THE PEACE OF GOD
Toward midnight somebody stepped close to the improvised bed and stood
looking down with troubled eyes at the child curled up among the
blankets there. The light from the low fire cast an occasional
flickering flame upon the tiny segment of cheek just visible above the
woollen covering, like a snowdrop peeping out of a mass of old bracken,
and on the floating strands of hair that had lost their golden sheen in
the semi-obscurity. An hour or so earlier the men had gone to their
bunks in the long loft overhead, and their heavy breathing now
proclaimed the fact that they were resting from their labors. Every one
in the house was sleeping but Shawe; even old Jerome, who sat huddled by
the side of the little one, nodded at his post. He had maintained the
right of watching, by supremacy of his years and her evident preference
for him, jealously putting aside all offers that his vigil be shared. He
stirred now and opened his eyes, staring into the face of the man above
him.
“What is it?” he demanded with a low, savage growl.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Shawe whispered back, “for thinking of the ones who
are mourning for her,--her mother and uncle. The father isn’t home, she
said. Don’t you remember--‘God bless far-away daddy’? So he won’t be
troubled. But the others--they ought to know. We’ve had all the
Christmas sport and they nothing but black misery and bitterness. They
ought to know quickly.”
Old Jerome’s hand fluttered above the little head, half fell to it, then
was drawn reluctantly back.
“Ye-es, they’d orter know,” he said dully, “but how? Who is she?” He
shifted his position, averting his eyes. “I’ve be’n thinkin’ thet
p’r’aps she’s nobut a little Christmus sperit come to cheer us in this
God forsook spot--”
“That’s nonsense, man. Look at her sleeping there as human as we are,
though with a difference. I tell you she has kith and kin, and their
hearts are bleeding for her at this moment. I’m going to find them--”
“Ye sha’n’t take her with yer, Shawe,” the old man whimpered. “I’ll
roust up the others, an’ they’ll fight yer--I--I can’t; she’s made me
too trembly. But ye sha’n’t take her.”
“You’re crazy! I’d no thought of taking her. It’s colder than charity
outside, and the frost is like a badger’s tooth. Besides, it must be
almost thirty miles to Wistar, and there’s no house nearer, is there?
No, I go by myself.”
“An’ ef ye don’t win through--there’s thet chanst.”
“I don’t--that’s all. But I’m not hopeless--I’ve got to win through.”
“Best wait till mornin’,” Jerome said, after the silence between them
had grown unbearable, “p’r’aps somebody’ll be goin’ by from Merle, an’
ye could git a lift, or p’r’aps her folks’ll come from somewhars--Ye
don’ know whar she come from, anyways,” he finished triumphantly.
“We worked out the sum that she came with that man Terry. Everything she
said about Santa Claus fitted him like a glove, you--who know him--say.
And he came from Wistar, so she belongs there. Perhaps her people didn’t
miss her till late; and what traces would she leave if she came on in
his sleigh? Answer me that. How would they ever dream of searching for
her up here when there’s the river--Good God! a child like that wouldn’t
notice the spruce bush signals put up where the ice is thin; and there
are the open water-holes by the barns--” He stopped with a deep intake
of breath, and moved nearer the fire; Jerome, watching him furtively,
saw that he was fully dressed to go out.
“Wal!” he muttered slowly, after a time, “ef ye be so sot on goin’,
ye’re goin’, I s’pose. P’r’aps ye’re right. Somehow I was only thinkin’
from my side, an’ hedn’t got ’roun’ to the mother’s; mebbe an ol’ codger
like me never would ha’ got ’roun’--can’t say. Here’s my hand.”
It was an unusual demonstration, but Shawe showed no particular
surprise; everything being a little out of the ordinary that night. He
grasped the extended hand warmly, then let it drop, and turned away,
bending again for a moment over the sleeping child.
“Wish I were going to hear her laugh over the stocking,” he said half to
himself.
“Got a wife an’ fambly?” Jerome asked.
“No,” the other returned.
“Thought mebbe ye hed, ’count o’ yer thinkin’ how the mother’d
feel--mebbe ye hed oncet.”
“Yes,” Shawe answered shortly.
“Then ye know how turr’ble masterful the kids are. Strange, ain’t it?
