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+The Project Gutenberg EBook Pierre And His People, V5, by G. Parker
+#6 in our series by Gilbert Parker
+  Contents:
+    Antoine And Angelique
+    The Cipher
+    A Tragedy Of Nobodies
+    A Sanctuary Of The Plains
+
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+**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
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+*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
+
+
+Title: Pierre And His People, [Tales of the Far North], Volume 5.
+
+Author: Gilbert Parker
+
+Release Date: July, 2004  [EBook #6178]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on August 27, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE, V5, PARKER ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
+file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
+entire meal of them.  D.W.]
+
+
+
+
+
+PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE
+
+TALES OF THE FAR NORTH
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+Volume 5.
+
+
+ANTOINE AND ANGELIQUE
+THE CIPHER
+A TRAGEDY OF NOBODIES
+A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS
+
+
+
+
+ANTOINE AND ANGELIQUE
+
+"The birds are going south, Antoine--see--and it is so early!"
+
+"Yes, Angelique, the winter will be long."
+
+There was a pause, and then: "Antoine, I heard a child cry in the night,
+and I could not sleep."
+
+"It was a devil-bird, my wife; it flies slowly, and the summer is dead."
+
+"Antoine, there was a rushing of wings by my bed before the morn was
+breaking."
+
+"The wild-geese know their way in the night, Angelique; but they flew by
+the house and not near thy bed."
+
+"The two black squirrels have gone from the hickory tree."
+
+"They have hidden away with the bears in the earth; for the frost comes,
+and it is the time of sleep."
+
+"A cold hand was knocking at my heart when I said my aves last night, my
+Antoine."
+
+"The heart of a woman feels many strange things: I cannot answer, my
+wife."
+
+"Let us go also southward, Antoine, before the great winds and the wild
+frost come."
+
+"I love thee, Angelique, but I cannot go."
+
+"Is not love greater than all?"
+
+"To keep a pledge is greater."
+
+"Yet if evil come?"
+
+"There is the mine."
+
+"None travels hither; who should find it?"
+
+He said to me, my wife: 'Antoine, will you stay and watch the mine until
+I come with the birds northward, again?' and I said: 'I will stay, and
+Angelique will stay; I will watch the mine.'"
+
+"This is for his riches, but for our peril, Antoine."
+
+"Who can say whither a woman's fancy goes?  It is full of guessing.  It
+is clouds and darkness to-day, and sunshine--so much--to-morrow.  I
+cannot answer."
+
+"I have a fear; if my husband loved me--"
+
+"There is the mine," he interrupted firmly.
+
+"When my heart aches so--"
+
+"Angelique, there is the mine."
+
+"Ah, my Antoine!"
+
+And so these two stayed on the island of St. Jean, in Lake Superior,
+through the purple haze of autumn, into the white brilliancy of winter,
+guarding the Rose Tree Mine, which Falding the Englishman and his
+companions had prospected and declared to be their Ophir.
+
+But St. Jean was far from the ways of settlement, and there was little
+food and only one hut, and many things must be done for the Rose Tree
+Mine in the places where men sell their souls for money; and Antoine and
+Angelique, French peasants from the parish of Ste. Irene in Quebec, were
+left to guard the place of treasure, until, to the sound of the laughing
+spring, there should come many men and much machinery, and the sinking of
+shafts in the earth, and the making, of riches.
+
+But when Antoine and Angelique were left alone in the waste, and God
+began to draw the pale coverlet of frost slowly across land and water,
+and to surround St. Jean with a stubborn moat of ice, the heart of the
+woman felt some coming danger, and at last broke forth in words of timid
+warning.  When she once had spoken she said no more, but stayed and
+builded the heaps of earth about the house, and filled every crevice
+against the inhospitable Spirit of Winds, and drew her world closer and
+closer within those two rooms where they should live through many months.
+
+The winter was harsh, but the hearts of the two were strong.  They loved;
+and Love is the parent of endurance, the begetter of courage.  And every
+day, because it seemed his duty, Antoine inspected the Rose Tree Mine;
+and every day also, because it seemed her duty, Angelique said many aves.
+And one prayer was much with her--for spring to come early that the child
+should not suffer: the child which the good God was to give to her and
+Antoine.
+
+In the first hours of each evening Antoine smoked, and Angelique sang the
+old songs which their ancestors learned in Normandy.  One night Antoine's
+face was lighted with a fine fire as he talked of happy days in the
+parish of Ste. Irene; and with that romantic fervour of his race which
+the stern winters of Canada could not kill, he sang, 'A la Claire
+Fontaine,' the well-beloved song-child of the 'voyageurs'' hearts.
+
+And the wife smiled far away into the dancing flames--far away, because
+the fire retreated, retreated to the little church where they two were
+wed; and she did as most good women do--though exactly why, man the
+insufficient cannot declare--she wept a little through her smiles.  But
+when the last verse came, both smiles and tears ceased.  Antoine sang it
+with a fond monotony:
+
+              "Would that each rose were growing
+               Upon the rose-tree gay,
+               And that the fatal rose-tree
+               Deep in the ocean lay.
+               'I ya longtemps que je t'aime
+               Jamais je ne t'oublierai."
+
+Angelique's heart grew suddenly heavy.  From the rose-tree of the song
+her mind fled and shivered before the leafless rose-tree by the mine; and
+her old dread came back.
+
+Of course this was foolish of Angelique; of course the wise and great
+throw contumely on all such superstition; and knowing women will smile
+at each other meaningly, and with pity for a dull man-writer, and will
+whisper, "Of course, the child."  But many things, your majesties, are
+hidden from your wisdom and your greatness, and are given to the simple
+--to babes, and the mothers of babes.
+
+It was upon this very night that Falding the Englishman sat with other
+men in a London tavern, talking joyously.  "There's been the luck of
+Heaven," he said, "in the whole exploit.  We'd been prospecting for
+months.  As a sort of try in a back-water we rowed over one night to an
+island and pitched tents.  Not a dozen yards from where we camped was a
+rose-tree-think of it, Belgard, a rose-tree on a rag-tag island of Lake
+Superior!  'There's luck in odd numbers, says Rory O'More.'  'There's
+luck here,' said I; and at it we went just beside the rose-tree.  What's
+the result?  Look at that prospectus: a company with a capital of two
+hundred thousand; the whole island in our hands in a week; and Antoine
+squatting on it now like Bonaparte on Elbe."
+
+"And what does Antoine get out of this?" said Belgard.
+
+"Forty dollars a month and his keep."
+
+"Why not write him off twenty shares to propitiate the gods--gifts unto
+the needy, eh!--a thousand-fold--what?"
+
+"Yes; it might be done, Belgard, if--"
+
+But someone just then proposed the toast, "The Rose Tree Mine!" and the
+souls of these men waxed proud and merry, for they had seen the
+investor's palm filled with gold, the maker of conquest.  While Antoine
+was singing with his wife, they were holding revel within the sound of
+Bow Bells.  And far into the night, through silent Cheapside, a rolling
+voice swelled through much laughter thus:
+
+                   "Gai Ion la, gai le rosier,
+                    Du joli mois de Mai."
+
+The next day there were heavy heads in London; but the next day, also,
+a man lay ill in the hut on the island of St. Jean.
+
+Antoine had sung his last song.  He had waked in the night with a start
+of pain, and by the time the sun was halting at noon above the Rose Tree
+Mine, he had begun a journey, the record of which no man has ever truly
+told, neither its beginning nor its end; because that which is of the
+spirit refuseth to be interpreted by the flesh.  Some signs there be, but
+they are brief and shadowy; the awe of It is hidden in the mind of him
+that goeth out lonely unto God.
+
+When the call goes forth, not wife nor child nor any other can hold the
+wayfarer back, though he may loiter for an instant on the brink.  The
+poor medicaments which Angelique brings avail not; these soothing hands
+and healing tones, they pass through clouds of the middle place between
+heaven and earth to Antoine.  It is only when the second midnight comes
+that, with conscious, but pensive and far-off, eyes, he says to her:
+"Angelique, my wife."
+
+For reply her lips pressed his cheek, and her fingers hungered for his
+neck.  Then: "Is there pain now Antoine?"
+
+"There is no pain, Angelique."
+
+He closed his eyes slowly; her lips framed an ave.  "The mine," he said,
+"the mine--until the spring."
+
+"Yes, Antoine, until the spring."
+
+"Have you candles--many candles, Angelique?"
+
+"There are many, my husband."
+
+"The ground is as iron; one cannot dig, and the water under the ice is
+cruel--is it not so, Angelique?"
+
+"No axe could break the ground, and the water is cruel," she said.
+
+"You will see my face until the winter is gone, my wife."
+
+She bowed her head, but smoothed his hand meanwhile, and her throat was
+quivering.
+
+He partly slept--his body slept, though his mind was feeling its way to
+wonderful things.  But near the morning his eyes opened wide, and he
+said: "Someone calls out of the dark, Angelique."
+
+And she, with her hand on her heart, replied: "It is the cry of a dog,
+Antoine."
+
+"But there are footsteps at the door, my wife."
+
+"Nay, Antoine; it is the snow beating upon the window."
+
+"There is the sound of wings close by--dost thou not hear them,
+Angelique?"
+
+"Wings--wings," she falteringly said: "it is the hot blast through the
+chimney; the night is cold, Antoine."
+
+"The night is very cold," he said; and he trembled. . . "I hear, O my
+wife, I hear the voice of a little child . . . the voice is like thine,
+Angelique."
+
+And she, not knowing what to reply, said softly:
+
+"There is hope in the voice of a child;" and the mother stirred within
+her; and in the moment he knew also that the Spirits would give her the
+child in safety, that she should not be alone in the long winter.
+
+The sounds of the harsh night had ceased--the snapping of the leafless
+branches, the cracking of the earth, and the heaving of the rocks: the
+Spirits of the Frost had finished their work; and just as the grey
+forehead of dawn appeared beyond the cold hills, Antoine cried out
+gently: "Angelique .  .  .  Ah, mon Capitaine .  .  .  Jesu" .  .  .
+and then, no more.
