Yes, of course they got off—the next day. At the foot of the island, two miles below, there is a place where the water runs quieter, and a BATEAU can cross from the main shore. Francois was frightened when the others did not come back in the evening. He made his way around to St. Joseph d’Alma, and got a boat to come up and look for their bodies. He found them on the shore, alive and very hungry. But all that has nothing to do with the story.
Nor does it make any difference how Alden spent the rest of his summer in the woods, what kind of fishing he had, or what moved him to leave five hundred dollars with Jean when he went away. That is all padding: leave it out. The first point of interest is what Jean did with the money. A suit of clothes, a new stove, and a set of kitchen utensils for the log house opposite Grosse Ile, a trip to Quebec, a little game of “Blof Americain” in the back room of the Hotel du Nord,—that was the end of the money.
This is not a Sunday-school story. Jean was no saint. Even as a hero he had his weak points. But after his own fashion he was a pretty good kind of a marquis. He took his headache the next morning as a matter of course, and his empty pocket as a trick of fortune. With the nobility, he knew very well, such things often happen; but the nobility do not complain about it. They go ahead, as if it was a bagatelle.
Before the week was out Jean was on his way to a lumber-shanty on the St. Maurice River, to cook for a crew of thirty men all winter.
The cook’s position in camp is curious,—half menial, half superior. It is no place for a feeble man. But a cook who is strong in the back and quick with his fists can make his office much respected. Wages, forty dollars a month; duties, to keep the pea-soup kettle always hot and the bread-pan always full, to stand the jokes of the camp up to a certain point, and after that to whip two or three of the most active humourists.
Jean performed all his duties to perfect satisfaction. Naturally most of the jokes turned upon his great expectations. With two of the principal jokers he had exchanged the usual and conclusive form of repartee,—flattened them out literally. The ordinary BADINAGE he did not mind in the least; it rather pleased him.
But about the first of January a new hand came into the camp,—a big, black-haired fellow from Three Rivers, Pierre Lamotte DIT Theophile. With him it was different. There seemed to be something serious in his jests about “the marquis.” It was not fun; it was mockery; always on the edge of anger. He acted as if he would be glad to make Jean ridiculous in any way.
Finally the matter came to a head. Something happened to the soup one Sunday morning—tobacco probably. Certainly it was very bad, only fit to throw away; and the whole camp was mad. It was not really Pierre who played the trick; but it was he who sneered that the camp would be better off if the cook knew less about castles and more about cooking. Jean answered that what the camp needed was to get rid of a badreux who thought it was a joke to poison the soup. Pierre took this as a personal allusion and requested him to discuss the question outside. But before the discussion began he made some general remarks about the character and pretensions of Jean.
“A marquis!” said he. “This bagoulard gives himself out for a marquis! He is nothing of the kind,—a rank humbug. There is a title in the family, an estate in France, it is true. But it is mine. I have seen the papers. I have paid money to the lawyer. I am waiting now for him to arrange the matter. This man knows nothing about it. He is a fraud. I will fight him now and settle the matter.”
If a bucket of ice-water had been thrown over Jean he could not have cooled off more suddenly. He was dazed. Another marquis? This was a complication he had never dreamed of. It overwhelmed him like an avalanche. He must have time to dig himself out of this difficulty.
“But stop,” he cried; “you go too fast. This is more serious than a pot of soup. I must hear about this. Let us talk first, Pierre, and afterwards—”
The camp was delighted. It was a fine comedy,—two fools instead of one. The men pricked up their ears and clamoured for a full explanation, a debate in open court.
But that was not Jean’s way. He had made no secret of his expectations, but he did not care to confide all the details of his family history to a crowd of fellows who would probably not understand and would certainly laugh. Pierre was wrong of course, but at least he was in earnest. That was something.
“This affair is between Pierre and me,” said Jean. “We shall speak of it by ourselves.”
In the snow-muffled forest, that afternoon, where the great tree-trunks rose like pillars of black granite from a marble floor, and the branches of spruce and fir wove a dark green roof above their heads, these two stray shoots of a noble stock tried to untangle their family history. It was little that they knew about it. They could get back to their grandfathers, but beyond that the trail was rather blind. Where they crossed neither Jean nor Pierre could tell. In fact, both of their minds had been empty vessels for the plausible lawyer to fill, and he had filled them with various and windy stuff. There were discrepancies and contradictions, denials and disputes, flashes of anger and clouds of suspicion.
