I have given the whole story here as though it had been thought out
and written that Sunday afternoon which brought me good news of Juste
Duvarney. But it was not so. I did not choose to break the run of the
tale to tell of other things and of the passing of time. The making
took me many, many weeks, and in all that time I had seen no face but
Gabord’s, and heard no voice but his, when he came twice a day to
bring me bread and water. He would answer no questions concerning Juste
Duvarney, or Voban, or Monsieur Doltaire, nor tell me anything of what
was forward in the town. He had had his orders precise enough, he said.
At the end of my hints and turnings and approaches, stretching himself
up, and turning the corn about with his foot (but not crushing it, for
he saw that I prized the poor little comrades), he would say:
“Snug, snug, quiet and warm! The cosiest nest in the world--aho!”
There was no coaxing him, and at last I desisted. I had no light. With
resolution I set my mind to see in spite of the dark, and at the end of
a month I was able to note the outlines of my dungeon; nay, more, I was
able to see my field of corn; and at last what joy I had when, hearing
a little rustle near me, I looked closely and beheld a mouse running
across the floor! I straightway began to scatter crumbs of bread, that
it might, perhaps, come near me--as at last it did.
I have not spoken at all of my wounds, though they gave me many painful
hours, and I had no attendance but my own and Gabord’s. The wound in my
side was long healing, for it was more easily disturbed as I turned in
my sleep, while I could ease my arm at all times, and it came on slowly.
My sufferings drew on my flesh, my blood, and my spirits, and to this
was added that disease inaction, the corrosion of solitude, and the
fever of suspense and uncertainty as to Alixe and Juste Duvarney. Every
hour, every moment that I had ever passed in Alixe’s presence, with many
little incidents and scenes in which we shared, passed before me--vivid
and cherished pictures of the mind. One of those incidents I will set
down here.
A year or so before, soon after Juste Duvarney came from Montreal, he
brought in one day from hunting a young live hawk, and put it in a cage.
When I came the next morning, Alixe met me, and asked me to see what
he had brought. There, beside the kitchen door, overhung with
morning-glories and flanked by hollyhocks, was a large green cage, and
in it the gray-brown hawk. “Poor thing, poor prisoned thing!” she said.
“Look how strange and hunted it seems! See how its feathers stir! And
those flashing, watchful eyes, they seem to read through you, and to
say, ‘Who are you? What do you want with me? Your world is not my world;
your air is not my air; your homes are holes, and mine hangs high up
between you and God. Who are you? Why do you pen me? You have shut me in
that I may not travel, not even die out in the open world. All the world
is mine; yours is only a stolen field. Who are you? What do you want
with me? There is a fire within my head, it eats to my eyes, and I burn
away. What do you want with me?’”
She did not speak these words all at once as I have written them here,
but little by little, as we stood there beside the cage. Yet, as she
talked with me, her mind was on the bird, her fingers running up and
down the cage bars soothingly, her voice now and again interjecting soft
reflections and exclamations.
“Shall I set it free?” I asked her.
She turned upon me and replied, “Ah, monsieur, I hoped you
would--without my asking. You are a prisoner too,” she added; “one
captive should feel for another.”
“And the freeman for both,” I answered meaningly, as I softly opened the
cage.
She did not drop her eyes, but raised them shining honestly and frankly
to mine, and said, “I wished you to think that.”
Opening the cage door wide, I called the little captive to freedom.
But while we stood close by it would not stir, and the look in its eyes
became wilder. I moved away, and Alixe followed me. Standing beside
an old well we waited and watched. Presently the hawk dropped from the
perch, hopped to the door, then with a wild spring was gone, up, up, up,
and was away over the maple woods beyond, lost in the sun and the good
air.
I know not quite why I dwell on this scene, save that it throws some
little light upon her nature, and shows how simple and yet deep she was
in soul, and what was the fashion of our friendship. But I can perhaps
give a deeper insight of her character if I here set down the substance
of a letter written about that time, which came into my possession long
afterwards. It was her custom to write her letters first in a book, and
afterwards to copy them for posting. This she did that they might be an
impulse to her friendships and a record of her feelings.