face was pallid. I myself had shuddered and grown cold, so strongly had
my imagination realized the awful experience that Petherick described.
At length he resumed his story:)
Suddenly these words flashed to my brain: "Are not two sparrows sold for
a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your
Father. Fear not, therefore; ye are of more value than many sparrows."
My faculties were so strained that I seemed to hear the words. Indeed,
often yet I think that I did truly hear a voice utter them very near me.
Instantly hope arose, consciously desperate indeed; but I became calm,
resourceful, capable, and felt unaccountably aided. Careful not to look
down, I opened my eyes and gazed far away over the bright sea. The
rippled billows told that a light outward breeze had sprung up. Slowly,
and somewhat more distant, the two brigs moved toward the horizon.
Turning my head, I could trace the narrow stone of my footing to where
my rope dangled, perhaps three hundred yards distant.
It seemed to hang within easy reach of the cliff's face, and instantly I
resolved and as instantly proceeded to work toward it. No time remained
for hesitation. Night was coming on. I reasoned that my comrades
thought me killed. They had probably gone to view the new condition of
the precipice from a lower station, and on their return would haul up
and carry off the rope. I made a move toward it. Try to think of that
journey!
Shuffling sidewise very carefully, I had not made five yards before I
knew that I could not continue to look out over that abyss without
glancing down, and that I could not glance down without losing my
senses. You have the brick line to keep eyes on as you walk along the
factory wall; do you think you could move along it erect, looking down
as you would have to? Yet it is only one hundred feet high. Imagine
five more such walls on top of that and you trying to move
sidewise--incapable of closing your eyes, forced to look down, from end
to end, yes, three times farther! Imagine you've got to go on or jump
off! Would you not, in an ecstasy of nervous agitation, fall to your
knees, get down face first at full length, clutch by your hands, and
with your shut eyes feel your way? I longed to lie down and hold, but
of course that was impossible.
The fact that there was a wall at my back made it worse! The cliff
seemed to press outward against me. It did, in fact, incline very
slightly outward. It seemed to be thrusting me off. Oh, the horror of
that sensation! Your toes on the edge of a precipice, and the
implacable, calm mountain apparently weighting you slowly forward.
(Beads of sweat poured out over his white face at the horror he had
called before him. Wiping his lips nervously with the back of his hand,
and looking askant, as at the narrow pathway, he paused long. I saw its
cruel edge and the dark gleams of its abysmal water.)
I knew that with my back to the wall I could never reach the rope. I
could not face toward it and step forward, so narrow was the ledge.
Motion was perhaps barely possible that way, but the breadth of my
shoulders would have forced me to lean somewhat more outward, and this I
dared not and could not do. Also, to see a solid surface before me
became an irresistible desire. I resolved to try to turn round before
resuming the desperate journey. To do this I had to nerve myself for
one steady look at my footing.
In the depths below the myriad sea-fowl then rested on the black water,
which, though swelling more with the rising wind, had yet an unbroken
surface at some little distance from the precipice, while farther out it
had begun to jump to whitecaps, and in beneath me, where I could not
see, it dashed and churned with a faint, pervading roar that I could
barely distinguish. Before the descending sun a heavy bank of cloud had
risen. The ocean's surface bore that appearance of intense and angry
gloom that often heralds a storm, but, save the deep murmur going out
from far below my perch, all to my hearing was deadly still.
Cautiously I swung my right foot before the other and carefully edged
around. For an instant as my shoulder rubbed up against the rock, I
felt that I must fall. I did stagger, in fact, but the next moment
stood firm, face to the beetling cliff, my heels on the very edge, and
the new sensation of the abyss behind me no less horrible than that from
which I had with such difficulty escaped. I stood quaking. A delirious
horror thrilled every nerve. The skin about my ears and neck, suddenly
cold, shrank convulsively.
Wild with fear, I thrust forward my head against the rock and rested in
agony. A whir and wind of sudden wings made me conscious of outward
things again. Then a mad eagerness to climb swept away other feeling,
and my hands attempted in vain to clutch the rock. Not daring to cast my
head backward, I drew it tortoise-like between my raised shoulders, and
chin against the precipice, gazed upward with straining of vision from
under my eyebrows.
