfrey the more
+he grew and the grander, and never a word for
+days and weeks together did she give to us. It
+was Godfrey this, and Godfrey that, and all her
+thought was Godfrey!</p>
+
+<p>"Most of all we hated him when she was
+lying dead here on this table. We six in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+other room could hear Godfrey and my father
+groan and sigh. We would step softly to the
+door and listen to them kissing her that was
+dead,&mdash;them white, and she Indian like ourselves,&mdash;and
+us not daring to go in for the fear
+of the eyes of our father. So the soreness was
+in our hearts so cruel hard that we would not
+go in till the last, for all their asking. My God,
+my God, Aleck McTavish, if you saw her!
+she seemed smiling like at Godfrey, and she
+looked like him then, for all she was brown
+as November oak-leaves, and he white that day
+as the froth on the rapid.</p>
+
+<p>"That put us farther from Godfrey than
+before. And farther yet we were from him
+after, when he and my father would be walking
+up and down, up and down, arm in arm, up
+and down the lawn in the evenings. They
+would be talking about books, and the great
+McNeils in Scotland. The six of us knew we
+were McNeils, for all we were Indians, and we
+would listen to the talk of the great pride and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+the great deeds of the McNeils that was our
+own kin. We would be drinking the whiskey
+if we had it, and saying: 'Godfrey to be the
+only McNeil! Godfrey to take all the pride of
+the name of us!' Oh, man, man! but we
+hated Godfrey sore."</p>
+
+<p>Big Angus paused long, and I seemed to see
+clearly the two fair-haired, tall men walking arm
+in arm on the lawn in the twilight, as if unconscious
+or careless of being watched and overheard
+by six sore-hearted kinsmen.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll mind when my father was thrown
+from his horse and carried into this room,
+Aleck McTavish? Ay, well you do. But you
+nor no other living man but me knows what
+came about the night that he died.</p>
+
+<p>"Godfrey was alone with him. The six of
+us were in yon room. Drink we had, but
+cautious we were with it, for there was a deed
+to be done that would need all our senses.
+We sat in a row on the floor&mdash;we were
+Indians&mdash;it was our wigwam&mdash;we sat on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+floor to be against the ways of them two.
+Godfrey was in here across the hall from us;
+alone he was with our white father. He would
+be chief over us by the will, no doubt,&mdash;and if
+Godfrey lived through that night it would be
+strange.</p>
+
+<p>"We were cautious with the whiskey, I told
+you before. Not a sound could we hear of
+Godfrey or of my father. Only the rapid,
+calling and calling,&mdash;I mind it well that night.
+Ay, and well I mind the striking of the great
+clock,&mdash;tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,&mdash;I listened
+and I dreamed on it till I doubted but it was
+the beating of my father's heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Ten o'clock was gone by, and eleven was
+near. How many of us sat sleeping I know
+not; but I woke up with a start, and there was
+Great Godfrey, with a candle in his hand, looking
+down strange at us, and us looking up
+strange at him.</p>
+
+<p>"'He is dead,' Godfrey said.</p>
+
+<p>"We said nothing.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p>
+<p>"'Father died two hours ago,' Godfrey said.</p>
+
+<p>"We said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"'Our father is white,&mdash;he is very white,'
+Godfrey said, and he trembled. 'Our mother
+was brown when she was dead.'</p>
+
+<p>"Godfrey's voice was wild.</p>
+
+<p>"'Come, brothers, and see how white is our
+father,' Godfrey said.</p>
+
+<p>"No one of us moved.</p>
+
+<p>"'Won't you come? In God's name, come,'
+said Godfrey. 'Oich&mdash;but it is very strange!
+I have looked in his face so long that now I do
+not know him for my father. He is like no
+kin to me, lying there. I am alone, alone.'</p>
+
+<p>"Godfrey wailed in a manner. It made me
+ashamed to hear his voice like that&mdash;him that
+looked like my father that was always silent as
+a sword&mdash;him that was the true McNeil.</p>
+
+<p>"'You look at me, and your eyes are the
+eyes of my mother,' says Godfrey, staring
+wilder. 'What are you doing here, all so
+still? Drinking the whiskey? I am the same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+as you. I am your brother. I will sit with you,
+and if you drink the whiskey, I will drink the
+whiskey, too.'</p>
+
+<p>"Aleck McTavish! with that he sat down on
+the floor in the dirt and litter beside Donald,
+that was oldest of us all.</p>
+
+<p>"'Give me the bottle,' he said. 'I am as
+much Indian as you, brothers. What you do I
+will do, as I did when I was little, long ago.'</p>
+
+<p>"To see him sit down in his best,&mdash;all his
+learning and his grand manners as if forgotten,&mdash;man,
+it was like as if our father himself was
+turned Indian, and was low in the dirt!</p>
+
+<p>"What was in the heart of Donald I don't
+know, but he lifted the bottle and smashed it
+down on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"'God in heaven! what's to become of
+the McNeils! You that was the credit of the
+family, Godfrey!' says Donald with a groan.</p>
+
+<p>"At that Great Godfrey jumped to his feet
+like he was come awake.</p>
+
+<p>"'You're fitter to be the head of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
+McNeils than I am, Donald,' says he; and with
+that the tears broke out of his eyes, and he cast
+himself into Donald's arms. Well, with that
+we all began to cry as if our hearts would break.
+I threw myself down on the floor at Godfrey's
+feet, and put my arms round his knees the same
+as I'd lift him up when he was little. There I
+cried, and we all cried around him, and after a
+bit I said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Brothers, this was what was in the mind
+of Godfrey. He was all alone in yonder. We
+are his brothers, and his heart warmed to us,
+and he said to himself, it was better to be like
+us than to be alone, and he thought if he came
+and sat down and drank the whiskey with us,
+he would be our brother again, and not be any
+more alone.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Ay, Angus, Angus, but how did you
+know that?' says Godfrey, crying; and he put
+his arms round my neck, and lifted me up till
+we were breast to breast. With that we all put
+our arms some way round one another and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+Godfrey, and there we stood sighing and swaying
+and sobbing a long time, and no man saying
+a word.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, man, Godfrey dear, but our father is
+gone, and who can talk with you now about the
+Latin, and the history books, and the great
+McNeils&mdash;and our mother that's gone?' says
+Donald; and the thought of it was such pity
+that our hearts seemed like to break.</p>
+
+<p>"But Godfrey said: 'We will talk together
+like brothers. If it shames you for me to be
+like you, then I will teach you all they taught
+me, and we will all be like our white father.'</p>
+
+<p>"So we all agreed to have it so, if he would
+tell us what to do. After that we came in here
+with Godfrey, and we stood looking at my
+father's white face. Godfrey all alone had
+straked him out on this table, with the silver-pieces
+on the eyes that we had feared. But
+the silver we did not fear. Maybe you will not
+understand it, Aleck McTavish, but our father
+never seemed such close kin to us as when we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
+would look at him dead, and at Godfrey, that
+was the picture of him, living and kind.</p>
+
+<p>"After that you know what happened yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Well I do, Mr. McNeil. It was Great
+Godfrey that was the father to you all," said
+my cousin.</p>
+
+<p>"Just that, Aleck McTavish. All that he
+had was ours to use as we would,&mdash;his land,
+money, horses, this room, his learning. Some
+of us could learn one thing and some of us
+could learn another, and some could learn
+nothing, not even how to behave. What I
+could learn was the playing of the fiddle.
+Many's the hour Godfrey would play with me
+while the rest were all happy around.</p>
+
+<p>"In great content we lived like brothers,
+and proud to see Godfrey as white and fine, and
+grand as the best gentleman that ever came up
+to visit him out of Montreal. Ay, in great
+content we lived all together till the consumption
+came on Donald, and he was gone. Then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+it came and came back, and came back again,
+till Hector was gone, and Ranald was gone,
+and in ten years' time only Godfrey and I were
+left. Then both of us married, as you know.
+But our children died as fast as they were born,
+almost,&mdash;for the curse seemed on us. Then
+his wife died, and Godfrey sighed and sighed
+ever after that.</p>
+
+<p>"One night I was sleeping with the door of
+my room open, so I could hear if Godfrey
+needed my help. The cough was on him
+then. Out of a dream of him looking at my
+father's white face I woke and went to his bed.
+He was not there at all.</p>
+
+<p>"My heart went cold with fear, for I heard
+the rapid very clear, like the nights they all
+died. Then I heard the music begin down
+stairs, here in this chamber where they were
+all laid out dead,&mdash;right here on this table
+where I will soon lie like the rest. I leave it
+to you to see it done, Aleck McTavish, for you
+are a Highlandman by blood. It was that I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+wanted to say to you when I called you in. I
+have seen myself in my coffin three nights.
+Nay, say nothing; you will see.</p>
+
+<p>"Hearing the music that night, down I came
+softly. Here sat Godfrey, and the kindest
+look was on his face that ever I saw. He had
+his fiddle in his hand, and he played about all
+our lives.</p>
+
+<p>"He played about how we all came down
+from the North in the big canoe with my father
+and mother, when we were little children and
+him a baby. He played of the rapids we
+passed over, and of the rustling of the poplar-trees
+and the purr of the pines. He played till
+the river you hear now was in the fiddle, with
+the sound of our paddles, and the fish jumping
+for flies. He played about the long winters
+when we were young, so that the snow of those
+winters seemed falling again. The ringing of
+our skates on the ice I could hear in the fiddle.
+He played through all our lives when we were
+young and going in the woods yonder together&mdash;and
+then it was the sore lament began!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p>
+<p>"It was like as if he played how they kept
+him away from his brothers, and him at his
+books thinking of them in the woods, and him
+hearing the partridges' drumming, and the
+squirrels' chatter, and all the little birds singing
+and singing. Oich, man, but there's no words
+for the sadness of it!"</p>
+
+<p>Old Angus ceased to speak as he took his
+violin from the table and struck into the middle
+of "Great Godfrey's Lament." As he played,
+his wide eyes looked past us, and the tears
+streamed down his brown cheeks. When the
+woful strain ended, he said, staring past us:
+"Ay, Godfrey, you were always our brother."</p>
+
+<p>Then he put his face down in his big brown
+hands, and we left him without another word.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_RED-HEADED_WINDEGO" id="THE_RED-HEADED_WINDEGO"></a>THE RED-HEADED WINDEGO.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Big Baptiste Seguin, on snow-shoes nearly six
+feet long, strode mightily out of the forest,
+and gazed across the treeless valley ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"Hooraw! No choppin' for two mile!" he
+shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"Hooraw! Bully! Hi-yi!" yelled the axemen,
+Pierre, "Jawnny," and "Frawce," two
+hundred yards behind. Their cries were taken
+up by the two chain-bearers still farther back.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it a lake, Baptiste?" cried Tom Dunscombe,
+the young surveyor, as he hurried forward
+through balsams that edged the woods
+and concealed the open space from those among
+the trees.</p>
+
+<p>"No, seh; only a beaver meddy."</p>
+
+<p>"Clean?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Clean! Yesseh! Clean 's your face. Hain't
+no tree for two mile if de line is go right."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! We shall make seven miles to-day,"
+said Tom, as he came forward with
+immense strides, carrying a compass and
+Jacob's-staff. Behind him the axemen slashed
+along, striking white slivers from the pink and
+scaly columns of red pines that shot up a hundred
+and twenty feet without a branch. If any
+underbrush grew there, it was beneath the
+eight-feet-deep February snow, so that one
+could see far away down a multitude of vaulted,
+converging aisles.</p>
+
+<p>Our young surveyor took no thought of the
+beauty and majesty of the forest he was leaving.
+His thoughts and those of his men were set
+solely on getting ahead; for all hands had been
+promised double pay for their whole winter, in
+case they should succeed in running a line
+round the disputed Moose Lake timber berth
+before the tenth of April.</p>
+
+<p>Their success would secure the claim of their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+employer, Old Dan McEachran, whereas their
+failure would submit him perhaps to the loss of
+the limit, and certainly to a costly lawsuit with
+"Old Rory" Carmichael, another potentate of
+the Upper Ottawa.</p>
+
+<p>At least six weeks more of fair snow-shoeing
+would be needed to "blaze" out the limit,
+even if the unknown country before them
+should turn out to be less broken by cedar
+swamps and high precipices than they feared.
+A few days' thaw with rain would make slush of
+the eight feet of snow, and compel the party
+either to keep in camp, or risk <i>mal de raquette</i>,&mdash;strain
+of legs by heavy snow-shoeing. So
+they were in great haste to make the best of
+fine weather.</p>
+
+<p>Tom thrust his Jacob's-staff into the snow,
+set the compass sights to the right bearing,
+looked through them, and stood by to let Big
+Baptiste get a course along the line ahead.
+Baptiste's duty was to walk straight for some
+selected object far away on the line. In woodland<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+the axemen "blazed" trees on both sides
+of his snow-shoe track.</p>
+
+<p>Baptiste was as expert at his job as any
+Indian, and indeed he looked as if he had a
+streak of Iroquois in his veins. So did "Frawce,"
+"Jawnny," and all their comrades of the party.</p>
+
+<p>"The three pines will do," said Tom, as
+Baptiste crouched.</p>
+
+<p>"Good luck to-day for sure!" cried Baptiste,
+rising with his eyes fixed on three pines in the
+foreground of the distant timbered ridge. He
+saw that the line did indeed run clear of trees
+for two miles along one side of the long,
+narrow beaver meadow or swale.</p>
+
+<p>Baptiste drew a deep breath, and grinned
+agreeably at Tom Dunscombe.</p>
+
+<p>"De boys will look like dey's all got de
+double pay in dey's pocket when dey's see <i>dis</i>
+open," said Baptiste, and started for the three
+pines as straight as a bee.</p>
+
+<p>Tom waited to get from the chainmen the
+distance to the edge of the wood. They came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+on the heels of the axemen, and all capered on
+their snow-shoes to see so long a space free
+from cutting.</p>
+
+<p>It was now two o'clock; they had marched
+with forty pound or "light" packs since daylight,
+lunching on cold pork and hard-tack as
+they worked; they had slept cold for weeks on
+brush under an open tent pitched over a hole
+in the snow; they must live this life of hardship
+and huge work for six weeks longer, but
+they hoped to get twice their usual eighty-cents-a-day
+pay, and so their hearts were light
+and jolly.</p>
+
+<p>But Big Baptiste, now two hundred yards in
+advance, swinging along in full view of the
+party, stopped with a scared cry. They saw
+him look to the left and to the right, and over
+his shoulder behind, like a man who expects
+mortal attack from a near but unknown quarter.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" shouted Tom.</p>
+
+<p>Baptiste went forward a few steps, hesitated,
+stopped, turned, and fairly ran back toward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+the party. As he came he continually turned
+his head from side to side as if expecting to
+see some dreadful thing following.</p>
+
+<p>The men behind Tom stopped. Their faces
+were blanched. They looked, too, from side
+to side.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt, Mr. Tom, halt! Oh, <i>monjee</i>, M'sieu,
+stop!" said Jawnny.</p>
+
+<p>Tom looked round at his men, amazed at
+their faces of mysterious terror.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth has happened?" cried he.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of answering, the men simply pointed
+to Big Baptiste, who was soon within twenty
+yards.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the trouble, Baptiste?" asked Tom.</p>
+
+<p>Baptiste's face was the hue of death. As he
+spoke he shuddered:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Monjee</i>, Mr. Tom, we'll got for stop de
+job!"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop the job! Are you crazy?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you'll not b'lieve what I told, den you
+go'n' see for you'se'f."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p>
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"De track, seh."</p>
+
+<p>"What track? Wolves?"</p>
+
+<p>"If it was only wolfs!"</p>
+
+<p>"Confound you! can't you say what it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eet's de&mdash;It ain't safe for told its name
+out loud, for dass de way it come&mdash;if it's call
+by its name!"</p>
+
+<p>"Windego, eh?" said Tom, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll know its track jus' as quick 's I see it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean you have seen a Windego
+track?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Monjee</i>, seh, <i>don't</i> say its name! Let us go
+back," said Jawnny. "Baptiste was at Madores'
+shanty with us when it took Hermidas Dubois."</p>
+
+<p>"Yesseh. That's de way I'll come for
+know de track soon 's I see it," said Baptiste.
+"Before den I mos' don' b'lieve dere was any
+of it. But ain't it take Hermidas Dubois only
+last New Year's?"</p>
+
+<p>"That was all nonsense about Dubois. I'll
+bet it was a joke to scare you all."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Who 's kill a man for a joke?" said Baptiste.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see Hermidas Dubois killed? Did
+you see him dead? No! I heard all about it.
+All you know is that he went away on New
+Year's morning, when the rest of the men were
+too scared to leave the shanty, because some
+one said there was a Windego track outside."</p>
+
+<p>"Hermidas never come back!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet he went away home. You'll find
+him at Saint Agathe in the spring. You can't
+be such fools as to believe in Windegos."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you say dat name some more!"
+yelled Big Baptiste, now fierce with fright.
+"Hain't I just seen de track? I'm go'n' back,
+me, if I don't get a copper of pay for de whole
+winter!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a little now, Baptiste," said Tom,
+alarmed lest his party should desert him and
+the job. "I'll soon find out what's at the
+bottom of the track."</p>
+
+<p>"Dere's blood at de bottom&mdash;I seen it!"
+said Baptiste.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Well, you wait till <i>I</i> go and see it."</p>
+
+<p>"No! I go back, me," said Baptiste, and
+started up the slope with the others at his heels.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt! Stop there! Halt, you fools! Don't
+you understand that if there was any such
+monster it would as easily catch you in one
+place as another?"</p>
+
+<p>The men went on. Tom took another tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Boys, look here! I say, are you going to
+desert me like cowards?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hain't goin' for desert you, Mr. Tom, no
+seh!" said Baptiste, halting. "Honly I'll
+hain' go for cross de track." They all faced
+round.</p>
+
+<p>Tom was acquainted with a considerable
+number of Windego superstitions.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no danger unless it's a fresh
+track," he said. "Perhaps it's an old one."</p>
+
+<p>"Fresh made dis mornin'," said Baptiste.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, wait till I go and see it. You're all
+right, you know, if you don't cross it. Isn't
+that the idea?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p>
+<p>"No, seh. Mr. Humphreys told Madore
+'bout dat. Eef somebody cross de track and
+don't never come back, <i>den</i> de magic ain't in
+de track no more. But it's watchin', watchin'
+all round to catch somebody what cross its
+track; and if nobody don't cross its track and
+get catched, den de&mdash;de <i>Ting</i> mebby get
+crazy mad, and nobody don' know what it's
+goin' for do. Kill every person, mebby."</p>
+
+<p>Tom mused over this information. These
+men had all been in Madore's shanty; Madore
+was under Red Dick Humphreys; Red Dick
+was Rory Carmichael's head foreman; he had
+sworn to stop the survey by hook or by crook,
+and this vow had been made after Tom had
+hired his gang from among those scared away
+from Madore's shanty. Tom thought he began
+to understand the situation.</p>
+
+<p>"Just wait a bit, boys," he said, and started.</p>
+
+<p>"You ain't surely go'n' to cross de track?"
+cried Baptiste.</p>
+
+<p>"Not now, anyway," said Tom. "But wait
+till I see it."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p>
+<p>When he reached the mysterious track it
+surprised him so greatly that he easily forgave
+Baptiste's fears.</p>
+
+<p>If a giant having ill-shaped feet as long as
+Tom's snow-shoes had passed by in moccasins,
+the main features of the indentations might
+have been produced. But the marks were no
+deeper in the snow than if the huge moccasins
+had been worn by an ordinary man. They
+were about five and a half feet apart from
+centres, a stride that no human legs could take
+at a walking pace.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, there were on the snow none of
+the dragging marks of striding; the gigantic
+feet had apparently been lifted straight up clear
+of the snow, and put straight down.</p>
+
+<p>Strangest of all, at the front of each print
+were five narrow holes which suggested that the
+mysterious creature had travelled with bare,
+claw-like toes. An irregular drip or squirt of
+blood went along the middle of the indentations!
+Nevertheless, the whole thing seemed of
+human devising.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p>
+<p>This track, Tom reflected, was consistent
+with the Indian superstition that Windegos are
+monsters who take on or relinquish the human
+form, and vary their size at pleasure. He perceived
+that he must bring the maker of those
+tracks promptly to book, or suffer his men to
+desert the survey, and cost him his whole
+winter's work, besides making him a laughingstock
+in the settlements.</p>
+
+<p>The young fellow made his decision instantly.
+After feeling for his match-box and sheath-knife,
+he took his hatchet from his sash, and
+called to the men.</p>
+
+<p>"Go into camp and wait for me!"</p>
+
+<p>Then he set off alongside of the mysterious
+track at his best pace. It came out of a tangle
+of alders to the west, and went into such
+another tangle about a quarter of a mile to the
+east. Tom went east. The men watched him
+with horror.</p>
+
+<p>"He's got crazy, looking at de track," said
+Big Baptiste, "for that's the way,&mdash;one is
+enchanted,&mdash;he must follow."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p>
+<p>"He was a good boss," said Jawnny, sadly.</p>
+
+<p>As the young fellow disappeared in the
+alders the men looked at one another with a
+certain shame. Not a sound except the sough
+of pines from the neighboring forest was heard.
+Though the sun was sinking in clear blue, the
+aspect of the wilderness, gray and white and
+severe, touched the impressionable men with
+deeper melancholy. They felt lonely, masterless,
+mean.</p>
+
+<p>"He was a good boss," said Jawnny again.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Tort Dieu!</i>" cried Baptiste, leaping to his
+feet. "It's a shame to desert the young boss.
+I don't care; the Windego can only kill me.
+I'm going to help Mr. Tom."</p>
+
+<p>"Me also," said Jawnny.</p>
+
+<p>Then all wished to go. But after some
+parley it was agreed that the others should wait
+for the portageurs, who were likely to be two
+miles behind, and make camp for the night.</p>
+
+<p>Soon Baptiste and Jawnny, each with his axe,
+started diagonally across the swale, and entered
+the alders on Tom's track.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+<p>It took them twenty yards through the alders,
+to the edge of a warm spring or marsh about
+fifty yards wide. This open, shallow water was
+completely encircled by alders that came down
+to its very edge. Tom's snow-shoe track joined
+the track of the mysterious monster for the first
+time on the edge&mdash;and there both vanished!</p>
+
+<p>Baptiste and Jawnny looked at the place with
+the wildest terror, and without even thinking to
+search the deeply indented opposite edges of
+the little pool for a reappearance of the tracks,
+fled back to the party. It was just as Red
+Dick Humphreys had said; just as they had
+always heard. Tom, like Hermidas Dubois,
+appeared to have vanished from existence the
+moment he stepped on the Windego track!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The dimness of early evening was in the red-pine
+forest through which Tom's party had
+passed early in the afternoon, and the belated
+portageurs were tramping along the line. A
+man with a red head had been long crouching in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
+some cedar bushes to the east of the "blazed"
+cutting. When he had watched the portageurs
+pass out of sight, he stepped over upon their
+track, and followed it a short distance.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later a young fellow, over six
+feet high, who strongly resembled Tom Dunscombe,
+followed the red-headed man.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger, suddenly catching sight of a
+flame far away ahead on the edge of the beaver
+meadow, stopped and fairly hugged himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Camped, by jiminy! I knowed I'd fetch
+'em," was the only remark he made.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish Big Baptiste could see that Windego
+laugh," thought Tom Dunscombe, concealed
+behind a tree.</p>
+
+<p>After reflecting a few moments, the red-headed
+man, a wiry little fellow, went forward
+till he came to where an old pine had recently
+fallen across the track. There he kicked off
+his snow-shoes, picked them up, ran along the
+trunk, jumped into the snow from among the
+branches, put on his snow-shoes, and started<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
+northwestward. His new track could not be
+seen from the survey line.</p>
+
+<p>But Tom had beheld and understood the purpose
+of the man&#339;uvre. He made straight for
+the head of the fallen tree, got on the stranger's
+tracks and cautiously followed them, keeping
+far enough behind to be out of hearing or
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>The red-headed stranger went toward the
+wood out of which the mysterious track of the
+morning had come. When he had reached
+the little brush-camp in which he had slept
+the previous night, he made a small fire, put a
+small tin pot on it, boiled some tea, broiled a
+venison steak, ate his supper, had several good
+laughs, took a long smoke, rolled himself round
+and round in his blanket, and went to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Hours passed before Tom ventured to crawl
+forward and peer into the brush camp. The
+red-headed man was lying on his face, as is the
+custom of many woodsmen. His capuchin cap
+covered his red head.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p>
+<p>Tom Dunscombe took off his own long sash.
+When the red-headed man woke up he found
+that some one was on his back, holding his
+head firmly down.</p>
+
+<p>Unable to extricate his arms or legs from his
+blankets, the red-headed man began to utter
+fearful threats. Tom said not one word, but
+diligently wound his sash round his prisoner's
+head, shoulders, and arms.</p>
+
+<p>He then rose, took the red-headed man's
+own "tump-line," a leather strap about twelve
+feet long, which tapered from the middle to
+both ends, tied this firmly round the angry live
+mummy, and left him lying on his face.</p>
+
+<p>Then, collecting his prisoner's axe, snow-shoes,
+provisions, and tin pail, Tom started with
+them back along the Windego track for camp.</p>
+
+<p>Big Baptiste and his comrades had supped
+too full of fears to go to sleep. They had
+built an enormous fire, because Windegos are
+reported, in Indian circles, to share with wild
+beasts the dread of flames and brands. Tom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+stole quietly to within fifty yards of the camp,
+and suddenly shouted in unearthly fashion.
+The men sprang up, quaking.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the Windego!" screamed Jawnny.</p>
+
+<p>"You silly fools!" said Tom, coming forward.
+"Don't you know my voice? Am I a Windego?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's the Windego, for sure; it's took the
+shape of Mr. Tom, after eatin' him," cried Big
+Baptiste.</p>
+
+<p>Tom laughed so uproariously at this, that the
+other men scouted the idea, though it was quite
+in keeping with their information concerning
+Windegos' habits.</p>
+
+<p>Then Tom came in and gave a full and
+particular account of the Windego's pursuit,
+capture, and present predicament.</p>
+
+<p>"But how'd he make de track?" they asked.</p>
+
+<p>"He had two big old snow-shoes, stuffed
+with spruce tips underneath, and covered with
+dressed deerskin. He had cut off the back
+ends of them. You shall see them to-morrow.
+I found them down yonder where he had left<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+them after crossing the warm spring. He had
+five bits of sharp round wood going down in
+front of them. He must have stood on them one
+after the other, and lifted the back one every
+time with the pole he carried. I've got that,
+too. The blood was from a deer he had run down
+and killed in the snow. He carried the blood
+in his tin pail, and sprinkled it behind him.
+He must have run out our line long ago with a
+compass, so he knew where it would go. But
+come, let us go and see if it's Red Dick
+Humphreys."</p>
+
+<p>Red Dick proved to be the prisoner. He
+had become quite philosophic while waiting for
+his captor to come back. When unbound he
+grinned pleasantly, and remarked:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You're Mr. Dunscombe, eh? Well, you're
+a smart young feller, Mr. Dunscombe. There
+ain't another man on the Ottaway that could 'a'
+done that trick on me. Old Dan McEachran
+will make your fortun' for this, and I don't
+begrudge it. You're a man&mdash;that's so. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
+ever I hear any feller saying to the contrayry
+he's got to lick Red Dick Humphreys."</p>
+
+<p>And he told them the particulars of his
+practical joke in making a Windego track round
+Madore's shanty.</p>
+
+<p>"Hermidas Dubois?&mdash;oh, he's all right,"
+said Red Dick. "He's at home at St. Agathe.
+Man, he helped me to fix up that Windego
+track at Madore's; but, by criminy! the look
+of it scared him so he wouldn't cross it himself.
+It was a holy terror!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_SHINING_CROSS_OF_RIGAUD" id="THE_SHINING_CROSS_OF_RIGAUD"></a>THE SHINING CROSS OF RIGAUD.</h2>
+
+<h3>I.</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Mini was a fortnight old his
+mother wrapped her head and shoulders
+in her ragged shawl, snatched him from
+the family litter of straw, and, with a volley of
+cautionary objurgations to his ten brothers and
+sisters, strode angrily forth into the raw
+November weather. She went down the hill
+to the edge of the broad, dark Ottawa, where
+thin slices of ice were swashing together. There
+sat a hopeless-looking little man at the clumsy
+oars of a flat-bottomed boat.</p>
+
+<p>"The little one's feet are out," said the man.</p>
+
+<p>"So much the better! For what was
+another sent us?" cried Mini's mother.</p>
+
+<p>"But the little one must be baptized," said
+the father, with mild expostulation.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Give him to me, then," and the man took
+off his own ragged coat. Beneath it he had
+nothing except an equally ragged guernsey,
+and the wind was keen. The woman surrendered
+the child carelessly, and drawing her
+shawl closer, sat frowning moodily in the stern.
+Mini's father wrapped him in the wretched
+garment, carefully laid the infant on the pea-straw
+at his feet, and rowed wearily away.</p>
+
+<p>They took him to the gray church on the
+farther shore, whose tall cross glittered coldly
+in the wintry sun. There Madame Lajeunesse,
+the skilful washerwoman, angry to be taken so
+long from her tubs, and Bonhomme Hamel,
+who never did anything but fish for <i>barbotes</i>,
+met them. These highly respectable connections
+of Mini's mother had a disdain for her
+inferior social status, and easily made it understood
+that nothing but a Christian duty would
+have brought them out. Where else, indeed,
+could the friendless infant have found sponsors?
+It was disgraceful, they remarked, that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
+custom of baptism at three days old should
+have been violated. While they answered for
+Mini's spiritual development he was quiet,
+neither crying nor smiling till the old priest
+crossed his brow. Then he smiled, and that,
+Bonhomme Hamel remarked, was a blessed
+sign.</p>
+
+<p>"Now he's sure of heaven when he does
+die!" cried Mini's mother, getting home
+again, and tossed him down on the straw, for
+a conclusion to her sentence.</p>
+
+<p>But the child lived, as if by miracle. Hunger,
+cold, dirt, abuse, still left him a feeble vitality.
+At six years old his big dark eyes wore so sad
+a look that mothers of merry children often
+stopped to sigh over him, frightening the child,
+for he did not understand sympathy. So unresponsive
+and dumb was he that they called
+him half-witted. Three babies younger than
+he had died by then, and the fourth was little
+Ang&eacute;lique. They said she would be very like
+Mini, and there was reason why in her wretched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+infancy. Mini's was the only love she ever
+knew. When she saw the sunny sky his weak
+arms carried her, and many a night he drew
+over her the largest part of his deplorable
+coverings. She, too, was strangely silent. For
+days long they lay together on the straw, quietly
+suffering what they had known from the beginning.
+It was something near starvation.</p>
+
+<p>When Mini was eight years old his mother
+sent him one day to beg food from Madame
+Leclaire, whose servant she had been long ago.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Lucile's Mini," said Madame, taking
+him to the door of the cosey sitting-room, where
+Monsieur sat at <i>solitaire</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mon Dieu</i>, did one ever see such a child!"
+cried the retired notary. "For the love of
+Heaven, feed him well, Marie, before you let
+him go!"</p>
+
+<p>But Mini could scarcely eat. He trembled
+at the sight of so much food, and chose a crust
+as the only thing familiar.</p>
+
+<p>"Eat, my poor child. Have no fear," said
+Madame.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+<p>"But Ang&eacute;lique," said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Ang&eacute;lique? Is it the baby?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Madame, if I might have something
+for her."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little loving boy," said Madame,
+tears in her kind eyes. But Mini did not cry;
+he had known so many things so much sadder.</p>
+
+<p>When Mini reached home his mother seized
+the basket. Her wretched children crowded
+around. There were broken bread and meat
+in plenty. "Here&mdash;here&mdash;and here!" She
+distributed crusts, and chose a well-fleshed
+bone for her own teeth. Ang&eacute;lique could not
+walk, and did not cry, so got nothing. Mini,
+however, went to her with the tin pail before
+his mother noticed it.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring that back!" she shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"Quick, baby!" cried Mini, holding it that
+Ang&eacute;lique might drink. But the baby was not
+quick enough. Her mother seized the pail
+and tasted; the milk was still almost warm.
+"Good," said she, reaching for her shawl.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+<p>"For the love of God, mother!" cried Mini,
+"Madame said it was for Ang&eacute;lique." He
+knew too well what new milk would trade for.
+The woman laughed and flung on her shawl.</p>
+
+<p>"Only a little, then; only a cupful," cried
+Mini, clutching her, struggling weakly to restrain
+her. "Only a little cupful for Ang&eacute;lique."</p>
+
+<p>"Give her bread!" She struck him so that
+he reeled, and left the cabin. <i>Then</i> Mini
+cried, but not for the blow.</p>
+
+<p>He placed a soft piece of bread and a thin
+shred of meat in Ang&eacute;lique's thin little hand,
+but she could not eat, she was so weak. The
+elder children sat quietly devouring their food,
+each ravenously eying that of the others. But
+there was so much that when the father came
+he also could eat. He, too, offered Ang&eacute;lique
+bread. Then Mini lifted his hand which held
+hers and showed beneath the food she had
+refused.</p>
+
+<p>"If she had milk!" said the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"My God, if I could get some," groaned the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>
+man, and stopped as a shuffling and tumbling
+was heard at the door.</p>
+
+<p>"She is very drunk," said the man, without
+amazement. He helped her in, and, too far
+gone to abuse them, she soon lay heavily
+breathing near the child she had murdered.</p>
+
+<p>Mini woke in the pale morning thinking
+Ang&eacute;lique very cold in his arms, and, behold,
+she was free from all the suffering forever. So
+he <i>could</i> not cry, though the mother wept when
+she awoke, and shrieked at his tearlessness as
+hardhearted.</p>
+
+<p>Little Ang&eacute;lique had been rowed across the
+great river for the last time; night was come
+again, and Mini thought he <i>must</i> die; it could
+not be that he should be made to live without
+Ang&eacute;lique! Then a wondrous thing seemed to
+happen. Little Ang&eacute;lique had come back.
+He could not doubt it next morning, for, with
+the slowly lessening glow from the last brands
+of fire had not her face appeared?&mdash;then her
+form?&mdash;and lo! she was closely held in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+arms of the mild Mother whom Mini knew
+from her image in the church, only she smiled
+more sweetly now in the hut. Little Ang&eacute;lique
+had learned to smile, too, which was most
+wonderful of all to Mini. In their heavenly
+looks was a meaning of which he felt almost
+aware; a mysterious happiness was coming
+close and closer; with the sense of ineffable
+touches near his brow, the boy dreamed.
+Nothing more did Mini know till his mother's
+voice woke him in the morning. He sprang
+up with a cry of "Ang&eacute;lique," and gazed round
+upon the familiar squalor.</p>
+
+
+<h3>II.</h3>
+
+<p>From the summit of Rigaud Mountain a
+mighty cross flashes sunlight all over the great
+plain of Vaudreuil. The devout <i>habitant</i>,
+ascending from vale to hill-top in the county
+of Deux Montagnes, bends to the sign he sees
+across the forest leagues away. Far off on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
+brown Ottawa, beyond the Cascades of Carillon
+and the Chute &agrave; Blondeau, the keen-eyed
+<i>voyageur</i> catches its gleam, and, for gladness
+to be nearing the familiar mountain, more
+cheerily raises the <i>chanson</i> he loves. Near
+St. Placide the early ploughman&mdash;while yet
+mist wreathes the fields and before the native
+Rossignol has fairly begun his plaintive flourishes&mdash;watches
+the high cross of Rigaud for the
+first glint that shall tell him of the yet unrisen
+sun. The wayfarer marks his progress by the
+bearing of that great cross, the hunter looks to
+it for an unfailing landmark, the weatherwise
+farmer prognosticates from its appearances.
+The old watch it dwindle from sight at evening
+with long thoughts of the well-beloved vanished,
+who sighed to its vanishing through vanished
+years; the dying turn to its beckoning radiance;
+happy is the maiden for whose bridal it
+wears brightness; blessed is the child thought
+to be that holds out tiny hands for the glittering
+cross as for a star. Even to the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+worldly it often seems flinging beams of heaven,
+and to all who love its shining that is a dark
+day when it yields no reflection of immortal
+meaning.</p>
+
+<p>To Mini the Cross of Rigaud had as yet
+been no more than an indistinct glimmering,
+so far from it did he live and so dulled was he
+by his sufferings. It promised him no immortal
+joys, for how was he to conceive of heaven
+except as a cessation of weariness, starvation,
+and pain? Not till Ang&eacute;lique had come, in the
+vision did he gain certainty that in heaven she
+would smile on him always from the mild
+Mother's arms. As days and weeks passed
+without that dream's return, his imagination was
+ever the more possessed by it. Though the
+boy looked frailer than ever, people often
+remarked with amazement how his eyes wore
+some unspeakable happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Now it happened that one sunny day after
+rain Mini became aware that his eyes were
+fixed on the Cross of Rigaud. He could not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+make out its form distinctly, but it appeared to
+thrill toward him. Under his intent watching
+the misty cross seemed gradually to become the
+centre of such a light as had enwrapped the
+figures of his dream. While he gazed, expecting
+his vision of the night to appear in broad
+day on the far summit, the light extended,
+changed, rose aloft, assumed clear tints, and
+shifted quickly to a great rainbow encircling
+the hill.</p>
+
+<p>Mini believed it a token to him. That
+Ang&eacute;lique had been there by the cross the
+little dreamer doubted not, and the transfiguration
+to that arch of glory had some meaning
+that his soul yearned to apprehend. The cross
+drew his thoughts miraculously; for days thereafter
+he dwelt with its shining; more and more
+it was borne in on him that he could always
+see dimly the outline of little Ang&eacute;lique's face
+there; sometimes, staring very steadily for
+minutes together, he could even believe that
+she beckoned and smiled.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Is Ang&eacute;lique really there, father?" he
+asked one day, looking toward the hill-top.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there," answered his father, thinking
+the boy meant heaven.</p>
+
+<p>"I will go to her, then," said Mini to his
+heart.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Birds were not stirring when Mini stepped
+from the dark cabin into gray dawn, with firm
+resolve to join Ang&eacute;lique on the summit. The
+Ottawa, with whose flow he went toward Rigaud,
+was solemnly shrouded in motionless mist, which
+began to roll slowly during the first hour of his
+journey. Lifting, drifting, clinging, ever thinner
+and more pervaded by sunlight, it was drawn
+away so that the unruffled flood reflected a
+sky all blue when he had been two hours on
+the road. But Mini took no note of the river's
+beauty. His eyes were fixed on the cloudy hill-top,
+beyond which the sun was climbing. As
+yet he could see nothing of the cross, nor of
+his vision; yet the world had never seemed so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+glad, nor his heart so light with joy. <i>Habitants</i>,
+in their rattling <i>cal&egrave;ches</i>, were amazed by the
+glow in the face of a boy so ragged and forlorn.
+Some told afterward how they had half
+doubted the reality of his rags; for might not
+one, if very pure at heart, have been privileged
+to see such garments of apparent meanness
+change to raiment of angelic texture? Such
+things had been, it was said, and certainly the
+boy's face was a marvel.</p>
+
+<p>His look was ever upward to where fibrous
+clouds shifted slowly, or packed to level bands
+of mist half concealing Rigaud Hill, as the sun
+wheeled higher, till at last, in mid-sky, it flung
+rays that trembled on the cross, and gradually
+revealed the holy sign outlined in upright and
+arms. Mini shivered with an awe of expectation;
+but no nimbus was disclosed which his
+imagination could shape to glorious significance.
+Yet he went rapturously onward, firm in the
+belief that up there he must see Ang&eacute;lique face
+to face.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p>
+<p>As he journeyed the cross gradually lessened
+in height by disappearance behind the nearer
+trees, till only a spot of light was left, which
+suddenly was blotted out too. Mini drew a
+deep breath, and became conscious of the greatness
+of the hill,&mdash;a towering mass of brown
+rock, half hidden by sombre pines and the
+delicate greenery of birch and poplar. But
+soon, because the cross <i>was</i> hidden, he could
+figure it all the more gloriously, and entertain
+all the more luminously the belief that there were
+heavenly presences awaiting him. He pressed
+on with all his speed, and began to ascend the
+mountain early in the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"Higher," said the women gathering pearly-bloomed
+blueberries on the steep hillside.
+"Higher," said the path, ever leading the tired
+boy upward from plateau to plateau,&mdash;"higher,
+to the vision and the radiant space about the
+shining cross!"</p>
+
+<p>Faint with hunger, worn with fatigue, in the
+half-trance of physical exhaustion, Mini still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+dragged himself upward through the afternoon.
+At last he knew he stood on the summit level
+very near the cross. There the child, awed by
+the imminence of what he had sought, halted
+to control the rapturous, fearful trembling of his
+heart. Would not the heavens surely open?
+What words would Ang&eacute;lique first say? Then
+again he went swiftly forward through the trees
+to the edge of the little cleared space. There
+he stood dazed.</p>
+
+<p>The cross was revealed to him at a few
+yards' distance. With woful disillusionment
+Mini threw himself face downward on the rock,
+and wept hopelessly, sorely; wept and wept,
+till his sobs became fainter than the up-borne
+long notes of a hermit-thrush far below on the
+edge of the plain.</p>
+
+<p>A tall mast, with a shorter at right angles,
+both covered by tin roofing-plates, held on by
+nails whence rust had run in streaks,&mdash;that was
+the shining Cross of Rigaud! Fragments of
+newspaper, crusts of bread, empty tin cans,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
+broken bottles, the relics of many picnics scattered
+widely about the foot of the cross; rude
+initial letters cut deeply into its butt where the
+tin had been torn away;&mdash;these had Mini seen.</p>
+
+<p>The boy ceased to move. Shadows stole
+slowly lengthening over the Vaudreuil champaign;
+the sun swooned down in a glamour of
+painted clouds; dusk covered from sight the
+yellows and browns and greens of the August
+fields; birds stilled with the deepening night;
+Rigaud Mountain loomed from the plain, a
+dark long mass under a flying and waning
+moon; stars came out from the deep spaces
+overhead, and still Mini lay where he had
+wept.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="LITTLE_BAPTISTE" id="LITTLE_BAPTISTE"></a>LITTLE BAPTISTE.</h2>
+
+<h3>A STORY OF THE OTTAWA RIVER.</h3>
+
+
+<p>Ma'ame Baptiste Larocque peered
+again into her cupboard and her flour
+barrel, as though she might have been mistaken
+in her inspection twenty minutes earlier.</p>
+
+<p>"No, there is nothing, nothing at all!" said
+she to her old mother-in-law. "And no more
+trust at the store. Monsieur Conolly was too
+cross when I went for corn-meal yesterday. For
+sure, Baptiste stays very long at the shanty
+this year."</p>
+
+<p>"Fear nothing, Delima," answered the bright-eyed
+old woman. "The good God will send a
+breakfast for the little ones, and for us. In
+seventy years I do not know Him to fail once,
+my daughter. Baptiste may be back to-morrow,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+and with more money for staying so long. No,
+no; fear not, Delima! <i>Le bon Dieu</i> manages
+all for the best."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true; for so I have heard always,"
+answered Delima, with conviction; "but sometimes
+<i>le bon Dieu</i> requires one's inside to pray
+very loud. Certainly I trust, like you, <i>Memere</i>;
+but it would be pleasant if He would send the
+food the day before."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you are too anxious, like little Baptiste
+here," and the old woman glanced at the boy
+sitting by the cradle. "Young folks did not
+talk so when I was little. Then we did not
+think there was danger in trusting <i>Monsieur le
+Cur&eacute;</i> when he told us to take no heed of the
+morrow. But now! to hear them talk, one
+might think they had never heard of <i>le bon
+Dieu</i>. The young people think too much, for
+sure. Trust in the good God, I say. Breakfast
+and dinner and supper too we shall all have
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, <i>Memere</i>," replied the boy, who was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+called little Baptiste to distinguish him from his
+father. "<i>Le bon Dieu</i> will send an excellent
+breakfast, sure enough, if I get up very early,
+and find some good <i>dor&eacute;</i> (pickerel) and catfish
+on the night-line. But if I did not bait the
+hooks, what then? Well, I hope there will be
+more to-morrow than this morning, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"There were enough," said the old woman,
+severely. "Have we not had plenty all day,
+Delima?"</p>
+
+<p>Delima made no answer. She was in doubt
+about the plenty which her mother-in-law spoke
+of. She wondered whether small Andr&eacute; and
+Odillon and 'Toinette, whose heavy breathing
+she could hear through the thin partition, would
+have been sleeping so peacefully had little
+Baptiste not divided his share among them at
+supper-time, with the excuse that he did not
+feel very well?</p>
+
+<p>Delima was young yet,&mdash;though little Baptiste
+was such a big boy,&mdash;and would have rested
+fully on the positively expressed trust of her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+mother-in-law, in spite of the empty flour barrel,
+if she had not suspected little Baptiste of sitting
+there hungry.</p>
+
+<p>However, he was such a strange boy, she
+soon reflected, that perhaps going empty did
+not make him feel bad! Little Baptiste was so
+decided in his ways, made what in others would
+have been sacrifices so much as a matter of
+course, and was so much disgusted on being
+offered credit or sympathy in consequence, that
+his mother, not being able to understand him,
+was not a little afraid of him.</p>
+
+<p>He was not very formidable in appearance,
+however, that clumsy boy of fourteen or so,
+whose big freckled, good face was now bent
+over the cradle where <i>la petite</i> Seraphine lay
+smiling in her sleep, with soft little fingers
+clutched round his rough one.</p>
+
+<p>"For sure," said Delima, observing the baby's
+smile, "the good angels are very near. I wonder
+what they are telling her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something about her father, of course; for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>
+so I have always heard it is when the infants
+smile in sleep," answered the old woman.</p>
+
+<p>Little Baptiste rose impatiently and went into
+the sleeping-room. Often the simplicity and
+sentimentality of his mother and grandmother
+gave him strange pangs at heart; they seemed
+to be the children, while he felt very old. They
+were always looking for wonderful things to
+happen, and expecting the saints and <i>le bon
+Dieu</i> to help the family out of difficulties that
+little Baptiste saw no way of overcoming without
+the work which was then so hard to get.
+His mother's remark about the angels talking to
+little Seraphine pained him so much that he
+would have cried had he not felt compelled to
+be very much of a man during his father's
+absence.</p>
+
+<p>If he had been asked to name the spirit
+hovering about, he would have mentioned a
+very wicked one as personified in John Conolly,
+the village storekeeper, the vampire of the little
+hamlet a quarter of a mile distant. Conolly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+owned the tavern too, and a sawmill up river,
+and altogether was a very rich, powerful, and
+dreadful person in little Baptiste's view. Worst
+of all, he practically owned the cabin and lot of
+the Larocques, for he had made big Baptiste
+give him a bill of sale of the place as security
+for groceries to be advanced to the family while
+its head was away in the shanty; and that
+afternoon Conolly had said to little Baptiste
+that the credit had been exhausted, and more.</p>
+
+<p>"No; you can't get any pork," said the storekeeper.
+"Don't your mother know that, after
+me sending her away when she wanted corn-meal
+yesterday? Tell her she don't get another
+cent's worth here."</p>
+
+<p>"For why not? My fader always he pay,"
+said the indignant boy, trying to talk English.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed! Well, he ain't paid this time.
+How do I know what's happened to him, as he
+ain't back from the shanty? Tell you what:
+I'm going to turn you all out if your mother
+don't pay rent in advance for the shanty
+to-morrow,&mdash;four dollars a month."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p>
+<p>"What you talkin' so for? We doan' goin
+pay no rent for our own house!"</p>
+
+<p>"You doan' goin' to own no house," answered
+Conolly, mimicking the boy. "The house is
+mine any time I like to say so. If the store
+bill ain't paid to-night, out you go to-morrow, or
+else pay rent. Tell your mother that for me.
+Mosey off now. '<i>Marche, donc!</i>' There's
+no other way."</p>
+
+<p>Little Baptiste had not told his mother of
+this terrible threat, for what was the use? She
+had no money. He knew that she would begin
+weeping and wailing, with small Andr&eacute; and
+Odillon as a puzzled, excited chorus, with
+'Toinette and Seraphine adding those baby
+cries that made little Baptiste want to cry himself;
+with his grandmother steadily advising, in
+the din, that patient trust in <i>le bon Dieu</i> which
+he could not always entertain, though he felt
+very wretched that he could not.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, he desired to spare his mother
+and grandmother as long as possible. "Let<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
+them have their good night's sleep," said he
+to himself, with such thoughtfulness and pity
+as a merchant might feel in concealing imminent
+bankruptcy from his family. He knew
+there was but one chance remaining,&mdash;that
+his father might come home during the night
+or next morning, with his winter's wages.</p>
+
+<p>Big Baptiste had "gone up" for Rewbell the
+jobber; had gone in November, to make logs
+in the distant Petawawa woods, and now the
+month was May. The "very magnificent"
+pig he had salted down before going away had
+been eaten long ago. My! what a time it
+seemed now to little Baptiste since that pig-killing!
+How good the <i>boudin</i> (the blood-puddings)
+had been, and the liver and tender
+bits, and what a joyful time they had had!
+The barrelful of salted pike and catfish was all
+gone too,&mdash;which made the fact that fish were
+not biting well this year very sad indeed.</p>
+
+<p>Now on top of all these troubles this new
+danger of being turned out on the roadside!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+For where are they to get four dollars, or two,
+or one even, to stave Conolly off? Certainly
+his father was away too long; but surely, surely,
+thought the boy, he would get back in time to
+save his home! Then he remembered with
+horror, and a feeling of being disloyal to his
+father for remembering, that terrible day, three
+years before, when big Baptiste had come back
+from his winter's work drunk, and without a
+dollar, having been robbed while on a spree in
+Ottawa. If that were the reason of his father's
+delay now, ah, then there would be no hope,
+unless <i>le bon Dieu</i> should indeed work a miracle
+for them!</p>
+
+<p>While the boy thought over the situation with
+fear, his grandmother went to her bed, and soon
+afterward Delima took the little Seraphine's
+cradle into the sleeping-room. That left little
+Baptiste so lonely that he could not sit still; nor
+did he see any use of going to lie awake in bed
+by Andr&eacute; and Odillon.</p>
+
+<p>So he left the cabin softly, and reaching the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+river with a few steps, pushed off his flat-bottomed
+boat, and was carried smartly up
+stream by the shore eddy. It soon gave him
+to the current, and then he drifted idly down
+under the bright moon, listening to the roar of
+the long rapid, near the foot of which their
+cabin stood. Then he took to his oars, and
+rowed to the end of his night-line, tied to the
+wharf. He had an unusual fear that it might be
+gone, but found it all right, stretched taut; a
+slender rope, four hundred feet long, floated
+here and there far away in the darkness by flat
+cedar sticks,&mdash;a rope carrying short bits of line,
+and forty hooks, all loaded with excellent fat,
+wriggling worms.</p>
+
+<p>That day little Baptiste had taken much
+trouble with his night-line; he was proud of the
+plentiful bait, and now, as he felt the tightened
+rope with his fingers, he told himself that his
+well-filled hooks <i>must</i> attract plenty of fish,&mdash;perhaps
+a sturgeon! Wouldn't that be grand?
+A big sturgeon of seventy-five pounds!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+<p>He pondered the Ottawa statement that
+"there are seven kinds of meat on the head
+of a sturgeon," and, enumerating the kinds, fell
+into a conviction that one sturgeon at least
+would surely come to his line. Had not three
+been caught in one night by Pierre Mallette,
+who had no sort of claim, who was too lazy to
+bait more than half his hooks, altogether too
+wicked to receive any special favors from <i>le
+bon Dieu</i>?</p>
+
+<p>Little Baptiste rowed home, entered the cabin
+softly, and stripped for bed, almost happy in
+guessing what the big fish would probably weigh.</p>
+
+<p>Putting his arms around little Andr&eacute;, he tried
+to go to sleep; but the threats of Conolly came
+to him with new force, and he lay awake, with
+a heavy dread in his heart.</p>
+
+<p>How long he had been lying thus he did not
+know, when a heavy step came upon the plank
+outside the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Father's home!" cried little Baptiste,
+springing to the floor as the door opened.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Baptiste! my own Baptiste!" cried Delima,
+putting her arms around her husband as he
+stood over her.</p>
+
+<p>"Did I not say," said the old woman, seizing
+her son's hand, "that the good God would
+send help in time?"</p>
+
+<p>Little Baptiste lit the lamp. Then they saw
+something in the father's face that startled them
+all. He had not spoken, and now they perceived
+that he was haggard, pale, wild-eyed.</p>
+
+<p>"The good God!" cried big Baptiste, and
+knelt by the bed, and bowed his head on his
+arms, and wept so loudly that little Andr&eacute; and
+Odillon, wakening, joined his cry. "<i>Le bon
+Dieu</i> has forgotten us! For all my winter's
+work I have not one dollar! The concern is
+failed. Rewbell paid not one cent of wages,
+but ran away, and the timber has been seized."</p>
+
+<p>Oh, the heartbreak! Oh, poor Delima!
+poor children! and poor little Baptiste, with
+the threats of Conolly rending his heart!</p>
+
+<p>"I have walked all day," said the father,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
+"and eaten not a thing. Give me something,
+Delima."</p>
+
+<p>"O holy angels!" cried the poor woman,
+breaking into a wild weeping. "O Baptiste,
+Baptiste, my poor man! There is nothing;
+not a scrap; not any flour, not meal, not grease
+even; not a pinch of tea!" but still she
+searched frantically about the rooms.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," said big Baptiste then, holding
+her in his strong arms. "I am not so
+hungry as tired, Delima, and I can sleep."</p>
+
+<p>The old woman, who had been swaying to
+and fro in her chair of rushes, rose now, and
+laid her aged hands on the broad shoulders of
+the man.</p>
+
+<p>"My son Baptiste," she said, "you must not
+say that God has forgotten us, for He has not
+forgotten us. The hunger is hard to bear, I
+know,&mdash;hard, hard to bear; but great plenty will
+be sent in answer to our prayers. And it is
+hard, hard to lose thy long winter's work; but
+be patient, my son, and thankful, yes, thankful
+for all thou hast."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Behold, Delima is well and strong. See
+the little Baptiste, how much a man! Yes,
+that is right; kiss the little Andr&eacute; and Odillon;
+and see! how sweetly 'Toinette sleeps! All
+strong and well, son Baptiste! Were one gone,
+think what thou wouldst have lost! But instead,
+be thankful, for behold, another has
+been given,&mdash;the little Seraphine here, that
+thou hast not before seen!"</p>
+
+<p>Big, rough, soft-hearted Baptiste knelt by the
+cradle, and kissed the babe gently.</p>
+
+<p>"It is true, <i>Memere</i>," he answered, "and I
+thank <i>le bon Dieu</i> for his goodness to me."</p>
+
+<p>But little Baptiste, lying wide awake for
+hours afterwards, was not thankful. He could
+not see that matters could be much worse. A
+big hard lump was in his throat as he thought
+of his father's hunger, and the home-coming so
+different from what they had fondly counted on.
