Northern Lights Part 24

That the day was beautiful, that the harvest of the West had been a great one, that the salmon-fishing had been larger than ever before, that gold had been found in the Yukon, made no difference to Jacques Gra.s.sette, for he was in the condemned cell of Bindon Jail, living out those days which pa.s.s so swiftly between the verdict of the jury and the last slow walk with the Sheriff.

He sat with his back to the stone wall, his hands on his knees, looking straight before him. All that met his physical gaze was another stone wall, but with his mind's eye he was looking beyond it into s.p.a.ces far away. His mind was seeing a little house with dormer-windows, and a steep roof on which the snow could not lodge in winter-time; with a narrow stoop in front where one could rest of an evening, the day's work done; the stone-and-earth oven near by in the open, where the bread for a family of twenty was baked; the wooden plough tipped against the fence, to wait the "fall" cultivation; the big iron cooler in which the sap from the maple-trees was boiled, in the days when the snow thawed and spring opened the heart of the wood; the flash of the sickle and the scythe hard by; the fields of the little, narrow farm running back from the St. Lawrence like a riband; and, out on the wide stream, the great rafts with their riverine population floating down to Michelin's mill-yards.

For hours he had sat like this, unmoving, his gnarled red hands clamping each leg as though to hold him steady while he gazed; and he saw himself as a little lad, barefooted, doing ch.o.r.es, running after the s.h.a.ggy, troublesome pony which would let him catch it when no one else could, and, with only a halter on, galloping wildly back to the farm-yard, to be hitched up in the cariole which had once belonged to the old Seigneur. He saw himself as a young man back from "the States," where he had been working in the mills, regarded austerely by little Father Roche, who had given him his first Communion--for, down in Ma.s.sachusetts he had learned to wear his curly hair plastered down on his forehead, smoke bad cigars, and drink "old Bourbon," to bet and to gamble, and be a figure at horse-races.

Then he saw himself, his money all gone, but the luck still with him, at Ma.s.s on the Sunday before going to the backwoods lumber-camp for the winter, as boss of a hundred men. He had a way with him, and he had brains, had Jacques Gra.s.sette, and he could manage men, as Michelin the lumber-king himself had found in a great river-row and strike, when bloodshed seemed certain. Even now the ghost of a smile played at his lips as he recalled the surprise of the old _habitants_ and of Father Roche when he was chosen for this responsible post; for to run a great lumber-camp well, hundreds of miles from civilisation, where there is no visible law, no restraints of ordinary organized life, and where men, for seven months together, never saw a woman or a child, and ate pork and beans, and drank white whiskey, was a task of administration as difficult as managing a small republic new-created out of violent elements of society. But Michelin was right, and the old Seigneur, Sir Henri Robitaille, who was a judge of men, knew he was right, as did also Hennepin the school-master, whose despair Jacques had been, for he never worked at his lessons as a boy, and yet he absorbed Latin and mathematics by some sure but unexplainable process. "Ah, if you would but work, Jacques, you _vaurien_, I would make a great man of you," Hennepin had said to him more than once; but this had made no impression on Jacques. It was more to the point that the ground-hogs and black squirrels and pigeons were plentiful in Casanac Woods.

And so he thought as he stood at the door of the Church of St. Francis on that day before going "out back" to the lumber-camp. He had reached the summit of greatness--to command men. That was more than wealth or learning, and as he spoke to the old Seigneur going in to Ma.s.s, he still thought so, for the Seigneur's big house and the servants and the great gardens had no charm for him. The horses--that was another thing; but there would be plenty of horses in the lumber-camp; and, on the whole, he felt himself rather superior to the old Seigneur, who now was Lieutenant-Governor of the province in which lay Bindon Jail.

At the door of the Church of St. Francis he had stretched himself up with good-natured pride, for he was by nature gregarious and friendly, but with a temper quick and strong, and even savage when roused; though Michelin the lumber-king did not know that when he engaged him as boss, having seen him only at the one critical time when his superior brain and will saw its chance to command and had no personal interest in the strife. He had been a miracle of coolness then, and his six-foot-two of pride and muscle was taking natural tribute at the door of the Church of St. Francis, where he waited till nearly every one had entered, and Father Roche's voice could be heard in the Ma.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THEN HAD HAPPENED THE REAL EVENT OF HIS LIFE]