Far above me the dead wall stretched. Sidewise glances gave me glimpses
of the projecting summit coping. There was no hope in that direction.
But the distraction of scanning the cliff-side had given my nerves some
relief; to my memory again returned the promise of the Almighty and the
consciousness of his regard. Once more my muscles became firm-strung.
A cautious step sidewise made me know how much I had gained in ease and
security of motion by the change of front. I made progress that seemed
almost rapid for some rods, and even had exultation in my quick approach
to the rope. Hence came freedom to think how I should act on reaching
it, and speculation as to how soon my comrades would haul me up.
Then the idea rushed through me that they might even yet draw it away
too soon, that while almost in my clutch it might rise from my hands.
Instantly all the terrors of my position returned with tenfold force; an
outward thrust of the precipice seemed to grow distinct, my trembling
hands told me that it moved bodily toward me; the descent behind me took
an unspeakable remoteness, and from the utmost depth of that sheer air
seemed to ascend steadily a deadly and a chilling wind. But I think I
did not stop for an instant. Instead a delirium to move faster
possessed me, and with quick, sidelong steps--my following foot striking
hard against that before--sometimes on the point of stumbling, stretched
out like the crucified, I pressed in mortal terror along.
Every possible accident and delay was presented to my excited brain.
What if the ledge should narrow suddenly to nothing? Now I believed
that my heels were unsupported in air, and I moved along on tip-toe.
Now I was convinced that the narrow pathway sloped outward, that this
slope had become so distinct, so increasingly distinct, that I might at
any moment slip off into the void. But dominating every consideration
of possible disaster was still that of the need for speed, and distinct
amid all other terrors was that sensation of the dead wall ever silently
and inexorably pressing me outward.
My mouth and throat were choked with dryness, my convulsive lips parched
and arid; much I longed to press them against the cold, moist stone.
But I never stopped. Faster, faster, more wildly I stepped--in a frenzy
I pushed along. Then suddenly before my staring eyes was a
well-remembered edge of mossy stone, and I knew that the rope should be
directly behind me. Was it?
I glanced over my left shoulder. The rope was not to be seen! Wildly I
looked over the other--no rope! Almighty God! and hast thou deserted
me?
But what! Yes, it moves, it sways in sight! it disappears--to return
again to view! There was the rope directly at my back, swinging in the
now strong breeze with a motion that had carried it away from my first
hurried glances. With the relief tears pressed to my eyes and, face
bowed to the precipice, almost forgetful for a little time of the hungry
air beneath, I offered deep thanks to my God for the deliverance that
seemed so near.
(The old man's lips continued to move, but no sound came from them. We
waited silent while, with closed eyes and bent head, he remained
absorbed in the recollection of that strange minute of devoutness. It
was some moments before he spoke again:)
I stood there for what now seems a space of hours, perhaps half a minute
in reality. Then all the chances still to be run crowded upon me. To
turn around had been an attempt almost desperate, before, and certainty,
most certainly, the ledge was no wider where I now stood. Was the rope
within reach? I feared not. Would it sway toward me? I could hope for
that.
But could I grasp it should I be saved? Would it not yield to my hand,
coming slowly down as I pulled, unrolling from a coil above, trailing
over the ground at the top, running fast as its end approached the edge,
falling suddenly at last? Or was it fastened to the accustomed stake?
Was any comrade near who would summon aid at my signal? If not, and if
I grasped it, and if it held, how long should I swing in the wind that
now bore the freshness and tremors of an imminent gale?
Again fear took hold of me, and as a desperate man I prepared to turn my
face once more to the vast expanse of water and the nothing beyond that
awful cliff. Closing my eyes, I writhed around with I know not what
motions till again my back pressed the cliff. That was a restful
sensation. And now for the decision of my fate! I looked at the rope.
Not for a moment could I fancy it within my reach! Its sidewise
swayings were not, as I had expected, even slightly inward--indeed when
it fell back against the wind it swung outward as though the air were
eddying from the wall.
Now at last I gazed down steadily. Would a leap be certain death? The
water was of immense depth below. But what chance of striking it feet
or head first? What chance of preserving consciousness in the descent?
No, the leap would be death; that at least was clear.