+Great slow tears came into the boy's eyes, and
+he wiped them away, ashamed even in the dark
+to have been guilty of such weakness.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+<p>In the gray dawn little Baptiste suddenly
+awoke, with the sensation of having slept on
+his post. How heavy his heart was! Why?
+He sat dazed with indefinite sorrow. Ah, now
+he remembered! Conolly threatening to turn
+them out! and his father back penniless! No
+breakfast! Well, we must see about that.</p>
+
+<p>Very quietly he rose, put on his patched
+clothes, and went out. Heavy mist covered the
+face of the river, and somehow the rapid
+seemed stilled to a deep, pervasive murmur.
+As he pushed his boat off, the morning fog was
+chillier than frost about him; but his heart got
+lighter as he rowed toward his night-line, and
+he became even eager for the pleasure of handling
+his fish. He made up his mind not to be
+much disappointed if there were no sturgeon,
+but could not quite believe there would be
+none; surely it was reasonable to expect <i>one</i>,
+perhaps two&mdash;why not three?&mdash;among the
+catfish and <i>dor&eacute;</i>.</p>
+
+<p>How very taut and heavy the rope felt as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
+raised it over his gunwales, and letting the bow
+swing up stream, began pulling in the line hand
+over hand! He had heard of cases where
+every hook had its fish; such a thing might
+happen again surely! Yard after yard of rope
+he passed slowly over the boat, and down into
+the water it sank on his track.</p>
+
+<p>Now a knot on the line told him he was nearing
+the first hook; he watched for the quiver
+and struggle of the fish,&mdash;probably a big one,
+for there he had put a tremendous bait on and
+spat on it for luck, moreover. What? the
+short line hung down from the rope, and the
+baited hook rose clear of the water!</p>
+
+<p>Baptiste instantly made up his mind that that
+hook had been placed a little too far in-shore;
+he remembered thinking so before; the next
+hook was in about the right place!</p>
+
+<p>Hand over hand, ah! the second hook, too!
+Still baited, the big worm very livid! It must
+be thus because that worm was pushed up the
+shank of the hook in such a queer way: he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>
+been rather pleased when he gave the bait that
+particular twist, and now was surprised at himself;
+why, any one could see it was a thing to
+scare fish!</p>
+
+<p>Hand over hand to the third,&mdash;the hook was
+naked of bait! Well, that was more satisfactory;
+it showed they had been biting, and, after all,
+this was just about the beginning of the right
+place.</p>
+
+<p>Hand over hand; <i>now</i> the splashing will
+begin, thought little Baptiste, and out came
+the fourth hook with its livid worm! He held
+the rope in his hand without drawing it in for a
+few moments, but could see no reasonable
+objection to that last worm. His heart sank a
+little, but pshaw! only four hooks out of forty
+were up yet! wait till the eddy behind the shoal
+was reached, then great things would be seen.
+Maybe the fish had not been lying in that first
+bit of current.</p>
+
+<p>Hand over hand again, now! yes, certainly,
+<i>there</i> is the right swirl! What? a <i>losch</i>, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
+unclean semi-lizard! The boy tore it off and
+flung it indignantly into the river. However,
+there was good luck in a <i>losch</i>; that was
+well known.</p>
+
+<p>But the next hook, and the next, and next,
+and next came up baited and fishless. He
+pulled hand over hand quickly&mdash;not a fish!
+and he must have gone over half the line!
+Little Baptiste stopped, with his heart like lead
+and his arms trembling. It was terrible! Not
+a fish, and his father had no supper, and there
+was no credit at the store. Poor little Baptiste!</p>
+
+<p>Again he hauled hand over hand&mdash;one hook,
+two, three&mdash;oh! ho! Glorious! What a delightful
+sheer downward the rope took! Surely
+the big sturgeon at last, trying to stay down
+on the bottom with the hook! But Baptiste
+would show that fish his mistake. He pulled,
+pulled, stood up to pull; there was a sort of
+shake, a sudden give of the rope, and little
+Baptiste tumbled over backward as he jerked
+his line up from under the big stone!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+<p>Then he heard the shutters clattering as
+Conolly's clerk took them off the store window;
+at half-past five to the minute that was always
+done. Soon big Baptiste would be up, that
+was certain. Again the boy began hauling in
+line: baited hook! baited hook! naked hook!
+baited hook!&mdash;such was still the tale.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, surely," implored little Baptiste,
+silently, "I shall find some fish!" Up! up!
+only four remained! The boy broke down.
+Could it be? Had he not somehow skipped
+many hooks? Could it be that there was to be
+no breakfast for the children? Naked hook
+again! Oh, for some fish! anything! three,
+two!</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, send just one for my father!&mdash;my
+poor, hungry father!" cried little Baptiste, and
+drew up his last hook. It came full baited, and
+the line was out of the water clear away to his
+outer buoy!</p>
+
+<p>He let go the rope and drifted down the
+river, crying as though his heart would break.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
+All the good hooks useless! all the labor thrown
+away! all his self-confidence come to naught!</p>
+
+<p>Up rose the great sun; from around the
+kneeling boy drifted the last of the morning
+mists; bright beams touched his bowed head
+tenderly. He lifted his face and looked
+up the rapid. Then he jumped to his feet
+with sudden wonder; a great joy lit up his
+countenance.</p>
+
+<p>Far up the river a low, broad, white patch appeared
+on the sharp sky-line made by the level
+dark summit of the long slope of tumbling
+water. On this white patch stood many figures
+of swaying men black against the clear morning
+sky, and little Baptiste saw instantly that an
+attempt was being made to "run" a "band"
+of deals, or many cribs lashed together, instead
+of single cribs as had been done the day
+before.</p>
+
+<p>The broad strip of white changed its form
+slowly, dipped over the slope, drew out like a
+wide ribbon, and soon showed a distinct slant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+across the mighty volume of the deep raft-channel.
+When little Baptiste, acquainted as
+he was with every current, eddy, and shoal in
+the rapid, saw that slant, he knew that his first
+impression of what was about to happen had
+been correct. The pilot of the band <i>had</i>
+allowed it to drift too far north before reaching
+the rapid's head.</p>
+
+<p>Now the front cribs, instead of following the
+curve of the channel, had taken slower water,
+while the rear cribs, impelled by the rush under
+them, swung the band slowly across the current.
+All along the front the standing men swayed
+back and forth, plying sweeps full forty feet
+long, attempting to swing into channel again,
+with their strokes dashing the dark rollers
+before the band into wide splashes of white.
+On the rear cribs another crew pulled in the
+contrary direction; about the middle of the
+band stood the pilot, urging his gangs with
+gestures to greater efforts.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he made a new motion; the gang<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
+behind drew in their oars and ran hastily
+forward to double the force in front. But
+they came too late! Hardly had the doubled
+bow crew taken a stroke when all drew in
+their oars and ran back to be out of danger.
+Next moment the front cribs struck the
+"hog's-back" shoal.</p>
+
+<p>Then the long broad band curved downward
+in the centre, the rear cribs swung into the
+shallows on the opposite side of the raft-channel,
+there was a great straining and
+crashing, the men in front huddled together,
+watching the wreck anxiously, and the band
+went speedily to pieces. Soon a fringe of
+single planks came down stream, then cribs and
+pieces of cribs; half the band was drifting
+with the currents, and half was "hung up" on
+the rocks among the breakers.</p>
+
+<p>Launching the big red flat-bottomed bow
+boat, twenty of the raftsmen came with wild
+speed down the river, and as there had been no
+rush to get aboard, little Baptiste knew that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>
+cribs on which the men stood were so hard
+aground that no lives were in danger. It
+meant much to him; it meant that he was
+instantly at liberty to gather in <i>money</i>! money,
+in sums that loomed to gigantic figures before
+his imagination.</p>
+
+<p>He knew that there was an important reason
+for hurrying the deals to Quebec, else the great
+risk of running a band at that season would not
+have been undertaken; and he knew that hard
+cash would be paid down as salvage for all
+planks brought ashore, and thus secured from
+drifting far and wide over the lake-like expanse
+below the rapid's foot. Little Baptiste plunged
+his oars in and made for a clump of deals floating
+in the eddy near his own shore. As he
+rushed along, the raftsmen's boat crossed his
+bows, going to the main raft below for ropes
+and material to secure the cribs coming down
+intact.</p>
+
+<p>"Good boy!" shouted the foreman to
+Baptiste. "Ten cents for every deal you fetch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
+ashore above the raft!" Ten cents! he had
+expected but five! What a harvest!</p>
+
+<p>Striking his pike-pole into the clump of deals,&mdash;"fifty
+at least," said joyful Baptiste,&mdash;he
+soon secured them to his boat, and then pulled,
+pulled, pulled, till the blood rushed to his head,
+and his arms ached, before he landed his
+wealth.</p>
+
+<p>"Father!" cried he, bursting breathlessly
+into the sleeping household. "Come quick! I
+can't get it up without you."</p>
+
+<p>"Big sturgeon?" cried the shantyman, jumping
+into his trousers.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but we shall have a good fish breakfast!"
+cried Delima.</p>
+
+<p>"Did I not say the blessed <i>le bon Dieu</i> would
+send plenty fish?" observed <i>Memere</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a fish!" cried little Baptiste, with
+recovered breath. "But look! look!" and he
+flung open the door. The eddy was now white
+with planks.</p>
+
+<p>"Ten cents for each!" cried the boy. "The
+foreman told me."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Ten cents!" shouted his father. "<i>Bapt&ecirc;me!</i>
+it's my winter's wages!"</p>
+
+<p>And the old grandmother! And Delima?
+Why, they just put their arms round each other
+and cried for joy.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet there's no breakfast," said Delima,
+starting up. "And they will work hard, hard."</p>
+
+<p>At that instant who should reach the door
+but Monsieur Conolly! He was a man who
+respected cash wherever he found it, and
+already the two Baptistes had a fine show
+ashore.</p>
+
+<p>"Ma'ame Larocque," said Conolly, politely,
+putting in his head, "of course you know I was
+only joking yesterday. You can get anything
+you want at the store."</p>
+
+<p>What a breakfast they did have, to be sure!
+the Baptistes eating while they worked. Back
+and forward they dashed till late afternoon, driving
+ringed spikes into the deals, running light
+ropes through the rings, and, when a good
+string had thus been made, going ashore to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+haul in. At that hauling Delima and <i>Memere</i>,
+even little Andr&eacute; and Odillon gave a hand.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody in the little hamlet made money
+that day, but the Larocques twice as much as
+any other family, because they had an eddy and
+a low shore. With the help of the people
+"the big <i>Bourgeois</i>" who owned the broken
+raft got it away that evening, and saved his
+fat contract after all.</p>
+
+<p>"Did I not say so?" said "<i>Memere</i>," at
+night, for the hundredth time. "Did I not
+say so? Yes, indeed, <i>le bon Dieu</i> watches
+over us all."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed, grandmother," echoed little
+Baptiste, thinking of his failure on the night-line.
+"We may take as much trouble as we
+like, but it's no use unless <i>le bon Dieu</i> helps
+us. Only&mdash;I don' know what de big Bourgeois
+say about that&mdash;his raft was all broke up so
+bad."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, <i>oui</i>," said <i>Memere</i>, looking puzzled for
+but a moment. "But he didn't put his trust<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
+in <i>le bon Dieu</i>; that's it, for sure. Besides,
+maybe <i>le bon Dieu</i> want to teach him a lesson;
+he'll not try for run a whole band of deals
+next time. You see that was a tempting of
+Providence; and then&mdash;the big Bourgeois is
+a Protestant."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_RIDE_BY_NIGHT" id="THE_RIDE_BY_NIGHT"></a>THE RIDE BY NIGHT.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Adam Baines is a little Gray about
+the temples, but still looks so young
+that few could suppose him to have served in
+the Civil War. Indeed, he was in the army
+less than a year. How he went out of it he
+told me in some such words as these:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>An orderly from the direction of Meade's
+headquarters galloped into our parade ground,
+and straight for the man on guard before the
+colonel's tent. That was pretty late in the
+afternoon of a bright March day in 1865, but
+the parade ground was all red mud with shallow
+pools. I remember well how the hind hoofs of
+the orderly's galloper threw away great chunks
+of earth as he splashed diagonally across the
+open.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+<p>His rider never slowed till he brought his
+horse to its haunches before the sentry. There
+he flung himself off instantly, caught up his
+sabre, and ran through the middle opening
+of the high screen of sapling pines stuck on
+end, side by side, all around the acre or so
+occupied by the officers' quarters.</p>
+
+<p>The day, though sunny, was not warm, and
+nearly all the men of my regiment were in
+their huts when that galloping was heard.
+Then they hurried out like bees from rows
+of hives, ran up the lanes between the lines
+of huts, and collected, each company separately,
+on the edge of the parade ground opposite the
+officers' quarters.</p>
+
+<p>You see we had a notion that the orderly
+had brought the word to break camp. For five
+months the Army of the Potomac had been in
+winter quarters, and for weeks nothing more
+exciting than vidette duty had broken the
+monotony of our brigade. We understood that
+Sheridan had received command of all Grant's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>
+cavalry, but did not know but the orderly had
+rushed from Sheridan himself. Yet we awaited
+the man's re-appearance with intense curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>Soon, instead of the orderly, out ran our
+first lieutenant, a small, wiry, long-haired man
+named Miller. He was in undress uniform,&mdash;just
+a blouse and trousers,&mdash;and bare-headed.
+Though he wore low shoes, he dashed through
+mud and water toward us, plainly in a great
+hurry.</p>
+
+<p>"Sergeant Kennedy, I want ten men at once&mdash;mounted,"
+Miller said. "Choose the ten
+best able for a long ride, and give them the
+best horses in the company. You understand,&mdash;no
+matter whose the ten best horses are, give
+'em to the ten best riders."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand, sir," said Kennedy.</p>
+
+<p>By this time half the company had started
+for the stables, for fully half considered themselves
+among the best riders. The lieutenant
+laughed at their eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt, boys!" he cried. "Sergeant, I'll<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
+pick out four myself. Come yourself, and bring
+Corporal Crowfoot, Private Bader, and Private
+Absalom Gray."</p>
+
+<p>Crowfoot, Bader, and Gray had been running
+for the stables with the rest. Now these three
+old soldiers grinned and walked, as much as to
+say, "We needn't hurry; we're picked anyhow;"
+while the others hurried on. I remained
+near Kennedy, for I was so young and green a
+soldier that I supposed I had no chance to go.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry up! parade as soon as possible.
+One day's rations; light marching order&mdash;no
+blankets&mdash;fetch over-coats and ponchos," said
+Miller, turning; "and in choosing your men,
+favor light weights."</p>
+
+<p>That was, no doubt, the remark which
+brought me in. I was lanky, light, bred among
+horses, and one of the best in the regiment
+had fallen to my lot. Kennedy wheeled, and
+his eye fell on me.</p>
+
+<p>"Saddle up, Adam, boy," said he; "I guess
+you'll do."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+<p>Lieutenant Miller ran back to his quarters,
+his long hair flying wide. When he reappeared
+fifteen minutes later, we were trotting across
+the parade ground to meet him. He was
+mounted, not on his own charger, but on the
+colonel's famous thorough-bred bay. Then we
+knew a hard ride must be in prospect.</p>
+
+<p>"What! one of the boys?" cried Miller,
+as he saw me. "He's too young."</p>
+
+<p>"He's very light, sir; tough as hickory. I
+guess he'll do," said Kennedy.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no time to change now. Follow me!
+But, hang it, you've got your carbines! Oh, I
+forgot! Keep pistols only! throw down your
+sabres and carbines&mdash;anywhere&mdash;never mind
+the mud!"</p>
+
+<p>As we still hesitated to throw down our
+clean guns, he shouted: "Down with them&mdash;anywhere!
+Now, boys, after me, by twos! Trot&mdash;gallop!"</p>
+
+<p>Away we went, not a man jack of us knew
+for where or what. The colonel and officers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+standing grouped before regimental headquarters,
+volleyed a cheer at us. It was taken
+up by the whole regiment; it was taken up by
+the brigade; it was repeated by regiment after
+regiment of infantry as we galloped through the
+great camp toward the left front of the army.
+The speed at which Miller led over a rough
+corduroy road was extraordinary, and all the
+men suspected some desperate enterprise afoot.</p>
+
+<p>Red and brazen was the set of the sun. I
+remember it well, after we got clear of the
+forts, clear of the breastworks, clear of the
+reserves, down the long slope and across the wide
+ford of Grimthorpe's Creek, never drawing
+rein.</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant led by ten yards or so. He
+had ordered each two to take as much distance
+from the other two in advance; but we rode
+so fast that the water from the heels of his
+horse and from the heels of each two splashed
+into the faces of the following men.</p>
+
+<p>From the ford we loped up a hill, and passed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+the most advanced infantry pickets, who laughed
+and chaffed us, asking us for locks of our hair,
+and if our mothers knew we were out, and
+promising to report our last words faithfully to
+the folks at home.</p>
+
+<p>Soon we turned to the left again, swept close
+by several cavalry videttes, and knew then that
+we were bound for a ride through a country
+that might or might not be within Lee's outer
+lines, at that time extended so thinly in many
+places that his pickets were far out of touch with
+one another. To this day I do not know precisely
+where we went, nor precisely what for. Soldiers
+are seldom informed of the meaning of their
+movements.</p>
+
+<p>What I do know is what we did while I was
+in the ride. As we were approaching dense
+pine woods the lieutenant turned in his saddle,
+slacked pace a little, and shouted, "Boys,
+bunch up near me!"</p>
+
+<p>He screwed round in his saddle so far that
+we could all see and hear, and said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Boys, the order is to follow this road as
+fast as we can till our horses drop, or else the
+Johnnies drop us, or else we drop upon three
+brigades of our own infantry. I guess they've got
+astray somehow; but I don't know myself what
+the trouble is. Our orders are plain. The
+brigades are supposed to be somewhere on this
+road. I guess we shall do a big thing if we
+reach those men to-night. All we've got to do
+is to ride and deliver this despatch to the
+general in command. You all understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Yes, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's necessary you all should. Hark, now!
+We are not likely to strike the enemy in force,
+but we are likely to run up against small
+parties. Now, Kennedy, if they down me, you
+are to stop just long enough to grab the
+despatch from my breast; then away you go,&mdash;always
+on the main road. If they down you
+after you've got the paper, the man who can
+grab it first is to take it and hurry forward. So
+on right to the last man. If they down him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+and he's got his senses when he falls, he's to
+tear the paper up, and scatter it as widely as he
+can. You all understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir! Yes, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"All right, then. String out again!"</p>
+
+<p>He touched the big bay with the spur, and
+shot quickly ahead.</p>
+
+<p>With the long rest of the winter our horses
+were in prime spirits, though mostly a little too
+fleshy for perfect condition. I had cared well
+for my horse; he was fast and sound in wind
+and limb. I was certainly the lightest rider of
+the eleven.</p>
+
+<p>I was still thinking of the probability that I
+should get further on the way than any comrade
+except the lieutenant, or perhaps Crowfoot and
+Bader, whose horses were in great shape; I
+was thinking myself likely to win promotion
+before morning, when a cry came out of the
+darkness ahead. The words of the challenge I
+was not able to catch, but I heard Miller shout,
+"Forward, boys!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p>
+<p>We shook out more speed just as a rifle spat
+its long flash at us from about a hundred yards
+ahead. For one moment I plainly saw the
+Southerner's figure. Kennedy reeled beside
+me, flung up his hands with a scream, and fell.
+His horse stopped at once. In a moment the
+lieutenant had ridden the sentry down.</p>
+
+<p>Then from the right side of the road a party,
+who must have been lying round the camp-fire
+that we faintly saw in among the pines, let fly
+at us. They had surely been surprised in their
+sleep. I clearly saw them as their guns flashed.</p>
+
+<p>"Forward! Don't shoot! Ride on," shouted
+Miller. "Bushwhackers! Thank God, not
+mounted! Any of you make out horses with
+them?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir! No, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who yelled? who went down?"</p>
+
+<p>"Kennedy, sir," I cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Too bad! Any one else?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"All safe?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p>
+<p>"I'm touched in my right arm; but it's
+nothing," I said. The twinge was slight, and
+in the fleshy place in front of my shoulder. I
+could not make out that I was losing blood,
+and the pain from the hurt was scarcely
+perceptible.</p>
+
+<p>"Good boy! Keep up, Adam!" called the
+lieutenant with a kind tone. I remember my
+delight that he spoke my front name. On we
+flew.</p>
+
+<p>Possibly the shots had been heard by the
+party half a mile further on, for they greeted us
+with a volley. A horse coughed hard and
+pitched down behind me. His rider yelled as
+he fell. Then two more shots came: Crowfoot
+reeled in front of me, and somehow checked
+his horse. I saw him no more. Next moment
+we were upon the group with our pistols.</p>
+
+<p>"Forward, men! Don't stop to fight!"
+roared Miller, as he got clear. A rifle was
+fired so close to my head that the flame burned
+my back hair, and my ears rang for half an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
+hour or more. My bay leaped high and dashed
+down a man. In a few seconds I was fairly
+out of the scrimmage.</p>
+
+<p>How many of my comrades had gone down
+I knew not, nor beside whom I was riding.
+Suddenly our horses plunged into a hole; his
+stumbled, the man pitched forward, and was
+left behind. Then I heard a shot, the clatter
+of another falling horse, the angry yell of
+another thrown rider.</p>
+
+<p>On we went,&mdash;the relics of us. Now we
+rushed out of the pine forest into broad moonlight,
+and I saw two riders between me and the
+lieutenant,&mdash;one man almost at my shoulder
+and another galloping ten yards behind. Very
+gradually this man dropped to the rear. We
+had lost five men already, and still the night
+was young.</p>
+
+<p>Bader and Absalom Gray were nearest me.
+Neither spoke a word till we struck upon a
+space of sandy road. Then I could hear, far
+behind the rear man, a sound of galloping on
+the hard highway.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p>
+<p>"They're after us, lieutenant!" shouted
+Bader.</p>
+
+<p>"Many?" He slacked speed, and we listened
+attentively.</p>
+
+<p>"Only one," cried Miller. "He's coming
+fast."</p>
+
+<p>The pursuer gained so rapidly that we looked
+to our pistols again. Then Absalom Gray cried:</p>
+
+<p>"It's only a horse!"</p>
+
+<p>In a few moments the great gray of fallen
+Corporal Crowfoot overtook us, went ahead,
+and slacked speed by the lieutenant.</p>
+
+<p>"Good! He'll be fresh when the rest go
+down!" shouted Miller. "Let the last man
+mount the gray!"</p>
+
+<p>By this time we had begun to think ourselves
+clear of the enemy, and doomed to race on till
+the horses should fall.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the hoofs of Crowfoot's gray and
+the lieutenant's bay thundered upon a plank
+road whose hollow noise, when we all reached
+it, should have been heard far. It took us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
+through wide orchard lands into a low-lying
+mist by the banks of a great marsh, till we
+passed through that fog, strode heavily up a
+slope, and saw the shimmer of roofs under the
+moon. Straight, through the main street we
+pounded along.</p>
+
+<p>Whether it was wholly deserted I know not,
+but not a human being was in the streets, nor
+any face visible at the black windows. Not
+even a dog barked. I noticed no living thing
+except some turkeys roosting on a fence, and
+a white cat that sprang upon the pillar of a
+gateway and thence to a tree.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the houses seemed to have been
+ruined by a cannonade. I suppose it was one
+of the places almost destroyed in Willoughby's
+recent raid. Here we thundered, expecting
+ambush and conflict every moment, while the
+loneliness of the street imposed on me such
+a sense as might come of galloping through a
+long cemetery of the dead.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the village we went off the planks<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>
+again upon sand. I began to suspect that I
+was losing a good deal of blood. My brain
+was on fire with whirling thoughts and wonder
+where all was to end. Out of this daze I came,
+in amazement to find that we were quickly
+overtaking our lieutenant's thoroughbred.</p>
+
+<p>Had he been hit in the fray, and bled to
+weakness? I only know that, still galloping
+while we gained, the famous horse lurched forward,
+almost turned a somersault, and fell on
+his rider.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop&mdash;the paper!" shouted Bader.</p>
+
+<p>We drew rein, turned, dismounted, and found
+Miller's left leg under the big bay's shoulder.
+The horse was quite dead, the rider's long hair
+lay on the sand, his face was white under the
+moon!</p>
+
+<p>We stopped long enough to extricate him,
+and he came to his senses just as we made out
+that his left leg was broken.</p>
+
+<p>"Forward!" he groaned. "What in thunder
+are you stopped for? Oh, the despatch! Here!
+away you go! Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p>
+<p>In attending to Miller we had forgotten the
+rider who had been long gradually dropping
+behind. Now as we galloped away,&mdash;Bader,
+Absalom Gray, myself, and Crowfoot's riderless
+horse,&mdash;I looked behind for that comrade;
+but he was not to be seen or heard. We three
+were left of the eleven.</p>
+
+<p>From the loss of so many comrades the
+importance of our mission seemed huge. With
+the speed, the noise, the deaths, the strangeness
+of the gallop through that forsaken village, the
+wonder how all would end, the increasing belief
+that thousands of lives depended on our success,
+and the longing to win, my brain was
+wild. A raging desire to be first held me, and
+I galloped as if in a dream.</p>
+
+<p>Bader led; the riderless gray thundered
+beside him; Absalom rode stirrup to stirrup
+with me. He was a veteran of the whole war.
+Where it was that his sorrel rolled over I do
+not remember at all, though I perfectly remember
+how Absalom sprang up, staggered, shouted,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+"My foot is sprained!" and fell as I turned to
+look at him and went racing on.</p>
+
+<p>Then I heard above the sound of our hoofs
+the voice of the veteran of the war. Down as
+he was, his spirit was unbroken. In the favorite
+song of the army his voice rose clear and gay
+and piercing:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Hurrah for the Union!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hurrah, boys, hurrah!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Shouting the battle-cry of freedom!"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>We turned our heads and cheered him as
+we flew, for there was something indescribably
+inspiriting in the gallant and cheerful lilt of the
+fallen man. It was as if he flung us, from the
+grief of utter defeat, a soul unconquerable; and
+I felt the life in me strengthened by the tone.</p>
+
+<p>Old Bader and I for it! He led by a
+hundred yards, and Crowfoot's gray kept his
+stride. Was I gaining on them? How was it
+that I could see his figure outlined more clearly
+against the horizon? Surely dawn was not
+coming on!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p>
+<p>No; I looked round on a world of naked
+peach-orchards, and corn-fields ragged with last
+year's stalks, all dimly lit by a moon that
+showed far from midnight; and that faint light
+on the horizon was not in the east, but in the
+west. The truth flashed on me,&mdash;I was looking
+at such an illumination of the sky as would
+be caused by the camp-fires of an army.</p>
+
+<p>"The missing brigade!" I shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"Or a Southern division!" Bader cried.
+"Come on!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come on!" I was certainly gaining on him,
+but very slowly. Before the nose of my bay
+was beyond the tail of his roan, the wide illuminations
+had become more distinct; and still
+not a vidette, not a picket, not a sound of the
+proximity of an army.</p>
+
+<p>Bader and I now rode side by side, and
+Crowfoot's gray easily kept the pace. My
+horse was in plain distress, but Bader's was
+nearly done.</p>
+
+<p>"Take the paper, Adam," he said; "my roan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+won't go much further. Good-bye, youngster.
+Away you go!" and I drew now quickly ahead.</p>
+
+<p>Still Bader rode on behind me. In a few
+minutes he was considerably behind. Perhaps
+the sense of being alone increased my feeling
+of weakness. Was I going to reel out of the
+saddle? Had I lost so much blood as that?
+Still I could hear Bader riding on. I turned to
+look at him. Already he was scarcely visible.
+Soon he dropped out of sight; but still I heard
+the laborious pounding of his desperate horse.</p>
+
+<p>My bay was gasping horribly. How far was
+that faintly yellow sky ahead? It might be
+two, it might be five miles. Were Union or
+Southern soldiers beneath it? Could it be
+conceived that no troops of the enemy were
+between me and it?</p>
+
+<p>Never mind; my orders were clear. I rode
+straight on, and I was still riding straight on,
+marking no increase in the distress of my bay,
+when he stopped as if shot, staggered, fell on
+his knees, tried to rise, rolled to his side,
+groaned and lay.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+<p>I was so weak I could not clear myself. I
+remember my right spur catching in my saddle-cloth
+as I tried to free my foot; then I pitched
+forward and fell. Not yet senseless, I clutched
+at my breast for the despatch, meaning to tear
+it to pieces; but there my brain failed, and in
+full view of the goal of the night I lay
+unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>When I came to, I rose on my left elbow,
+and looked around. Near my feet my poor
+bay lay, stone dead. Crowfoot's gray!&mdash;where
+was Crowfoot's gray? It flashed on me that I
+might mount the fresh horse and ride on. But
+where was the gray? As I peered round I
+heard faintly the sound of a galloper. Was he
+coming my way? No; faintly and more faintly
+I heard the hoofs.</p>
+
+<p>Had the gray gone on then, without the
+despatch? I clutched at my breast. My coat
+was unbuttoned&mdash;the paper was gone!</p>
+
+<p>Well, sir, I cheered. My God! but it was
+comforting to hear those far-away hoofs, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+know that Bader must have come up, taken the
+papers, and mounted Crowfoot's gray, still good
+for a ten-mile ride! The despatch was gone
+forward; we had not all fallen in vain; maybe
+the brigades would be saved!</p>
+
+<p>How purely the stars shone! When I stifled
+my groaning they seemed to tell me of a great
+peace to come. How still was the night! and
+I thought of the silence of the multitudes who
+had died for the Union.</p>
+
+<p>Now the galloping had quite died away.
+There was not a sound,&mdash;a slight breeze blew,
+but there were no leaves to rustle. I put my
+head down on the neck of my dead horse.
+Extreme fatigue was benumbing the pain of my
+now swelling arm; perhaps sleep was near,
+perhaps I was swooning.</p>
+
+<p>But a sound came that somewhat revived me.
+Far, low, joyful, it crept on the air. I sat up,
+wide awake. The sound, at first faint, died as
+the little breeze fell, then grew in the lull, and
+came ever more clearly as the wind arose. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>
+was a sound never to be forgotten,&mdash;the sound
+of the distant cheering of thousands of men.</p>
+
+<p>Then I knew that Bader had galloped into
+the Union lines, delivered the despatch, and
+told a story which had quickly passed through
+wakeful brigades.</p>
+
+<p>Bader I never saw again, nor Lieutenant
+Miller, nor any man with whom I rode that
+night. When I came to my senses I was in
+hospital at City Point. Thence I went home
+invalided. No surgeon, no nurse, no soldier
+at the hospital could tell me of my regiment,
+or how or why I was where I was. All they
+could tell me was that Richmond was taken,
+the army far away in pursuit of Lee, and a
+rumor flying that the great commander of the
+South had surrendered near Appomattox Court
+House.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="DRAFTED" id="DRAFTED"></a>"DRAFTED."</h2>
+
+
+<p>Harry Wallbridge, awaking with a
+sense of some alarming sound, listened
+intently in the darkness, seeing overhead the
+canvas roof faintly outlined, the darker stretch
+of its ridge-pole, its two thin slanting rafters,
+and the gable ends of the winter hut. He could
+not hear the small, fine drizzle from an atmosphere
+surcharged with water, nor anything but
+the drip from canvas to trench, the rustling of
+hay bunched beneath his head, the regular
+breathing of his "buddy," Corporal Bader, and
+the stamping of horses in stables. But when a
+soldier in a neighboring tent called indistinguishably
+in the accents of nightmare, Bader's
+breathing quieted, and in the lull Harry fancied
+the soaked air weighted faintly with steady<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+picket-firing. A month with the 53d Pennsylvania
+Veteran Volunteer Cavalry had not quite disabused
+the young recruit of his schoolboy belief
+that the men of the Army of the Potomac must
+live constantly within sound of the out-posts.</p>
+
+<p>Harry sat up to hearken better, and then concluded
+that he had mistaken for musketry the
+crackle of haystalks under his poncho sheet.
+Beneath him the round poles of his bed
+sagged as he drew up his knees and gathered
+about his shoulders the gray blanket damp from
+the spray of heavy rain against the canvas earlier
+in the night. Soon, with slow dawn's
+approach, he could make out the dull white of
+his carbine and sabre against the mud-plastered
+chimney. In that drear dimness the boy shivered,
+with a sense of misery rather than from
+cold, and yearned as only sleepy youth can for
+the ease of a true bed and dry warm swooning
+to slumber. He was sustained by no mature
+sense that this too would pass; it was with a
+certain bodily despair that he felt chafed and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+compressed by his rough garments, and pitied
+himself, thinking how his mother would cry if
+she could see him crouched so wretchedly
+that wet March morning, pressed all the more
+into loneliness by the regular breathing of veteran
+Bader in the indifference of deep sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Harry's vision of his mother coming into his
+room, shading her candle with her hand to see
+if he were asleep, passed away as a small gust
+came, shaking the canvas, for he was instantly
+alert with a certainty that the breeze had borne
+a strong rolling of musketry.</p>
+
+<p>"Bader, Bader!" he said. "Bader!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you shut up, you Wallbridge?" came
+Orderly Sergeant Gravely's sharp tones from the
+next tent.</p>
+
+<p>"What's wrong with you, Harry, boy?"
+asked Bader, turning.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I heard heavy firing closer than
+the picket lines; twice now I've thought I
+heard it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I guess not, Harry. The Johnnies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+won't come out no such night as this. Keep
+quiet, or you'll have the sergeant on top of you.
+Better lie down and try to sleep, buddy; the
+bugles will call morning soon now."</p>
+
+<p>Again Harry fell to his revery of home, and
+his vision became that of the special evening on
+which his boyish wish to go to the war had, for
+the family's sake, become resolve. He saw his
+mother's spectacled and lamp-lit face as she,
+leaning to the table, read in the familiar Bible;
+little Fred and Mary, also facing the table's
+central lamp, bent sleepy heads over their
+school-books; the father sat in the rocking-chair,
+with his right hand on the paper he had
+laid down, and gazed gloomily at the coals fallen
+below the front doors of the wood-burning
+stove. Harry dreamed himself back in his own
+chair, looking askance, and feeling sure his
+father was inwardly groaning over the absence
+of Jack, the eldest son. Then nine o'clock
+struck, and Fred and Mary began to put their
+books away in preparation for bed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Wait a little, children," Mrs. Wallbridge
+said, serene in tone from her devotional reading.
+"Father wants that I should tell you something.
+You mustn't feel bad about it. It's
+that we may soon go out West. Your Uncle
+Ezra is doing well in Minnesota. Aunt Elvira
+says so in her letter that came to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"It's this way, children," said Mr. Wallbridge,
+ready to explain, now that the subject
+was opened. "Since ever your brother Jack
+went away South, the store expenses have been
+too heavy. It's near five years now he's been
+gone. There's a sheaf of notes coming due
+the third of next month; twice they've been
+renewed, and the Philadelphia men say they'll
+close me up this time sure. If I had eight
+hundred dollars&mdash;but it's no use talking;
+we'll just have to let them take what we've got.
+Times have been bad right along around here,
+anyhow, with new competition, and so many
+farmers gone to the war, and more gone West. If
+Jack had stopped to home&mdash;but I've had to pay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
+two clerks to do his work, and then they don't
+take any interest in the business. Mind, I'm
+not blaming Jack, poor fellow,&mdash;he'd a right to
+go where he'd get more'n his keep, and be
+able to lay up something for himself,&mdash;but
+what's become of him, God knows; and such
+a smart, good boy as he was! He'd got fond
+of New Orleans,&mdash;I guess some nice girl there,
+maybe, was the reason; and there he'd stay
+after the war began, and now it's two years and
+more since we've heard from him. Dead,
+maybe, or maybe they'd put him in jail, for he
+said he'd never join the Confederates, nor fight
+against them either&mdash;he felt that way&mdash;North
+and South was all the same to him. And so
+he's gone; and I don't see my way now at all.
+Ma, if it wasn't for my lame leg, I'd take the
+bounty. It'd be <i>something</i> for you and the
+children after the store's gone."</p>
+
+<p>"Sho, pa! don't talk that way! You're too
+down-hearted. It'll all come right, with the
+Lord's help," said Harry's mother. How<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+clearly he, in the damp cold tent, could see her
+kind looks as she pushed up her spectacles and
+beamed on her husband; how distinctly, in the
+still dim dawn, he heard her soothing tones!</p>
+
+<p>It was that evening's talk which had sent
+Harry, so young, to the front. Three village
+boys, little older than he, had already contrived
+to enlist. Every time he saw the Flag drooping,
+he thought shame of himself to be absent
+from the ranks of its upholders; and now, just
+as he was believing himself big and old enough
+to serve, he conceived that duty to his parents
+distinctly enjoined him to go. So in the night,
+without leave-taking or consent of his parents,
+he departed. The combined Federal, State,
+and city bounties offered at Philadelphia
+amounted to nine hundred dollars cash that
+dreadful winter before Richmond fell, and
+Harry sent the money home triumphantly in
+time to pay his father's notes and save the store.</p>
+
+<p>While the young soldier thought it all over,
+carbine and sabre came out more and more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+distinctly outlined above the mud-plastered
+fireplace. The drizzle had ceased, the drip into
+the trench was almost finished, intense stillness
+ruled; Harry half expected to hear cocks crow
+from out such silence.</p>
+
+<p>Listening for them, his dreamy mind brooded
+over both hosts, in a vision even as wide as the
+vast spread of the Republic in which they lay as
+two huddles of miserable men. For what were
+they all about him this woful, wet night? they all
+fain, as he, for home and industry and comfort.
+What delusion held them? How could it be
+that they could not all march away and separate,
+and the cruel war be over? Harry caught his
+breath at the idea,&mdash;it seemed so natural, simple,
+easy, and good a solution. Becoming absorbed
+in the fancy, tired of listening, and soothed by
+the silence, he was falling asleep as he sat,
+when a heavy weight seemed to fall, far away.
+Another&mdash;another&mdash;the fourth had the rumble
+of distant thunder, and seemed followed by
+a concussion of the air.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Hey&mdash;Big Guns! What's up toward City
+Point?" cried Bader, sitting up. "I tell you
+they're at it. It can't be so far away as Butler.
+What? On the left too! That was toward
+Hatcher's Run! Harry, the rebs are out in earnest!
+I guess you did hear the pickets trying
+to stop 'em. What a morning! Ha&mdash;Fort
+Hell! see that!"</p>
+
+<p>The outside world was dimly lighted up for a
+moment. In the intensified darkness that
+followed Bader's voice was drowned by the
+crash of a great gun from the neighboring fort.
+<i>Flash, crash&mdash;flash, crash&mdash;flash, crash</i> succeeded
+rapidly. Then the intervals of Fort
+Hell's fire lengthened to the regular periods for
+loading, and between her roars were heard the
+sullen boom of more distant guns, while through
+all the tumult ran a fierce undertone,&mdash;the
+infernal hurrying of musketry along the immediate
+front.</p>
+
+<p>"The Johnnies must have got in close somehow,"
+cried Bader. "Hey, Sergeant?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Yes," shouted Gravely. "Scooped up the
+pickets and supports too in the rain, I guess.
+Turn out, boys, turn out! there'll be a wild day.
+Kid! Where's the Kid? Kid Sylvester!"</p>
+
+<p>"Here! All right, Barney; I'll be out in
+two shakes," shouted the bugler.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry, then! I can hear the Colonel shouting
+already. Man, listen to that!"&mdash;as four of
+Fort Hell's guns crashed almost simultaneously.
+"Brownie! Greasy Cook! O Brownie!"</p>
+
+<p>"Here!" shouted the cook.</p>
+
+<p>"Get your fire started right away, and see
+what salt horse and biscuit you can scare up.
+Maybe we'll have time for a snack."</p>
+
+<p>"Turn out, Company K!" shouted Lieutenant
+Bradley, running down from the officers'
+quarters. "Where's the commissary sergeant?
+There?&mdash;all right&mdash;give out feed right away!
+Get your oats, men, and feed instantly! We
+may have time. Hullo! here's the General's
+orderly."</p>
+
+<p>As the trooper galloped, in a mud-storm,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+across the parade ground, a group of officers ran
+out behind the Colonel from the screen of pine
+saplings about Regimental Headquarters. The
+orderly gave the Colonel but a word, and,
+wheeling, was off again as "Boot and saddle"
+blared from the buglers, who had now assembled
+on parade.</p>
+
+<p>"But leave the bits out&mdash;let your horses
+feed!" cried the Lieutenant, running down again.
+"We're not to march till further orders."</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the screen of pines Harry could see
+the tall canvas ridges of the officers' cabins
+lighted up. Now all the tents of the regiment,
+row behind row, were faintly luminous, and the
+renewed drizzle of the dawn was a little lightened
+in every direction by the canvas-hidden
+candles of infantry regiments, the glare of
+numerous fires already started, and sparks
+showering up from the cook-houses of company
+after company.</p>
+
+<p>Soon in the cloudy sky the cannonade rolled
+about in broad day, which was still so gray that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+long wide flashes of flame could be seen to
+spring far out before every report from the guns
+of Fort Hell, and in the haze but few of the
+rebel shells shrieking along their high curve
+could be clearly seen bursting over Hancock's
+cheering men. Indistinguishably blent were
+the sounds of hosts on the move, field-guns
+pounding to the front, troops shouting, the
+clink and rattle of metal, officers calling, bugles
+blaring, drums rolling, mules screaming,&mdash;all
+heard as a running accompaniment to the
+cannon heavily punctuating the multitudinous
+din.</p>
+
+<p>"Fwat sinse in the ould man bodderin' us?"
+grumbled Corporal Kennedy, a tall Fenian dragoon
+from the British army. "Sure, ain't it as
+plain as the sun&mdash;and faith the same's not
+plain this dirthy mornin'&mdash;that there's no work
+for cavalry the day, barrin' it's escortin' the
+doughboys' prisoners, if they take any?&mdash;bad
+'cess to the job. Sure it's an infantry fight, and
+must be, wid the field-guns helpin', and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+siege pieces boomin' away over the throops in
+the mud betwigst our own breastworks and the
+inner line of our forts.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, by this and by that," the corporal
+grumbled on, "ould Lee's not the gintleman I
+tuk him for at all, at all,&mdash;discomfortin' us in the
+rain,&mdash;and yesterday an illigant day for fightin'.
+Couldn't he wait, like the dacint ould boy he's
+reported, for a dhry mornin', instead av turnin'
+his byes out in the shlush and destroyin' me
+chanst av breakfast? It's spring chickens I'd
+ordhered."</p>
+
+<p>"You may get up to spring-chicken country
+soon, now," said Bader. "I'm thinking this is
+near the end; it's the last assault that Lee
+will ever deliver."</p>
+
+<p>"Faith, I dunno," said the corporal; "that's
+what we've been saying sinst last fall, but the
+shtay of them Johnnies bates Banagher and the
+prophets. Hoo&mdash;ow! by the powers! did you
+hear them yell? Fwat? The saints be wid us!
+who'd 'a' thought it possible? Byes! Bader!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
+Harry! luk at the Johnnies swarmin' up the face
+of Hell!"</p>
+
+<p>Off there Harry could dimly see, rising over
+the near horizon made by tents, a straggling
+rush of men up the steep slope, while the rebel
+yell came shrill from a multitude behind on the
+level ground that was hidden from the place
+occupied by the cavalry regiment. In the next
+moment the force mounting Fort Hell's slope
+fell away, some lying where shot down, some
+rolling, some running and stumbling in heaps;
+then a tremendous musketry and field-gun fire
+growled to and fro under the heavy smoke round
+and about and out in front of the embrasures,
+which had never ceased their regular discharge
+over the heads of the fort's defenders and immediate
+assailants.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Harry noted a slackening of the
+battle; it gradually but soon dropped away to
+nothing, and now no sound of small-arms in any
+direction was heard in the lengthening intervals
+of reports from the siege pieces far and near.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+<p>"And so that's the end of it," said Kennedy.
+"Sure it was hot work for a while! Faix, I
+thought onct the doughboys was nappin' too
+long, and ould Hell would be bullyin' away at
+ourselves. Now, thin, can we have a bite in
+paice? I'll shtart wid a few sausages, Brownie,
+and you may send in the shpring chickens wid
+some oyshters the second coorse. No! Oh,
+by the powers, 'tis too mane to lose a breakfast
+like that!" and Corporal Kennedy shook his
+fist at the group of buglers calling the regiment
+to parade.</p>
+
+<p>In ten minutes the Fifty-third had formed in
+column of companies. "Old Jimmy," their
+Colonel, had galloped down at them and once
+along their front; then the command, forming
+fours from the right front, moved off at a trot
+through the mud in long procession.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't I know it?" said Kennedy; "it's
+escortin' the doughboys' prisoners, that's all
+we're good for this outrageous day. Oh, wirra,
+wirrasthru! Police duty! and this calls itself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+a cavalry rigiment. Mounted Police duty,&mdash;escortin'
+doughboys' prisoners! Faix, I might
+as well be wid Her Majesty's dhragoons,
+thramplin' down the flesh and blood of me
+in poor ould Oireland. Begor, Harry, me
+bhy, it's a mane job to be setting you at,
+and this the first day ye're mounted to save
+the Union!"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop coddin' the boy, Corporal," said Bader,
+angrily. "You can't think how an American
+boy feels about this war."</p>
+
+<p>"An Amerikin!&mdash;an Amerikin, is it? Let
+me insthruct ye thin, Misther Bader, that I'm
+as good an Amerikin as the next man. Och, be
+jabers, me that's been in the color you see ever
+since the Prisident first called for men! It
+was for a three months' dance he axed us first.
+Me, that's re-enlishted twice, don't know the
+feelin's of an Amerikin! What am I here for?
+Not poverty! sure I'd enough of that before
+ever I seen Ameriky! What am I wallopin'
+through the mud for this mornin'?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p>
+<p>"It's your trade, Kennedy," said Bader, with
+disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"Be damned to you, man!" said the corporal,
+sternly. "When I touched fut in New
+York, didn't I swear that I'd never dhraw
+swoord more, barrin' it was agin the ould red
+tyrant and oprissor of me counthry? Wasn't I
+glad to be dhrivin' me own hack next year in
+Philamedink like a gintleman? Oh, the paice
+and the indipindence of it! But what cud I do
+when the counthry that tuk me and was good to
+me wanted an ould dhragoon? An Amerikin,
+ye say! Faith, the heart of me is Amerikin, if
+I'm a bog throtter by the tongue. Mind that
+now, me bould man!"</p>
+
+<p>Harry heard without heeding as the horses
+spattered on. Still wavered in his ears the
+sounds of the dawn; still he saw the ghostlike
+forms of Americans in gray tumbling back from
+their rush against the sacred flag that had
+drooped so sadly over the smoke; and still, far
+away beyond all this puddled and cumbered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>
+ground the dreamy boy saw millions of white
+American faces, all haggard for news of the
+armies&mdash;some looking South, some North, yearning
+for the Peace that had so long ago been
+the boon of the Nation.</p>
+
+<p>Now the regiment was upon the red clay of
+the dead fight, and brought to halt in open
+columns. After a little they moved off again in
+fours, and, dropping into single file, surrounded
+some thousands of disarmed men, the remnant
+of the desperate brigades that Lee had flung
+through the night across three lines of breastworks
+at the great fort they had so nearly
+stormed. Poor drenched, shivering Johnnies!
+there they stood, not a few of them in blue
+overcoats, but mostly in butternut, generally
+tattered; some barefoot, some with feet bound
+in ragged sections of blanket, many with toes
+and skin showing through crazy boots lashed
+on with strips of cotton or with cord; many
+stoutly on foot, streaming blood from head
+wounds.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p>
+<p>Some lay groaning in the mud, while their
+comrades helped Union surgeons to bind or
+amputate. Here and there groups huddled
+together in earnest talk, or listened to comrades
+gesticulating and storming as they recounted
+incidents of the long charge. But far the
+greater number faced outward, at gaze upon the
+cavalry guard, and, silently munching thick flat
+cakes of corn-bread, stared into the faces of the
+horsemen. Harry Wallbridge, brought to the
+halt, faced half-round in the saddle, and looked
+with quick beatings of pity far and wide over
+the disorderly crowd of weather-worn men.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a Louisiana brigade," said Bader.</p>
+
+<p>"Fifty-three, P. V. V. C.," spoke a prisoner,
+as if in reply, reading the letters about the little
+crossed brass sabres on the Union hats. "Say,
+you men from Pennsylvany?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Johnny; we come down to wake up
+Dixie."</p>
+
+<p>"I reckon we got the start at wakin' you this
+mornin'," drawled the Southerner. "But say,&mdash;there's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+one of our boys lyin' dyin' over yonder;
+his folks lives in Pennsylvany. Mebbe some of
+you 'ud know 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"What's his name?" asked Bader.</p>
+
+<p>"Wallbridge&mdash;Johnny Wallbridge."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Harry&mdash;hold on!&mdash;you ain't the
+only Wallbridges there is. What's up?" cried
+Bader, as the boy half reeled, half clambered
+from his saddle.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on, Harry!" cried Corporal Kennedy.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt there, Wallbridge!" shouted Sergeant
+Gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop that man!" roared Lieutenant Bradley.</p>
+
+<p>But, calling, "He's my brother!" Harry,
+catching up his sabre as he ran, followed the
+Southerner, who had instantly divined the situation.
+The forlorn prisoners made ready way
+for them, and closing in behind, stretched in
+solid array about the scene.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not Jack," said the boy; but something
+in the look of the dying man drew him on to
+kneel in the mud. "Is it <i>you</i>, Jack? Oh, now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+I know you! Jack, I'm Harry! don't you
+know me? I'm Harry&mdash;your brother Harry."</p>
+
+<p>The Southern soldier stared rigidly at the boy,
+seeming to grow paler with the recollections that
+he struggled for.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What's</i> your name?" he asked very faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"Harry Wallbridge&mdash;I'm your brother."</p>
+
+<p>"Harry Wallbridge! Why, I'm <i>John</i> Wallbridge.
+Did you say Harry? <i>Not Harry!</i>"
+he shrieked hoarsely. "No; Harry's only a
+little fellow!" He paused, and looked meditatively
+into the boy's eyes. "It's nearly five
+years I've been gone,&mdash;he was near twelve
+then. Boys," lifting his head painfully and casting
+his look slowly round upon his comrades, "I
+know him by the eyes; yes, he's my brother!
+Let me speak to him alone&mdash;stand back a
+bit," and at once the men pushed backward
+into the form of a wide circle.</p>
+
+<p>"Put down your head, Harry. Kiss me!
+Kiss me again!&mdash;how's mother? Ah, I was
+afraid she might be dead&mdash;don't tell her I'm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
+dead, Harry." He groaned with the pain of
+the groin wound. "Closer, Harry; I've got to
+tell you this first&mdash;maybe it's all I've time to
+tell. Say, Harry,"&mdash;he began to gasp,&mdash;"they
+didn't ought to have killed me, the Union
+soldiers didn't. I never fired&mdash;high enough&mdash;all
+these years. They drafted me, Harry&mdash;tell
+mother that&mdash;down in New Orleans&mdash;and
+I&mdash;couldn't get away. Ai&mdash;ai! how it
+hurts! I must die soon 's I can tell you. I
+wanted to come home&mdash;and help father&mdash;how's
+poor father, Harry? Doing well now?
+Oh. I'm glad of that&mdash;and the baby? there's
+a new baby! Ah, yes, I'll never see it, Harry."</p>
+
+<p>His eyes closed, the pain seemed to leave
+him, and he lay almost smiling happily as his
+brother's tears fell on his muddy and blood-clotted
+face. As if from a trance his eyes
+opened, and he spoke anxiously but calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be sure to tell them I was drafted&mdash;conscripted,
+you understand. And I never
+fired at any of us&mdash;of you&mdash;tell all the boys<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>
+<i>that</i>." Again the flame of life went down, and
+again flickered up in pain.</p>
+
+<p>"Harry&mdash;you'll stay by father&mdash;and help
+him, won't you? This cruel war&mdash;is almost
+over. Don't cry. Kiss me. Say&mdash;do you
+remember&mdash;the old times we had&mdash;fishing?
+Kiss me again, Harry&mdash;brother in blue&mdash;you're
+on&mdash;<i>my</i> side. Oh I wish&mdash;I had
+time&mdash;to tell you. Come close&mdash;put your
+arms around&mdash;my neck&mdash;it's old times&mdash;again."
+And now the wound tortured him for
+a while beyond speech. "You're with me,
+aren't you, Harry?</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's this," he gasped on, "about
+my chums&mdash;they've been as good and kind&mdash;marching,
+us, all wet and cold together&mdash;and it
+wasn't their fault. If they had known&mdash;how I
+wanted&mdash;to be shot&mdash;for the Union! It was so
+hard&mdash;to be&mdash;on the wrong side! But&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He lifted his head and stared wildly at his
+brother, screamed rapidly, as if summoning all
+his life for the effort to explain, "Drafted,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
+<i>drafted, drafted</i>&mdash;Harry, tell mother and
+father <i>that</i>. I was <i>drafted</i>. O God, O God,
+what suffering! Both sides&mdash;I was on both
+sides all the time. I loved them all, North
+and South, all,&mdash;but the Union most. O God,
+it was so hard!"</p>
+
+<p>His head fell back, his eyes closed, and
+Harry thought it was the end. But once more
+Jack opened his blue eyes, and slowly said in a
+steady, clear, anxious voice, "Mind you tell
+them I never fired high enough!" Then he lay
+still in Harry's arms, breathing fainter and
+fainter till no motion was on his lips, nor in his
+heart, nor any tremor in the hands that lay in
+the hand of his brother in blue.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Harry," said Bader, stooping tenderly
+to the boy, "the order is to march. He's
+past helping now. It's no use; you must leave
+him here to God. Come, boy, the head of
+the column is moving already."</p>
+
+<p>Mounting his horse, Harry looked across to
+Jack's form. For the first time in two years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+the famous Louisiana brigade trudged on without
+their unwilling comrade. There he lay,
+alone, in the Union lines, under the rain, his
+marching done, a figure of eternal peace; while
+Harry, looking backward till he could no longer
+distinguish his brother from the clay of the
+field, rode dumbly on and on beside the downcast
+procession of men in gray.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="A_TURKEY_APIECE" id="A_TURKEY_APIECE"></a>A TURKEY APIECE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Not long ago I was searching files of New
+York papers for 1864, when my eye
+caught the headline, "Thanksgiving Dinner
+for the Army." I had shared that feast. The
+words brought me a vision of a cavalry brigade
+in winter quarters before Petersburg; of
+the three-miles-distant and dim steeples of the
+besieged city; of rows and rows of canvas-covered
+huts sheltering the infantry corps that
+stretched interminably away toward the Army
+of the James. I fancied I could hear again the
+great guns of "Fort Hell" infrequently punctuating
+the far-away picket-firing.</p>
+
+<p>Rain, rain, and rain! How it fell on red
+Virginia that November of '64! How it wore
+away alertness! The infantry-men&mdash;whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>
+we used to call "doughboys," for there was
+always a pretended feud between the riders and
+the trudgers&mdash;often seemed going to sleep
+in the night in their rain-filled holes far beyond
+the breastworks, each with its little mound of
+earth thrown up toward the beleaguered town.
