Part 13 (1/2)

Making the sign of the cross, he lay back, and said ”I'll go to sleep now, I guess.”

The man sat for a long time looking at the pale, s.h.i.+ning face, at the blue veins showing painfully dark on the temples and forehead, at the firm little white hand, which was as brown as a b.u.t.ternut a few weeks before. The longer he sat, the deeper did his misery sink into his soul.

His wife had gone, he knew not where, his child was wasting to death, and he had for his sorrows no inner consolation. He had ever had that touch of mystical imagination inseparable from the far north, yet he had none of that religious belief which swallowed up natural awe and turned it to the refining of life, and to the advantage of a man's soul. Now it was forced in upon him that his child was wiser than himself, wiser and safer. His life had been spent in the wastes, with rough deeds and rugged habits, and a youth of hards.h.i.+p, danger, and almost savage endurance, had given him a half-barbarian temperament, which could strike an angry blow at one moment and fondle to death at the next.

When he married sweet Lucette Barbond his religion reached little farther than a belief in the Scarlet Hunter of the Kimash Hills and those voices that could be heard calling in the night, till their time of sleep be past, and they should rise and reconquer the north.

Not even Father Corraine, whose ways were like those of his Master, could ever bring him to a more definite faith. His wife had at first striven with him, mourning yet loving. Sometimes the savage in him had broken out over the little creature, merely because barbaric tyranny was in him--torture followed by the pa.s.sionate kiss. But how was she philosopher enough to understand the cause?

When she fled from their hut one bitter day, as he roared some wild words at her, it was because her nerves had all been shaken from threatened death by wild beasts (of which he did not know), and his violence drove her mad. She had run out of the house, and on, and on, and on--and she had never come back. That was weeks ago, and there had been no word nor sign of her since. The man was now busy with it all, in a slow, c.u.mbrous way. A nature more to be touched by things seen than by things told, his mind was being awakened in a ma.s.sive kind of fas.h.i.+on.

He was viewing this crisis of his life as one sees a human face in the wide searching light of a great fire. He was restless, but he held himself still by a strong effort, not wis.h.i.+ng to disturb the sleeper.

His eyes seemed to retreat farther and farther back under his s.h.a.ggy brows.

The great logs in the chimney burned brilliantly, and a bra.s.s crucifix over the child's head now and again reflected soft little flashes of light. This caught the hunter's eye. Presently there grew up in him a vague kind of hope that, somehow, this symbol would bring him luck--that was the way he put it to himself. He had felt this--and something more--when Dominique prayed. Somehow, Dominique's prayer was the only one he had ever heard that had gone home to him, had opened up the big sluices of his nature, and let the light of G.o.d flood in. No, there was another: the one Lucette made on the day that they were married, when a wonderful timid reverence played through his hungry love for her.

Hours pa.s.sed. All at once, without any other motion or gesture, the boy's eyes opened wide with a strange, intense look.

”Father,” he said slowly, and in a kind of dream, ”when you hear a sweet horn blow at night, is it the Scarlet Hunter calling?”

”P'r'aps. Why, Dominique?” He made up his mind to humour the boy, though it gave him strange aching forebodings. He had seen grown men and women with these fancies--and they had died.

”I heard one blowing just now, and the sounds seemed to wave over my head. Perhaps he's calling someone that's lost.”

”Mebbe.”

”And I heard a voice singing--it wasn't a bird tonight.”

”There was no voice, Dominique.”

”Yes, yes.” There was something fine in the grave, courteous certainty of the lad. ”I waked and you were sitting there thinking, and I shut my eyes again, and I heard the voice. I remember the tune and the words.”

”What were the words?” In spite of himself the hunter felt awed.

”I've heard mother sing them, or something most like them:

”Why does the fire no longer burn?

(I am so lonely.) Why does the tent-door swing outward?

(I have no home.) Oh, let me breathe hard in your face!

(I am so lonely.) Oh, why do you shut your eyes to me?

(I have no home.)”

The boy paused.

”Was that all, Dominique?”

”No, not all.”

”Let us make friends with the stars; (I am so lonely.) Give me your hand, I will hold it.

(I have no home.) Let us go hunting together.