come to her as she held her father dying in her arms she had thought
much. Thought had been pressed upon her. Forces had pressed themselves
in upon her mind. The things that she had been hearing and reading
since her childhood, the thoughts of the people among whom she had
grown up, the feeling of loyalty to her own kind, all these had fought
in her against the dominion of the Catholic Church which challenged
them all.
Because she had so recently come under its influence, the Catholic
Church seemed ever to be unfolding new wonders to her. It seemed as
though she stepped ever from one holy of holies into another more
wonderful, more awesome. Yet always there seemed to be something just
beyond, some deeper, more mysterious meaning to which she could not
quite attain. Always a door opened, only to disclose another closed
door beyond it.
Here surely she stood as near to naked truth as it was possible to
get. Here were none of the forms of words, none of the explanations,
none of the ready-made answers of the catechism. Here were just two
men. One was a bad man, a man of evil life. He was dying. In a few
moments his soul must go--somewhere. The other was a good man. To-day
he had risked his life to save the lives of this man and others--for
Ruth was quick to suspect that Gadbeau had been caught in the fire
because other men were chasing him.
Now these two men had a question to settle between them. In a very few
minutes these two men must settle whether this bad man's soul was
presently going to Hell or to Heaven for all eternity. You see, she
was a very direct young person. She took her religion at its word,
straight in the eyes, literally.
So far she had not needed to take any precautions against hearing
anything that was said. The dull roar of the fire all about them
effectually silenced every other sound. Then, without warning, high
above the noise of the fire, came the shrill, breaking voice of
Gadbeau, screaming:
"On my knee I dropped and shot him, shot Rogers as he stopped!"
Involuntarily she turned and started towards the men. Gadbeau had
fallen back in the Bishop's arms and the Bishop was leaning over,
apparently talking to him. She knew that she must not go near until
the Bishop gave her leave. She turned back and putting her hands up to
her ears buried her face in Brom Bones' mane.
But she could not put away the words that she had heard. Never, so
long as she lived, was she able to forget them. Like the flash of the
shot itself, they leaped to her brain and seared themselves there.
Years afterwards she could shut her eyes and fairly see those words
burning in her mind.
When it was ended, the Bishop called to her and she went over timidly.
She heard the Bishop say:
"He is gone. Will you say a prayer, Ruth?"
Then the Bishop began to read slowly, in the light of the flames, the
Prayers for the Departed. Ruth kneeling drew forth her beads and
among the Mysteries she wept gently--why, she knew not.
When the Bishop had finished, he knelt a while in silence, looking
into the face of the dead. Then he arose and folded the long arms on
the tattered breast and straightened the body.
Ruth rose and watched him in a troubled way. Once, twice she opened
her lips to speak. But she did not know what to say or how to say it.
Finally she began:
"Bishop, I--I heard--"
"No, child. You heard nothing," the Bishop interrupted quietly,
"nothing."
Ruth understood. And for a little space the two stood there looking
down. The dead man's secret lay between them, buried under God's awful
seal.
The Bishop went to his horse and unstrapping Father Brady's storm coat
which he had brought wrapped it gently over the head and body of the
dead man as a protection from the showers of glowing cinders that
rained down upon everything.
Then they took up the interminable vigil of the night, standing at
their horses' heads, their faces buried in the manes, their arms
thrown over the horses' eyes.
As the night wore on the fire, having consumed everything to the east
and south, moved on deliberately into the west and north. But the
sharp, acrid smoke of trees left smouldering behind still kept them
in exquisite, blinded torture.
The murky, grey pall of the night turned almost to black as the fires
to the east died almost out in that last, lifeless hour of the night.
The light of the morning showed a faint, sickly white through the
smoke banks on the high hills. When it was time for the sun to be
rising over Bald Mountain, the morning breezes came down lifting the
heavy clouds of smoke and carrying them overhead and away into the
west. They saw the world again, a grey, ash-strewn world, with not a
land-mark left but the bare knobs of the hills and here and there a
great tree still standing smoking like a burnt-out torch.