+
+Night after night Angelique lighted candles in the place where Antoine
+smiled on in his frozen silence; and masses were said for his soul--the
+masses Love murmurs for its dead.  The earth could not receive him; its
+bosom was adamant; but no decay could touch him; and she dwelt alone with
+this, that was her husband, until one beautiful, bitter day, when, with
+no eye save God's to see her, and no human comfort by her, she gave birth
+to a man-child.  And yet that night she lighted the candles at the dead
+man's head and feet, dragging herself thither in the cold; and in her
+heart she said that the smile on Antoine's face was deeper than it had
+been before.
+
+In the early spring, when the earth painfully breathed away the frost
+that choked it, with her child for mourner, and herself for sexton and
+priest, she buried Antoine with maimed rites: but hers were the prayers
+of the poor, and of the pure in heart; and she did not fret because,
+in the hour that her comrade was put away into the dark, the world was
+laughing at the thought of coming summer.
+
+Before another sunrise, the owners of the island of St. Jean claimed what
+was theirs; and because that which had happened worked upon their hearts,
+they called the child St. Jean, and from that time forth they made him to
+enjoy the goodly fruits of the Rose Tree Mine.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CIPHER
+
+Hilton was staying his horse by a spring at Guidon Hill when he first
+saw her.  She was gathering may-apples; her apron was full of them.  He
+noticed that she did not stir until he rode almost upon her.  Then she
+started, first without looking round, as does an animal, dropping her
+head slightly to one side, though not exactly appearing to listen.
+Suddenly she wheeled on him, and her big eyes captured him.  The look
+bewildered him.  She was a creature of singular fascination.  Her face
+was expressive.  Her eyes had wonderful light.  She looked happy, yet
+grave withal; it was the gravity of an uncommon earnestness.  She gazed
+through everything, and beyond.  She was young--eighteen or so.
+
+Hilton raised his hat, and courteously called a good-morning at her.  She
+did not reply by any word, but nodded quaintly, and blinked seriously and
+yet blithely on him.  He was preparing to dismount.  As he did so he
+paused, astonished that she did not speak at all.  Her face did not have
+a familiar language; its vocabulary was its own.  He slid from his horse,
+and, throwing his arm over its neck as it stooped to the spring, looked
+at her more intently, but respectfully too.  She did not yet stir, but
+there came into her face a slight inflection of confusion or perplexity.
+Again he raised his hat to her, and, smiling, wished her a good-morning.
+Even as he did so a thought sprung in him.  Understanding gave place to
+wonder; he interpreted the unusual look in her face.
+
+Instantly he made a sign to her.  To that her face responded with a
+wonderful speech--of relief and recognition.  The corners of her apron
+dropped from her fingers, and the yellow may-apples fell about her feet.
+She did not notice this.  She answered his sign with another, rapid,
+graceful, and meaning.  He left his horse and advanced to her, holding
+out his hand simply--for he was a simple and honest man.  Her response to
+this was spontaneous.  The warmth of her fingers invaded him.  Her eyes
+were full of questioning.  He gave a hearty sign of admiration.  She
+flushed with pleasure, but made a naive, protesting gesture.
+
+She was deaf and dumb.
+
+Hilton had once a sister who was a mute.  He knew that amazing primal
+gesture-language of the silent race, whom God has sent like one-winged
+birds into the world.  He had watched in his sister just such looks of
+absolute nature as flashed from this girl.  They were comrades on the
+instant; he reverential, gentle, protective; she sanguine, candid,
+beautifully aboriginal in the freshness of her cipher-thoughts.  She saw
+the world naked, with a naked eye.  She was utterly natural.  She was the
+maker of exquisite, vital gesture-speech.
+
+She glided out from among the may-apples and the long, silken grass, to
+charm his horse with her hand.  As she started to do so, he hastened to
+prevent her, but, utterly surprised, he saw the horse whinny to her
+cheek, and arch his neck under her white palm--it was very white.  Then
+the animal's chin sought her shoulder and stayed placid.  He had never
+done so to anyone before save Hilton.  Once, indeed, he had kicked a
+stableman to death.  He lifted his head and caught with playful shaking
+lips at her ear.  Hilton smiled; and so, as we said, their comradeship
+began.
+
+He was a new officer of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Guidon.  She was
+the daughter of a ranchman.  She had been educated by Father Corraine,
+the Jesuit missionary, Protestant though she was.  He had learned the
+sign-language while assistant-priest in a Parisian chapel for mutes.  He
+taught her this gesture-tongue, which she, taking, rendered divine; and,
+with this, she learned to read and write.
+
+Her name was Ida.
+
+Ida was faultless.  Hilton was not; but no man is.  To her, however, he
+was the best that man can be.  He was unselfish and altogether honest,
+and that is much for a man.
+
+When Pierre came to know of their friendship he shook his head
+doubtfully.  One day he was sitting on the hot side of a pine near his
+mountain hut, soaking in the sun.  He saw them passing below him, along
+the edge of the hill across the ravine.  He said to someone behind him
+in the shade, who was looking also," What will be the end of that, eh?"
+
+And the someone replied: "Faith, what the Serpent in the Wilderness
+couldn't cure."
+
+"You think he'll play with her?"
+
+"I think he'll do it without wishin' or willin', maybe.  It'll be a case
+of kiss and ride away."
+
+There was silence.  Soon Pierre pointed down again.  She stood upon a
+green mound with a cool hedge of rock behind her, her feet on the margin
+of solid sunlight, her forehead bared.  Her hair sprinkled round her as
+she gently threw back her head.  Her face was full on Hilton.  She was
+telling him something.  Her gestures were rhythmical, and admirably
+balanced.  Because they were continuous or only regularly broken, it was
+clear she was telling him a story.  Hilton gravely, delightedly, nodded
+response now and then, or raised his eyebrows in fascinated surprise.
+Pierre, watching, was only aware of vague impressions--not any distinct
+outline of the tale.  At last he guessed it as a perfect pastoral-birds,
+reaping, deer, winds, sundials, cattle, shepherds, hunting.  To Hilton it
+was a new revelation.  She was telling him things she had thought, she
+was recalling her life.
+
+Towards the last, she said in gesture: "You can forget the winter, but
+not the spring.  You like to remember the spring.  It is the beginning.
+When the daisy first peeps, when the tall young deer first stands upon
+its feet, when the first egg is seen in the oriole's nest, when the sap
+first sweats from the tree, when you first look into the eye of your
+friend--these you want to remember.  .  .  ."
+
+She paused upon this gesture--a light touch upon the forehead, then the
+hands stretched out, palms upward, with coaxing fingers.  She seemed lost
+in it.  Her eyes rippled, her lips pressed slightly, a delicate wine
+crept through her cheek, and tenderness wimpled all.  Her soft breast
+rose modestly to the cool texture of her dress.  Hilton felt his blood
+bound joyfully; he had the wish of instant possession.  But yet he could
+not stir, she held him so; for a change immediately passed upon her.  She
+glided slowly from that almost statue-like repose into another gesture.
+Her eyes drew up from his, and looked away to plumbless distance, all
+glowing and childlike, and the new ciphers slowly said:
+
+"But the spring dies away.  We can only see a thing born once.  And it
+may be ours, yet not ours.  I have sighted the perfect Sharon-flower, far
+up on Guidon, yet it was not mine; it was too distant; I could not reach
+it.  I have seen the silver bullfinch floating along the canon.  I called
+to it, and it came singing; and it was mine, yet I could not hear its
+song, and I let it go; it could not be happy so with me.  .  .  .
+I stand at the gate of a great city, and see all, and feel the great
+shuttles of sounds, the roar and clack of wheels, the horses' hoofs
+striking the ground, the hammer of bells; all: and yet it is not mine;
+it is far, far away from me.  It is one world, mine is another; and
+sometimes it is lonely, and the best things are not for me.  But I have
+seen them, and it is pleasant to remember, and nothing can take from us
+the hour when things were born, when we saw the spring--nothing--never!"
+
+Her manner of speech, as this went on, became exquisite in fineness,
+slower, and more dream-like, until, with downward protesting motions of
+the hand, she said that "nothing--never!"  Then a great sigh surged up
+her throat, her lips parted slightly, showing the warm moist whiteness of
+her teeth, her hands falling lightly, drew together and folded in front
+of her.  She stood still.
+
+Pierre had watched this scene intently, his chin in his hands, his elbows
+on his knees.  Presently he drew himself up, ran a finger meditatively
+along his lip, and said to himself: "It is perfect.  She is carved from
+the core of nature.  But this thing has danger for her.  .  .  .
+'bien!'  .  .  .  ah!"
+
+A change in the scene before him caused this last expression of surprise.
+
+Hilton, rousing from the enchanting pantomime, took a step towards her;
+but she raised her hand pleadingly, restrainingly, and he paused.  With
+his eyes he asked her mutely why.  She did not answer, but, all at once
+transformed into a thing of abundant sprightliness, ran down the
+hillside, tossing up her arms gaily.  Yet her face was not all
+brilliance.  Tears hung at her eyes.  But Hilton did not see these.
+He did not run, but walked quickly, following her; and his face had a
+determined look.  Immediately, a man rose up from behind a rock on the
+same side of the ravine, and shook clenched fists after the departing
+figures; then stood gesticulating angrily to himself, until, chancing
+to look up, he sighted Pierre, and straightway dived into the underbrush.
+Pierre rose to his feet, and said slowly: "Hilton, here may be trouble
+for you also.  It is a tangled world."
+
+Towards evening Pierre sauntered to the house of Ida's father.  Light of
+footstep, he came upon the girl suddenly.  They had always been friends
+since the day when, at uncommon risk, he rescued her dog from a freshet
+on the Wild Moose River.  She was sitting utterly still, her hands folded
+in her lap.  He struck his foot smartly on the ground.  She felt the
+vibration, and looked up.  He doffed his hat, and she held out her hand.
+He smiled and took it, and, as it lay in his, looked at it for a moment
+musingly.  She drew it back slowly.  He was then thinking that it was the
+most intelligent hand he had ever seen.  .  .  .  He determined to play a
+bold and surprising game.  He had learned from her the alphabet of the
+fingers--that is, how to spell words.  He knew little gesture-language.