+Their night-firing would slacken almost to
+cessation for many minutes together. But
+after the b-o-o-oom of a great gun it became
+brisker usually; often so much so as to suggest
+that some of Lee's ragged brigades, their march
+silenced by the rain, had pierced our fore-front
+again, and were "gobbling up" our boys on
+picket, and flinging up new rifle-pits on the
+acres reclaimed for a night and a day for the
+tottering Confederacy.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the <i>crack-a-rac-a-rack</i> would die
+down to a slow fire of dropping shots, and the
+forts seemed sleeping; and patter, patter, patter
+on the veteran canvas we heard the rain, rain,
+rain, not unlike the roll of steady musketry very
+far away.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p>
+<p>I think I sit again beside Charley Wilson, my
+sick "buddy," and hear his uneven breathing
+through all the stamping of the rows of wet
+horses on their corduroy floor roofed with leaky
+pine brush.</p>
+
+<p>That <i>squ-ush, squ-ush</i> is the sound of the
+stable-guard's boots as he paces slowly through
+the mud, to and fro, with the rain rattling on
+his glazed poncho and streaming corded hat.
+Sometimes he stops to listen to a frantic
+brawling of the wagon-train mules, sometimes
+to the reviving picket-firing. It crackles up to
+animation for causes that we can but guess;
+then dies down, never to silence, but warns,
+warns, as the distant glow of the sky above a
+volcano warns of the huge waiting forces that
+give it forth.</p>
+
+<p>I think I hear Barney Donahoe pulling our
+latch-string that November night when we first
+heard of the great Thanksgiving dinner that
+was being collected in New York for the
+army.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Byes, did yez hear phwat Sergeant Cunningham
+was tellin' av the Thanksgivin' turkeys
+that's comin'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come in out of the rain, Barney," says
+Charley, feebly.</p>
+
+<p>"Faith, I wish I dar', but it's meself is on
+shtable-guard. Bedad, it's a rale fire ye've
+got. Divil a better has ould Jimmy himself
+(our colonel). Ye've heard tell of the turkeys,
+then, and the pois?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Bully for the folks at home!" says
+Charley. "The notion of turkey next Thursday
+has done me good already. I was thinking I'd
+go to hospital to-morrow, but now I guess I
+won't."</p>
+
+<p>"Hoshpital! Kape clear av the hoshpital,
+Char-les, dear. Sure, they'd cut a man's leg
+off behind the ears av him for to cure him av
+indigestion."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it going to rain all night, Barney?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is, bad 'cess to it; and to-morrow and
+the day afther, I'm thinkin'. The blackness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>
+av night is outside; be jabers! you could cut it
+like turf with a shpade! If it wasn't for the
+ould fort flamin' out wanst in a whoile, I'd be
+thinkin' I'd never an oi in my head, barrin' the
+fires in the tints far an' near gives a bit of
+dimness to the dark. Phwat time is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quarter to twelve, Barney."</p>
+
+<p>"Troth, then, the relief will be soon coming.
+I must be thramping the mud av Virginia to
+save the Union. Good-night, byes. I come to
+give yez the good word. Kape your heart light
+an' aisy, Char-les, dear. D'ye moind the
+turkeys and the pois? Faith, it's meself that
+has the taste for thim dainties!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe I'll be able to eat a mite of
+the Thanksgiving," says Charley, as we hear
+Barney <i>squ-ush</i> away; "but just to see the
+brown on a real old brown home turkey will
+do me a heap of good."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be all right by Thursday, Charley, I
+guess; won't you? It's only Sunday night
+now."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p>
+<p>Of course I cannot remember the very words
+of that talk in the night, so many years ago.
+But the coming of Barney I recollect well, and
+the general drift of what was said.</p>
+
+<p>Charley turned on his bed of hay-covered
+poles, and I put my hand under his gray blanket
+to feel if his legs were well covered by the long
+overcoat he lay in. Then I tucked the blanket
+well in about his feet and shoulders, pulled his
+poncho again to its full length over him, and
+sat on a cracker-box looking at our fire for a
+long time, while the rain spattered through the
+canvas in spray.</p>
+
+<p>My "buddy" Charley, the most popular boy
+of Company I, was of my own age,&mdash;seventeen,&mdash;though
+the rolls gave us a year more each, by
+way of compliance with the law of enlistment.
+From a Pennsylvania farm in the hills he came
+forth to the field early in that black fall of '64,
+strong, tall, and merry, fit to ride for the nation's
+life,&mdash;a mighty wielder of an axe, "bold, cautious,
+true, and my loving comrade."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p>
+<p>We were "the kids" to Company I. To
+"buddy" with Charley I gave up my share of
+the hut I had helped to build as old Bader's
+"pard." Then the "kids" set about the construction
+of a new residence, which stood
+farther from the parade ground than any hut
+in the row except the big cabin of "old
+Brownie," the "greasy cook," who called us
+to "bean&mdash;oh!" with so resonant a shout,
+and majestically served out our rations of pork,
+"salt horse," coffee long-boiled and sickeningly
+sweet, hardtack, and the daily loaf of a singularly
+despondent-looking bread.</p>
+
+<p>My "buddy" and I slept on opposite sides
+of our winter residence. The bedsteads were
+made of poles laid lengthwise and lifted about
+two feet from the ground. These were covered
+thinly with hay from the bales that were regularly
+delivered for horse-fodder. There was a
+space of about two feet between bedsteads,
+and under them we kept our saddles and saddlecloths.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p>
+<p>Our floor was of earth, with a few flour-barrel
+staves and cracker-box sides laid down
+for rugs. We had each an easy-chair in the
+form of a cracker-box, besides a stout soap-box
+for guests. Our carbines and sabres hung
+crossed on pegs over the mantel-piece, above
+our Bibles and the precious daguerreotypes of
+the dear folks at home. When we happened to
+have enough wood for a bright fire, we felt
+much snugger than you might suppose.</p>
+
+<p>Before ever that dark November began,
+Charley had been suffering from one of those
+wasting diseases that so often clung to and
+carried off the strongest men of both armies.
+Sharing the soldiers' inveterate prejudice against
+hospitals attended by young doctors, who, the
+men believed, were addicted to much surgery for
+the sake of practice, my poor "buddy" strove
+to do his regular duties. He paraded with the
+sick before the regimental doctor as seldom as
+possible. He was favored by the sergeants and
+helped in every way by the men, and so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
+continued to stay with the company at that
+wet season when drill and parades were
+impracticable.</p>
+
+<p>The idea of a Thanksgiving dinner for half a
+million men by sea and land fascinated Charley's
+imagination, and cheered him mightily. But
+I could not see that his strength increased, as
+he often alleged.</p>
+
+<p>"Ned, you bet I'll be on hand when them
+turkeys are served out," he would say. "You
+won't need to carry my Thanksgiving dinner up
+from Brownie's. Say, ain't it bully for the folks
+at home to be giving us a Thanksgiving like
+this? Turkeys, sausages, mince-pies! They
+say there's going to be apples and celery for
+all hands!"</p>
+
+<p>"S'pose you'll be able to eat, Charley?"</p>
+
+<p>"Able! Of course I'll be able! I'll be just
+as spry as you be on Thanksgiving. See if I
+don't carry my own turkey all right. Yes, by
+gum, if it weighs twenty pounds!"</p>
+
+<p>"There won't be a turkey apiece."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p>
+<p>"No, eh? Well, that's what I figure on.
+Half a turkey, anyhow. Got to be; besides
+chickens, hams, sausages, and all that kind of
+fixin's. You heard what Bill Sylvester's girl
+wrote from Philamadink-a-daisy-oh? No, eh?
+Well, he come in a-purpose to read me the
+letter. Says there's going to be three or four
+hundred thousand turkeys, besides them fixin's!
+Sherman's boys can't get any; they're marched
+too far away, out of reach. The Shenandoah boys'll
+get some, and Butler's crowd, and us chaps,
+and the blockading squadrons. Bill's girl says
+so. We'll get the whole lot between us. Four
+hundred thousand turkeys! Of course there'll
+be a turkey apiece; there's got to be, if there's
+any sense in arithmetic. Oh, I'll be choosin'
+between breast-meat and hind-legs on Thanksgiving,&mdash;you
+bet your sweet life on that!"</p>
+
+<p>This expectation that there would be a turkey
+a-piece was not shared by Company I; but no
+one denied it in Charley's hearing. The boy
+held it as sick people often do fantastic notions,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>
+and all fell into the humor of strengthening the
+reasoning on which he went.</p>
+
+<p>It was clear that no appetite for turkey
+moved my poor "buddy," but that his brain
+was busy with the "whole-turkey-a-piece" idea
+as one significant of the immense liberality of
+the folks at home, and their absorbing interest
+in the army.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's there any nation that ever was
+that would get to work and fix up four hundred
+thousand turkeys for the boys?" he often
+remarked, with ecstatic patriotism.</p>
+
+<p>I have often wondered why "Bill Sylvester's
+girl" gave that flourishing account of the preparations
+for our Thanksgiving dinner. It was
+only on searching the newspaper files recently
+that I surmised her sources of information.
+Newspapers seldom reached our regiment until
+they were several weeks old, and then they were
+not much read, at least by me. Now I know
+how enthusiastic the papers of November, '64,
+were on the great feast for the army.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+<p>For instance, on the morning of that Thanksgiving
+day, the 24th of November, the New
+York Tribune said editorially:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Forty thousand turkeys, eighty thousand
+turkeys, one hundred and sixty thousand turkeys,
+nobody knows how many turkeys have been sent
+to our soldiers. Such masses of breast-meat and
+such mountains of stuffing; drumsticks enough to
+fit out three or four Grand Armies, a perfect promontory
+of pope's noses, a mighty aggregate of
+wings. The gifts of their lordships to the supper
+which Grangousier spread to welcome Gargantua
+were nothing to those which our good people at
+home send to their friends in the field; and no
+doubt every soldier, if his dinner does not set him
+thinking too intently of that home, will prove himself
+a valiant trencherman."</p></div>
+
+<p>Across the vast encampment before Petersburg
+a biting wind blew that Thanksgiving day.
+It came through every cranny of our hut; it
+bellied the canvas on one side and tightened it
+on the other; it pressed flat down the smoke
+from a hundred thousand mud chimneys, and
+swept away so quickly the little coals which fell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+on the canvas that they had not time to burn
+through.</p>
+
+<p>When I went out towards noon, for perhaps
+the twentieth time that day, to learn whether
+our commissary wagons had returned from
+City Point with the turkeys, the muddy parade
+ground was dotted with groups of shivering
+men, all looking anxiously for the feast's arrival.
+Officers frequently came out, to exchange a
+few cheery words with their men, from the tall,
+close hedge of withering pines stuck on end
+that enclosed the officers' quarters on the
+opposite side of the parade ground.</p>
+
+<p>No turkeys at twelve o'clock! None at one!
+Two, three, four, five o'clock passed by, and
+still nothing had been heard of our absent
+wagons. Charley was too weak to get out
+that day, but he cheerfully scouted the idea
+that a turkey for each man would not arrive
+sooner or later.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of us dined and supped on "commissary."
+It was not good commissary either,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
+for Brownie, the "greasy cook," had gone on
+leave to visit a "doughboy" cousin of the Sixth
+Corps.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have turkey for dinner, boys," he
+had said, on serving out breakfast. "If you're
+wanting coffee, Tom can make it." Thus we
+had to dine and sup on the amateur productions
+of the cook's mate.</p>
+
+<p>A multitude of woful rumors concerning
+the absent turkeys flew round that evening. The
+"Johnnies," we heard, had raided round the
+army, and captured the fowls! Butler's colored
+troops had got all the turkeys, and had
+been feeding on fowl for two days! The
+officers had "gobbled" the whole consignment
+for their own use! The whole story of the
+Thanksgiving dinner was a newspaper hoax!
+Nothing was too incredible for men so bitterly
+disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>Brownie returned before "lights out" sounded,
+and reported facetiously that the "doughboys"
+he had visited were feeding full of turkey and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
+all manner of fixings. There were so many
+wagons waiting at City Point that the roads
+round there were blocked for miles. We could
+not fail to get our turkeys to-morrow. With
+this expectation we went, pretty happy, to
+bed.</p>
+
+<p>"There'll be a turkey apiece, you'll see,
+Ned," said Charley, in a confident, weak voice, as
+I turned in. "We'll all have a bully Thanksgiving
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>The morrow broke as bleak as the preceding
+day, and without a sign of turkey for our
+brigade. But about twelve o'clock a great
+shouting came from the parade ground.</p>
+
+<p>"The turkeys have come!" cried Charley,
+trying to rise. "Never mind picking out a
+big one for me; any one will do. I don't
+believe I can eat a bite, but I want to see it.
+My! ain't it kind of the folks at home!"</p>
+
+<p>I ran out and found his surmise as to the
+return of the wagons correct. They were
+filing into the enclosure around the quartermaster's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>
+tent. Nothing but an order that the
+men should keep to company quarters prevented
+the whole regiment helping to unload the
+delicacies of the season.</p>
+
+<p>Soon foraging parties went from each company
+to the quartermaster's enclosure. Company
+I sent six men. They returned, grinning, in
+about half an hour, with one box on one man's
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>It was carried to Sergeant Cunningham's
+cabin, the nearest to the parade ground, the
+most distant from that of "the kids," in which
+Charley lay waiting. We crowded round the
+hut with some sinking of enthusiasm. There
+was no cover on the box except a bit of cotton
+in which some of the consignment had probably
+been wrapped. Brownie whisked this
+off, and those nearest Cunningham's door saw
+disclosed&mdash;two small turkeys, a chicken, four
+rather disorganized pies, two handsome bologna
+sausages, and six very red apples.</p>
+
+<p>We were nearly seventy men. The comical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
+side of the case struck the boys instantly.
+Their disappointment was so extreme as to be
+absurd. There might be two ounces of feast
+to each, if the whole were equally shared.</p>
+
+<p>All hands laughed; not a man swore. The
+idea of an equal distribution seemed to have no
+place in that company. One proposed that all
+should toss up for the lot. Another suggested
+drawing lots; a third that we should set the
+Thanksgiving dinner at one end of the parade
+ground and run a race for it, "grab who can."</p>
+
+<p>At this Barney Donahoe spoke up.</p>
+
+<p>"Begorra, yez can race for wan turkey av
+yez loike. But the other wan is goin' to
+Char-les Wilson!"</p>
+
+<p>There was not a dissenting voice. Charley
+was altogether the most popular member of
+Company I, and every man knew how he had
+clung to the turkey apiece idea.</p>
+
+<p>"Never let on a word," said Sergeant Cunningham.
+"He'll think there's a turkey for
+every man!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+<p>The biggest bird, the least demoralized pie, a
+bologna sausage, and the whole six apples were
+placed in the cloth that had covered the box.
+I was told to carry the display to my poor
+"buddy."</p>
+
+<p>As I marched down the row of tents a
+tremendous yelling arose from the crowd round
+Cunningham's tent. I turned to look behind.
+Some man with a riotous impulse had seized
+the box and flung its contents in the air over
+the thickest of the crowd. Next moment the
+turkey was seized by half a dozen hands. As
+many more helped to tear it to pieces. Barney
+Donahoe ran past me with a leg, and two
+laughing men after him. Those who secured
+larger portions took a bite as quickly as
+possible, and yielded the rest to clutching
+hands. The bologna sausage was shared in
+like fashion, but I never heard of any one who
+got a taste of the pies.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's your turkey, Charley," said I,
+entering with my burden.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Where's yours, Ned?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've got my turkey all right enough at
+Cunningham's tent."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't I tell you there'd be a turkey apiece?"
+he cried gleefully, as I unrolled the
+lot. "And sausages, apples, a whole pie&mdash;oh,
+<i>say</i>, ain't they bully folks up home!"</p>
+
+<p>"They are," said I. "I believe we'd have
+had a bigger Thanksgiving yet if it wasn't such
+a trouble getting it distributed."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better believe it! They'd do anything
+in the world for the army," he said, lying
+back.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you eat a bite, buddy?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I'm not a mite hungry. But I'll look
+at it. It won't spoil before to-morrow. Then
+you can share it all out among the boys."</p>
+
+<p>Looking at the turkey, the sick lad fell
+asleep. Barney Donahoe softly opened our
+door, stooped his head under the lintel, and
+gazed a few moments at the quiet face turned
+to the Thanksgiving turkey. Man after man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
+followed to gaze on the company's favorite, and
+on the fowl which, they knew, tangibly symbolized
+to him the immense love of the nation for
+the flower of its manhood in the field. Indeed,
+the people had forwarded an enormous Thanksgiving
+feast; but it was impossible to distribute
+it evenly, and we were one of the regiments
+that came short.</p>
+
+<p>Grotesque, that scene was? Group after
+group of hungry, dirty soldiers, gazing solemnly,
+lovingly, at a lone brown turkey and a pallid
+sleeping boy! Yes, very grotesque. But
+Charley had his Thanksgiving dinner, and the
+men of Company I, perhaps, enjoyed a profounder
+satisfaction than if they had feasted
+more materially.</p>
+
+<p>I never saw Charley after that Thanksgiving
+day. Before the afternoon was half gone the
+doctor sent an ambulance for him, and insisted
+that he should go to City Point. By Christmas
+his wasted body had lain for three weeks in the
+red Virginia soil.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="GRANDPAPAS_WOLF_STORY" id="GRANDPAPAS_WOLF_STORY"></a>GRANDPAPA'S WOLF STORY.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Tell us a story, grandpapa."</p>
+
+<p>"One that will last all the evening,
+chickens?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, grandpapa, darling," said Jenny, while
+Jimmy clapped hands.</p>
+
+<p>"What about?" said the old lumber king.</p>
+
+<p>"About when you were a boy."</p>
+
+<p>"When I was a boy," said the old gentleman,
+taking Jenny on his knee and putting his arm
+round Jimmy, "the boys and girls were as fond
+of stories as they are now. Once when I was a
+boy I said to my grandfather, 'Tell me a story,
+grandpa,' and he replied, 'When I was a boy the
+boys were as fond of stories as they are now; for
+once when I was a boy I said to my grandfather,
+"Tell me a story, grandpa,&mdash;"'".</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Why, it seems to go on just the same story,
+grandpapa," said Jenny.</p>
+
+<p>"That's not the end of it, Jenny, dear," said
+grandpapa.</p>
+
+<p>"No-o?" said Jenny, dubiously.</p>
+
+<p>Jimmy said nothing. He lived with his grandfather,
+and knew his ways. Jenny came on visits
+only, and was not well enough acquainted with
+the old gentleman to know that he would soon
+tire of the old joke, and reward patient children
+by a good story.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I go on with the story, Jenny?" said
+grandpapa.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, grandpapa!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, when <i>that</i> grandpa was a boy, he
+said to <i>his</i> grandfather, 'Tell me a story, grandpapa,'
+and his grandfather replied&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Jenny soon listened with a demure smile of
+attention.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you like this story, dear?" said grandpapa,
+after pursuing the repetition for some
+minutes longer.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p>
+<p>"I shall, grandpapa, darling. It must be very
+good when you come to the grandfather that told
+it. I like to think of all my grandfathers, and
+great, great, great, greater, greatest, great, great-grandpapas
+all telling the same story."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's a genuine family story, Jenny, and
+you're a little witch." The old gentleman kissed
+her. "Well, where was I? Oh, now I remember!
+And <i>that</i> grandpapa said to his grandfather,
+'Tell me a story, grandpapa,' and his
+grandpapa replied, 'When I was a young fellow&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"Now it's beginning!" cried Jimmy, clapping
+his hands, and shifting to an easier attitude
+by the old man's easy-chair.</p>
+
+<p>Grandpapa looked comically at Jimmy, and
+said, "His grandfather replied, 'When I was a
+young fellow&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>The faces of the children became woful
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"'One rainy day I took my revolver&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"Revolver! Grandpapa!" cried Jenny.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Yes, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"An American revolver, grandpapa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"And did he tell the story in English?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, pet."</p>
+
+<p>"But, grandpapa, <i>darling</i>, that grandpapa
+was seventy-three grandpapas back!"</p>
+
+<p>"About that, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"I kept count, grandpapa."</p>
+
+<p>"And don't you like good old-fashioned
+stories, Jenny?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, grandpapa, but <i>revolvers</i>&mdash;and
+<i>Americans</i>&mdash;and the <i>English</i> language! Why,
+it was more than twenty-two hundred years ago,
+grandpapa, darling!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha! You never thought of that,
+Jimmy! Oh, you've been at school, Miss
+Bright-eyes! Kiss me, you little rogue. Now
+listen!</p>
+
+<p>"When <i>I</i> was a young fellow&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You yourself, grandpapa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Jenny."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p>
+<p>"I'm so glad it was you yourself! I like my
+<i>own</i> grandpapa's stories best of all."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, my dear. After that I must be
+<i>very</i> entertaining. Yes, I'll tell my best story
+of all&mdash;and Jimmy has never heard it. Well,
+when I was a young fellow of seventeen I was
+clerk in a lumber shanty on the Sheboiobonzhe-gunpashageshickawigamog
+River."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you <i>ever</i> learn that name, grandpapa,
+darling?" cried Jenny.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I could learn things in those days.
+Remembering it is the difficulty, dear&mdash;see if
+it isn't. I'll give you a nice new ten-dollar bill
+if you tell me that name to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Jenny bent her brows and tried so hard to
+recall the syllables that she almost lost part of
+the story. Grandpapa went steadily on:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"One day in February, when it was too rainy
+for the men to work, and just rainy enough to
+go deer-shooting if you hadn't had fresh meat
+for five months, I took to the woods with my
+gun, revolver, hatchet, and dinner. All the fore<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
+part of the day I failed to get a shot, though I
+saw many deer on the hemlock ridges of Sheboi&mdash;that's
+the way it begins, Jenny, and Sheboi
+we called it.</p>
+
+<p>"But late in the afternoon I killed a buck.
+I cut off a haunch, lifted the carcass into the
+low boughs of a spruce, and started for camp,
+six miles away, across snowy hills and frozen
+lakes. The snow-shoeing was heavy, and I
+feared I should not get in before dark. The
+Sheboi country was infested with wolves&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Bully! It's a wolf story!" said Jimmy.
+Jenny shuddered with delight.</p>
+
+<p>"As I went along you may be sure I never
+thought my grandchildren would be pleased to
+have me in danger of being eaten up by wolves."</p>
+
+<p>Jenny looked shocked at the imputation.
+Grandpapa watched her with twinkling eyes.
+When she saw he was joking, she cried: "But
+you weren't eaten, grandpapa. You were too
+brave."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps I'd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+better not tell the story. You'll have a worse
+opinion of my courage, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you <i>had</i> to run from <i>wolves</i>,
+grandpapa!" said the little girl.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet grandpapa didn't run then, miss,"
+said Jimmy. "I'll bet he shot them with his
+gun."</p>
+
+<p>"He couldn't&mdash;could you, grandpapa?
+There were too many. Of course grandpapa
+<i>had</i> to run. That wasn't being cowardly. It
+was just&mdash;just&mdash;<i>running</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Jenny, I didn't run a yard."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't I tell you?" cried Jimmy. "Grandpapa
+shot them with his gun."</p>
+
+<p>"You're mistaken, Jimmy."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you must&mdash;No, for you're here&mdash;you
+weren't eaten up?" said wondering Jenny.</p>
+
+<p>"No, dear, I wasn't eaten up."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know! The wolves didn't come!"
+cried Jimmy, who remembered one of his grandpapa's
+stories as having ended in that unhappy
+way.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Oh, but they did, Jimmy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, grandpapa, what <i>did</i> you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I climbed into a hollow tree."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Of course!</i>" said both children.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I'm going to tell you a true wolf story,
+and that's what few grandpapas can do out of
+their own experience.</p>
+
+<p>"I was resting on the shore of a lake, with
+my snow-shoes off to ease my sore toes, when I
+saw a pack of wolves trotting lazily toward me
+on the snow that covered the ice. I was sure
+they had not seen me. Right at my elbow was
+a big hollow pine. It had an opening down to
+the ground, a good deal like the door of a
+sentry-box.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a smaller opening about thirty
+feet higher up. I had looked up and seen this
+before I saw the wolves. Then I rose, stood for
+a moment in the hollow, and climbed up by my
+feet, knees, hands, and elbows till I thought my
+feet were well above the top of the opening.
+Dead wood and dust fell as I ascended, but I
+hoped the wolves had not heard me."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Did they, grandpapa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not at first, Jenny. But maybe
+they got a scent of the deer-meat I was carrying.
+At any rate, they were soon snapping and
+snarling over it and my snow-shoes. <i>Gobble-de-gobble,
+yip, yap, snap, growl, snarl, gobble</i>&mdash;the
+meat was all gone in a moment, like little
+Red Riding Hood."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, grandpapa! The wolf didn't eat
+little Red Riding Hood. The boy came in
+time&mdash;don't you remember?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you never read <i>my</i> Red Riding
+Hood, Jenny," said the old gentleman, laughing.
+"At any rate, the wolves lunched at my
+expense; yet I hoped they wouldn't be polite
+enough to look round for their host. But they
+did inquire for me&mdash;not very politely, I
+must say. They seemed in bad humor&mdash;perhaps
+there hadn't been enough lunch to go
+round."</p>
+
+<p>"The greedy things! A whole haunch of
+venison!" cried Jenny.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Ah, but I had provided no currant jelly with
+it, and of course they were vexed. If you ever
+give a dinner-party to wolves, don't forget the
+currant jelly, Jenny. How they yelled for it&mdash;<i>Cur-r-r-rant-jell-yell-yell-elly-yell!</i>
+That's the
+way they went.</p>
+
+<p>"And they also said, <i>Yow&mdash;yow&mdash;there's&mdash;yow&mdash;no&mdash;desser-r-rt&mdash;either&mdash;yow&mdash;yow!</i>
+Perhaps they wanted me to explain.
+At any rate, they put their heads into the opening&mdash;how
+many at once I don't know, for I
+could not see down; and then they screamed
+for me. It was an uncomfortably close scream,
+chickens. My feet must have been nearer
+them than I thought, for one fellow's nose
+touched my moccasin as he jumped."</p>
+
+<p>"O grandpapa! If he had caught your
+foot!"</p>
+
+<p>"But he didn't, Jenny, dear. He caught
+something worse. When he tumbled back he
+must have fallen on the other fellows, for there
+was a great snapping and snarling and yelping
+all at once.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Meantime I tried to go up out of reach.
+It was easy enough; but with every fresh hold
+I took with shoulders, elbows, hands, and feet,
+the dead old wood crumbled and broke away,
+so that thick dust filled the hollow tree.</p>
+
+<p>"I was afraid I should be suffocated. But
+up I worked till at last I got to the upper hole
+and stuck out my head for fresh air. There I
+was, pretty comfortable for a little while, and
+I easily supported my weight by bending my
+back, thrusting with my feet, and holding on
+the edge of the hole by my hands.</p>
+
+<p>"After getting breath I gave my attention to
+the wolves. They did not catch sight of me for
+a few moments. Some stood looking much
+interested at the lower opening, as terriers do
+at the hole where a rat has disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Dust still came from the hole to the open
+air. Some wolves sneezed; others sat and
+squealed with annoyance, as Bruno does when
+you close the door on him at dinner-time.
+They were disgusted at my concealment. Of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+course you have a pretty good idea of what
+they said, Jenny."</p>
+
+<p>"No, grandpapa. The horrid, cruel things!
+What did they say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course wolf talk is rude, even savage,
+and dreadfully profane. As near as I could
+make out, one fellow screamed, 'Shame, boy,
+taking an unfair advantage of poor starving
+wolves!' It seemed as if another fellow yelled,
+'You young coward!' A third cried, 'Oh, yes,
+you think you're safe, do you?' A fourth,
+'<i>Yow&mdash;yow</i>&mdash;but we can wait till you come
+down!'"</p>
+
+<p>Grandpapa mimicked the wolfish voices and
+looks so effectively that Jenny was rather
+alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>"One old fellow seemed to suggest that they
+should go away and look for more venison for
+supper, while he kept watch on me. At that
+there was a general howl of derision. They
+seemed to me to be telling the old fellow that
+they were just as fond of boy as he, and that
+they understood his little game.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p>
+<p>"The old chap evidently tried to explain,
+but they grinned with all their teeth as he
+turned from one to another. You must not
+suppose, chickens, that wolves have no sense of
+humor. Yet, poor things&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor things! Why, grandpapa!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Jenny; so lean and hungry, you know.
+Then one of them suddenly caught sight of my
+head, and didn't he yell! 'There he is&mdash;look
+up the tree!' cried Mr. Wolf.</p>
+
+<p>"For a few moments they were silent. Then
+they sprang all at once, absurdly anxious to get
+nearer to me, twenty-five feet or so above their
+reach. On falling, they tumbled into several
+heaps of mouths and legs and tails. After
+scuffling and separating, they gazed up at me
+with silent longing. I should have been very
+popular for a few minutes had I gone down."</p>
+
+<p>Jenny shuddered, and then nestled closer to
+her grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be afraid, Jenny. They didn't eat
+me&mdash;not that time. After a few moments'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+staring I became very impolite. 'Boo-ooh!'
+said I. 'Yah-ha-ha!' said I. 'You be shot!'
+I cried. They resented it. Even wolves love
+to be gently addressed.</p>
+
+<p>"They began yelling, snarling, and howling at
+me worse than politicians at a sarcastic member
+of the opposite party. I imitated them. Nevertheless,
+I was beginning to be frightened. The
+weather was turning cold, night was coming on,
+and I didn't like the prospect of staying till
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>"All of a sudden I began laughing. I had
+till then forgotten my pistol and pocketful of cartridges.
+There were seventeen nice wolves&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Nice! Why, grandpa!"</p>
+
+<p>"They seemed <i>very</i> nice wolves when I recollected
+the county bounty of six dollars for a
+wolf's head. Also, their skins would fetch two
+dollars apiece. 'Why,' said I, 'my dear wolves,
+you're worth one hundred and thirty-six dollars.'</p>
+
+<p>"'Don't you wish you may get it!' said they,
+sneering.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p>
+<p>"'You're worth one hundred and thirty-six
+dollars,' I repeated, 'and yet you want to
+sponge on a poor boy for a free supper!
+Shame!'"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you say it out loud, grandpapa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;no, Jenny. It's a thing I might
+have said, you know; but I didn't exactly think
+of it at the time. I was feeling for my pistol.
+Just as I tugged it out of its case at my waist,
+my knees, arms, and all lost their hold, and
+down I fell."</p>
+
+<p>"Grandpapa, <i>dear!</i>" Jenny nervously
+clutched him.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't fall far, pet. But the dust! Talk
+of sweeping floors! The whole inside of the
+tree below me, borne down by my weight, had
+fallen in chunks and dust. There I was, gasping
+for breath, and the hole eight feet above my
+head. The lower entrance was of course blocked
+up by the rotten wood."</p>
+
+<p>"And they couldn't get at you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Jimmy; but I was in a dreadful situation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+At first I did not fully realize it. Choking
+for air, my throat filled with particles of dry
+rot, I tried to climb up again. But the hollow
+had become too large. Nothing but a round
+shell of sound wood, a few inches thick, was
+left around me. With feet, hands, elbows, and
+back, I strove to ascend as before. But I could
+not. I was stuck fast!</p>
+
+<p>"When I pushed with my feet I could only
+press my back against the other side of the
+enlarged hole. I was horrified. Indeed, I
+thought the tree would be my coffin. There
+I stood, breathing with difficulty even when I
+breathed through my capuchin, which I took
+off of my blanket overcoat. And there, I said
+to myself, I was doomed to stand till my knees
+should give way and my head fall forward, and
+some day, after many years, the old tree would
+blow down, and out would fall my white and
+r-rattling bo-o-nes."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't&mdash;<i>please</i>, grandpapa!" Jenny was
+trying to keep from crying.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p>
+<p>"In spite of my vision of my own skull and
+cross-bones," went on grandpapa, solemnly, "I
+was too young to despair wholly. I was at first
+more annoyed than desperate. To be trapped
+so, to die in a hole when I might have shot a
+couple of wolves and split the heads of one or
+two more with my hatchet before they could
+have had boy for supper&mdash;this thought made
+me very angry. And that brought me to thinking
+of my hatchet.</p>
+
+<p>"It was, I remembered, beneath my feet at
+the bottom of the lower opening. If I could
+get hold of it, I might use it to chop a hole
+through my prison wall.</p>
+
+<p>"But to burrow down was clearly impossible.
+Nevertheless, I knelt to feel the punky stuff
+under my feet. The absurdity of trying to work
+down a hole without having, like a squirrel, any
+place to throw out the material, was plain.</p>
+
+<p>"But something more cheerful occurred to
+me. As I knelt, an object at my back touched
+my heels. It was the brass point of my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>hunting-knife
+sheath. Instantly I sprang to my
+feet, thrust my revolver back into its case, drew
+the stout knife, and drove the blade into the
+shell of pine.</p>
+
+<p>"In two minutes I had scooped the blade
+through. In five minutes I had my face at a
+small hole that gave me fresh air. In half an
+hour I had hacked out a space big enough to
+put my shoulders through.</p>
+
+<p>"The wolves, when they saw me again, were
+delighted. As for me, I was much pleased to
+see them, and said so. At the compliment they
+licked their jaws. They thought I was coming
+down, but I had something important to do
+first.</p>
+
+<p>"I drew my pistol. It was a big old-fashioned
+Colt's revolver. With the first round
+of seven shots I killed three, and wounded
+another badly."</p>
+
+<p>"Then the rest jumped on them and ate them
+all up, didn't they, grandpapa?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Jimmy, I'm glad to say they didn't.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
+Wolves in Russian stories do, but American
+wolves are not cannibalistic; for this is a civilized
+country, you know.</p>
+
+<p>"These wolves didn't even notice their fallen
+friends. They devoted their attention wholly to
+me, and I assure you, chickens, that I was much
+gratified at that.</p>
+
+<p>"I loaded again. It was a good deal of
+trouble in those days, when revolvers wore caps.
+I aimed very carefully, and killed four more.
+The other ten then ran away&mdash;at least some
+did; three could drag themselves but slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"After loading again I dropped down, and
+started for camp. Next morning we came back
+and got ten skins, after looking up the three
+wounded."</p>
+
+<p>"And you got only eighty dollars, instead of
+one hundred and thirty-six, grandpapa," said
+Jimmy, ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Jimmy, that was better than furnishing
+the pack with raw boy for supper."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all, grandpapa?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Yes, Jenny, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Do tell us another story."</p>
+
+<p>"Not to-night, chickens. Not to-night.
+Grandpapa is old and sleepy. Good night,
+dears; and if you begin to dream of wolves, be
+sure you change the subject."</p>
+
+<p>Grandpapa walked slowly up stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Can <i>you</i> make different dreams come,
+Jimmy?" said Jenny.</p>
+
+<p>"You goose! Grandpapa was pretending."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THE_WATERLOO_VETERAN" id="THE_WATERLOO_VETERAN"></a>THE WATERLOO VETERAN.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Is Waterloo a dead word to you? the name
+of a plain of battle, no more? Or do you
+see, on a space of rising ground, the little long-coated
+man with marble features, and unquenchable
+eyes that pierce through rolling
+smoke to where the relics of the old Guard
+of France stagger and rally and reach fiercely
+again up the hill of St. Jean toward the squares,
+set, torn, red, re-formed, stubborn, mangled,
+victorious beneath the unflinching will of him
+behind there,&mdash;the Iron Duke of England?</p>
+
+<p>Or is your interest in the fight literary? and
+do you see in a pause of the conflict Major
+O'Dowd sitting on the carcass of Pyramus
+refreshing himself from that case-bottle of
+sound brandy? George Osborne lying yonder,
+all his fopperies ended, with a bullet through his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+heart? Rawdon Crawley riding stolidly behind
+General Tufto along the front of the shattered
+regiment where Captain Dobbin stands heartsick
+for poor Emily?</p>
+
+<p>Or maybe the struggle arranges itself in your
+vision around one figure not named in history
+or fiction,&mdash;that of your grandfather, or his
+father, or some old dead soldier of the great
+wars whose blood you exult to inherit, or some
+grim veteran whom you saw tottering to the roll-call
+beyond when the Queen was young and you
+were a little boy.</p>
+
+<p>For me the shadows of the battle are so
+grouped round old John Locke that the historians,
+story-tellers, and painters may never quite
+persuade me that he was not the centre and
+real hero of the action. The French cuirassiers
+in my thought-pictures charge again and again
+vainly against old John; he it is who breaks the
+New Guard; upon the ground that he defends
+the Emperor's eyes are fixed all day long. It
+is John who occasionally glances at the sky with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
+wonder if Blucher has failed them. Upon
+Shaw the Lifeguardsman, and John, the Duke
+plainly most relies, and the words that Wellington
+actually speaks when the time comes for
+advance are, "Up, John, and at them!"</p>
+
+<p>How fate drifted the old veteran of Waterloo
+into our little Canadian Lake Erie village I
+never knew. Drifted him? No; he ever
+marched as if under the orders of his commander.
+Tall, thin, white-haired, close-shaven,
+and always in knee-breeches and long stockings,
+his was an antique and martial figure. "Fresh
+white-fish" was his cry, which he delivered as
+if calling all the village to fall in for drill.</p>
+
+<p>So impressive was his demeanor that he dignified
+his occupation. For years after he disappeared,
+the peddling of white-fish by horse
+and cart was regarded in that district as peculiarly
+<a name="respectacle" id="respectacle"></a>respectacle. It was a glorious trade when
+old John Locke held the steelyards and served
+out the glittering fish with an air of distributing
+ammunition for a long day's combat.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p>
+<p>I believe I noticed, on the first day I saw
+him, how he tapped his left breast with a proud
+gesture when he had done with a lot of customers
+and was about to march again at the head
+of his horse. That restored him from trade to
+his soldiership&mdash;he had saluted his Waterloo
+medal! There beneath his threadbare old blue
+coat it lay, always felt by the heart of the hero.</p>
+
+<p>"Why doesn't he wear it outside?" I once
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"He used to," said my father, "till Hiram
+Beaman, the druggist, asked him what he'd
+'take for the bit of pewter.'"</p>
+
+<p>"What did old John say, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Take for the bit of pewter!' said he, looking
+hard at Beaman with scorn. 'I've took
+better men's lives nor ever yours was for to get
+it, and I'd sell my own for it as quick as ever
+I offered it before.'</p>
+
+<p>"'More fool you,' said Beaman.</p>
+
+<p>"'You're nowt,' said old John, very calm
+and cold, 'you're nowt but walking dirt.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+From that day forth he would never sell Beaman
+a fish; he wouldn't touch his money."</p>
+
+<p>It must have been late in 1854 or early in
+1855 that I first saw the famous medal. Going
+home from school on a bright winter afternoon,
+I met old John walking very erect, without his
+usual fish-supply. A dull round white spot was
+clasped on the left breast of his coat.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Locke," said the small boy, staring
+with admiration, "is that your glorious Waterloo
+medal?"</p>
+
+<p>"You're a good little lad!" He stooped to
+let me see the noble pewter. "War's declared
+against Rooshia, and now it's right to show it.
+The old regiment's sailed, and my only son is
+with the colors."</p>
+
+<p>Then he took me by the hand and led me
+into the village store, where the lawyer read
+aloud the news from the paper that the veteran
+gave him. In those days there was no railway
+within fifty miles of us. It had chanced that
+some fisherman brought old John a later paper
+than any previously received in the village.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Ay, but the Duke is gone," said he, shaking
+his white head, "and it's curious to be fighting
+on the same side with another Boney."</p>
+
+<p>All that winter and the next, all the long
+summer between, old John displayed his medal.
+When the report of Alma came, his remarks on
+the French failure to get into the fight were
+severe. "What was they <i>ever</i>, at best, without
+Boney?" he would inquire. But a letter from
+his son after Inkermann changed all that.</p>
+
+<p>"Half of us was killed, and the rest of us
+clean tired with fighting," wrote Corporal
+Locke. "What with a bullet through the flesh
+of my right leg, and the fatigue of using the
+bayonet so long, I was like to drop. The Russians
+was coming on again as if there was no
+end to them, when strange drums came sounding
+in the mist behind us. With that we
+closed up and faced half-round, thinking they
+had outflanked us and the day was gone, so
+there was nothing more to do but make out to
+die hard, like the sons of Waterloo men. You<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+would have been pleased to see the looks of
+what was left of the old regiment, father. Then
+all of a sudden a French column came up the
+rise out of the mist, screaming, '<i>Vive l'Empereur!</i>'
+their drums beating the charge. We
+gave them room, for we were too dead tired to
+go first. On they went like mad at the Russians,
+so that was the end of a hard morning's
+work. I was down,&mdash;fainted with loss of blood,&mdash;but
+I will soon be fit for duty again. When
+I came to myself there was a Frenchman pouring
+brandy down my throat, and talking in his
+gibberish as kind as any Christian. Never a
+word will I say agin them red-legged French
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"Show me the man that would!" growled old
+John. "It was never in them French to act
+cowardly. Didn't they beat all the world, and
+even stand up many's the day agen ourselves
+and the Duke? They didn't beat,&mdash;it wouldn't
+be in reason,&mdash;but they tried brave enough, and
+what more'd you ask of mortal men?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p>
+<p>With the ending of the Crimean War our
+village was illuminated. Rows of tallow candles
+in every window, fireworks in a vacant field, and
+a torchlight procession! Old John marched
+at its head in full regimentals, straight as a
+ramrod, the hero of the night. His son had
+been promoted for bravery on the field. After
+John came a dozen gray militiamen of Queenston
+Heights, Lundy's Lane, and Chippewa;
+next some forty volunteers of '37. And we
+boys of the U. E. Loyalist settlement cheered
+and cheered, thrilled with an intense vague
+knowledge that the old army of Wellington kept
+ghostly step with John, while aerial trumpets
+and drums pealed and beat with rejoicing at
+the fresh glory of the race and the union of
+English-speaking men unconsciously celebrated
+and symbolized by the little rustic parade.</p>
+
+<p>After that the old man again wore his medal
+concealed. The Chinese War of 1857 was too
+contemptible to celebrate by displaying his
+badge of Waterloo.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p>
+<p>Then came the dreadful tale of the Sepoy
+mutiny&mdash;Meerut, Delhi, Cawnpore! After the
+tale of Nana Sahib's massacre of women and
+children was read to old John he never smiled,
+I think. Week after week, month after month,
+as hideous tidings poured steadily in, his face
+became more haggard, gray, and dreadful. The
+feeling that he was too old for use seemed to
+shame him. He no longer carried his head
+high, as of yore. That his son was not marching
+behind Havelock with the avenging army
+seemed to cut our veteran sorely. Sergeant
+Locke had sailed with the old regiment to join
+Outram in Persia before the Sepoys broke
+loose. It was at this time that old John was
+first heard to say, "I'm 'feared something's
+gone wrong with my heart."</p>
+
+<p>Months went by before we learned that the
+troops for Persia had been stopped on their
+way and thrown into India against the mutineers.
+At that news old John marched into the village
+with a prouder air than he had worn for many
+a day. His medal was again on his breast.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p>
+<p>It was but the next month, I think, that the
+village lawyer stood reading aloud the account
+of the capture of a great Sepoy fort. The veteran
+entered the post-office, and all made way
+for him. The reading went on:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The blowing open of the Northern Gate
+was the grandest personal exploit of the attack.
+It was performed by native sappers, covered
+by the fire of two regiments, and headed by
+Lieutenants Holder and Dacre, Sergeants Green,
+Carmody, Macpherson, and Locke."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer paused. Every eye turned to
+the face of the old Waterloo soldier. He
+straightened up to keener attention, threw out
+his chest, and tapped the glorious medal in
+salute of the names of the brave.</p>
+
+<p>"God be praised, my son was there!" he
+said. "Read on."</p>
+
+<p>"Sergeant Carmody, while laying the powder,
+was killed, and the native havildar wounded.
+The powder having been laid, the advance
+party slipped down into the ditch to allow the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+firing party, under Lieutenant Dacre, to do its
+duty. While trying to fire the charge he was
+shot through one arm and leg. He sank, but
+handed the match to Sergeant Macpherson,
+who was at once shot dead. Sergeant Locke,
+already wounded severely in the shoulder, then
+seized the match, and succeeded in firing the
+train. He fell at that moment, literally riddled
+with bullets."</p>
+
+<p>"Read on," said old John, in a deeper voice.
+All forbore to look twice upon his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Others of the party were falling, when the
+mighty gate was blown to fragments, and the
+waiting regiments of infantry, under Colonel
+Campbell, rushed into the breach."</p>
+
+<p>There was a long silence in the post-office,
+till old John spoke once more.</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord God be thanked for all his dealings
+with us! My son, Sergeant Locke, died
+well for England, Queen, and Duty."</p>
+
+<p>Nervously fingering the treasure on his breast,
+the old soldier wheeled about, and marched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
+proudly straight down the middle of the village
+street to his lonely cabin.</p>
+
+<p>The villagers never saw him in life again.
+Next day he did not appear. All refrained
+from intruding on his mourning. But in the
+evening, when the Episcopalian minister heard
+of his parishioner's loss, he walked to old John's
+home.</p>
+
+<p>There, stretched upon his straw bed, he lay
+in his antique regimentals, stiffer than At Attention,
+all his medals fastened below that of
+Waterloo above his quiet heart. His right
+hand lay on an open Bible, and his face wore an
+expression as of looking for ever and ever upon
+Sergeant Locke and the Great Commander
+who takes back unto Him the heroes He
+fashions to sweeten the world.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="JOHN_BEDELL_U_E_LOYALISTA" id="JOHN_BEDELL_U_E_LOYALISTA"></a>JOHN BEDELL, U. E. LOYALIST.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></h2>
+
+
+<p>"A renegade! A rebel against his king!
+A black-hearted traitor! You dare to
+tell me that you love George Winthrop! Son
+of canting, lying Ezra Winthrop! By the Eternal,
+I'll shoot him on sight if he comes this
+side!"</p>
+
+<p>While old John Bedell was speaking, he tore
+and flung away a letter, reached for his long
+rifle on its pins above the chimney-place,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+dashed its butt angrily to the floor, and poured
+powder into his palm.</p>
+
+<p>"For Heaven's sake, father! You would
+not! You could not! The war is over. It
+would be murder!" cried Ruth Bedell, sobbing.</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't I?" He poured the powder in.
+"Yes, by gracious, quicker'n I'd kill a rattlesnake!"
+He placed the round bullet on the
+little square of greased rag at the muzzle of his
+rifle. "A rank traitor&mdash;bone and blood of
+those who drove out loyal men!"&mdash;he crowded
+the tight lead home, dashed the ramrod into
+place, looked to the flint. "Rest there,&mdash;wake
+up for George Winthrop!" and the fierce
+old man replaced rifle and powder-horn on
+their pegs.</p>
+
+<p>Bedell's hatred for the foes who had beaten
+down King George's cause, and imposed the
+alternative of confiscation or the oath of allegiance
+on the vanquished, was considered intense,
+even by his brother Loyalists of the
+Niagara frontier.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p>
+<p>"The Squire kind o' sees his boys' blood
+when the sky's red," said they in explanation.
+But Bedell was so much an enthusiast that he
+could almost rejoice because his three stark sons
+had gained the prize of death in battle. He
+was too brave to hate the fighting-men he had
+so often confronted; but he abhorred the politicians,
+especially the intimate civic enemies on
+whom he had poured scorn before the armed
+struggle began. More than any he hated Ezra
+Winthrop, the lawyer, arch-revolutionist of their
+native town, who had never used a weapon but
+his tongue. And now his Ruth, the beloved and
+only child left to his exiled age, had confessed
+her love for Ezra Winthrop's son! They had
+been boy and girl, pretty maiden and bright
+stripling together, without the Squire suspecting&mdash;he
+could not, even now, conceive clearly
+so wild a thing as their affection! The confession
+burned in his heart like veritable fire,&mdash;a
+raging anguish of mingled loathing and love.
+He stood now gazing at Ruth dumbly, his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>
+hands clenched, head sometimes mechanically
+quivering, anger, hate, love, grief, tumultuous in
+his soul.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth glanced up&mdash;her father seemed about
+to speak&mdash;she bowed again, shuddering as
+though the coming words might kill. Still there
+was silence,&mdash;a long silence. Bedell stood
+motionless, poised, breathing hard&mdash;the silence
+oppressed the girl&mdash;each moment her terror
+increased&mdash;expectant attention became suffering
+that demanded his voice&mdash;and still was
+silence&mdash;save for the dull roar of Niagara
+that more and more pervaded the air. The
+torture of waiting for the words&mdash;a curse
+against her, she feared&mdash;overwore Ruth's endurance.
+She looked up suddenly, and John
+Bedell saw in hers the beloved eyes of his dead
+wife, shrinking with intolerable fear. He
+groaned heavily, flung up his hands despairingly,
+and strode out toward the river.</p>
+
+<p>How crafty smooth the green Niagara
+sweeps toward the plunge beneath that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> perpetual
+white cloud above the Falls! From
+Bedell's clearing below Navy Island, two miles
+above the Falls, he could see the swaying and
+rolling of the mist, ever rushing up to expand
+and overhang. The terrible stream had a profound
+fascination for him, with its racing eddies
+eating at the shore; its long weeds, visible
+through the clear water, trailing close down to
+the bottom; its inexorable, eternal, onward
+pouring. Because it was so mighty and so
+threatening, he rejoiced grimly in the awful
+river. To float, watching cracks and ledges of
+its flat bottom-rock drift quickly upward; to
+bend to his oars only when white crests of the
+rapids yelled for his life; to win escape by
+sheer strength from points so low down that he
+sometimes doubted but the greedy forces had
+been tempted too long; to stake his life, watching
+tree-tops for a sign that he could yet save it,
+was the dreadful pastime by which Bedell often
+quelled passionate promptings to revenge his
+exile. "The Falls is bound to get the Squire,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>
+some day," said the banished settlers. But the
+Squire's skiff was clean built as a pickerel, and
+his old arms iron-strong. Now when he had
+gone forth from the beloved child, who seemed
+to him so traitorous to his love and all loyalty,
+he went instinctively to spend his rage upon the
+river.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth Bedell, gazing at the loaded rifle, shuddered,
+not with dread only, but a sense of having
+been treacherous to her father. She had
+not told him all the truth. George Winthrop
+himself, having made his way secretly through
+the forest from Lake Ontario, had given her
+his own letter asking leave from the Squire to
+visit his newly made cabin. From the moment
+of arrival her lover had implored her to fly
+with him. But filial love was strong in Ruth
+to give hope that her father would yield to
+the yet stronger affection freshened in her
+heart. Believing their union might be permitted,
+she had pledged herself to escape with
+her lover if it were forbidden. Now he waited<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>
+by the hickory wood for a signal to conceal
+himself or come forward.</p>
+
+<p>When Ruth saw her father far down the
+river, she stepped to the flagstaff he had raised
+before building the cabin&mdash;his first duty being
+to hoist the Union Jack! It was the largest
+flag he could procure; he could see it flying
+defiantly all day long; at night he could hear
+its glorious folds whipping in the wind; the hot
+old Loyalist loved to fancy his foeman cursing
+at it from the other side, nearly three miles
+away. Ruth hauled the flag down a little, then
+ran it up to the mast-head again.</p>
+
+<p>At that, a tall young fellow came springing
+into the clearing, jumping exultantly over brush-heaps
+and tree-trunks, his queue waggling, his
+eyes bright, glad, under his three-cornered hat.
+Joying that her father had yielded, he ran forward
+till he saw Ruth's tears.</p>
+
+<p>"What, sweetheart!&mdash;crying? It was the
+signal to come on," cried he.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; to see you sooner, George. Father<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
+is out yonder. But no, he will never, never
+consent."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you will come with me, love," he
+said, taking her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; I dare not," sobbed Ruth. "Father
+would overtake us. He swears to shoot you on
+sight! Go, George! Escape while you can!
+Oh, if he should find you here!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, darling love, we need not fear. We
+can escape easily. I know the forest path.
+But&mdash;" Then he thought how weak her pace.</p>
+
+<p>"We might cross here before he could come
+up!" cried Winthrop, looking toward where
+the Squire's boat was now a distant blotch.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," wailed Ruth, yet yielding to his
+embrace. "This is the last time I shall see you
+forever and forever. Go, dear,&mdash;good-bye,
+my love, my love."</p>
+
+<p>But he clasped her in his strong arms, kissing,
+imploring, cheering her,&mdash;and how should
+true love choose hopeless renunciation?</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p>
+<p>Tempting, defying, regaining his lost ground,
+drifting down again, trying hard to tire out and
+subdue his heart-pangs, Bedell dallied with
+death more closely than ever. He had let his
+skiff drift far down toward the Falls. Often he
+could see the wide smooth curve where the green
+volume first lapses vastly on a lazy slope, to
+shoulder up below as a huge calm billow, before
+pitching into the madness of waves whose confusion
+of tossing and tortured crests hurries to
+the abyss. The afternoon grew toward evening
+before he pulled steadily home, crawling away
+from the roarers against the cruel green, watching
+the ominous cloud with some such grim
+humor as if under observation by an overpowering
+but baffled enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Approaching his landing, a shout drew Bedell's
+glance ashore to a group of men excitedly gesticulating.
+They seemed motioning him to watch
+the American shore. Turning, he saw a boat in
+midstream, where no craft then on the river,
+except his own skiff, could be safe, unless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+manned by several good men. Only two oars
+were flashing. Bedell could make out two
+figures indistinctly. It was clear they were
+doomed,&mdash;though still a full mile above the
+point whence he had come, they were much
+farther out than he when near the rapids. Yet
+one life might be saved! Instantly Bedell's
+bow turned outward, and cheers flung to him
+from ashore.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment he looked to his own landing-place,
+and saw that his larger boat was gone.
+Turning again, he angrily recognized it, but
+kept right on&mdash;he must try to rescue even a
+thief. He wondered Ruth had not prevented
+the theft, but had no suspicion of the truth.
+Always he had refused to let her go out upon
+the river&mdash;mortally fearing it for <i>her</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Thrusting his skiff mightily forward,&mdash;often
+it glanced, half-whirled by up-whelming and
+spreading spaces of water,&mdash;the old Loyalist's
+heart was quit of his pangs, and sore only with
+certainty that he must abandon one human soul<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
+to death. By the time that he could reach the
+larger boat his would be too near the rapids for
+escape with three!</p>
+
+<p>When George Winthrop saw Bedell in pursuit,
+he bent to his ash-blades more strongly, and
+Ruth, trembling to remember her father's threats,
+urged her lover to speed. They feared the
+pursuer only, quite unconscious that they were
+in the remorseless grasp of the river. Ruth had
+so often seen her father far lower down than
+they had yet drifted that she did not realize the
+truth, and George, a stranger in the Niagara
+district, was unaware of the length of the cataracts
+above the Falls. He was also deceived by
+the stream's treacherous smoothness, and instead
+of half-upward, pulled straight across, as
+if certainly able to land anywhere he might
+touch the American shore.</p>
+
+<p>Bedell looked over his shoulder often. When
+he distinguished a woman, he put on more
+force, but slackened soon&mdash;the pull home
+would tax his endurance, he reflected. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>
+some sort it was a relief to know that one <i>was</i>
+a woman; he had been anticipating trouble
+with two men equally bent on being saved.
