In the days and weeks that followed, this room beyond the closed door,
and what it contained, became to David more and more the great mystery
in Father Roland's life. It impressed itself upon him slowly but
resolutely as the key to some tremendous event in his life, some vast
secret which he was keeping from all other human knowledge, unless,
perhaps, Mukoki was a silent sharer. At times David believed this was
so, and especially after that day when, carefully and slowly, and in
good English, as though the Missioner had trained him in what he was to
say, the Cree said to him:
"No one ever goes into that room, m'sieu. And no man has ever seen _mon
Père's_ violin."
The words were spoken in a low monotone without emphasis or emotion, and
David was convinced they were a message from the Missioner, something
Father Roland wanted him to know without speaking the words himself. Not
again after that first night did he apologize for his visits to the
room, nor did he ever explain why the door was always locked, or why he
invariably locked it after him when he went in. Each night, when they
were at home, he disappeared into the room, opening the door only enough
to let his body pass through; sometimes he remained there for only a few
minutes, and occasionally for a long time. At least once a day, usually
in the evening, he played the violin. It was always the same piece that
he played. There was never a variation, and David could not make up his
mind that he had ever heard it before. At these times, if Mukoki
happened to be in the Château, as Father Roland called his place, he
would sit like one in a trance, scarcely breathing until the music had
ceased. And when the Missioner came from the room his face was always
lit up in a kind of halo. There was one exception to all this, David
noticed. The door was never unlocked when there was a visitor. No other
but himself and Mukoki heard the sound of the violin, and this fact, in
time, impressed David with the deep faith and affection of the Little
Missioner. One evening Father Roland came from the room with his face
aglow with some strange happiness that had come to him in there, and
placing his hands on David's shoulders he said, with a yearning and yet
hopeless inflection in his voice:
"I wish you would stay with me always, David. It has made me younger,
and happier, to have a son."
In David there was growing--but concealed from Father Roland's eyes for
a long time--a strange insistent restlessness. It ran in his blood, like
a thing alive, whenever he looked at the face of the Girl. He wanted to
go on.
And yet life at the Château, after the first two weeks, was anything but
dull and unexciting. They were in the heart of the great trapping
country. Forty miles to the north was a Hudson's Bay post where an
ordained minister of the Church of England had a mission. But Father
Roland belonged to the forest people alone. They were his "children,"
scattered in their shacks and tepees over ten thousand square miles of
country, with the Château as its centre. He was ceaselessly on the move
after that first fortnight, and David was always with him. The Indians
worshipped him, and the quarter-breeds and half-breeds and occasional
French called him "_mon Père_" in very much the same tone of voice as
they said "Our Father" in their prayers. These people of the trap-lines
were a revelation to David. They were wild, living in a savage
primitiveness, and yet they reverenced a divinity with a conviction that
amazed him. And they died. That was the tragedy of it. They died--too
easily. He understood, after a while, why a country ten times as large
as the state of Ohio had altogether a population of less than
twenty-five thousand, a fair-sized town. Their belts were drawn too
tight--men, women, and little children--their belts too tight. That was
it! Father Roland emphasized it. Too much hunger in the long, terrible
months of winter, when to keep body and soul together they trapped the
furred creatures for the hordes of luxurious barbarians in the great
cities of the earth. Just a steady, gnawing hunger all through the
winter--hunger for something besides meat, a hunger that got into the
bones, into the eyes, into arms and legs--a hunger that brought
sickness, and then death.
That winter he saw grown men and women die of measles as easily as flies
that had devoured poison. They were over at Metoosin's, sixty miles to
the west of the Château, when Metoosin returned to his shack with
supplies from a Post. Metoosin had taken up lynx and marten and mink
that would sell the next year in London and Paris for a thousand
dollars, and he had brought back a few small cans of vegetables at
fifty cents a can, a little flour at forty cents a pound, a bit of cheap
cloth at the price of rare silk, some tobacco and a pittance of tea, and
he was happy. A half season's work on the trap-line and his family could
have eaten it all in a week--if they had dared to eat as much as they
needed.
"And still they're always in the debt of the Posts," the Missioner said,
the lines settling deeply on his face.