Mine hed got so ez he could patty-cake, ye understan’. Lord! there
warn’t never a sight like it--never. Thought fust ’twas a kinder fool
thing the mother’d learned it; but bless yer! I didn’t think so long;
’twas the purties’ sight--
“‘Patty-cake, patty-cake, baker’s man--’”
Shawe moved cautiously across the room, and paused at the door to look
back at the old man softly clapping his palms together. Something in his
glance recalled Jerome to a sense of his surroundings; he got up in his
turn and joined his companion.
“Ye’ll keep an eye out fer them deers, won’t yer?” he whispered
anxiously. “Christmus Eve they all kneel in the woods an’ look up to
he’vin, ye know. Thet’s Injin talk ’roun’ here from way back; some o’
the oldest fellers swear their folks seed the thing done. Can’t say
’xactly ez I b’lieve it myself, but ’twould be a purty sight--an’
anyways, ye jes’ watch out. Wal, luck to ye, lad, luck to ye.”
“Oh! you’ll see me again, never fear,” Shawe said lightly, to cover the
other’s concern. “I’m a bad penny. So long!”
He let himself out into the night, closing the door speedily, and with
as little noise as possible; but quick as he had been, a blast of the
nipping air filled the room. Jerome hurriedly drew the blankets closer
about his little charge; then he stooped to the fire, coaxing it into a
brighter glow.
“Fer a bad penny,” he mumbled, as he went back to his place, “Shawe
rings oncommon true. There ain’t nary of us ez would ha’ thought o’
doin’ what he’s a-doin’--nary a blessed one of us. I swan he’s dif’runt
somehow--kinder apart, but square--square. Never knowed nothin’ ’bout
Shawe; hed to take him on his face value, so to say; he ain’t a gabbler
’bout himself, but gen-i-al--gen-i-al--an’ oncommon quick-witted inter
the barg’in. We’d a-waited till Kingdom come afore we’d thought ’bout
fillin’ them stockin’s ef he hedn’t started the game; an’ ’twas him ez
heerd her callin’ when the rest of us was deef ez postses. Hmm! mebbe--”
but praise and conjecture alike were silenced as the grizzled head
dropped forward and the old chopper fell into a heavy doze.
Shawe, meanwhile, oblivious to both, thrust his hands deep into his
pockets, and started off on his lonely errand. It might prove fruitless,
but results were not for him to consider; his was to do the duty of the
moment, and by the moment. Nor did it seem to him that he was doing
anything to be especially commended. He had been driven out into the
night by his thoughts of the distress in the child’s home, and once they
had taken possession of him it was impossible to stay warm and
comfortable in his bunk. He simply had to go--he could not wait.
Besides, he told himself, it wasn’t much; he had been out on nights to
which this, bitter as it was, was balmy by comparison. He had faced
gales, terrible as that chill wind which the old Moslem fable says will
blow over the earth in the last days, and yet had come safely through.
There was no air stirring at this time; the intense silent cold of the
North wrapped everything close. He was guarded against it, however, and
while he could keep in rapid motion he had little to fear from its
searching tooth.
He drove his hands deeper into his pockets and strode on. The way had
been broken through some weeks earlier and was well defined; there was
no chance of missing it. In the clearing the night was as bright as day;
under the light of the moon the snow lay like an immense silver shield
across which the trees threw bars of shadow; but as the road wound
through the woods the brightness retreated in great measure, shimmering
only here and there through the high trunks, striking off a gleam from
this snowy head and that, or shivering down like a lance of steel as if
to pierce the deeper blackness which crouched beyond.
Shawe knew no fear. He passed on silently and as swiftly as possible,
casting a wary glance around occasionally; but he seemed to be the only
living creature abroad that night. The deer, if there were any, were not
stirring, or his eyes, perhaps, were too sceptical to witness the simple
spectacle of their adoration. There was no sign of life anywhere. It was
almost as if it were the end of the world, and he the last man--the last
of creation--left on earth, so wide and empty were the spaces about him;
the great vault overhead, in which the moon and stars rode calmly, was
out of his pygmy reach.
