There seemed to be a great many rainy Saturdays that spring; and in the
early summer the trade in Girard's store was so brisk that it appeared
to need all the force of the establishment to attend to it. The gate
of the front yard had no more strain put upon its hinges. It fell into
a stiff propriety of opening and shutting at the touch of people who
understood that a gate was made merely to pass through, not to lean upon.
That summer Vaillantcœur had a new hat—_chapeau de castor_—black and
shiny—and a new red-silk cravat. They looked fine on Corpus Christi
day, when he and 'Toinette walked in the procession as _fiancées_.
You would have thought he would have been content with that. Proud,
he certainly was. He stepped like the _curé's_ big rooster with the
top-knot—almost as far up in the air as he did along the ground; and
he held his chin high, as if he liked to look at things over his nose.
But he was not satisfied all the way through. He thought more of beating
Prosper than of getting 'Toinette. _And he was not quite sure that he
had beaten him yet._ Perhaps the girl still liked Prosper a little.
Perhaps she still thought of his romances, and his _chansons_, and his
fine, smooth words, and missed them. Perhaps she was too silent and
dull sometimes, when she walked with Raoul; and sometimes she laughed
too loud when he talked, more at him than with him. Perhaps those St.
Raymond fellows still remembered the way his head stuck out of that
cursed snow-drift, and joked about it, and said how clever and quick
the little Prosper was. Perhaps—ah, _dame!_ a thousand times perhaps!
And only one way to settle them, the old way, the sure way, and all the
better now because 'Toinette must be on his side. She must understand
for sure that the best man in the parish had chosen her.
That was the summer of the building of the grand stone tower of the
church. The men of Abbéville did it themselves, with their own hands,
for the glory of God. They were keen about that, and the _curé_ was the
keenest of them all. No sharing of that glory with workmen from Quebec,
if you please! Abbéville was only forty years old, but they already
understood the glory of God quite as well there as at Quebec, without
doubt. They could build their own tower, perfectly, and they would.
Besides, it would cost less.
Vaillantcœur was the chief carpenter. He attended to the affair of beams
and timbers. Leclère was the chief mason. He directed the affair of
dressing the stones and laying them. That required a very careful head,
you understand, for the tower must be straight. In the floor a little
crookedness did not matter; but in the wall—that might be serious. People
have been killed by a falling tower. Of course, if they were going into
church, they would be sure of heaven. But then think—what a disgrace
for Abbéville!
Everyone was glad that Leclère bossed the raising of the tower. They
admitted that he might be _lâche_, but he was assuredly careful.
Vaillantcœur alone grumbled, and said the work went too slowly, and even
swore that the sockets for the beams were too shallow, or else too deep,
it made no difference which. That _bête_ Prosper made trouble always by
his poor work. But the friction never came to a blaze; for the _curé_
was pottering about the tower every day and all day long, and a few
words from him would make a quarrel go off in smoke.
"_Doucement, mes garçons_," he would say; "work smooth and you work
fast. The logs in the river run well when they run all the same way.
But when two logs cross each other, on the same rock—psst! a jam! The
whole drive is hung up! Do not run crossways, my children."
The walls rose steadily, straight as a steamboat pipe—ten, twenty,
thirty, forty feet; it was time to put in the two cross-girders, lay the
floor of the belfry, finish off the stonework, and begin the pointed
wooden spire. The _curé_ had gone to Quebec that very day to buy the
shining plates of tin for the roof, and a beautiful cross of gilt for
the pinnacle.
Leclère was in front of the tower putting on his overalls. Vaillantcœur
came up, swearing mad. Three or four other workmen were standing about.
"Look here, you Leclère," said he, "I tried one of the cross-girders
yesterday afternoon and it wouldn't go. The templet on the north is
crooked—crooked as your teeth. We had to let the girder down again. I
suppose we must trim it off some way, to get a level bearing, and make
the tower weak, just to match your _sacré_ bad work, eh?"
[Illustration]
"Well," said Prosper, pleasant and quiet enough, "I'm sorry for that,
Raoul. Perhaps I could put that templet straight, or perhaps the girder
might be a little warped and twisted, eh? What? Suppose we measure it."
Sure enough, they found the long timber was not half seasoned and had
cork-screwed itself out of shape at least three inches. Vaillantcœur sat
on the sill of the doorway and did not even look at them while they were
measuring. When they called out to him what they had found, he strode
over to them.
"It's a dam' lie," he said, sullenly. "Prosper Leclère, you slipped the
string. None of your _sacré chicane_! I have enough of it already. Will
you fight, you cursed sneak?"
Prosper's face went gray, like the mortar in the trough. His fists
clenched and the cords on his neck stood out as if they were ropes. He
breathed hard. But he only said three words:
"No! Not here."
"Not here? Why not? There is room. The _curé_ is away. Why not here?"
"It is the house of _le bon Dieu_. Can we build it in hate?"
"_Polisson!_ You make an excuse. Then come to Girard's, and fight there."
Again Prosper held in for a moment, and spoke three words:
"No! Not now."
"Not now? But when, you heart of a hare? Will you sneak out of it until
you turn gray and die? When will you fight, little musk-rat?"
"When I have forgotten. When I am no more your friend."
