Chapter 10

With a start, Ruth recognised the words. They were the form in which the French people began the telling of their sins in confession. And she hurriedly turned away toward the horses.

She smiled wearily as she leaned against Brom Bones, thinking of Jeffrey Whiting. Here was one of the things that he did not like--the Catholic Church always turning up in everything.

She wondered where he was and what he was doing and thinking, up there behind that awful veil of red.

VI

THE BUSINESS OF THE SHEPHERD

The Bishop laid the man's head back so that he lay as easy as it was possible and spoke a word or two in that astonishing French of his which was the wonder and the peculiar pride of all the North Country.

But for a long time the man seemed unable to go farther. He saw the Bishop slip the little pocket stole around his neck and seemed to know what it was and what it was for. The swollen lips, however, only continued to mumble the words with which they had begun:

_"Mon Pere, je me 'cuse_--"

Rafe Gadbeau could speak English as well as or better than he could speak French. But there are times when a man reverts to the tongue of his mother. And confession, especially in the face of death, is one of these.

Again the Bishop lowered the man's head and changed the position of the body, while he fanned what air there was across the gasping mouth with his hat.

Now the man tried to gather his straying wits to him. With a sharp effort that seemed to send a tremor through his whole long body he forced his faculties back into their grooves. With a muttered word of encouragement from the Bishop, he began hoarsely that precise, recitative form of confession that the good priests of Lower Canada have been drilling into the children for the last three hundred years.

Once the memory found itself going the long-accustomed way it worked easily, mechanically. Since five years he had not confessed. At that time he had received the Sacrament. He went through the "table of sins" with the methodical care of a man who knows that if he misses a step in the sequence he will lose his way. It was the story of the young men of his people in the hills, in the lumber camps, in the sawmills, in the towns. A thousand men of his kind in the hill country would have told the same story, of hard work and anger and fighting in the camps, of drink and debauch in the towns when they went down to spend their money; and would have told it in exactly the same way. The Bishop had heard the story ten thousand times.

But now--_Mon Pere, je me 'cuse_--there was something more, something that would not fall into the catalogue of the sins of every day. It had begun a long time ago and it was just coming to an end here at the feet of the Bishop. Yes, it was undoubtedly coming to an end. For the Bishop had found blood caked on the man's shirt, in the back, just below the shoulder blade. There was a wound there, a bullet wound, a wound from which ordinarily the man would have fallen and stayed lying where he fell.

He must tell this thing in his own way, backwards, as it unrolled itself to his mind.

"I die, Mon Pere, I die," he began between gasps. "I die. Since the afternoon I have been dying. If I could have found a spot to lie down, if I could have had two minutes free from the fire, I would have lain down to die. But shall a man lie down in hell before he is dead? No.

"All day I have run from the fire. I could not lie down to die till I had found a free place where my soul could breathe out. Here I breathe. Here I die. The rabbits and the foxes and the deer ran out from the fire, and they ran no faster than I ran. But I could not run out of its way. All day long men followed the line of the fire and fought around its edge. They fought the fire, but they hunted me. All the day long they hunted me and drove me always back into the fire when I would run out.

"They hunted me because in the early morning they had seen me with the men who set the fire. No. I did not do that. I did not set hand to the fire. Why was I with those men? Why did I go with them when they went to set the fire? Ah, that is a longer tale.

"Four years ago I was in Utica. It was in a drinking place. All were drinking. There was a fight. A man was killed. I struck no blow. _Mon Pere_, I struck no blow. But my knife--my knife was found in the man's heart. Who struck? I know not. A detective for this railroad that comes now into the hills found my knife. He traced it to me. He showed the knife to me. It was mine. I could not deny. But he said no word to the law. With the knife he could hang me. But he said no word. Only to me he said, 'Some day I may need you.'

"Last winter that man the detective came into the hills. Now he was not a detective. He was Rogers. He was the agent for the railroad. He would buy the land from the people.

"The people would not sell. You know of the matter. In June he came again. He was angry, because other men above him were angry. He must force the people to sell. He must trick the people. He saw me. 'You,' he said, 'I need you.'

"_Mon Pere_, that man owned me. On the point of my knife, like a pinch of salt, he held my life. Never a moment when I could say, I will do this, I will do that. Always I must do his bidding. For him I lied to my own people. For him I tricked my friends. For him I nearly killed the young Whiting. Always I must do as he told. He called and I came. He bade me do and I did.

"M'sieur does not know the sin of hate. It is the wild beast of all sins. And fear, too, that is the father of sin. For fear begets hate. And hate goes raging to do all sin.

"So, after fear, came hate into my heart. Before my eyes was always the face of this man, threatening with that knife of mine.