Presently, as the trees grew sparser and the road showed its slighter
depression through the plain of snow lying beyond like some frozen sea,
he became conscious of life and motion close at his side. With the
instinct of the woodland creatures, he held himself perfectly tense, and
waited. Then right across his path there lumbered a huge, clumsy shape,
its breath showing like smoke on the moonlit air. Suddenly great drops
of moisture stood out on Shawe’s face as if it were mid-summer, and his
weight of furs had become intolerable; he had never felt fear before,
yet now panic gripped him. It was not the thought of physical hurt that
appalled him, but rather the sense of the utter futility of his
endeavor. So the end had come; and over there, still very far away, a
little child’s mother was sobbing--he could almost hear her moans.
He stirred his hand from his pocket to his belt, and grasped the butt of
his pistol, drawing it forth swiftly. It might not be too late! His
finger was firm as iron as it touched the trigger; but the next instant
the beast slouched noisily into the shadows beyond. There was no other
sound--had been no other sound; the cartridges lay unused in their
chambers. Shawe lowered his hand. He had not been dreaming, he told
himself; he could swear to that. And the animal was no creature of
fancy; he had seen it quite plainly, had felt its breath as it passed,
had met the dull stare of its eyes. It was real,--as real as he was at
that moment, yet he had not fired because there had seemed no need--the
beast had simply disregarded him. Then suddenly Shawe laughed aloud, not
boisterously, but very gently,--the way you do sometimes when something
has happened that seems almost too good to be true, and the quick tears
rush into your eyes,--I think, perhaps, they were in his also.
“It’s the peace of God,” he said softly to himself, “the peace of God--”
For on the moment he remembered the old tradition he had heard in many
lands, that on the night before Christmas, from the day’s close to the
day’s coming, there is no slaughter anywhere among the beasts; that the
fiercest and most savage of them all are as harmless as doves to one
another, and even to their natural enemy--man. He put his pistol back
into his belt, unspeakably glad that no shot of his had broken the holy
truce. It was useless to try to account for what had happened. To
believe in the legend, or to laugh it away and attribute the animal’s
indifference to some natural cause. The whole experience--dream, or
reality--left him throbbing with a sense of gratitude that nothing had
interfered with his mission. The thought seemed to lend him greater
activity, as if his moccasined feet had suddenly become winged. There
could be no loitering anywhere while the mother mourned for her little
one, her voice crying vaguely, vainly, through that wonder-space of time
when, because of another Little Child, God’s peace wrapped the earth
close.
There were no landmarks discernible. Terry would have recognized certain
ones, as would also some of the lumbermen; but to Shawe, who was a
stranger, the whole country was unfamiliar; all he could do, therefore,
was to lessen the distance step by step, knowing that while he kept the
road he could not miss his destination. Yet he never lost heart, nor was
he particularly tired. As boy and man, much of his time had been spent
in the open. He was used to hardships, rough weather, and great
exertion; the present undertaking seemed slight compared to others he
had known.
Presently the white light of early dawn crept faintly up,--little Peep
o’ Day he’s called,--a tiny fellow, truly, to be sent out to fight the
darkness, and yet so persistent and undaunted that every moment he
glowed more confidently at his task, and grew bigger and bigger with his
efforts. The moon had looked scornfully at the coming of such an
adversary; but now she paled visibly, and called in her routed army of
moonbeams, while below,--the sleeping world laughed here and there at
the contest, stirring out of its slumbers. As soon as his duties were
accomplished, the little champion stole away, losing himself in the
brightness that filled the sky, and made it and the land look like
tinted silver; but nobody missed him, for the morning was at hand. There
was a gorgeous, rosy flush along the east melting into purple, out of
which the sun came up like a wonderful flower, opening slowly, first
pink, then yellow, then red--and it was Christmas Day!
Shawe’s eyes gladdened at the sight, though he did not pause; he
couldn’t--oh! now less than ever--now, he must hurry--hurry. Back in the
shantymen’s hut the little child was already waking, he knew, and her
glee was filling the house; but in her home others were waking,
too,--they had not slept,--and listening in vain for the music of her
laughter. He must hurry! So he kept on; but somehow, though he was
beginning to be very tired, the going was much easier. Joy comes with
the morning, and new hope; all the doubts and fears of the night
disappear; they are some of the foes little Peep o’ Day vanquishes so
triumphantly. Shawe couldn’t feel despondent in that beautiful world
while the still morning brightened around him, especially when every
step brought him nearer his goal. He laughed like a boy, and shouted out
“Merry Christmas!” though there was no one by to answer his greeting;
but the clear cold air bore it wide, and it helped to swell the chorus
going up all over the earth.