+He, therefore, spelled slowly: "Hawley is angry, because you love
+Hilton."  The statement was so matter-of-fact, so sudden, that the girl
+had no chance.  She flushed and then paled.  She shook her head firmly,
+however, and her fingers slowly framed the reply: "You guess too much.
+Foolish things come to the idle."
+
+"I saw you this afternoon," he silently urged.
+
+Her fingers trembled slightly.  "There was nothing to see."  She knew he
+could not have read her gestures.  "I was telling a story."
+
+"You ran from him--why?"  His questioning was cruel that he might in the
+end be kind.
+
+"The child runs from its shadow, the bird from its nest, the fish jumps
+from the water--that is nothing."  She had recovered somewhat.
+
+But he: "The shadow follows the child, the bird comes back to its nest,
+the fish cannot live beyond the water.  But it is sad when the child, in
+running, rushes into darkness, and loses its shadow; when the nest falls
+from the tree; and the hawk catches the happy fish.  .  .  .  Hawley saw
+you also."
+
+Hawley, like Ida, was deaf and dumb.  He lived over the mountains, but
+came often.  It had been understood that, one day, she should marry him.
+It seemed fitting.  She had said neither yes nor no.  And now?
+
+A quick tremor of trouble trailed over her face, then it became very
+still.  Her eyes were bent upon the ground steadily.  Presently a bird
+hopped near, its head coquetting at her.  She ran her hand gently along
+the grass towards it.  The bird tripped on it.  She lifted it to her
+chin, at which it pecked tenderly.  Pierre watched her keenly-admiring,
+pitying.  He wished to serve her.  At last, with a kiss upon its head,
+she gave it a light toss into the air, and it soared, lark-like, straight
+up, and hanging over her head, sang the day into the evening.  Her eyes
+followed it.  She could feel that it was singing.  She smiled and lifted
+a finger lightly towards it.  Then she spelled to Pierre this: "It is
+singing to me.  We imperfect things love each other."
+
+"And what about loving Hawley, then?"  Pierre persisted.  She did not
+reply, but a strange look came upon her, and in the pause Hilton came
+from the house and stood beside them.  At this, Pierre lighted a
+cigarette, and with a good-natured nod to Hilton, walked away.
+
+Hilton stooped over her, pale and eager.  "Ida," he gestured, "will you
+answer me now?  Will you be my wife?"
+
+She drew herself together with a little shiver.  "No," was her steady
+reply.  She ruled her face into stillness, so that it showed nothing of
+what she felt.  She came to her feet wearily, and drawing down a cool
+flowering branch of chestnut, pressed it to her cheek.  "You do not love
+me?" he asked nervously.
+
+"I am going to marry Luke Hawley," was her slow answer.  She spelled the
+words.  She used no gesture to that.  The fact looked terribly hard and
+inflexible so.  Hilton was not a vain man, and he believed he was not
+loved.  His heart crowded to his throat.
+
+"Please go away, now," she begged with an anxious gesture.  While the
+hand was extended, he reached and brought it to his lips, then quickly
+kissed her on the forehead, and walked away.  She stood trembling, and as
+the fingers of one hand hung at her side, they spelled mechanically these
+words: "It would spoil his life.  I am only a mute--a dummy!"
+
+As she stood so, she felt the approach of someone.  She did not turn
+instantly, but with the aboriginal instinct, listened, as it were, with
+her body; but presently faced about--to Hawley.  He was red with anger.
+He had seen Hilton kiss her.  He caught her smartly by the arm, but, awed
+by the great calmness of her face, dropped it, and fell into a fit of
+sullenness.  She spoke to him: he did not reply.  She touched his arm: he
+still was gloomy.  All at once the full price of her sacrifice rushed
+upon her; and overpowered her.  She had no help at her critical hour, not
+even from this man she had intended to bless.  There came a swift
+revulsion, all passions stormed in her at once.  Despair was the
+resultant of these forces.  She swerved from him immediately, and ran
+hard towards the high-banked river!
+
+Hawley did not follow her at once: he did not guess her purpose.  She had
+almost reached the leaping-place, when Pierre shot from the trees, and
+seized her.  The impulse of this was so strong, that they slipped, and
+quivered on the precipitous edge: but Pierre righted then, and presently
+they were safe.
+
+Pierre held her hard by both wrists for a moment.  Then, drawing her
+away, he loosed her, and spelled these words slowly: "I understand.  But
+you are wrong.  Hawley is not the man.  You must come with me.  It is
+foolish to die."
+
+The riot of her feelings, her momentary despair, were gone.  It was
+even pleasant to be mastered by Pierre's firmness.  She was passive.
+Mechanically she went with him.  Hawley approached.  She looked at
+Pierre.  Then she turned on the other.  "Yours is not the best love," she
+signed to him; "it does not trust; it is selfish."  And she moved on.
+
+But, an hour later, Hilton caught her to his bosom, and kissed her full
+on the lips.  .  .  .  And his right to do so continues to this day.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A TRAGEDY OF NOBODIES
+
+At Fort Latrobe sentiment was not of the most refined kind.  Local
+customs were pronounced and crude in outline; language was often highly
+coloured, and action was occasionally accentuated by a pistol shot.  For
+the first few months of its life the place was honoured by the presence
+of neither wife, nor sister, nor mother.  Yet women lived there.
+
+When some men did bring wives and children, it was noticed that the girl
+Blanche was seldom seen in the streets.  And, however it was, there grew
+among the men a faint respect for her.  They did not talk of it to each
+other, but it existed.  It was known that Blanche resented even the most
+casual notice from those men who had wives and homes.  She gave the
+impression that she had a remnant of conscience.
+
+"Go home," she said to Harry Delong, who asked her to drink with him on
+New Year's Day.  "Go home, and thank God that you've got a home--and a
+wife."
+
+After Jacques, the long-time friend of Pretty Pierre, came to Fort
+Latrobe, with his sulky eye and scrupulously neat attire, Blanche
+appeared to withdraw still more from public gaze, though no one saw any
+connection between these events.  The girl also became fastidious in her
+dress, and lost all her former dash and smart aggression of manner.  She
+shrank from the women of her class, for which, as might be expected, she
+was duly reviled.  But the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air
+have nests, nor has it been written that a woman may not close her ears,
+and bury herself in darkness, and travel alone in the desert with her
+people--those ghosts of herself, whose name is legion, and whose slow
+white fingers mock more than the world dare at its worst.
+
+Suddenly, she was found behind the bar of Weir's Tavern at Cedar Point,
+the resort most frequented by Jacques.  Word went about among the men
+that Blanche was taking a turn at religion, or, otherwise, reformation.
+Soldier Joe was something sceptical on this point from the fact that she
+had developed a very uncertain temper.  This appeared especially
+noticeable in her treatment of Jacques.  She made him the target for her
+sharpest sarcasm.  Though a peculiar glow came to his eyes at times, he
+was never roused from his exasperating coolness.  When her shafts were
+unusually direct and biting, and the temptation to resent was keen, he
+merely shrugged his shoulders, almost gently, and said: "Eh, such women!"
+
+Nevertheless, there were men at Fort Latrobe who prophesied trouble,
+for they knew there was a deep strain of malice in the French half-breed
+which could be the more deadly because of its rare use.  He was not
+easily moved, he viewed life from the heights of a philosophy which could
+separate the petty from the prodigious.  His reputation was not wholly
+disquieting; he was of the goats, he had sometimes been found with the
+sheep, he preferred to be numbered with the transgressors.  Like Pierre,
+his one passion was gambling.  There were legends that once or twice in
+his life he had had another passion, but that some Gorgon drew out his
+heartstrings painfully, one by one, and left him inhabited by a pale
+spirit now called Irony, now Indifference--under either name a fret and
+an anger to women.
+
+At last Blanche's attacks on Jacques called out anxious protests from
+men like rollicking Soldier Joe, who said to her one night, "Blanche,
+there's a devil in Jacques.  Some day you'll startle him, and then he'll
+shoot you as cool as he empties the pockets of Freddy Tarlton over
+there."
+
+And Blanche replied: "When he does that, what will you do, Joe?"
+
+"Do?  Do?"  The man stroked his beard softly.  "Why, give him ditto--
+cold."
+
+"Well, then, there's nothing to row about, is there?"  And Soldier Joe
+was not on the instant clever enough to answer her sophistry; but when
+she left him and he had thought awhile, he said, convincingly:
+
+"But where would you be then, Blanche?  .  .  .  That's the point."
+
+One thing was known and certain: Blanche was earning her living by
+honest, if not high-class, labour.  Weir the tavern-keeper said she was
+"worth hundreds" to him.  But she grew pale, her eyes became peculiarly
+brilliant, her voice took a lower key, and lost a kind of hoarseness it
+had in the past.  Men came in at times merely to have a joke at her
+expense, having heard of her new life; but they failed to enjoy their own
+attempts at humour.  Women of her class came also, some with half-
+uncertain jibes, some with a curious wistfulness, and a few with scornful
+oaths; but the jibes and oaths were only for a time.  It became known
+that she had paid the coach fare of Miss Dido (as she was called) to the
+hospital at Wapiti, and had raised a subscription for her maintenance
+there, heading it herself with a liberal sum.  Then the atmosphere round
+her became less trying; yet her temper remained changeable, and had it
+not been that she was good-looking and witty, her position might have
+been insecure.  As it was, she ruled in a neutral territory where she was
+the only woman.  One night, after an inclement remark to Jacques, in the
+card-room, Blanche came back to the bar, and not noticing that, while she
+was gone, Soldier Joe had entered and laid himself down on a bench in a
+corner, she threw her head passionately forward on her arms as they
+rested on the counter, and cried: "O my God! my God!"
+
+Soldier Joe lay still as if sleeping, and when Blanche was called away
+again he rose, stole out, went down to Freddy Tarlton's office, and
+offered to bet Freddy two to one that Blanche wouldn't live a year.
+Joe's experience of women was limited.  He had in his mind the case
+of a girl who had accidentally smothered her child; and so he said:
+
+"Blanche has something on her mind that's killing her, Freddy.  When
+trouble fixes on her sort it kills swift and sure.  They've nothing to
+live for but life, and it isn't good enough, you see, for--for--"
+Joe paused to find out where his philosophy was taking him.
+
+Freddy Tarlton finished the sentence for him: "For an inner sorrow is a
+consuming fire."
