Part 46 (2/2)

Long after he had gone, Jo wandered up and down among the trees on the river-road, up which Charley had disappeared with Jo's dogs and sled. He kept shaking his head mournfully.

CHAPTER XLVI. THE FORGOTTEN MAN

It was Easter morning, and the good sunrise of a perfect spring made radiant the high hill above the town. Rosy-fingered morn touched with magic colour the masts and scattered sails of the s.h.i.+ps upon the great river, and spires and towers quivered with rainbow light. The city was waking cheerfully, though the only active life was in the pealing bells and on the deep flowing rivers. The streets were empty yet, save for an a.s.siduous priest or the cart of a milkman. Here and there a window opened and a drowsy head was thrust into the eager air. These saw a bearded countryman with his team of six dogs and his little cart going slowly up the street. It was plain the man had come a long distance--from the mountains in the east or south, no doubt, where horses were few, and dogs, canoes, and oxen the means of transportation.

As the man moved slowly through the streets, his dogs still gallantly full of life after their hard journey, he did not stare about him after the manner of countrymen. His movements had intelligence and freedom.

He was an unusual figure for a woodsman or river-man--he did not wear ear-rings or a waist-sash as did the river-men, and he did not turn in his toes like a woodsman. Yet he was plainly a man from the far mountains.

The man with the dogs did not heed the few curious looks turned his way, but held his head down as though walking in familiar places. Now and then he spoke to his dogs, and once he stopped before a newspaper office, which had a placard bearing these lines:

The Coming Pa.s.sion Play In the Chaudiere Valley.

He looked at it mechanically, for, though he was concerned in the Pa.s.sion Play and the Chaudiere Valley, it was an abstraction to him at this moment. His mind was absorbed by other things.

Though he looked neither to right nor to left, he was deeply affected by all round him.

At last he came to a certain street, where he and his dogs travelled more quickly. It opened into a square, where bells were booming in the steeple of a church. Shops and offices in the street were shut, but a saloon-door was open, and over the doorway was the legend: Jean Jolicoeur, Licensed to sell Wine, Beer, and other Spirituous and Fermented Liquors.

Nearly opposite was a lawyer's office, with a new-painted sign. It had once read, in plain black letters, Charles Steele, Barrister, etc.; now it read, in gold letters and many flourishes of the sign-painter's art, Rockwell and Tremblay, Barristers, Attorneys, etc.

Here the man looked up with trouble in his eyes. He could see dimly the desk and the window beside which he had sat for so many years, and on the wall a map of the city glowed with the incoming sun.

He moved on, pa.s.sing the saloon with the open door. The landlord, in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, was standing in the doorway. He nodded, then came out to the edge of the board-walk.

”Come a long way, M'sieu'?” he asked.

”Four days' journey,” answered the man gruffly through his beard, looking the landlord in the eyes. If this landlord, who in the past had seen him so often and so closely, did not recognise him, surely no one else would. It was, however, a curious recurrence of habit that, as he looked at the landlord, he instinctively felt for his eye-gla.s.s, which he had discarded when he left Chaudiere. For an instant there was an involuntary arrest of Jean Jolicoeur's look, as though memory had been roused, but this swiftly pa.s.sed, and he said:

”Fine dogs, them! We never get that kind hereabouts now, M'sieu'. Ever been to the city before?”

”I've never been far from home before,” answered the Forgotten Man.

”You'd better keep your eyes open, my friend, though you've got a sharp pair in your head--sharp as Beauty Steele's almost. There's rascals in the river-side drinking-places that don't let the left hand know what the right does.”

”My dogs and I never trust anybody,” said the Forgotten Man, as one of the dogs snarled at the landlord's touch. ”So I can take care of myself, even if I haven't eyes as sharp as Beauty Steele's, whoever he is.”

The landlord laughed. ”Beauty's only skin-deep, they say. Charley Steele was a lawyer; his office was over there”--he pointed across the street.

”He went wrong. He come here too often--that wasn't my fault. He had an eye like a hawk, and you couldn't read it. Now I can read your eye like a book. There's a bit of spring in 'em, M'sieu'. His eyes were hard winter-ice five feet deep and no fis.h.i.+ng under--froze to the bed. He had a tongue like a cross-cut saw. He's at the bottom of the St. Lawrence, leaving a bad job behind him.

”Have a drink--hein?” He jerked a finger backwards to the saloon door.

”It's Sunday, but stolen waters are sweet, sure!”

The Forgotten Man shook his head. ”I don't drink, thank you.”

”It'd do you good. You're dead beat. You've been travelling hard--eh?”

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