He ran a few paces, so wonderfully light-hearted had he grown, and flung
out his arms, clapping them against his body to warm himself; then he
sobered down--outwardly. Nobody would ever have supposed that the tall,
furclad figure with head bent a trifle, and only a bit of his face
visible between his big cap and high collar was the bearer of joyful
news. For one thing, he was walking quite stolidly, and your happy
messengers are always winged; and for another, he was looking neither to
left nor right. Wasn’t he?--Then why did he start suddenly, and throw
back his head, laughing up again at the sky? Why?--Because just in front
of him there was a house,--an ugly, squat little house, the glass in its
windows twinkling in the sun. He drew nearer, and his heart, that
had almost instantly rushed into his throat, fell back to its
proper place with a most discouraging thump. The house seemed
uninhabited,--deserted,--as if the people who had lived there had grown
tired of being so far from the settlement, and had gone back to be with
their kind, perhaps to stay there always, or at least over this day of
festivity. It was impossible to associate a merry Christmas with this
sober, grown-up abode. A closer approach, however, revealed a small
thread of smoke issuing from the chimney; but otherwise, the general air
of dreariness about the place--its loneliness, its empty, staring
windows--chilled Shawe more than the winter night had done.
He went quickly up to the door, over snow that had been tracked by the
passing of many feet; there were footprints everywhere,--great marks of
a man’s boot, and the smaller ones of a woman’s or a girl’s shoe. The
sight turned him a little giddy. Was this his goal--could his happy news
be spoken here? He tried to shout, but his voice seemed frozen in his
throat; he fell to trembling. He--he could not speak. He tried again,
choking out a faint sound. There was no sign from the silent house that
his call had been heard,--no stir, no movement of life. He flung himself
against the door, and battered it with his fists. The waiting seemed
like eternity to him; then his hand sought the knob, turned it, and the
door flew wide. He stared half dazed into the narrow passage-way with
the stairs climbing at one side; all the light seemed out in the world
behind him; the place was dim and chill. For a moment he paused, then
his voice sounded through the silence.
“Halloo! Halloo! Is a little child missing here?”
There was a quick sound of running feet overhead, an opening door, and a
woman’s scream.
“Uncle--Uncle, have you--”
The cry went up from below:
“Is a little child missing here?”
Something darted down the stairs; one wouldn’t have said it was anything
human, so swift was the motion; yet swifter than the flying feet, and
very piteously human were the words that came from the mother’s heart:
“Is--is--she--dead?”
“No, I tell you, no; she’s alive and well. She’s at Thornby’s
logging-camp--don’t faint! She’s all right; she’s safe, I tell you;
don’t--”
Shawe was only just in time to catch the swaying form in his arms, and
for the moment, as he stood there, holding the unconscious woman, he was
unable to think what to do. It didn’t seem possible to him that the joy
of his message could harm her; perhaps he ought to have broken it more
gently--but how could he? It had to be told---- No--no--the joy couldn’t
harm her! A little air, a touch of snow on her temples, and she would be
herself again. He lifted his burden and turned to the open door. The
clear light from without came searchingly in upon the still face on his
breast, showing its pinched lines of distress and the ravages the tears
had made in its fairness; he started at the sight, and uttered a sharp
exclamation.
The keen air revived her; she stirred a trifle with a low moan; a minute
later her eyelids fluttered, and her words came disjointedly in little
sobbing breaths:
“Safe, my precious, safe--thank God, oh! thank----” The cold whipped a
tinge of color into her lips; her eyes opened wide, and she stared up
into Shawe’s face. A look of bewilderment suddenly clouded their gaze.
“You,” she said softly, “you--Humphrey?”
She did not move from his arm; but very slowly she lifted her hand and
touched him wonderingly, her fingers lingering over his coat, and
creeping up and up to his cheek.
“You, Humphrey--”
Something like a sob broke from him.
“Elisabeth!” he cried.