+
+Fort Latrobe soon had an unexpected opportunity to study Soldier Joe's
+theory.  One night Jacques did not appear at Weir's Tavern as he had
+engaged to do, and Soldier Joe and another went across the frozen river
+to his log-hut to seek him.  They found him by a handful of fire,
+breathing heavily and nearly unconscious.  One of the sudden and
+frequently fatal colds of the mountains had fastened on him, and he had
+begun a war for life.  Joe started back at once for liquor and a doctor,
+leaving his comrade to watch by the sick man.
+
+He could not understand why Blanche should stagger and grow white when he
+told her; nor why she insisted on taking the liquor herself.  He did not
+yet guess the truth.
+
+The next day all Fort Latrobe knew that Blanche was nursing Jacques, on
+what was thought to be his no-return journey.  The doctor said it was a
+dangerous case, and he held out little hope.  Nursing might bring
+him through, but the chance was very slight.  Blanche only occasionally
+left the sick man's bedside to be relieved by Soldier Joe and Freddy
+Tarlton.  It dawned on Joe at last, it had dawned on Freddy before, what
+Blanche meant by the heart-breaking words uttered that night in Weir's
+Tavern.  Down through the crust of this woman's heart had gone something
+both joyful and painful.  Whatever it was, it made Blanche a saving
+nurse, a good apothecary; for, one night the doctor pronounced Jacques
+out of danger, and said that a few days would bring him round if he was
+careful.
+
+Now, for the first time, Jacques fully comprehended all Blanche had done
+for him, though he had ceased to wonder at her changed attitude to him.
+Through his suffering and his delirium had come the understanding of it.
+When, after the crisis, the doctor turned away from the bed, Jacques
+looked steadily into Blanche's eyes, and she flushed, and wiped the wet
+from his brow with her handkerchief.  He took the handkerchief from her
+fingers gently before Soldier Joe came over to the bed.
+
+The doctor had insisted that Blanche should go to Weir's Tavern and get
+the night's rest, needed so much, and Joe now pressed her to keep her
+promise.  Jacques added an urging word, and after a time she started.
+Joe had forgotten to tell her that a new road had been made on the ice
+since she had crossed, and that the old road was dangerous.  Wandering
+with her thoughts she did not notice the spruce bushes set up for signal,
+until she had stepped on a thin piece of ice.  It bent beneath her.  She
+slipped: there was a sudden sinking, a sharp cry, then another, piercing
+and hopeless--and it was the one word--"Jacques!"  Then the night was
+silent as before.  But someone had heard the cry.  Freddy Tarlton was
+crossing the ice also, and that desolating Jacques! had reached his ears.
+When he found her he saw that she had been taken and the other left.
+But that other, asleep in his bed at the sacred moment when she parted,
+suddenly waked, and said to Soldier Joe: "Did you speak, Joe?  Did you
+call me?"
+
+But Joe, who had been playing cards with himself, replied, "I haven't
+said a word."
+
+And Jacques then added: "Perhaps I dream--perhaps."
+
+On the advice of the doctor and Freddy Tarlton, the bad news was kept
+from Jacques.  When she did not come the next day, Joe told him that she
+couldn't; that he ought to remember she had had no rest for weeks, and
+had earned a long rest.  And Jacques said that was so.
+
+Weir began preparations for the funeral, but Freddy Tarlton took them out
+of his hands--Freddy Tarlton, who visited at the homes of Fort Latrobe.
+But he had the strength of his convictions such as they were.  He began
+by riding thirty miles and back to ask the young clergyman at Purple Hill
+to come and bury Blanche.  She'd reformed and been baptised, Freddy said
+with a sad sort of humour.  And the clergyman, when he knew all, said
+that he would come.  Freddy was hardly prepared for what occurred when he
+got back.  Men were waiting for him, anxious to know if the clergyman was
+coming.  They had raised a subscription to cover the cost of the funeral,
+and among them were men such as Harry Delong.
+
+"You fellows had better not mix yourselves up in this," said Freddy.
+
+But Harry Delong replied quickly: "I am going to see the thing through."
+And the others endorsed his words.  When the clergyman came, and looked
+at the face of this Magdalene, he was struck by its comeliness and quiet.
+All else seemed to have been washed away.  On her breast lay a knot of
+white roses--white roses in this winter desert.
+
+One man present, seeing the look of wonder in the clergyman's eyes, said
+quietly: "My--my wife sent them.  She brought the plant from Quebec.  It
+has just bloomed.  She knows all about her."
+
+That man was Harry Delong.  The keeper of his home understood the other
+homeless woman.  When she knew of Blanche's death she said: "Poor girl,
+poor girl!" and then she had gently added, "Poor Jacques!"
+
+And Jacques, as he sat in a chair by the fire four days after the
+tragedy, did not know that the clergyman was reading over a grave on
+the hillside, words which are for the hearts of the quick as for the
+untenanted dead.
+
+To Jacques's inquiries after Blanche, Soldier Joe had made changing and
+vague replies.  At last he said that she was ill; then, that she was very
+ill, and again, that she was better, almighty better--now.  The third day
+following the funeral, Jacques insisted that he would go and see her.
+The doctor at length decided he should be taken to Weir's Tavern, where,
+they declared, they would tell him all.  And they took him, and placed
+him by the fire in the card-room, a wasted figure, but fastidious in
+manner and scrupulously neat in person as of old.  Then he asked for
+Blanche; but even now they had not the courage for it.  The doctor
+nervously went out, as if to seek her; and Freddy Tarlton said, "Jacques,
+let us have a little game, just for quarters, you know.  Eh?"
+
+The other replied without eagerness: "Voila, one game, then!"
+
+They drew him to the table, but he played listlessly.  His eyes shifted
+ever to the door.  Luck was against him.  Finally he pushed over a silver
+piece, and said: "The last.  My money is all gone.  'Bien!'"  He lost
+that too.
+
+Just then the door opened, and a ranchman from Purple Hill entered.  He
+looked carelessly round, and then said loudly:
+
+"Say, Joe, so you've buried Blanche, have you?  Poor old girl!"
+
+There was a heavy silence.  No one replied.  Jacques started to his feet,
+gazed around searchingly, painfully, and presently gave a great gasp.
+His hands made a chafing motion in the air, and then blood showed on his
+lips and chin.  He drew a handkerchief from his breast.
+
+"Pardon!  .  .  .  Pardon!" he faintly cried in apology, and put it to
+his mouth.
+
+Then he fell backwards in the arms of Soldier Joe, who wiped a moisture
+from the lifeless cheek as he laid the body on a bed.
+
+In a corner of the stained handkerchief they found the word,
+
+Blanche.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A SANCTUARY OF THE PLAINS
+
+Father Corraine stood with his chin in his hand and one arm supporting
+the other, thinking deeply.  His eyes were fixed on the northern horizon,
+along which the sun was casting oblique rays; for it was the beginning of
+the winter season.
+
+Where the prairie touched the sun it was responsive and radiant; but on
+either side of this red and golden tapestry there was a tawny glow and
+then a duskiness which, curving round to the north and east, became blue
+and cold--an impalpable but perceptible barrier rising from the earth,
+and shutting in Father Corraine like a prison wall.  And this shadow
+crept stealthily on and invaded the whole circle, until, where the
+radiance had been, there was one continuous wall of gloom, rising are
+upon are to invasion of the zenith, and pierced only by some intrusive
+wandering stars.
+
+And still the priest stood there looking, until the darkness closed down
+on him with an almost tangible consistency.  Then he appeared to remember
+himself, and turned away with a gentle remonstrance of his head, and
+entered the hut behind him.  He lighted a lamp, looked at it doubtfully,
+blew it out, set it aside, and lighted a candle.  This he set in the one
+window of the room which faced the north and west.
+
+He went to a door opening into the only other room in the hut, and with
+his hand on the latch looked thoughtfully and sorrowfully at something in
+the corner of the room where he stood.  He was evidently debating upon
+some matter,--probably the removal of what was in the corner to the other
+room.  If so, he finally decided to abandon the intention.  He sat down
+in a chair, faced the candle, again dropped his chin upon his hand, and
+kept his eyes musingly on the light.  He was silent and motionless a long
+time, then his lips moved, and he seemed to repeat something to himself
+in whispers.
+
+Presently he took a well-worn book from his pocket, and read aloud from
+it softly what seemed to be an office of his Church.  His voice grew
+slightly louder as he continued, until, suddenly, there ran through the
+words a deep sigh which did not come from himself.  He raised his head
+quickly, started to his feet, and turning round, looked at that something
+in the corner.  It took the form of a human figure, which raised itself
+on an elbow and said: "Water--water--for the love of God!"
+
+Father Corraine stood painfully staring at the figure for a moment, and
+then the words broke from him "Not dead--not dead--wonderful!"  Then he
+stepped quickly to a table, took therefrom a pannikin of water, and
+kneeling, held it to the lips of the gasping figure of a woman, throwing
+his arm round the shoulder, and supporting the head on his breast.  Again
+he spoke "Alive--alive!  Blessed be Heaven!"
+
+The hands of the woman seized the hand of the priest, which held the
+pannikin, and kissed it, saying faintly: "You are good to me.  .  .  .
+But I must sleep--I must sleep--I am so tired; and I've--very far--to go
+--across the world."
+
+This was said very slowly, then the head thick with brown curls dropped
+again on the priest's breast, heavy with sleep.  Father Corraine,
+flushing slightly at first, became now slightly pale, and his brow was a
+place of war between thankfulness and perplexity.  But he said something
+prayerfully, then closed his lips firmly, and gently laid the figure
+down, where it was immediately clothed about with slumber.  Then he rose,
+and standing with his eyes bent upon the sleeper and his fingers clasping
+each other tightly before him, said: "Poor girl!  So, she is alive.  And
+now what will come of it?"
+
+He shook his grey head in doubt, and immediately began to prepare some
+simple food and refreshment for the sufferer when she should awake.  In
+the midst of doing so he paused and repeated the words, "And what will
+come of it?"  Then he added: "There was no sign of pulse nor heart-beat
+when I found her.  But life hides itself where man cannot reach it."
