II

Jacques dropped into his place and filled it as if it had been made for

him. There was something in his disposition that seemed to fit him for

just the role that was vacant in the social drama of the settlement. It

was not a serious, important, responsible part, like that of a farmer,

or a store-keeper, or a professional hunter. It was rather an addition

to the regular programme of existence, something unannounced and

voluntary, and therefore not weighted with too heavy responsibilities.

There was a touch of the transient and uncertain about it. He seemed

like a perpetual visitor; and yet he stayed on as steadily as a native,

never showing, from the first, the slightest wish or intention to leave

the woodland village.

I do not mean that he was an idler. Bytown had not yet arrived at that

stage of civilization in which an ornamental element is supported at the

public expense.

He worked for his living, and earned it. He was full of a quick,

cheerful industry; and there was nothing that needed to be done about

Moody's establishment, from the wood-pile to the ice-house, at which he

did not bear a hand willingly and well.

“He kin work like a beaver,” said Bill Moody, talking the stranger over

down at the post-office one day; “but I don't b'lieve he's got much

ambition. Jess does his work and takes his wages, and then gits his

fiddle out and plays.”

“Tell ye what,” said Hose Ransom, who set up for the village

philosopher, “he ain't got no 'magination. That's what makes men

slack. He don't know what it means to rise in the world; don't care fer

anythin' ez much ez he does fer his music. He's jess like a bird; let

him have 'nough to eat and a chance to sing, and he's all right. What's

he 'magine about a house of his own, and a barn, and sich things?”

Hosea's illustration was suggested by his own experience. He had just

put the profits of his last summer's guiding into a new barn, and his

imagination was already at work planning an addition to his house in the

shape of a kitchen L.

But in spite of his tone of contempt, he had a kindly feeling for the

unambitious fiddler. Indeed, this was the attitude of pretty much every

one in the community. A few men of the rougher sort had made fun of him

at first, and there had been one or two attempts at rude handling. But

Jacques was determined to take no offence; and he was so good-humoured,

so obliging, so pleasant in his way of whistling and singing about his

work, that all unfriendliness soon died out.

He had literally played his way into the affections of the village. The

winter seemed to pass more swiftly and merrily than it had done before

the violin was there. He was always ready to bring it out, and draw all

kinds of music from its strings, as long as any one wanted to listen or

to dance.

It made no difference whether there was a roomful of listeners, or only

a couple, Fiddlin' Jack was just as glad to play. With a little, quiet

audience, he loved to try the quaint, plaintive airs of the old French

songs--“A la Claire Fontaine,” “Un Canadien Errant,” and “Isabeau

s'y Promene”--and bits of simple melody from the great composers, and

familiar Scotch and English ballads--things that he had picked up heaven

knows where, and into which he put a world of meaning, sad and sweet.

He was at his best in this vein when he was alone with Serena in the

kitchen--she with a piece of sewing in her lap, sitting beside the lamp;

he in the corner by the stove, with the brown violin tucked under his

chin, wandering on from one air to another, and perfectly content if

she looked up now and then from her work and told him that she liked the

tune.

Serena was a pretty girl, with smooth, silky hair, end eyes of the

colour of the nodding harebells that blossom on the edge of the woods.

She was slight and delicate. The neighbours called her sickly; and a

great doctor from Philadelphia who had spent a summer at Bytown had

put his ear to her chest, and looked grave, and said that she ought

to winter in a mild climate. That was before people had discovered the

Adirondacks as a sanitarium for consumptives.

But the inhabitants of Bytown were not in the way of paying much

attention to the theories of physicians in regard to climate. They held

that if you were rugged, it was a great advantage, almost a virtue; but

if you were sickly, you just had to make the best of it, and get along

with the weather as well as you could.

So Serena stayed at home and adapted herself very cheerfully to the

situation. She kept indoors in winter more than the other girls, and had

a quieter way about her; but you would never have called her an invalid.

There was only a clearer blue in her eyes, and a smoother lustre on

her brown hair, and a brighter spot of red on her cheek. She was

particularly fond of reading and of music. It was this that made her

so glad of the arrival of the violin. The violin's master knew it, and

turned to her as a sympathetic soul. I think he liked her eyes too,

and the soft tones of her voice. He was a sentimentalist, this little

Canadian, for all he was so merry; and love--but that comes later.

“Where'd you get your fiddle, Jack? said Serena, one night as they sat

together in the kitchen.

“Ah'll get heem in Kebeck,” answered Jacques, passing his hand lightly

over the instrument, as he always did when any one spoke of it. “Vair'

nice VIOLON, hein? W'at you t'ink? Ma h'ole teacher, to de College, he

was gif' me dat VIOLON, w'en Ah was gone away to de woods.”

“I want to know! Were you in the College? What'd you go off to the woods

for?”

“Ah'll get tire' fraum dat teachin'--read, read, read, h'all taim'.

Ah'll not lak' dat so moch. Rader be out-door--run aroun'--paddle de

CANOE--go wid de boys in de woods--mek' dem dance at ma MUSIQUE. A-a-ah!

Dat was fon! P'raps you t'ink dat not good, hem? You t'ink Jacques one

beeg fool, Ah suppose?”

“I dunno,” said Serena, declining to commit herself, but pressing on

gently, as women do, to the point she had in view when she began the

talk. “Dunno's you're any more foolish than a man that keeps on doin'

what he don't like. But what made you come away from the boys in the

woods and travel down this way?”

A shade passed over the face of Jacques. He turned away from the lamp

and bent over the violin on his knees, fingering the strings nervously.