Then had happened the real event of his life: a black-eyed, rose-cheeked girl went by with her mother, hurrying in to Ma.s.s. As she pa.s.sed him their eyes met, and his blood leaped in his veins. He had never seen her before, and, in a sense, he had never seen any woman before. He had danced with many a one, and kissed a few in the old days among the flax-beaters, at the harvesting, in the gayeties of a wedding, and also down in Ma.s.sachusetts. That, however, was a different thing, which he forgot an hour after; but this was the beginning of the world for him; for he knew now, of a sudden, what life was, what home meant, why "old folks" slaved for their children, and mothers wept when girls married or sons went away from home to bigger things; why in there, in at Ma.s.s, so many were praying for all the people and thinking only of one. All in a moment it came--and stayed; and he spoke to her, to Marcile, that very night, and he spoke also to her father, Valloir the farrier, the next morning by lamplight, before he started for the woods. He would not be gainsaid, nor take no for an answer, nor accept, as a reason for refusal, that she was only sixteen, and that he did not know her, for she had been away with a childless aunt since she was three. That she had fourteen brothers and sisters who had to be fed and cared for did not seem to weigh with the farrier. That was an affair of _le bon Dieu_, and enough would be provided for them all as heretofore--one could make little difference; and though Jacques was a very good match, considering his prospects and his favor with the lumber-king, Valloir had a kind of fear of him, and could not easily promise his beloved Marcile, the flower of his flock, to a man of whom the priest so strongly disapproved. But it was a new sort of Jacques Gra.s.sette who, that morning, spoke to him with the simplicity and eagerness of a child; and the suddenly conceived gift of a pony stallion, which every man in the parish envied Jacques, won Valloir over; and Jacques went "away back" with the first timid kiss of Marcile Valloir burning on his cheek.

"Well, bagosh, you are a wonder!" said Jacques' father, when he told him the news, and saw Jacques jump into the cariole and drive away.

Here in prison, this, too, Jacques saw--this scene; and then the wedding in the spring, and the tour through the parishes for days together, lads and la.s.ses journeying with them; and afterward the new home with a bigger stoop than any other in the village, with some old, gnarled crab-apple-trees and lilac bushes, and four years of happiness, and a little child that died; and all the time Jacques rising in the esteem of Michelin the lumber-king, and sent on inspections, and to organize camps; for weeks, sometimes for months, away from the house behind the lilac bushes--and then the end of it all, sudden and crushing and unredeemable.

Jacques came back one night and found the house empty. Marcile had gone to try her luck with another man.

That was the end of the upward career of Jacques Gra.s.sette. He went out upon a savage hunt which brought him no quarry, for the man and the woman had disappeared as completely as though they had been swallowed by the sea. And here, at last, he was waiting for the day when he must settle a bill for a human life taken in pa.s.sion and rage.

His big frame seemed out of place in the small cell, and the watcher sitting near him, to whom he had not addressed a word nor replied to a question since the watching began, seemed an insignificant factor in the scene. Never had a prisoner been more self-contained, or rejected more completely all those ministrations of humanity which relieve the horrible isolation of the condemned cell. Gra.s.sette's isolation was complete. He lived in a dream, did what little there was to do in a dark abstraction, and sat hour after hour, as he was sitting now, piercing, with a brain at once benumbed to all outer things and afire with inward things, those realms of memory which are infinite in a life of forty years.

"_Sacre!_" he muttered at last, and a shiver seemed to pa.s.s through him from head to foot; then an ugly and evil oath fell from his lips, which made his watcher shrink back appalled, for he also was a Catholic, and had been chosen of purpose, in the hope that he might have an influence on this revolted soul. It had, however, been of no use, and Gra.s.sette had refused the advances and ministrations of the little good priest, Father Laflamme, who had come from the coast of purpose to give him the offices of the Church. Silent, obdurate, sullen, he had looked the priest straight in the face, and had said, in broken English, "_Non_, I pay my bill. _Nom de diable!_ I will say my own Ma.s.s, light my own candle, go my own way. I have too much."

Now, as he sat glooming, after his outbreak of oaths, there came a rattling noise at the door, the grinding of a key in the lock, the shooting of bolts, and a face appeared at the little wicket in the door.

Then the door opened, and the Sheriff stepped inside, accompanied by a white-haired, stately old man. At sight of this second figure--the Sheriff had come often before, and would come for one more doleful walk with him--Gra.s.sette started. His face, which had never whitened in all the dismal and terrorizing doings of the capture and the trial and sentence, though it had flushed with rage more than once, now turned a little pale, for it seemed as if this old man had stepped out of the visions which had just pa.s.sed before his eyes.