+That the man would abandon himself bravely,
+the Squire took as a matter of course. For a
+while he thought of pulling with the woman to
+the American shore, more easily to be gained
+from the point where the rescue must occur.
+But he rejected the plan, confident he could
+win back, for he had sworn never to set foot on
+that soil unless in war. Had it been possible
+to save both, he would have been forced to
+disregard that vow; but the Squire knew that it
+was impossible for him to reach the New York
+Shore with two passengers&mdash;two would overload
+his boat beyond escape. Man or woman&mdash;one
+must go over the Falls.</p>
+
+<p>Having carefully studied landmarks for his
+position, Bedell turned to look again at the
+doomed boat, and a well-known ribbon caught
+his attention! The old man dropped his oars,
+confused with horror. "My God, my God! it's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+Ruth!" he cried, and the whole truth came
+with another look, for he had not forgotten
+George Winthrop.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father stops, Ruth. Perhaps he is in
+pain," said George to the quaking girl.</p>
+
+<p>She looked back. "What can it be?" she
+cried, filial love returning overmasteringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps he is only tired." George affected
+carelessness,&mdash;his first wish was to secure his
+bride,&mdash;and pulled hard away to get all advantage
+from Bedell's halt.</p>
+
+<p>"Tired! He is in danger of the Falls, then!"
+screamed Ruth. "Stop! Turn! Back to him!"</p>
+
+<p>Winthrop instantly prepared to obey. "Yes,
+darling," he said, "we must not think of ourselves.
+We must go back to save him!" Yet
+his was a sore groan at turning; what Duty
+ordered was so hard,&mdash;he must give up his love
+for the sake of his enemy.</p>
+
+<p>But while Winthrop was still pulling round,
+the old Loyalist resumed rowing, with a more
+rapid stroke that soon brought him alongside.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p>
+<p>In those moments of waiting, all Bedell's life,
+his personal hatreds, his loves, his sorrows, had
+been reviewed before his soul. He had seen
+again his sons, the slain in battle, in the pride
+of their young might; and the gentle eyes of
+Ruth had pleaded with him beneath his dead
+wife's brow. Into those beloved, unforgotten,
+visionary eyes he looked with an encouraging,
+strengthening gaze,&mdash;now that the deed to be
+done was as clear before him as the face of
+Almighty God. In accepting it the darker passions
+that had swayed his stormy life fell suddenly
+away from their hold on his soul. How
+trivial had been old disputes! how good at
+heart old well-known civic enemies! how poor
+seemed hate! how mean and poor seemed all
+but Love and Loyalty!</p>
+
+<p>Resolution and deep peace had come upon
+the man.</p>
+
+<p>The lovers wondered at his look. No wrath
+was there. The old eyes were calm and cheerful,
+a gentle smile flickered about his lips.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>
+Only that he was very pale, Ruth would have
+been wholly glad for the happy change.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me, father," she cried, as he laid
+hand on their boat.</p>
+
+<p>"I do, my child," he answered. "Come
+now without an instant's delay to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, father, if you would let us be happy!"
+cried Ruth, heart-torn by two loves.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, you shall be happy. I was wrong,
+child; I did not understand how you loved him.
+But come! You hesitate! Winthrop, my son,
+you are in some danger. Into this boat instantly!
+both of you! Take the oars, George.
+Kiss me, dear, my Ruth, once more. Good-bye,
+my little girl. Winthrop, be good to her. And
+may God bless you both forever!"</p>
+
+<p>As the old Squire spoke, he stepped into the
+larger boat, instantly releasing the skiff. His
+imperative gentleness had secured his object
+without loss of time, and the boats were apart
+with Winthrop's readiness to pull.</p>
+
+<p>"Now row! Row for her life to yonder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>
+shore! Bow well up! Away, or the Falls will
+have her!" shouted Bedell.</p>
+
+<p>"But you!" cried Winthrop, bending for his
+stroke. Yet he did not comprehend Bedell's
+meaning. Till the last the old man had spoken
+without strong excitement. Dread of the river
+was not on George; his bliss was supreme in
+his thought, and he took the Squire's order for
+one of exaggerated alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"Row, I say, with all your strength!" cried
+Bedell, with a flash of anger that sent the young
+fellow away instantly. "Row! Concern yourself
+not for me. I am going home. Row! for
+her life, Winthrop! God will deliver you yet.
+Good-bye, children. Remember always my
+blessing is freely given you."</p>
+
+<p>"God bless and keep you forever, father!"
+cried Ruth, from the distance, as her lover
+pulled away.</p>
+
+<p>They landed, conscious of having passed a
+swift current, indeed, but quite unthinking of
+the price paid for their safety. Looking back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>
+on the darkling river, they saw nothing of the
+old man.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor father!" sighed Ruth, "how kind he
+was! I'm sore-hearted for thinking of him at
+home, so lonely."</p>
+
+<p>Left alone in the clumsy boat, Bedell
+stretched with the long, heavy oars for his own
+shore, making appearance of strong exertion.
+But when he no longer feared that his children
+might turn back with sudden understanding,
+and vainly, to his aid, he dragged the boat
+slowly, watching her swift drift down&mdash;down
+toward the towering mist. Then as he gazed at
+the cloud, rising in two distinct volumes, came a
+thought spurring the Loyalist spirit in an instant.
+He was not yet out of American water! Thereafter
+he pulled steadily, powerfully, noting landmarks
+anxiously, studying currents, considering
+always their trend to or from his own shore.
+Half an hour had gone when he again dropped
+into slower motion. Then he could see Goat
+Island's upper end between him and the mist of
+the American Fall.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p>
+<p>Now the old man gave himself up to intense
+curiosity, looking over into the water with fascinated
+inquiry. He had never been so far down
+the river. Darting beside their shadows, deep
+in the clear flood, were now larger fishes than
+he had ever taken, and all moved up as if
+hurrying to escape. How fast the long trailing,
+swaying, single weeds, and the crevices in flat
+rock whence they so strangely grew, went up
+stream and away as if drawn backward. The
+sameness of the bottom to that higher up interested
+him&mdash;where then <i>did</i> the current begin
+to sweep clean? He should certainly know
+that soon, he thought, without a touch of fear,
+having utterly accepted death when he determined
+it were base to carry his weary old life a
+little longer, and let Ruth's young love die.
+Now the Falls' heavy monotone was overborne
+by terrible sounds&mdash;a mingled clashing, shrieking,
+groaning, and rumbling, as of great bowlders
+churned in their beds.</p>
+
+<p>Bedell was nearing the first long swoop downward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+at the rapids' head when those watching
+him from the high bank below the Chippewa
+River's mouth saw him put his boat stern with
+the current and cease rowing entirely, facing
+fairly the up-rushing mist to which he was being
+hurried. Then they observed him stooping, as
+if writing, for a time. Something flashed in
+his hands, and then he knelt with head bowed
+down. Kneeling, they prayed, too.</p>
+
+<p>Now he was almost on the brink of the cascades.
+Then he arose, and, glancing backward
+to his home, caught sight of his friends on the
+high shore. Calmly he waved a farewell. What
+then? Thrice round he flung his hat, with a
+gesture they knew full well. Some had seen
+that exultant waving in front of ranks of battle.
+As clearly as though the roar of waters had not
+drowned his ringing voice, they knew that old
+John Bedell, at the poise of death, cheered
+thrice, "Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah for the
+King!"</p>
+
+<p>They found his body a week afterward, floating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>
+with the heaving water in the gorge below
+the Falls. Though beaten almost out of recognition,
+portions of clothing still adhered to it,
+and in a waistcoat pocket they found the old
+Loyalist's metal snuff-box, with this inscription
+scratched by knife-point on the cover: "God be
+praised, I die in British waters! <span class="smcap">John Bedell</span>."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> The United Empire Loyalists were American Tories
+who forsook their homes and property after the Revolution
+in order to live in Canada under the British Flag.
+It is impossible to understand Canadian feeling for the
+Crown at the present day without understanding the
+U. E. Loyalist spirit, which, though Canadians are not
+now unfriendly to the United States, is still the most
+important political force in the Dominion, and holds it
+firmly in allegiance to the Queen.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="VERBITZSKYS_STRATAGEM" id="VERBITZSKYS_STRATAGEM"></a>VERBITZSKY'S STRATAGEM.</h2>
+
+
+<p>What had Alexander Verbitzsky and I
+done that the secret service of our
+father, the Czar, should dog us for five months,
+and in the end drive us to Siberia, whence we
+have, by the goodness of God, escaped from
+Holy Russia, our mother? They called us
+Nihilists&mdash;as if all Nihilists were of one way of
+thinking!</p>
+
+<p>We did not belong to the Terrorists,&mdash;the
+section that believes in killing the tyrant or his
+agents in hope that the hearts of the mighty
+may be shaken as Pharaoh's was in Egypt long
+ago. No; we were two students of nineteen
+years old, belonging to the section of "peasantists,"
+or of Peaceful Education. Its members
+solemnly devote all their lives to teaching the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>
+poor people to read, think, save, avoid <i>vodka</i>,
+and seek quietly for such liberty with order as
+here in America all enjoy. Was that work a
+crime in Verbitzsky and me?</p>
+
+<p>Was it a crime for us to steal to the freight-shed
+of the Moscow and St. Petersburg Railway
+that night in December two years ago? We sat
+in the superintendent's dark office, and talked
+to the eight trainmen that were brought in by
+the guard of the eastern gate, who had belonged
+to all the sections, but was no longer "active."</p>
+
+<p>We were there to prevent a crime. At the
+risk of our lives, we two went to save the Czar
+of all the Russias, though well we knew that
+Dmitry Nolenki, chief of the secret police, had
+offered a reward on our capture.</p>
+
+<p>Boris Kojukhov and the other seven trainmen
+who came with him had been chosen, with ten
+others who were not Nihilists, to operate the
+train that was to bear His Imperial Majesty next
+day to St. Petersburg. Now Boris was one of
+the Section of Terror, and most terrible was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>
+his scheme. Kojukhov was not really his name
+I may tell you. Little did the Czar's railway
+agents suspect that Boris was a noble, and
+brother to the gentle girl that had been sent to
+Siberia. No wonder the heart of Boris was hot
+and his brain partly crazed when he learned of
+Zina's death in the starvation strike at the Olek
+Mines.</p>
+
+<p>Verbitzsky was cousin to Zina and Boris, and
+as his young head was a wise one, Boris wished
+to consult him. We both went, hoping to persuade
+him out of the crime he meditated.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Boris, "my mind is made up. I
+may never have such another chance. I will
+fling these two bombs under the foremost car at
+the middle of the Volga Bridge. The tyrant
+and his staff shall all plunge with us down to
+death in the river."</p>
+
+<p>"The bombs&mdash;have you them here?" asked
+Verbitzsky in the dark.</p>
+
+<p>"I have them in my hands," said Boris, tapping
+them lightly together. "I have carried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>
+them in my inner clothing for a week. They
+give me warmth at my heart as I think how
+they shall free Holy Russia."</p>
+
+<p>There was a stir of dismay in the dark office.
+The comrades, though willing to risk death at
+the Volga Bridge, were horrified by Kojukhov's
+tapping of the iron bombs together, and all rose
+in fear of their explosion, all except Verbitzsky
+and me.</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, be more careful, Boris!"
+said my friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you're afraid, too?" said Kojukhov.
+"Pah! you cowards of the Peace Section!"
+He tapped the bombs together again.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> afraid," said Verbitzsky. "Why
+should I die for your reckless folly? Will any
+good happen if you explode the bombs here?
+You will but destroy all of us, and our friends
+the watchmen, and the freight-sheds containing
+the property of many worthy people."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a fool, Verbitzsky!" said his
+cousin. "Come here. Whisper."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p>
+<p>Something Boris then whispered in my comrade's
+ear. When Verbitzsky spoke again his
+voice seemed calmer.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me feel the shape," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Here," said Boris, as if handing something
+to Verbitzsky.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the outer door of the freight-shed
+resounded with a heavy blow. The next
+blow, as from a heavy maul, pounded the door
+open.</p>
+
+<p>"The police!" shouted Boris. "They must
+have dogged you, Alexander, for they don't suspect
+me." He dashed out of the dark office
+into the great dark shed.</p>
+
+<p>As we all ran forth, glancing at the main door
+about seventy feet distant, we saw a squad of
+police outlined against the moonlit sky beyond
+the great open space of railway yard. My eyes
+were dazzled by a headlight that one of them
+carried. By that lamp they must have seen us
+clearly; for as we started to run away down the
+long shed they opened fire, and I stumbled
+over Boris Kojukhov, as he fell with a shriek.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p>
+<p>Rising, I dodged aside, thinking to avoid
+bullets, and then dashed against a bale of wool,
+one of a long row. Clambering over it, I
+dropped beside a man crouching on the other
+side.</p>
+
+<p>"Michael, is it you?" whispered Verbitzsky.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. We're lost, of course?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Keep still. Let them pass."</p>
+
+<p>The police ran past us down the middle aisle
+left between high walls of wool bales. They
+did not notice the narrow side lane in which we
+were crouching.</p>
+
+<p>"Come. I know a way out," said Verbitzsky.
+"I was all over here this morning, looking
+round, in case we should be surprised to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"What's this?" I whispered, groping, and
+touching something in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Kojukhov's bombs. I have them both.
+Come. Ah, poor Boris, he's with Zina now!"</p>
+
+<p>The bomb was a section of iron pipe about
+two inches in diameter and eighteen inches
+long. Its ends were closed with iron caps.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
+Filled with nitroglycerine, such pipes are terrible
+shells, which explode by concussion. I was
+amazed to think of the recklessness of Boris in
+tapping them together.</p>
+
+<p>"Put them down, Verbitzsky!" I whispered,
+as we groped our way between high walls of
+bales.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, they're weapons!" he whispered.
+"We may need them."</p>
+
+<p>"Then for the love of the saints, be careful!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be afraid," he said, as we neared a
+small side door.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, we heard the police run after the
+Terrorists, who brought up against the great
+door at the south end. As they tore away the
+bar and opened the door they shouted with dismay.
+They had been confronted by another
+squad of police! For a few moments a confusion
+of sounds came to us, all somewhat
+muffled by passing up and over the high walls
+of baled wool.</p>
+
+<p>"Boris! Where are you?" cried one.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p>
+<p>"He's killed!" cried another.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if we had the bombs!"</p>
+
+<p>"He gave them to Verbitzsky."</p>
+
+<p>"Verbitzsky, where are you? Throw them!
+Let us all die together!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's death to be taken!"</p>
+
+<p>Then we heard shots, blows, and shrieks, all
+in confusion. After a little there was clatter of
+grounded arms, and then no sound but the
+heavy breathing of men who had been struggling
+hard. That silence was a bad thing for Verbitzsky
+and me, because the police heard the
+opening of the small side door through which
+Alexander next moment led. In a moment we
+dashed out into the clear night, over the tracks,
+toward the Petrovsky Gardens.</p>
+
+<p>As we reached the railway yard the police
+ran round their end of the wool-shed in pursuit&mdash;ten
+of them. The others stayed with the
+prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't fire! Don't shoot!" cried a voice
+we knew well,&mdash;the voice of Dmitry Nolenki,
+chief of the secret police.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p>
+<p>"One of them is Verbitzsky!" he cried to
+his men. "The conspirator I've been after for
+four months. A hundred roubles for him who
+first seizes him! He must be taken alive!"</p>
+
+<p>That offer, I suppose, was what pushed them
+to such eagerness that they all soon felt themselves
+at our mercy. And that offer was what
+caused them to follow so silently, lest other
+police should overhear a tumult and run to head
+us off.</p>
+
+<p>Verbitzsky, though encumbered by the bombs,
+kept the lead, for he was a very swift runner. I
+followed close at his heels. We could hear
+nothing in the great walled-in railway yard
+except the clack of feet on gravel, and sometimes
+on the network of steel tracks that shone
+silvery as the hard snow under the round moon.</p>
+
+<p>My comrade ran like a man who knows
+exactly where he means to go. Indeed, he
+had already determined to follow a plan that
+had long before occurred to him. It was a
+vision of what one or two desperate men with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+bombs might do at close quarters against a
+number with pistols.</p>
+
+<p>As Verbitzsky approached the south end of
+the yard, which is excavated deeply and walled
+in from the surrounding streets, he turned, to
+my amazement, away from the line that led into
+the suburbs, and ran along four tracks that led
+under a street bridge.</p>
+
+<p>This bridge was fully thirty feet overhead,
+and flanked by wings of masonry. The four
+tracks led into a small yard, almost surrounded
+by high stone warehouses; a yard devoted
+solely to turn-tables for locomotives. There
+was no exit from it except under the bridge that
+we passed beneath.</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" we heard Nolenki cry, fifty yards
+behind. "We have them now in a trap!"</p>
+
+<p>At that, Verbitzsky, still in the moonlight,
+slackened speed, half-turned as if in hesitation,
+then ran on more slowly, with zigzag steps, as if
+desperately looking for a way out. But he said
+to me in a low, panting voice:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p>
+<p>"We shall escape. Do exactly as I do."</p>
+
+<p>When the police were not fifty feet behind us,
+Verbitzsky jumped down about seven feet into
+a wide pit. I jumped to his side. We were
+now standing in the walled-in excavation for a
+new locomotive turn-table. This pit was still
+free from its machinery and platform.</p>
+
+<p>"We are done now!" I said, staring around
+as Verbitzsky stopped in the middle of the
+circular pit, which was some forty feet wide.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the police came crowding to the edge,
+Verbitzsky fell on his knees as if in surrender.
+In their eagerness to lay first hands, on him, all
+the police jumped down except the chief, Dmitry
+Nolenki. Some fell. As those who kept their
+feet rushed toward us, Verbitzsky sprang up and
+ran to the opposite wall, with me at his heels.</p>
+
+<p>Three seconds later the foremost police were
+within fifteen feet of us. Then Verbitzsky
+raised his terrible bombs.</p>
+
+<p>From high above the roofs of the warehouses
+the full moon so clearly illuminated the yard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>
+that we could see every button on our assailants'
+coats, and even the puffs of fat Nolenki's breath.
+He stood panting on the opposite wall of the
+excavation.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt, or die!" cried Verbitzsky, in a terrible
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>The bombs were clearly to be seen in his
+hands. Every policeman in Moscow knew of
+the destruction done, only six days before, by
+just such weapons. The foremost men halted
+instantly. The impetus of those behind brought
+all together in a bunch&mdash;nine expectants of
+instant death. Verbitzsky spoke again:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If any man moves hand or foot, I'll throw
+these," he cried. "Listen!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you fool," said Nolenki, a rather
+slow-witted man, "you can't escape. Surrender
+instantly."</p>
+
+<p>He drew his revolver and pointed it at us.</p>
+
+<p>"Michael," said Verbitzsky to me, in that
+steely voice which I had never before heard
+from my gentle comrade; "Michael, Nolenki<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>
+can shoot but one of us before he dies. Take
+this bomb. Now if he hits me you throw your
+bomb at him. If he hits you I will throw mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Infernal villains!" gasped the chief; but
+we could see his pistol wavering.</p>
+
+<p>"Michael," resumed Verbitzsky, "we will
+give Nolenki a chance for his life. Obey me
+exactly! Listen! If Dmitry Nolenki does
+not jump down into this pit before I say five,
+throw your bomb straight at him! I will, at
+the moment I say five, throw mine at these
+rascals."</p>
+
+<p>"Madman!" cried Nolenki. "Do you
+think to&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped as if paralyzed. I suppose he
+had suddenly understood that the explosion of
+a bomb in that small, high-walled yard would
+kill every man in it.</p>
+
+<p>"One!" cried Verbitzsky.</p>
+
+<p>"But I may not hit him!" said I.</p>
+
+<p>"No matter. If it explodes within thirty
+feet of him he will move no more."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p>
+<p>I took one step forward and raised the bomb.
+Did I mean to throw it? I do not know. I
+think not. But I knew we must make the
+threat or be captured and hung. And I felt
+certain that the bomb would be exploded anyway
+when Verbitzsky should say "Five." He
+would then throw his, and mine would explode
+by the concussion.</p>
+
+<p>"Two!" said Verbitzsky.</p>
+
+<p>Dmitry Nolenki had lowered his pistol. He
+glanced behind him uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>"If he runs, throw it!" said Verbitzsky,
+loudly. "THREE!"</p>
+
+<p>The chief of the Moscow secret police was
+reputed a brave man, but he was only a cruel
+one. Now his knees trembled so that we could
+see them shake, and his teeth chattered in the
+still cold night. Verbitzsky told me afterward
+that he feared the man's slow brain had become
+so paralyzed by fright that he might not be able
+to think and obey and jump down. That would
+have placed my comrade and me in a dreadful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>
+dilemma, but quite a different one from what
+you may suppose.</p>
+
+<p>As if to make Nolenki reflect, Verbitzsky
+spoke more slowly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If Dmitry Nolenki jumps down into this pit
+<i>before</i> I say five, do <i>not</i> throw the bomb at him.
+You understand, Michael, do not throw if he
+jumps down instantly. <span class="smcap">Four</span>!"</p>
+
+<p>Nolenki's legs were so weak that he could
+not walk to the edge. In trying to do so he
+stumbled, fell, crawled, and came in head first,
+a mere heap.</p>
+
+<p>"Wise Nolenki!" said my comrade, with a
+laugh. Then in his tone of desperate resolution,
+"Nolenki, get down on your hands and knees,
+and put your head against that wall. Don't
+move now&mdash;if you wish to live."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, men," he cried to the others in military
+fashion, "right about, face!"</p>
+
+<p>They hesitated, perhaps fearful that he would
+throw at them when they turned.</p>
+
+<p>"About! instantly!" he cried. They all
+turned.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Now, men, you see your chief. At the word
+'March,' go and kneel in a row beside him,
+your heads against that wall. Hump your
+backs as high as you can. If any man moves to
+get out, all will suffer together. You understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! yes! yes!" came in an agony of
+abasement from their lips.</p>
+
+<p>"March!"</p>
+
+<p>When they were all kneeling in a row, Verbitzsky
+said to me clearly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Michael, you can easily get to the top of
+that wall from any one of their backs. No man
+will dare to move. Go! Wait on the edge!
+Take your bomb with you!"</p>
+
+<p>I obeyed. I stood on a man's back. I laid
+my bomb with utmost care on the wall, over
+which I could then see. Then I easily lifted
+myself out by my hands and elbows.</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said Verbitzsky. "Now, Michael,
+stand there till I come. If they try to seize me,
+throw your bomb. We can all die together."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p>
+<p>In half a minute he had stepped on Nolenki's
+back. Nolenki groaned with abasement. Next
+moment Verbitzsky was beside me.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me your bomb. Now, Michael," he
+said loudly, "I will stand guard over these
+wretches till I see you beyond the freight-sheds.
+Walk at an ordinary pace, lest you be seen and
+suspected."</p>
+
+<p>"But you? They'll rise and fire at you as
+you run," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course they will. But you will escape.
+Here! Good-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>He embraced me, and whispered in my ear:</p>
+
+<p>"Go the opposite way from the freight-sheds.
+Go out toward the Petrovsky Gardens. There
+are few police there. Run hard after you've
+walked out under the bridge and around the
+abutments. You will then be out of hearing."</p>
+
+<p>"Go, dear friend," he said aloud, in a mournful
+voice. "I may never see you again. Possibly
+I may have to destroy myself and all
+here. Go!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p>
+<p>I obeyed precisely, and had not fairly reached
+the yard's end when Verbitzsky, running very
+silently, came up beside me.</p>
+
+<p>"I think they must be still fancying that I'm
+standing over them," he chuckled. "No, they
+are shooting! Now, out they come!"</p>
+
+<p>From where we now stood in shadow we
+could see Nolenki and his men rush furiously
+out from under the bridge. They ran away
+from us toward the freight-sheds, shouting the
+alarm, while we calmly walked home to our
+unsuspected lodgings.</p>
+
+<p>Not till then did I think of the bombs.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are they?" I asked in alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"I left them for the police. They will ruin
+Nolenki&mdash;it was he who sent poor Zina to
+Siberia and her death."</p>
+
+<p>"Ruin him?" I said, wondering.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"They were not loaded."</p>
+
+<p>"Not loaded!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p>
+<p>"That's what Boris whispered to me in the
+wool-shed office. He meant to load them
+to-morrow before going to His Imperial Majesty's
+train. Nolenki will be laughed to death
+in Moscow, if not sent to Siberia."</p>
+
+<p>Verbitzsky was right. Nolenki, after being
+laughed nearly to death, was sent to Siberia in
+disgrace, and we both worked in the same gang
+with him for eight months before we escaped
+from the Ural Mines. No doubt he is working
+there yet.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center">THE END.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p>
+<p><i>JUST ISSUED</i>....</p>
+
+<h2>
+ETCHINGS</h2>
+<h6>FROM A</h6>
+<h2>PARSONAGE VERANDA</h2>
+<h6>BY</h6>
+<h3>MRS. E. JEFFERS GRAHAM</h3>
+<h5>Illustrated by J. W. BENGOUGH</h5>
+
+<h3>CLOTH,&mdash;&mdash;$1.00</h3>
+
+<p><b>Contents</b>: <span class="smcap">The Parsonage&mdash;Solomon Wiseacre&mdash;Two Women&mdash;Marion
+Fuller&mdash;Jacob Whinely&mdash;Carlo&mdash;A
+Pensioner&mdash;Mrs Taffety&mdash;The Knight and the
+Dove&mdash;A Cross&mdash;Under a Cloud&mdash;Joy in the Morning&mdash;A
+Supply&mdash;Only a Child&mdash;Miss Primperty&mdash;A
+Temperance Meeting&mdash;A Dinner Party&mdash;Au
+Revoir&mdash;Parting.</span></p>
+
+<p>The following words from the closing sketch of this charming book
+are representative of the spirit and style of the whole: "The moon is
+shining in calm majesty. Her children, the stars, are laughing and
+twinkling around her. Earth's children are sleeping, carousing and
+suffering. I am writing in the moonlight. I am so glad we have lived
+here&mdash;so happy that we have known all these good, heroic, sweet
+characters. We need not read novels to find heroes. They are living
+all around us. We are talking to them every day. They pass us on the
+street, they sit by us in the church and hall. There is no historian to
+write of them, only a book of remembrance in heaven, where all their
+good deeds are recorded."</p>
+
+<p>Smiles and tears alternate as the delicate humor and tender pathos
+succeed each other through these delightful character sketches. We
+do not hope for popularity for the book&mdash;we are <i>sure of it</i>.</p>
+
+
+<h6>For Sale by all Booksellers</h6>
+
+<h2>WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher</h2>
+<h5>29-33 Richmond Street West, TORONTO</h5>
+<h6>Montreal: <span class="smcap">C. W. Coates</span>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;       Halifax: <span class="smcap">S. F. Huestis</span>.</h6>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><i>TWO NEW BOOKS</i></p>
+
+<h2>Forest, Lake <span class="smcap">and</span> Prairie</h2>
+
+<h3><i>TWENTY YEARS OF FRONTIER LIFE IN<br />
+WESTERN CANADA, 1842-1862.</i></h3>
+
+<h6>BY</h6>
+
+<h4>REV. JOHN McDOUGALL</h4>
+
+<p class="center"><i>With Twenty-seven Full-page Original Illustrations<br />
+by J. E. LAUGHLIN.</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">Strongly bound in English Cloth, with handsome original
+design in ink and gold.</p>
+
+<h4>PRICE,&mdash;&mdash;$1.00</h4>
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h6>A Companion Book to "Black Beauty."</h6>
+
+<h2>LION, THE MASTIFF</h2>
+
+<h4>FROM LIFE</h4>
+
+<h3>By A. G. SAVIGNY</h3>
+
+<p class="center">With Introduction by REV. PRINCIPAL CAVEN, D.D.</p>
+
+<h5>CLOTH, 50 CENTS NET</h5>
+
+<p>An ingenious and clever humane story in which "Lion" tells the narrative
+of his life, to quote Principal Caven, "with more vivacity than some famous men
+have exemplified in memoirs of themselves." It should be in the hands of every
+boy and girl in Canada. The author has woven into her story a great deal of useful
+information to guide us in our treatment of dumb animals.</p>
+
+<h4>WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher</h4>
+<h5>Wesley Buildings, Toronto</h5>
+<h6>Montreal: C. W. COATES.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;          Halifax: S. F. HUESTIS.</h6>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="SOME_RECENT_ISSUES" id="SOME_RECENT_ISSUES"></a><b>SOME RECENT ISSUES.</b></h2>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="recent">
+<tr><td align='left'><b>A Veteran of 1812.</b> By Mary Agnes FitzGibbon</td><td align='right'>$1.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Cape Breton, Historic, Picturesque and Descriptive.</b> By John M. Gow</td><td align='right'>3.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Birds of Ontario.</b> By Thomas McIlwraith</td><td align='right'>2.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Pearls and Pebbles; or, Notes of an Old Naturalist.</b> By Mrs. Catharine Parr Traill. With Biographical Sketch by Mary Agnes FitzGibbon</td><td align='right'>1.50</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>The Life and Times of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock.</b> By D. B. Read, Q.C.</td><td align='right'>1.50</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>The History of British Columbia.</b> From its Earliest Discovery to the Present Time. By Alexander Begg.</td><td align='right'>3.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>China and its People.</b> By W. H. Withrow, D.D.</td><td align='right'>1.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>The Native Races of North America.</b> By W. H. Withrow, D.D.</td><td align='right'>0.75</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Japan, the Land of the Morning.</b> By Rev. J. W. Saunby, B.A.</td><td align='right'>1.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Motley: Verses Grave and Gay.</b> By J. W. Bengough. Illustrated by the Author</td><td align='right'>1.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Forest, Lake and Prairie</b>: Twenty Years of Frontier Life in Western Canada&mdash;1842-62. By Rev. John McDougall</td><td align='right'>1.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>The Catholic Church in the Niagara Peninsula.</b> By Rev. Dean Harris</td><td align='right'>2.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Etchings from a Parsonage Veranda.</b> By Mrs. E. Jeffers Graham. Illustrated by J. W. Bengough</td><td align='right'>1.00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>Lion the Mastiff.</b> By A. G. Savigny</td><td align='right'>0.50</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><b>The Red, Red Wine.</b> By J. Jackson Wray. Illustrated.</td><td align='right'>1.00</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p class="center">
+<b><big>WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher,</big></b><br />
+29-33 Richmond St. West, Toronto.<br />
+<span class="smcap">Montreal</span>: C. W. COATES.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;   <span class="smcap">Halifax: S. F. Huestis</span>.<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+
+<p class="center">Transcriber's Notes:</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 241: <a href="#respectacle">Respectacle</a> is possibly a typo for respectable, or the
+author's coined word combining respectable and spectacle.<br />
+(For years after he disappeared, the peddling of white-fish by horse
+and cart was regarded in that district as peculiarly respectacle.)</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Man Savarin and Other Stories, by 
+Edward Wilson Thomson
+
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diff --git a/20345.txt b/20345.txt
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+++ b/20345.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Man Savarin and Other Stories, by
+Edward William Thomson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Old Man Savarin and Other Stories
+
+Author: Edward William Thomson
+
+Release Date: January 12, 2007 [EBook #20345]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD MAN SAVARIN AND OTHER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Diane Monico, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by the Canadian Institute for
+Historical Microreproductions (www.canadiana.org).)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+OFF-HAND STORIES
+
+
+OLD MAN SAVARIN
+
+And Other Stories
+
+BY
+
+EDWARD WILLIAM THOMSON
+
+
+TORONTO:
+
+WILLIAM BRIGGS, WESLEY BUILDINGS.
+
+C. W. COATES, MONTREAL, QUE.      S. F. HUESTIS, HALIFAX, N.S.
+
+1895.
+
+
+
+
+Entered, according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year
+one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five, by WILLIAM BRIGGS,
+Toronto, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture, at Ottawa.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+                                    PAGE
+
+I. OLD MAN SAVARIN                     7
+
+II. THE PRIVILEGE OF THE LIMITS       29
+
+III. MCGRATH'S BAD NIGHT              45
+
+IV. GREAT GODFREY'S LAMENT            67
+
+V. THE RED-HEADED WINDEGO             89
+
+VI. THE SHINING CROSS OF RIGAUD      109
+
+VII. LITTLE BAPTISTE                 125
+
+VIII. THE RIDE BY NIGHT              152
+
+IX. DRAFTED                          174
+
+X. A TURKEY APIECE                   199
+
+XI. GRANDPAPA'S WOLF STORY           219
+
+XII. THE WATERLOO VETERAN            239
+
+XIII. JOHN BEDELL                    251
+
+XIV. VERBITZSKY'S STRATAGEM          271
+
+
+
+
+_For liberty to issue these stories in present form the author has to
+thank_ THE YOUTHS' COMPANION, _Boston; the proprietors of "Two Tales,"
+in which "Old Man Savarin" and "Great Godfrey's Lament" first
+appeared; and "Harper's Weekly" and Mr. S. S. McClure's syndicate of
+newspapers, which, respectively, first published "The Privilege of the
+Limits" and "John Bedell"_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+OLD MAN SAVARIN.
+
+
+Old Ma'ame Paradis had caught seventeen small dore, four suckers, and
+eleven channel-catfish before she used up all the worms in her
+tomato-can. Therefore she was in a cheerful and loquacious humor when
+I came along and offered her some of my bait.
+
+"Merci; non, M'sieu. Dat's 'nuff fishin' for me. I got too old now for
+fish too much. You like me make you present of six or seven dore? Yes?
+All right. Then you make me present of one quarter dollar."
+
+When this transaction was completed, the old lady got out her short
+black clay pipe, and filled it with _tabac blanc_.
+
+"Ver' good smell for scare mosquitoes," said she. "Sit down, M'sieu.
+For sure I like to be here, me, for see the river when she's like
+this."
+
+Indeed the scene was more than picturesque. Her fishing-platform
+extended twenty feet from the rocky shore of the great Rataplan Rapid
+of the Ottawa, which, beginning to tumble a mile to the westward,
+poured a roaring torrent half a mile wide into the broader, calm brown
+reach below. Noble elms towered on the shores. Between their trunks we
+could see many whitewashed cabins, whose doors of blue or green or red
+scarcely disclosed their colors in that light.
+
+The sinking sun, which already touched the river, seemed somehow the
+source of the vast stream that flowed radiantly from its blaze.
+Through the glamour of the evening mist and the maze of June flies we
+could see a dozen men scooping for fish from platforms like that of
+Ma'ame Paradis.
+
+Each scooper lifted a great hoop-net set on a handle some fifteen feet
+long, threw it easily up stream, and swept it on edge with the
+current to the full length of his reach. Then it was drawn out and at
+once thrown upward again, if no capture had been made. In case he had
+taken fish, he came to the inshore edge of his platform, and upset the
+net's contents into a pool separated from the main rapid by an
+improvised wall of stones.
+
+"I'm too old for scoop some now," said Ma'ame Paradis, with a sigh.
+
+"You were never strong enough to scoop, surely," said I.
+
+"No, eh? All right, M'sieu. Then you hain't nev' hear 'bout the time
+Old Man Savarin was catched up with. No, eh? Well, I'll tol' you 'bout
+that." And this was her story as she told it to me.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Der was fun dose time. Nobody ain't nev' catch up with dat old rascal
+ony other time since I'll know him first. Me, I'll be only fifteen
+den. Dat's long time 'go, eh? Well, for sure, I ain't so old like
+what I'll look. But Old Man Savarin was old already. He's old, old,
+old, when he's only thirty; an' _mean--bapteme!_ If de old Nick ain'
+got de hottest place for dat old stingy--yes, for sure!
+
+"You'll see up dere where Frawce Seguin is scoop? Dat's the Laroque
+platform by right. Me, I was a Laroque. My fader was use for scoop
+dere, an' my gran'fader--the Laroques scoop dere all de time since
+ever dere was some Rapid Rataplan. Den Old Man Savarin he's buyed the
+land up dere from Felix Ladoucier, an' he's told my fader, 'You can't
+scoop no more wisout you pay me rent.'
+
+"'Rent!' my fader say. '_Saprie!_ Dat's my fader's platform for scoop
+fish! You ask anybody.'
+
+"'Oh, I'll know all 'bout dat,' Old Man Savarin is say. 'Ladoucier let
+you scoop front of his land, for Ladoucier one big fool. De lan's mine
+now, an' de fishin' right is mine. You can't scoop dere wisout you pay
+me rent.'
+
+"'_Bapteme!_ I'll show you 'bout dat,' my fader say.
+
+"Next mawny he is go for scoop same like always. Den Old Man Savarin
+is fetch my fader up before de magistrate. De magistrate make my fader
+pay nine shillin'!
+
+"'Mebbe dat's learn you one lesson,' Old Man Savarin is say.
+
+"My fader swear pretty good, but my moder say: 'Well, Narcisse, dere
+hain' no use for take it out in _malediction_. De nine shillin' is
+paid. You scoop more fish--dat's the way.'
+
+"So my fader he is go out early, early nex' mawny. He's scoop, he's
+scoop. He's catch plenty fish before Old Man Savarin come.
+
+"'You ain't got 'nuff yet for fishin' on my land, eh? Come out of
+dat,' Old Man Savarin is say.
+
+"'_Saprie!_ Ain' I pay nine shillin' for fish here?' my fader say.
+
+"'_Oui_--you pay nine shillin' for fish here _wisout_ my leave. But
+you ain't pay nothin' for fish here _wis_ my leave. You is goin' up
+before de magistrate some more.'
+
+"So he is fetch my fader up anoder time. An' de magistrate make my
+fader pay twelve shillin' more!
+
+"'Well, I s'pose I can go fish on my fader's platform now,' my fader
+is say.
+
+"Old Man Savarin was laugh. 'Your honor, dis man tink he don't have
+for pay me no rent, because you'll make him pay two fines for trespass
+on my land.'
+
+"So de magistrate told my fader he hain't got no more right for go on
+his own platform than he was at the start. My fader is ver' angry.
+He's cry, he's tear his shirt; but Old Man Savarin only say, 'I guess
+I learn you one good lesson, Narcisse.'
+
+"De whole village ain't told de old rascal how much dey was angry
+'bout dat, for Old Man Savarin is got dem all in debt at his big
+store. He is grin, grin, and told everybody how he learn my fader two
+good lesson. An' he is told my fader: 'You see what I'll be goin' for
+do wis you if ever you go on my land again wisout you pay me rent.'
+
+"'How much you want?' my fader say.
+
+"'Half de fish you catch.'
+
+"'_Monjee!_ Never!'
+
+"'Five dollar a year, den.'
+
+"'_Saprie_, no. Dat's too much.'
+
+"'All right. Keep off my lan', if you hain't want anoder lesson.'
+
+"'You's a tief,' my fader say.
+
+"'Hermidas, make up Narcisse Laroque bill,' de old rascal say to his
+clerk. 'If he hain't pay dat bill to-morrow, I sue him.'
+
+"So my fader is scare mos' to death. Only my moder she's say, '_I'll_
+pay dat bill, me.'
+
+"So she's take the money she's saved up long time for make my weddin'
+when it come. An' she's paid de bill. So den my fader hain't scare no
+more, an' he is shake his fist good under Old Man Savarin's ugly nose.
+But dat old rascal only laugh an' say, 'Narcisse, you like to be fined
+some more, eh?'
+
+"'_Tort Dieu_. You rob me of my place for fish, but I'll take my
+platform anyhow,' my fader is say.
+
+"'Yes, eh? All right--if you can get him wisout go on my land. But you
+go on my land, and see if I don't learn you anoder lesson,' Old
+Savarin is say.
+
+"So my fader is rob of his platform, too. Nex' ting we hear, Frawce
+Seguin has rent dat platform for five dollar a year.
+
+"Den de big fun begin. My fader an Frawce is cousin. All de time
+before den dey was good friend. But my fader he is go to Frawce
+Seguin's place an' he is told him, 'Frawce, I'll goin' lick you so
+hard you can't nev' scoop on my platform.'
+
+"Frawce only laugh. Den Old Man Savarin come up de hill.
+
+"'Fetch him up to de magistrate an' learn him anoder lesson,' he is
+say to Frawce.
+
+"'What for?' Frawce say.
+
+"'For try to scare you.'
+
+"'He hain't hurt me none.'
+
+"'But he's say he will lick you.'
+
+"'Dat's only because he's vex,' Frawce say.
+
+"'_Bapteme! Non!_' my fader say. 'I'll be goin' for lick you good,
+Frawce.'
+
+"'For sure?' Frawce say.
+
+"'_Saprie!_ Yes; for sure.'
+
+"'Well, dat's all right den, Narcisse. When you goin' for lick me?'
+
+"'First time I'll get drunk. I'll be goin' for get drunk dis same
+day.'
+
+"'All right, Narcisse. If you goin' get drunk for lick me, I'll be
+goin' get drunk for lick you'--_Canadien_ hain't nev' fool 'nuff for
+fight, M'sieu, only if dey is got drunk.
+
+"Well, my fader he's go on old Marceau's hotel, an' he's drink all
+day. Frawce Seguin he's go cross de road on Joe Maufraud's hotel, an'
+_he's_ drink all day. When de night come, dey's bose stand out in
+front of de two hotel for fight.
+
+"Dey's bose yell an' yell for make de oder feller scare bad before dey
+begin. Hermidas Laronde an' Jawnny Leroi dey's hold my fader for fear
+he's go 'cross de road for keel Frawce Seguin dead. Pierre Seguin an'
+Magloire Sauve is hold Frawce for fear he's come 'cross de road for
+keel my fader dead. And dose men fight dat way 'cross de road, till
+dey hain't hardly able for stand up no more.
+
+"My fader he's tear his shirt and he's yell, 'Let me at him!' Frawce
+he's tear his shirt and he's yell, 'Let me at him!' But de men hain't
+goin' for let dem loose, for fear one is strike de oder ver' hard. De
+whole village is shiver 'bout dat offle fight--yes, seh, shiver bad!
+
+"Well, dey's fight like dat for more as four hours, till dey hain't
+able for yell no more, an' dey hain't got no money left for buy
+wheeskey for de crowd. Den Marceau and Joe Maufraud tol' dem bose it
+was a shame for two cousins to fight so bad. An' my fader he's say
+he's ver' sorry dat he lick Frawce so hard, and dey's bose sorry. So
+dey's kiss one anoder good--only all their close is tore to pieces.
+
+"An' what you tink 'bout Old Man Savarin? Old Man Savarin is just
+stand in front of his store all de time, an' he's say: 'I'll tink I'll
+fetch him _bose_ hup to de magistrate, an' I'll learn him _bose_ a
+lesson.'
+
+"Me, I'll be only fifteen, but I hain't scare 'bout dat fight same
+like my moder is scare. No more is Alphonsine Seguin scare. She's
+seventeen, an' she wait for de fight to be all over. Den she take her
+fader home, same like I'll take my fader home for bed. Dat's after
+twelve o'clock of night.
+
+"Nex' mawny early my fader he's groaned and he's groaned:
+'Ah--ugh--I'm sick, sick, me. I'll be goin' for die dis time, for
+sure.'
+
+"'You get up an' scoop some fish,' my moder she's say, angry. 'Den you
+hain't be sick no more.'
+
+"'Ach--ugh--I'll hain't be able. Oh, I'll be so sick. An' I hain' got
+no place for scoop fish now no more. Frawce Seguin has rob my
+platform.'
+
+"'Take de nex' one lower down,' my moder she's say.
+
+"'Dat's Jawnny Leroi's.'
+
+"'All right for dat. Jawnny he's hire for run timber to-day.'
+
+"'Ugh--I'll not be able for get up. Send for M'sieu le Cure--I'll be
+goin' for die for sure.'
+
+"'_Mis re_, but dat's no _man_! Dat's a drunk pig,' my moder she's
+say, angry. 'Sick, eh? Lazy, lazy--dat's so. An' dere hain't no fish
+for de little chilluns, an' it's Friday mawny.' So my moder she's
+begin for cry.
+
+"Well, M'sieu, I'll make de rest short; for de sun is all gone now.
+What you tink I do dat mawny? I take de big scoop-net an' I'll come up
+here for see if I'll be able for scoop some fish on Jawnny Leroi's
+platform. Only dere hain't nev' much fish dere.
+
+"Pretty quick I'll look up and I'll see Alphonsine Seguin scoop, scoop
+on my fader's old platform. Alphonsine's fader is sick, sick, same
+like my fader, an' all de Seguin boys is too little for scoop, same
+like my brudders is too little. So dere Alphonsine she's scoop, scoop
+for breakfas'.
+
+"What you tink I'll see some more? I'll see Old Man Savarin. He's
+watchin' from de corner of de cedar bush, an' I'll know ver' good what
+he's watch for. He's watch for catch my fader go on his own platform.
+He's want for learn my fader anoder lesson. _Saprie!_ dat's make me
+ver' angry, M'sieu!
+
+"Alphonsine she's scoop, scoop plenty fish. I'll not be scoop none.
+Dat's make me more angry. I'll look up where Alphonsine is, an' I'll
+talk to myself:--
+
+"'Dat's my fader's platform,' I'll be say. 'Dat's my fader's fish what
+you catch, Alphonsine. You hain't nev' be my cousin no more. It is
+mean, mean for Frawce Seguin to rent my fader's platform for please
+dat old rascal Savarin.' Mebby I'll not be so angry at Alphonsine,
+M'sieu, if I was able for catch some fish; but I hain't able--I don't
+catch none.
+
+"Well, M'sieu, dat's de way for long time--half-hour mebby. Den I'll
+hear Alphonsine yell good. I'll look up de river some more. She's try
+for lift her net. She's try hard, hard, but she hain't able. De net is
+down in de rapid, an' she's only able for hang on to de hannle. Den
+I'll know she's got one big sturgeon, an' he's so big she can't pull
+him up.
+
+"_Monjee!_ what I care 'bout dat! I'll laugh me. Den I'll laugh good
+some more, for I'll want Alphonsine for see how I'll laugh big. And
+I'll talk to myself:--
+
+"'Dat's good for dose Seguins,' I'll say. 'De big sturgeon will pull
+away de net. Den Alphonsine she will lose her fader's scoop wis de
+sturgeon. Dat's good 'nuff for dose Seguins! Take my fader platform,
+eh?'
+
+"For sure, I'll want for go an' help Alphonsine all de same--she's my
+cousin, an' I'll want for see de sturgeon, me. But I'll only just
+laugh, laugh. _Non, M'sieu_; dere was not one man out on any of de
+oder platform dat mawny for to help Alphonsine. Dey was all sleep ver'
+late, for dey was all out ver' late for see de offle fight I told you
+'bout.
+
+"Well, pretty quick, what you tink? I'll see Old Man Savarin goin' to
+my fader's platform. He's take hold for help Alphonsine an' dey's bose
+pull, and pretty quick de big sturgeon is up on de platform. I'll be
+more angry as before.
+
+"Oh, _tort Dieu!_ What you tink come den? Why, dat Old Man Savarin is
+want for take de sturgeon!
+
+"First dey hain't speak so I can hear, for de Rapid is too loud. But
+pretty quick dey's bose angry, and I hear dem talk.
+
+"'Dat's my fish,' Old Man Savarin is say. 'Didn't I save him? Wasn't
+you goin' for lose him, for sure?'
+
+"Me--I'll laugh good. Dass _such_ an old rascal.
+
+"'You get off dis platform, quick!' Alphonsine she's say.
+
+"'Give me my sturgeon,' he's say.
+
+"'Dat's a lie--it hain't your sturgeon. It's _my_ sturgeon,' she's
+yell.
+
+"'I'll learn you one lesson 'bout dat,' he's say.
+
+"Well, M'sieu, Alphonsine she's pull back de fish just when Old Man
+Savarin is make one grab. An' when she's pull back, she's step to one
+side, an' de old rascal he is, grab at de fish, an' de heft of de
+sturgeon is make him fall on his face, so he's tumble in de Rapid when
+Alphonsine let go de sturgeon. So dere's Old Man Savarin floating in
+de river--and _me_! I'll don' care eef he's drown one bit!
+
+"One time he is on his back, one time he is on his face, one time he
+is all under de water. For sure he's goin' for be draw into de
+_culbute_ an' get drown' dead, if I'll not be able for scoop him when
+he's go by my platform. I'll want for laugh, but I'll be too much
+scare.
+
+"Well, M'sieu, I'll pick up my fader's scoop and I'll stand out on de
+edge of de platform. De water is run so fast, I'm mos' 'fraid de old
+man is boun' for pull me in when I'll scoop him. But I'll not mind for
+dat, I'll throw de scoop an' catch him; an' for sure, he's hold on
+good.
+
+"So dere's de old rascal in de scoop, but when I'll get him safe, I
+hain't able for pull him in one bit. I'll only be able for hold on an'
+laugh, laugh--he's look _ver_' queer! All I can do is to hold him dere
+so he can't go down de _culbute_. I'll can't pull him up if I'll want
+to.
+
+"De old man is scare ver' bad. But pretty quick he's got hold of de
+cross-bar of de hoop, an' he's got his ugly old head up good.
+
+"'Pull me in,' he say, ver' angry.
+
+"'I'll hain't be able,' I'll say.
+
+"Jus' den Alphonsine she come 'long, an' she's laugh so she can't
+hardly hold on wis me to de hannle. I was laugh good some more. When
+de old villain see us have fun, he's yell: 'I'll learn you bose one
+lesson for this. Pull me ashore!'
+
+"'Oh! you's learn, us bose one lesson, M'sieu Savarin, eh?' Alphonsine
+she's say. 'Well, den, us bose will learn M'sieu Savarin one lesson
+first. Pull him up a little,' she's say to me.
+
+"So we pull him up, an' den Alphonsine she's say to me: 'Let out de
+hannle, quick'--and he's under de water some more. When we stop de
+net, he's got hees head up pretty quick.
+
+"'_Monjee!_ I'll be drown' if you don't pull me out,' he's mos' _cry_.
+
+"'Ver' well--if you's drown, your family be ver' glad,' Alphonsine
+she's say. 'Den they's got all your money for spend quick, quick.'
+
+"M'sieu, dat scare him offle. He's begin for cry like one baby.
+
+"'Save me out,' he's say. 'I'll give you anything I've got.'
+
+"'How much?' Alphonsine she's say.
+
+"He's tink, and he's say, 'Quarter dollar.'
+
+"Alphonsine an' me is laugh, laugh.
+
+"'Save me,' he's cry some more. 'I hain't fit for die dis mawny.'
+
+"'You hain' fit for live no mawny,' Alphonsine she's say. 'One quarter
+dollar, eh? Where's my sturgeon?'
+
+"'He's got away when, I fall in,' he's say.
+
+"'How much you goin' give me for lose my big sturgeon?' she's ask.
+
+"'How much you'll want, Alphonsine?'
+
+"'Two dollare.'
+
+"'Dat's too much for one sturgeon,' he's say. For all he was not feel
+fit for die, he was more 'fraid for pay out his money.
+
+"'Let him down some more,' Alphonsine she's say.
+
+"'Oh. _misere, misere_! I'll pay de two dollare,' he's say when his
+head come up some more.
+
+"'Ver' well, den,' Alphonsine she's say; 'I'll be willin' for save
+you, _me_. But you hain't scooped by _me_. You's in Marie's net. I'll
+only come for help Marie. You's her sturgeon;' an' Alphonsine she's
+laugh an' laugh.
+
+"'I didn't lose no sturgeon for Marie,' he's say.
+
+"'No, eh?" I'll say mysef. 'But you's steal my fader's platform. You's
+take his fishin' place. You's got him fined two times. You's make my
+moder pay his bill wis _my_ weddin' money. What you goin' pay for all
+dat? You tink I'll be goin' for mos' kill mysef pullin' you out for
+noting? When you ever do someting for anybody for noting, eh, M'sieu
+Savarin?'
+
+"'How much you want?' he's say.
+
+"'Ten dollare for de platform, dat's all.'
+
+"'Never--dat's robbery,' he's say, an' he's begin to cry like _ver_'
+li'll baby.
+
+"'Pull him hup, Marie, an' give him some more,' Alphonsine she's say.
+
+"But de old rascal is so scare 'bout dat, dat he's say he's pay right
+off. So we's pull him up near to de platform, only we hain't big 'nuff
+fool for let him out of de net till he's take out his purse an' pay de
+twelve dollare.
+
+"_Monjee_, M'sieu! If ever you see one angry old rascal! He not even
+stop for say: 'T'ank you for save me from be drown' dead in the
+_culbute_!' He's run for his house an' he's put on dry clo'es, an'
+he's go up to de magistrate first ting for learn me an' Alphonsine one
+big lesson.
+
+"But de magistrate hain' ver' bad magistrate. He's only laugh an' he's
+say:--
+
+"'M'sieu Savarin, de whole river will be laugh at you for let two
+young girl take eet out of smart man like you like dat. Hain't you
+tink your life worth twelve dollare? Didn't dey save you from de
+_culbute_? _Monjee!_ I'll tink de whole river not laugh so ver' bad if
+you pay dose young girl one hunder dollare for save you so kind.'
+
+"'One hunder dollare!' he's mos' cry. 'Hain't you goin' to learn dose
+girl one lesson for take advantage of me dat way?'
+
+"'Didn't you pay dose girl yoursef? Didn't you took out your purse
+yoursef? Yes, eh? Well, den, I'll goin' for learn you one lesson
+yoursef, M'sieu Savarin.' de magistrate is say. 'Dose two young girl
+is ver' wicked, eh? Yes, dat's so. But for why? Hain't dey just do to
+you what you been doin' ever since you was in beesness? Don' I know?
+You hain' never yet got advantage of nobody wisout you rob him all you
+can, an' dose wicked young girl only act just like you give dem a
+lesson all your life.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"An' de best fun was de whole river _did_ laugh at M'sieu Savarin. An'
+my fader and Frawce Seguin is laugh most of all, till he's catch hup
+wis bose of dem anoder time. You come for see me some more, an' I'll
+tol' you 'bout dat."
+
+
+
+
+THE PRIVILEGE OF THE LIMITS.
+
+
+"Yes, indeed, my grandfather wass once in jail," said old Mrs.
+McTavish, of the county of Glengarry, in Ontario, Canada; "but that
+wass for debt, and he wass a ferry honest man whateffer, and he would
+not broke his promise--no, not for all the money in Canada. If you
+will listen to me, I will tell chust exactly the true story about that
+debt, to show you what an honest man my grandfather wass.
+
+"One time Tougal Stewart, him that wass the poy's grandfather that
+keeps the same store in Cornwall to this day, sold a plough to my
+grandfather, and my grandfather said he would pay half the plough in
+October, and the other half whateffer time he felt able to pay the
+money. Yes, indeed, that was the very promise my grandfather gave.