They mounted wearily, and taking a last look at the figure of the man
lying there on his rocky bier, picked their way down to the sloping
hillside. The Gaunt Rocks had saved their lives. Now they must reach
Little Tupper and water if they would have their horses live.
Intolerable, frightful thirst was already swelling their own lips and
they knew that the plight of the horses was inevitably worse.
Ruth took the lead, for she knew the country. They must travel
circuitously, avoiding the places that had been wooded for the fallen
trees would still be burning and would block them everywhere. The road
was impossible because it had largely run through wooded places and
the trees would have fallen across it. Their situation was not
desperate, but at any moment a horse might drop or turn mad for
water.
For two hours they plodded steadily over the hills through the hot,
loose-lying ashes. In all the world it seemed that not man nor beast
nor bird was alive. The top of the earth was one grey ruin, draped
with the little sworls of dust and ashes that the playful wind sent
drifting up into their mouths and eyes.
They dared not ride faster than a walk, for the ashes had blown level
over holes and traps of all sorts in which a galloping horse would
surely break his leg. Nor would it have been safe to put the horses to
any rapid expenditure of energy. The little that was left in them must
be doled out to the very last ounce. For they did not yet know what
lay between them and French Village and the lake. If the fire had not
reached the lake during the night then it was always a possibility
that, with this fresh morning wind, a new fire might spring up from
the ashes of the old and place an impassable barrier between them and
the water.
When this thought came to them, as it must, they involuntarily
quickened their pace. The impulse was to make one wild dash for the
lake. But they knew that it would be nothing short of madness. They
must go slowly and carefully, enduring the torture with what fortitude
they could.
The story which the Bishop had heard from the lips of the dying man
had stirred him profoundly. He now knew definitely, what yesterday he
had suspected, that men had been sent into the hills by the railroad
people to set fire to the forests, thereby driving the people out of
that part of the country which the railroad wished to possess. He was
moved to anger by the knowledge, but he knew that he must try to drive
that knowledge back into the deepest recess of his mind; must try to
hide it even from himself, lest in some unguarded moment, some time of
stress and mental conflict, he should by word or look, by a gesture or
even by an omission, reveal even his consciousness of that knowledge.
Now he knew that the situation which last night he had thought to meet
in French Village would almost certainly confront him there this
morning, if indeed he ever succeeded in reaching there. And he must be
doubly on his guard lest the things which he might learn to-day should
in his mind confuse themselves with what he had last night learned
under the seal of the confessional.
Through all the night Ruth Lansing had been hearing the words of
that last cry of the dying man. She did not know how near they
came to her. She did not know that Jeffrey Whiting had stood with his
gun levelled upon the man whom Gadbeau had killed. But, try as she
would to keep back the knowledge which she knew she must never under
any circumstances reveal, those words came ringing upon her ears.
And she knew that the secret would haunt her and taunt her always.
As they came over the last of the ridges, the grey waste of the
country sloping from all sides to the lake lay open before them. There
was not a ruin, not a standing stick to show them where little French
Village had once stood along the lake. The fire had gone completely
around the lake to the very water edge and a back draught had drawn it
up in a circle around the east slope. There it had burned itself out
along the forest line of the higher hills. It had gone on toward the
west, burning its way down to the settled farm lands. But there would
be no more fire in this region.
"Would the people make their way down the river," the Bishop asked;
"or did they escape back into the higher hills?"
"I don't think they did either," Ruth answered as she scanned the lake
sharply. "There is something out there in the middle of the lake, and
I wouldn't be surprised if they made rafts out of the logs and went
through the fire that way. They'd be better off than we were, and that
way they could save some things. If they had run away they would have
had to drop everything."
The horses, sniffing the moist air from the lake, pricked up their
ears and started briskly down the slope. It was soon plain that Ruth
was right in her conjecture. They could now make out five or six
large rafts which the people had evidently thrown together out of the
logs that had been lying in the lake awaiting their turn at the
sawmill. These were crowded with people, standing as they must have
stood all through the night; and now the freshening wind, aided by
such help as the people could give it with boards and poles, was
moving all slowly toward the shore where their homes had been.