"His Honor, the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Henri Robitaille, has come to speak with you.... Stand up!" the Sheriff added, sharply, as Gra.s.sette kept his seat.

Gra.s.sette's face flushed with anger, for the prison had not broken his spirit; then he got up slowly. "I not stand up for you," he growled at the Sheriff; "I stand up for him." He jerked his head toward Sir Henri Robitaille. This grand Seigneur, with Michelin had believed in him in those far-off days which he had just been seeing over again, and all his boyhood and young manhood was rushing back on him. But now it was the Governor who turned pale, seeing who the criminal was.

"Jacques Gra.s.sette!" he cried, in consternation and emotion, for under another name the murderer had been tried and sentenced, nor had his ident.i.ty been established--the case was so clear, the defence had been perfunctory, and Quebec was very far away!

"M'sieu'!" was the respectful response, and Gra.s.sette's fingers twitched.

"It was my sister's son you killed, Gra.s.sette," said the Governor, in a low, strained voice.

"_Nom de Dieu_!" said Gra.s.sette, hoa.r.s.ely.

"I did not know, Gra.s.sette," the Governor went on--"I did not know it was you."

"Why did you come, m'sieu'?"

"Call him 'your Honor,'" said the Sheriff, sharply.

Gra.s.sette's face hardened, and his look, turned upon the Sheriff, was savage and forbidding. "I will speak as it please me. Who are you? What do I care? To hang me--that is your business; but, for the rest, you spik to me differen'! Who are you? Your father kep' a tavern for thieves, _vous savez bien_!" It was true that the Sheriff's father had had no savory reputation in the West.

The Governor turned his head away in pain and trouble, for the man's rage was not a thing to see--and they both came from the little parish of St.

Francis, and had pa.s.sed many an hour together.

"Never mind, Gra.s.sette," he said, gently. "Call me what you will. You've got no feeling against me; and I can say with truth that I don't want your life for the life you took."

Gra.s.sette's breast heaved. "He put me out of my work, the man I kill. He pa.s.s the word against me, he hunt me out of the mountains, he call--_tete de diable_! he call me a name so bad. Everything swim in my head, and I kill him."

The Governor made a protesting gesture. "I understand. I am glad his mother was dead. But do you not think how sudden it was? Now here, in the thick of life, then, out there, beyond this world in the dark--in purgatory."

The brave old man had accomplished what every one else, priest, lawyer, Sheriff, and watcher, had failed to do: he had shaken Gra.s.sette out of his blank isolation and obdurate unrepentance, had touched some chord of recognizable humanity.

"It is done--_bien_, I pay for it," responded Gra.s.sette, setting his jaw.

"It is two deaths for me. Waiting and remembering, and then with the Sheriff there the other--so quick, and all."

The Governor looked at him for some moments without speaking. The Sheriff intervened again officiously.

"His Honor has come to say something important to you," he remarked, oracularly.

"Hold you--does he need a Sheriff to tell him when to spik?" was Gra.s.sette's surly comment. Then he turned to the Governor. "Let us speak in French," he said, in _patois_. "This rope-twister will not understan'.

He is no good--I spit at him!"

The Governor nodded, and, despite the Sheriff's protest, they spoke in French, Gra.s.sette with his eyes intently fixed on the other, eagerly listening.

"I have come," said the Governor, "to say to you, Gra.s.sette, that you still have a chance of life."

He paused, and Gra.s.sette's face took on a look of bewilderment and vague anxiety. A chance of life--what did it mean?

"Reprieve?" he asked, in a hoa.r.s.e voice.

The Governor shook his head. "Not yet; but there is a chance. Something has happened. A man's life is in danger, or it may be he is dead; but more likely he is alive. You took a life; perhaps you can save one now.

Keeley's Gulch, the mine there!"

"They have found it--gold?" asked Gra.s.sette, his eyes staring. He was forgetting for a moment where and what he was.

"He went to find it, the man whose life is in danger. He had heard from a trapper who had been a miner once. While he was there a landslip came, and the opening to the mine was closed up."

"There were two ways in. Which one did he take?" cried Gra.s.sette.

"The only one he could take, the only one he or any one else knew. You know the other way in--you only, they say."

"I found it--the easier, quick way in; a year ago I found it."

"Was it near the other entrance?"

Gra.s.sette shook his head. "A mile away."

"If the man is alive--and we think he is--you are the only person that can save him. I have telegraphed the Government. They do not promise, but they will reprieve, and save your life if you find the man."

"Alive or dead?"