And yet David could not but feel more and more deeply the thrill, the
fascination, and, in spite of its hardships, the recompense of this life
of which he had become a part. For the first time in his life he clearly
perceived the primal measurements of riches, of contentment and of
ambition, and these three things that he saw stripped naked for his eyes
many other things which he had not understood, or in blindness had
failed to see, in the life from which he had come. Metoosin, with that
little treasure of food from the Post, did not know that he was poor, or
that through many long years he had been slowly starving. He was rich!
He was a great trapper! And his Cree wife I-owa, with her long, sleek
braid and her great, dark eyes, was tremendously proud of her lord, that
he should bring home for her and the children such a wealth of things--a
little flour, a few cans of things, a few yards of cloth, and a little
bright ribbon. David choked when he ate with them that night. But they
were happy! That, after all, was the reward of things, even though
people died slowly of something which they could not understand. And
there were, in the domain of Father Roland, many Metoosins, and many
I-owas, who prayed for nothing more than enough to eat, clothes to cover
them, and the unbroken love of their firesides. And David thought of
them, as the weeks passed, as the most terribly enslaved of all the
slaves of Civilization--slaves of vain civilized women; for they had
gone on like this for centuries, and would go on for other generations,
giving into the hands of the great Company their life's blood which, in
the end, could be accounted for by a yearly dole of food which, under
stress, did not quite serve to keep body and soul together.
It was after a comprehension of these things that David understood
Father Roland's great work. In this kingdom of his, running
approximately fifty miles in each direction from the Château--except to
the northward, where the Post lay--there were two hundred and
forty-seven men, women, and children. In a great book the Little
Missioner had their names, their ages, the blood that was in them, and
where they lived; and by them he was worshipped as no man that ever
lived in that vast country of cities and towns below the Height of Land.
At every tepee and shack they visited there was some token of love
awaiting Father Roland; a rare skin here, a pair of moccasins there, a
pair of snow shoes that it had taken an Indian woman's hands weeks to
make, choice cuts of meat, but mostly--as they travelled along--the
thickly furred skins of animals; and never did they go to a place at
which the Missioner did not leave something in return, usually some
article of clothing so thick and warm that no Indian was rich enough to
buy it for himself at the Post. Twice each winter Father Roland sent
down to Thoreau a great sledge load of these contributions of his
people, and Thoreau, selling them, sent back a still greater sledge load
of supplies that found their way in this manner of exchange into the
shacks and tepees of the forest people.
"If I were only rich!" said Father Roland one night at the Château, when
it was storming dismally outside. "But I have nothing, David. I can do
only a tenth of what I would like to do. There are only eighty families
in this country of mine, and I have figured that a hundred dollars a
family, spent down there and not at the Post, would keep them all in
comfort through the longest and hardest winter. A hundred dollars, in
Winnipeg, would buy as much as an Indian trapper could get at the Post
for a thousand dollars' worth of fur, and five hundred dollars is a good
catch. It is terrible, but what can I do? I dare not buy their furs and
sell them for my people, because the Company would blacklist the whole
lot and it would be a great calamity in the end. But if I had money--if
I could do it with my own...."
David had been thinking of that. In the late January snow two teams went
down to Thoreau in place of one. Mukoki had charge of them, and with him
went an even half of what David had brought with him--fifteen hundred
dollars in gold certificates.
"If I live I'm going to make them a Christmas present of twice that
amount each year," he said. "I can afford it. I fancy that I shall take
a great pleasure in it, and that occasionally I shall return into this
country to make a visit."
It was the first time that he had spoken as though he would not remain
with the Missioner indefinitely. But the conviction that the time was
not far away when he would be leaving him had been growing within him
steadily. He kept it to himself. He fought against it even. But it
grew. And, curiously enough, it was strongest when Father Roland was in
the locked room playing softly on the violin. David never mentioned the
room. He feigned an indifference to its very existence. And yet in spite
of himself the mystery of it became an obsession with him. Something
within it seemed to reach out insistently and invite him in, like a
spirit chained there by the Missioner himself, crying for freedom. One
night they returned to the Château through a blizzard from the cabin of
a half-breed whose wife was sick, and after their supper the Missioner
went into the mystery-room. He played the violin as usual. But after
that there was a long silence. When Father Roland came out, and seated
himself opposite David at the small table on which their books were
scattered, David received a shock. Clinging to the Missioner's shoulder,
shimmering like a polished silken thread in the lampglow, was a long,
shining hair--a woman's hair. With an effort David choked back the word
of amazement in his throat, and began turning over the pages of a book.