+
+"So he was at Tougal Stewart's store on the first of October early in
+the morning pefore the shutters wass taken off, and he paid half chust
+exactly to keep his word. Then the crop wass ferry pad next year, and
+the year after that one of his horses wass killed py lightning, and
+the next year his brother, that wass not rich and had a big family,
+died, and do you think wass my grandfather to let the family be
+disgraced without a good funeral? No, indeed. So my grandfather paid
+for the funeral, and there was at it plenty of meat and drink for
+eferypody, as wass the right Hielan' custom those days; and after the
+funeral my grandfather did not feel chust exactly able to pay the
+other half for the plough that year either.
+
+"So, then, Tougal Stewart met my grandfather in Cornwall next day
+after the funeral, and asked him if he had some money to spare.
+
+"'Wass you in need of help, Mr. Stewart?' says my grandfather, kindly.
+'For if it's in any want you are, Tougal,' says my grandfather, 'I
+will sell the coat off my back, if there is no other way to lend you a
+loan;' for that was always the way of my grandfather with all his
+friends, and a bigger-hearted man there never wass in all Glengarry,
+or in Stormont, or in Dundas, moreofer.
+
+"'In want!' says Tougal--'in want, Mr. McTavish!' says he, very high.
+'Would you wish to insult a gentleman, and him of the name of Stewart,
+that's the name of princes of the world?' he said, so he did.
+
+"Seeing Tougal had his temper up, my grandfather spoke softly, being a
+quiet, peaceable man, and in wonder what he had said to offend Tougal.
+
+"'Mr. Stewart,' says my grandfather, 'it wass not in my mind to anger
+you whatefer. Only I thought, from your asking me if I had some money,
+that you might be looking for a wee bit of a loan, as many a gentleman
+has to do at times, and no shame to him at all,' said my grandfather.
+
+"'A loan?' says Tougal, sneering. 'A loan, is it? Where's your memory,
+Mr. McTavish? Are you not owing me half the price of the plough you've
+had these three years?'
+
+"'And wass you asking me for money for the other half of the plough?'
+says my grandfather, very astonished.
+
+"'Just that,' says Tougal.
+
+"'Have you no shame or honor in you?' says my grandfather, firing up.
+'How could I feel able to pay that now, and me chust yesterday been
+giving my poor brother a funeral fit for the McTavishes' own
+grand-nephew, that wass as good chentleman's plood as any Stewart in
+Glengarry. You saw the expense I wass at, for there you wass, and I
+thank you for the politeness of coming, Mr. Stewart,' says my
+grandfather, ending mild, for the anger would never stay in him more
+than a minute, so kind was the nature he had.
+
+"'If you can spend money on a funeral like that, you can pay me for my
+plough,' says Stewart; for with buying and selling he wass become a
+poor creature, and the heart of a Hielan'man wass half gone out of
+him, for all he wass so proud of his name of monarchs and kings.
+
+"My grandfather had a mind to strike him down on the spot, so he often
+said; but he thought of the time when he hit Hamish Cochrane in anger,
+and he minded the penances the priest put on him for breaking the
+silly man's jaw with that blow, so he smothered the heat that wass in
+him, and turned away in scorn. With that Tougal Stewart went to court,
+and sued my grandfather, puir mean creature.
+
+"You might think that Judge Jones--him that wass judge in Cornwall
+before Judge Jarvis that's dead--would do justice. But no, he made it
+the law that my grandfather must pay at once, though Tougal Stewart
+could not deny what the bargain wass.
+
+"'Your Honor,' says my grandfather, 'I said I'd pay when I felt able.
+And do I feel able now? No, I do not,' says he. 'It's a disgrace to
+Tougal Stewart to ask me, and himself telling you what the bargain
+was,' said my grandfather. But Judge Jones said that he must pay, for
+all that he did not feel able.
+
+"'I will nefer pay one copper till I feel able,' says my grandfather;
+'but I'll keep my Hielan' promise to my dying day, as I always done,'
+says he.
+
+"And with that the old judge laughed, and said he would have to give
+judgment. And so he did; and after that Tougal Stewart got out an
+execution. But not the worth of a handful of oatmeal could the bailiff
+lay hands on, because my grandfather had chust exactly taken the
+precaution to give a bill of sale on his gear to his neighbor,
+Alexander Frazer, that could be trusted to do what was right after the
+law play was over.
+
+"The whole settlement had great contempt for Tougal Stewart's conduct;
+but he was a headstrong body, and once he begun to do wrong against
+my grandfather, he held on, for all that his trade fell away; and
+finally he had my grandfather arrested for debt, though you'll
+understand, sir, that he was owing Stewart nothing that he ought to
+pay when he didn't feel able.
+
+"In those times prisoners for debt was taken to jail in Cornwall, and
+if they had friends to give bail that they would not go beyond the
+posts that was around the sixteen acres nearest the jail walls, the
+prisoners could go where they liked on that ground. This was called
+'the privilege of the limits.' The limits, you'll understand, wass
+marked by cedar posts painted white about the size of hitching-posts.
+
+"The whole settlement was ready to go bail for my grandfather if he
+wanted it, and for the health of him he needed to be in the open air,
+and so he gave Tuncan-Macdonnell of the Greenfields, and AEneas
+Macdonald of the Sandfields, for his bail, and he promised, on his
+Hielan' word of honor, not to go beyond the posts. With that he went
+where he pleased, only taking care that he never put even the toe of
+his foot beyond a post, for all that some prisoners of the limits
+would chump ofer them and back again, or maybe swing round them,
+holding by their hands.
+
+"Efery day the neighbors would go into Cornwall to give my grandfather
+the good word, and they would offer to pay Tougal Stewart for the
+other half of the plough, only that vexed my grandfather, for he was
+too proud to borrow, and, of course, every day he felt less and less
+able to pay on account of him having to hire a man to be doing the
+spring ploughing and seeding and making the kale-yard.
+
+"All this time, you'll mind, Tougal Stewart had to pay five shillings
+a week for my grandfather's keep, the law being so that if the debtor
+swore he had not five pound's worth of property to his name, then the
+creditor had to pay the five shillings, and, of course, my grandfather
+had nothing to his name after he gave the bill of sale to Alexander
+Frazer. A great diversion it was to my grandfather to be reckoning up
+that if he lived as long as his father, that was hale and strong at
+ninety-six, Tougal would need to pay five or six hundred pounds for
+him, and there was only two pound five shillings to be paid on the
+plough.
+
+"So it was like that all summer, my grandfather keeping heartsome,
+with the neighbors coming in so steady to bring him the news of the
+settlement. There he would sit, just inside one of the posts, for to
+pass his jokes, and tell what he wished the family to be doing next.
+This way it might have kept going on for forty years, only it came
+about that my grandfather's youngest child--him that was my
+father--fell sick, and seemed like to die.
+
+"Well, when my grandfather heard that bad news, he wass in a terrible
+way, to be sure, for he would be longing to hold the child in his
+arms, so that his heart was sore and like to break. Eat he could not,
+sleep he could not: all night he would be groaning, and all day he
+would be walking around by the posts, wishing that he had not passed
+his Hielan' word of honor not to go beyond a post; for he thought how
+he could have broken out like a chentleman, and gone to see his sick
+child, if he had stayed inside the jail wall. So it went on three days
+and three nights pefore the wise thought came into my grandfather's
+head to show him how he need not go beyond the posts to see his little
+sick poy. With that he went straight to one of the white cedar posts,
+and pulled it up out of the hole, and started for home, taking great
+care to carry it in his hands pefore him, so he would not be beyond it
+one bit.
+
+"My grandfather wass not half a mile out of Cornwall, which was only a
+little place in those days, when two of the turnkeys came after him.
+
+"'Stop, Mr. McTavish,' says the turnkeys.
+
+"'What for would I stop?' says my grandfather.
+
+"'You have broke your bail,' says they.
+
+"'It's a lie for you,' says my grandfather, for his temper flared up
+for anybody to say he would broke his bail. 'Am I beyond the post?'
+says my grandfather.
+
+"With that they run in on him, only that he knocked the two of them
+over with the post, and went on rejoicing, like an honest man should,
+at keeping his word and overcoming them that would slander his good
+name. The only thing pesides thoughts of the child that troubled him
+was questioning whether he had been strictly right in turning round
+for to use the post to defend himself in such a way that it was nearer
+the jail than what he wass. But when he remembered how the jailer
+never complained of prisoners of the limits chumping ofer the posts,
+if so they chumped back again in a moment, the trouble went out of his
+mind.
+
+"Pretty soon after that he met Tuncan Macdonnell of Greenfields,
+coming into Cornwall with the wagon.
+
+"'And how is this, Glengatchie?' says Tuncan. 'For you were never the
+man to broke your bail.'
+
+"Glengatchie, you'll understand, sir, is the name of my grandfather's
+farm.
+
+"'Never fear, Greenfields,' says my grandfather, 'for I'm not beyond
+the post.'
+
+"So Greenfields looked at the post, and he looked at my grandfather,
+and he scratched his head a wee, and he seen it was so; and then he
+fell into a great admiration entirely.
+
+"'Get in with me, Glengatchie--it's proud I'll be to carry you home;'
+and he turned his team around. My grandfather did so, taking great
+care to keep the post in front of him all the time; and that way he
+reached home. Out comes my grandmother running to embrace him; but she
+had to throw her arms around the post and my grandfather's neck at the
+same time, he was that strict to be within his promise. Pefore going
+ben the house, he went to the back end of the kale-yard which was
+farthest from the jail, and there he stuck the post; and then he went
+back to see his sick child, while all the neighbors that came round
+was glad to see what a wise thought the saints had put into his mind
+to save his bail and his promise.
+
+"So there he stayed a week till my father got well. Of course the
+constables came after my grandfather, but the settlement would not let
+the creatures come within a mile of Glengatchie. You might think, sir,
+that my grandfather would have stayed with his wife and weans, seeing
+the post was all the time in the kale-yard, and him careful not to go
+beyond it; but he was putting the settlement to a great deal of
+trouble day and night to keep the constables off, and he was fearful
+that they might take the post away, if ever they got to Glengatchie,
+and give him the name of false, that no McTavish ever had. So Tuncan
+Greenfields and AEneas Sandfield drove my grandfather back to the jail,
+him with the post behind him in the wagon, so as he would be between
+it and the jail. Of course Tougal Stewart tried his best to have the
+bail declared forfeited; but old Judge Jones only laughed, and said
+my grandfather was a Hielan' gentleman, with a very nice sense of
+honor, and that was chust exactly the truth.
+
+"How did my grandfather get free in the end? Oh, then, that was
+because of Tougal Stewart being careless--him that thought he knew so
+much of the law. The law was, you will mind, that Tougal had to pay
+five shillings a week for keeping my grandfather in the limits. The
+money wass to be paid efery Monday, and it was to be paid in lawful
+money of Canada, too. Well, would you belief that Tougal paid in four
+shillings in silver one Monday, and one shilling in coppers, for he
+took up the collection in church the day pefore, and it wass not till
+Tougal had gone away that the jailer saw that one of the coppers was a
+Brock copper,--a medal, you will understand, made at General Brock's
+death, and not lawful money of Canada at all. With that the jailer
+came out to my grandfather.
+
+"'Mr. McTavish,' says he, taking off his hat, 'you are a free man, and
+I'm glad of it.' Then he told him what Tougal had done.
+
+"'I hope you will not have any hard feelings toward me, Mr. McTavish,'
+said the jailer; and a decent man he wass, for all that there wass not
+a drop of Hielan' blood in him. 'I hope you will not think hard of me
+for not being hospitable to you, sir,' says he; 'but it's against the
+rules and regulations for the jailer to be offering the best he can
+command to the prisoners. Now that you are free, Mr. McTavish,' says
+the jailer, 'I would be a proud man if Mr. McTavish of Glengatchie
+would do me the honor of taking supper with me this night. I will be
+asking your leave to invite some of the gentlemen of the place, if you
+will say the word, Mr. McTavish,' says he.
+
+"Well, my grandfather could never bear malice, the kind man he was,
+and he seen how bad the jailer felt, so he consented, and a great
+company came in, to be sure, to celebrate the occasion.
+
+"Did my grandfather pay the balance on the plough? What for should you
+suspicion, sir, that my grandfather would refuse his honest debt? Of
+course he paid for the plough, for the crop was good that fall.
+
+"'I would be paying you the other half of the plough now, Mr.
+Stewart,' says my grandfather, coming in when the store was full.
+
+"'Hoich, but YOU are the honest McTavish!' says Tougal, sneering.
+
+"But my grandfather made no answer to the creature, for he thought it
+would be unkind to mention how Tougal had paid out six pounds four
+shillings and eleven pence to keep him in on account of a debt of two
+pound five that never was due till it was paid."
+
+
+
+
+McGRATH'S BAD NIGHT.
+
+
+"Come then, childer," said Mrs. McGrath, and took the big iron pot
+off. They crowded around her, nine of them, the eldest not more than
+thirteen, the youngest just big enough to hold out his yellow crockery
+bowl.
+
+"The youngest first," remarked Mrs. McGrath, and ladled out a portion
+of the boiled corn-meal to each of the deplorable boys and girls.
+Before they reached the stools from which they had sprung up, or
+squatted again on the rough floor, they all burned their mouths in
+tasting the mush too eagerly. Then there they sat, blowing into their
+bowls, glaring into them, lifting their loaded iron spoons
+occasionally to taste cautiously, till the mush had somewhat cooled.
+
+Then, _gobble-de-gobble-de-gobble_, it was all gone! Though they had
+neither sugar, nor milk, nor butter to it, they found it a remarkably
+excellent sample of mush, and wished only that, in quantity, it had
+been something more.
+
+Peter McGrath sat close beside the cooking-stove, holding Number Ten,
+a girl-baby, who was asleep, and rocking Number Eleven, who was trying
+to wake up, in the low, unpainted cradle. He never took his eyes off
+Number Eleven; he could not bear to look around and see the nine
+devouring the corn-meal so hungrily. Perhaps McGrath could not, and
+certainly he would not,--he was so obstinate,--have told why he felt
+so reproached by the scene. He had felt very guilty for many weeks.
+
+Twenty, yes, a hundred times a day he looked in a dazed way at his big
+hands, and they reproached him, too, that they had no work.
+
+"Where is our smooth, broad-axe handle?" asked the fingers, "and why
+do not the wide chips fly?"
+
+He was ashamed, too, every time he rose up, so tall and strong, with
+nothing to do, and eleven children and his wife next door to
+starvation; but if he had been asked to describe his feelings, he
+would merely have growled out angrily something against old John
+Pontiac.
+
+"You'll take your sup now, Peter?" asked Mrs. McGrath, offering him
+the biggest of the yellow bowls. He looked up then, first at her
+forlorn face, then at the pot. Number Nine was diligently scraping off
+some streaks of mush that had run down the outside; Numbers Eight,
+Seven, Six, and Five were looking respectfully into the pot; Numbers
+Four, Three, Two, and One were watching the pot, the steaming bowl,
+and their father at the same time. Peter McGrath was very hungry.
+
+"Yourself had better eat, Mary Ann," he said. "I'll be having mine
+after it's cooler."
+
+Mrs. McGrath dipped more than a third of the bowlful back into the
+pot, and ate the rest with much satisfaction. The numerals watched her
+anxiously but resignedly.
+
+"Sure it'll be cold entirely, Peter dear," she said, "and the warmth
+is so comforting. Give me little Norah now, the darlint! and be after
+eating your supper."
+
+She had ladled out the last spoonful of mush, and the pot was being
+scraped inside earnestly by Nine, Eight, Seven, and Six. Peter took
+the bowl, and looked at his children.
+
+The earlier numbers were observing him with peculiar sympathy, putting
+themselves in his place, as it were, possessing the bowl in
+imagination; the others now moved their spoons absent-mindedly around
+in the pot, brought them empty to their mouths, mechanically, now and
+again, sucked them more or less, and still stared steadily at their
+father.
+
+His inner walls felt glued together, yet indescribably hollow; the
+smell of the mush went up into his nostrils, and pungently provoked
+his palate and throat. He was famishing.
+
+"Troth, then, Mary Ann," he said, "there's no hunger in me to-night.
+Sure, I wish the childer wouldn't leave me the trouble of eating it.
+Come, then, all of ye!"
+
+The nine came promptly to his call. There were just twenty-two large
+spoonfuls in the bowl; each child received two; the remaining four
+went to the four youngest. Then the bowl was skilfully scraped by
+Number Nine, after which Number Seven took it, whirled a cup of water
+artfully round its interior, and with this put a fine finish on his
+meal.
+
+Peter McGrath then searched thoughtfully in his trousers pockets,
+turning their corners up, getting pinches of tobacco dust out of their
+remotest recesses; he put his blouse pocket through a similar process.
+He found no pockets in his well-patched overcoat when he took it down,
+but he pursued the dust into its lining, and separated it carefully
+from little dabs of wool. Then he put the collection into an extremely
+old black clay pipe, lifted a coal in with his fingers, and took his
+supper.
+
+It would be absurd to assert that, on this continent, a strong man
+could be so poor as Peter, unless he had done something very wrong or
+very foolish. Peter McGrath was, in truth, out of work because he had
+committed an outrage on economics. He had been guilty of the enormous
+error of misunderstanding, and trying to set at naught in his own
+person, the immutable law of supply and demand.
+
+Fancying that a first-class hewer in a timber shanty had an
+inalienable right to receive at least thirty dollars a month, when the
+demand was only strong enough to yield him twenty-two dollars a month,
+Peter had refused to engage at the beginning of the winter.
+
+"Now, Mr. McGrath, you're making a mistake," said his usual employer,
+old John Pontiac. "I'm offering you the best wages going, mind that.
+There's mighty little squared timber coming out this winter."
+
+"I'm ready and willing to work, boss, but I'm fit to arn thirty
+dollars, surely."
+
+"So you are, so you are, in good times, neighbor, and I'd be glad if
+men's wages were forty. That could only be with trade active, and a
+fine season for all of us; but I couldn't take out a raft this winter,
+and pay what you ask."
+
+"I'd work extra hard. I'm not afeard of work."
+
+"Not you, Peter. There never was a lazy bone in your body. Don't I
+know that well? But look, now: if I was to pay you thirty, I should
+have to pay all the other hewers thirty; and that's not all. Scorers
+and teamsters and road-cutters are used to getting wages in proportion
+to hewers. Why, it would cost me a thousand dollars a month to give
+you thirty! Go along, now, that's a good fellow, and tell your wife
+that you've hired with me."
+
+But Peter did not go back. "I'm bound to have my rights, so I am," he
+said sulkily to Mary Ann when he reached the cabin. "The old boss is
+getting too hard like, and set on money. Twenty-two dollars! No! I'll
+go in to Stambrook and hire."
+
+Mary Ann knew that she might as well try to convince a saw-log that
+its proper course was up-stream, as to protest against Peter's
+obstinacy. Moreover, she did think the offered wages very low, and had
+some hope he might better himself; but when he came back from
+Stambrook, she saw trouble ahead. He did not tell her that there,
+where his merit's were not known, he had been offered only twenty
+dollars, but she surmised his disappointment.
+
+"You'd better be after seeing the boss again, maybe, Peter dear," she
+said timidly.
+
+"Not a step," he answered. "The boss'll be after me in a few days,
+you'll see." But there he was mistaken, for all the gangs were full.
+
+After that Peter McGrath tramped far and wide, to many a backwoods
+hamlet, looking vainly for a job at any wages. The season was the
+worst ever known on the river, and before January the shanties were
+discharging men, so threatening was the outlook for lumbermen, and so
+glutted with timber the markets of the world.
+
+Peter's conscience accused him every hour, but he was too stubborn to
+go back to John Pontiac. Indeed, he soon got it into his stupid head
+that the old boss was responsible for his misfortunes, and he
+consequently came to hate Mr. Pontiac very bitterly.
+
+After supping on his pipeful of tobacco-dust, Peter sat,
+straight-backed, leaning elbows on knees and chin on hands, wondering
+what on earth was to become of them all next day. For a man out of
+work there was not a dollar of credit at the little village store; and
+work! why, there was only one kind of work at which money could be
+earned in that district in the winter.
+
+When his wife took Number Eleven's cradle into the other room, she
+heard him, through the thin partition of upright boards, pasted over
+with newspapers, moving round in the dim red flickering fire-light
+from the stove-grating.
+
+The children were all asleep, or pretending it; Number Ten in the big
+straw bed, where she lay always between her parents; Number Eleven in
+her cradle beside; Nine crosswise at the foot; Eight, Seven, Six,
+Five, and Four in the other bed; One, Two, and Three curled up,
+without taking off their miserable garments, on the "locks" of straw
+beside the kitchen stove.
+
+Mary Ann knew very well what Peter was moving round for. She heard him
+groan, so low that he did not know he groaned, when he lifted off the
+cover of the meal barrel, and could feel nothing whatever therein. She
+had actually beaten the meal out of the cracks to make that last pot
+of mush. He knew that all the fish he had salted down in the summer
+were gone, that the flour was all out, that the last morsel of the pig
+had been eaten up long ago; but he went to each of the barrels as
+though he could not realize that there was really nothing left. There
+were four of those low groans.
+
+"O God, help him! do help him! please do!" she kept saying to
+herself. Somehow, all her sufferings and the children's were light to
+her, in comparison, as she listened to that big, taciturn man groan,
+and him sore with the hunger.
+
+When at last she came out, Peter was not there. He had gone out
+silently, so silently that she wondered, and was scared. She opened
+the door very softly, and there he was, leaning on the rail fence
+between their little rocky plot and the great river. She closed the
+door softly, and sat down.
+
+There was a wide steaming space in the river, where the current ran
+too swiftly for any ice to form. Peter gazed on it for a long while.
+The mist had a friendly look; he was soon reminded of the steam from
+an immense bowl of mush! It vexed him. He looked up at the moon. The
+moon was certainly mocking him; dashing through light clouds, then
+jumping into a wide, clear space, where it soon became motionless, and
+mocked him steadily.
+
+He had never known old John Pontiac to jeer any one, but there was his
+face in that moon,--Peter made it out quite clearly. He looked up the
+road to where he could see, on the hill half a mile distant, the
+shimmer of John Pontiac's big tin-roofed house. He thought he could
+make out the outlines of all the buildings,--he knew them so
+well,--the big barn, the stable, the smoke-house, the store-house for
+shanty supplies.
+
+Pork barrels, flour barrels, herring kegs, syrup kegs, sides of frozen
+beef, hams and flitches of bacon in the smoke-house, bags of beans,
+chests of tea,--he had a vision of them all! Teamsters going off to
+the woods daily with provisions, the supply apparently inexhaustible.
+
+And John Pontiac had refused to pay him fair wages!
+
+Peter in exasperation shook his big fist at the moon; it mocked him
+worse than ever. Then out went his gaze to the space of mist; it was
+still more painfully like mush steam. His pigsty was empty, except of
+snow; it made him think again of the empty barrels in the cabin.
+
+The children empty too, or would be to-morrow,--as empty as he felt
+that minute. How dumbly the elder ones would reproach him! and what
+would comfort the younger ones crying with hunger?
+
+Peter looked again up the hill, through the walls of the store-house.
+He was dreadfully hungry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"John! John!" Mrs. Pontiac jogged her husband. "John, wake up! there's
+somebody trying to get into the smoke-house."
+
+"Eh--ugh--ah! I'm 'sleep--ugh." He relapsed again.
+
+"John! John! wake up! There _is_ somebody!"
+
+"What--ugh--eh--what you say?"
+
+"There's somebody getting into the smoke-house."
+
+"Well, there's not much there."
+
+"There's ever so much bacon and ham. Then there's the store-house
+open."
+
+"Oh, I guess there's nobody."
+
+"But there is, I'm sure. You must get up!"
+
+They both got up and looked out of the window. The snow-drifts, the
+paths through them, the store-house, the smoke-house, and the other
+white-washed out-buildings could be seen as clearly as in broad day.
+The smoke-house door was open!
+
+Old John Pontiac was one of the kindest souls that ever inhabited a
+body, but this was a little too much. Still he was sorry for the man,
+no matter who, in that smoke-house,--some Indian probably. He must be
+caught and dealt with firmly; but he did not want the man to be too
+much hurt.
+
+He put on his clothes and sallied forth. He reached the smoke-house;
+there was no one in it; there was a gap, though, where two long
+flitches of bacon _had_ been!
+
+John Pontiac's wife saw him go over to the store-house, the door of
+which was open too. He looked in, then stopped, and started back as if
+in horror. Two flitches tied together with a rope were on the floor,
+and inside was a man filling a bag with flour from a barrel.
+
+"Well, well! this is a terrible thing," said old John Pontiac to
+himself, shrinking around a corner. "Peter McGrath! Oh, my! oh, my!"
+
+He became hot all over, as if he had done something disgraceful
+himself. There was nobody that he respected more than that pigheaded
+Peter. What to do? He must punish him of course; but how? Jail--for
+him with eleven children! "Oh, my! oh, my!" Old John wished he had not
+been awakened to see this terrible downfall.
+
+"It will never do to let him go off with it," he said to himself after
+a little reflection. "I'll put him so that he'll know better another
+time."
+
+Peter McGrath, as he entered the store-house had felt that bacon
+heavier than the heaviest end of the biggest stick of timber he had
+ever helped to cant. He felt guilty, sneaking, disgraced; he felt that
+the literal Devil had first tempted him near the house, then all
+suddenly--with his own hunger pangs and thoughts of his starving
+family--swept him into the smoke-house to steal. But he had consented
+to do it; he had said he would take flour too,--and he would, he was
+so obstinate! And withal, he hated old John Pontiac worse than ever;
+for now he accused him of being the cause of his coming to this.
+
+Then all of a sudden he met the face of Pontiac looking in at the
+door.
+
+Peter sprang back; he saw Stambrook jail--he saw his eleven children
+and his wife--he felt himself a detected felon, and that was worst of
+all.
+
+"Well, Peter, you'd ought to have come right in," were the words that
+came to his ears, in John Pontiac's heartiest voice. "The missis
+would have been glad to see you. We did go to bed a bit early, but
+there wouldn't have been any harm in an old neighbor like you waking
+us up. Not a word of that--hold on! listen to me. It would be a pity
+if old friends like you and me, Peter, couldn't help one another to a
+trifling loan of provisions without making a fuss over it." And old
+John, taking up the scoop, went on filling the bag as if that were a
+matter of course.
+
+Peter did not speak; he could not.
+
+"I was going round to your place to-morrow," resumed John, cheerfully,
+"to see if I couldn't hire you again. There's a job of hewing for you
+in the Conlonge shanty,--a man gone off sick. But I can't give more 'n
+twenty-two, or say twenty-three, seeing you're an old neighbor. What
+do you say?"
+
+Peter still said nothing; he was choking.
+
+"You had better have a bit of something more than bacon and flour,
+Peter," he went on, "and I'll give you a hand to carry the truck
+home. I guess your wife won't mind seeing me with you; then she'll
+know that you've taken a job with me again, you see. Come along and
+give me a hand to hitch the mare up. I'll drive you down."
+
+"Ah--ah--Boss--Boss!" spoke Peter then, with terrible gasps between.
+"Boss--O my God, Mr. Pontiac--I can't never look you in the face
+again!"
+
+"Peter McGrath--old neighbor,"--and John Pontiac laid his hand on the
+shaking shoulder,--"I guess I know all about it; I guess I do.
+Sometimes a man is driven he don't know how. Now we will say no more
+about it. I'll load up, and you come right along with me. And mind,
+I'll do the talking to your wife."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mary Ann McGrath was in a terrible frame of mind. What had become of
+Peter?
+
+She had gone out to look down the road, and had been recalled by
+Number Eleven's crying. Number Ten then chimed in; Nine, too, awoke,
+and determined to resume his privileges as an infant. One after
+another they got up and huddled around her--craving, craving--all but
+the three eldest, who had been well practised in the stoical
+philosophy by the gradual decrease of their rations. But these bounced
+up suddenly at the sound of a grand jangle of bells.
+
+Could it be? Mr. Pontiac they had no doubt about; but was that real
+bacon that he laid on the kitchen table? Then a side of beef, a can of
+tea; next a bag of flour, and again an actual keg of sirup. Why, this
+was almost incredible! And, last, he came in with an immense round
+loaf of bread! The children gathered about it; old John almost
+sickened with sorrow for them, and hurrying out his jacknife, passed
+big hunks around.
+
+"Well, now, Mrs. McGrath," he said during these operations, "I don't
+hardly take it kindly of you and Peter not to have come up to an old
+neighbor's house before this for a bit of a loan. It's well I met
+Peter to-night. Maybe he'd never have told me your troubles--not but
+what I blame myself for not suspecting how it was a bit sooner. I just
+made him take a little loan for the present. No, no; don't be talking
+like that! Charity! tut! tut! it's just an advance of wages. I've got
+a job for Peter; he'll be on pay to-morrow again."
+
+At that Mary Ann burst out crying again. "Oh, God bless you, Mr.
+Pontiac! it's a kind man you are! May the saints be about your bed!"
+
+With that she ran out to Peter, who still stood by the sleigh; she put
+the baby in his arms, and clinging to her husband's shoulder, cried
+more and more.
+
+And what did obstinate Peter McGrath do? Why, he cried, too, with
+gasps and groans that seemed almost to kill him.
+
+"Go in," he said; "go in, Mary Ann--go in--and kiss--the feet of him.
+Yes--and the boards--he stands on. You don't know what he's done--for
+me. It's broke I am--the bad heart of me--broke entirely--with the
+goodness of him. May the heavens be his bed!"
+
+"Now, Mrs. McGrath," cried old John, "never you mind Peter; he's a bit
+light-headed to-night. Come away in and get a bite for him. I'd like a
+dish of tea myself before I go home." Didn't that touch on her Irish
+hospitality bring her in quickly!
+
+"Mind you this, Peter," said the old man, going out then, "don't you
+be troubling your wife with any little secrets about to-night; that's
+between you and me. That's all I ask of you."
+
+Thus it comes about that to this day, when Peter McGrath's fifteen
+children have helped him to become a very prosperous farmer, his wife
+does not quite understand the depth of worship with which he speaks of
+old John Pontiac.
+
+Mrs. Pontiac never knew the story of the night.
+
+"Never mind who it was, Jane," John said, turning out the light, on
+returning to bed, "except this,--it was a neighbor in sore trouble."
+
+"Stealing--and you helped him! Well, John, such a man as you are!"
+
+"Jane, I don't ever rightly know what kind of a man I might be,
+suppose hunger was cruel on me, and on you, and all of us! Let us
+bless God that he's saved us from the terriblest temptations, and
+thank him most especially when he inclines our hearts--inclines our
+hearts--that's all."
+
+
+
+
+GREAT GODFREY'S LAMENT.
+
+
+"Hark to Angus! Man, his heart will be sore the night! In five years I
+have not heard him playing 'Great Godfrey's Lament,'" said old
+Alexander McTavish, as with him I was sitting of a June evening, at
+sundown, under a wide apple-tree of his orchard-lawn.
+
+When the sweet song-sparrows of the Ottawa valley had ceased their
+plaintive strains, Angus McNeil began on his violin. This night,
+instead of "Tullochgorum" or "Roy's Wife" or "The March of the
+McNeils," or any merry strathspey, he crept into an unusual movement,
+and from a distance came the notes of an exceeding strange strain
+blent with the meditative murmur of the Rataplan Rapids.
+
+I am not well enough acquainted with musical terms to tell the method
+of that composition in which the wail of a Highland coronach seemed
+mingled with such mournful crooning as I had heard often from Indian
+voyageurs north of Lake Superior. Perhaps that fancy sprang from my
+knowledge that Angus McNeil's father had been a younger son of the
+chief of the McNeil clan, and his mother a daughter of the greatest
+man of the Cree nation.
+
+"Ay, but Angus is wae," sighed old McTavish. "What will he be seeing
+the now? It was the night before his wife died that he played yon
+last. Come, we will go up the road. He does be liking to see the
+people gather to listen."
+
+We walked, maybe three hundred yards, and stood leaning against the
+ruined picket-fence that surrounds the great stone house built by
+Hector McNeil, the father of Angus, when he retired from his position
+as one of the "Big Bourgeois" of the famous Northwest Fur Trading
+Company.
+
+The huge square structure of four stories and a basement is divided,
+above the ground floor, into eight suites, some of four, and some of
+five rooms. In these suites the fur-trader, whose ideas were all
+patriarchal, had designed that he and his Indian wife, with his seven
+sons and their future families, should live to the end of his days and
+theirs. That was a dream at the time when his boys were all under nine
+years old, and Godfrey little more than a baby in arms.
+
+The ground-floor is divided by a hall twenty-five feet wide into two
+long chambers, one intended to serve as a dining-hall for the
+multitude of descendants that Hector expected to see round his old
+age, the other as a withdrawing-room for himself and his wife, or for
+festive occasions. In this mansion Angus McNeil now dwelt alone.
+
+He sat out that evening on a balcony at the rear of the hall, whence
+he could overlook the McTavish place and the hamlet that extends a
+quarter of a mile further down the Ottawa's north shore. His right
+side was toward the large group of French-Canadian people who had
+gathered to hear him play. Though he was sitting, I could make out
+that his was a gigantic figure.
+
+"Ay--it will be just exactly 'Great Godfrey's Lament,'" McTavish
+whispered. "Weel do I mind him playing yon many's the night after
+Godfrey was laid in the mools. Then he played it no more till before
+his ain wife died. What is he seeing now? Man, it's weel kenned he has
+the second sight at times. Maybe he sees the pit digging for himself.
+He's the last of them."
+
+"Who was Great Godfrey?" I asked, rather loudly.
+
+Angus McNeil instantly cut short the "Lament," rose from his chair,
+and faced us.
+
+"Aleck McTavish, who have you with you?" he called imperiously.
+
+"My young cousin from the city, Mr. McNeil," said McTavish, with
+deference.
+
+"Bring him in. I wish to spoke with you, Aleck McTavish. The young man
+that is not acquaint with the name of Great Godfrey McNeil can come
+with you. I will be at the great door."
+
+"It's strange-like," said McTavish, as we went to the upper gate. "He
+has not asked me inside for near five years. I'm feared his wits is
+disordered, by his way of speaking. Mind what you say. Great Godfrey
+was most like a god to Angus."
+
+When Angus McNeil met us at the front door I saw he was verily a
+giant. Indeed, he was a wee bit more than six and a half feet tall
+when he stood up straight. Now he was stooped a little, not with age,
+but with consumption,--the disease most fatal to men of mixed white
+and Indian blood. His face was dark brown, his features of the Indian
+cast, but his black hair had not the Indian lankness. It curled
+tightly round his grand head.
+
+Without a word he beckoned us on into the vast withdrawing room.
+Without a word he seated himself beside a large oaken centre-table,
+and motioned us to sit opposite.
+
+Before he broke silence, I saw that the windows of that great chamber
+were hung with faded red damask; that the heads of many a bull moose,
+buck, bear, and wolf grinned among guns and swords and claymores from
+its walls; that charred logs, fully fifteen feet long, remained in the
+fireplace from the last winter's burning; that there were three dim
+portraits in oil over the mantel; that the room contained much frayed
+furniture, once sumptuous of red velvet; and that many skins of wild
+beasts lay strewn over a hard-wood floor whose edges still retained
+their polish and faintly gleamed in rays from the red west.
+
+That light was enough to show that two of the oil paintings must be
+those of Hector McNeil and his Indian wife. Between these hung one of
+a singularly handsome youth with yellow hair.
+
+"Here my father lay dead," cried Angus McNeil, suddenly striking the
+table. He stared at us silently for many seconds, then again struck
+the table with the side of his clenched fist. "He lay here dead on
+this table--yes! It was Godfrey that straked him out all alone on this
+table. You mind Great Godfrey, Aleck McTavish."
+
+"Well I do, Mr. McNeil; and your mother yonder,--a grand lady she
+was." McTavish spoke with curious humility, seeming wishful, I
+thought, to comfort McNeil's sorrow by exciting his pride.
+
+"Ay--they'll tell hereafter that she was just exactly a squaw," cried
+the big man, angrily. "But grand she was, and a great lady, and a
+proud. Oh, man, man! but they were proud, my father and my Indian
+mother. And Godfrey was the pride of the hearts of them both. No
+wonder; but it was sore on the rest of us after they took him apart
+from our ways."
+
+Aleck McTavish spoke not a word, and big Angus, after a long pause,
+went on as if almost unconscious of our presence:--
+
+"White was Godfrey, and rosy of the cheek like my father; and the blue
+eyes of him would match the sky when you'll be seeing it up through a
+blazing maple on a clear day of October. Tall, and straight and grand
+was Godfrey, my brother. What was the thing Godfrey could not do? The
+songs of him hushed the singing-birds on the tree, and the fiddle he
+would play to take the soul out of your body. There was no white one
+among us till he was born.
+
+"The rest of us all were just Indians--ay, Indians, Aleck McTavish.
+Brown we were, and the desire of us was all for the woods and the
+river. Godfrey had white sense like my father, and often we saw the
+same look in his eyes. My God, but we feared our father!"
+
+Angus paused to cough. After the fit he sat silent for some minutes.
+The voice of the great rapid seemed to fill the room. When he spoke
+again, he stared past our seat with fixed, dilated eyes, as if tranced
+by a vision.
+
+"Godfrey, Godfrey--you hear! Godfrey, the six of us would go over the
+falls and not think twice of it, if it would please you, when you were
+little. Oich, the joy we had in the white skin of you, and the fine
+ways, till my father and mother saw we were just making an Indian of
+you, like ourselves! So they took you away; ay, and many's the day the
+six of us went to the woods and the river, missing you sore. It's then
+you began to look on us with that look that we could not see was
+different from the look we feared in the blue eyes of our father. Oh,
+but we feared him, Godfrey! And the time went by, and we feared and we
+hated you that seemed lifted up above your Indian brothers!"
+
+"Oich, the masters they got to teach him!" said Angus, addressing
+himself again to my cousin. "In the Latin and the Greek they trained
+him. History books he read, and stories in song. Ay, and the manners
+of Godfrey! Well might the whole pride of my father and mother be on
+their one white son. A grand young gentleman was Godfrey,--Great
+Godfrey we called him, when he was eighteen.
+
+"The fine, rich people that would come up in bateaux from Montreal to
+visit my father had the smile and the kind word for Godfrey; but they
+looked upon us with the eyes of the white man for the Indian. And that
+look we were more and more sure was growing harder in Godfrey's eyes.
+So we looked back at him with the eyes of the wolf that stares at the
+bull moose, and is fierce to pull him down, but dares not try, for the
+moose is too great and lordly.
+
+"Mind you, Aleck McTavish, for all we hated Godfrey when we thought he
+would be looking at us like strange Indians--for all that, yet we were
+proud of him that he was our own brother. Well, we minded how he was
+all like one with us when he was little; and in the calm looks of
+him, and the white skin, and the yellow hair, and the grandeur of him,
+we had pride, do you understand? Ay, and in the strength of him we
+were glad. Would we not sit still and pleased when it was the talk how
+he could run quicker than the best, and jump higher than his head--ay,
+would we! Man, there was none could compare in strength with Great
+Godfrey, the youngest of us all!
+
+"He and my father and mother more and more lived by themselves in this
+room. Yonder room across the hall was left to us six Indians. No
+manners, no learning had we; we were no fit company for Godfrey. My
+mother was like she was wilder with love of Godfrey the more he grew
+and the grander, and never a word for days and weeks together did she
+give to us. It was Godfrey this, and Godfrey that, and all her thought
+was Godfrey!
+
+"Most of all we hated him when she was lying dead here on this table.
+We six in the other room could hear Godfrey and my father groan and
+sigh. We would step softly to the door and listen to them kissing her
+that was dead,--them white, and she Indian like ourselves,--and us not
+daring to go in for the fear of the eyes of our father. So the
+soreness was in our hearts so cruel hard that we would not go in till
+the last, for all their asking. My God, my God, Aleck McTavish, if you
+saw her! she seemed smiling like at Godfrey, and she looked like him
+then, for all she was brown as November oak-leaves, and he white that
+day as the froth on the rapid.
+
+"That put us farther from Godfrey than before. And farther yet we were
+from him after, when he and my father would be walking up and down, up
+and down, arm in arm, up and down the lawn in the evenings. They would
+be talking about books, and the great McNeils in Scotland. The six of
+us knew we were McNeils, for all we were Indians, and we would listen
+to the talk of the great pride and the great deeds of the McNeils
+that was our own kin. We would be drinking the whiskey if we had it,
+and saying: 'Godfrey to be the only McNeil! Godfrey to take all the
+pride of the name of us!' Oh, man, man! but we hated Godfrey sore."
+
+Big Angus paused long, and I seemed to see clearly the two
+fair-haired, tall men walking arm in arm on the lawn in the twilight,
+as if unconscious or careless of being watched and overheard by six
+sore-hearted kinsmen.
+
+"You'll mind when my father was thrown from his horse and carried into
+this room, Aleck McTavish? Ay, well you do. But you nor no other
+living man but me knows what came about the night that he died.
+
+"Godfrey was alone with him. The six of us were in yon room. Drink we
+had, but cautious we were with it, for there was a deed to be done
+that would need all our senses. We sat in a row on the floor--we were
+Indians--it was our wigwam--we sat on the floor to be against the
+ways of them two. Godfrey was in here across the hall from us; alone
+he was with our white father. He would be chief over us by the will,
+no doubt,--and if Godfrey lived through that night it would be
+strange.
+
+"We were cautious with the whiskey, I told you before. Not a sound
+could we hear of Godfrey or of my father. Only the rapid, calling and
+calling,--I mind it well that night. Ay, and well I mind the striking
+of the great clock,--tick, tick, tick, tick, tick,--I listened and I
+dreamed on it till I doubted but it was the beating of my father's
+heart.
+
+"Ten o'clock was gone by, and eleven was near. How many of us sat
+sleeping I know not; but I woke up with a start, and there was Great
+Godfrey, with a candle in his hand, looking down strange at us, and us
+looking up strange at him.
+
+"'He is dead,' Godfrey said.
+
+"We said nothing.
+
+"'Father died two hours ago,' Godfrey said.
+
+"We said nothing.
+
+"'Our father is white,--he is very white,' Godfrey said, and he
+trembled. 'Our mother was brown when she was dead.'
+
+"Godfrey's voice was wild.
+
+"'Come, brothers, and see how white is our father,' Godfrey said.
+
+"No one of us moved.
+
+"'Won't you come? In God's name, come,' said Godfrey. 'Oich--but it is
+very strange! I have looked in his face so long that now I do not know
+him for my father. He is like no kin to me, lying there. I am alone,
+alone.'
+
+"Godfrey wailed in a manner. It made me ashamed to hear his voice like
+that--him that looked like my father that was always silent as a
+sword--him that was the true McNeil.
+
+"'You look at me, and your eyes are the eyes of my mother,' says
+Godfrey, staring wilder. 'What are you doing here, all so still?
+Drinking the whiskey? I am the same as you. I am your brother. I will
+sit with you, and if you drink the whiskey, I will drink the whiskey,
+too.'
+
+"Aleck McTavish! with that he sat down on the floor in the dirt and
+litter beside Donald, that was oldest of us all.
+
+"'Give me the bottle,' he said. 'I am as much Indian as you, brothers.
+What you do I will do, as I did when I was little, long ago.'
+
+"To see him sit down in his best,--all his learning and his grand
+manners as if forgotten,--man, it was like as if our father himself
+was turned Indian, and was low in the dirt!
+
+"What was in the heart of Donald I don't know, but he lifted the
+bottle and smashed it down on the floor.
+
+"'God in heaven! what's to become of the McNeils! You that was the
+credit of the family, Godfrey!' says Donald with a groan.
+
+"At that Great Godfrey jumped to his feet like he was come awake.
+
+"'You're fitter to be the head of the McNeils than I am, Donald,'
+says he; and with that the tears broke out of his eyes, and he cast
+himself into Donald's arms. Well, with that we all began to cry as if
+our hearts would break. I threw myself down on the floor at Godfrey's
+feet, and put my arms round his knees the same as I'd lift him up when
+he was little. There I cried, and we all cried around him, and after a
+bit I said:--
+
+"'Brothers, this was what was in the mind of Godfrey. He was all alone
+in yonder. We are his brothers, and his heart warmed to us, and he
+said to himself, it was better to be like us than to be alone, and he
+thought if he came and sat down and drank the whiskey with us, he
+would be our brother again, and not be any more alone.'
+
+"'Ay, Angus, Angus, but how did you know that?' says Godfrey, crying;
+and he put his arms round my neck, and lifted me up till we were
+breast to breast. With that we all put our arms some way round one
+another and Godfrey, and there we stood sighing and swaying and
+sobbing a long time, and no man saying a word.
+
+"'Oh, man, Godfrey dear, but our father is gone, and who can talk with
+you now about the Latin, and the history books, and the great
+McNeils--and our mother that's gone?' says Donald; and the thought of
+it was such pity that our hearts seemed like to break.
+
+"But Godfrey said: 'We will talk together like brothers. If it shames
+you for me to be like you, then I will teach you all they taught me,
+and we will all be like our white father.'
+
+"So we all agreed to have it so, if he would tell us what to do. After
+that we came in here with Godfrey, and we stood looking at my father's
+white face. Godfrey all alone had straked him out on this table, with
+the silver-pieces on the eyes that we had feared. But the silver we
+did not fear. Maybe you will not understand it, Aleck McTavish, but
+our father never seemed such close kin to us as when we would look at
+him dead, and at Godfrey, that was the picture of him, living and
+kind.
+
+"After that you know what happened yourself."
+
+"Well I do, Mr. McNeil. It was Great Godfrey that was the father to
+you all," said my cousin.
+
+"Just that, Aleck McTavish. All that he had was ours to use as we
+would,--his land, money, horses, this room, his learning. Some of us
+could learn one thing and some of us could learn another, and some
+could learn nothing, not even how to behave. What I could learn was
+the playing of the fiddle. Many's the hour Godfrey would play with me
+while the rest were all happy around.
+
+"In great content we lived like brothers, and proud to see Godfrey as
+white and fine, and grand as the best gentleman that ever came up to
+visit him out of Montreal. Ay, in great content we lived all together
+till the consumption came on Donald, and he was gone. Then it came
+and came back, and came back again, till Hector was gone, and Ranald
+was gone, and in ten years' time only Godfrey and I were left. Then
+both of us married, as you know. But our children died as fast as they
+were born, almost,--for the curse seemed on us. Then his wife died,
+and Godfrey sighed and sighed ever after that.
+
+"One night I was sleeping with the door of my room open, so I could
+hear if Godfrey needed my help. The cough was on him then. Out of a
+dream of him looking at my father's white face I woke and went to his
+bed. He was not there at all.
+
+"My heart went cold with fear, for I heard the rapid very clear, like
+the nights they all died. Then I heard the music begin down stairs,
+here in this chamber where they were all laid out dead,--right here on
+this table where I will soon lie like the rest. I leave it to you to
+see it done, Aleck McTavish, for you are a Highlandman by blood. It
+was that I wanted to say to you when I called you in. I have seen
+myself in my coffin three nights. Nay, say nothing; you will see.
+
+"Hearing the music that night, down I came softly. Here sat Godfrey,
+and the kindest look was on his face that ever I saw. He had his
+fiddle in his hand, and he played about all our lives.
+
+"He played about how we all came down from the North in the big canoe
+with my father and mother, when we were little children and him a
+baby. He played of the rapids we passed over, and of the rustling of
+the poplar-trees and the purr of the pines. He played till the river
+you hear now was in the fiddle, with the sound of our paddles, and the
+fish jumping for flies. He played about the long winters when we were
+young, so that the snow of those winters seemed falling again. The
+ringing of our skates on the ice I could hear in the fiddle. He played
+through all our lives when we were young and going in the woods yonder
+together--and then it was the sore lament began!
+
+"It was like as if he played how they kept him away from his brothers,
+and him at his books thinking of them in the woods, and him hearing
+the partridges' drumming, and the squirrels' chatter, and all the
+little birds singing and singing. Oich, man, but there's no words for
+the sadness of it!"
+
+Old Angus ceased to speak as he took his violin from the table and
+struck into the middle of "Great Godfrey's Lament." As he played, his
+wide eyes looked past us, and the tears streamed down his brown
+cheeks. When the woful strain ended, he said, staring past us: "Ay,
+Godfrey, you were always our brother."
+
+Then he put his face down in his big brown hands, and we left him
+without another word.
+
+
+
+
+THE RED-HEADED WINDEGO.
+
+
+Big Baptiste Seguin, on snow-shoes nearly six feet long, strode
+mightily out of the forest, and gazed across the treeless valley
+ahead.
+
+"Hooraw! No choppin' for two mile!" he shouted.
+
+"Hooraw! Bully! Hi-yi!" yelled the axemen, Pierre, "Jawnny," and
+"Frawce," two hundred yards behind. Their cries were taken up by the
+two chain-bearers still farther back.
+
+"Is it a lake, Baptiste?" cried Tom Dunscombe, the young surveyor, as
+he hurried forward through balsams that edged the woods and concealed
+the open space from those among the trees.
+
+"No, seh; only a beaver meddy."
+
+"Clean?"
+
+"Clean! Yesseh! Clean 's your face. Hain't no tree for two mile if de
+line is go right."
+
+"Good! We shall make seven miles to-day," said Tom, as he came forward
+with immense strides, carrying a compass and Jacob's-staff. Behind him
+the axemen slashed along, striking white slivers from the pink and
+scaly columns of red pines that shot up a hundred and twenty feet
+without a branch. If any underbrush grew there, it was beneath the
+eight-feet-deep February snow, so that one could see far away down a
+multitude of vaulted, converging aisles.
+
+Our young surveyor took no thought of the beauty and majesty of the
+forest he was leaving. His thoughts and those of his men were set
+solely on getting ahead; for all hands had been promised double pay
+for their whole winter, in case they should succeed in running a line
+round the disputed Moose Lake timber berth before the tenth of April.
+
+Their success would secure the claim of their employer, Old Dan
+McEachran, whereas their failure would submit him perhaps to the loss
+of the limit, and certainly to a costly lawsuit with "Old Rory"
+Carmichael, another potentate of the Upper Ottawa.
+
+At least six weeks more of fair snow-shoeing would be needed to
+"blaze" out the limit, even if the unknown country before them should
+turn out to be less broken by cedar swamps and high precipices than
+they feared. A few days' thaw with rain would make slush of the eight
+feet of snow, and compel the party either to keep in camp, or risk
+_mal de raquette_,--strain of legs by heavy snow-shoeing. So they were
+in great haste to make the best of fine weather.
+
+Tom thrust his Jacob's-staff into the snow, set the compass sights to
+the right bearing, looked through them, and stood by to let Big
+Baptiste get a course along the line ahead. Baptiste's duty was to
+walk straight for some selected object far away on the line. In
+woodland the axemen "blazed" trees on both sides of his snow-shoe
+track.
+
+Baptiste was as expert at his job as any Indian, and indeed he looked
+as if he had a streak of Iroquois in his veins. So did "Frawce,"
+"Jawnny," and all their comrades of the party.
+
+"The three pines will do," said Tom, as Baptiste crouched.
+
+"Good luck to-day for sure!" cried Baptiste, rising with his eyes
+fixed on three pines in the foreground of the distant timbered ridge.
+He saw that the line did indeed run clear of trees for two miles along
+one side of the long, narrow beaver meadow or swale.
+
+Baptiste drew a deep breath, and grinned agreeably at Tom Dunscombe.
+
+"De boys will look like dey's all got de double pay in dey's pocket
+when dey's see _dis_ open," said Baptiste, and started for the three
+pines as straight as a bee.
+
+Tom waited to get from the chainmen the distance to the edge of the
+wood. They came on the heels of the axemen, and all capered on their
+snow-shoes to see so long a space free from cutting.
+
+It was now two o'clock; they had marched with forty pound or "light"
+packs since daylight, lunching on cold pork and hard-tack as they
+worked; they had slept cold for weeks on brush under an open tent
+pitched over a hole in the snow; they must live this life of hardship
+and huge work for six weeks longer, but they hoped to get twice their
+usual eighty-cents-a-day pay, and so their hearts were light and
+jolly.
+
+But Big Baptiste, now two hundred yards in advance, swinging along in
+full view of the party, stopped with a scared cry. They saw him look
+to the left and to the right, and over his shoulder behind, like a man
+who expects mortal attack from a near but unknown quarter.
+
+"What's the matter?" shouted Tom.
+
+Baptiste went forward a few steps, hesitated, stopped, turned, and
+fairly ran back toward the party. As he came he continually turned
+his head from side to side as if expecting to see some dreadful thing
+following.
+
+The men behind Tom stopped. Their faces were blanched. They looked,
+too, from side to side.
+
+"Halt, Mr. Tom, halt! Oh, _monjee_, M'sieu, stop!" said Jawnny.
+
+Tom looked round at his men, amazed at their faces of mysterious
+terror.
+
+"What on earth has happened?" cried he.
+
+Instead of answering, the men simply pointed to Big Baptiste, who was
+soon within twenty yards.
+
+"What is the trouble, Baptiste?" asked Tom.
+
+Baptiste's face was the hue of death. As he spoke he shuddered:--
+
+"_Monjee_, Mr. Tom, we'll got for stop de job!"
+
+"Stop the job! Are you crazy?"
+
+"If you'll not b'lieve what I told, den you go'n' see for you'se'f."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"De track, seh."
+
+"What track? Wolves?"
+
+"If it was only wolfs!"
+
+"Confound you! can't you say what it is?"
+
+"Eet's de--It ain't safe for told its name out loud, for dass de way
+it come--if it's call by its name!"
+
+"Windego, eh?" said Tom, laughing.
+
+"I'll know its track jus' as quick 's I see it."
+
+"Do you mean you have seen a Windego track?"
+
+"_Monjee_, seh, _don't_ say its name! Let us go back," said Jawnny.
+"Baptiste was at Madores' shanty with us when it took Hermidas
+Dubois."
+
+"Yesseh. That's de way I'll come for know de track soon 's I see it,"
+said Baptiste. "Before den I mos' don' b'lieve dere was any of it. But
+ain't it take Hermidas Dubois only last New Year's?"
+
+"That was all nonsense about Dubois. I'll bet it was a joke to scare
+you all."
+
+"Who 's kill a man for a joke?" said Baptiste.
+
+"Did you see Hermidas Dubois killed? Did you see him dead? No! I heard
+all about it. All you know is that he went away on New Year's morning,
+when the rest of the men were too scared to leave the shanty, because
+some one said there was a Windego track outside."
+
+"Hermidas never come back!"
+
+"I'll bet he went away home. You'll find him at Saint Agathe in the
+spring. You can't be such fools as to believe in Windegos."
+
+"Don't you say dat name some more!" yelled Big Baptiste, now fierce
+with fright. "Hain't I just seen de track? I'm go'n' back, me, if I
+don't get a copper of pay for de whole winter!"
+
+"Wait a little now, Baptiste," said Tom, alarmed lest his party should
+desert him and the job. "I'll soon find out what's at the bottom of
+the track."