Again I turned to the rope. I was now perfectly desperate, but steady,
nerved beyond the best moments of my life, good for an effort surpassing
the human. Still the rope swayed as before, and its motion was very
regular. I saw that I could touch it at any point of its gyration by a
strong leap.
But could I grasp it? What use if it were not firmly secured above?
But all time for hesitation had gone by. I knew too well that strength
was mine but for a moment, and that in the next reaction of weakness I
should drop from the wall like a dead fly. Bracing myself, I watched
the rope steadily for one round, and as it returned against the wind,
jumped straight out over the heaving Atlantic.
By God's aid I reached, touched, clutched, held the strong line. And it
held! Not absolutely. Once, twice, and again, it gave, gave, with
jerks that tried my arms. I knew these indicated but tightening. Then
it held firm and I swung turning in the air, secure above the waves that
beat below.
To slide down and place my feet in the loop was the instinctive work of
a moment. Fortunately it was of dimensions to admit my body barely. I
slipped it over my thighs up to my armpits just as the dreaded reaction
of weakness came. Then I lost consciousness.
When I awakened my dear mother's face was beside my pillow, and she told
me that I had been tossing for a fortnight in brain fever. Many weeks I
lay there, and when I got strong found that I had left my nerve on that
awful cliff-side. Never since have I been able to look from a height or
see any other human being on one without shuddering.
So now you know the story, Mr. Frazer, and have had your last walk on
the factory wall.
He spoke truer than he knew. His story has given me such horrible
nightmares ever since that I could no more walk on the high brickwork
than along that narrow ledge of the distant Polvydd coast.
*LITTLE BAPTISTE*
*OTTAWA RIVER*
Ma'ame Baptiste Larocque peered again into her cupboard and her flour
barrel, as though she might have been mistaken in her inspection twenty
minutes earlier.
"No, there is nothing, nothing at all!" said she to her old
mother-in-law. "And no more trust at the store. Monsieur Conolly was
too cross when I went for corn-meal yesterday. For sure, Baptiste stays
very long at the shanty this year."
"Fear nothing, Delima," answered the bright-eyed old woman. "The good
God will send a breakfast for the little ones, and for us. In seventy
years I do not know Him to fail once, my daughter. Baptiste may be back
to-morrow, and with more money for staying so long. No, no; fear not,
Delima! _Le bon Dieu_ manages all for the best."
"That is true; for so I have heard always," answered Delima, with
conviction; "but sometimes _le bon Dieu_ requires one's inside to pray
very loud. Certainly I trust, like you, _Memere_; but it would be
pleasant if He would send the food the day before."
"Ah, you are too anxious, like little Baptiste here," and the old woman
glanced at the boy sitting by the cradle. "Young folks did not talk so
when I was little. Then we did not think there was danger in trusting
_Monsieur le Cure_ when he told us to take no heed of the morrow. But
now! to hear them talk, one might think they had never heard of _le bon
Dieu_. The young people think too much, for sure. Trust in the good
God, I say. Breakfast and dinner and supper too we shall all have
to-morrow."
"Yes, _Memere_," replied the boy, who was called little Baptiste to
distinguish him from his father. "_Le bon Dieu_ will send an excellent
breakfast, sure enough. If I get up very early, and find some good
_dore_ (pickerel) and catfish on the night-line. But if I did not bait
the hooks, what then? Well, I hope there will be more to-morrow than
this morning, anyway."
"There were enough," said the old woman, severely. "Have we not had
plenty all day, Delima?"
Delima made no answer. She was in doubt about the plenty which her
mother-in-law spoke of. She wondered whether small Andre and Odillon
and 'Toinette, whose heavy breathing she could hear through the thin
partition, would have been sleeping so peacefully had little Baptiste
not divided his share among them at supper-time, with the excuse that he
did not feel very well?
Delima was young yet,--though little Baptiste was such a big boy,--and
would have rested fully on the positively expressed trust of her
mother-in-law, in spite of the empty flour barrel, if she had not
suspected little Baptiste of sitting there hungry.
However, he was such a strange boy, she soon reflected, that perhaps
going empty did not make him feel bad! Little Baptiste was so decided
in his ways, made what in others would have been sacrifices so much as a
matter of course, and was so much disgusted on being offered credit or
sympathy in consequence, that his mother, not being able to understand
him, was not a little afraid of him.