"Yesterday, in the morning came a message that I must meet him at the railroad. He would come to the end of the rail and we would go up into the high hills. I knew what was to be done. To myself, I rebelled. I would not go. I swore I would not go. A girl, a good girl that loved me, begged me not to go. To her I swore I would not go.

"I went. Fear, _Mon Pere_, fear is the father of all. I went because there was that knife before my eyes. I believe that good girl followed into the high hills, hoping, maybe, to bring me back at the last moment. I do not know.

"I went because I must go. I must be there in case any one should see. If any of us that went was to be caught, I was to be caught. I must be seen. I must be known to have been there. If any one was to be punished, I was that one. Rogers must be free, do you see. I would have to take the blame. I would not dare to speak.

"Through the night we skulked by Bald Mountain. We were seven. And of the seven I alone was to take the blame. They would swear it upon me. I knew.

"Never once did Rogers let me get beyond the reach of his tongue. And his speech was, 'You owe me this. Now you must pay.'

"In the first light the torches were got ready. We scattered along the fringe of the highest trees. Rogers kept me with him. A moment he went out into the clearing. Then he came running back. He had seen other men watching for us. I ran a little way. He came running behind with a lighted torch, setting fire as he ran. He yelled to me to light my torch. Again I ran, deeper into the wood. Again he came after me, the red flare of the fire running after him.

"Mon Dieu! The red flare of the fire in the wood! The red rush of fire in the air! The red flame of fire in my heart! Fear! Hate! Fire!" With a terrible convulsion the man drew himself up in the Bishop's arms, gazing wildly at the fire all about them, and screaming:

"On my knee I dropped and shot him, shot Rogers when he stopped!"

He fell back as the scream died in his throat.

The Bishop began the words of the Absolution. Some whisper of the well-remembered sound must have reached down to the soul of Rafe Gadbeau in its dark place, for, as though unconsciously, his lips began to form the words of the Act of Contrition.

As the Bishop finished, the tremor of death ran through the body in his arms. He knelt there holding the empty shell of a man.

Ruth Lansing, standing a little distance away, resting against the flank of her horse, had time to be awed and subdued by the terrific forces of this world and the other that were at work about her. This world, with the exception of this little island on which she stood, was on fire. The wind had almost entirely died out. On every side the flames rose evenly to the very heavens. Direction, distance, place, all were blotted out. There was no east, no west; no north, no south. Only an impenetrable ring of fire, no earth, no sky. Only these few bare rocks and this inverted bowl of lurid, hot, cinder-laden air out of which she must get the breath of life.

Into this ring of fire a hunted man had burst, just as she had seen a rabbit and a belated woodchuck bursting. And that man had lain himself down to die. And here, of all places, he had found the hand of the mighty, the omnipresent Catholic Church reached out ready to him!

She was only a young girl. But since that night when the Bishop had come to her as she held her father dying in her arms she had thought much. Thought had been pressed upon her. Forces had pressed themselves in upon her mind. The things that she had been hearing and reading since her childhood, the thoughts of the people among whom she had grown up, the feeling of loyalty to her own kind, all these had fought in her against the dominion of the Catholic Church which challenged them all.

Because she had so recently come under its influence, the Catholic Church seemed ever to be unfolding new wonders to her. It seemed as though she stepped ever from one holy of holies into another more wonderful, more awesome. Yet always there seemed to be something just beyond, some deeper, more mysterious meaning to which she could not quite attain. Always a door opened, only to disclose another closed door beyond it.

Here surely she stood as near to naked truth as it was possible to get. Here were none of the forms of words, none of the explanations, none of the ready-made answers of the catechism. Here were just two men. One was a bad man, a man of evil life. He was dying. In a few moments his soul must go--somewhere. The other was a good man. To-day he had risked his life to save the lives of this man and others--for Ruth was quick to suspect that Gadbeau had been caught in the fire because other men were chasing him.

Now these two men had a question to settle between them. In a very few minutes these two men must settle whether this bad man's soul was presently going to Hell or to Heaven for all eternity. You see, she was a very direct young person. She took her religion at its word, straight in the eyes, literally.

So far she had not needed to take any precautions against hearing anything that was said. The dull roar of the fire all about them effectually silenced every other sound. Then, without warning, high above the noise of the fire, came the shrill, breaking voice of Gadbeau, screaming:

"On my knee I dropped and shot him, shot Rogers as he stopped!"

Involuntarily she turned and started towards the men. Gadbeau had fallen back in the Bishop's arms and the Bishop was leaning over, apparently talking to him. She knew that she must not go near until the Bishop gave her leave. She turned back and putting her hands up to her ears buried her face in Brom Bones' mane.

But she could not put away the words that she had heard. Never, so long as she lived, was she able to forget them. Like the flash of the shot itself, they leaped to her brain and seared themselves there. Years afterwards she could shut her eyes and fairly see those words burning in her mind.