+
+"Dere's blood at de bottom--I seen it!" said Baptiste.
+
+"Well, you wait till _I_ go and see it."
+
+"No! I go back, me," said Baptiste, and started up the slope with the
+others at his heels.
+
+"Halt! Stop there! Halt, you fools! Don't you understand that if there
+was any such monster it would as easily catch you in one place as
+another?"
+
+The men went on. Tom took another tone.
+
+"Boys, look here! I say, are you going to desert me like cowards?"
+
+"Hain't goin' for desert you, Mr. Tom, no seh!" said Baptiste,
+halting. "Honly I'll hain' go for cross de track." They all faced
+round.
+
+Tom was acquainted with a considerable number of Windego
+superstitions.
+
+"There's no danger unless it's a fresh track," he said. "Perhaps it's
+an old one."
+
+"Fresh made dis mornin'," said Baptiste.
+
+"Well, wait till I go and see it. You're all right, you know, if you
+don't cross it. Isn't that the idea?"
+
+"No, seh. Mr. Humphreys told Madore 'bout dat. Eef somebody cross de
+track and don't never come back, _den_ de magic ain't in de track no
+more. But it's watchin', watchin' all round to catch somebody what
+cross its track; and if nobody don't cross its track and get catched,
+den de--de _Ting_ mebby get crazy mad, and nobody don' know what it's
+goin' for do. Kill every person, mebby."
+
+Tom mused over this information. These men had all been in Madore's
+shanty; Madore was under Red Dick Humphreys; Red Dick was Rory
+Carmichael's head foreman; he had sworn to stop the survey by hook or
+by crook, and this vow had been made after Tom had hired his gang from
+among those scared away from Madore's shanty. Tom thought he began to
+understand the situation.
+
+"Just wait a bit, boys," he said, and started.
+
+"You ain't surely go'n' to cross de track?" cried Baptiste.
+
+"Not now, anyway," said Tom. "But wait till I see it."
+
+When he reached the mysterious track it surprised him so greatly that
+he easily forgave Baptiste's fears.
+
+If a giant having ill-shaped feet as long as Tom's snow-shoes had
+passed by in moccasins, the main features of the indentations might
+have been produced. But the marks were no deeper in the snow than if
+the huge moccasins had been worn by an ordinary man. They were about
+five and a half feet apart from centres, a stride that no human legs
+could take at a walking pace.
+
+Moreover, there were on the snow none of the dragging marks of
+striding; the gigantic feet had apparently been lifted straight up
+clear of the snow, and put straight down.
+
+Strangest of all, at the front of each print were five narrow holes
+which suggested that the mysterious creature had travelled with bare,
+claw-like toes. An irregular drip or squirt of blood went along the
+middle of the indentations! Nevertheless, the whole thing seemed of
+human devising.
+
+This track, Tom reflected, was consistent with the Indian superstition
+that Windegos are monsters who take on or relinquish the human form,
+and vary their size at pleasure. He perceived that he must bring the
+maker of those tracks promptly to book, or suffer his men to desert
+the survey, and cost him his whole winter's work, besides making him a
+laughingstock in the settlements.
+
+The young fellow made his decision instantly. After feeling for his
+match-box and sheath-knife, he took his hatchet from his sash, and
+called to the men.
+
+"Go into camp and wait for me!"
+
+Then he set off alongside of the mysterious track at his best pace. It
+came out of a tangle of alders to the west, and went into such another
+tangle about a quarter of a mile to the east. Tom went east. The men
+watched him with horror.
+
+"He's got crazy, looking at de track," said Big Baptiste, "for that's
+the way,--one is enchanted,--he must follow."
+
+"He was a good boss," said Jawnny, sadly.
+
+As the young fellow disappeared in the alders the men looked at one
+another with a certain shame. Not a sound except the sough of pines
+from the neighboring forest was heard. Though the sun was sinking in
+clear blue, the aspect of the wilderness, gray and white and severe,
+touched the impressionable men with deeper melancholy. They felt
+lonely, masterless, mean.
+
+"He was a good boss," said Jawnny again.
+
+"_Tort Dieu!_" cried Baptiste, leaping to his feet. "It's a shame to
+desert the young boss. I don't care; the Windego can only kill me. I'm
+going to help Mr. Tom."
+
+"Me also," said Jawnny.
+
+Then all wished to go. But after some parley it was agreed that the
+others should wait for the portageurs, who were likely to be two miles
+behind, and make camp for the night.
+
+Soon Baptiste and Jawnny, each with his axe, started diagonally across
+the swale, and entered the alders on Tom's track.
+
+It took them twenty yards through the alders, to the edge of a warm
+spring or marsh about fifty yards wide. This open, shallow water was
+completely encircled by alders that came down to its very edge. Tom's
+snow-shoe track joined the track of the mysterious monster for the
+first time on the edge--and there both vanished!
+
+Baptiste and Jawnny looked at the place with the wildest terror, and
+without even thinking to search the deeply indented opposite edges of
+the little pool for a reappearance of the tracks, fled back to the
+party. It was just as Red Dick Humphreys had said; just as they had
+always heard. Tom, like Hermidas Dubois, appeared to have vanished
+from existence the moment he stepped on the Windego track!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The dimness of early evening was in the red-pine forest through which
+Tom's party had passed early in the afternoon, and the belated
+portageurs were tramping along the line. A man with a red head had
+been long crouching in some cedar bushes to the east of the "blazed"
+cutting. When he had watched the portageurs pass out of sight, he
+stepped over upon their track, and followed it a short distance.
+
+A few minutes later a young fellow, over six feet high, who strongly
+resembled Tom Dunscombe, followed the red-headed man.
+
+The stranger, suddenly catching sight of a flame far away ahead on the
+edge of the beaver meadow, stopped and fairly hugged himself.
+
+"Camped, by jiminy! I knowed I'd fetch 'em," was the only remark he
+made.
+
+"I wish Big Baptiste could see that Windego laugh," thought Tom
+Dunscombe, concealed behind a tree.
+
+After reflecting a few moments, the red-headed man, a wiry little
+fellow, went forward till he came to where an old pine had recently
+fallen across the track. There he kicked off his snow-shoes, picked
+them up, ran along the trunk, jumped into the snow from among the
+branches, put on his snow-shoes, and started northwestward. His new
+track could not be seen from the survey line.
+
+But Tom had beheld and understood the purpose of the manoeuvre. He
+made straight for the head of the fallen tree, got on the stranger's
+tracks and cautiously followed them, keeping far enough behind to be
+out of hearing or sight.
+
+The red-headed stranger went toward the wood out of which the
+mysterious track of the morning had come. When he had reached the
+little brush-camp in which he had slept the previous night, he made a
+small fire, put a small tin pot on it, boiled some tea, broiled a
+venison steak, ate his supper, had several good laughs, took a long
+smoke, rolled himself round and round in his blanket, and went to
+sleep.
+
+Hours passed before Tom ventured to crawl forward and peer into the
+brush camp. The red-headed man was lying on his face, as is the custom
+of many woodsmen. His capuchin cap covered his red head.
+
+Tom Dunscombe took off his own long sash. When the red-headed man woke
+up he found that some one was on his back, holding his head firmly
+down.
+
+Unable to extricate his arms or legs from his blankets, the red-headed
+man began to utter fearful threats. Tom said not one word, but
+diligently wound his sash round his prisoner's head, shoulders, and
+arms.
+
+He then rose, took the red-headed man's own "tump-line," a leather
+strap about twelve feet long, which tapered from the middle to both
+ends, tied this firmly round the angry live mummy, and left him lying
+on his face.
+
+Then, collecting his prisoner's axe, snow-shoes, provisions, and tin
+pail, Tom started with them back along the Windego track for camp.
+
+Big Baptiste and his comrades had supped too full of fears to go to
+sleep. They had built an enormous fire, because Windegos are reported,
+in Indian circles, to share with wild beasts the dread of flames and
+brands. Tom stole quietly to within fifty yards of the camp, and
+suddenly shouted in unearthly fashion. The men sprang up, quaking.
+
+"It's the Windego!" screamed Jawnny.
+
+"You silly fools!" said Tom, coming forward. "Don't you know my voice?
+Am I a Windego?"
+
+"It's the Windego, for sure; it's took the shape of Mr. Tom, after
+eatin' him," cried Big Baptiste.
+
+Tom laughed so uproariously at this, that the other men scouted the
+idea, though it was quite in keeping with their information concerning
+Windegos' habits.
+
+Then Tom came in and gave a full and particular account of the
+Windego's pursuit, capture, and present predicament.
+
+"But how'd he make de track?" they asked.
+
+"He had two big old snow-shoes, stuffed with spruce tips underneath,
+and covered with dressed deerskin. He had cut off the back ends of
+them. You shall see them to-morrow. I found them down yonder where he
+had left them after crossing the warm spring. He had five bits of
+sharp round wood going down in front of them. He must have stood on
+them one after the other, and lifted the back one every time with the
+pole he carried. I've got that, too. The blood was from a deer he had
+run down and killed in the snow. He carried the blood in his tin pail,
+and sprinkled it behind him. He must have run out our line long ago
+with a compass, so he knew where it would go. But come, let us go and
+see if it's Red Dick Humphreys."
+
+Red Dick proved to be the prisoner. He had become quite philosophic
+while waiting for his captor to come back. When unbound he grinned
+pleasantly, and remarked:--
+
+"You're Mr. Dunscombe, eh? Well, you're a smart young feller, Mr.
+Dunscombe. There ain't another man on the Ottaway that could 'a' done
+that trick on me. Old Dan McEachran will make your fortun' for this,
+and I don't begrudge it. You're a man--that's so. If ever I hear any
+feller saying to the contrayry he's got to lick Red Dick Humphreys."
+
+And he told them the particulars of his practical joke in making a
+Windego track round Madore's shanty.
+
+"Hermidas Dubois?--oh, he's all right," said Red Dick. "He's at home
+at St. Agathe. Man, he helped me to fix up that Windego track at
+Madore's; but, by criminy! the look of it scared him so he wouldn't
+cross it himself. It was a holy terror!"
+
+
+
+
+THE SHINING CROSS OF RIGAUD.
+
+I.
+
+
+When Mini was a fortnight old his mother wrapped her head and
+shoulders in her ragged shawl, snatched him from the family litter of
+straw, and, with a volley of cautionary objurgations to his ten
+brothers and sisters, strode angrily forth into the raw November
+weather. She went down the hill to the edge of the broad, dark Ottawa,
+where thin slices of ice were swashing together. There sat a
+hopeless-looking little man at the clumsy oars of a flat-bottomed
+boat.
+
+"The little one's feet are out," said the man.
+
+"So much the better! For what was another sent us?" cried Mini's
+mother.
+
+"But the little one must be baptized," said the father, with mild
+expostulation.
+
+"Give him to me, then," and the man took off his own ragged coat.
+Beneath it he had nothing except an equally ragged guernsey, and the
+wind was keen. The woman surrendered the child carelessly, and drawing
+her shawl closer, sat frowning moodily in the stern. Mini's father
+wrapped him in the wretched garment, carefully laid the infant on the
+pea-straw at his feet, and rowed wearily away.
+
+They took him to the gray church on the farther shore, whose tall
+cross glittered coldly in the wintry sun. There Madame Lajeunesse, the
+skilful washerwoman, angry to be taken so long from her tubs, and
+Bonhomme Hamel, who never did anything but fish for _barbotes_, met
+them. These highly respectable connections of Mini's mother had a
+disdain for her inferior social status, and easily made it understood
+that nothing but a Christian duty would have brought them out. Where
+else, indeed, could the friendless infant have found sponsors? It was
+disgraceful, they remarked, that the custom of baptism at three days
+old should have been violated. While they answered for Mini's
+spiritual development he was quiet, neither crying nor smiling till
+the old priest crossed his brow. Then he smiled, and that, Bonhomme
+Hamel remarked, was a blessed sign.
+
+"Now he's sure of heaven when he does die!" cried Mini's mother,
+getting home again, and tossed him down on the straw, for a conclusion
+to her sentence.
+
+But the child lived, as if by miracle. Hunger, cold, dirt, abuse,
+still left him a feeble vitality. At six years old his big dark eyes
+wore so sad a look that mothers of merry children often stopped to
+sigh over him, frightening the child, for he did not understand
+sympathy. So unresponsive and dumb was he that they called him
+half-witted. Three babies younger than he had died by then, and the
+fourth was little Angelique. They said she would be very like Mini,
+and there was reason why in her wretched infancy. Mini's was the only
+love she ever knew. When she saw the sunny sky his weak arms carried
+her, and many a night he drew over her the largest part of his
+deplorable coverings. She, too, was strangely silent. For days long
+they lay together on the straw, quietly suffering what they had known
+from the beginning. It was something near starvation.
+
+When Mini was eight years old his mother sent him one day to beg food
+from Madame Leclaire, whose servant she had been long ago.
+
+"It's Lucile's Mini," said Madame, taking him to the door of the cosey
+sitting-room, where Monsieur sat at _solitaire_.
+
+"_Mon Dieu_, did one ever see such a child!" cried the retired notary.
+"For the love of Heaven, feed him well, Marie, before you let him go!"
+
+But Mini could scarcely eat. He trembled at the sight of so much food,
+and chose a crust as the only thing familiar.
+
+"Eat, my poor child. Have no fear," said Madame.
+
+"But Angelique," said he.
+
+"Angelique? Is it the baby?"
+
+"Yes, Madame, if I might have something for her."
+
+"Poor little loving boy," said Madame, tears in her kind eyes. But
+Mini did not cry; he had known so many things so much sadder.
+
+When Mini reached home his mother seized the basket. Her wretched
+children crowded around. There were broken bread and meat in plenty.
+"Here--here--and here!" She distributed crusts, and chose a
+well-fleshed bone for her own teeth. Angelique could not walk, and did
+not cry, so got nothing. Mini, however, went to her with the tin pail
+before his mother noticed it.
+
+"Bring that back!" she shouted.
+
+"Quick, baby!" cried Mini, holding it that Angelique might drink. But
+the baby was not quick enough. Her mother seized the pail and tasted;
+the milk was still almost warm. "Good," said she, reaching for her
+shawl.
+
+"For the love of God, mother!" cried Mini, "Madame said it was for
+Angelique." He knew too well what new milk would trade for. The woman
+laughed and flung on her shawl.
+
+"Only a little, then; only a cupful," cried Mini, clutching her,
+struggling weakly to restrain her. "Only a little cupful for
+Angelique."
+
+"Give her bread!" She struck him so that he reeled, and left the
+cabin. _Then_ Mini cried, but not for the blow.
+
+He placed a soft piece of bread and a thin shred of meat in
+Angelique's thin little hand, but she could not eat, she was so weak.
+The elder children sat quietly devouring their food, each ravenously
+eying that of the others. But there was so much that when the father
+came he also could eat. He, too, offered Angelique bread. Then Mini
+lifted his hand which held hers and showed beneath the food she had
+refused.
+
+"If she had milk!" said the boy.
+
+"My God, if I could get some," groaned the man, and stopped as a
+shuffling and tumbling was heard at the door.
+
+"She is very drunk," said the man, without amazement. He helped her
+in, and, too far gone to abuse them, she soon lay heavily breathing
+near the child she had murdered.
+
+Mini woke in the pale morning thinking Angelique very cold in his
+arms, and, behold, she was free from all the suffering forever. So he
+_could_ not cry, though the mother wept when she awoke, and shrieked
+at his tearlessness as hardhearted.
+
+Little Angelique had been rowed across the great river for the last
+time; night was come again, and Mini thought he _must_ die; it could
+not be that he should be made to live without Angelique! Then a
+wondrous thing seemed to happen. Little Angelique had come back. He
+could not doubt it next morning, for, with the slowly lessening glow
+from the last brands of fire had not her face appeared?--then her
+form?--and lo! she was closely held in the arms of the mild Mother
+whom Mini knew from her image in the church, only she smiled more
+sweetly now in the hut. Little Angelique had learned to smile, too,
+which was most wonderful of all to Mini. In their heavenly looks was a
+meaning of which he felt almost aware; a mysterious happiness was
+coming close and closer; with the sense of ineffable touches near his
+brow, the boy dreamed. Nothing more did Mini know till his mother's
+voice woke him in the morning. He sprang up with a cry of "Angelique,"
+and gazed round upon the familiar squalor.
+
+
+II.
+
+From the summit of Rigaud Mountain a mighty cross flashes sunlight all
+over the great plain of Vaudreuil. The devout _habitant_, ascending
+from vale to hill-top in the county of Deux Montagnes, bends to the
+sign he sees across the forest leagues away. Far off on the brown
+Ottawa, beyond the Cascades of Carillon and the Chute a Blondeau, the
+keen-eyed _voyageur_ catches its gleam, and, for gladness to be
+nearing the familiar mountain, more cheerily raises the _chanson_ he
+loves. Near St. Placide the early ploughman--while yet mist wreathes
+the fields and before the native Rossignol has fairly begun his
+plaintive flourishes--watches the high cross of Rigaud for the first
+glint that shall tell him of the yet unrisen sun. The wayfarer marks
+his progress by the bearing of that great cross, the hunter looks to
+it for an unfailing landmark, the weatherwise farmer prognosticates
+from its appearances. The old watch it dwindle from sight at evening
+with long thoughts of the well-beloved vanished, who sighed to its
+vanishing through vanished years; the dying turn to its beckoning
+radiance; happy is the maiden for whose bridal it wears brightness;
+blessed is the child thought to be that holds out tiny hands for the
+glittering cross as for a star. Even to the most worldly it often
+seems flinging beams of heaven, and to all who love its shining that
+is a dark day when it yields no reflection of immortal meaning.
+
+To Mini the Cross of Rigaud had as yet been no more than an indistinct
+glimmering, so far from it did he live and so dulled was he by his
+sufferings. It promised him no immortal joys, for how was he to
+conceive of heaven except as a cessation of weariness, starvation, and
+pain? Not till Angelique had come, in the vision did he gain certainty
+that in heaven she would smile on him always from the mild Mother's
+arms. As days and weeks passed without that dream's return, his
+imagination was ever the more possessed by it. Though the boy looked
+frailer than ever, people often remarked with amazement how his eyes
+wore some unspeakable happiness.
+
+Now it happened that one sunny day after rain Mini became aware that
+his eyes were fixed on the Cross of Rigaud. He could not make out its
+form distinctly, but it appeared to thrill toward him. Under his
+intent watching the misty cross seemed gradually to become the centre
+of such a light as had enwrapped the figures of his dream. While he
+gazed, expecting his vision of the night to appear in broad day on the
+far summit, the light extended, changed, rose aloft, assumed clear
+tints, and shifted quickly to a great rainbow encircling the hill.
+
+Mini believed it a token to him. That Angelique had been there by the
+cross the little dreamer doubted not, and the transfiguration to that
+arch of glory had some meaning that his soul yearned to apprehend. The
+cross drew his thoughts miraculously; for days thereafter he dwelt
+with its shining; more and more it was borne in on him that he could
+always see dimly the outline of little Angelique's face there;
+sometimes, staring very steadily for minutes together, he could even
+believe that she beckoned and smiled.
+
+"Is Angelique really there, father?" he asked one day, looking toward
+the hill-top.
+
+"Yes, there," answered his father, thinking the boy meant heaven.
+
+"I will go to her, then," said Mini to his heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Birds were not stirring when Mini stepped from the dark cabin into
+gray dawn, with firm resolve to join Angelique on the summit. The
+Ottawa, with whose flow he went toward Rigaud, was solemnly shrouded
+in motionless mist, which began to roll slowly during the first hour
+of his journey. Lifting, drifting, clinging, ever thinner and more
+pervaded by sunlight, it was drawn away so that the unruffled flood
+reflected a sky all blue when he had been two hours on the road. But
+Mini took no note of the river's beauty. His eyes were fixed on the
+cloudy hill-top, beyond which the sun was climbing. As yet he could
+see nothing of the cross, nor of his vision; yet the world had never
+seemed so glad, nor his heart so light with joy. _Habitants_, in
+their rattling _caleches_, were amazed by the glow in the face of a
+boy so ragged and forlorn. Some told afterward how they had half
+doubted the reality of his rags; for might not one, if very pure at
+heart, have been privileged to see such garments of apparent meanness
+change to raiment of angelic texture? Such things had been, it was
+said, and certainly the boy's face was a marvel.
+
+His look was ever upward to where fibrous clouds shifted slowly, or
+packed to level bands of mist half concealing Rigaud Hill, as the sun
+wheeled higher, till at last, in mid-sky, it flung rays that trembled
+on the cross, and gradually revealed the holy sign outlined in upright
+and arms. Mini shivered with an awe of expectation; but no nimbus was
+disclosed which his imagination could shape to glorious significance.
+Yet he went rapturously onward, firm in the belief that up there he
+must see Angelique face to face.
+
+As he journeyed the cross gradually lessened in height by
+disappearance behind the nearer trees, till only a spot of light was
+left, which suddenly was blotted out too. Mini drew a deep breath, and
+became conscious of the greatness of the hill,--a towering mass of
+brown rock, half hidden by sombre pines and the delicate greenery of
+birch and poplar. But soon, because the cross _was_ hidden, he could
+figure it all the more gloriously, and entertain all the more
+luminously the belief that there were heavenly presences awaiting him.
+He pressed on with all his speed, and began to ascend the mountain
+early in the afternoon.
+
+"Higher," said the women gathering pearly-bloomed blueberries on the
+steep hillside. "Higher," said the path, ever leading the tired boy
+upward from plateau to plateau,--"higher, to the vision and the
+radiant space about the shining cross!"
+
+Faint with hunger, worn with fatigue, in the half-trance of physical
+exhaustion, Mini still dragged himself upward through the afternoon.
+At last he knew he stood on the summit level very near the cross.
+There the child, awed by the imminence of what he had sought, halted
+to control the rapturous, fearful trembling of his heart. Would not
+the heavens surely open? What words would Angelique first say? Then
+again he went swiftly forward through the trees to the edge of the
+little cleared space. There he stood dazed.
+
+The cross was revealed to him at a few yards' distance. With woful
+disillusionment Mini threw himself face downward on the rock, and wept
+hopelessly, sorely; wept and wept, till his sobs became fainter than
+the up-borne long notes of a hermit-thrush far below on the edge of
+the plain.
+
+A tall mast, with a shorter at right angles, both covered by tin
+roofing-plates, held on by nails whence rust had run in streaks,--that
+was the shining Cross of Rigaud! Fragments of newspaper, crusts of
+bread, empty tin cans, broken bottles, the relics of many picnics
+scattered widely about the foot of the cross; rude initial letters cut
+deeply into its butt where the tin had been torn away;--these had Mini
+seen.
+
+The boy ceased to move. Shadows stole slowly lengthening over the
+Vaudreuil champaign; the sun swooned down in a glamour of painted
+clouds; dusk covered from sight the yellows and browns and greens of
+the August fields; birds stilled with the deepening night; Rigaud
+Mountain loomed from the plain, a dark long mass under a flying and
+waning moon; stars came out from the deep spaces overhead, and still
+Mini lay where he had wept.
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE BAPTISTE.
+
+A STORY OF THE OTTAWA RIVER.
+
+
+Ma'ame Baptiste Larocque peered again into her cupboard and her flour
+barrel, as though she might have been mistaken in her inspection
+twenty minutes earlier.
+
+"No, there is nothing, nothing at all!" said she to her old
+mother-in-law. "And no more trust at the store. Monsieur Conolly was
+too cross when I went for corn-meal yesterday. For sure, Baptiste
+stays very long at the shanty this year."
+
+"Fear nothing, Delima," answered the bright-eyed old woman. "The good
+God will send a breakfast for the little ones, and for us. In seventy
+years I do not know Him to fail once, my daughter. Baptiste may be
+back to-morrow, and with more money for staying so long. No, no; fear
+not, Delima! _Le bon Dieu_ manages all for the best."
+
+"That is true; for so I have heard always," answered Delima, with
+conviction; "but sometimes _le bon Dieu_ requires one's inside to pray
+very loud. Certainly I trust, like you, _Memere_; but it would be
+pleasant if He would send the food the day before."
+
+"Ah, you are too anxious, like little Baptiste here," and the old
+woman glanced at the boy sitting by the cradle. "Young folks did not
+talk so when I was little. Then we did not think there was danger in
+trusting _Monsieur le Cure_ when he told us to take no heed of the
+morrow. But now! to hear them talk, one might think they had never
+heard of _le bon Dieu_. The young people think too much, for sure.
+Trust in the good God, I say. Breakfast and dinner and supper too we
+shall all have to-morrow."
+
+"Yes, _Memere_," replied the boy, who was called little Baptiste to
+distinguish him from his father. "_Le bon Dieu_ will send an excellent
+breakfast, sure enough, if I get up very early, and find some good
+_dore_ (pickerel) and catfish on the night-line. But if I did not bait
+the hooks, what then? Well, I hope there will be more to-morrow than
+this morning, anyway."
+
+"There were enough," said the old woman, severely. "Have we not had
+plenty all day, Delima?"
+
+Delima made no answer. She was in doubt about the plenty which her
+mother-in-law spoke of. She wondered whether small Andre and Odillon
+and 'Toinette, whose heavy breathing she could hear through the thin
+partition, would have been sleeping so peacefully had little Baptiste
+not divided his share among them at supper-time, with the excuse that
+he did not feel very well?
+
+Delima was young yet,--though little Baptiste was such a big boy,--and
+would have rested fully on the positively expressed trust of her
+mother-in-law, in spite of the empty flour barrel, if she had not
+suspected little Baptiste of sitting there hungry.
+
+However, he was such a strange boy, she soon reflected, that perhaps
+going empty did not make him feel bad! Little Baptiste was so decided
+in his ways, made what in others would have been sacrifices so much as
+a matter of course, and was so much disgusted on being offered credit
+or sympathy in consequence, that his mother, not being able to
+understand him, was not a little afraid of him.
+
+He was not very formidable in appearance, however, that clumsy boy of
+fourteen or so, whose big freckled, good face was now bent over the
+cradle where _la petite_ Seraphine lay smiling in her sleep, with soft
+little fingers clutched round his rough one.
+
+"For sure," said Delima, observing the baby's smile, "the good angels
+are very near. I wonder what they are telling her?"
+
+"Something about her father, of course; for so I have always heard it
+is when the infants smile in sleep," answered the old woman.
+
+Little Baptiste rose impatiently and went into the sleeping-room.
+Often the simplicity and sentimentality of his mother and grandmother
+gave him strange pangs at heart; they seemed to be the children, while
+he felt very old. They were always looking for wonderful things to
+happen, and expecting the saints and _le bon Dieu_ to help the family
+out of difficulties that little Baptiste saw no way of overcoming
+without the work which was then so hard to get. His mother's remark
+about the angels talking to little Seraphine pained him so much that
+he would have cried had he not felt compelled to be very much of a man
+during his father's absence.
+
+If he had been asked to name the spirit hovering about, he would have
+mentioned a very wicked one as personified in John Conolly, the
+village storekeeper, the vampire of the little hamlet a quarter of a
+mile distant. Conolly owned the tavern too, and a sawmill up river,
+and altogether was a very rich, powerful, and dreadful person in
+little Baptiste's view. Worst of all, he practically owned the cabin
+and lot of the Larocques, for he had made big Baptiste give him a bill
+of sale of the place as security for groceries to be advanced to the
+family while its head was away in the shanty; and that afternoon
+Conolly had said to little Baptiste that the credit had been
+exhausted, and more.
+
+"No; you can't get any pork," said the storekeeper. "Don't your mother
+know that, after me sending her away when she wanted corn-meal
+yesterday? Tell her she don't get another cent's worth here."
+
+"For why not? My fader always he pay," said the indignant boy, trying
+to talk English.
+
+"Yes, indeed! Well, he ain't paid this time. How do I know what's
+happened to him, as he ain't back from the shanty? Tell you what: I'm
+going to turn you all out if your mother don't pay rent in advance for
+the shanty to-morrow,--four dollars a month."
+
+"What you talkin' so for? We doan' goin pay no rent for our own
+house!"
+
+"You doan' goin' to own no house," answered Conolly, mimicking the
+boy. "The house is mine any time I like to say so. If the store bill
+ain't paid to-night, out you go to-morrow, or else pay rent. Tell your
+mother that for me. Mosey off now. '_Marche, donc!_' There's no other
+way."
+
+Little Baptiste had not told his mother of this terrible threat, for
+what was the use? She had no money. He knew that she would begin
+weeping and wailing, with small Andre and Odillon as a puzzled,
+excited chorus, with 'Toinette and Seraphine adding those baby cries
+that made little Baptiste want to cry himself; with his grandmother
+steadily advising, in the din, that patient trust in _le bon Dieu_
+which he could not always entertain, though he felt very wretched that
+he could not.
+
+Moreover, he desired to spare his mother and grandmother as long as
+possible. "Let them have their good night's sleep," said he to
+himself, with such thoughtfulness and pity as a merchant might feel in
+concealing imminent bankruptcy from his family. He knew there was but
+one chance remaining,--that his father might come home during the
+night or next morning, with his winter's wages.
+
+Big Baptiste had "gone up" for Rewbell the jobber; had gone in
+November, to make logs in the distant Petawawa woods, and now the
+month was May. The "very magnificent" pig he had salted down before
+going away had been eaten long ago. My! what a time it seemed now to
+little Baptiste since that pig-killing! How good the _boudin_ (the
+blood-puddings) had been, and the liver and tender bits, and what a
+joyful time they had had! The barrelful of salted pike and catfish was
+all gone too,--which made the fact that fish were not biting well this
+year very sad indeed.
+
+Now on top of all these troubles this new danger of being turned out
+on the roadside! For where are they to get four dollars, or two, or
+one even, to stave Conolly off? Certainly his father was away too
+long; but surely, surely, thought the boy, he would get back in time
+to save his home! Then he remembered with horror, and a feeling of
+being disloyal to his father for remembering, that terrible day, three
+years before, when big Baptiste had come back from his winter's work
+drunk, and without a dollar, having been robbed while on a spree in
+Ottawa. If that were the reason of his father's delay now, ah, then
+there would be no hope, unless _le bon Dieu_ should indeed work a
+miracle for them!
+
+While the boy thought over the situation with fear, his grandmother
+went to her bed, and soon afterward Delima took the little Seraphine's
+cradle into the sleeping-room. That left little Baptiste so lonely
+that he could not sit still; nor did he see any use of going to lie
+awake in bed by Andre and Odillon.
+
+So he left the cabin softly, and reaching the river with a few steps,
+pushed off his flat-bottomed boat, and was carried smartly up stream
+by the shore eddy. It soon gave him to the current, and then he
+drifted idly down under the bright moon, listening to the roar of the
+long rapid, near the foot of which their cabin stood. Then he took to
+his oars, and rowed to the end of his night-line, tied to the wharf.
+He had an unusual fear that it might be gone, but found it all right,
+stretched taut; a slender rope, four hundred feet long, floated here
+and there far away in the darkness by flat cedar sticks,--a rope
+carrying short bits of line, and forty hooks, all loaded with
+excellent fat, wriggling worms.
+
+That day little Baptiste had taken much trouble with his night-line;
+he was proud of the plentiful bait, and now, as he felt the tightened
+rope with his fingers, he told himself that his well-filled hooks
+_must_ attract plenty of fish,--perhaps a sturgeon! Wouldn't that be
+grand? A big sturgeon of seventy-five pounds!
+
+He pondered the Ottawa statement that "there are seven kinds of meat
+on the head of a sturgeon," and, enumerating the kinds, fell into a
+conviction that one sturgeon at least would surely come to his line.
+Had not three been caught in one night by Pierre Mallette, who had no
+sort of claim, who was too lazy to bait more than half his hooks,
+altogether too wicked to receive any special favors from _le bon
+Dieu_?
+
+Little Baptiste rowed home, entered the cabin softly, and stripped for
+bed, almost happy in guessing what the big fish would probably weigh.
+
+Putting his arms around little Andre, he tried to go to sleep; but the
+threats of Conolly came to him with new force, and he lay awake, with
+a heavy dread in his heart.
+
+How long he had been lying thus he did not know, when a heavy step
+came upon the plank outside the door.
+
+"Father's home!" cried little Baptiste, springing to the floor as the
+door opened.
+
+"Baptiste! my own Baptiste!" cried Delima, putting her arms around her
+husband as he stood over her.
+
+"Did I not say," said the old woman, seizing her son's hand, "that the
+good God would send help in time?"
+
+Little Baptiste lit the lamp. Then they saw something in the father's
+face that startled them all. He had not spoken, and now they perceived
+that he was haggard, pale, wild-eyed.
+
+"The good God!" cried big Baptiste, and knelt by the bed, and bowed
+his head on his arms, and wept so loudly that little Andre and
+Odillon, wakening, joined his cry. "_Le bon Dieu_ has forgotten us!
+For all my winter's work I have not one dollar! The concern is failed.
+Rewbell paid not one cent of wages, but ran away, and the timber has
+been seized."
+
+Oh, the heartbreak! Oh, poor Delima! poor children! and poor little
+Baptiste, with the threats of Conolly rending his heart!
+
+"I have walked all day," said the father, "and eaten not a thing.
+Give me something, Delima."
+
+"O holy angels!" cried the poor woman, breaking into a wild weeping.
+"O Baptiste, Baptiste, my poor man! There is nothing; not a scrap; not
+any flour, not meal, not grease even; not a pinch of tea!" but still
+she searched frantically about the rooms.
+
+"Never mind," said big Baptiste then, holding her in his strong arms.
+"I am not so hungry as tired, Delima, and I can sleep."
+
+The old woman, who had been swaying to and fro in her chair of rushes,
+rose now, and laid her aged hands on the broad shoulders of the man.
+
+"My son Baptiste," she said, "you must not say that God has forgotten
+us, for He has not forgotten us. The hunger is hard to bear, I
+know,--hard, hard to bear; but great plenty will be sent in answer to
+our prayers. And it is hard, hard to lose thy long winter's work; but
+be patient, my son, and thankful, yes, thankful for all thou hast."
+
+"Behold, Delima is well and strong. See the little Baptiste, how much
+a man! Yes, that is right; kiss the little Andre and Odillon; and see!
+how sweetly 'Toinette sleeps! All strong and well, son Baptiste! Were
+one gone, think what thou wouldst have lost! But instead, be thankful,
+for behold, another has been given,--the little Seraphine here, that
+thou hast not before seen!"
+
+Big, rough, soft-hearted Baptiste knelt by the cradle, and kissed the
+babe gently.
+
+"It is true, _Memere_," he answered, "and I thank _le bon Dieu_ for
+his goodness to me."
+
+But little Baptiste, lying wide awake for hours afterwards, was not
+thankful. He could not see that matters could be much worse. A big
+hard lump was in his throat as he thought of his father's hunger, and
+the home-coming so different from what they had fondly counted on.
+Great slow tears came into the boy's eyes, and he wiped them away,
+ashamed even in the dark to have been guilty of such weakness.
+
+In the gray dawn little Baptiste suddenly awoke, with the sensation of
+having slept on his post. How heavy his heart was! Why? He sat dazed
+with indefinite sorrow. Ah, now he remembered! Conolly threatening to
+turn them out! and his father back penniless! No breakfast! Well, we
+must see about that.
+
+Very quietly he rose, put on his patched clothes, and went out. Heavy
+mist covered the face of the river, and somehow the rapid seemed
+stilled to a deep, pervasive murmur. As he pushed his boat off, the
+morning fog was chillier than frost about him; but his heart got
+lighter as he rowed toward his night-line, and he became even eager
+for the pleasure of handling his fish. He made up his mind not to be
+much disappointed if there were no sturgeon, but could not quite
+believe there would be none; surely it was reasonable to expect _one_,
+perhaps two--why not three?--among the catfish and _dore_.
+
+How very taut and heavy the rope felt as he raised it over his
+gunwales, and letting the bow swing up stream, began pulling in the
+line hand over hand! He had heard of cases where every hook had its
+fish; such a thing might happen again surely! Yard after yard of rope
+he passed slowly over the boat, and down into the water it sank on his
+track.
+
+Now a knot on the line told him he was nearing the first hook; he
+watched for the quiver and struggle of the fish,--probably a big one,
+for there he had put a tremendous bait on and spat on it for luck,
+moreover. What? the short line hung down from the rope, and the baited
+hook rose clear of the water!
+
+Baptiste instantly made up his mind that that hook had been placed a
+little too far in-shore; he remembered thinking so before; the next
+hook was in about the right place!
+
+Hand over hand, ah! the second hook, too! Still baited, the big worm
+very livid! It must be thus because that worm was pushed up the shank
+of the hook in such a queer way: he had been rather pleased when he
+gave the bait that particular twist, and now was surprised at himself;
+why, any one could see it was a thing to scare fish!
+
+Hand over hand to the third,--the hook was naked of bait! Well, that
+was more satisfactory; it showed they had been biting, and, after all,
+this was just about the beginning of the right place.
+
+Hand over hand; _now_ the splashing will begin, thought little
+Baptiste, and out came the fourth hook with its livid worm! He held
+the rope in his hand without drawing it in for a few moments, but
+could see no reasonable objection to that last worm. His heart sank a
+little, but pshaw! only four hooks out of forty were up yet! wait till
+the eddy behind the shoal was reached, then great things would be
+seen. Maybe the fish had not been lying in that first bit of current.
+
+Hand over hand again, now! yes, certainly, _there_ is the right swirl!
+What? a _losch_, that unclean semi-lizard! The boy tore it off and
+flung it indignantly into the river. However, there was good luck in a
+_losch_; that was well known.
+
+But the next hook, and the next, and next, and next came up baited and
+fishless. He pulled hand over hand quickly--not a fish! and he must
+have gone over half the line! Little Baptiste stopped, with his heart
+like lead and his arms trembling. It was terrible! Not a fish, and his
+father had no supper, and there was no credit at the store. Poor
+little Baptiste!
+
+Again he hauled hand over hand--one hook, two, three--oh! ho!
+Glorious! What a delightful sheer downward the rope took! Surely the
+big sturgeon at last, trying to stay down on the bottom with the hook!
+But Baptiste would show that fish his mistake. He pulled, pulled,
+stood up to pull; there was a sort of shake, a sudden give of the
+rope, and little Baptiste tumbled over backward as he jerked his line
+up from under the big stone!
+
+Then he heard the shutters clattering as Conolly's clerk took them off
+the store window; at half-past five to the minute that was always
+done. Soon big Baptiste would be up, that was certain. Again the boy
+began hauling in line: baited hook! baited hook! naked hook! baited
+hook!--such was still the tale.
+
+"Surely, surely," implored little Baptiste, silently, "I shall find
+some fish!" Up! up! only four remained! The boy broke down. Could it
+be? Had he not somehow skipped many hooks? Could it be that there was
+to be no breakfast for the children? Naked hook again! Oh, for some
+fish! anything! three, two!
+
+"Oh, send just one for my father!--my poor, hungry father!" cried
+little Baptiste, and drew up his last hook. It came full baited, and
+the line was out of the water clear away to his outer buoy!
+
+He let go the rope and drifted down the river, crying as though his
+heart would break. All the good hooks useless! all the labor thrown
+away! all his self-confidence come to naught!
+
+Up rose the great sun; from around the kneeling boy drifted the last
+of the morning mists; bright beams touched his bowed head tenderly. He
+lifted his face and looked up the rapid. Then he jumped to his feet
+with sudden wonder; a great joy lit up his countenance.
+
+Far up the river a low, broad, white patch appeared on the sharp
+sky-line made by the level dark summit of the long slope of tumbling
+water. On this white patch stood many figures of swaying men black
+against the clear morning sky, and little Baptiste saw instantly that
+an attempt was being made to "run" a "band" of deals, or many cribs
+lashed together, instead of single cribs as had been done the day
+before.
+
+The broad strip of white changed its form slowly, dipped over the
+slope, drew out like a wide ribbon, and soon showed a distinct slant
+across the mighty volume of the deep raft-channel. When little
+Baptiste, acquainted as he was with every current, eddy, and shoal in
+the rapid, saw that slant, he knew that his first impression of what
+was about to happen had been correct. The pilot of the band _had_
+allowed it to drift too far north before reaching the rapid's head.
+
+Now the front cribs, instead of following the curve of the channel,
+had taken slower water, while the rear cribs, impelled by the rush
+under them, swung the band slowly across the current. All along the
+front the standing men swayed back and forth, plying sweeps full forty
+feet long, attempting to swing into channel again, with their strokes
+dashing the dark rollers before the band into wide splashes of white.
+On the rear cribs another crew pulled in the contrary direction; about
+the middle of the band stood the pilot, urging his gangs with gestures
+to greater efforts.
+
+Suddenly he made a new motion; the gang behind drew in their oars and
+ran hastily forward to double the force in front. But they came too
+late! Hardly had the doubled bow crew taken a stroke when all drew in
+their oars and ran back to be out of danger. Next moment the front
+cribs struck the "hog's-back" shoal.
+
+Then the long broad band curved downward in the centre, the rear cribs
+swung into the shallows on the opposite side of the raft-channel,
+there was a great straining and crashing, the men in front huddled
+together, watching the wreck anxiously, and the band went speedily to
+pieces. Soon a fringe of single planks came down stream, then cribs
+and pieces of cribs; half the band was drifting with the currents, and
+half was "hung up" on the rocks among the breakers.
+
+Launching the big red flat-bottomed bow boat, twenty of the raftsmen
+came with wild speed down the river, and as there had been no rush to
+get aboard, little Baptiste knew that the cribs on which the men
+stood were so hard aground that no lives were in danger. It meant much
+to him; it meant that he was instantly at liberty to gather in
+_money_! money, in sums that loomed to gigantic figures before his
+imagination.
+
+He knew that there was an important reason for hurrying the deals to
+Quebec, else the great risk of running a band at that season would not
+have been undertaken; and he knew that hard cash would be paid down as
+salvage for all planks brought ashore, and thus secured from drifting
+far and wide over the lake-like expanse below the rapid's foot. Little
+Baptiste plunged his oars in and made for a clump of deals floating in
+the eddy near his own shore. As he rushed along, the raftsmen's boat
+crossed his bows, going to the main raft below for ropes and material
+to secure the cribs coming down intact.
+
+"Good boy!" shouted the foreman to Baptiste. "Ten cents for every deal
+you fetch ashore above the raft!" Ten cents! he had expected but
+five! What a harvest!
+
+Striking his pike-pole into the clump of deals,--"fifty at least,"
+said joyful Baptiste,--he soon secured them to his boat, and then
+pulled, pulled, pulled, till the blood rushed to his head, and his
+arms ached, before he landed his wealth.
+
+"Father!" cried he, bursting breathlessly into the sleeping household.
+"Come quick! I can't get it up without you."
+
+"Big sturgeon?" cried the shantyman, jumping into his trousers.
+
+"Oh, but we shall have a good fish breakfast!" cried Delima.
+
+"Did I not say the blessed _le bon Dieu_ would send plenty fish?"
+observed _Memere_.
+
+"Not a fish!" cried little Baptiste, with recovered breath. "But look!
+look!" and he flung open the door. The eddy was now white with planks.
+
+"Ten cents for each!" cried the boy. "The foreman told me."
+
+"Ten cents!" shouted his father. "_Bapteme!_ it's my winter's wages!"
+
+And the old grandmother! And Delima? Why, they just put their arms
+round each other and cried for joy.
+
+"And yet there's no breakfast," said Delima, starting up. "And they
+will work hard, hard."
+
+At that instant who should reach the door but Monsieur Conolly! He was
+a man who respected cash wherever he found it, and already the two
+Baptistes had a fine show ashore.
+
+"Ma'ame Larocque," said Conolly, politely, putting in his head, "of
+course you know I was only joking yesterday. You can get anything you
+want at the store."
+
+What a breakfast they did have, to be sure! the Baptistes eating while
+they worked. Back and forward they dashed till late afternoon, driving
+ringed spikes into the deals, running light ropes through the rings,
+and, when a good string had thus been made, going ashore to haul in.
+At that hauling Delima and _Memere_, even little Andre and Odillon
+gave a hand.
+
+Everybody in the little hamlet made money that day, but the Larocques
+twice as much as any other family, because they had an eddy and a low
+shore. With the help of the people "the big _Bourgeois_" who owned the
+broken raft got it away that evening, and saved his fat contract after
+all.
+
+"Did I not say so?" said "_Memere_," at night, for the hundredth time.
+"Did I not say so? Yes, indeed, _le bon Dieu_ watches over us all."
+
+"Yes, indeed, grandmother," echoed little Baptiste, thinking of his
+failure on the night-line. "We may take as much trouble as we like,
+but it's no use unless _le bon Dieu_ helps us. Only--I don' know what
+de big Bourgeois say about that--his raft was all broke up so bad."
+
+"Ah, _oui_," said _Memere_, looking puzzled for but a moment. "But he
+didn't put his trust in _le bon Dieu_; that's it, for sure. Besides,
+maybe _le bon Dieu_ want to teach him a lesson; he'll not try for run
+a whole band of deals next time. You see that was a tempting of
+Providence; and then--the big Bourgeois is a Protestant."
+
+
+
+
+THE RIDE BY NIGHT.
+
+
+Mr. Adam Baines is a little Gray about the temples, but still looks so
+young that few could suppose him to have served in the Civil War.
+Indeed, he was in the army less than a year. How he went out of it he
+told me in some such words as these:--
+
+An orderly from the direction of Meade's headquarters galloped into
+our parade ground, and straight for the man on guard before the
+colonel's tent. That was pretty late in the afternoon of a bright
+March day in 1865, but the parade ground was all red mud with shallow
+pools. I remember well how the hind hoofs of the orderly's galloper
+threw away great chunks of earth as he splashed diagonally across the
+open.
+
+His rider never slowed till he brought his horse to its haunches
+before the sentry. There he flung himself off instantly, caught up his
+sabre, and ran through the middle opening of the high screen of
+sapling pines stuck on end, side by side, all around the acre or so
+occupied by the officers' quarters.
+
+The day, though sunny, was not warm, and nearly all the men of my
+regiment were in their huts when that galloping was heard. Then they
+hurried out like bees from rows of hives, ran up the lanes between the
+lines of huts, and collected, each company separately, on the edge of
+the parade ground opposite the officers' quarters.
+
+You see we had a notion that the orderly had brought the word to break
+camp. For five months the Army of the Potomac had been in winter
+quarters, and for weeks nothing more exciting than vidette duty had
+broken the monotony of our brigade. We understood that Sheridan had
+received command of all Grant's cavalry, but did not know but the
+orderly had rushed from Sheridan himself. Yet we awaited the man's
+re-appearance with intense curiosity.
+
+Soon, instead of the orderly, out ran our first lieutenant, a small,
+wiry, long-haired man named Miller. He was in undress uniform,--just a
+blouse and trousers,--and bare-headed. Though he wore low shoes, he
+dashed through mud and water toward us, plainly in a great hurry.
+
+"Sergeant Kennedy, I want ten men at once--mounted," Miller said.
+"Choose the ten best able for a long ride, and give them the best
+horses in the company. You understand,--no matter whose the ten best
+horses are, give 'em to the ten best riders."
+
+"I understand, sir," said Kennedy.
+
+By this time half the company had started for the stables, for fully
+half considered themselves among the best riders. The lieutenant
+laughed at their eagerness.
+
+"Halt, boys!" he cried. "Sergeant, I'll pick out four myself. Come
+yourself, and bring Corporal Crowfoot, Private Bader, and Private
+Absalom Gray."
+
+Crowfoot, Bader, and Gray had been running for the stables with the
+rest. Now these three old soldiers grinned and walked, as much as to
+say, "We needn't hurry; we're picked anyhow;" while the others hurried
+on. I remained near Kennedy, for I was so young and green a soldier
+that I supposed I had no chance to go.
+
+"Hurry up! parade as soon as possible. One day's rations; light
+marching order--no blankets--fetch over-coats and ponchos," said
+Miller, turning; "and in choosing your men, favor light weights."
+
+That was, no doubt, the remark which brought me in. I was lanky,
+light, bred among horses, and one of the best in the regiment had
+fallen to my lot. Kennedy wheeled, and his eye fell on me.
+
+"Saddle up, Adam, boy," said he; "I guess you'll do."
+
+Lieutenant Miller ran back to his quarters, his long hair flying wide.
+When he reappeared fifteen minutes later, we were trotting across the
+parade ground to meet him. He was mounted, not on his own charger, but
+on the colonel's famous thorough-bred bay. Then we knew a hard ride
+must be in prospect.
+
+"What! one of the boys?" cried Miller, as he saw me. "He's too young."
+
+"He's very light, sir; tough as hickory. I guess he'll do," said
+Kennedy.
+
+"Well, no time to change now. Follow me! But, hang it, you've got your
+carbines! Oh, I forgot! Keep pistols only! throw down your sabres and
+carbines--anywhere--never mind the mud!"
+
+As we still hesitated to throw down our clean guns, he shouted: "Down
+with them--anywhere! Now, boys, after me, by twos! Trot--gallop!"
+
+Away we went, not a man jack of us knew for where or what. The colonel
+and officers, standing grouped before regimental headquarters,
+volleyed a cheer at us. It was taken up by the whole regiment; it was
+taken up by the brigade; it was repeated by regiment after regiment of
+infantry as we galloped through the great camp toward the left front
+of the army. The speed at which Miller led over a rough corduroy road
+was extraordinary, and all the men suspected some desperate enterprise
+afoot.
+
+Red and brazen was the set of the sun. I remember it well, after we
+got clear of the forts, clear of the breastworks, clear of the
+reserves, down the long slope and across the wide ford of Grimthorpe's
+Creek, never drawing rein.
+
+The lieutenant led by ten yards or so. He had ordered each two to take
+as much distance from the other two in advance; but we rode so fast
+that the water from the heels of his horse and from the heels of each
+two splashed into the faces of the following men.
+
+From the ford we loped up a hill, and passed the most advanced
+infantry pickets, who laughed and chaffed us, asking us for locks of
+our hair, and if our mothers knew we were out, and promising to report
+our last words faithfully to the folks at home.
+
+Soon we turned to the left again, swept close by several cavalry
+videttes, and knew then that we were bound for a ride through a
+country that might or might not be within Lee's outer lines, at that
+time extended so thinly in many places that his pickets were far out
+of touch with one another. To this day I do not know precisely where
+we went, nor precisely what for. Soldiers are seldom informed of the
+meaning of their movements.
+
+What I do know is what we did while I was in the ride. As we were
+approaching dense pine woods the lieutenant turned in his saddle,
+slacked pace a little, and shouted, "Boys, bunch up near me!"
+
+He screwed round in his saddle so far that we could all see and hear,
+and said:--
+
+"Boys, the order is to follow this road as fast as we can till our
+horses drop, or else the Johnnies drop us, or else we drop upon three
+brigades of our own infantry. I guess they've got astray somehow; but
+I don't know myself what the trouble is. Our orders are plain. The
+brigades are supposed to be somewhere on this road. I guess we shall
+do a big thing if we reach those men to-night. All we've got to do is
+to ride and deliver this despatch to the general in command. You all
+understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Yes, sir!"
+
+"It's necessary you all should. Hark, now! We are not likely to strike
+the enemy in force, but we are likely to run up against small parties.
+Now, Kennedy, if they down me, you are to stop just long enough to
+grab the despatch from my breast; then away you go,--always on the
+main road. If they down you after you've got the paper, the man who
+can grab it first is to take it and hurry forward. So on right to the
+last man. If they down him, and he's got his senses when he falls,
+he's to tear the paper up, and scatter it as widely as he can. You all
+understand?"
+
+"Yes, sir! Yes, sir!"
+
+"All right, then. String out again!"
+
+He touched the big bay with the spur, and shot quickly ahead.
+
+With the long rest of the winter our horses were in prime spirits,
+though mostly a little too fleshy for perfect condition. I had cared
+well for my horse; he was fast and sound in wind and limb. I was
+certainly the lightest rider of the eleven.
+
+I was still thinking of the probability that I should get further on
+the way than any comrade except the lieutenant, or perhaps Crowfoot
+and Bader, whose horses were in great shape; I was thinking myself
+likely to win promotion before morning, when a cry came out of the
+darkness ahead. The words of the challenge I was not able to catch,
+but I heard Miller shout, "Forward, boys!"
+
+We shook out more speed just as a rifle spat its long flash at us from
+about a hundred yards ahead. For one moment I plainly saw the
+Southerner's figure. Kennedy reeled beside me, flung up his hands with
+a scream, and fell. His horse stopped at once. In a moment the
+lieutenant had ridden the sentry down.
+
+Then from the right side of the road a party, who must have been lying
+round the camp-fire that we faintly saw in among the pines, let fly at
+us. They had surely been surprised in their sleep. I clearly saw them
+as their guns flashed.
+
+"Forward! Don't shoot! Ride on," shouted Miller. "Bushwhackers! Thank
+God, not mounted! Any of you make out horses with them?"
+
+"No, sir! No, sir!"
+
+"Who yelled? who went down?"
+
+"Kennedy, sir," I cried.
+
+"Too bad! Any one else?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"All safe?"
+
+"I'm touched in my right arm; but it's nothing," I said. The twinge
+was slight, and in the fleshy place in front of my shoulder. I could
+not make out that I was losing blood, and the pain from the hurt was
+scarcely perceptible.
+
+"Good boy! Keep up, Adam!" called the lieutenant with a kind tone. I
+remember my delight that he spoke my front name. On we flew.
+
+Possibly the shots had been heard by the party half a mile further on,
+for they greeted us with a volley. A horse coughed hard and pitched
+down behind me. His rider yelled as he fell. Then two more shots came:
+Crowfoot reeled in front of me, and somehow checked his horse. I saw
+him no more. Next moment we were upon the group with our pistols.
+
+"Forward, men! Don't stop to fight!" roared Miller, as he got clear. A
+rifle was fired so close to my head that the flame burned my back
+hair, and my ears rang for half an hour or more. My bay leaped high
+and dashed down a man. In a few seconds I was fairly out of the
+scrimmage.
+
+How many of my comrades had gone down I knew not, nor beside whom I
+was riding. Suddenly our horses plunged into a hole; his stumbled, the
+man pitched forward, and was left behind. Then I heard a shot, the
+clatter of another falling horse, the angry yell of another thrown
+rider.
+
+On we went,--the relics of us. Now we rushed out of the pine forest
+into broad moonlight, and I saw two riders between me and the
+lieutenant,--one man almost at my shoulder and another galloping ten
+yards behind. Very gradually this man dropped to the rear. We had lost
+five men already, and still the night was young.
+
+Bader and Absalom Gray were nearest me. Neither spoke a word till we
+struck upon a space of sandy road. Then I could hear, far behind the
+rear man, a sound of galloping on the hard highway.
+
+"They're after us, lieutenant!" shouted Bader.
+
+"Many?" He slacked speed, and we listened attentively.
+
+"Only one," cried Miller. "He's coming fast."
+
+The pursuer gained so rapidly that we looked to our pistols again.
+Then Absalom Gray cried:
+
+"It's only a horse!"
+
+In a few moments the great gray of fallen Corporal Crowfoot overtook
+us, went ahead, and slacked speed by the lieutenant.