He was not very formidable in appearance, however, that clumsy boy of
fourteen or so, whose big freckled, good face was now bent over the
cradle where _la petite_ Seraphine lay smiling in her sleep, with soft
little fingers clutched round his rough one.
"For sure," said Delima, observing the baby's smile, "the good angels
are very near. I wonder what they are telling her?"
"Something about her father, of course; for so I have always heard it is
when the infants smile in sleep," answered the old woman.
Little Baptiste rose impatiently and went into the sleeping-room. Often
the simplicity and sentimentality of his mother and grandmother gave him
strange pangs at heart; they seemed to be the children, while he felt
very old. They were always looking for wonderful things to happen, and
expecting the saints and _le bon Dieu_ to help the family out of
difficulties that little Baptiste saw no way of overcoming without the
work which was then so hard to get. His mother's remark about the angels
talking to little Seraphine pained him so much that he would have cried
had he not felt compelled to be very much of a man during his father's
absence.
If he had been asked to name the spirit hovering about, he would have
mentioned a very wicked one as personified in John Conolly, the village
storekeeper, the vampire of the little hamlet a quarter of a mile
distant. Conolly owned the tavern too, and a sawmill up river, and
altogether was a very rich, powerful, and dreadful person in little
Baptiste's view. Worst of all, he practically owned the cabin and lot of
the Larocques, for he had made big Baptiste give him a bill of sale of
the place as security for groceries to be advanced to the family while
its head was away in the shanty; and that afternoon Conolly had said to
little Baptiste that the credit had been exhausted, and more.
"No; you can't get any pork," said the storekeeper. "Don't your mother
know that, after me sending her away when she wanted corn-meal
yesterday? Tell her she don't get another cent's worth here."
"For why not? My fader always he pay," said the indignant boy, trying
to talk English.
"Yes, indeed! Well, he ain't paid this time. How do I know what's
happened to him, as he ain't back from the shanty? Tell you what: I'm
going to turn you all out if your mother don't pay rent in advance for
the shanty to-morrow,--four dollars a month."
"What you talkin' so for? We doan' goin' pay no rent for our own
house!"
"You doan' goin' to own no house," answered Conolly, mimicking the boy.
"The house is mine any time I like to say so. If the store bill ain't
paid to-night, out you go to-morrow, or else pay rent. Tell your mother
that for me. Mosey off now. '_Marche, donc!_' There's no other way."
Little Baptiste had not told his mother of this terrible threat, for
what was the use? She had no money. He knew that she would begin
weeping and wailing, with small Andre and Odillon as a puzzled, excited
chorus, with 'Toinette and Seraphine adding those baby cries that made
little Baptiste want to cry himself; with his grandmother steadily
advising, in the din, that patient trust in _le bon Dieu_ which he could
not always entertain, though he felt very wretched that he could not.
Moreover, he desired to spare his mother and grandmother as long as
possible. "Let them have their good night's sleep," said he to himself,
with such thoughtfulness and pity as a merchant might feel in concealing
imminent bankruptcy from his family. He knew there was but one chance
remaining,--that his father might come home during the night or next
morning, with his winter's wages.
Big Baptiste had "gone up" for Rewbell the jobber; had gone in November,
to make logs in the distant Petawawa woods, and now the month was May.
The "very magnificent" pig he had salted down before going away had been
eaten long ago. My! what a time it seemed now to little Baptiste since
that pig-killing! How good the _boudin_ (the blood-puddings) had been,
and the liver and tender bits, and what a joyful time they had had! The
barrelful of salted pike and catfish was all gone too,--which made the
fact that fish were not biting well this year very sad indeed.
Now on top of all these troubles this new danger of being turned out on
the roadside! For where are they to get four dollars, or two, or one
even, to stave Conolly off? Certainly his father was away too long; but
surely, surely, thought the boy, he would get back in time to save his
home! Then he remembered with horror, and a feeling of being disloyal
to his father for remembering, that terrible day, three years before,
when big Baptiste had come back from his winter's work drunk, and
without a dollar, having been robbed while on a spree in Ottawa. If that
were the reason of his father's delay now, ah, then there would be no
hope, unless _le bon Dieu_ should indeed work a miracle for them!