But through all the voluble talk, somehow or other, the two men were drawing closer together. Pierre felt Jean’s force of character, his air of natural leadership, his bonhommie. He thought, “It was a shame for that lawyer to trick such a fine fellow with the story that he was the heir of the family.” Jean, for his part, was impressed by Pierre’s simplicity and firmness of conviction. He thought, “What a mean thing for that lawyer to fool such an innocent as this into supposing himself the inheritor of the title.” What never occurred to either of them was the idea that the lawyer had deceived them both. That was not to be dreamed of. To admit such a thought would have seemed to them like throwing away something of great value which they had just found. The family name, the papers, the links of the genealogy which had been so convincingly set forth,—all this had made an impression on their imagination, stronger than any logical argument. But which was the marquis? That was the question.
“Look here,” said Jean at last, “of what value is it that we fight? We are cousins. You think I am wrong. I think you are wrong. But one of us must be right. Who can tell? There will certainly be something for both of us. Blood is stronger than currant juice. Let us work together and help each other. You come home with me when this job is done. The lawyer returns to St. Gedeon in the spring. He will know. We can see him together. If he has fooled you, you can do what you like to him. When—PARDON, I mean if—I get the title, I will do the fair thing by you. You shall do the same by me. Is it a bargain?”
On this basis the compact was made. The camp was much amazed, not to say disgusted, because there was no fight. Well-meaning efforts were made at intervals through the winter to bring on a crisis. But nothing came of it. The rival claimants had pooled their stock. They acknowledged the tie of blood, and ignored the clash of interests. Together they faced the fire of jokes and stood off the crowd; Pierre frowning and belligerent, Jean smiling and scornful. Practically, they bossed the camp. They were the only men who always shaved on Sunday morning. This was regarded as foppish.
The popular disappointment deepened into a general sense of injury. In March, when the cut of timber was finished and the logs were all hauled to the edge of the river, to lie there until the ice should break and the “drive” begin, the time arrived for the camp to close. The last night, under the inspiration drawn from sundry bottles which had been smuggled in to celebrate the occasion, a plan was concocted in the stables to humble “the nobility” with a grand display of humour. Jean was to be crowned as marquis with a bridle and blinders:
Pierre was to be anointed as count, with a dipperful of harness-oil; after that the fun would be impromptu.
The impromptu part of the programme began earlier than it was advertised. Some whisper of the plan had leaked through the chinks of the wall between the shanty and the stable. When the crowd came shambling into the cabin, snickering and nudging one another, Jean and Pierre were standing by the stove at the upper end of the long table.
“Down with the canaille!” shouted Jean.
“Clean out the gang!” responded Pierre.
Brandishing long-handled frying-pans, they charged down the sides of the table. The mob wavered, turned, and were lost! Helter-skelter they fled, tumbling over one another in their haste to escape. The lamp was smashed. The benches were upset. In the smoky hall a furious din arose,—as if Sir Galahad and Sir Percivale were once more hewing their way through the castle of Carteloise. Fear fell upon the multitude, and they cried aloud grievously in their dismay. The blows of the weapons echoed mightily in the darkness, and the two knights laid about them grimly and with great joy. The door was too narrow for the flight. Some of the men crept under the lowest berths; others hid beneath the table. Two, endeavouring to escape by the windows, stuck fast, exposing a broad and undefended mark to the pursuers. Here the last strokes of the conflict were delivered.
“One for the marquis!” cried Jean, bringing down his weapon with a sounding whack.
“Two for the count!” cried Pierre, making his pan crack like the blow of a beaver’s tail when he dives.
Then they went out into the snowy night, and sat down together on the sill of the stable-door, and laughed until the tears ran down their cheeks.
“My faith!” said Jean. “That was like the ancient time. It is from the good wood that strong paddles are made,—eh, cousin?” And after that there was a friendship between the two men that could not have been cut with the sharpest axe in Quebec.
The plan of going back to St. Gedeon, to wait for the return of the lawyer, was not carried out. Several of the little gods that use their own indiscretion in arranging the pieces on the puzzle-map of life, interfered with it.
The first to meddle was that highly irresponsible deity with the bow and arrows, who has no respect for rank or age, but reserves all his attention for sex.
When the camp on the St. Maurice dissolved, Jean went down with Pierre to Three Rivers for a short visit. There was a snug house on a high bank above the river, a couple of miles from the town. A wife and an armful of children gave assurance that the race of La Motte de la Luciere should not die out on this side of the ocean.
There was also a little sister-in-law, Alma Grenou. If you had seen her you would not have wondered at what happened. Eyes like a deer, face like a mayflower, voice like the “D” string in a ‘cello,—she was the picture of Drummond’s girl in “The Habitant”:
“She’s nicer girl on whole Comte, an’ jus’ got eighteen year—Black eye, black hair, and cheek rosee dat’s lak wan Fameuseon de fall;But don’t spik much,—not of dat kin’,—I can’t say she loveme at all.”