+
+Having finished his task, he sat down, drew the book of holy offices
+again from his bosom, and read it, whisperingly, for a time; then fell to
+musing, and, after a considerable time, knelt down as if in prayer.
+While he knelt, the girl, as if startled from her sleep by some inner
+shock, opened her eyes wide and looked at him, first with bewilderment,
+then with anxiety, then with wistful thankfulness.  "Oh, I thought--
+I thought when I awoke before that it was a woman.  But it is the good
+Father Corraine--Corraine, yes, that was the name."
+
+The priest's clean-shaven face, long hair, and black cassock had, in her
+first moments of consciousness, deceived her.  Now a sharp pain brought
+a moan to her lips; and this drew the priest's attention.  He rose, and
+brought her some food and drink.  "My daughter," he said, "you must take
+these."  Something in her face touched his sensitive mind, and he said,
+solemnly: "You are alone with me and God, this hour.  Be at peace.  Eat."
+
+Her eyes swam with instant tears.  "I know--I am alone--with God," she
+said.  Again he gently urged the food upon her, and she took a little;
+but now and then she put her hand to her side as if in pain.  And once,
+as she did so, she said: "I've far to go and the pain is bad.  Did they
+take him away?"
+
+Father Corraine shook his head.  "I do not know of whom you speak," he
+replied.  "When I went to my door this morning I found you lying there.
+I brought you in, and, finding no sign of life in you, sent Featherfoot,
+my Indian, to Fort Cypress for a trooper to come; for I feared that there
+had been ill done to you, somehow.  This border-side is but a rough
+country.  It is not always safe for a woman to travel alone."
+
+The girl shuddered.  "Father," she said  "Father Corraine, I believe you
+are?"  (Here the priest bowed his head.)  "I wish to tell you all, so
+that if ever any evil did come to me, if I should die without doin'
+what's in my heart to do, you would know, and would tell him if you ever
+saw him, how I remembered, and kept rememberin' him always, till my heart
+got sick with waitin', and I came to find him far across the seas."
+
+"Tell me your tale, my child," he patiently said.  Her eyes were on the
+candle in the window questioningly.  "It is for the trooper--to guide
+him," the other remarked.  "'Tis past time that he should be here.  When
+you are able you can go with him to the Fort.  You will be better cared
+for there, and will be among women."
+
+"The man--the man who was kind to me--I wish I knew of him," she said.
+
+"I am waiting for your story, my child.  Speak of your trouble, whether
+it be of the mind and body, or of the soul."
+
+"You shall judge if it be of the soul," she answered.
+
+"I come from far away.  I lived in old Donegal since the day that I was
+born there, and I had a lover, as brave and true a lad as ever trod the
+world.  But sorrow came.  One night at Farcalladen Rise there was a crack
+of arms and a clatter of fleeing hoofs, and he that I loved came to me
+and said a quick word of partin', and with a kiss--it's burnin' on my
+lips yet--askin' pardon, father, for speech of this to you--and he was
+gone, an outlaw, to Australia.  For a time word came from him.  Then I
+was taken ill and couldn't answer his letters, and a cousin of my own,
+who had tried to win my love, did a wicked thing.  He wrote a letter to
+him and told him I was dyin', and that there was no use of farther words
+from him.  And never again did word come to me from him.  But I waited,
+my heart sick with longin' and full of hate for the memory of the man
+who, when struck with death, told me of the cruel deed he had done
+between us two."
+
+She paused, as she had to do several times during the recital, through
+weariness or pain; but, after a moment, proceeded.  "One day, one
+beautiful day, when the flowers were like love to the eye, and the larks
+singin' overhead, and my thoughts goin' with them as they swam until they
+were lost in the sky, and every one of them a prayer for the lad livin'
+yet, as I hoped, somewhere in God's universe--there rode a gentleman down
+Farcalladen Rise.  He stopped me as I walked, and said a kind good-day to
+me; and I knew when I looked into his face that he had word for me--the
+whisperin' of some angel, I suppose, and I said to him as though he had
+asked me for it, 'My name is Mary Callen, sir.'
+
+"At that he started, and the colour came quick to his face; and he said:
+'I am Sir Duke Lawless.  I come to look for Mary Callen's grave.  Is
+there a Mary Callen dead, and a Mary Callen livin'? and did both of them
+love a man that went from Farcalladen Rise one wild night long ago?'
+
+"'There's but one Mary Callen,' said I, 'but the heart of me is dead,
+until I hear news that brings it to life again?'
+
+"'And no man calls you wife?' he asked.
+
+"'No man, Sir Duke Lawless,' answered I.  'And no man ever could, save
+him that used to write me of you from the heart of Australia; only there
+was no Sir to your name then.'
+
+"'I've come to that since,' said he.
+
+"'Oh, tell me,' I cried, with a quiverin' at my heart, 'tell me, is he
+livin'?'
+
+"And he replied: 'I left him in the Pipi Valley of the Rocky Mountains a
+year ago.'
+
+"'A year ago!' said I, sadly.
+
+"'I'm ashamed that I've been so long in comin' here,' replied he; 'but,
+of course, he didn't know that you were alive, and I had been parted from
+a lady for years--a lover's quarrel--and I had to choose between courtin'
+her again and marryin' her, or comin' to Farcalladen Rise at once.  Well,
+I went to the altar first.'
+
+"'Oh, sir, you've come with the speed of the wind, for now that I've news
+of him, it is only yesterday that he went away, not years agone.  But
+tell me, does he ever think of me?' I questioned.
+
+"'He thinks of you,' he said, 'as one for whom the masses for the dead
+are spoken; but while I knew him, first and last, the memory of you was
+with him.'
+
+"With that he got off his horse, and said: 'I'll walk with you to his
+father's home.'
+
+"'You'll not do that,' I replied; 'for it's level with the ground.  God
+punish them that did it!  And they're lyin' in the glen by the stream
+that he loved and galloped over many a time.'
+
+"'They are dead--they are dead, then,' said he, with his bridle swung
+loose on his arm and his hat off reverently.
+
+"'Gone home to Heaven together,' said I, 'one day and one hour, and a
+prayer on their lips for the lad; and I closin' their eyes at the last.
+And before they went they made me sit by them and sing a song that's
+common here with us; for manny and manny of the strength and pride of
+Farcalladen Rise have sailed the wide seas north and south, and
+otherwhere, and comin' back maybe and maybe not.'
+
+"'Hark,' he said, very gravely, 'and I'll tell you what it is, for I've
+heard him sing it, I know, in the worst days and the best days that ever
+we had, when luck was wicked and big against us and we starvin' on the
+wallaby track; or when we found the turn in the lane to brighter days.'
+
+"And then with me lookin' at him full in the eyes, gentleman though he
+was,--for comrade he had been with the man I loved,--he said to me there,
+so finely and kindly, it ought to have brought the dead back from their
+graves to hear, these words:
+
+   "'You'll travel far and wide, dear, but you'll come back again,
+     You'll come back to your father and your mother in the glen,
+     Although we should be lyin' 'neath the heather grasses then
+     You'll be comin' back, my darlin'!'
+
+     "'You'll see the icebergs sailin' along the wintry foam,
+     The white hair of the breakers, and the wild swans as they roam;
+     But you'll not forget the rowan beside your father's home--
+     You'll be comin' back, my darlin'.'"
+
+Here the girl paused longer than usual, and the priest dropped his
+forehead in his hand sadly.
+
+"I've brought grief to your kind heart, father," she said.
+
+"No, no," he replied, "not sorrow at all; but I was born on the Liffey
+side, though it's forty years and more since I left it, and I'm an old
+man now.  That song I knew well, and the truth and the heart of it too.
+.  .  .  I am listening."
+
+"Well, together we went to the grave of the father and mother, and the
+place where the home had been, and for a long time he was silent, as
+though they who slept beneath the sod were his, and not another's;
+but at last he said:
+
+"'And what will you do?  I don't quite know where he is, though; when
+last I heard from him and his comrades, they were in the Pipi Valley.'
+
+"My heart was full of joy; for though I saw how touched he was because of
+what he saw, it was all common to my sight, and I had grieved much, but
+had had little delight; and I said:
+
+"'There's only one thing to be done.  He cannot come back here, and I
+must go to him--that is,' said I, 'if you think he cares for me still,
+--for my heart quakes at the thought that he might have changed.'
+
+"'I know his heart,' said he, 'and you'll find him, I doubt not, the
+same, though he buried you long ago in a lonely tomb,--the tomb of a
+sweet remembrance, where the flowers are everlastin'.'  Then after more
+words he offered me money with which to go; but I said to him that the
+love that couldn't carry itself across the sea by the strength of the
+hands and the sweat of the brow was no love at all; and that the harder
+was the road to him the gladder I'd be, so that it didn't keep me too
+long, and brought me to him at last.
+
+"He looked me up and down very earnestly for a minute, and then he said:
+'What is there under the roof of heaven like the love of an honest woman!
+It makes the world worth livin' in.'
+
+"'Yes,' said I, 'when love has hope, and a place to lay its head.'
+
+"'Take this,' said he--and he drew from his pocket his watch--'and carry
+it to him with the regard of Duke Lawless, and this for yourself'--
+fetching from his pocket a revolver and putting it into my hands; 'for
+the prairies are but rough places after all, and it's better to be safe
+than--worried.  .  .  .  Never fear though but the prairies will bring
+back the finest of blooms to your cheek, if fair enough it is now, and
+flush his eye with pride of you; and God be with you both, if a sinner
+may say that, and breakin' no saint's prerogative.'  And he mounted to
+ride away, havin' shaken my hand like a brother; but he turned again
+before he went, and said: 'Tell him and his comrades that I'll shoulder
+my gun and join them before the world is a year older, if I can.  For
+that land is God's land, and its people are my people, and I care not
+who knows it, whatever here I be.'
+
+"I worked my way across the sea, and stayed awhile in the East earning
+money to carry me over the land and into the Pipi Valley.  I joined a
+party of emigrants that were goin' westward, and travelled far with them.
+But they quarrelled and separated, I goin' with these that I liked best.
+One night though, I took my horse and left; for I knew there was evil in
+the heart of a man who sought me continually, and the thing drove me mad.