While the boy thought over the situation with fear, his grandmother went
to her bed, and soon afterward Delima took the little Seraphine's cradle
into the sleeping-room. That left little Baptiste so lonely that he
could not sit still; nor did he see any use of going to lie awake in bed
by Andre and Odillon.
So he left the cabin softly, and reaching the river with a few steps,
pushed off his flat-bottomed boat, and was carried smartly up stream by
the shore eddy. It soon gave him to the current, and then he drifted
idly down under the bright moon, listening to the roar of the long
rapid, near the foot of which their cabin stood. Then he took to his
oars, and rowed to the end of his night-line, tied to the wharf. He had
an unusual fear that it might be gone, but found it all right, stretched
taut; a slender rope, four hundred feet long, floated here and there far
away in the darkness by flat cedar sticks,--a rope carrying short bits
of line, and forty hooks, all loaded with excellent fat, wriggling
worms.
That day little Baptiste had taken much trouble with his night-line; he
was proud of the plentiful bait, and now, as he felt the tightened rope
with his fingers, he told himself that his well-filled hooks must
attract plenty of fish,--perhaps a sturgeon! Wouldn't that be grand? A
big sturgeon of seventy-five pounds!
He pondered the Ottawa statement that "there are seven kinds of meat on
the head of a sturgeon," and, enumerating the kinds, fell into a
conviction that one sturgeon at least would surely come to his line.
Had not three been caught in one night by Pierre Mallette, who had no
sort of claim, who was too lazy to bait more than half his hooks,
altogether too wicked to receive any special favors from _le bon Dieu_?
Little Baptiste rowed home, entered the cabin softly, and stripped for
bed, almost happy in guessing what the big fish would probably weigh.
Putting his arms around little Andre, he tried to go to sleep; but the
threats of Conolly came to him with new force, and he lay awake, with a
heavy dread in his heart.
How long he had been lying thus he did not know, when a heavy step came
upon the plank outside the door.
"Father's home!" cried little Baptiste, springing to the floor as the
door opened.
"Baptiste! my own Baptiste!" cried Delima, putting her arms around her
husband as he stood over her.
"Did I not say," said the old woman, seizing her son's hand, "that the
good God would send help in time?"
Little Baptiste lit the lamp. Then they saw something in the father's
face that startled them all. He had not spoken, and now they perceived
that he was haggard, pale, wild-eyed.
"The good God!" cried big Baptiste, and knelt by the bed, and bowed his
head on his arms, and wept so loudly that little Andre and Odillon,
wakening, joined his cry. "_Le bon Dieu_ has forgotten us! For all my
winter's work I have not one dollar! The concern is failed. Rewbell
paid not one cent of wages, but ran away, and the timber has been
seized."
Oh, the heartbreak! Oh, poor Delima! poor children! and poor little
Baptiste, with the threats of Conolly rending his heart!
"I have walked all day," said the father, "and eaten not a thing. Give
me something, Delima."
"O holy angels!" cried the poor woman, breaking into a wild weeping. "O
Baptiste, Baptiste, my poor man! There is nothing; not a scrap; not any
flour, not meal, not grease even; not a pinch of tea!" but still she
searched frantically about the rooms.
"Never mind," said big Baptiste then, holding her in his strong arms.
"I am not so hungry as tired, Delima, and I can sleep."
The old woman, who had been swaying to and fro in her chair of rushes,
rose now, and laid her aged hands on the broad shoulders of the man.
"My son Baptiste," she said, "you must not say that God has forgotten
us, for He has not forgotten us. The hunger is hard to bear, I
know,--hard, hard to bear; but great plenty will be sent in answer to
our prayers. And it is hard, hard to lose thy long winter's work; but
be patient, my son, and thankful, yes, thankful for all thou hast.
"Behold, Delima is well and strong. See the little Baptiste, how much a
man! Yes, that is right; kiss the little Andre and Odillon; and see!
how sweetly 'Toinette sleeps! All strong and well, son Baptiste! Were
one gone, think what thou wouldst have lost! But instead, be thankful,
for behold, another has been given,--the little Seraphine here, that
thou hast not before seen!"
Big, rough, soft-hearted Baptiste knelt by the cradle, and kissed the
babe gently.
"It is true, _Memere_," he answered, "and I thank _le bon Dieu_ for his
goodness to me."