JAN'S STORY
Jan had aged five years during those two hours in the office of the
sub-commissioner; he aged now as Thornton looked at him. There came the
same tired, hopeless glow into his eyes, the same tense lines in his
face. And yet, quickly, he changed as he had not changed on that
afternoon. Two livid spots began to burn in his cheeks as he sat down
opposite Thornton. He turned the light low, and his eyes glowed more
darkly and with an animal-like luster in the half gloom. Something in
him now, a quivering, struggling passion that lay behind those eyes,
held Thornton white and silent.
"M'sieur," he began in the low voice which Thornton was beginning to
understand, "I am going to tell you something which I have told to but
two other human beings. It is the story of another man--a man from
civilization, like you, who came up into this country of ours years and
years ago, and who met a woman, as you have met this girl at Oxford
House, and who loved her as you love this one, and perhaps more. It is
singular that the case should be so similar, m'sieur, and it is because
of this that I believe Our Blessed Lady gives me courage to tell it to
you. For this man, like you, left a wife--and two children--when he
came into the North. M'sieur, I pray the Great God to forgive him, for
he left a third child--unborn."
Jan leaned upon his hand so that it shaded his face.
"It is not so much of THAT as of what followed that I am going to tell
you, m'sieur," he went on. "It was a beautiful love--on the woman's
part, and it would have been a beautiful love on the man's part if it
had been pure. For her he gave up everything, even his God--as you
would give up everything--and your God--for this girl at Oxford House.
M'sieur, I will speak mostly of the woman now. She was beautiful. She
was one of the three most beautiful things that God ever placed in our
world, and she loved this man. She married him, believed in him, was
ready to die for him, to follow him to the ends of the earth, as our
women will do for the men they love. God in Heaven, can you not guess
what happened, m'sieur? A CHILD WAS BORN!"
So fiercely did Jan cry out the words that Thornton jerked back as
though a blow had been struck at him from out of the gloom.
"A child was born!" repeated Jan, and Thornton heard his nails digging
in the table. "That was the first curse of God--a child! La
Charogne--les bêtes de charogne--that is what we call them--beasts of
carrion and carrion eaters, breeders of devils and sin! Mon Dieu, that
is what happened! A child was born, with the curse of God upon him!"
Jan stopped, his nails digging deeper, his breath escaping from him as
though he had been running.
"Down in YOUR world he would have grown up a MAN," he continued,
speaking more calmly. "I have heard that--since. It is common down
there to be a two-legged carrion--a man or a woman born out of wedlock.
I have been told so, and that it is a curse not without hope. But here
it is different. The curse never dies. It follows, day after day, year
after year. And this child--more unfortunate than the wild things, was
born one of them. Do you understand, m'sieur? If the winds had
whispered the secret nothing would have come near him--the Indian women
would sooner have touched the plague--he would have been an outcast,
despised as he grew older, pointed at and taunted, called names which
are worse than those called to the lowest and meanest dogs. THAT is
what it means to be born under that curse--up here."
He waited for Thornton to speak, but the other sat silent and moveless
across the table.
"The curse worked swiftly, m'sieur. It came first--in remorse--to the
man. It gnawed at his soul, ate him alive, and drove him from place to
place with the woman and the child. The purity and love of the woman
added to his suffering, and at last he came to know that the hand of
God had fallen upon his head. The woman saw his grief but did not know
the reason for it. And so the curse first came to her. They went
north--far north, above the Barren Lands, and the curse followed there.
It gnawed at his life until--he died. That was seven years after the
child was born."
The oil lamp sputtered and began to smoke, and with a quick movement
Jan turned the wick down until they were left in darkness.