+I rode until my horse could stumble no farther, and then I took the
+saddle for a pillow and slept on the bare ground.  And in the morning I
+got up and rode on, seein' no house nor human being for manny and manny a
+mile.  When everything seemed hopeless I came suddenly upon a camp.  But
+I saw that there was only one man there, and I should have turned back,
+but that I was worn and ill, and, moreover, I had ridden almost upon him.
+But he was kind.  He shared his food with me, and asked me where I was
+goin'.  I told him, and also that I had quarrelled with those of my party
+and had left them nothing more.  He seemed to wonder that I was goin' to
+Pipi Valley; and when I had finished my tale he said: 'Well, I must tell
+you that I am not good company for you.  I have a name that doesn't pass
+at par up here.  To speak plain truth, troopers are looking for me, and
+--strange as it may be--for a crime which I didn't commit.  That is the
+foolishness of the law.  But for this I'm making for the American border,
+beyond which, treaty or no treaty, a man gets refuge.'
+
+"He was silent after that, lookin' at me thoughtfully the while, but in a
+way that told me I might trust him, evil though he called himself.  At
+length he said: 'I know a good priest, Father Corraine, who has a cabin
+sixty miles or more from here, and I'll guide you to him, if so be you
+can trust a half-breed and a gambler, and one men call an outlaw.  If
+not, I'm feared it'll go hard with you; for the Cypress Hills are not
+easy travel, as I've known this many a year.  And should you want a name
+to call me, Pretty Pierre will do, though my godfathers and godmothers
+did different for me before they went to Heaven.'  And nothing said he
+irreverently, father."
+
+Here the priest looked up and answered: "Yes, yes, I know him well--an
+evil man, and yet he has suffered too .  .  .  Well, well, my daughter?"
+
+"At that he took his pistol from his pocket and handed it.  'Take that,'
+he said.  'It will make you safer with me, and I'll ride ahead of you,
+and we shall reach there by sundown, I hope.'
+
+"And I would not take his pistol, but, shamed a little, showed him the
+one Sir Duke Lawless gave me.  'That's right,' he said, 'and, maybe, it's
+better that I should carry mine, for, as I said, there are anxious
+gentlemen lookin' for me, who wish to give me a quiet but dreary home.
+And see,' he added, 'if they should come you will be safe, for they sit
+in the judgment seat, and the statutes hang at their saddles, and I'll
+say this for them, that a woman to them is as a saint of God out here
+where women and saints are few.'
+
+"I do not speak as he spoke, for his words had a turn of French; but I
+knew that, whatever he was, I should travel peaceably with him.  Yet I
+saw that he would be runnin' the risk of his own safety for me, and I
+told him that I could not have him do it; but he talked me lightly down,
+and we started.  We had gone but a little distance, when there galloped
+over a ridge upon us, two men of the party I had left, and one, I saw,
+was the man I hated; and I cried out and told Pretty Pierre.  He wheeled
+his horse, and held his pistol by him.  They said that I should come with
+them, and they told a dreadful lie--that I was a runaway wife; but Pierre
+answered them they lied.  At this, one rode forward suddenly, and
+clutched me at my waist to drag me from my horse.  At this, Pierre's
+pistol was thrust in his face, and Pierre bade him cease, which he did;
+but the other came down with a pistol showin', and Pierre, seein' they
+were determined, fired; and the man that clutched at me fell from his
+horse.  Then the other drew off; and Pierre got down, and stooped, and
+felt the man's heart, and said to the other: 'Take your friend away, for
+he is dead; but drop that pistol of yours on the ground first.' And the
+man did so; and Pierre, as he looked at the dead man, added: 'Why did he
+make me kill him?'
+
+"Then the two tied the body to the horse, and the man rode away with it.
+We travelled on without speakin' for a long time, and then I heard him
+say absently: 'I am sick of that.  When once you have played shuttlecock
+with human life, you have to play it to the end--that is the penalty.
+But a woman is a woman, and she must be protected.'  Then afterward he
+turned and asked me if I had friends in Pipi Valley; and because what he
+had done for me had worked upon me, I told him of the man I was goin' to
+find.  And he started in his saddle, and I could see by the way he
+twisted the mouth of his horse that I had stirred him."
+
+Here the priest interposed: "What is the name of the man in Pipi Valley
+to whom you are going?"
+
+And the girl replied: "Ah, father, have I not told you?  It is Shon
+McGann--of Farcalladen Rise."
+
+At this, Father Corraine seemed suddenly troubled, and he looked
+strangely and sadly at her.  But the girl's eyes were fastened on the
+candle in the window, as if she saw her story in it; and she continued:
+"A colour spread upon him, and then left him pale; and he said: 'To Shon
+McGann--you are going to him?  Think of that--that!' For an instant I
+thought a horrible smile played upon his face, and I grew frightened, and
+said to him: 'You know him.  You are not sorry that you are helping me?
+You and Shon McGann are not enemies?'
+
+"After a moment the smile that struck me with dread passed, and he said,
+as he drew himself up with a shake: 'Shon McGann and I were good friends-
+as good as ever shared a blanket or split a loaf, though he was free of
+any evil, and I failed of any good....  Well, there came a change.  We
+parted.  We could meet no more; but who could have guessed this thing?
+Yet, hear me--I am no enemy of Shon McGann, as let my deeds to you
+prove.' And he paused again, but added presently: 'It's better you should
+have come now than two years ago.
+
+"And I had a fear in my heart, and to this asked him why.  'Because then
+he was a friend of mine,' he said, 'and ill always comes to those who are
+such.' I was troubled at this, and asked him if Shon was in Pipi Valley
+yet.  'I do not know,' said he, 'for I've travelled long and far from
+there; still, while I do not wish to put doubt into your mind, I have a
+thought he may be gone.  .  .  .  He had a gay heart,' he continued, 'and
+we saw brave days together.'
+
+"And though I questioned him, he told me little more, but became silent,
+scannin' the plains as we rode; but once or twice he looked at me in a
+strange fashion, and passed his hand across his forehead, and a grey look
+came upon his face.  I asked him if he was not well.  'Only a kind of
+fightin' within,' he said; 'such things soon pass, and it is well they
+do, or we should break to pieces.'
+
+"And I said again that I wished not to bring him into danger.  And he
+replied that these matters were accordin' to Fate; that men like him must
+go on when once the die is cast, for they cannot turn back.  It seemed to
+me a bitter creed, and I was sorry for him.  Then for hours we kept an
+almost steady silence, and comin' at last to the top of a rise of land he
+pointed to a spot far off on the plains, and said that you, father, lived
+there; and that he would go with me still a little way, and then leave
+me.  I urged him to go at once, but he would not, and we came down into
+the plains.  He had not ridden far when he said sharply:
+
+"'The Riders of the Plains, those gentlemen who seek me, are there--see!
+Ride on or stay, which you please.  If you go you will reach the priest,
+if you stay here where I shall leave you, you will see me taken perhaps,
+and it may be fightin' or death; but you will be safe with them.  On the
+whole, it is best, perhaps, that you should ride away to the priest.
+They might not believe all that you told them, ridin' with me as you
+are.'
+
+"But I think a sudden madness again came upon me.  Rememberin' what
+things were done by women for refugees in old Donegal, and that this man
+had risked his life for me, I swung my horse round nose and nose with
+his, and drew my revolver, and said that I should see whatever came to
+him.  He prayed me not to do so wild a thing; but when I refused, and
+pushed on along with him, makin' at an angle for some wooded hills, I saw
+that a smile played upon his face.  We had almost reached the edge of the
+wood when a bullet whistled by us.  At that the smile passed and a
+strange look came upon him, and he said to me:
+
+"'This must end here.  I think you guess I have no coward's blood; but I
+am sick to the teeth of fightin'.  I do not wish to shock you, but I
+swear, unless you turn and ride away to the left towards the priest's
+house, I shall save those fellows further trouble by killin' myself here;
+and there,' said he, 'would be a pleasant place to die--at the feet of a
+woman who trusted you.'
+
+"I knew by the look in his eye he would keep his word.  "'Oh, is this
+so?' I said.
+
+"'It is so,' he replied, 'and it shall be done quickly, for the courage
+to death is on me.'
+
+"'But if I go, you will still try to escape?' I said.  And he answered
+that he would.  Then I spoke a God-bless-you, at which he smiled and
+shook his head, and leanin' over, touched my hand, and spoke low: 'When
+you see Shon McGann, tell him what I did, and say that we are even now.
+Say also that you called Heaven to bless me.' Then we swung away from
+each other, and the troopers followed after him, but let me go my way;
+from which, I guessed, they saw I was a woman.  And as I rode I heard
+shots, and turned to see; but my horse stumbled on a hole and we fell
+together, and when I waked, I saw that the poor beast's legs were broken.
+So I ended its misery, and made my way as best I could by the stars to
+your house; but I turned sick and fainted at the door, and knew no more
+until this hour.  .  .  .  You thought me dead, father?"
+
+The priest bowed his head, and said: "These are strange, sad things, my
+child; and they shall seem stranger to you when you hear all."
+
+"When I hear all!  Ah, tell me, father, do you know Shon McGann?  Can you
+take me to him?"
+
+"I know him, but I do not know where he is.  He left the Pipi Valley
+eighteen months ago, and I never saw him afterwards; still I doubt not he
+is somewhere on the plains, and we shall find him--we shall find him,
+please Heaven."
+
+"Is he a good lad, father?"
+
+"He is brave, and he was always kind.  He came to me before he left the
+valley--for he had trouble--and said to me: 'Father, I am going away, and
+to what place is far from me to know, but wherever it is, I'll live a
+life that's fit for men, and not like a loafer on God's world;' and he
+gave me money for masses to be said--for the dead."
+
+The girl put out her hand.  "Hush!  hush!" she said.  "Let me think.
+Masses for the dead....  What dead?  Not for me; he thought me dead long,
+long ago."
+
+"No; not for you," was the slow reply.
+
+She noticed his hesitation, and said: "Speak.  I know that there is
+sorrow on him.  Someone--someone--he loved?"
+
+"Someone he loved," was the reply.
+
+"And she died?"  The priest bowed his head.
+
+"She was his wife--Shon's wife?" and Mary Callen could not hide from her
+words the hurt she felt.