The heart of the Shepherd was very low as he rode fetlock deep through
the ashes of what had been the street of a happy little village and
watched his people coming sadly back to land. There was nothing for
them to come back to. They might as well have gone to the other side
of the lake to begin life again. But they would inevitably, with that
dumb loyalty to places, which people share with birds, come back and
begin their nests over again.
For nearly an hour they stood on the little beach, letting the horses
drink a little now and then, and watching the approach of the rafts.
When they came to the shallow water, men and boys jumped yelling from
the rafts and came wading ashore. In a few moments the rafts were
emptied of all except the very aged or the crippled who must be
carried off.
They crowded around the grimy, unrecognisable Bishop and the girl with
wonder and a little superstition, for it was plain that these two
people must have come straight through the fire. But when Father
Ponfret came running forward and knelt at the Bishop's feet, a great
glad cry of wondering recognition went up from all the French people.
It was their Bishop! He who spoke the French of the most astonishing!
His coming was a sign! A deliverance! They had come through horrors.
Now all was well! The good God had hidden His face through the long
night. Now, in the morning He had sent His messenger to say that all
was well!
Laughing and crying in the quick surcharge of spirits that makes their
race what it is, they threw themselves on their knees begging his
blessing. The Bishop bared his head and raised his hand slowly. He was
infinitely humbled by the quick, spontaneous outburst of their faith.
He had done nothing for them; could do nothing for them. They were
homeless, pitiable, without a hope or a stick of shelter. Yet it had
needed but the sight of his face to bring out their cheery unbounded
confidence that God was good, that the world was right again.
The other people, the hill people of the Bishop's own blood and race,
stood apart. They did not understand the scene. They were not a kind
of people that could weep and laugh at once. But they were not
unmoved. For years they had heard of the White Horse Chaplain. Some
two or three old men of them saw him now through a mist of memory and
battle smoke riding a mad horse across a field. They knew that this
was the man. That he should appear out of the fire after the nightmare
through which they had passed was not so much incredible as it was a
part of the strange things that they had always half believed about
him.
Then rose the swift, shrill cackle of tongues around the Bishop.
Father Ponfret, a quick, eager little man of his people, would drag
the Bishop's story from him by very force. Had he dropped from Heaven?
How had he come to be in the hills? Had a miracle saved him from the
fire?
The Bishop told the tale simply, accenting the folly of his own
imprudence, and how he had been saved from the consequences of it by
the quickness and wisdom of the young girl. Father Ponfret translated
freely and with a fine flourish. Then the Bishop told of the coming of
Rafe Gadbeau and how the man had died with the Sacrament. They nodded
their heads in silence. There was nothing to be said. They knew who
the man was. He had done wickedly. But the good God had stretched out
the wing of His great Church over him at the last. Why say more? God
was good. No?
Ruth Lansing went among her own hill people, grouped on the outskirts
of the crowd that pressed around the Bishop, answering their eager
questions and asking questions of her own. There was just one
question that she wanted to ask, but something kept it back from her
lips. There was no reason at all why she should not ask them about
Jeffrey Whiting. Some of them must at least have heard news of him,
must know in what direction he had gone to fight the fire. But some
unnamed dread seemed to take possession of her so that she dared not
put her crying question into words.
Some one at her elbow, who had heard what the French people were
saying, asked:
"You're sure that was Gadbeau that crawled out of the fire and died,
Miss Lansing?"
"Yes. I knew him well, of course. It was Gadbeau, certainly," Ruth
answered without looking up.
Then a tall young fellow in front of her said:
"Then that's two of 'em done for. That was Gadbeau. And Jeff Whiting
shot Rogers."
"He did not!" Ruth blazed up in the young man's face. "Jeffrey Whiting
did _not_ shoot Rogers! Rafe--!"
The horror of the thing she had been about to do rushed upon her and
blinded her. The blood came rushing up into her throat and brain,
choking her, stunning her, so that she gasped and staggered. The young
man, Perry Waite, caught her by the arm as she seemed about to fall.