Then he spoke, in a changed, shaken voice.

“Ah'l tole you somet'ing, Ma'amselle Serene. You ma frien'. Don' you

h'ask me dat reason of it no more. Dat's somet'ing vair' bad, bad, bad.

Ah can't nevair tole dat--nevair.”

There was something in the way he said it that gave a check to her

gentle curiosity and turned it into pity. A man with a secret in his

life? It was a new element in her experience; like a chapter in a book.

She was lady enough at heart to respect his silence. She kept away from

the forbidden ground. But the knowledge that it was there gave a new

interest to Jacques and his music. She embroidered some strange romances

around that secret while she sat in the kitchen sewing.

Other people at Bytown were less forbearing. They tried their best

to find out something about Fiddlin' Jack's past, but he was not

communicative. He talked about Canada. All Canadians do. But about

himself? No.

If the questions became too pressing, he would try to play himself away

from his inquisitors with new tunes. If that did not succeed, he would

take the violin under his arm and slip quickly out of the room. And if

you had followed him at such a time, you would have heard him drawing

strange, melancholy music from the instrument, sitting alone in the

barn, or in the darkness of his own room in the garret.

Once, and only once, he seemed to come near betraying himself. This was

how it happened.

There was a party at Moody's one night, and Bull Corey had come down

from the Upper Lake and filled himself up with whiskey.

Bull was an ugly-tempered fellow. The more he drank, up to a certain

point, the steadier he got on his legs, and the more necessary it seemed

for him to fight somebody. The tide of his pugnacity that night took a

straight set toward Fiddlin' Jack.

Bull began with musical criticisms. The fiddling did not suit him at

all. It was too quick, or else it was too slow. He failed to perceive

how any one could tolerate such music even in the infernal regions, and

he expressed himself in plain words to that effect. In fact, he damned

the performance without even the faintest praise.

But the majority of the audience gave him no support. On the contrary,

they told him to shut up. And Jack fiddled along cheerfully.

Then Bull returned to the attack, after having fortified himself in

the bar-room. And now he took national grounds. The French were, in

his opinion, a most despicable race. They were not a patch on the noble

American race. They talked too much, and their language was ridiculous.

They had a condemned, fool habit of taking off their hats when they

spoke to a lady. They ate frogs.

Having delivered himself of these sentiments in a loud voice, much to

the interruption of the music, he marched over to the table on which

Fiddlin' Jack was sitting, and grabbed the violin from his hands.

“Gimme that dam' fiddle,” he cried, “till I see if there's a frog in

it.”

Jacques leaped from the table, transported with rage. His face was

convulsed. His eyes blazed. He snatched a carving-knife from the dresser

behind him, and sprang at Corey.

“TORT DIEU!” he shrieked, “MON VIOLON! Ah'll keel you, beast!”

But he could not reach the enemy. Bill Moody's long arms were flung

around the struggling fiddler, and a pair of brawny guides had Corey

pinned by the elbows, hustling him backward. Half a dozen men thrust

themselves between the would-be combatants. There was a dead silence,

a scuffling of feet on the bare floor; then the danger was past, and a

tumult of talk burst forth.

But a strange alteration had passed over Jacques. He trembled. He turned

white. Tears poured down his cheeks. As Moody let him go, he dropped on

his knees, hid his face in his hands, and prayed in his own tongue.

“My God, it is here again! Was it not enough that I must be tempted once

before? Must I have the madness yet another time? My God, show the mercy

toward me, for the Blessed Virgin's sake. I am a sinner, but not the

second time; for the love of Jesus, not the second time! Ave Maria,

gratia plena, ora pro me!”

The others did not understand what he was saying. Indeed, they paid

little attention to him. They saw he was frightened, and thought it was

with fear. They were already discussing what ought to be done about the

fracas.

It was plain that Bull Corey, whose liquor had now taken effect

suddenly, and made him as limp as a strip of cedar bark, must be thrown

out of the door, and left to cool off on the beach. But what to do with

Fiddlin' Jack for his attempt at knifing--a detested crime? He might

have gone at Bull with a gun, or with a club, or with a chair, or with

any recognized weapon. But with a carving-knife! That was a serious

offence. Arrest him, and send him to jail at the Forks? Take him out,

and duck him in the lake? Lick him, and drive him out of the town?

There was a multitude of counsellors, but it was Hose Ransom who settled

the case. He was a well-known fighting-man, and a respected philosopher.

He swung his broad frame in front of the fiddler.

“Tell ye what we'll do. Jess nothin'! Ain't Bull Corey the blowin'est

and the mos' trouble-us cuss 'round these hull woods? And would n't it

be a fust-rate thing ef some o' the wind was let out 'n him?”

General assent greeted this pointed inquiry.

“And wa'n't Fiddlin' Jack peacerble 'nough 's long 's he was let alone?

What's the matter with lettin' him alone now?”

The argument seemed to carry weight. Hose saw his advantage, and

clinched it.

“Ain't he given us a lot o' fun here this winter in a innercent kind o'

way, with his old fiddle? I guess there ain't nothin' on airth he loves

better 'n that holler piece o' wood, and the toons that's inside o' it.

It's jess like a wife or a child to him. Where's that fiddle, anyhow?”

Some one had picked it deftly out of Corey's hand during the scuffle,

and now passed it up to Hose.

“Here, Frenchy, take yer long-necked, pot-bellied music-gourd. And I

want you boys to understand, ef any one teches that fiddle ag'in, I'll

knock hell out 'n him.”

So the recording angel dropped another tear upon the record of Hosea

Ransom, and the books were closed for the night.