The Song of the Blood-Red Flower Part 6

"You can put the money back," said the boy, with no less pride.

"'Tis but poor provision for a journey, anyway, if a man can't manage for himself," he added, turning away.

His father stood still, looking at him earnestly, as if trying to read something.

"'Tis no harm to a man to manage for himself if he can," said he slowly. He spoke in no angry tone, but with a stern approval.

The boy stood thinking for a moment.

"Good-bye, father."

His father did not answer, but stared fixedly before him, and his eyes hardened.

His mother had seated herself on a bench beside the window, her face turned away, looking out--and warm drops fell on the sill.

The young man moved towards her slowly, as if questioning. She turned towards him, and their eyes met--then they pa.s.sed out of the room together.

The old man remained seated, a sharp pain at his breast. A flush of anger rose to his cheeks, and his lips trembled, but he could not speak, and sat still, staring at the floor.

In the next room, the mother turned anxiously to her son, and grasped his hand. "Olof!"

"Mother!" The boy was trembling. And fearing to lose control of his feelings, he went on hastily: "Mother, I know, I know. Don't say any more."

But she took both his hands in hers, and looked earnestly into his eyes.

"I must say it--I couldn't before. Olof--you are your father's son, and 'tis not your way, either of you, to care much what you do--if it's building or breaking." And with intense earnestness, as if concentrating all her being in her eyes and voice, she went on: "_Never deceive, Olof; stand by your promise and word to all--whatever their station_."

The boy pressed her hands with emotion, almost in fear, unable to speak a word.

"G.o.d keep you safe from harm, my son." The mother's voice broke.

"Don't forget this is your home. Come back when, when...."

The boy pressed her hands once more, and turned hastily away. He must go now, if he would have the strength to go at all.

PANSY

The clouds raced over the night sky; the riverbanks gazed at the flowing water, at the heavy timber floating slowly over its surface.

"Let it come!" cried the long stretch of wild rapids below.

Under the lee of a steep bank, just at the point where the eddy begins, flickered a small camp-fire. The lumbermen sat round it--four of them there were. The boom had just been drawn aside, the baulks from above came floating down in clean rows, needing no helping hand, and for the past two hours there had been no block in the river. The lumbermen were having an easy time to-night.

"The farmer he sleeps in a cosy cot, With a roof above his head; The lumberman lies out under the stars, With the dew to soften his bed.

But we'd not change our life so free For all the farmer's gold, Let clodhoppers snore at their ease o'nights, But we be lumbermen bold!"

The river woke from its dreams.

The river-guard, seated on piles of baulks by the waterside, shifted a little.

"But we be lumbermen bold!"

cried the nearest. And the song was pa.s.sed on from one point to another, from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, all down the rapids, to the gangs below.

Then all was silent again, for midnight loves not song, though it does demand a call from man to man through the dark. It loves better to listen, while the river tells of the dread sea-monster that yearly craves a human life, whether grown or child, but always a life a year.

All things solemn and still now. The moon sits quiet as if in church, and jesting dies on the roughest lips. Many call to mind things seen at such a time--a man drawn down by an invisible grasp, to rise no more, a widow wringing her hands and wailing, fatherless children crying and sobbing. Some there are who have seen the marks of the water-spirits on a drowned man's body, or maybe seen the thing itself rise up at midnight, furrowing the water with a gleam of light where it moves. Whose turn next? None can say, but the danger is never far off.

The little camp-fire flickered, the roar of the rapids grew fainter.

The moon sits listening to the legends of the river, and gazing down into the water.

Suddenly a great shout is heard from below. The men start up.

"Lock in, lock in! Close the boom!" comes the cry.

A murmur of relief from the men. Wakened abruptly from the spell of the hour, they had taken the hail at first for a cry of distress. They race up, lifting their poles above their heads as a sign the fairway is blocked, and the word of command, "Lock in, lock in!" is flung from man to man along the bank.

"Lock in it is!" cries the man at the head, and runs from the camp-fire down to the waterside. The rope is slipped, the end of the boom hauled close up to the sh.o.r.e and made fast again.

"'Twill hold a bit," says one. "But like to be a long spell for us all--for there's none'll care to get far out on the block to-night, if it lasts. Let's go down and see."

The party made their way down the path by the edge of the bank.

As the last of the timber comes down, the guards by the rapids join them, one after another. "Where'll it be?"

"Down below somewhere, must be. If only it's not the Whirlstone again."

"Ay, if it's that.... 'Tis no light work to get loose there in the daytime, let alone by night."

The Whirlstone Rock it was; the baulks had gathered about it in an inextricable ma.s.s. The sh.o.r.es were dark with men gathered to watch.

"Ay, 'tis there, sure enough, and fast as nails," said the men coming in to the sh.o.r.e, after a vain attempt at breaking loose the block.

The Whirlstone was a point of rock, rising barely a yard above the surface of the water, at the lower end of the rapids, where the river began to widen out and clear. It lay rather to the right of the fairway, and the timber floated clear, for the most part, to the left of it. But a long stem bringing up against it broadside on would be checked, and others packing against it form a fan-shaped ma.s.s reaching from bank to bank. And it was a dangerous business to try and break it, for the point of contact was at the rock itself out in the river, and there was no time to reach the bank once the timber started to spread. The usual way was to get out a boat from below, and even then, it was a race for life to get clear before the loosened ma.s.s came roaring down.

The foreman swore aloud. "I'll have that cursed rock out of the fairway next summer, if I have to splinter it. Well, there's nothing for it now; get your coffee, lads, and wait till it's light."

"Let's have a look at it first," cried a young, brisk voice in the crowd. "Maybe we could get it clear."

"There's no clearing that in the dark," said the foreman. "Try, if you like."

The young man sprang out on to the nearest point of the block, and leaped across actively, with lifted pole, to the middle. Reaching there, he bent down to see how the jam was fixed.

"Hallo!" came a hail from the rock. "It's easy enough. There's just one stick here holding it up--a cut of the axe'll clear it."

"Ho!" cried the men ash.o.r.e. "And who's to cut it loose, out there in the dark and all?"