"M'sieur, it was then that the curse began to fall upon the woman and
the child. Do you not believe that about the sins of the fathers
falling upon others? Mon Dieu, it is so--it is so. It came in many
small ways--and then--the curse--it came suddenly--LIKE THIS." Jan's
voice came in a hissing whisper now. Thornton could feel his hot breath
as he leaned over the table, and in the darkness Jan's eyes shone like
two coals of fire. "It came like THIS!" panted Jan. "There was a new
missioner at the post--a--a Christian from the South, and he was a
great friend to the woman, and preached God, and she BELIEVED him. The
boy was very young, and saw things, but did not understand at first. He
knew, afterward, that the missioner loved his mother's beauty, and that
he tried hard to win it--and failed, for the woman, until death, would
love only the one to whom she had given herself first. Great God, it
happened THEN--one night when every soul was about the big fires at the
caribou roast, and there was no one near the lonely little cabin where
the boy and his mother lived. The boy was at the feast, but he ran
home--with a bit of dripping meat as a gift for his mother--and he
heard her cries, and ran in to be struck down by the missioner. It
happened THEN, and even the boy knew, and followed the man, shrieking
that he had killed his mother." There was a terrible calmness now in
Jan's voice. "M'sieur, it was true. She wasted away like a flower after
that night. She died, and left the boy alone with the curse. And that
boy, m'sieur, was Jan Thoreau. The woman was his mother."
There was silence now, a dead, pulseless quiet, broken after a moment
by a movement. It was Thornton, groping across the table. Jan felt his
hands touch his arm. They groped farther in the darkness, until Jan
Thoreau's hands were clasped tightly in Thornton's.
"And that--is all?" he questioned hoarsely.
"No, it is but the beginning," said Jan softly. "The curse has followed
me, m'sieur, until I am the unhappiest man in the world. To-day I have
done all that is to be done. When my father died he left papers which
my mother was to give to me when I had attained manhood. When she died
they came to me. She knew nothing of that which was in them, and I am
glad. For they told the story that I have told to you, m'sieur, and
from his grave my father prayed to me to make what restitution I could.
When he came into the North for good he brought with him most of his
fortune--which was large, m'sieur--and placed it where no one would
ever find it--in the stock of the Great Company. A half of it, he said,
should be mine. The other half he asked me to return to his children,
and to his real wife, if she were living. I have done more than that,
m'sieur. I have given up all--for none of it is mine. A half will go to
the two children whom he deserted. The other half will go to the child
that was unborn. The mother--is--dead."
After a time Thornton said,
"There is more, Jan."
"Yes, there is more, m'sieur," said Jan. "So much more that if I were
to tell it to you it would not be hard for you to understand why Jan
Thoreau is the unhappiest man in the world. I have told you that this
is but the beginning. I have not told you of how the curse has followed
me and robbed me of all that is greatest in life--how it has haunted me
day and night, m'sieur, like a black spirit, destroying my hopes,
turning me at last into an outcast, without people, without friends,
without--that--which you, too, will give up in this girl at Oxford
House. M'sieur, am I right? You will not go back to her. You will go
south, and some day the Great God will reward you."
He heard Thornton rising in the dark.
"Shall I strike a light, m'sieur?"
"No," said Thornton close to him. In the gloom their hands met. There
was a change in the other's voice now, something of pride, of triumph,
of a glory just achieved. "Jan," he said softly, "I thank you for
bringing me face to face with a God like yours. I have never met Him
before. We send missionaries up to save you, we look upon you as wild
and savage and with only half a soul--and we are blind. You have taught
me more than has ever been preached into me, and this great, glorious
world of yours is sending me back a better man for having come into it.
I am going--south. Some day I will return, and I will be one of this
world, and one of your people. I will come, and I will bring no curse.
If I could send this word to HER, ask her forgiveness, tell her what I
have almost been and that I still have hope--faith--I could go easier
down into that other world."
"You can," said Jan. "I will take this word for you, m'sieur, and I
will take more, for I will tell her what it has been the kind fate for
Jan Thoreau to find in the heart of M'sieur Thornton. She is one of my
people, and she will forgive, and love you more for what you have done.
For this, m'sieur, is what the Cree god has given to his people as the
honor of the great snows. She will still love you, and if there is to
be hope it will burn in HER breast, too. M'sieur--"
Something like a sob broke through Thornton's lips as he moved back
through the darkness.
"And you--I will find you again?"
"They will know where I go from Oxford House. I will leave word--with
HER," said Jan.
"Good-by," said Thornton huskily.
Jan listened until his footsteps had died away, and for a long time
after that he sat with his head buried in his arms upon the little
table. And Kazan, whining softly, seemed to know that in the darkened
room had come to pass the thing which broke at last his master's
overburdened heart.