With her Jean plunged into love. It was not a gradual approach, like gliding down a smooth stream. It was not a swift descent, like running a lively rapid. It was a veritable plunge, like going over a chute. He did not know precisely what had happened to him at first; but he knew very soon what to do about it.
The return to Lake St. John was postponed till a more convenient season: after the snow had melted and the ice had broken up—probably the lawyer would not make his visit before that. If he arrived sooner, he would come back again; he wanted his money, that was certain. Besides, what was more likely than that he should come also to see Pierre? He had promised to do so. At all events, they would wait at Three Rivers for a while.
The first week Jean told Alma that she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. She tossed her head and expressed a conviction that he was joking. She suggested that he was in the habit of saying the same thing to every girl.
The second week he made a long stride in his wooing. He took her out sleighing on the last remnant of the snow,—very thin and bumpy,—and utilized the occasion to put his arm around her waist. She cried “Laisse-moi tranquille, Jean!” boxed his ears, and said she thought he must be out of his mind.
The following Saturday afternoon he craftily came behind her in the stable as she was milking the cow, and bent her head back and kissed her on the face. She began to cry, and said he had taken an unfair advantage, while her hands were busy. She hated him.
“Well, then,” said he, still holding her warm shoulders, “if you hate me, I am going home tomorrow.”
The sobs calmed down quickly. She bent herself forward so that he could see the rosy nape of her neck with the curling tendrils of brown hair around it.
“But,” she said, “but, Jean,—do you love me for sure?”
After that the path was level, easy, and very quickly travelled. On Sunday afternoon the priest was notified that his services would be needed for a wedding, the first week in May. Pierre’s consent was genial and hilarious. The marriage suited him exactly. It was a family alliance. It made everything move smooth and certain. The property would be kept together.
But the other little interfering gods had not yet been heard from. One of them, who had special charge of what remained of the soul of the dealer in unclaimed estates, put it into his head to go to Three Rivers first, instead of to St. Gedeon.
He had a good many clients in different parts of the country,—temporary clients, of course,—and it occurred to him that he might as well extract another fifty dollars from Pierre Lamotte DIT Theophile, before going on a longer journey. On his way down from Montreal he stopped in several small towns and slept in beds of various quality.
Another of the little deities (the one that presides over unclean villages; decidedly a false god, but sufficiently powerful) arranged a surprise for the travelling lawyer. It came out at Three Rivers.
He arrived about nightfall, and slept at the hotel, feeling curiously depressed. The next morning he was worse; but he was a resolute and industrious dog, after his own fashion. So he hired a buggy and drove out through the mud to Pierre’s place. They heard the wagon stop at the gate, and went out to see who it was.
The man was hardly recognizable: face pale, lips blue, eyes dull, teeth chattering.
“Get me out of this,” he muttered. “I am dying. God’s sake, be quick!”
They helped him to the house, and he immediately went into a convulsion. From this he passed into a raging fever. Pierre took the buggy and drove posthaste to town for a doctor.
The doctor’s opinion was evidently serious, but his remarks were non-committal.
“Keep him in this room. Give him ten drops of this in water every hour. One of these powders if he becomes violent. One of you must stay with him all the time. Only one, you understand. The rest keep away. I will come back in the morning.”
In the morning the doctor’s face was yet more grave. He examined the patient carefully. Then he turned to Jean, who had acted as nurse.
“I thought so,” said he; “you must all be vaccinated immediately. There is still time, I hope. But what to do with this gentleman, God knows. We can’t send him back to the town. He has the small-pox.”
That was a pretty prelude to a wedding festival. They were all at their wit’s end. While the doctor scratched their arms, they discussed the situation, excitedly and with desperation. Jean was the first to stop chattering and begin to think.
“There is that old cabane of Poulin’s up the road. It is empty these three years. But there is a good spring of water. One could patch the roof at one end and put up a stove.”
“Good!” said the doctor. “But some one to take care of him? It will be a long job, and a bad one.”
“I am going to do that,” said Jean; “it is my place. This gentleman cannot be left to die in the road. Le bon Dieu did not send him here for that. The head of the family”—here he stopped a moment and looked at Pierre, who was silent—“must take the heavy end of the job, and I am ready for it.”
“Good!” said the doctor again. But Alma was crying in the corner of the room.
Four weeks, five weeks, six weeks the vigil in the cabane lasted. The last patches of snow disappeared from the fields one night, as if winter had picked up its rags and vanished. The willows along the brook turned yellow; the grass greened around the spring. Scarlet buds flamed on the swamp maples. A tender mist of foliage spread over the woodlands. The chokecherries burst into a glory of white blossoms. The bluebirds came back, fluting love-songs; and the robins, carolling ballads of joy; and the blackbirds, creaking merrily.