When it was ended, the Bishop called to her and she went over timidly. She heard the Bishop say:

"He is gone. Will you say a prayer, Ruth?"

Then the Bishop began to read slowly, in the light of the flames, the Prayers for the Departed. Ruth kneeling drew forth her beads and among the Mysteries she wept gently--why, she knew not.

When the Bishop had finished, he knelt a while in silence, looking into the face of the dead. Then he arose and folded the long arms on the tattered breast and straightened the body.

Ruth rose and watched him in a troubled way. Once, twice she opened her lips to speak. But she did not know what to say or how to say it. Finally she began:

"Bishop, I--I heard--"

"No, child. You heard nothing," the Bishop interrupted quietly, "nothing."

Ruth understood. And for a little space the two stood there looking down. The dead man's secret lay between them, buried under God's awful seal.

The Bishop went to his horse and unstrapping Father Brady's storm coat which he had brought wrapped it gently over the head and body of the dead man as a protection from the showers of glowing cinders that rained down upon everything.

Then they took up the interminable vigil of the night, standing at their horses' heads, their faces buried in the manes, their arms thrown over the horses' eyes.

As the night wore on the fire, having consumed everything to the east and south, moved on deliberately into the west and north. But the sharp, acrid smoke of trees left smouldering behind still kept them in exquisite, blinded torture.

The murky, grey pall of the night turned almost to black as the fires to the east died almost out in that last, lifeless hour of the night. The light of the morning showed a faint, sickly white through the smoke banks on the high hills. When it was time for the sun to be rising over Bald Mountain, the morning breezes came down lifting the heavy clouds of smoke and carrying them overhead and away into the west. They saw the world again, a grey, ash-strewn world, with not a land-mark left but the bare knobs of the hills and here and there a great tree still standing smoking like a burnt-out torch.

They mounted wearily, and taking a last look at the figure of the man lying there on his rocky bier, picked their way down to the sloping hillside. The Gaunt Rocks had saved their lives. Now they must reach Little Tupper and water if they would have their horses live. Intolerable, frightful thirst was already swelling their own lips and they knew that the plight of the horses was inevitably worse.

Ruth took the lead, for she knew the country. They must travel circuitously, avoiding the places that had been wooded for the fallen trees would still be burning and would block them everywhere. The road was impossible because it had largely run through wooded places and the trees would have fallen across it. Their situation was not desperate, but at any moment a horse might drop or turn mad for water.

For two hours they plodded steadily over the hills through the hot, loose-lying ashes. In all the world it seemed that not man nor beast nor bird was alive. The top of the earth was one grey ruin, draped with the little sworls of dust and ashes that the playful wind sent drifting up into their mouths and eyes.

They dared not ride faster than a walk, for the ashes had blown level over holes and traps of all sorts in which a galloping horse would surely break his leg. Nor would it have been safe to put the horses to any rapid expenditure of energy. The little that was left in them must be doled out to the very last ounce. For they did not yet know what lay between them and French Village and the lake. If the fire had not reached the lake during the night then it was always a possibility that, with this fresh morning wind, a new fire might spring up from the ashes of the old and place an impassable barrier between them and the water.

When this thought came to them, as it must, they involuntarily quickened their pace. The impulse was to make one wild dash for the lake. But they knew that it would be nothing short of madness. They must go slowly and carefully, enduring the torture with what fortitude they could.

The story which the Bishop had heard from the lips of the dying man had stirred him profoundly. He now knew definitely, what yesterday he had suspected, that men had been sent into the hills by the railroad people to set fire to the forests, thereby driving the people out of that part of the country which the railroad wished to possess. He was moved to anger by the knowledge, but he knew that he must try to drive that knowledge back into the deepest recess of his mind; must try to hide it even from himself, lest in some unguarded moment, some time of stress and mental conflict, he should by word or look, by a gesture or even by an omission, reveal even his consciousness of that knowledge. Now he knew that the situation which last night he had thought to meet in French Village would almost certainly confront him there this morning, if indeed he ever succeeded in reaching there. And he must be doubly on his guard lest the things which he might learn to-day should in his mind confuse themselves with what he had last night learned under the seal of the confessional.

Through all the night Ruth Lansing had been hearing the words of that last cry of the dying man. She did not know how near they came to her. She did not know that Jeffrey Whiting had stood with his gun levelled upon the man whom Gadbeau had killed. But, try as she would to keep back the knowledge which she knew she must never under any circumstances reveal, those words came ringing upon her ears. And she knew that the secret would haunt her and taunt her always.