She struggled a moment for control of herself, then managed to gasp:
"It's nothing-- Let me go."
Perry Waite looked sharply into her face. Then he took his hand from
her arm.
Trembling and horror-stricken, Ruth slipped away and crowded herself
in among the people who stood around the Bishop. Here no one would be
likely to speak to her. And here, too, she felt a certain relief, a
sense of security, in being surrounded by people who would understand.
Even though they knew nothing of her secret, yet the mere feeling that
she stood among those who could have understood gave her strength and
a feeling of safety even against herself which she could not have had
among her own kind.
But she was not long left with her feeling of security. A wan,
grey-faced girl with burning eyes caught Ruth fiercely by the arm and
drew her out of the crowd. It was Cynthe Cardinal, though Ruth found
it difficult to recognise in her the red-cheeked, sprightly French
girl she had met in the early summer.
"You saw Rafe Gadbeau die," the girl said roughly, as she faced Ruth
sharply at a little distance from the crowd. "You were there, close?
No?"
"Yes, the fire was all around," Ruth answered, quaking.
"How did he die? Tell me. How?"
"Why--why, he died quickly, in the Bishop's arms."
"I know. Yes. But how? He _confessed_?"
"He--he went to confession, you mean. Yes, I think so."
But the girl was not to be evaded in that way.
"I know that," she persisted. "I heard M'sieur the Bishop. But did he
_confess_--about Rogers?"
"Why, Cynthe, you must be crazy. You know I didn't hear anything. I
couldn't--"
"He didn't say nothing, except in confession?" the girl questioned
swiftly.
"Nothing at all," Ruth answered, relieved.
"And you heard?" the girl returned shrewdly.
"Why, Cynthe, I heard nothing. You know that."
"I know you are lying," Cynthe said slowly. "That is right. But I do
not know. Will you always be able to lie? I do not know. You are
Catholic, yes. But you are new. You are not like one of us. Sometime
you will forget. It is not bred in the bone of you as it is bred in
us. Sometime when you are not thinking some one will ask you a
question and you will start and your tongue will slip, or you will be
silent--and that will be just as bad."
Ruth stood looking down at the ground. She dared not speak, did not
even raise her eyes, for any assurance of silence or even a reassuring
look to the girl would be an admission that she must not make.
"Swear it in your heart! Swear that you did not hear a word! You
cannot speak to me. But swear it to your soul," said the girl in a
low, tense whisper; "swear that you will never, sleeping or waking,
laughing or crying, in joy or in sorrow, let woman or man know that
you heard. Swear it. And while you swear, remember." She drew Ruth
close to her and almost hissed into her ear:
"Remember-- You love Jeffrey Whiting!"
She dropped Ruth's arm and turned quickly away.
Ruth stood there trembling weakly, her mind lost in a whirl of fright
and bewilderment. She did not know where to turn. She could not
grapple with the racing thoughts that went hurtling through her mind.
This girl had loved Rafe Gadbeau. She was half crazed with her love
and her grief. And she was determined to protect his name from the
dark blot of murder. With the uncanny insight that is sometimes given
to those beside themselves with some great grief or strain, the girl
had seen Ruth's terrible secret bare in its hiding place and had
plucked it out before Ruth's very eyes.
The awful, the unbelievable thing had happened, thought Ruth. She had
broken the seal of the confessional! She had been entrusted with the
most terrible secret that a man could have to tell, under the most
awful bond that God could put upon a secret. And the secret had
escaped her!
She had said no word at all. But, just as surely as if she had
repeated the cry of the dying man in the night, Ruth knew that the
other girl had taken her secret from her.
And with that same uncanny insight, too, the girl had looked into the
future and had shown Ruth what a burden the secret was to be to her.
Nay, what a burden it was already becoming. For already she was afraid
to speak to any one, afraid to go near any person that she had ever
known.
And that girl had stripped bare another of Ruth's secrets, one that
had been hidden even from herself. She had said:
"Remember-- You love Jeffrey Whiting."