And then suddenly, the Missioner saw that silken thread. David heard his
quick breath. He saw, without raising his eyes, the slow, almost
stealthy movement of his companion's fingers as he plucked the hair from
his arm and shoulder, and when David looked up the hair was gone, and
one of Father Roland's hands was closed tightly, so tightly that the
veins stood out on it. He rose from the table, and again went into the
room beyond the locked door. David's heart was beating like an unsteady
hammer. He could not quite account for the strange effect this incident
had upon him. He wanted more than ever to see that room beyond the
locked door.
February--the Hunger Moon--of this year was a month of great storm in
the Northland. This meant sickness, and a great deal of travel for
Father Roland. He and David were almost ceaselessly on the move, and its
hardships gave the finishing touches to David's education. The
wilderness, vast and empty as it was, no longer held a dread for him. He
had faced its bitterest storms; he had slept with the deep snow under
his blankets; he had followed behind the Missioner through the blackest
nights, when it had seemed as though no human soul could find its way;
and he had looked on death. Once they ran swiftly to it through a night
blizzard; again it came, three in a family, so far to the west that it
was out of Father Roland's beaten trails; and again he saw it in the
Madonna-like face of a young French girl, who had died clutching a cross
to her breast. It was this girl's white face, sweet as a child's and
strangely beautiful in death, that stirred David most deeply. She must
have been about the age of the girl whose picture he carried next his
heart.
Soon after this, early in March, he had definitely made up his mind.
There was no reason now why he should not _go on_. He was physically
fit. Three months had hardened him until he was like a rock. He believed
that he had more than regained his weight. He could beat Father Roland
with either rifle or pistol, and in one day he had travelled forty miles
on snow shoes. That was when they had arrived just in time to save the
life of Jean Croisset's little girl, who lived over on the Big Thunder.
The crazed father had led them a mad race, but they had kept up with
him. And just in time. There had not been an hour to lose. After that
Croisset and his half-breed wife would have laid down their lives for
Father Roland--and for him. For the forest people had begun to accept
him as a part of Father Roland; more and more he could see their growing
love for him, their gladness when he came, their sorrow when he left,
and it gave him what he thought of as a sort of _filling_ satisfaction,
something he had never quite fully experienced before in all his life.
He knew that he would come back to them again some day--that, in the
course of his life, he would spend a great deal of time among them. He
assured Father Roland of this.
The Missioner did not question him deeply about his "friends" in the
western mountains. But night after night he helped him to mark out a
trail on the maps that he had at the Château, giving him a great deal of
information which David wrote down in a book, and letters to certain
good friends of his whom he would find along the way. As the slush snow
came, and the time when David would be leaving drew nearer, Father
Roland could not entirely conceal his depression, and he spent more time
in the room beyond the locked door. Several times when about to enter
the room he seemed to hesitate, as if there were something which he
wanted to say to David. Twice David thought he was almost on the point
of inviting him into the room, and at last he came to believe that the
Missioner wanted him to know what was beyond that mysterious door, and
yet was afraid to tell him, or ask him in. It was well along in March
that the thing happened which he had been expecting. Only it came in a
manner that amazed him deeply. Father Roland came from the room early
in the evening, after playing his violin. He locked the door, and as he
put on his cap he said:
"I shall be gone for an hour, David. I am going over to Mukoki's cabin."
He did not ask David to accompany him, and as he turned to go the key
that he had held in his hand dropped to the floor. It fell with a quite
audible sound. The Missioner must have heard it, and would have
recovered it had it slipped from his fingers accidentally. But he paid
no attention to it. He went out quickly, without glancing back.
For several minutes David stared at the key without moving from his
chair near the table. It meant but one thing. He was invited to go into
that room--_alone_. If he had had a doubt it was dispelled by the fact
that Father Roland had left a light burning in there. It was not chance.
There was a purpose to it all: the light, the audible dropping of the
heavy key, the swift going of the Missioner. David made himself sure of
this before he rose from his chair. He waited perhaps five minutes. Then
he picked up the key.