As they came over the last of the ridges, the grey waste of the country sloping from all sides to the lake lay open before them. There was not a ruin, not a standing stick to show them where little French Village had once stood along the lake. The fire had gone completely around the lake to the very water edge and a back draught had drawn it up in a circle around the east slope. There it had burned itself out along the forest line of the higher hills. It had gone on toward the west, burning its way down to the settled farm lands. But there would be no more fire in this region.

"Would the people make their way down the river," the Bishop asked; "or did they escape back into the higher hills?"

"I don't think they did either," Ruth answered as she scanned the lake sharply. "There is something out there in the middle of the lake, and I wouldn't be surprised if they made rafts out of the logs and went through the fire that way. They'd be better off than we were, and that way they could save some things. If they had run away they would have had to drop everything."

The horses, sniffing the moist air from the lake, pricked up their ears and started briskly down the slope. It was soon plain that Ruth was right in her conjecture. They could now make out five or six large rafts which the people had evidently thrown together out of the logs that had been lying in the lake awaiting their turn at the sawmill. These were crowded with people, standing as they must have stood all through the night; and now the freshening wind, aided by such help as the people could give it with boards and poles, was moving all slowly toward the shore where their homes had been.

The heart of the Shepherd was very low as he rode fetlock deep through the ashes of what had been the street of a happy little village and watched his people coming sadly back to land. There was nothing for them to come back to. They might as well have gone to the other side of the lake to begin life again. But they would inevitably, with that dumb loyalty to places, which people share with birds, come back and begin their nests over again.

For nearly an hour they stood on the little beach, letting the horses drink a little now and then, and watching the approach of the rafts. When they came to the shallow water, men and boys jumped yelling from the rafts and came wading ashore. In a few moments the rafts were emptied of all except the very aged or the crippled who must be carried off.

They crowded around the grimy, unrecognisable Bishop and the girl with wonder and a little superstition, for it was plain that these two people must have come straight through the fire. But when Father Ponfret came running forward and knelt at the Bishop's feet, a great glad cry of wondering recognition went up from all the French people. It was their Bishop! He who spoke the French of the most astonishing! His coming was a sign! A deliverance! They had come through horrors. Now all was well! The good God had hidden His face through the long night. Now, in the morning He had sent His messenger to say that all was well!

Laughing and crying in the quick surcharge of spirits that makes their race what it is, they threw themselves on their knees begging his blessing. The Bishop bared his head and raised his hand slowly. He was infinitely humbled by the quick, spontaneous outburst of their faith. He had done nothing for them; could do nothing for them. They were homeless, pitiable, without a hope or a stick of shelter. Yet it had needed but the sight of his face to bring out their cheery unbounded confidence that God was good, that the world was right again.

The other people, the hill people of the Bishop's own blood and race, stood apart. They did not understand the scene. They were not a kind of people that could weep and laugh at once. But they were not unmoved. For years they had heard of the White Horse Chaplain. Some two or three old men of them saw him now through a mist of memory and battle smoke riding a mad horse across a field. They knew that this was the man. That he should appear out of the fire after the nightmare through which they had passed was not so much incredible as it was a part of the strange things that they had always half believed about him.

Then rose the swift, shrill cackle of tongues around the Bishop. Father Ponfret, a quick, eager little man of his people, would drag the Bishop's story from him by very force. Had he dropped from Heaven? How had he come to be in the hills? Had a miracle saved him from the fire?

The Bishop told the tale simply, accenting the folly of his own imprudence, and how he had been saved from the consequences of it by the quickness and wisdom of the young girl. Father Ponfret translated freely and with a fine flourish. Then the Bishop told of the coming of Rafe Gadbeau and how the man had died with the Sacrament. They nodded their heads in silence. There was nothing to be said. They knew who the man was. He had done wickedly. But the good God had stretched out the wing of His great Church over him at the last. Why say more? God was good. No?

Ruth Lansing went among her own hill people, grouped on the outskirts of the crowd that pressed around the Bishop, answering their eager questions and asking questions of her own. There was just one question that she wanted to ask, but something kept it back from her lips. There was no reason at all why she should not ask them about Jeffrey Whiting. Some of them must at least have heard news of him, must know in what direction he had gone to fight the fire. But some unnamed dread seemed to take possession of her so that she dared not put her crying question into words.

Some one at her elbow, who had heard what the French people were saying, asked:

"You're sure that was Gadbeau that crawled out of the fire and died, Miss Lansing?"

"Yes. I knew him well, of course. It was Gadbeau, certainly," Ruth answered without looking up.

Then a tall young fellow in front of her said:

"Then that's two of 'em done for. That was Gadbeau. And Jeff Whiting shot Rogers."

"He did not!" Ruth blazed up in the young man's face. "Jeffrey Whiting did _not_ shoot Rogers! Rafe--!"