In ways, she had always loved him. But she now realised that she had
never known what love was. Now she knew. She had seen it flame up in
the eyes of the half mad French girl, ready to clutch and tear for the
dead name of the man whom she had loved. Now Ruth knew what it was,
and it came burning up in her heart to protect the dear name of her
own beloved one, her man. Already men were putting the brand of Cain
upon him! Already the word was running from mouth to mouth over the
hills-- The word of blood! And with it ran the name of her love!
Jeffrey, the boy she had loved since always, the man she would love
forever!
He would hear it from other mouths. But, oh! the cruel, unbearable
taunt was that only two days ago he had heard it first from her own
lips! Why? Why? How? How had she ever said such a thing? Ever thought
of such a thing?
But she could not speak as the French girl had spoken for her man. She
could not swear the mouths to silence. She could not cry out the
bursting, torturing truth that alone would close those mouths. No, not
even to Jeffrey himself could she ever by word, or even by the
faintest whisper, or even by a look, show that she knew more than his
and other living mouths could tell her! Never would she be able to
look into his eyes and say:
I _know_ you did not do it.
Only in her most secret heart of hearts could she be glad that she
knew. And even that knowledge was the sacred property of the dead man.
It was not hers. She must try to keep it out of her mind. Love,
horror, and the awful weight of God's seal pressed in upon her to
crush her. There was no way to turn, no step to take. She could not
meet them, could not cope with them.
Stumbling blindly, she crept out of the crowd and down to where Brom
Bones stood by the lake. There the kindly French women found her, her
face buried in the colt's mane, crying hysterically. They bathed her
hands and face and soothed her, and when she was a little quieted they
gave her drink and food. And Ruth, reviving, and knowing that she
would need strength above all things, took what was given and silently
faced the galling weight of the burden that was hers.
The Bishop had taken quick charge of the whole situation. The first
thing to be decided was whether the people should try to hold out
where they were or should attempt at once to walk out to the villages
on the north or west. To the west it would mean forty miles of walking
over ashes with hardly any way of carrying water. To the north it
would mean a longer walk, but they could follow the river and have
water at hand. The danger in that direction was that they might come
into the path of a new fire that would cut them off from all help.
Even if they did come out safe to the villages, what would they do
there? They would be scattered, penniless, homeless. There was nothing
left for them here but the places where their homes had been, but at
least they would be together. The cataclysm through which they had all
passed, which had brought the prosperous and the poverty-stricken
alike to the common level of just a few meals away from starvation,
would here bind them together and give them a common strength for a
new grip on life. If there was food enough to carry them over the four
or five days that would be required to get supplies up from Lowville
or from the head of the new railroad, then they should stay here.
The Bishop went swiftly among them, where already mothers were drawing
family groups aside and parcelling out the doles of food. Already
these mothers were erecting the invisible roof-tree and drawing around
them and theirs the circle of the hearth, even though it was a circle
drawn only in hot, drifting ashes. The Bishop was an inquisitor kindly
of eye and understanding of heart, but by no means to be evaded.
Unsuspected stores of bread and beans and tinned meats came forth from
nondescript bundles of clothing and were laid under his eye. It
appeared that Arsene LaComb had stayed in his little provision store
until the last moment portioning out what was his with even hand, to
each one as much as could be carried. The Bishop saw that it was all
pitifully little for those who had lived in the village and for those
refugees who had been driven in from the surrounding hills. But, he
thought, it would do. These were people born to frugality, inured to
scanty living.
The thing now was to give them work for their hands, to put something
before them that was to be accomplished. For even in the ruin of all
things it is not well for men to sit down in the ashes and merely
wait. They had no tools left but the axes which they had carried in
their hands to the rafts, but with these they could hew some sort of
shelter out of the loose logs in the lake. A rough shack of any kind
would cover at least the weaker ones until lumber could be brought up
or until a saw could be had for the ruined mill at the outlet of the
lake. It would be slow work and hard and a makeshift at the best. But
it would put heart into them to see at least something, anything,
begin to rise from the hopeless level of the ashes.