“I don’t understand,” she said weakly. “It was so very long ago--oh! is
it really you? I--I--thought you would never come back--so long ago--and
you were angry--we were both angry; but I was the one to blame----”
“No, no, no,” he interrupted, “mine was the real fault. I knew that when
it was too late, but I couldn’t let you know. Before we could make our
port the ship was wrecked--oh! it’s a sad story. Most of the crew were
lost; but the few of us who were saved lived somehow on that desolate
little island waiting--hoping--fearing--through those interminable
months before the rescue came. Then we were carried off to the other
side of the world, and from place to place,--wanderers on the face of
the globe; but I got home at last, and--there was no home for me--you
had gone away, you and Baby. They couldn’t tell me where, but I searched
for you, my girl, I searched for you. I wouldn’t give up looking--I
meant to find you--and it was so useless--”
She clung closer to him, stroking his quivering face with gentle
fingers.
“I thought you never meant to come back,” she whispered, “and I wanted
to beg you to come. I wanted to tell you I was really the most to blame,
but I didn’t know where to send a letter--I had to keep still. Oh! I
waited so patiently, and every day was a year. Then when you didn’t
come, I couldn’t bear the neighbors’ pity; it--it hurt!--so I stole away
one night with Betty. We went to a big city where no one knew us, and we
were very poor. I didn’t mind much for myself, only for Baby. It was so
hard to find work, I--I almost gave up. Then I remembered Uncle Steven,
my mother’s half-brother, who used to be with us a good deal when I was
a child. I knew he was all alone out here, and I felt he would help
Betty and me in our troubles. And he was so good--he is so good! He
didn’t even wait to answer my letter; he came to find us instead, and he
brought us back to share his home with him. That was three years
ago---- But you, how is it you are here?”
“It’s a long story, Bess, darling. I’ve knocked around everywhere. I
hadn’t the heart to settle to anything, you know,--hunting, trapping,
whatever offered. I’d try first one thing and then another. Something
made me come over here--I don’t know what it was--I simply had to come.
I was on my way to the Northwest, and passed through Wistar three weeks
ago, never dreaming you were so near; then I went on to the logging-camp
and stopped there for a time, but I’d made all my plans to leave
to-morrow----” his voice trembled, and he rested his face against hers.
“Oh!” he went on brokenly, “I might have missed you altogether; we
might never have met again--never--if it hadn’t been for Santa Claus’
sweetheart----”
She looked up curiously, interrupting him with a quick exclamation, and
bit by bit the account of the little child’s arrival at the lumber-camp
was told.
“But didn’t you know right away who she was?” the mother asked jealously
when he paused.
“Dear, I didn’t. She was such a baby when I left,--scarcely two years
old, you remember. There was a likeness, though, to you that troubled
me, but I told myself I was fanciful. I’ve seen that likeness so many
times,--it has been upper-most in my mind, going with me everywhere,
eluding me everywhere. And, her name was different--Hammond.”
“That’s uncle’s name; he would have her called so. Then you came all
that way not knowing who she was, nor for my sake?”
“Yes,” he answered honestly, “I only thought of the sorrow in the
stricken household. I didn’t think of you at all. And yet it was for
your sake, too. Ah! Bess dear, my heart has been very tender for all
mothers since I left you to fend for the little one alone. I can never
make up for that--”
“Hush!” she interposed, “you have made up. Even if I’d been somebody
else, and Betty somebody else, it would have atoned and doubly atoned
for you to do what you have done,”--she laughed unsteadily, she was so
happy that her words had become hopelessly tangled. “You know what I
mean,” she finished.
“I know,” he smiled back.
“But you ought to have recognized Betty at once; there was no excuse.”
“I thought she was a dear little tot.”
“Why, Humphrey, she’s the very dearest, the sweetest, the most precious,
the--”
He stopped the loving catalogue with a kiss.
“You’ll let me stay and find that out for myself, won’t you?” he asked
humbly.
She clung to him, trembling all over, her face quite drawn and white.
“It won’t take long--oh! you must stay longer than that.”
“I’ll stay till the end, please God,” he said very solemnly.
As they stood together, faintly from the distance there came the sound
of bells; the spirit of the blessed season filled the air,--the cheer,
the peace, the good-will. North, south, east, west, along the happy
roads that lead around the world, the message ran. Oh! very beautiful
are the roads of the world, but surely the most beautiful of them all is
little Forgiveness Lane that winds through tangles and briers, and over
stony and waste places, from heart to heart and climbs at last up to the
very gates of heaven.