+
+"I married her to him, but yet she was not his wife."  There was a keen
+distress in the girl's voice.  "Father, tell me, tell me what you mean."
+
+"Hush, and I will tell you all.  He married her, thinking, and she
+thinking, that she was a widowed woman.  But her husband came back.
+A terrible thing happened.  The woman believing, at a painful time, that
+he who came back was about to take Shon's life, fired at him, and wounded
+him, and then killed herself."
+
+Mary Callen raised herself upon her elbow, and looked at the priest in
+piteous bewilderment.  "It is dreadful," she said.  .  .  .  "Poor woman!
+.  .  .  And he had forgotten--forgotten me.  I was dead to him, and am
+dead to him now.  There's nothing left but to draw the cold sheet of the
+grave over me.  Better for me if I had never come--if I had never come,
+and instead were lyin' by his father and mother beneath the rowan."
+
+The priest took her wrist firmly in his.  "These are not brave nor
+Christian words, from a brave and Christian girl.  But I know that grief
+makes one's words wild.  Shon McGann shall be found.  In the days when I
+saw him most and best, he talked of you as an angel gone, and he had
+never sought another woman had he known that you lived.  The Mounted
+Police, the Riders of the Plains, travel far and wide.  But now, there
+has come from the farther West a new detachment to Fort Cypress, and they
+may be able to help us.  But listen.  There is something more.  The man
+Pretty Pierre, did he not speak puzzling words concerning himself and
+Shon McGann?  And did he not say to you at the last that they were even
+now?  Well, can you not guess?"
+
+Mary Callen's bosom heaved painfully and her eyes stared so at the candle
+in the window that they seemed to grow one with the flame.  At last a new
+look crept into them; a thought made the lids close quickly as though it
+burned them.  When they opened again they were full of tears that shone
+in the shadow and dropped slowly on her cheeks and flowed on and on,
+quivering too in her throat.
+
+The priest said: "You understand, my child?"
+
+And she answered: "I understand.  Pierre, the outlaw, was her husband."
+
+Father Corraine rose and sat beside the table, his book of offices open
+before him.  At length he said: "There is much that might be spoken; for
+the Church has words for every hour of man's life, whatever it be; but
+there comes to me now a word to say, neither from prayer nor psalm, but
+from the songs of a country where good women are; where however poor the
+fireside, the loves beside it are born of the love of God, though the
+tongue be angry now and then, the foot stumble, and the hand quick at a
+blow."  Then, with a soft, ringing voice, he repeated:
+
+ "'New friends will clasp your hand, dear, new faces on you smile--
+   You'll bide with them and love them, but you'll long for us the while;
+
+   For the word across the water, and the farewell by the stile--
+   For the true heart's here, my darlin'.'"
+
+Mary Callen's tears flowed afresh at first; but soon after the voice
+ceased she closed her eyes and her sobs stopped, and Father Corraine sat
+down and became lost in thought as he watched the candle.  Then there
+went a word among the spirits watching that he was not thinking of the
+candle, or of them that the candle was to light on the way, nor even of
+this girl near him, but of a summer forty years gone when he was a goodly
+youth, with the red on his lip and the light in his eye, and before him,
+leaning on a stile, was a lass with--
+
+               " .  .  .  cheeks like the dawn of day."
+
+And all the good world swam in circles, eddying ever inward until it
+streamed intensely and joyously through her eyes "blue as the fairy
+flax."  And he had carried the remembrance of this away into the world
+with him, but had never gone back again.  He had travelled beyond the
+seas to live among savages and wear out his life in self-denial; and now
+he had come to the evening of his life, a benignant figure in a lonely
+land.  And as he sat here murmuring mechanically bits of an office, his
+heart and mind were with a sacred and distant past.  Yet the spirits
+recorded both these things on their tablets, as though both were worthy
+of their remembrance.
+
+He did not know that he kept repeating two sentences over and over to
+himself:
+
+"'Quoniam ipse liberavit me de laqueo venantium et a verbo aspero.
+Quoniam angelis suis mandavit de te: ut custodiant te in omnibus viis
+tuis.'"
+
+These he said at first softly to himself, but unconsciously his voice
+became louder, so that the girl heard, and she said:
+
+"Father Corraine, what are those words?  I do not understand them, but
+they sound comforting."
+
+And he, waking from his dream, changed the Latin into English, and said:
+
+   "'For he hath delivered me from the snare of the hunter, and from the
+         sharp sword.
+     For he hath given his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all
+          thy ways.'"
+
+"The words are good," she said.  He then told her he was going out, but
+that he should be within call, saying, at the same time, that someone
+would no doubt arrive from Fort Cypress soon: and he went from the house.
+Then the girl rose slowly, crept lamely to a chair and sat down.
+Outside, the priest paced up and down, stopping now and then, and
+listening as if for horses' hoofs.  At last he walked some distance away
+from the house, deeply lost in thought, and he did not notice that a man
+came slowly, heavily, to the door of the hut, and opening it, entered.
+
+Mary Callen rose from her seat with a cry in which was timidity, pity,
+and something of horror; for it was Pretty Pierre.  She recoiled, but
+seeing how he swayed with weakness, and that his clothes had blood upon
+them, she helped him to a chair.  He looked up at her with an enigmatical
+smile, but he did not speak.  "Oh," she whispered, "you are wounded!"
+
+He nodded; but still he did not speak.  Then his lips moved dryly.  She
+brought him water.  He drank deeply, and a sigh of relief escaped him.
+"You got here safely," he now said.  "I am glad of that--though you, too,
+are hurt."
+
+She briefly told him how, and then he said: "Well, I suppose you know all
+of me now?"
+
+"I know what happened in Pipi Valley," she said, timidly and wearily.
+"Father Corraine told me."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+When she had answered him, he said: "And you are willing to speak with me
+still?"
+
+"You saved me," was her brief, convincing reply.  "How did you escape?
+Did you fight?"
+
+"No," he said.  "It is strange.  I did not fight at all.  As I said to
+you, I was sick of blood.  These men were only doing their duty.  I might
+have killed two or three of them, and have escaped, but to what good?
+When they shot my horse, my good Sacrament,--and put a bullet into this
+shoulder, I crawled away still, and led them a dance, and doubled on
+them; and here I am."
+
+"It is wonderful that they have not been here," she said.
+
+"Yes, it is wonderful; but be very sure they will be with that candle in
+the window.  Why is it there?"
+
+She told him.  He lifted his brows in stoic irony, and said: "Well, we
+shall have an army of them soon."  He rose again to his feet.  "I do not
+wish to die, and I always said that I would never go to prison.  Do you
+understand?"
+
+"Yes," she replied.  She went immediately to the window, took the candle
+from it, and put it behind an improvised shade.  No sooner was this done
+than Father Corraine entered the room, and seeing the outlaw, said "You
+have come here, Pierre?"  And his face showed wonder and anxiety.
+
+"I have come, mon pere, for sanctuary."
+
+"For sanctuary!  But, my son, if I vex not Heaven by calling you so,
+why"--he saw Pierre stagger slightly.  "But you are wounded."  He put his
+arm round the other's shoulder, and supported him till he recovered
+himself.  Then he set to work to bandage anew the wound, from which
+Pierre himself had not unskilfully extracted the bullet.  While doing so,
+the outlaw said to him:
+
+"Father Corraine, I am hunted like a coyote for a crime I did not commit.
+But if I am arrested they will no doubt charge me with other things--
+ancient things.  Well, I have said that I should never be sent to gaol,
+and I never shall; but I do not wish to die at this moment, and I do not
+wish to fight.  What is there left?"
+
+"How do you come here, Pierre?"
+
+He lifted his eyes heavily to Mary Callen, and she told Father Corraine
+what had been told her.  When she had finished, Pierre added:
+
+"I am no coward, as you will witness; but as I said, neither gaol nor
+death do I wish.  Well, if they should come here, and you said, Pierre is
+not here, even though I was in the next room, they would believe you, and
+they would not search.  Well, I ask such sanctuary."
+
+The priest recoiled and raised his hand in protest.  Then, after a
+moment, he said:
+
+"How do you deserve this?  Do you know what you ask?"
+
+"Ah, oui, I know it is immense, and I deserve nothing: and in return I
+can offer nothing, not even that I will repent.  And I have done no good
+in the world; but still perhaps I am worth the saving, as may be seen in
+the end.  As for you, well, you will do a little wrong so that the end
+will be right.  So?"
+
+The priest's eyes looked out long and sadly at the man from under his
+venerable brows, as though he would see through him and beyond him to
+that end; and at last he spoke in a low, firm voice:
+
+"Pierre, you have been a bad man; but sometimes you have been generous,
+and of a few good acts I know--"
+
+"No, not good," the other interrupted.  "I ask this of your charity."
+
+"There is the law, and my conscience."
+
+"The law! the law!" and there was sharp satire in the half-breed's voice.
+"What has it done in the West?  Think, 'mon pere!'  Do you not know a
+hundred cases where the law has dealt foully?  There was more justice
+before we had law.  Law--"  And he named over swiftly, scornfully, a
+score of names and incidents, to which Father Corraine listened intently.
+"But," said Pierre, gently, at last, "but for your conscience, m'sieu',
+that is greater than law.  For you are a good man and a wise man; and you
+know that I shall pay my debts of every kind some sure day.  That should
+satisfy your justice, but you are merciful for the moment, and you will
+spare until the time be come, until the corn is ripe in the ear.  Why
+should I plead?  It is foolish.  Still, it is my whim, of which, perhaps,
+I shall be sorry tomorrow .  .  .  Hark!" he added, and then shrugged
+his shoulders and smiled.  There were sounds of hoof beats coming faintly
+to them.  Father Corraine threw open the door of the other room of the
+hut, and said "Go in there--Pierre.  We shall see .  .  .  we shall see."
+
+The outlaw looked at the priest, as if hesitating; but, after, nodded
+meaningly to himself, and entered the room and shut the door.  The priest
+stood listening.  When the hoof-beats stopped, he opened the door, and
+went out.  In the dark he could see that men were dismounting from their
+horses.  He stood still and waited.  Presently a trooper stepped forward
+and said warmly, yet brusquely, as became his office: "Father Corraine,
+we meet again!"