Prosper picked up his trowel and went into the tower. Raoul bad-worded
him and every stone of his building from foundation to cornice, and then
went down the road to get a bottle of cognac.
An hour later he came back breathing out threatenings and slaughter,
strongly flavored with raw spirits. Prosper was working quietly on the
top of the tower, at the side away from the road. He saw nothing until
Raoul, climbing up by the ladders on the inside, leaped on the platform
and rushed at him like a crazy lynx.
"Now!" he cried, "no hole to hide in here, rat! I'll squeeze the lies
out of you."
He gripped Prosper by the head, thrusting one thumb into his eye, and
pushing him backward on the scaffolding.
Blinded, half-maddened by the pain, Prosper thought of nothing but to
get free. He swung his long arm upward and landed a fearful blow on
Raoul's face that dislocated the jaw; then twisting himself downward and
sideways, he fell in toward the wall. Raoul plunged forward, stumbled,
let go his hold, and pitched out from the tower, arms spread, clutching
the air.
Forty feet straight down! A moment—or was it an eternity?—of horrible
silence. Then the body struck the rough stones at the foot of the tower
with a thick, soft dunt, and lay crumpled up among them, without a groan,
without a movement.
When the other men, who had hurried up the ladders in terror, found
Leclère, he was peering over the edge of the scaffold, wiping the blood
from his eyes, trying to see down.
"I have killed him," he muttered, "my friend! He is smashed to death.
I am a murderer. Let me go. I must throw myself down!"
They had hard work to hold him back. As they forced him down the ladders
he trembled like a poplar.
But Vaillantcœur was not dead. No; it was incredible—to fall forty
feet and not be killed—they talk of it yet all through the valley of
the Lake St. John—it was a miracle! But Vaillantcœur had broken only
a nose, a collar-bone, and three ribs—for one like him that was but
a _bagatelle_. A good doctor from Chicoutimi, a few months of nursing,
and he would be on his feet again, almost as good a man as he had ever
been.
It was Leclère who put himself in charge of this.
"It is my affair," he said—"my fault! It was not a fair place to fight.
Why did I strike? I must attend to this bad work."
"_Mais, sacré bleu!_" they answered, "how could you help it? He forced
you. You did not want to be killed. That would be a little too much."
"No," he persisted, "this is my affair. Girard, you know my money is with
the _notaire_. There is plenty. Raoul has not enough, perhaps not any.
But he shall want nothing—you understand—nothing! It is my affair, all
that he needs—but you shall not tell him—no! That is all. _C'est fini!_"
Prosper had his way. But he did not see Vaillantcœur after he was
carried home and put to bed in his cabin. Even if he had tried to do
it, it would have been impossible. He could not see anybody. One of his
eyes was entirely destroyed. The inflammation spread to the other, and
all through the autumn he lay in his house, drifting along the edge of
blindness, while Raoul lay in his house slowly getting well.
The _curé_ went from one house to the other, but he did not carry any
messages between them. If any were sent one way they were not received.
And the other way, none were sent. Raoul did not speak of Prosper; and
if one mentioned his name, Raoul shut his mouth and made no answer.
To the _curé_, of course, it was a distress and a misery. To have a hatred
like this unhealed, was a blot on the parish; it was a shame, as well
as a sin. At last—it was already winter, the day before Christmas—the
_curé_ made up his mind that he would put forth one more great effort.
"Look you, my son," he said to Prosper, "I am going this afternoon to
Raoul Vaillantcœur to make the reconciliation. You shall give me a word
to carry to him. He shall hear it this time, I promise you. Shall I tell
him what you have done for him, how you have cared for him?"
"No, never," said Prosper, "you shall not take that word from me. It is
nothing. It will make worse trouble. I will never send it."
"What then?" said the priest. "Shall I tell him that you forgive him?"
"No, not that," answered Prosper, "that would be a foolish word. What
would that mean? It is not I who can forgive. I was the one who struck
hardest. It was he that fell from the tower."
"Well, then, choose the word for yourself. What shall it be? Come, I
promise you that he shall hear it. I will take with me _M. le Notaire_,
and the good man Girard, and the little Marie Antoinette. You shall hear
an answer. What message?"
"_Mon père_," said Prosper, slowly, "you shall tell him just this. I,
Prosper Leclère, ask Raoul Vaillantcœur that he will forgive me for not
fighting with him on the ground when he demanded it."
Yes, the message was given in precisely those words. Marie Antoinette
stood within the door, Bergeron and Girard at the foot of the bed, and the
_curé_ spoke very clearly and firmly. Vaillantcœur rolled on his pillow
and turned his face away. Then he sat up in bed, grunting a little with
the pain in his shoulder, which was badly set. His black eyes snapped
like the eyes of a wolverine in a corner.
"Forgive?" he said, "no, never. He is a coward. I will never forgive!"
A little later in the afternoon, when the rose of sunset lay on the
snowy hills, some one knocked at the door of Leclère's house.
"_Entrez!_" he cried. "Who is there? I see not very well by this light.
Who is it?"
"It is me," said 'Toinette, her cheeks rosier than the snow outside,
"nobody but me. I have come to ask you about that new carriage—do you
remember?"