+
+"Good! He'll be fresh when the rest go down!" shouted Miller. "Let the
+last man mount the gray!"
+
+By this time we had begun to think ourselves clear of the enemy, and
+doomed to race on till the horses should fall.
+
+Suddenly the hoofs of Crowfoot's gray and the lieutenant's bay
+thundered upon a plank road whose hollow noise, when we all reached
+it, should have been heard far. It took us through wide orchard lands
+into a low-lying mist by the banks of a great marsh, till we passed
+through that fog, strode heavily up a slope, and saw the shimmer of
+roofs under the moon. Straight, through the main street we pounded
+along.
+
+Whether it was wholly deserted I know not, but not a human being was
+in the streets, nor any face visible at the black windows. Not even a
+dog barked. I noticed no living thing except some turkeys roosting on
+a fence, and a white cat that sprang upon the pillar of a gateway and
+thence to a tree.
+
+Some of the houses seemed to have been ruined by a cannonade. I
+suppose it was one of the places almost destroyed in Willoughby's
+recent raid. Here we thundered, expecting ambush and conflict every
+moment, while the loneliness of the street imposed on me such a sense
+as might come of galloping through a long cemetery of the dead.
+
+Out of the village we went off the planks again upon sand. I began to
+suspect that I was losing a good deal of blood. My brain was on fire
+with whirling thoughts and wonder where all was to end. Out of this
+daze I came, in amazement to find that we were quickly overtaking our
+lieutenant's thoroughbred.
+
+Had he been hit in the fray, and bled to weakness? I only know that,
+still galloping while we gained, the famous horse lurched forward,
+almost turned a somersault, and fell on his rider.
+
+"Stop--the paper!" shouted Bader.
+
+We drew rein, turned, dismounted, and found Miller's left leg under
+the big bay's shoulder. The horse was quite dead, the rider's long
+hair lay on the sand, his face was white under the moon!
+
+We stopped long enough to extricate him, and he came to his senses
+just as we made out that his left leg was broken.
+
+"Forward!" he groaned. "What in thunder are you stopped for? Oh, the
+despatch! Here! away you go! Good-bye."
+
+In attending to Miller we had forgotten the rider who had been long
+gradually dropping behind. Now as we galloped away,--Bader, Absalom
+Gray, myself, and Crowfoot's riderless horse,--I looked behind for
+that comrade; but he was not to be seen or heard. We three were left
+of the eleven.
+
+From the loss of so many comrades the importance of our mission seemed
+huge. With the speed, the noise, the deaths, the strangeness of the
+gallop through that forsaken village, the wonder how all would end,
+the increasing belief that thousands of lives depended on our success,
+and the longing to win, my brain was wild. A raging desire to be first
+held me, and I galloped as if in a dream.
+
+Bader led; the riderless gray thundered beside him; Absalom rode
+stirrup to stirrup with me. He was a veteran of the whole war. Where
+it was that his sorrel rolled over I do not remember at all, though I
+perfectly remember how Absalom sprang up, staggered, shouted, "My
+foot is sprained!" and fell as I turned to look at him and went racing
+on.
+
+Then I heard above the sound of our hoofs the voice of the veteran of
+the war. Down as he was, his spirit was unbroken. In the favorite song
+of the army his voice rose clear and gay and piercing:--
+
+"Hurrah for the Union!
+Hurrah, boys, hurrah!
+Shouting the battle-cry of freedom!"
+
+We turned our heads and cheered him as we flew, for there was
+something indescribably inspiriting in the gallant and cheerful lilt
+of the fallen man. It was as if he flung us, from the grief of utter
+defeat, a soul unconquerable; and I felt the life in me strengthened
+by the tone.
+
+Old Bader and I for it! He led by a hundred yards, and Crowfoot's gray
+kept his stride. Was I gaining on them? How was it that I could see
+his figure outlined more clearly against the horizon? Surely dawn was
+not coming on!
+
+No; I looked round on a world of naked peach-orchards, and corn-fields
+ragged with last year's stalks, all dimly lit by a moon that showed
+far from midnight; and that faint light on the horizon was not in the
+east, but in the west. The truth flashed on me,--I was looking at such
+an illumination of the sky as would be caused by the camp-fires of an
+army.
+
+"The missing brigade!" I shouted.
+
+"Or a Southern division!" Bader cried. "Come on!"
+
+"Come on!" I was certainly gaining on him, but very slowly. Before the
+nose of my bay was beyond the tail of his roan, the wide illuminations
+had become more distinct; and still not a vidette, not a picket, not a
+sound of the proximity of an army.
+
+Bader and I now rode side by side, and Crowfoot's gray easily kept the
+pace. My horse was in plain distress, but Bader's was nearly done.
+
+"Take the paper, Adam," he said; "my roan won't go much further.
+Good-bye, youngster. Away you go!" and I drew now quickly ahead.
+
+Still Bader rode on behind me. In a few minutes he was considerably
+behind. Perhaps the sense of being alone increased my feeling of
+weakness. Was I going to reel out of the saddle? Had I lost so much
+blood as that? Still I could hear Bader riding on. I turned to look at
+him. Already he was scarcely visible. Soon he dropped out of sight;
+but still I heard the laborious pounding of his desperate horse.
+
+My bay was gasping horribly. How far was that faintly yellow sky
+ahead? It might be two, it might be five miles. Were Union or Southern
+soldiers beneath it? Could it be conceived that no troops of the enemy
+were between me and it?
+
+Never mind; my orders were clear. I rode straight on, and I was still
+riding straight on, marking no increase in the distress of my bay,
+when he stopped as if shot, staggered, fell on his knees, tried to
+rise, rolled to his side, groaned and lay.
+
+I was so weak I could not clear myself. I remember my right spur
+catching in my saddle-cloth as I tried to free my foot; then I pitched
+forward and fell. Not yet senseless, I clutched at my breast for the
+despatch, meaning to tear it to pieces; but there my brain failed, and
+in full view of the goal of the night I lay unconscious.
+
+When I came to, I rose on my left elbow, and looked around. Near my
+feet my poor bay lay, stone dead. Crowfoot's gray!--where was
+Crowfoot's gray? It flashed on me that I might mount the fresh horse
+and ride on. But where was the gray? As I peered round I heard faintly
+the sound of a galloper. Was he coming my way? No; faintly and more
+faintly I heard the hoofs.
+
+Had the gray gone on then, without the despatch? I clutched at my
+breast. My coat was unbuttoned--the paper was gone!
+
+Well, sir, I cheered. My God! but it was comforting to hear those
+far-away hoofs, and know that Bader must have come up, taken the
+papers, and mounted Crowfoot's gray, still good for a ten-mile ride!
+The despatch was gone forward; we had not all fallen in vain; maybe
+the brigades would be saved!
+
+How purely the stars shone! When I stifled my groaning they seemed to
+tell me of a great peace to come. How still was the night! and I
+thought of the silence of the multitudes who had died for the Union.
+
+Now the galloping had quite died away. There was not a sound,--a
+slight breeze blew, but there were no leaves to rustle. I put my head
+down on the neck of my dead horse. Extreme fatigue was benumbing the
+pain of my now swelling arm; perhaps sleep was near, perhaps I was
+swooning.
+
+But a sound came that somewhat revived me. Far, low, joyful, it crept
+on the air. I sat up, wide awake. The sound, at first faint, died as
+the little breeze fell, then grew in the lull, and came ever more
+clearly as the wind arose. It was a sound never to be forgotten,--the
+sound of the distant cheering of thousands of men.
+
+Then I knew that Bader had galloped into the Union lines, delivered
+the despatch, and told a story which had quickly passed through
+wakeful brigades.
+
+Bader I never saw again, nor Lieutenant Miller, nor any man with whom
+I rode that night. When I came to my senses I was in hospital at City
+Point. Thence I went home invalided. No surgeon, no nurse, no soldier
+at the hospital could tell me of my regiment, or how or why I was
+where I was. All they could tell me was that Richmond was taken, the
+army far away in pursuit of Lee, and a rumor flying that the great
+commander of the South had surrendered near Appomattox Court House.
+
+
+
+
+"DRAFTED."
+
+
+Harry Wallbridge, awaking with a sense of some alarming sound,
+listened intently in the darkness, seeing overhead the canvas roof
+faintly outlined, the darker stretch of its ridge-pole, its two thin
+slanting rafters, and the gable ends of the winter hut. He could not
+hear the small, fine drizzle from an atmosphere surcharged with water,
+nor anything but the drip from canvas to trench, the rustling of hay
+bunched beneath his head, the regular breathing of his "buddy,"
+Corporal Bader, and the stamping of horses in stables. But when a
+soldier in a neighboring tent called indistinguishably in the accents
+of nightmare, Bader's breathing quieted, and in the lull Harry fancied
+the soaked air weighted faintly with steady picket-firing. A month
+with the 53d Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteer Cavalry had not quite
+disabused the young recruit of his schoolboy belief that the men of
+the Army of the Potomac must live constantly within sound of the
+out-posts.
+
+Harry sat up to hearken better, and then concluded that he had
+mistaken for musketry the crackle of haystalks under his poncho sheet.
+Beneath him the round poles of his bed sagged as he drew up his knees
+and gathered about his shoulders the gray blanket damp from the spray
+of heavy rain against the canvas earlier in the night. Soon, with slow
+dawn's approach, he could make out the dull white of his carbine and
+sabre against the mud-plastered chimney. In that drear dimness the boy
+shivered, with a sense of misery rather than from cold, and yearned as
+only sleepy youth can for the ease of a true bed and dry warm swooning
+to slumber. He was sustained by no mature sense that this too would
+pass; it was with a certain bodily despair that he felt chafed and
+compressed by his rough garments, and pitied himself, thinking how his
+mother would cry if she could see him crouched so wretchedly that wet
+March morning, pressed all the more into loneliness by the regular
+breathing of veteran Bader in the indifference of deep sleep.
+
+Harry's vision of his mother coming into his room, shading her candle
+with her hand to see if he were asleep, passed away as a small gust
+came, shaking the canvas, for he was instantly alert with a certainty
+that the breeze had borne a strong rolling of musketry.
+
+"Bader, Bader!" he said. "Bader!"
+
+"Can't you shut up, you Wallbridge?" came Orderly Sergeant Gravely's
+sharp tones from the next tent.
+
+"What's wrong with you, Harry, boy?" asked Bader, turning.
+
+"I thought I heard heavy firing closer than the picket lines; twice
+now I've thought I heard it."
+
+"Oh, I guess not, Harry. The Johnnies won't come out no such night as
+this. Keep quiet, or you'll have the sergeant on top of you. Better
+lie down and try to sleep, buddy; the bugles will call morning soon
+now."
+
+Again Harry fell to his revery of home, and his vision became that of
+the special evening on which his boyish wish to go to the war had, for
+the family's sake, become resolve. He saw his mother's spectacled and
+lamp-lit face as she, leaning to the table, read in the familiar
+Bible; little Fred and Mary, also facing the table's central lamp,
+bent sleepy heads over their school-books; the father sat in the
+rocking-chair, with his right hand on the paper he had laid down, and
+gazed gloomily at the coals fallen below the front doors of the
+wood-burning stove. Harry dreamed himself back in his own chair,
+looking askance, and feeling sure his father was inwardly groaning
+over the absence of Jack, the eldest son. Then nine o'clock struck,
+and Fred and Mary began to put their books away in preparation for
+bed.
+
+"Wait a little, children," Mrs. Wallbridge said, serene in tone from
+her devotional reading. "Father wants that I should tell you
+something. You mustn't feel bad about it. It's that we may soon go out
+West. Your Uncle Ezra is doing well in Minnesota. Aunt Elvira says so
+in her letter that came to-day."
+
+"It's this way, children," said Mr. Wallbridge, ready to explain, now
+that the subject was opened. "Since ever your brother Jack went away
+South, the store expenses have been too heavy. It's near five years
+now he's been gone. There's a sheaf of notes coming due the third of
+next month; twice they've been renewed, and the Philadelphia men say
+they'll close me up this time sure. If I had eight hundred
+dollars--but it's no use talking; we'll just have to let them take
+what we've got. Times have been bad right along around here, anyhow,
+with new competition, and so many farmers gone to the war, and more
+gone West. If Jack had stopped to home--but I've had to pay two
+clerks to do his work, and then they don't take any interest in the
+business. Mind, I'm not blaming Jack, poor fellow,--he'd a right to go
+where he'd get more'n his keep, and be able to lay up something for
+himself,--but what's become of him, God knows; and such a smart, good
+boy as he was! He'd got fond of New Orleans,--I guess some nice girl
+there, maybe, was the reason; and there he'd stay after the war began,
+and now it's two years and more since we've heard from him. Dead,
+maybe, or maybe they'd put him in jail, for he said he'd never join
+the Confederates, nor fight against them either--he felt that
+way--North and South was all the same to him. And so he's gone; and I
+don't see my way now at all. Ma, if it wasn't for my lame leg, I'd
+take the bounty. It'd be _something_ for you and the children after
+the store's gone."
+
+"Sho, pa! don't talk that way! You're too down-hearted. It'll all come
+right, with the Lord's help," said Harry's mother. How clearly he, in
+the damp cold tent, could see her kind looks as she pushed up her
+spectacles and beamed on her husband; how distinctly, in the still dim
+dawn, he heard her soothing tones!
+
+It was that evening's talk which had sent Harry, so young, to the
+front. Three village boys, little older than he, had already contrived
+to enlist. Every time he saw the Flag drooping, he thought shame of
+himself to be absent from the ranks of its upholders; and now, just as
+he was believing himself big and old enough to serve, he conceived
+that duty to his parents distinctly enjoined him to go. So in the
+night, without leave-taking or consent of his parents, he departed.
+The combined Federal, State, and city bounties offered at Philadelphia
+amounted to nine hundred dollars cash that dreadful winter before
+Richmond fell, and Harry sent the money home triumphantly in time to
+pay his father's notes and save the store.
+
+While the young soldier thought it all over, carbine and sabre came
+out more and more distinctly outlined above the mud-plastered
+fireplace. The drizzle had ceased, the drip into the trench was almost
+finished, intense stillness ruled; Harry half expected to hear cocks
+crow from out such silence.
+
+Listening for them, his dreamy mind brooded over both hosts, in a
+vision even as wide as the vast spread of the Republic in which they
+lay as two huddles of miserable men. For what were they all about him
+this woful, wet night? they all fain, as he, for home and industry and
+comfort. What delusion held them? How could it be that they could not
+all march away and separate, and the cruel war be over? Harry caught
+his breath at the idea,--it seemed so natural, simple, easy, and good
+a solution. Becoming absorbed in the fancy, tired of listening, and
+soothed by the silence, he was falling asleep as he sat, when a heavy
+weight seemed to fall, far away. Another--another--the fourth had the
+rumble of distant thunder, and seemed followed by a concussion of the
+air.
+
+"Hey--Big Guns! What's up toward City Point?" cried Bader, sitting up.
+"I tell you they're at it. It can't be so far away as Butler. What? On
+the left too! That was toward Hatcher's Run! Harry, the rebs are out
+in earnest! I guess you did hear the pickets trying to stop 'em. What
+a morning! Ha--Fort Hell! see that!"
+
+The outside world was dimly lighted up for a moment. In the
+intensified darkness that followed Bader's voice was drowned by the
+crash of a great gun from the neighboring fort. _Flash, crash--flash,
+crash--flash, crash_ succeeded rapidly. Then the intervals of Fort
+Hell's fire lengthened to the regular periods for loading, and between
+her roars were heard the sullen boom of more distant guns, while
+through all the tumult ran a fierce undertone,--the infernal hurrying
+of musketry along the immediate front.
+
+"The Johnnies must have got in close somehow," cried Bader. "Hey,
+Sergeant?"
+
+"Yes," shouted Gravely. "Scooped up the pickets and supports too in
+the rain, I guess. Turn out, boys, turn out! there'll be a wild day.
+Kid! Where's the Kid? Kid Sylvester!"
+
+"Here! All right, Barney; I'll be out in two shakes," shouted the
+bugler.
+
+"Hurry, then! I can hear the Colonel shouting already. Man, listen to
+that!"--as four of Fort Hell's guns crashed almost simultaneously.
+"Brownie! Greasy Cook! O Brownie!"
+
+"Here!" shouted the cook.
+
+"Get your fire started right away, and see what salt horse and biscuit
+you can scare up. Maybe we'll have time for a snack."
+
+"Turn out, Company K!" shouted Lieutenant Bradley, running down from
+the officers' quarters. "Where's the commissary sergeant? There?--all
+right--give out feed right away! Get your oats, men, and feed
+instantly! We may have time. Hullo! here's the General's orderly."
+
+As the trooper galloped, in a mud-storm, across the parade ground, a
+group of officers ran out behind the Colonel from the screen of pine
+saplings about Regimental Headquarters. The orderly gave the Colonel
+but a word, and, wheeling, was off again as "Boot and saddle" blared
+from the buglers, who had now assembled on parade.
+
+"But leave the bits out--let your horses feed!" cried the Lieutenant,
+running down again. "We're not to march till further orders."
+
+Beyond the screen of pines Harry could see the tall canvas ridges of
+the officers' cabins lighted up. Now all the tents of the regiment,
+row behind row, were faintly luminous, and the renewed drizzle of the
+dawn was a little lightened in every direction by the canvas-hidden
+candles of infantry regiments, the glare of numerous fires already
+started, and sparks showering up from the cook-houses of company after
+company.
+
+Soon in the cloudy sky the cannonade rolled about in broad day, which
+was still so gray that long wide flashes of flame could be seen to
+spring far out before every report from the guns of Fort Hell, and in
+the haze but few of the rebel shells shrieking along their high curve
+could be clearly seen bursting over Hancock's cheering men.
+Indistinguishably blent were the sounds of hosts on the move,
+field-guns pounding to the front, troops shouting, the clink and
+rattle of metal, officers calling, bugles blaring, drums rolling,
+mules screaming,--all heard as a running accompaniment to the cannon
+heavily punctuating the multitudinous din.
+
+"Fwat sinse in the ould man bodderin' us?" grumbled Corporal Kennedy,
+a tall Fenian dragoon from the British army. "Sure, ain't it as plain
+as the sun--and faith the same's not plain this dirthy mornin'--that
+there's no work for cavalry the day, barrin' it's escortin' the
+doughboys' prisoners, if they take any?--bad 'cess to the job. Sure
+it's an infantry fight, and must be, wid the field-guns helpin', and
+the siege pieces boomin' away over the throops in the mud betwigst
+our own breastworks and the inner line of our forts.
+
+"Oh, by this and by that," the corporal grumbled on, "ould Lee's not
+the gintleman I tuk him for at all, at all,--discomfortin' us in the
+rain,--and yesterday an illigant day for fightin'. Couldn't he wait,
+like the dacint ould boy he's reported, for a dhry mornin', instead av
+turnin' his byes out in the shlush and destroyin' me chanst av
+breakfast? It's spring chickens I'd ordhered."
+
+"You may get up to spring-chicken country soon, now," said Bader. "I'm
+thinking this is near the end; it's the last assault that Lee will
+ever deliver."
+
+"Faith, I dunno," said the corporal; "that's what we've been saying
+sinst last fall, but the shtay of them Johnnies bates Banagher and the
+prophets. Hoo--ow! by the powers! did you hear them yell? Fwat? The
+saints be wid us! who'd 'a' thought it possible? Byes! Bader! Harry!
+luk at the Johnnies swarmin' up the face of Hell!"
+
+Off there Harry could dimly see, rising over the near horizon made by
+tents, a straggling rush of men up the steep slope, while the rebel
+yell came shrill from a multitude behind on the level ground that was
+hidden from the place occupied by the cavalry regiment. In the next
+moment the force mounting Fort Hell's slope fell away, some lying
+where shot down, some rolling, some running and stumbling in heaps;
+then a tremendous musketry and field-gun fire growled to and fro under
+the heavy smoke round and about and out in front of the embrasures,
+which had never ceased their regular discharge over the heads of the
+fort's defenders and immediate assailants.
+
+Suddenly Harry noted a slackening of the battle; it gradually but soon
+dropped away to nothing, and now no sound of small-arms in any
+direction was heard in the lengthening intervals of reports from the
+siege pieces far and near.
+
+"And so that's the end of it," said Kennedy. "Sure it was hot work for
+a while! Faix, I thought onct the doughboys was nappin' too long, and
+ould Hell would be bullyin' away at ourselves. Now, thin, can we have
+a bite in paice? I'll shtart wid a few sausages, Brownie, and you may
+send in the shpring chickens wid some oyshters the second coorse. No!
+Oh, by the powers, 'tis too mane to lose a breakfast like that!" and
+Corporal Kennedy shook his fist at the group of buglers calling the
+regiment to parade.
+
+In ten minutes the Fifty-third had formed in column of companies. "Old
+Jimmy," their Colonel, had galloped down at them and once along their
+front; then the command, forming fours from the right front, moved off
+at a trot through the mud in long procession.
+
+"Didn't I know it?" said Kennedy; "it's escortin' the doughboys'
+prisoners, that's all we're good for this outrageous day. Oh, wirra,
+wirrasthru! Police duty! and this calls itself a cavalry rigiment.
+Mounted Police duty,--escortin' doughboys' prisoners! Faix, I might as
+well be wid Her Majesty's dhragoons, thramplin' down the flesh and
+blood of me in poor ould Oireland. Begor, Harry, me bhy, it's a mane
+job to be setting you at, and this the first day ye're mounted to save
+the Union!"
+
+"Stop coddin' the boy, Corporal," said Bader, angrily. "You can't
+think how an American boy feels about this war."
+
+"An Amerikin!--an Amerikin, is it? Let me insthruct ye thin, Misther
+Bader, that I'm as good an Amerikin as the next man. Och, be jabers,
+me that's been in the color you see ever since the Prisident first
+called for men! It was for a three months' dance he axed us first. Me,
+that's re-enlishted twice, don't know the feelin's of an Amerikin!
+What am I here for? Not poverty! sure I'd enough of that before ever I
+seen Ameriky! What am I wallopin' through the mud for this mornin'?"
+
+"It's your trade, Kennedy," said Bader, with disgust.
+
+"Be damned to you, man!" said the corporal, sternly. "When I touched
+fut in New York, didn't I swear that I'd never dhraw swoord more,
+barrin' it was agin the ould red tyrant and oprissor of me counthry?
+Wasn't I glad to be dhrivin' me own hack next year in Philamedink like
+a gintleman? Oh, the paice and the indipindence of it! But what cud I
+do when the counthry that tuk me and was good to me wanted an ould
+dhragoon? An Amerikin, ye say! Faith, the heart of me is Amerikin, if
+I'm a bog throtter by the tongue. Mind that now, me bould man!"
+
+Harry heard without heeding as the horses spattered on. Still wavered
+in his ears the sounds of the dawn; still he saw the ghostlike forms
+of Americans in gray tumbling back from their rush against the sacred
+flag that had drooped so sadly over the smoke; and still, far away
+beyond all this puddled and cumbered ground the dreamy boy saw
+millions of white American faces, all haggard for news of the
+armies--some looking South, some North, yearning for the Peace that
+had so long ago been the boon of the Nation.
+
+Now the regiment was upon the red clay of the dead fight, and brought
+to halt in open columns. After a little they moved off again in fours,
+and, dropping into single file, surrounded some thousands of disarmed
+men, the remnant of the desperate brigades that Lee had flung through
+the night across three lines of breastworks at the great fort they had
+so nearly stormed. Poor drenched, shivering Johnnies! there they
+stood, not a few of them in blue overcoats, but mostly in butternut,
+generally tattered; some barefoot, some with feet bound in ragged
+sections of blanket, many with toes and skin showing through crazy
+boots lashed on with strips of cotton or with cord; many stoutly on
+foot, streaming blood from head wounds.
+
+Some lay groaning in the mud, while their comrades helped Union
+surgeons to bind or amputate. Here and there groups huddled together
+in earnest talk, or listened to comrades gesticulating and storming as
+they recounted incidents of the long charge. But far the greater
+number faced outward, at gaze upon the cavalry guard, and, silently
+munching thick flat cakes of corn-bread, stared into the faces of the
+horsemen. Harry Wallbridge, brought to the halt, faced half-round in
+the saddle, and looked with quick beatings of pity far and wide over
+the disorderly crowd of weather-worn men.
+
+"It's a Louisiana brigade," said Bader.
+
+"Fifty-three, P. V. V. C.," spoke a prisoner, as if in reply, reading
+the letters about the little crossed brass sabres on the Union hats.
+"Say, you men from Pennsylvany?"
+
+"Yes, Johnny; we come down to wake up Dixie."
+
+"I reckon we got the start at wakin' you this mornin'," drawled the
+Southerner. "But say,--there's one of our boys lyin' dyin' over
+yonder; his folks lives in Pennsylvany. Mebbe some of you 'ud know
+'em."
+
+"What's his name?" asked Bader.
+
+"Wallbridge--Johnny Wallbridge."
+
+"Why, Harry--hold on!--you ain't the only Wallbridges there is. What's
+up?" cried Bader, as the boy half reeled, half clambered from his
+saddle.
+
+"Hold on, Harry!" cried Corporal Kennedy.
+
+"Halt there, Wallbridge!" shouted Sergeant Gravely.
+
+"Stop that man!" roared Lieutenant Bradley.
+
+But, calling, "He's my brother!" Harry, catching up his sabre as he
+ran, followed the Southerner, who had instantly divined the situation.
+The forlorn prisoners made ready way for them, and closing in behind,
+stretched in solid array about the scene.
+
+"It's not Jack," said the boy; but something in the look of the dying
+man drew him on to kneel in the mud. "Is it _you_, Jack? Oh, now I
+know you! Jack, I'm Harry! don't you know me? I'm Harry--your brother
+Harry."
+
+The Southern soldier stared rigidly at the boy, seeming to grow paler
+with the recollections that he struggled for.
+
+"_What's_ your name?" he asked very faintly.
+
+"Harry Wallbridge--I'm your brother."
+
+"Harry Wallbridge! Why, I'm _John_ Wallbridge. Did you say Harry? _Not
+Harry!_" he shrieked hoarsely. "No; Harry's only a little fellow!" He
+paused, and looked meditatively into the boy's eyes. "It's nearly five
+years I've been gone,--he was near twelve then. Boys," lifting his
+head painfully and casting his look slowly round upon his comrades, "I
+know him by the eyes; yes, he's my brother! Let me speak to him
+alone--stand back a bit," and at once the men pushed backward into the
+form of a wide circle.
+
+"Put down your head, Harry. Kiss me! Kiss me again!--how's mother? Ah,
+I was afraid she might be dead--don't tell her I'm dead, Harry." He
+groaned with the pain of the groin wound. "Closer, Harry; I've got to
+tell you this first--maybe it's all I've time to tell. Say,
+Harry,"--he began to gasp,--"they didn't ought to have killed me, the
+Union soldiers didn't. I never fired--high enough--all these years.
+They drafted me, Harry--tell mother that--down in New Orleans--and
+I--couldn't get away. Ai--ai! how it hurts! I must die soon 's I can
+tell you. I wanted to come home--and help father--how's poor father,
+Harry? Doing well now? Oh. I'm glad of that--and the baby? there's a
+new baby! Ah, yes, I'll never see it, Harry."
+
+His eyes closed, the pain seemed to leave him, and he lay almost
+smiling happily as his brother's tears fell on his muddy and
+blood-clotted face. As if from a trance his eyes opened, and he spoke
+anxiously but calmly.
+
+"You'll be sure to tell them I was drafted--conscripted, you
+understand. And I never fired at any of us--of you--tell all the boys
+_that_." Again the flame of life went down, and again flickered up in
+pain.
+
+"Harry--you'll stay by father--and help him, won't you? This cruel
+war--is almost over. Don't cry. Kiss me. Say--do you remember--the old
+times we had--fishing? Kiss me again, Harry--brother in blue--you're
+on--_my_ side. Oh I wish--I had time--to tell you. Come close--put
+your arms around--my neck--it's old times--again." And now the wound
+tortured him for a while beyond speech. "You're with me, aren't you,
+Harry?
+
+"Well, there's this," he gasped on, "about my chums--they've been as
+good and kind--marching, us, all wet and cold together--and it wasn't
+their fault. If they had known--how I wanted--to be shot--for the
+Union! It was so hard--to be--on the wrong side! But--"
+
+He lifted his head and stared wildly at his brother, screamed rapidly,
+as if summoning all his life for the effort to explain, "Drafted,
+_drafted, drafted_--Harry, tell mother and father _that_. I was
+_drafted_. O God, O God, what suffering! Both sides--I was on both
+sides all the time. I loved them all, North and South, all,--but the
+Union most. O God, it was so hard!"
+
+His head fell back, his eyes closed, and Harry thought it was the end.
+But once more Jack opened his blue eyes, and slowly said in a steady,
+clear, anxious voice, "Mind you tell them I never fired high enough!"
+Then he lay still in Harry's arms, breathing fainter and fainter till
+no motion was on his lips, nor in his heart, nor any tremor in the
+hands that lay in the hand of his brother in blue.
+
+"Come, Harry," said Bader, stooping tenderly to the boy, "the order is
+to march. He's past helping now. It's no use; you must leave him here
+to God. Come, boy, the head of the column is moving already."
+
+Mounting his horse, Harry looked across to Jack's form. For the first
+time in two years the famous Louisiana brigade trudged on without
+their unwilling comrade. There he lay, alone, in the Union lines,
+under the rain, his marching done, a figure of eternal peace; while
+Harry, looking backward till he could no longer distinguish his
+brother from the clay of the field, rode dumbly on and on beside the
+downcast procession of men in gray.
+
+
+
+
+A TURKEY APIECE.
+
+
+Not long ago I was searching files of New York papers for 1864, when
+my eye caught the headline, "Thanksgiving Dinner for the Army." I had
+shared that feast. The words brought me a vision of a cavalry brigade
+in winter quarters before Petersburg; of the three-miles-distant and
+dim steeples of the besieged city; of rows and rows of canvas-covered
+huts sheltering the infantry corps that stretched interminably away
+toward the Army of the James. I fancied I could hear again the great
+guns of "Fort Hell" infrequently punctuating the far-away
+picket-firing.
+
+Rain, rain, and rain! How it fell on red Virginia that November of
+'64! How it wore away alertness! The infantry-men--whom we used to
+call "doughboys," for there was always a pretended feud between the
+riders and the trudgers--often seemed going to sleep in the night in
+their rain-filled holes far beyond the breastworks, each with its
+little mound of earth thrown up toward the beleaguered town. Their
+night-firing would slacken almost to cessation for many minutes
+together. But after the b-o-o-oom of a great gun it became brisker
+usually; often so much so as to suggest that some of Lee's ragged
+brigades, their march silenced by the rain, had pierced our fore-front
+again, and were "gobbling up" our boys on picket, and flinging up new
+rifle-pits on the acres reclaimed for a night and a day for the
+tottering Confederacy.
+
+Sometimes the _crack-a-rac-a-rack_ would die down to a slow fire of
+dropping shots, and the forts seemed sleeping; and patter, patter,
+patter on the veteran canvas we heard the rain, rain, rain, not unlike
+the roll of steady musketry very far away.
+
+I think I sit again beside Charley Wilson, my sick "buddy," and hear
+his uneven breathing through all the stamping of the rows of wet
+horses on their corduroy floor roofed with leaky pine brush.
+
+That _squ-ush, squ-ush_ is the sound of the stable-guard's boots as he
+paces slowly through the mud, to and fro, with the rain rattling on
+his glazed poncho and streaming corded hat. Sometimes he stops to
+listen to a frantic brawling of the wagon-train mules, sometimes to
+the reviving picket-firing. It crackles up to animation for causes
+that we can but guess; then dies down, never to silence, but warns,
+warns, as the distant glow of the sky above a volcano warns of the
+huge waiting forces that give it forth.
+
+I think I hear Barney Donahoe pulling our latch-string that November
+night when we first heard of the great Thanksgiving dinner that was
+being collected in New York for the army.
+
+"Byes, did yez hear phwat Sergeant Cunningham was tellin' av the
+Thanksgivin' turkeys that's comin'?"
+
+"Come in out of the rain, Barney," says Charley, feebly.
+
+"Faith, I wish I dar', but it's meself is on shtable-guard. Bedad,
+it's a rale fire ye've got. Divil a better has ould Jimmy himself (our
+colonel). Ye've heard tell of the turkeys, then, and the pois?"
+
+"Yes. Bully for the folks at home!" says Charley. "The notion of
+turkey next Thursday has done me good already. I was thinking I'd go
+to hospital to-morrow, but now I guess I won't."
+
+"Hoshpital! Kape clear av the hoshpital, Char-les, dear. Sure, they'd
+cut a man's leg off behind the ears av him for to cure him av
+indigestion."
+
+"Is it going to rain all night, Barney?"
+
+"It is, bad 'cess to it; and to-morrow and the day afther, I'm
+thinkin'. The blackness av night is outside; be jabers! you could cut
+it like turf with a shpade! If it wasn't for the ould fort flamin' out
+wanst in a whoile, I'd be thinkin' I'd never an oi in my head, barrin'
+the fires in the tints far an' near gives a bit of dimness to the
+dark. Phwat time is it?"
+
+"Quarter to twelve, Barney."
+
+"Troth, then, the relief will be soon coming. I must be thramping the
+mud av Virginia to save the Union. Good-night, byes. I come to give
+yez the good word. Kape your heart light an' aisy, Char-les, dear.
+D'ye moind the turkeys and the pois? Faith, it's meself that has the
+taste for thim dainties!"
+
+"I don't believe I'll be able to eat a mite of the Thanksgiving," says
+Charley, as we hear Barney _squ-ush_ away; "but just to see the brown
+on a real old brown home turkey will do me a heap of good."
+
+"You'll be all right by Thursday, Charley, I guess; won't you? It's
+only Sunday night now."
+
+Of course I cannot remember the very words of that talk in the night,
+so many years ago. But the coming of Barney I recollect well, and the
+general drift of what was said.
+
+Charley turned on his bed of hay-covered poles, and I put my hand
+under his gray blanket to feel if his legs were well covered by the
+long overcoat he lay in. Then I tucked the blanket well in about his
+feet and shoulders, pulled his poncho again to its full length over
+him, and sat on a cracker-box looking at our fire for a long time,
+while the rain spattered through the canvas in spray.
+
+My "buddy" Charley, the most popular boy of Company I, was of my own
+age,--seventeen,--though the rolls gave us a year more each, by way of
+compliance with the law of enlistment. From a Pennsylvania farm in the
+hills he came forth to the field early in that black fall of '64,
+strong, tall, and merry, fit to ride for the nation's life,--a mighty
+wielder of an axe, "bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade."
+
+We were "the kids" to Company I. To "buddy" with Charley I gave up my
+share of the hut I had helped to build as old Bader's "pard." Then the
+"kids" set about the construction of a new residence, which stood
+farther from the parade ground than any hut in the row except the big
+cabin of "old Brownie," the "greasy cook," who called us to
+"bean--oh!" with so resonant a shout, and majestically served out our
+rations of pork, "salt horse," coffee long-boiled and sickeningly
+sweet, hardtack, and the daily loaf of a singularly despondent-looking
+bread.
+
+My "buddy" and I slept on opposite sides of our winter residence. The
+bedsteads were made of poles laid lengthwise and lifted about two feet
+from the ground. These were covered thinly with hay from the bales
+that were regularly delivered for horse-fodder. There was a space of
+about two feet between bedsteads, and under them we kept our saddles
+and saddlecloths.
+
+Our floor was of earth, with a few flour-barrel staves and cracker-box
+sides laid down for rugs. We had each an easy-chair in the form of a
+cracker-box, besides a stout soap-box for guests. Our carbines and
+sabres hung crossed on pegs over the mantel-piece, above our Bibles
+and the precious daguerreotypes of the dear folks at home. When we
+happened to have enough wood for a bright fire, we felt much snugger
+than you might suppose.
+
+Before ever that dark November began, Charley had been suffering from
+one of those wasting diseases that so often clung to and carried off
+the strongest men of both armies. Sharing the soldiers' inveterate
+prejudice against hospitals attended by young doctors, who, the men
+believed, were addicted to much surgery for the sake of practice, my
+poor "buddy" strove to do his regular duties. He paraded with the sick
+before the regimental doctor as seldom as possible. He was favored by
+the sergeants and helped in every way by the men, and so continued to
+stay with the company at that wet season when drill and parades were
+impracticable.
+
+The idea of a Thanksgiving dinner for half a million men by sea and
+land fascinated Charley's imagination, and cheered him mightily. But I
+could not see that his strength increased, as he often alleged.
+
+"Ned, you bet I'll be on hand when them turkeys are served out," he
+would say. "You won't need to carry my Thanksgiving dinner up from
+Brownie's. Say, ain't it bully for the folks at home to be giving us a
+Thanksgiving like this? Turkeys, sausages, mince-pies! They say
+there's going to be apples and celery for all hands!"
+
+"S'pose you'll be able to eat, Charley?"
+
+"Able! Of course I'll be able! I'll be just as spry as you be on
+Thanksgiving. See if I don't carry my own turkey all right. Yes, by
+gum, if it weighs twenty pounds!"
+
+"There won't be a turkey apiece."
+
+"No, eh? Well, that's what I figure on. Half a turkey, anyhow. Got to
+be; besides chickens, hams, sausages, and all that kind of fixin's.
+You heard what Bill Sylvester's girl wrote from Philamadink-a-daisy-oh?
+No, eh? Well, he come in a-purpose to read me the letter. Says there's
+going to be three or four hundred thousand turkeys, besides them
+fixin's! Sherman's boys can't get any; they're marched too far away,
+out of reach. The Shenandoah boys'll get some, and Butler's crowd, and
+us chaps, and the blockading squadrons. Bill's girl says so. We'll get
+the whole lot between us. Four hundred thousand turkeys! Of course
+there'll be a turkey apiece; there's got to be, if there's any sense
+in arithmetic. Oh, I'll be choosin' between breast-meat and hind-legs
+on Thanksgiving,--you bet your sweet life on that!"
+
+This expectation that there would be a turkey a-piece was not shared
+by Company I; but no one denied it in Charley's hearing. The boy held
+it as sick people often do fantastic notions, and all fell into the
+humor of strengthening the reasoning on which he went.
+
+It was clear that no appetite for turkey moved my poor "buddy," but
+that his brain was busy with the "whole-turkey-a-piece" idea as one
+significant of the immense liberality of the folks at home, and their
+absorbing interest in the army.
+
+"Where's there any nation that ever was that would get to work and fix
+up four hundred thousand turkeys for the boys?" he often remarked,
+with ecstatic patriotism.
+
+I have often wondered why "Bill Sylvester's girl" gave that
+flourishing account of the preparations for our Thanksgiving dinner.
+It was only on searching the newspaper files recently that I surmised
+her sources of information. Newspapers seldom reached our regiment
+until they were several weeks old, and then they were not much read,
+at least by me. Now I know how enthusiastic the papers of November,
+'64, were on the great feast for the army.
+
+For instance, on the morning of that Thanksgiving day, the 24th of
+November, the New York Tribune said editorially:--
+
+     "Forty thousand turkeys, eighty thousand turkeys, one
+     hundred and sixty thousand turkeys, nobody knows how many
+     turkeys have been sent to our soldiers. Such masses of
+     breast-meat and such mountains of stuffing; drumsticks
+     enough to fit out three or four Grand Armies, a perfect
+     promontory of pope's noses, a mighty aggregate of wings. The
+     gifts of their lordships to the supper which Grangousier
+     spread to welcome Gargantua were nothing to those which our
+     good people at home send to their friends in the field; and
+     no doubt every soldier, if his dinner does not set him
+     thinking too intently of that home, will prove himself a
+     valiant trencherman."
+
+Across the vast encampment before Petersburg a biting wind blew that
+Thanksgiving day. It came through every cranny of our hut; it bellied
+the canvas on one side and tightened it on the other; it pressed flat
+down the smoke from a hundred thousand mud chimneys, and swept away so
+quickly the little coals which fell on the canvas that they had not
+time to burn through.
+
+When I went out towards noon, for perhaps the twentieth time that day,
+to learn whether our commissary wagons had returned from City Point
+with the turkeys, the muddy parade ground was dotted with groups of
+shivering men, all looking anxiously for the feast's arrival. Officers
+frequently came out, to exchange a few cheery words with their men,
+from the tall, close hedge of withering pines stuck on end that
+enclosed the officers' quarters on the opposite side of the parade
+ground.
+
+No turkeys at twelve o'clock! None at one! Two, three, four, five
+o'clock passed by, and still nothing had been heard of our absent
+wagons. Charley was too weak to get out that day, but he cheerfully
+scouted the idea that a turkey for each man would not arrive sooner or
+later.
+
+The rest of us dined and supped on "commissary." It was not good
+commissary either, for Brownie, the "greasy cook," had gone on leave
+to visit a "doughboy" cousin of the Sixth Corps.
+
+"You'll have turkey for dinner, boys," he had said, on serving out
+breakfast. "If you're wanting coffee, Tom can make it." Thus we had to
+dine and sup on the amateur productions of the cook's mate.
+
+A multitude of woful rumors concerning the absent turkeys flew round
+that evening. The "Johnnies," we heard, had raided round the army, and
+captured the fowls! Butler's colored troops had got all the turkeys,
+and had been feeding on fowl for two days! The officers had "gobbled"
+the whole consignment for their own use! The whole story of the
+Thanksgiving dinner was a newspaper hoax! Nothing was too incredible
+for men so bitterly disappointed.
+
+Brownie returned before "lights out" sounded, and reported facetiously
+that the "doughboys" he had visited were feeding full of turkey and
+all manner of fixings. There were so many wagons waiting at City Point
+that the roads round there were blocked for miles. We could not fail
+to get our turkeys to-morrow. With this expectation we went, pretty
+happy, to bed.
+
+"There'll be a turkey apiece, you'll see, Ned," said Charley, in a
+confident, weak voice, as I turned in. "We'll all have a bully
+Thanksgiving to-morrow."
+
+The morrow broke as bleak as the preceding day, and without a sign of
+turkey for our brigade. But about twelve o'clock a great shouting came
+from the parade ground.
+
+"The turkeys have come!" cried Charley, trying to rise. "Never mind
+picking out a big one for me; any one will do. I don't believe I can
+eat a bite, but I want to see it. My! ain't it kind of the folks at
+home!"
+
+I ran out and found his surmise as to the return of the wagons
+correct. They were filing into the enclosure around the
+quartermaster's tent. Nothing but an order that the men should keep
+to company quarters prevented the whole regiment helping to unload the
+delicacies of the season.
+
+Soon foraging parties went from each company to the quartermaster's
+enclosure. Company I sent six men. They returned, grinning, in about
+half an hour, with one box on one man's shoulders.
+
+It was carried to Sergeant Cunningham's cabin, the nearest to the
+parade ground, the most distant from that of "the kids," in which
+Charley lay waiting. We crowded round the hut with some sinking of
+enthusiasm. There was no cover on the box except a bit of cotton in
+which some of the consignment had probably been wrapped. Brownie
+whisked this off, and those nearest Cunningham's door saw
+disclosed--two small turkeys, a chicken, four rather disorganized
+pies, two handsome bologna sausages, and six very red apples.
+
+We were nearly seventy men. The comical side of the case struck the
+boys instantly. Their disappointment was so extreme as to be absurd.
+There might be two ounces of feast to each, if the whole were equally
+shared.
+
+All hands laughed; not a man swore. The idea of an equal distribution
+seemed to have no place in that company. One proposed that all should
+toss up for the lot. Another suggested drawing lots; a third that we
+should set the Thanksgiving dinner at one end of the parade ground and
+run a race for it, "grab who can."
+
+At this Barney Donahoe spoke up.
+
+"Begorra, yez can race for wan turkey av yez loike. But the other wan
+is goin' to Char-les Wilson!"
+
+There was not a dissenting voice. Charley was altogether the most
+popular member of Company I, and every man knew how he had clung to
+the turkey apiece idea.
+
+"Never let on a word," said Sergeant Cunningham. "He'll think there's
+a turkey for every man!"
+
+The biggest bird, the least demoralized pie, a bologna sausage, and
+the whole six apples were placed in the cloth that had covered the
+box. I was told to carry the display to my poor "buddy."
+
+As I marched down the row of tents a tremendous yelling arose from the
+crowd round Cunningham's tent. I turned to look behind. Some man with
+a riotous impulse had seized the box and flung its contents in the air
+over the thickest of the crowd. Next moment the turkey was seized by
+half a dozen hands. As many more helped to tear it to pieces. Barney
+Donahoe ran past me with a leg, and two laughing men after him. Those
+who secured larger portions took a bite as quickly as possible, and
+yielded the rest to clutching hands. The bologna sausage was shared in
+like fashion, but I never heard of any one who got a taste of the
+pies.
+
+"Here's your turkey, Charley," said I, entering with my burden.
+
+"Where's yours, Ned?"
+
+"I've got my turkey all right enough at Cunningham's tent."
+
+"Didn't I tell you there'd be a turkey apiece?" he cried gleefully, as
+I unrolled the lot. "And sausages, apples, a whole pie--oh, _say_,
+ain't they bully folks up home!"
+
+"They are," said I. "I believe we'd have had a bigger Thanksgiving yet
+if it wasn't such a trouble getting it distributed."
+
+"You'd better believe it! They'd do anything in the world for the
+army," he said, lying back.
+
+"Can't you eat a bite, buddy?"
+
+"No; I'm not a mite hungry. But I'll look at it. It won't spoil before
+to-morrow. Then you can share it all out among the boys."
+
+Looking at the turkey, the sick lad fell asleep. Barney Donahoe softly
+opened our door, stooped his head under the lintel, and gazed a few
+moments at the quiet face turned to the Thanksgiving turkey. Man after
+man followed to gaze on the company's favorite, and on the fowl
+which, they knew, tangibly symbolized to him the immense love of the
+nation for the flower of its manhood in the field. Indeed, the people
+had forwarded an enormous Thanksgiving feast; but it was impossible to
+distribute it evenly, and we were one of the regiments that came
+short.
+
+Grotesque, that scene was? Group after group of hungry, dirty
+soldiers, gazing solemnly, lovingly, at a lone brown turkey and a
+pallid sleeping boy! Yes, very grotesque. But Charley had his
+Thanksgiving dinner, and the men of Company I, perhaps, enjoyed a
+profounder satisfaction than if they had feasted more materially.
+
+I never saw Charley after that Thanksgiving day. Before the afternoon
+was half gone the doctor sent an ambulance for him, and insisted that
+he should go to City Point. By Christmas his wasted body had lain for
+three weeks in the red Virginia soil.
+
+
+
+
+GRANDPAPA'S WOLF STORY.
+
+
+"Tell us a story, grandpapa."
+
+"One that will last all the evening, chickens?"
+
+"Yes, grandpapa, darling," said Jenny, while Jimmy clapped hands.
+
+"What about?" said the old lumber king.
+
+"About when you were a boy."
+
+"When I was a boy," said the old gentleman, taking Jenny on his knee
+and putting his arm round Jimmy, "the boys and girls were as fond of
+stories as they are now. Once when I was a boy I said to my
+grandfather, 'Tell me a story, grandpa,' and he replied, 'When I was a
+boy the boys were as fond of stories as they are now; for once when I
+was a boy I said to my grandfather, "Tell me a story, grandpa,--"'".
+
+"Why, it seems to go on just the same story, grandpapa," said Jenny.
+
+"That's not the end of it, Jenny, dear," said grandpapa.
+
+"No-o?" said Jenny, dubiously.
+
+Jimmy said nothing. He lived with his grandfather, and knew his ways.
+Jenny came on visits only, and was not well enough acquainted with the
+old gentleman to know that he would soon tire of the old joke, and
+reward patient children by a good story.
+
+"Shall I go on with the story, Jenny?" said grandpapa.
+
+"Oh, yes, grandpapa!"
+
+"Well, then, when _that_ grandpa was a boy, he said to _his_
+grandfather, 'Tell me a story, grandpapa,' and his grandfather
+replied--"
+
+Jenny soon listened with a demure smile of attention.
+
+"Do you like this story, dear?" said grandpapa, after pursuing the
+repetition for some minutes longer.
+
+"I shall, grandpapa, darling. It must be very good when you come to
+the grandfather that told it. I like to think of all my grandfathers,
+and great, great, great, greater, greatest, great, great-grandpapas
+all telling the same story."
+
+"Yes, it's a genuine family story, Jenny, and you're a little witch."
+The old gentleman kissed her. "Well, where was I? Oh, now I remember!
+And _that_ grandpapa said to his grandfather, 'Tell me a story,
+grandpapa,' and his grandpapa replied, 'When I was a young fellow--'"
+
+"Now it's beginning!" cried Jimmy, clapping his hands, and shifting to
+an easier attitude by the old man's easy-chair.
+
+Grandpapa looked comically at Jimmy, and said, "His grandfather
+replied, 'When I was a young fellow--'"
+
+The faces of the children became woful again.
+
+"'One rainy day I took my revolver--'"
+
+"Revolver! Grandpapa!" cried Jenny.
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"An American revolver, grandpapa?"
+
+"Certainly, dear."
+
+"And did he tell the story in English?"
+
+"Yes, pet."
+
+"But, grandpapa, _darling_, that grandpapa was seventy-three
+grandpapas back!"
+
+"About that, my dear."
+
+"I kept count, grandpapa."
+
+"And don't you like good old-fashioned stories, Jenny?"
+
+"Oh, yes, grandpapa, but _revolvers_--and _Americans_--and the
+_English_ language! Why, it was more than twenty-two hundred years
+ago, grandpapa, darling!"
+
+"Ha! ha! You never thought of that, Jimmy! Oh, you've been at school,
+Miss Bright-eyes! Kiss me, you little rogue. Now listen!
+
+"When _I_ was a young fellow--"
+
+"You yourself, grandpapa?"
+
+"Yes, Jenny."
+
+"I'm so glad it was you yourself! I like my _own_ grandpapa's stories
+best of all."
+
+"Thank you, my dear. After that I must be _very_ entertaining. Yes,
+I'll tell my best story of all--and Jimmy has never heard it. Well,
+when I was a young fellow of seventeen I was clerk in a lumber shanty
+on the Sheboiobonzhe-gunpashageshickawigamog River."
+
+"How did you _ever_ learn that name, grandpapa, darling?" cried Jenny.
+
+"Oh, I could learn things in those days. Remembering it is the
+difficulty, dear--see if it isn't. I'll give you a nice new ten-dollar
+bill if you tell me that name to-morrow."
+
+Jenny bent her brows and tried so hard to recall the syllables that
+she almost lost part of the story. Grandpapa went steadily on:--
+
+"One day in February, when it was too rainy for the men to work, and
+just rainy enough to go deer-shooting if you hadn't had fresh meat for
+five months, I took to the woods with my gun, revolver, hatchet, and
+dinner. All the fore part of the day I failed to get a shot, though I
+saw many deer on the hemlock ridges of Sheboi--that's the way it
+begins, Jenny, and Sheboi we called it.
+
+"But late in the afternoon I killed a buck. I cut off a haunch, lifted
+the carcass into the low boughs of a spruce, and started for camp, six
+miles away, across snowy hills and frozen lakes. The snow-shoeing was
+heavy, and I feared I should not get in before dark. The Sheboi
+country was infested with wolves--"
+
+"Bully! It's a wolf story!" said Jimmy. Jenny shuddered with delight.
+
+"As I went along you may be sure I never thought my grandchildren
+would be pleased to have me in danger of being eaten up by wolves."
+
+Jenny looked shocked at the imputation. Grandpapa watched her with
+twinkling eyes. When she saw he was joking, she cried: "But you
+weren't eaten, grandpapa. You were too brave."
+
+"Ah, I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps I'd better not tell the story.
+You'll have a worse opinion of my courage, my dear."
+
+"Of course you _had_ to run from _wolves_, grandpapa!" said the little
+girl.
+
+"I'll bet grandpapa didn't run then, miss," said Jimmy. "I'll bet he
+shot them with his gun."
+
+"He couldn't--could you, grandpapa? There were too many. Of course
+grandpapa _had_ to run. That wasn't being cowardly. It was
+just--just--_running_."
+
+"No, Jenny, I didn't run a yard."
+
+"Didn't I tell you?" cried Jimmy. "Grandpapa shot them with his gun."
+
+"You're mistaken, Jimmy."
+
+"Then you must--No, for you're here--you weren't eaten up?" said
+wondering Jenny.
+
+"No, dear, I wasn't eaten up."
+
+"Oh, I know! The wolves didn't come!" cried Jimmy, who remembered one
+of his grandpapa's stories as having ended in that unhappy way.
+
+"Oh, but they did, Jimmy!"
+
+"Why, grandpapa, what _did_ you do?"
+
+"I climbed into a hollow tree."
+
+"_Of course!_" said both children.
+
+"Now I'm going to tell you a true wolf story, and that's what few
+grandpapas can do out of their own experience.
+
+"I was resting on the shore of a lake, with my snow-shoes off to ease
+my sore toes, when I saw a pack of wolves trotting lazily toward me on
+the snow that covered the ice. I was sure they had not seen me. Right
+at my elbow was a big hollow pine. It had an opening down to the
+ground, a good deal like the door of a sentry-box.
+
+"There was a smaller opening about thirty feet higher up. I had looked
+up and seen this before I saw the wolves. Then I rose, stood for a
+moment in the hollow, and climbed up by my feet, knees, hands, and
+elbows till I thought my feet were well above the top of the opening.
+Dead wood and dust fell as I ascended, but I hoped the wolves had not
+heard me."
+
+"Did they, grandpapa?"
+
+"Perhaps not at first, Jenny. But maybe they got a scent of the
+deer-meat I was carrying. At any rate, they were soon snapping and
+snarling over it and my snow-shoes. _Gobble-de-gobble, yip, yap, snap,
+growl, snarl, gobble_--the meat was all gone in a moment, like little
+Red Riding Hood."
+
+"Why, grandpapa! The wolf didn't eat little Red Riding Hood. The boy
+came in time--don't you remember?"
+
+"Perhaps you never read _my_ Red Riding Hood, Jenny," said the old
+gentleman, laughing. "At any rate, the wolves lunched at my expense;
+yet I hoped they wouldn't be polite enough to look round for their
+host. But they did inquire for me--not very politely, I must say. They
+seemed in bad humor--perhaps there hadn't been enough lunch to go
+round."
+
+"The greedy things! A whole haunch of venison!" cried Jenny.
+
+"Ah, but I had provided no currant jelly with it, and of
+course they were vexed. If you ever give a dinner-party to wolves,
+don't forget the currant jelly, Jenny. How they yelled for
+it--_Cur-r-r-rant-jell-yell-yell-elly-yell!_ That's the way they went.
+
+"And they also said,
+_Yow--yow--there's--yow--no--desser-r-rt--either--yow--yow!_ Perhaps
+they wanted me to explain. At any rate, they put their heads into the
+opening--how many at once I don't know, for I could not see down; and
+then they screamed for me. It was an uncomfortably close scream,
+chickens. My feet must have been nearer them than I thought, for one
+fellow's nose touched my moccasin as he jumped."