+
+The priest's face was overswept by many expressions, in which marvel and
+trouble were uppermost, while joy was in less distinctness.
+
+"Surely," he said, "it is Shon McGann."
+
+"Shon McGann, and no other.--I that laughed at the law for many a year,
+though never breaking it beyond repair,--took your advice, Father
+Corraine, and here I am, holding that law now as my bosom friend at the
+saddle's pommel.  Corporal Shon McGann, at your service."
+
+They clasped hands, and the priest said: "You have come at my call from
+Fort Cypress?"
+
+"Yes.  But not these others.  They are after a man that's played ducks
+and drakes with the statutes--Heaven be merciful to him, I say.  For
+there's naught I treasure against him; the will of God bein' in it all,
+with some doin' of the Devil, too, maybe."
+
+Pretty Pierre, standing with ear to the window of the dark room, heard
+all this, and he pressed his upper lip hard with his forefinger, as if
+something disturbed him.
+
+Shon continued.  "I'm glad I wasn't sent after him as all these here
+know; for it's little I'd like to clap irons on his wrists, or whistle
+him to come to me with a Winchester or a Navy.  So I'm here on my
+business, and they're here on theirs.  Though we come together it's
+because we met each other hereaway.  They've a thought that, maybe,
+Pretty Pierre has taken refuge with you.  They'll little like to disturb
+you, I know.  But with dead in your house, and you givin' the word of
+truth, which none other could fall from your lips, they'll go on their
+way to look elsewhere."
+
+The priest's face was pinched, and there was a wrench at his heart.  He
+turned to the others.  A trooper stepped forward.
+
+"Father Corraine," he said, "it is my duty to search your house; but not
+a foot will I stretch across your threshold if you say no, and give the
+word that the man is not with you."
+
+"Corporal McGann," said the priest, "the woman whom I thought was dead
+did not die, as you shall see.  There is no need for inquiry.  But she
+will go with you to Fort Cypress.  As for the other, you say that Father
+Corraine's threshold is his own, and at his own command.  His home is now
+a sanctuary--for the afflicted."  He went towards the door.  As he did
+so, Mary Callen, who had been listening inside the room with shaking
+frame and bursting heart, dropped on her knees beside the table, her head
+in her arms.  The door opened.  "See," said the priest, "a woman who is
+injured and suffering."
+
+"Ah," rejoined the trooper, "perhaps it is the woman who was riding with
+the half-breed.  We found her dead horse."
+
+The priest nodded.  Shon McGann looked at the crouching figure by the
+table pityingly.  As he looked he was stirred, he knew not why.  And she,
+though she did not look, knew that his gaze was on her; and all her will
+was spent in holding her eyes from his face, and from crying out to him.
+
+"And Pretty Pierre," said the trooper, "is not here with her?"
+
+There was an unfathomable sadness in the priest's eyes, as, with a slight
+motion of the hand towards the room, he said: "You see--he is not here."
+
+The trooper and his men immediately mounted; but one of them, young Tim
+Kearney, slid from his horse, and came and dropped on his knee in front
+of the priest.
+
+"It's many a day," he said, "since before God or man I bent a knee--more
+shame to me for that, and for mad days gone; but I care not who knows it,
+I want a word of blessin' from the man that's been out here like a saint
+in the wilderness, with a heart like the Son o' God."
+
+The priest looked at the man at first as if scarce comprehending this act
+so familiar to him, then he slowly stretched out his hand, said some
+words in benediction, and made the sacred gesture.  But his face had a
+strange and absent look, and he held the hand poised, even when the man
+had risen and mounted his horse.  One by one the troopers rode through
+the faint belt of light that stretched from the door, and were lost in
+the darkness, the thud of their horses' hoofs echoing behind them.  But a
+change had come over Corporal Shon McGann.  He looked at Father Corraine
+with concern and perplexity.  He alone of those who were there had caught
+the unreal note in the proceedings.  His eyes were bent on the darkness
+into which the men had gone, and his fingers toyed for an instant with
+his whistle; but he said a hard word of himself under his breath, and
+turned to meet Father Corraine's hand upon his arm.
+
+"Shon McGann," the priest said, "I have words to say to you concerning
+this poor girl,"
+
+"You wish to have her taken to the Fort, I suppose?  What was she doing
+with Pretty Pierre?"
+
+"I wish her taken to her home."
+
+"Where is her home, father?"  And his eyes were cast with trouble on the
+girl, though he could assign no cause for that.
+
+"Her home, Shon,"--the priest's voice was very gentle--"her home was
+where they sing such words as these of a wanderer:
+
+   "'You'll hear the wild birds singin' beneath a brighter sky,'
+     The roof-tree of your home, dear, it will be grand and high;
+     But you'll hunger for the hearthstone where a child you used to lie,
+     You'll be comin' back, my darlin'."'
+
+During these words Shon's face ran white, then red; and now he stepped
+inside the door like one in a dream, and the girl's face was lifted to
+his as though he had called her.  "Mary--Mary Callen!" he cried.  His
+arms spread out, then dropped to his side, and he fell on his knees by
+the table facing her, and looked at her with love and horror warring in
+his face; for the remembrance that she had been with Pierre was like the
+hand of the grave upon him.  Moving not at all, she looked at him, a numb
+despondency in her face.  Suddenly Shon's look grew stern, and he was
+about to rise; but Father Corraine put a hand on his shoulder, and said:
+"Stay where you are, man--on your knees.  There is your place just now.
+Be not so quick to judge, and remember your own sins before you charge
+others without knowledge.  Listen now to me."
+
+And he spoke Mary Callen's tale as he knew it, and as she had given it to
+him, not forgetting to mention that she had been told the thing which had
+occurred in Pipi Valley.
+
+The heroic devotion of this woman, and Pretty Pierre's act of friendship
+to her, together with the swift panorama of his past across the seas,
+awoke the whole man in Shon, as the staunch life that he had lately led
+rendered it possible.  There was a grave, kind look upon his face when he
+rose at the ending of the tale, and came to her, saying:
+
+"Mary, it is I who need forgiveness.  Will you come now to the home you
+wanted?" and he stretched his arms to her.  .  .  .
+
+An hour after, as the three sat there, the door of the other room opened,
+and Pretty Pierre came out silently, and was about to pass from the hut;
+but the priest put a hand on his arm, and said:
+
+"'Where do you go, Pierre?"
+
+Pierre shrugged his shoulder slightly:
+
+"I do not know.  'Mon Dieu!'--that I have put this upon you!--you that
+never spoke but the truth."
+
+"You have made my sin of no avail," the priest replied; and he motioned
+towards Shon McGann, who was now risen to his feet, Mary clinging to his
+arm.  "Father Corraine," said Shon, "it is my duty to arrest this man;
+but I cannot do it, would not do it, if he came and offered his arms for
+the steel.  I'll take the wrong of this now, sir, and such shame as there
+is in that falsehood on my shoulders.  And she here and I, and this man
+too, I doubt not, will carry your sin--as you call it--to our graves,
+without shame."
+
+Father Corraine shook his head sadly, and made no reply, for his soul was
+heavy.  He motioned them all to sit down.  And they sat there by the
+light of a flickering candle, with the door bolted and a cassock hung
+across the window, lest by any chance this uncommon thing should be seen.
+But the priest remained in a shadowed corner, with a little book in his
+hand, and he was long on his knees.  And when morning came they had
+neither slept nor changed the fashion of their watch, save for a moment
+now and then, when Pierre suffered from the pain of his wound, and
+silently passed up and down the little room.
+
+The morning was half gone when Shon McGann and Mary Callen stood beside
+their horses, ready to mount and go; for Mary had persisted that she
+could travel--joy makes such marvellous healing.  When the moment of
+parting came, Pierre was not there.  Mary whispered to her lover
+concerning this.  The priest went to the door of the but and called him.
+He came out slowly.
+
+"Pierre," said Shon, "there's a word to be said between us that had best
+be spoken now, though it's not aisy.  It's little you or I will care to
+meet again in this world.  There's been credit given and debts paid by
+both of us since the hour when we first met; and it needs thinking to
+tell which is the debtor now, for deeds are hard to reckon; but, before
+God, I believe it's meself;" and he turned and looked fondly at Mary
+Callen.
+
+And Pierre replied: "Shon McGann, I make no reckoning close; but we will
+square all accounts here, as you say, and for the last time; for never
+again shall we meet, if it's within my will or doing.  But I say I am the
+debtor; and if I pay not here, there will come a time!" and he caught
+his shoulder as it shrunk in pain of his wound.  He tapped the wound
+lightly, and said with irony: "This is my note of hand for my debt, Shon
+McGann.  Eh, bien!"
+
+Then he tossed his fingers indolently towards Shon, and turning his eyes
+slowly to Mary Callen, raised his hat in good-bye.  She put out her hand
+impulsively to him, but Pierre, shaking his head, looked away.  Shon put
+his hand gently on her arm.  "No, no," he said in a whisper, "there can
+be no touch of hands between us."
+
+And Pierre, looking up, added: "C'est vrai.  That is the truth.  You go--
+home.  I got to hide.  So--so."  And he turned and went into the hut.
+
+The others set their faces northward, and Father Corraine walked beside
+Mary Callen's horse, talking quietly of their future life, and speaking,
+as he would never speak again, of days in that green land of their birth.
+At length, upon a dividing swell of the prairie, he paused to say
+farewell.
+
+Many times the two turned to see, and he was there, looking after them;
+his forehead bared to the clear inspiring wind, his grey hair blown back,
+his hands clasped.  Before descending the trough of a great landwave,
+they turned for the last time, and saw him standing motionless, the one
+solitary being in all their wide horizon.
+
+But outside the line of vision there sat a man in a prairie hut, whose
+eyes travelled over the valley of blue sky stretching away beyond the
+morning, whose face was pale and cold.  For hours he sat unmoving, and
+when, at last, someone gently touched him on the shoulder, he only shook
+his head, and went on thinking.  He was busy with the grim ledger of his
+life.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+An inner sorrow is a consuming fire
+Philosophy which could separate the petty from the prodigious
+Remember your own sins before you charge others
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE, V5, PARKER ***
+
+*********** This file should be named 6178.txt or 6178.zip ***********
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