At the door, as the key clicked in the lock, he hesitated. The thought
came to him that if he was making a mistake it would be a terrible
mistake. It held his hand for a moment. Then, slowly, he pushed the door
inward and followed it until he stood inside. The first thing that he
noticed was a big brass lamp, of the old style, brought over from
England by the Company a hundred years ago, and he held his breath in
anticipation of something tremendous impending. At first he saw nothing
that impressed him forcibly. The room was a disappointment in that
first glance. He could see nothing of its mystery, nothing of that
strangeness, quite indefinable even to himself, which he had expected.
And then, as he stood there staring about with wide-open eyes, the truth
flashed upon him with a suddenness that drew a quick breath from his
lips. He was standing in a _woman's room_! There was no doubt.
It looked very much as though a woman had left it only recently. There
was a bed, fresh and clean, with a white counterpane. She had left on
that bed a--nightgown; yes, and he noticed that it had a frill of lace
at the neck. And on the wall were her garments, quite a number of them,
and a long coat of a curious style, with a great fur collar. There was a
small dresser, oddly antique, and on it were a brush and comb, a big red
pin cushion, and odds and ends of a woman's toilet affairs. Close to the
bed were a pair of shoes and a pair of slippers, with unusually high
heels, and hanging over the edge of the counterpane was a pair of long
stockings. The walls of the room were touched up, as if by a woman's
hands, with pictures and a few ornaments. Where the garments were
hanging David noticed a pair of woman's snow shoes, and a woman's
moccasins under a picture of the Madonna. On the mantel there was a tall
vase filled with the dried stems of flowers. And then came the most
amazing discovery of all. There was a second table between the lamp and
the bed, and it was set for two! Yes, for _two_! No, for _three_! For, a
little in shadow, David saw a crudely made high-chair--a baby's
chair--and on it were a little knife and fork, a baby spoon, and a
little tin plate. It was astounding. Perfectly incredible. And David's
eyes sought questingly for a door through which a woman might come and
go mysteriously and unseen. There was none, and the one window of the
room was so high up that a person standing on the ground outside could
not look in.
And now it began to dawn upon David that all these things he was looking
at were old--very old. In the Château the Missioner no longer ate on tin
plates. The shoes and slippers must have been made a generation ago. The
rag carpet under his feet had lost its vivid lines of colouring. Age
impressed itself upon him. This was a woman's room, but the woman had
not been here recently. And the child had not been here recently.
For the first time his eyes turned in a closer inspection of the table
on which stood the big brass lamp. Father Roland's violin lay beside it.
He made a step or two nearer, so that he could see beyond the lamp, and
his heart gave a sudden jump. Shimmering on the faded red cloth of the
table, glowing as brightly as though it had been clipped from a woman's
head but yesterday, was a long, thick tress of hair! It was dark, richly
dark, and his second impression was one of amazement at the length of
it. The tress was as long as the table--fully a yard down the woman's
back it must have hung. It was tied at the end with a bit of white
ribbon.
David drew slowly back toward the door, stirred all at once by a great
doubt. Had Father Roland meant him to look upon all this? A lump rose
suddenly in his throat. He had made a mistake--a great mistake. He felt
now like one who had broken into the sanctity of a sacred place. He had
committed sacrilege. The Missioner had not dropped the key purposely. It
must have been an accident. And he--David--was guilty of a great
blunder. He withdrew from the room, and locked the door. He dropped the
key where he had found it on the floor, and sat down again with his
book. He did not read. He scarcely saw the lines of the printed page. He
had not been in his chair more than ten minutes when he heard quick
footsteps, followed by a hand at the door, and Father Roland came in. He
was visibly excited, and his glance shot at once to the room which David
had just left. Then his eyes scanned the floor. The key was gleaming
where it had fallen, and with an exclamation of relief the Missioner
snatched it up.
"I thought I had lost my key," he laughed, a bit nervously; then he
added, with a deep breath: "It's snowing to-night. A heavy snow, and
there will be good sledging for a few days. God knows I don't want you
to leave me, but if it must be--we should take advantage of this snow.
It will be the last. Mukoki and I will go with you as far as the
Reindeer Lake country, two hundred miles northwest. David--_must_ you
go?"
It seemed to David that two tiny fists were pounding against his breast,
where the picture lay.
"Yes, I must go," he said. "I have quite made up my mind to that. I must
go."