+
+"O grandpapa! If he had caught your foot!"
+
+"But he didn't, Jenny, dear. He caught something worse. When he
+tumbled back he must have fallen on the other fellows, for there was a
+great snapping and snarling and yelping all at once.
+
+"Meantime I tried to go up out of reach. It was easy enough; but with
+every fresh hold I took with shoulders, elbows, hands, and feet, the
+dead old wood crumbled and broke away, so that thick dust filled the
+hollow tree.
+
+"I was afraid I should be suffocated. But up I worked till at last I
+got to the upper hole and stuck out my head for fresh air. There I
+was, pretty comfortable for a little while, and I easily supported my
+weight by bending my back, thrusting with my feet, and holding on the
+edge of the hole by my hands.
+
+"After getting breath I gave my attention to the wolves. They did not
+catch sight of me for a few moments. Some stood looking much
+interested at the lower opening, as terriers do at the hole where a
+rat has disappeared.
+
+"Dust still came from the hole to the open air. Some wolves sneezed;
+others sat and squealed with annoyance, as Bruno does when you close
+the door on him at dinner-time. They were disgusted at my concealment.
+Of course you have a pretty good idea of what they said, Jenny."
+
+"No, grandpapa. The horrid, cruel things! What did they say?"
+
+"Well, of course wolf talk is rude, even savage, and dreadfully
+profane. As near as I could make out, one fellow screamed, 'Shame,
+boy, taking an unfair advantage of poor starving wolves!' It seemed as
+if another fellow yelled, 'You young coward!' A third cried, 'Oh, yes,
+you think you're safe, do you?' A fourth, '_Yow--yow_--but we can wait
+till you come down!'"
+
+Grandpapa mimicked the wolfish voices and looks so effectively that
+Jenny was rather alarmed.
+
+"One old fellow seemed to suggest that they should go away and look
+for more venison for supper, while he kept watch on me. At that there
+was a general howl of derision. They seemed to me to be telling the
+old fellow that they were just as fond of boy as he, and that they
+understood his little game.
+
+"The old chap evidently tried to explain, but they grinned with all
+their teeth as he turned from one to another. You must not suppose,
+chickens, that wolves have no sense of humor. Yet, poor things--"
+
+"Poor things! Why, grandpapa!"
+
+"Yes, Jenny; so lean and hungry, you know. Then one of them suddenly
+caught sight of my head, and didn't he yell! 'There he is--look up the
+tree!' cried Mr. Wolf.
+
+"For a few moments they were silent. Then they sprang all at once,
+absurdly anxious to get nearer to me, twenty-five feet or so above
+their reach. On falling, they tumbled into several heaps of mouths and
+legs and tails. After scuffling and separating, they gazed up at me
+with silent longing. I should have been very popular for a few minutes
+had I gone down."
+
+Jenny shuddered, and then nestled closer to her grandfather.
+
+"Don't be afraid, Jenny. They didn't eat me--not that time. After a
+few moments' staring I became very impolite. 'Boo-ooh!' said I.
+'Yah-ha-ha!' said I. 'You be shot!' I cried. They resented it. Even
+wolves love to be gently addressed.
+
+"They began yelling, snarling, and howling at me worse than
+politicians at a sarcastic member of the opposite party. I imitated
+them. Nevertheless, I was beginning to be frightened. The weather was
+turning cold, night was coming on, and I didn't like the prospect of
+staying till morning.
+
+"All of a sudden I began laughing. I had till then forgotten my pistol
+and pocketful of cartridges. There were seventeen nice wolves--"
+
+"Nice! Why, grandpa!"
+
+"They seemed _very_ nice wolves when I recollected the county bounty
+of six dollars for a wolf's head. Also, their skins would fetch two
+dollars apiece. 'Why,' said I, 'my dear wolves, you're worth one
+hundred and thirty-six dollars.'
+
+"'Don't you wish you may get it!' said they, sneering.
+
+"'You're worth one hundred and thirty-six dollars,' I repeated, 'and
+yet you want to sponge on a poor boy for a free supper! Shame!'"
+
+"Did you say it out loud, grandpapa?"
+
+"Well--no, Jenny. It's a thing I might have said, you know; but I
+didn't exactly think of it at the time. I was feeling for my pistol.
+Just as I tugged it out of its case at my waist, my knees, arms, and
+all lost their hold, and down I fell."
+
+"Grandpapa, _dear!_" Jenny nervously clutched him.
+
+"I didn't fall far, pet. But the dust! Talk of sweeping floors! The
+whole inside of the tree below me, borne down by my weight, had fallen
+in chunks and dust. There I was, gasping for breath, and the hole
+eight feet above my head. The lower entrance was of course blocked up
+by the rotten wood."
+
+"And they couldn't get at you?"
+
+"No, Jimmy; but I was in a dreadful situation. At first I did not
+fully realize it. Choking for air, my throat filled with particles of
+dry rot, I tried to climb up again. But the hollow had become too
+large. Nothing but a round shell of sound wood, a few inches thick,
+was left around me. With feet, hands, elbows, and back, I strove to
+ascend as before. But I could not. I was stuck fast!
+
+"When I pushed with my feet I could only press my back against the
+other side of the enlarged hole. I was horrified. Indeed, I thought
+the tree would be my coffin. There I stood, breathing with difficulty
+even when I breathed through my capuchin, which I took off of my
+blanket overcoat. And there, I said to myself, I was doomed to stand
+till my knees should give way and my head fall forward, and some day,
+after many years, the old tree would blow down, and out would fall my
+white and r-rattling bo-o-nes."
+
+"Don't--_please_, grandpapa!" Jenny was trying to keep from crying.
+
+"In spite of my vision of my own skull and cross-bones," went on
+grandpapa, solemnly, "I was too young to despair wholly. I was at
+first more annoyed than desperate. To be trapped so, to die in a hole
+when I might have shot a couple of wolves and split the heads of one
+or two more with my hatchet before they could have had boy for
+supper--this thought made me very angry. And that brought me to
+thinking of my hatchet.
+
+"It was, I remembered, beneath my feet at the bottom of the lower
+opening. If I could get hold of it, I might use it to chop a hole
+through my prison wall.
+
+"But to burrow down was clearly impossible. Nevertheless, I knelt to
+feel the punky stuff under my feet. The absurdity of trying to work
+down a hole without having, like a squirrel, any place to throw out
+the material, was plain.
+
+"But something more cheerful occurred to me. As I knelt, an object at
+my back touched my heels. It was the brass point of my hunting-knife
+sheath. Instantly I sprang to my feet, thrust my revolver back into
+its case, drew the stout knife, and drove the blade into the shell of
+pine.
+
+"In two minutes I had scooped the blade through. In five minutes I had
+my face at a small hole that gave me fresh air. In half an hour I had
+hacked out a space big enough to put my shoulders through.
+
+"The wolves, when they saw me again, were delighted. As for me, I was
+much pleased to see them, and said so. At the compliment they licked
+their jaws. They thought I was coming down, but I had something
+important to do first.
+
+"I drew my pistol. It was a big old-fashioned Colt's revolver. With
+the first round of seven shots I killed three, and wounded another
+badly."
+
+"Then the rest jumped on them and ate them all up, didn't they,
+grandpapa?"
+
+"No, Jimmy, I'm glad to say they didn't. Wolves in Russian stories
+do, but American wolves are not cannibalistic; for this is a civilized
+country, you know.
+
+"These wolves didn't even notice their fallen friends. They devoted
+their attention wholly to me, and I assure you, chickens, that I was
+much gratified at that.
+
+"I loaded again. It was a good deal of trouble in those days, when
+revolvers wore caps. I aimed very carefully, and killed four more. The
+other ten then ran away--at least some did; three could drag
+themselves but slowly.
+
+"After loading again I dropped down, and started for camp. Next
+morning we came back and got ten skins, after looking up the three
+wounded."
+
+"And you got only eighty dollars, instead of one hundred and
+thirty-six, grandpapa," said Jimmy, ruefully.
+
+"Well, Jimmy, that was better than furnishing the pack with raw boy
+for supper."
+
+"Is that all, grandpapa?"
+
+"Yes, Jenny, dear."
+
+"Do tell us another story."
+
+"Not to-night, chickens. Not to-night. Grandpapa is old and sleepy.
+Good night, dears; and if you begin to dream of wolves, be sure you
+change the subject."
+
+Grandpapa walked slowly up stairs.
+
+"Can _you_ make different dreams come, Jimmy?" said Jenny.
+
+"You goose! Grandpapa was pretending."
+
+
+
+
+THE WATERLOO VETERAN.
+
+
+Is Waterloo a dead word to you? the name of a plain of battle, no
+more? Or do you see, on a space of rising ground, the little
+long-coated man with marble features, and unquenchable eyes that
+pierce through rolling smoke to where the relics of the old Guard of
+France stagger and rally and reach fiercely again up the hill of St.
+Jean toward the squares, set, torn, red, re-formed, stubborn, mangled,
+victorious beneath the unflinching will of him behind there,--the Iron
+Duke of England?
+
+Or is your interest in the fight literary? and do you see in a pause
+of the conflict Major O'Dowd sitting on the carcass of Pyramus
+refreshing himself from that case-bottle of sound brandy? George
+Osborne lying yonder, all his fopperies ended, with a bullet through
+his heart? Rawdon Crawley riding stolidly behind General Tufto along
+the front of the shattered regiment where Captain Dobbin stands
+heartsick for poor Emily?
+
+Or maybe the struggle arranges itself in your vision around one figure
+not named in history or fiction,--that of your grandfather, or his
+father, or some old dead soldier of the great wars whose blood you
+exult to inherit, or some grim veteran whom you saw tottering to the
+roll-call beyond when the Queen was young and you were a little boy.
+
+For me the shadows of the battle are so grouped round old John Locke
+that the historians, story-tellers, and painters may never quite
+persuade me that he was not the centre and real hero of the action.
+The French cuirassiers in my thought-pictures charge again and again
+vainly against old John; he it is who breaks the New Guard; upon the
+ground that he defends the Emperor's eyes are fixed all day long. It
+is John who occasionally glances at the sky with wonder if Blucher
+has failed them. Upon Shaw the Lifeguardsman, and John, the Duke
+plainly most relies, and the words that Wellington actually speaks
+when the time comes for advance are, "Up, John, and at them!"
+
+How fate drifted the old veteran of Waterloo into our little Canadian
+Lake Erie village I never knew. Drifted him? No; he ever marched as if
+under the orders of his commander. Tall, thin, white-haired,
+close-shaven, and always in knee-breeches and long stockings, his was
+an antique and martial figure. "Fresh white-fish" was his cry, which
+he delivered as if calling all the village to fall in for drill.
+
+So impressive was his demeanor that he dignified his occupation. For
+years after he disappeared, the peddling of white-fish by horse and
+cart was regarded in that district as peculiarly respectacle. It was a
+glorious trade when old John Locke held the steelyards and served out
+the glittering fish with an air of distributing ammunition for a long
+day's combat.
+
+I believe I noticed, on the first day I saw him, how he tapped his
+left breast with a proud gesture when he had done with a lot of
+customers and was about to march again at the head of his horse. That
+restored him from trade to his soldiership--he had saluted his
+Waterloo medal! There beneath his threadbare old blue coat it lay,
+always felt by the heart of the hero.
+
+"Why doesn't he wear it outside?" I once asked.
+
+"He used to," said my father, "till Hiram Beaman, the druggist, asked
+him what he'd 'take for the bit of pewter.'"
+
+"What did old John say, sir?"
+
+"'Take for the bit of pewter!' said he, looking hard at Beaman with
+scorn. 'I've took better men's lives nor ever yours was for to get it,
+and I'd sell my own for it as quick as ever I offered it before.'
+
+"'More fool you,' said Beaman.
+
+"'You're nowt,' said old John, very calm and cold, 'you're nowt but
+walking dirt.' From that day forth he would never sell Beaman a fish;
+he wouldn't touch his money."
+
+It must have been late in 1854 or early in 1855 that I first saw the
+famous medal. Going home from school on a bright winter afternoon, I
+met old John walking very erect, without his usual fish-supply. A dull
+round white spot was clasped on the left breast of his coat.
+
+"Mr. Locke," said the small boy, staring with admiration, "is that
+your glorious Waterloo medal?"
+
+"You're a good little lad!" He stooped to let me see the noble pewter.
+"War's declared against Rooshia, and now it's right to show it. The
+old regiment's sailed, and my only son is with the colors."
+
+Then he took me by the hand and led me into the village store, where
+the lawyer read aloud the news from the paper that the veteran gave
+him. In those days there was no railway within fifty miles of us. It
+had chanced that some fisherman brought old John a later paper than
+any previously received in the village.
+
+"Ay, but the Duke is gone," said he, shaking his white head, "and it's
+curious to be fighting on the same side with another Boney."
+
+All that winter and the next, all the long summer between, old John
+displayed his medal. When the report of Alma came, his remarks on the
+French failure to get into the fight were severe. "What was they
+_ever_, at best, without Boney?" he would inquire. But a letter from
+his son after Inkermann changed all that.
+
+"Half of us was killed, and the rest of us clean tired with fighting,"
+wrote Corporal Locke. "What with a bullet through the flesh of my
+right leg, and the fatigue of using the bayonet so long, I was like to
+drop. The Russians was coming on again as if there was no end to them,
+when strange drums came sounding in the mist behind us. With that we
+closed up and faced half-round, thinking they had outflanked us and
+the day was gone, so there was nothing more to do but make out to die
+hard, like the sons of Waterloo men. You would have been pleased to
+see the looks of what was left of the old regiment, father. Then all
+of a sudden a French column came up the rise out of the mist,
+screaming, '_Vive l'Empereur!_' their drums beating the charge. We
+gave them room, for we were too dead tired to go first. On they went
+like mad at the Russians, so that was the end of a hard morning's
+work. I was down,--fainted with loss of blood,--but I will soon be fit
+for duty again. When I came to myself there was a Frenchman pouring
+brandy down my throat, and talking in his gibberish as kind as any
+Christian. Never a word will I say agin them red-legged French again."
+
+"Show me the man that would!" growled old John. "It was never in them
+French to act cowardly. Didn't they beat all the world, and even stand
+up many's the day agen ourselves and the Duke? They didn't beat,--it
+wouldn't be in reason,--but they tried brave enough, and what more'd
+you ask of mortal men?"
+
+With the ending of the Crimean War our village was illuminated. Rows
+of tallow candles in every window, fireworks in a vacant field, and a
+torchlight procession! Old John marched at its head in full
+regimentals, straight as a ramrod, the hero of the night. His son had
+been promoted for bravery on the field. After John came a dozen gray
+militiamen of Queenston Heights, Lundy's Lane, and Chippewa; next some
+forty volunteers of '37. And we boys of the U. E. Loyalist settlement
+cheered and cheered, thrilled with an intense vague knowledge that the
+old army of Wellington kept ghostly step with John, while aerial
+trumpets and drums pealed and beat with rejoicing at the fresh glory
+of the race and the union of English-speaking men unconsciously
+celebrated and symbolized by the little rustic parade.
+
+After that the old man again wore his medal concealed. The Chinese War
+of 1857 was too contemptible to celebrate by displaying his badge of
+Waterloo.
+
+Then came the dreadful tale of the Sepoy mutiny--Meerut, Delhi,
+Cawnpore! After the tale of Nana Sahib's massacre of women and
+children was read to old John he never smiled, I think. Week after
+week, month after month, as hideous tidings poured steadily in, his
+face became more haggard, gray, and dreadful. The feeling that he was
+too old for use seemed to shame him. He no longer carried his head
+high, as of yore. That his son was not marching behind Havelock with
+the avenging army seemed to cut our veteran sorely. Sergeant Locke had
+sailed with the old regiment to join Outram in Persia before the
+Sepoys broke loose. It was at this time that old John was first heard
+to say, "I'm 'feared something's gone wrong with my heart."
+
+Months went by before we learned that the troops for Persia had been
+stopped on their way and thrown into India against the mutineers. At
+that news old John marched into the village with a prouder air than he
+had worn for many a day. His medal was again on his breast.
+
+It was but the next month, I think, that the village lawyer stood
+reading aloud the account of the capture of a great Sepoy fort. The
+veteran entered the post-office, and all made way for him. The reading
+went on:--
+
+"The blowing open of the Northern Gate was the grandest personal
+exploit of the attack. It was performed by native sappers, covered by
+the fire of two regiments, and headed by Lieutenants Holder and Dacre,
+Sergeants Green, Carmody, Macpherson, and Locke."
+
+The lawyer paused. Every eye turned to the face of the old Waterloo
+soldier. He straightened up to keener attention, threw out his chest,
+and tapped the glorious medal in salute of the names of the brave.
+
+"God be praised, my son was there!" he said. "Read on."
+
+"Sergeant Carmody, while laying the powder, was killed, and the native
+havildar wounded. The powder having been laid, the advance party
+slipped down into the ditch to allow the firing party, under
+Lieutenant Dacre, to do its duty. While trying to fire the charge he
+was shot through one arm and leg. He sank, but handed the match to
+Sergeant Macpherson, who was at once shot dead. Sergeant Locke,
+already wounded severely in the shoulder, then seized the match, and
+succeeded in firing the train. He fell at that moment, literally
+riddled with bullets."
+
+"Read on," said old John, in a deeper voice. All forbore to look twice
+upon his face.
+
+"Others of the party were falling, when the mighty gate was blown to
+fragments, and the waiting regiments of infantry, under Colonel
+Campbell, rushed into the breach."
+
+There was a long silence in the post-office, till old John spoke once
+more.
+
+"The Lord God be thanked for all his dealings with us! My son,
+Sergeant Locke, died well for England, Queen, and Duty."
+
+Nervously fingering the treasure on his breast, the old soldier
+wheeled about, and marched proudly straight down the middle of the
+village street to his lonely cabin.
+
+The villagers never saw him in life again. Next day he did not appear.
+All refrained from intruding on his mourning. But in the evening, when
+the Episcopalian minister heard of his parishioner's loss, he walked
+to old John's home.
+
+There, stretched upon his straw bed, he lay in his antique
+regimentals, stiffer than At Attention, all his medals fastened below
+that of Waterloo above his quiet heart. His right hand lay on an open
+Bible, and his face wore an expression as of looking for ever and ever
+upon Sergeant Locke and the Great Commander who takes back unto Him
+the heroes He fashions to sweeten the world.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN BEDELL, U. E. LOYALIST.[A]
+
+
+"A renegade! A rebel against his king! A black-hearted traitor! You
+dare to tell me that you love George Winthrop! Son of canting, lying
+Ezra Winthrop! By the Eternal, I'll shoot him on sight if he comes
+this side!"
+
+While old John Bedell was speaking, he tore and flung away a letter,
+reached for his long rifle on its pins above the chimney-place, dashed
+its butt angrily to the floor, and poured powder into his palm.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, father! You would not! You could not! The war is
+over. It would be murder!" cried Ruth Bedell, sobbing.
+
+"Wouldn't I?" He poured the powder in. "Yes, by gracious, quicker'n
+I'd kill a rattlesnake!" He placed the round bullet on the little
+square of greased rag at the muzzle of his rifle. "A rank
+traitor--bone and blood of those who drove out loyal men!"--he crowded
+the tight lead home, dashed the ramrod into place, looked to the
+flint. "Rest there,--wake up for George Winthrop!" and the fierce old
+man replaced rifle and powder-horn on their pegs.
+
+Bedell's hatred for the foes who had beaten down King George's cause,
+and imposed the alternative of confiscation or the oath of allegiance
+on the vanquished, was considered intense, even by his brother
+Loyalists of the Niagara frontier.
+
+"The Squire kind o' sees his boys' blood when the sky's red," said
+they in explanation. But Bedell was so much an enthusiast that he
+could almost rejoice because his three stark sons had gained the prize
+of death in battle. He was too brave to hate the fighting-men he had
+so often confronted; but he abhorred the politicians, especially the
+intimate civic enemies on whom he had poured scorn before the armed
+struggle began. More than any he hated Ezra Winthrop, the lawyer,
+arch-revolutionist of their native town, who had never used a weapon
+but his tongue. And now his Ruth, the beloved and only child left to
+his exiled age, had confessed her love for Ezra Winthrop's son! They
+had been boy and girl, pretty maiden and bright stripling together,
+without the Squire suspecting--he could not, even now, conceive
+clearly so wild a thing as their affection! The confession burned in
+his heart like veritable fire,--a raging anguish of mingled loathing
+and love. He stood now gazing at Ruth dumbly, his hands clenched,
+head sometimes mechanically quivering, anger, hate, love, grief,
+tumultuous in his soul.
+
+Ruth glanced up--her father seemed about to speak--she bowed again,
+shuddering as though the coming words might kill. Still there was
+silence,--a long silence. Bedell stood motionless, poised, breathing
+hard--the silence oppressed the girl--each moment her terror
+increased--expectant attention became suffering that demanded his
+voice--and still was silence--save for the dull roar of Niagara that
+more and more pervaded the air. The torture of waiting for the
+words--a curse against her, she feared--overwore Ruth's endurance. She
+looked up suddenly, and John Bedell saw in hers the beloved eyes of
+his dead wife, shrinking with intolerable fear. He groaned heavily,
+flung up his hands despairingly, and strode out toward the river.
+
+How crafty smooth the green Niagara sweeps toward the plunge beneath
+that perpetual white cloud above the Falls! From Bedell's clearing
+below Navy Island, two miles above the Falls, he could see the swaying
+and rolling of the mist, ever rushing up to expand and overhang. The
+terrible stream had a profound fascination for him, with its racing
+eddies eating at the shore; its long weeds, visible through the clear
+water, trailing close down to the bottom; its inexorable, eternal,
+onward pouring. Because it was so mighty and so threatening, he
+rejoiced grimly in the awful river. To float, watching cracks and
+ledges of its flat bottom-rock drift quickly upward; to bend to his
+oars only when white crests of the rapids yelled for his life; to win
+escape by sheer strength from points so low down that he sometimes
+doubted but the greedy forces had been tempted too long; to stake his
+life, watching tree-tops for a sign that he could yet save it, was the
+dreadful pastime by which Bedell often quelled passionate promptings
+to revenge his exile. "The Falls is bound to get the Squire, some
+day," said the banished settlers. But the Squire's skiff was clean
+built as a pickerel, and his old arms iron-strong. Now when he had
+gone forth from the beloved child, who seemed to him so traitorous to
+his love and all loyalty, he went instinctively to spend his rage upon
+the river.
+
+Ruth Bedell, gazing at the loaded rifle, shuddered, not with dread
+only, but a sense of having been treacherous to her father. She had
+not told him all the truth. George Winthrop himself, having made his
+way secretly through the forest from Lake Ontario, had given her his
+own letter asking leave from the Squire to visit his newly made cabin.
+From the moment of arrival her lover had implored her to fly with him.
+But filial love was strong in Ruth to give hope that her father would
+yield to the yet stronger affection freshened in her heart. Believing
+their union might be permitted, she had pledged herself to escape with
+her lover if it were forbidden. Now he waited by the hickory wood for
+a signal to conceal himself or come forward.
+
+When Ruth saw her father far down the river, she stepped to the
+flagstaff he had raised before building the cabin--his first duty
+being to hoist the Union Jack! It was the largest flag he could
+procure; he could see it flying defiantly all day long; at night he
+could hear its glorious folds whipping in the wind; the hot old
+Loyalist loved to fancy his foeman cursing at it from the other side,
+nearly three miles away. Ruth hauled the flag down a little, then ran
+it up to the mast-head again.
+
+At that, a tall young fellow came springing into the clearing, jumping
+exultantly over brush-heaps and tree-trunks, his queue waggling, his
+eyes bright, glad, under his three-cornered hat. Joying that her
+father had yielded, he ran forward till he saw Ruth's tears.
+
+"What, sweetheart!--crying? It was the signal to come on," cried he.
+
+"Yes; to see you sooner, George. Father is out yonder. But no, he
+will never, never consent."
+
+"Then you will come with me, love," he said, taking her hands.
+
+"No, no; I dare not," sobbed Ruth. "Father would overtake us. He
+swears to shoot you on sight! Go, George! Escape while you can! Oh, if
+he should find you here!"
+
+"But, darling love, we need not fear. We can escape easily. I know the
+forest path. But--" Then he thought how weak her pace.
+
+"We might cross here before he could come up!" cried Winthrop, looking
+toward where the Squire's boat was now a distant blotch.
+
+"No, no," wailed Ruth, yet yielding to his embrace. "This is the last
+time I shall see you forever and forever. Go, dear,--good-bye, my
+love, my love."
+
+But he clasped her in his strong arms, kissing, imploring, cheering
+her,--and how should true love choose hopeless renunciation?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tempting, defying, regaining his lost ground, drifting down again,
+trying hard to tire out and subdue his heart-pangs, Bedell dallied
+with death more closely than ever. He had let his skiff drift far down
+toward the Falls. Often he could see the wide smooth curve where the
+green volume first lapses vastly on a lazy slope, to shoulder up below
+as a huge calm billow, before pitching into the madness of waves whose
+confusion of tossing and tortured crests hurries to the abyss. The
+afternoon grew toward evening before he pulled steadily home, crawling
+away from the roarers against the cruel green, watching the ominous
+cloud with some such grim humor as if under observation by an
+overpowering but baffled enemy.
+
+Approaching his landing, a shout drew Bedell's glance ashore to a
+group of men excitedly gesticulating. They seemed motioning him to
+watch the American shore. Turning, he saw a boat in midstream, where
+no craft then on the river, except his own skiff, could be safe,
+unless manned by several good men. Only two oars were flashing.
+Bedell could make out two figures indistinctly. It was clear they were
+doomed,--though still a full mile above the point whence he had come,
+they were much farther out than he when near the rapids. Yet one life
+might be saved! Instantly Bedell's bow turned outward, and cheers
+flung to him from ashore.
+
+At that moment he looked to his own landing-place, and saw that his
+larger boat was gone. Turning again, he angrily recognized it, but
+kept right on--he must try to rescue even a thief. He wondered Ruth
+had not prevented the theft, but had no suspicion of the truth. Always
+he had refused to let her go out upon the river--mortally fearing it
+for _her_.
+
+Thrusting his skiff mightily forward,--often it glanced, half-whirled
+by up-whelming and spreading spaces of water,--the old Loyalist's
+heart was quit of his pangs, and sore only with certainty that he must
+abandon one human soul to death. By the time that he could reach the
+larger boat his would be too near the rapids for escape with three!
+
+When George Winthrop saw Bedell in pursuit, he bent to his ash-blades
+more strongly, and Ruth, trembling to remember her father's threats,
+urged her lover to speed. They feared the pursuer only, quite
+unconscious that they were in the remorseless grasp of the river. Ruth
+had so often seen her father far lower down than they had yet drifted
+that she did not realize the truth, and George, a stranger in the
+Niagara district, was unaware of the length of the cataracts above the
+Falls. He was also deceived by the stream's treacherous smoothness,
+and instead of half-upward, pulled straight across, as if certainly
+able to land anywhere he might touch the American shore.
+
+Bedell looked over his shoulder often. When he distinguished a woman,
+he put on more force, but slackened soon--the pull home would tax his
+endurance, he reflected. In some sort it was a relief to know that
+one _was_ a woman; he had been anticipating trouble with two men
+equally bent on being saved. That the man would abandon himself
+bravely, the Squire took as a matter of course. For a while he thought
+of pulling with the woman to the American shore, more easily to be
+gained from the point where the rescue must occur. But he rejected the
+plan, confident he could win back, for he had sworn never to set foot
+on that soil unless in war. Had it been possible to save both, he
+would have been forced to disregard that vow; but the Squire knew that
+it was impossible for him to reach the New York Shore with two
+passengers--two would overload his boat beyond escape. Man or
+woman--one must go over the Falls.
+
+Having carefully studied landmarks for his position, Bedell turned to
+look again at the doomed boat, and a well-known ribbon caught his
+attention! The old man dropped his oars, confused with horror. "My
+God, my God! it's Ruth!" he cried, and the whole truth came with
+another look, for he had not forgotten George Winthrop.
+
+"Your father stops, Ruth. Perhaps he is in pain," said George to the
+quaking girl.
+
+She looked back. "What can it be?" she cried, filial love returning
+overmasteringly.
+
+"Perhaps he is only tired." George affected carelessness,--his first
+wish was to secure his bride,--and pulled hard away to get all
+advantage from Bedell's halt.
+
+"Tired! He is in danger of the Falls, then!" screamed Ruth. "Stop!
+Turn! Back to him!"
+
+Winthrop instantly prepared to obey. "Yes, darling," he said, "we must
+not think of ourselves. We must go back to save him!" Yet his was a
+sore groan at turning; what Duty ordered was so hard,--he must give up
+his love for the sake of his enemy.
+
+But while Winthrop was still pulling round, the old Loyalist resumed
+rowing, with a more rapid stroke that soon brought him alongside.
+
+In those moments of waiting, all Bedell's life, his personal hatreds,
+his loves, his sorrows, had been reviewed before his soul. He had seen
+again his sons, the slain in battle, in the pride of their young
+might; and the gentle eyes of Ruth had pleaded with him beneath his
+dead wife's brow. Into those beloved, unforgotten, visionary eyes he
+looked with an encouraging, strengthening gaze,--now that the deed to
+be done was as clear before him as the face of Almighty God. In
+accepting it the darker passions that had swayed his stormy life fell
+suddenly away from their hold on his soul. How trivial had been old
+disputes! how good at heart old well-known civic enemies! how poor
+seemed hate! how mean and poor seemed all but Love and Loyalty!
+
+Resolution and deep peace had come upon the man.
+
+The lovers wondered at his look. No wrath was there. The old eyes were
+calm and cheerful, a gentle smile flickered about his lips. Only that
+he was very pale, Ruth would have been wholly glad for the happy
+change.
+
+"Forgive me, father," she cried, as he laid hand on their boat.
+
+"I do, my child," he answered. "Come now without an instant's delay to
+me."
+
+"Oh, father, if you would let us be happy!" cried Ruth, heart-torn by
+two loves.
+
+"Dear, you shall be happy. I was wrong, child; I did not understand
+how you loved him. But come! You hesitate! Winthrop, my son, you are
+in some danger. Into this boat instantly! both of you! Take the oars,
+George. Kiss me, dear, my Ruth, once more. Good-bye, my little girl.
+Winthrop, be good to her. And may God bless you both forever!"
+
+As the old Squire spoke, he stepped into the larger boat, instantly
+releasing the skiff. His imperative gentleness had secured his object
+without loss of time, and the boats were apart with Winthrop's
+readiness to pull.
+
+"Now row! Row for her life to yonder shore! Bow well up! Away, or the
+Falls will have her!" shouted Bedell.
+
+"But you!" cried Winthrop, bending for his stroke. Yet he did not
+comprehend Bedell's meaning. Till the last the old man had spoken
+without strong excitement. Dread of the river was not on George; his
+bliss was supreme in his thought, and he took the Squire's order for
+one of exaggerated alarm.
+
+"Row, I say, with all your strength!" cried Bedell, with a flash of
+anger that sent the young fellow away instantly. "Row! Concern
+yourself not for me. I am going home. Row! for her life, Winthrop! God
+will deliver you yet. Good-bye, children. Remember always my blessing
+is freely given you."
+
+"God bless and keep you forever, father!" cried Ruth, from the
+distance, as her lover pulled away.
+
+They landed, conscious of having passed a swift current, indeed, but
+quite unthinking of the price paid for their safety. Looking back on
+the darkling river, they saw nothing of the old man.
+
+"Poor father!" sighed Ruth, "how kind he was! I'm sore-hearted for
+thinking of him at home, so lonely."
+
+Left alone in the clumsy boat, Bedell stretched with the long, heavy
+oars for his own shore, making appearance of strong exertion. But when
+he no longer feared that his children might turn back with sudden
+understanding, and vainly, to his aid, he dragged the boat slowly,
+watching her swift drift down--down toward the towering mist. Then as
+he gazed at the cloud, rising in two distinct volumes, came a thought
+spurring the Loyalist spirit in an instant. He was not yet out of
+American water! Thereafter he pulled steadily, powerfully, noting
+landmarks anxiously, studying currents, considering always their trend
+to or from his own shore. Half an hour had gone when he again dropped
+into slower motion. Then he could see Goat Island's upper end between
+him and the mist of the American Fall.
+
+Now the old man gave himself up to intense curiosity, looking over
+into the water with fascinated inquiry. He had never been so far down
+the river. Darting beside their shadows, deep in the clear flood, were
+now larger fishes than he had ever taken, and all moved up as if
+hurrying to escape. How fast the long trailing, swaying, single weeds,
+and the crevices in flat rock whence they so strangely grew, went up
+stream and away as if drawn backward. The sameness of the bottom to
+that higher up interested him--where then _did_ the current begin to
+sweep clean? He should certainly know that soon, he thought, without a
+touch of fear, having utterly accepted death when he determined it
+were base to carry his weary old life a little longer, and let Ruth's
+young love die. Now the Falls' heavy monotone was overborne by
+terrible sounds--a mingled clashing, shrieking, groaning, and
+rumbling, as of great bowlders churned in their beds.
+
+Bedell was nearing the first long swoop downward at the rapids' head
+when those watching him from the high bank below the Chippewa River's
+mouth saw him put his boat stern with the current and cease rowing
+entirely, facing fairly the up-rushing mist to which he was being
+hurried. Then they observed him stooping, as if writing, for a time.
+Something flashed in his hands, and then he knelt with head bowed
+down. Kneeling, they prayed, too.
+
+Now he was almost on the brink of the cascades. Then he arose, and,
+glancing backward to his home, caught sight of his friends on the high
+shore. Calmly he waved a farewell. What then? Thrice round he flung
+his hat, with a gesture they knew full well. Some had seen that
+exultant waving in front of ranks of battle. As clearly as though the
+roar of waters had not drowned his ringing voice, they knew that old
+John Bedell, at the poise of death, cheered thrice, "Hurrah! Hurrah!
+Hurrah for the King!"
+
+They found his body a week afterward, floating with the heaving water
+in the gorge below the Falls. Though beaten almost out of recognition,
+portions of clothing still adhered to it, and in a waistcoat pocket
+they found the old Loyalist's metal snuff-box, with this inscription
+scratched by knife-point on the cover: "God be praised, I die in
+British waters! JOHN BEDELL."
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote A: The United Empire Loyalists were American Tories who
+forsook their homes and property after the Revolution in order to live
+in Canada under the British Flag. It is impossible to understand
+Canadian feeling for the Crown at the present day without
+understanding the U. E. Loyalist spirit, which, though Canadians are
+not now unfriendly to the United States, is still the most important
+political force in the Dominion, and holds it firmly in allegiance to
+the Queen.]
+
+
+
+
+VERBITZSKY'S STRATAGEM.
+
+
+What had Alexander Verbitzsky and I done that the secret service of
+our father, the Czar, should dog us for five months, and in the end
+drive us to Siberia, whence we have, by the goodness of God, escaped
+from Holy Russia, our mother? They called us Nihilists--as if all
+Nihilists were of one way of thinking!
+
+We did not belong to the Terrorists,--the section that believes in
+killing the tyrant or his agents in hope that the hearts of the mighty
+may be shaken as Pharaoh's was in Egypt long ago. No; we were two
+students of nineteen years old, belonging to the section of
+"peasantists," or of Peaceful Education. Its members solemnly devote
+all their lives to teaching the poor people to read, think, save,
+avoid _vodka_, and seek quietly for such liberty with order as here in
+America all enjoy. Was that work a crime in Verbitzsky and me?
+
+Was it a crime for us to steal to the freight-shed of the Moscow and
+St. Petersburg Railway that night in December two years ago? We sat in
+the superintendent's dark office, and talked to the eight trainmen
+that were brought in by the guard of the eastern gate, who had
+belonged to all the sections, but was no longer "active."
+
+We were there to prevent a crime. At the risk of our lives, we two
+went to save the Czar of all the Russias, though well we knew that
+Dmitry Nolenki, chief of the secret police, had offered a reward on
+our capture.
+
+Boris Kojukhov and the other seven trainmen who came with him had been
+chosen, with ten others who were not Nihilists, to operate the train
+that was to bear His Imperial Majesty next day to St. Petersburg. Now
+Boris was one of the Section of Terror, and most terrible was his
+scheme. Kojukhov was not really his name I may tell you. Little did
+the Czar's railway agents suspect that Boris was a noble, and brother
+to the gentle girl that had been sent to Siberia. No wonder the heart
+of Boris was hot and his brain partly crazed when he learned of Zina's
+death in the starvation strike at the Olek Mines.
+
+Verbitzsky was cousin to Zina and Boris, and as his young head was a
+wise one, Boris wished to consult him. We both went, hoping to
+persuade him out of the crime he meditated.
+
+"No," said Boris, "my mind is made up. I may never have such another
+chance. I will fling these two bombs under the foremost car at the
+middle of the Volga Bridge. The tyrant and his staff shall all plunge
+with us down to death in the river."
+
+"The bombs--have you them here?" asked Verbitzsky in the dark.
+
+"I have them in my hands," said Boris, tapping them lightly together.
+"I have carried them in my inner clothing for a week. They give me
+warmth at my heart as I think how they shall free Holy Russia."
+
+There was a stir of dismay in the dark office. The comrades, though
+willing to risk death at the Volga Bridge, were horrified by
+Kojukhov's tapping of the iron bombs together, and all rose in fear of
+their explosion, all except Verbitzsky and me.
+
+"For God's sake, be more careful, Boris!" said my friend.
+
+"Oh, you're afraid, too?" said Kojukhov. "Pah! you cowards of the
+Peace Section!" He tapped the bombs together again.
+
+"I _am_ afraid," said Verbitzsky. "Why should I die for your reckless
+folly? Will any good happen if you explode the bombs here? You will
+but destroy all of us, and our friends the watchmen, and the
+freight-sheds containing the property of many worthy people."
+
+"You are a fool, Verbitzsky!" said his cousin. "Come here. Whisper."
+
+Something Boris then whispered in my comrade's ear. When Verbitzsky
+spoke again his voice seemed calmer.
+
+"Let me feel the shape," he said.
+
+"Here," said Boris, as if handing something to Verbitzsky.
+
+At that moment the outer door of the freight-shed resounded with a
+heavy blow. The next blow, as from a heavy maul, pounded the door
+open.
+
+"The police!" shouted Boris. "They must have dogged you, Alexander,
+for they don't suspect me." He dashed out of the dark office into the
+great dark shed.
+
+As we all ran forth, glancing at the main door about seventy feet
+distant, we saw a squad of police outlined against the moonlit sky
+beyond the great open space of railway yard. My eyes were dazzled by a
+headlight that one of them carried. By that lamp they must have seen
+us clearly; for as we started to run away down the long shed they
+opened fire, and I stumbled over Boris Kojukhov, as he fell with a
+shriek.
+
+Rising, I dodged aside, thinking to avoid bullets, and then dashed
+against a bale of wool, one of a long row. Clambering over it, I
+dropped beside a man crouching on the other side.
+
+"Michael, is it you?" whispered Verbitzsky.
+
+"Yes. We're lost, of course?"
+
+"No. Keep still. Let them pass."
+
+The police ran past us down the middle aisle left between high walls
+of wool bales. They did not notice the narrow side lane in which we
+were crouching.
+
+"Come. I know a way out," said Verbitzsky. "I was all over here this
+morning, looking round, in case we should be surprised to-night."
+
+"What's this?" I whispered, groping, and touching something in his
+hand.
+
+"Kojukhov's bombs. I have them both. Come. Ah, poor Boris, he's with
+Zina now!"
+
+The bomb was a section of iron pipe about two inches in diameter and
+eighteen inches long. Its ends were closed with iron caps. Filled
+with nitroglycerine, such pipes are terrible shells, which explode by
+concussion. I was amazed to think of the recklessness of Boris in
+tapping them together.
+
+"Put them down, Verbitzsky!" I whispered, as we groped our way between
+high walls of bales.
+
+"No, no, they're weapons!" he whispered. "We may need them."
+
+"Then for the love of the saints, be careful!"
+
+"Don't be afraid," he said, as we neared a small side door.
+
+Meantime, we heard the police run after the Terrorists, who brought up
+against the great door at the south end. As they tore away the bar and
+opened the door they shouted with dismay. They had been confronted by
+another squad of police! For a few moments a confusion of sounds came
+to us, all somewhat muffled by passing up and over the high walls of
+baled wool.
+
+"Boris! Where are you?" cried one.
+
+"He's killed!" cried another.
+
+"Oh, if we had the bombs!"
+
+"He gave them to Verbitzsky."
+
+"Verbitzsky, where are you? Throw them! Let us all die together!"
+
+"Yes, it's death to be taken!"
+
+Then we heard shots, blows, and shrieks, all in confusion. After a
+little there was clatter of grounded arms, and then no sound but the
+heavy breathing of men who had been struggling hard. That silence was
+a bad thing for Verbitzsky and me, because the police heard the
+opening of the small side door through which Alexander next moment
+led. In a moment we dashed out into the clear night, over the tracks,
+toward the Petrovsky Gardens.
+
+As we reached the railway yard the police ran round their end of the
+wool-shed in pursuit--ten of them. The others stayed with the
+prisoners.
+
+"Don't fire! Don't shoot!" cried a voice we knew well,--the voice of
+Dmitry Nolenki, chief of the secret police.
+
+"One of them is Verbitzsky!" he cried to his men. "The conspirator
+I've been after for four months. A hundred roubles for him who first
+seizes him! He must be taken alive!"
+
+That offer, I suppose, was what pushed them to such eagerness that
+they all soon felt themselves at our mercy. And that offer was what
+caused them to follow so silently, lest other police should overhear a
+tumult and run to head us off.
+
+Verbitzsky, though encumbered by the bombs, kept the lead, for he was
+a very swift runner. I followed close at his heels. We could hear
+nothing in the great walled-in railway yard except the clack of feet
+on gravel, and sometimes on the network of steel tracks that shone
+silvery as the hard snow under the round moon.
+
+My comrade ran like a man who knows exactly where he means to go.
+Indeed, he had already determined to follow a plan that had long
+before occurred to him. It was a vision of what one or two desperate
+men with bombs might do at close quarters against a number with
+pistols.
+
+As Verbitzsky approached the south end of the yard, which is excavated
+deeply and walled in from the surrounding streets, he turned, to my
+amazement, away from the line that led into the suburbs, and ran along
+four tracks that led under a street bridge.
+
+This bridge was fully thirty feet overhead, and flanked by wings of
+masonry. The four tracks led into a small yard, almost surrounded by
+high stone warehouses; a yard devoted solely to turn-tables for
+locomotives. There was no exit from it except under the bridge that we
+passed beneath.
+
+"Good!" we heard Nolenki cry, fifty yards behind. "We have them now in
+a trap!"
+
+At that, Verbitzsky, still in the moonlight, slackened speed,
+half-turned as if in hesitation, then ran on more slowly, with zigzag
+steps, as if desperately looking for a way out. But he said to me in a
+low, panting voice:--
+
+"We shall escape. Do exactly as I do."
+
+When the police were not fifty feet behind us, Verbitzsky jumped down
+about seven feet into a wide pit. I jumped to his side. We were now
+standing in the walled-in excavation for a new locomotive turn-table.
+This pit was still free from its machinery and platform.
+
+"We are done now!" I said, staring around as Verbitzsky stopped in the
+middle of the circular pit, which was some forty feet wide.
+
+Just as the police came crowding to the edge, Verbitzsky fell on his
+knees as if in surrender. In their eagerness to lay first hands, on
+him, all the police jumped down except the chief, Dmitry Nolenki. Some
+fell. As those who kept their feet rushed toward us, Verbitzsky sprang
+up and ran to the opposite wall, with me at his heels.
+
+Three seconds later the foremost police were within fifteen feet of
+us. Then Verbitzsky raised his terrible bombs.
+
+From high above the roofs of the warehouses the full moon so clearly
+illuminated the yard that we could see every button on our
+assailants' coats, and even the puffs of fat Nolenki's breath. He
+stood panting on the opposite wall of the excavation.
+
+"Halt, or die!" cried Verbitzsky, in a terrible voice.
+
+The bombs were clearly to be seen in his hands. Every policeman in
+Moscow knew of the destruction done, only six days before, by just
+such weapons. The foremost men halted instantly. The impetus of those
+behind brought all together in a bunch--nine expectants of instant
+death. Verbitzsky spoke again:--
+
+"If any man moves hand or foot, I'll throw these," he cried. "Listen!"
+
+"Why, you fool," said Nolenki, a rather slow-witted man, "you can't
+escape. Surrender instantly."
+
+He drew his revolver and pointed it at us.
+
+"Michael," said Verbitzsky to me, in that steely voice which I had
+never before heard from my gentle comrade; "Michael, Nolenki can
+shoot but one of us before he dies. Take this bomb. Now if he hits me
+you throw your bomb at him. If he hits you I will throw mine."
+
+"Infernal villains!" gasped the chief; but we could see his pistol
+wavering.
+
+"Michael," resumed Verbitzsky, "we will give Nolenki a chance for his
+life. Obey me exactly! Listen! If Dmitry Nolenki does not jump down
+into this pit before I say five, throw your bomb straight at him! I
+will, at the moment I say five, throw mine at these rascals."
+
+"Madman!" cried Nolenki. "Do you think to--"
+
+He stopped as if paralyzed. I suppose he had suddenly understood that
+the explosion of a bomb in that small, high-walled yard would kill
+every man in it.
+
+"One!" cried Verbitzsky.
+
+"But I may not hit him!" said I.
+
+"No matter. If it explodes within thirty feet of him he will move no
+more."
+
+I took one step forward and raised the bomb. Did I mean to throw it? I
+do not know. I think not. But I knew we must make the threat or be
+captured and hung. And I felt certain that the bomb would be exploded
+anyway when Verbitzsky should say "Five." He would then throw his, and
+mine would explode by the concussion.
+
+"Two!" said Verbitzsky.
+
+Dmitry Nolenki had lowered his pistol. He glanced behind him uneasily.
+
+"If he runs, throw it!" said Verbitzsky, loudly. "THREE!"
+
+The chief of the Moscow secret police was reputed a brave man, but he
+was only a cruel one. Now his knees trembled so that we could see them
+shake, and his teeth chattered in the still cold night. Verbitzsky
+told me afterward that he feared the man's slow brain had become so
+paralyzed by fright that he might not be able to think and obey and
+jump down. That would have placed my comrade and me in a dreadful
+dilemma, but quite a different one from what you may suppose.
+
+As if to make Nolenki reflect, Verbitzsky spoke more slowly:--
+
+"If Dmitry Nolenki jumps down into this pit _before_ I say five, do
+_not_ throw the bomb at him. You understand, Michael, do not throw if
+he jumps down instantly. FOUR!"
+
+Nolenki's legs were so weak that he could not walk to the edge. In
+trying to do so he stumbled, fell, crawled, and came in head first, a
+mere heap.
+
+"Wise Nolenki!" said my comrade, with a laugh. Then in his tone of
+desperate resolution, "Nolenki, get down on your hands and knees, and
+put your head against that wall. Don't move now--if you wish to live."
+
+"Now, men," he cried to the others in military fashion, "right about,
+face!"
+
+They hesitated, perhaps fearful that he would throw at them when they
+turned.
+
+"About! instantly!" he cried. They all turned.
+
+"Now, men, you see your chief. At the word 'March,' go and kneel in a
+row beside him, your heads against that wall. Hump your backs as high
+as you can. If any man moves to get out, all will suffer together. You
+understand?"
+
+"Yes! yes! yes!" came in an agony of abasement from their lips.
+
+"March!"
+
+When they were all kneeling in a row, Verbitzsky said to me clearly:--
+
+"Michael, you can easily get to the top of that wall from any one of
+their backs. No man will dare to move. Go! Wait on the edge! Take your
+bomb with you!"
+
+I obeyed. I stood on a man's back. I laid my bomb with utmost care on
+the wall, over which I could then see. Then I easily lifted myself out
+by my hands and elbows.
+
+"Good!" said Verbitzsky. "Now, Michael, stand there till I come. If
+they try to seize me, throw your bomb. We can all die together."
+
+In half a minute he had stepped on Nolenki's back. Nolenki groaned
+with abasement. Next moment Verbitzsky was beside me.
+
+"Give me your bomb. Now, Michael," he said loudly, "I will stand guard
+over these wretches till I see you beyond the freight-sheds. Walk at
+an ordinary pace, lest you be seen and suspected."
+
+"But you? They'll rise and fire at you as you run," I said.
+
+"Of course they will. But you will escape. Here! Good-bye!"
+
+He embraced me, and whispered in my ear:
+
+"Go the opposite way from the freight-sheds. Go out toward the
+Petrovsky Gardens. There are few police there. Run hard after you've
+walked out under the bridge and around the abutments. You will then be
+out of hearing."
+
+"Go, dear friend," he said aloud, in a mournful voice. "I may never
+see you again. Possibly I may have to destroy myself and all here.
+Go!"
+
+I obeyed precisely, and had not fairly reached the yard's end when
+Verbitzsky, running very silently, came up beside me.
+
+"I think they must be still fancying that I'm standing over them," he
+chuckled. "No, they are shooting! Now, out they come!"
+
+From where we now stood in shadow we could see Nolenki and his men
+rush furiously out from under the bridge. They ran away from us toward
+the freight-sheds, shouting the alarm, while we calmly walked home to
+our unsuspected lodgings.
+
+Not till then did I think of the bombs.
+
+"Where are they?" I asked in alarm.
+
+"I left them for the police. They will ruin Nolenki--it was he who
+sent poor Zina to Siberia and her death."
+
+"Ruin him?" I said, wondering.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"They were not loaded."
+
+"Not loaded!"
+
+"That's what Boris whispered to me in the wool-shed office. He meant
+to load them to-morrow before going to His Imperial Majesty's train.
+Nolenki will be laughed to death in Moscow, if not sent to Siberia."
+
+Verbitzsky was right. Nolenki, after being laughed nearly to death,
+was sent to Siberia in disgrace, and we both worked in the same gang
+with him for eight months before we escaped from the Ural Mines. No
+doubt he is working there yet.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+_JUST ISSUED_....
+
+=ETCHINGS=
+FROM A
+=PARSONAGE VERANDA=
+BY
+MRS. E. JEFFERS GRAHAM
+Illustrated by J. W. BENGOUGH
+
+=CLOTH,--$1.00=
+
+=Contents=: THE PARSONAGE--SOLOMON WISEACRE--TWO WOMEN--MARION
+FULLER--JACOB WHINELY--CARLO--A PENSIONER--MRS TAFFETY--THE KNIGHT AND
+THE DOVE--A CROSS--UNDER A CLOUD--JOY IN THE MORNING--A SUPPLY--ONLY A
+CHILD--MISS PRIMPERTY--A TEMPERANCE MEETING--A DINNER PARTY--AU
+REVOIR--PARTING.
+
+The following words from the closing sketch of this charming book are
+representative of the spirit and style of the whole: "The moon is
+shining in calm majesty. Her children, the stars, are laughing and
+twinkling around her. Earth's children are sleeping, carousing and
+suffering. I am writing in the moonlight. I am so glad we have lived
+here--so happy that we have known all these good, heroic, sweet
+characters. We need not read novels to find heroes. They are living
+all around us. We are talking to them every day. They pass us on the
+street, they sit by us in the church and hall. There is no historian
+to write of them, only a book of remembrance in heaven, where all
+their good deeds are recorded."
+
+Smiles and tears alternate as the delicate humor and tender pathos
+succeed each other through these delightful character sketches. We do
+not hope for popularity for the book--we are _sure of it_.
+
+
+For Sale by all Booksellers
+
+WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher
+29-33 Richmond Street West, TORONTO
+Montreal: C. W. COATES.       Halifax: S. F. HUESTIS.
+
+
+
+
+_TWO NEW BOOKS_
+
+=Forest, Lake AND Prairie=
+
+_TWENTY YEARS OF FRONTIER LIFE IN WESTERN CANADA, 1842-1862._
+
+BY
+
+=REV. JOHN McDOUGALL=
+
+_With Twenty-seven Full-page Original Illustrations by J. E.
+LAUGHLIN._
+
+Strongly bound in English Cloth, with handsome original design in ink
+and gold.
+
+=PRICE,--$1.00=
+
+
+A Companion Book to "Black Beauty."
+
+LION, THE MASTIFF
+
+=FROM LIFE=
+
+By A. G. SAVIGNY
+
+With Introduction by REV. PRINCIPAL CAVEN, D.D.
+
+=CLOTH, 50 CENTS NET=
+
+An ingenious and clever humane story in which "Lion" tells the
+narrative of his life, to quote Principal Caven, "with more vivacity
+than some famous men have exemplified in memoirs of themselves." It
+should be in the hands of every boy and girl in Canada. The author has
+woven into her story a great deal of useful information to guide us in
+our treatment of dumb animals.
+
+WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher
+Wesley Buildings, Toronto
+Montreal: C. W. COATES.          Halifax: S. F. HUESTIS.
+
+
+
+
+=SOME RECENT ISSUES.=
+
+=A Veteran of 1812.= By Mary Agnes FitzGibbon               $1.00
+
+=Cape Breton, Historic, Picturesque and Descriptive.=
+By John M. Gow                                               3.00
+
+=Birds of Ontario.= By Thomas McIlwraith                     2.00
+
+=Pearls and Pebbles; or, Notes of an Old Naturalist.=
+By Mrs. Catharine Parr Traill. With Biographical
+Sketch by Mary Agnes FitzGibbon                              1.50
+
+=The Life and Times of Major-General Sir Isaac
+Brock.= By D. B. Read, Q.C.                                  1.50
+
+=The History of British Columbia.= From its Earliest
+Discovery to the Present Time. By Alexander Begg.            3.00
+
+=China and its People.= By W. H. Withrow, D.D.               1.00
+
+=The Native Races of North America.= By W. H.
+Withrow, D.D.                                                0.75
+
+=Japan, the Land of the Morning.= By Rev. J. W.
+Saunby, B.A.                                                 1.00
+
+=Motley: Verses Grave and Gay.= By J. W. Bengough.
+Illustrated by the Author                                    1.00
+
+=Forest, Lake and Prairie=: Twenty Years of Frontier
+Life in Western Canada--1842-62. By Rev. John McDougall      1.00
+
+=The Catholic Church in the Niagara Peninsula.= By
+Rev. Dean Harris                                             2.00
+
+=Etchings from a Parsonage Veranda.= By Mrs. E.
+Jeffers Graham. Illustrated by J. W. Bengough                1.00
+
+=Lion the Mastiff.= By A. G. Savigny                         0.50
+
+=The Red, Red Wine.= By J. Jackson Wray. Illustrated.        1.00
+
+WILLIAM BRIGGS, Publisher,
+29-33 Richmond St. West, Toronto.
+MONTREAL: C. W. COATES.   HALIFAX: S. F. HUESTIS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Pg. 241: Respectacle is possibly a typo for respectable, or the
+author's coined word combining respectable and spectacle.
+(... cart was regarded in that district as peculiarly respectacle.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Man Savarin and Other Stories, by
+Edward Wilson Thomson
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