The priest came once and saw the sick man, but everything was going well. It was not necessary to run any extra risks. Every week after that he came and leaned on the fence, talking with Jean in the doorway. When he went away he always lifted three fingers—so—you know the sign? It is a very pleasant one, and it did Jean’s heart good.
Pierre kept the cabane well supplied with provisions, leaving them just inside of the gate. But with the milk it was necessary to be a little careful; so the can was kept in a place by itself, under the out-of-door oven, in the shade. And beside this can Jean would find, every day, something particular,—a blossom of the red geranium that bloomed in the farmhouse window, a piece of cake with plums in it, a bunch of trailing arbutus,—once it was a little bit of blue ribbon, tied in a certain square knot—so—perhaps you know that sign too? That did Jean’s heart good also.
But what kind of conversation was there in the cabane when the sick man’s delirium had passed and he knew what had happened to him? Not much at first, for the man was too weak. After he began to get stronger, he was thinking a great deal, fighting with himself. In the end he came out pretty well—for a lawyer of his kind. Perhaps he was desirous to leave the man whom he had deceived, and who had nursed him back from death, some fragment, as much as possible, of the dream that brightened his life. Perhaps he was only anxious to save as much as he could of his own reputation. At all events, this is what he did.
He told Jean a long story, part truth, part lie, about his investigations. The estate and the title were in the family; that was certain. Jean was the probable heir, if there was any heir; that was almost sure. The part about Pierre had been a—well, a mistake. But the trouble with the whole affair was this. A law made in the days of Napoleon limited the time for which an estate could remain unclaimed. A certain number of years, and then the government took everything. That number of years had just passed. By the old law Jean was probably a marquis with a castle. By the new law?—Frankly, he could not advise a client to incur any more expense. In fact, he intended to return the amount already paid. A hundred and ten dollars, was it not? Yes, and fifty dollars for the six weeks of nursing. VOILA, a draft on Montreal, a hundred and sixty dollars,—as good as gold! And beside that, there was the incalculable debt for this great kindness to a sick man, for which he would always be M. de la Motte’s grateful debtor!
The lawyer’s pock-marked face—the scars still red and angry—lit up with a curious mixed light of shrewdness and gratitude. Jean was somewhat moved. His castle was in ruins. But he remained noble—by the old law; that was something!
A few days later the doctor pronounced it safe to move the patient. He came with a carriage to fetch him. Jean, well fumigated and dressed in a new suit of clothes, walked down the road beside them to the farm-house gate. There Alma met him with both hands. His eyes embraced her. The air of June was radiant about them. The fragrance of the woods breathed itself over the broad valley. A song sparrow poured his heart out from a blossoming lilac. The world was large, and free, and very good. And between the lovers there was nothing but a little gate.
“I understand,” said the doctor, smiling, as he tightened up the reins, “I understand that there is a title in your family, M. de la Motte, in effect that you are a marquis?”
“It is true,” said Jean, turning his head, “at least so I think.”
“So do I,” said the doctor “But you had better go in, MONSIEUR LE MARQUIS—you keep MADAME LA MARQUISE waiting.”
At long distance, looking over the blue waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in clear weather, you might think that you saw a lonely sea-gull, snow-white, perching motionless on a cobble of gray rock. Then, as your boat drifted in, following the languid tide and the soft southern breeze, you would perceive that the cobble of rock was a rugged hill with a few bushes and stunted trees growing in the crevices, and that the gleaming speck near the summit must be some kind of a building—if you were on the coast of Italy or Spain you would say a villa or a farm-house. Then, as you floated still farther north and drew nearer to the coast, the desolate hill would detach itself from the mainland and become a little mountain-isle, with a flock of smaller islets clustering around it as a brood of wild ducks keep close to their mother, and with deep water, nearly two miles wide, flowing between it and the shore; while the shining speck on the seaward side stood out clearly as a low, whitewashed dwelling with a sturdy round tower at one end, crowned with a big eight-sided lantern—a solitary lighthouse.
That is the Isle of the Wise Virgin. Behind it the long blue Laurentian Mountains, clothed with unbroken forest, rise in sombre ranges toward the Height of Land. In front of it the waters of the gulf heave and sparkle far away to where the dim peaks of St. Anne des Monts are traced along the southern horizon. Sheltered a little, but not completely, by the island breakwater of granite, lies the rocky beach of Dead Men’s Point, where an English navy was wrecked in a night of storm a hundred years ago.
There are a score of wooden houses, a tiny, weather-beaten chapel, a Hudson Bay Company’s store, a row of platforms for drying fish, and a varied assortment of boats and nets, strung along the beach now. Dead Men’s Point has developed into a centre of industry, with a life, a tradition, a social character of its own. And in one of those houses, as you sit at the door in the lingering June twilight, looking out across the deep channel to where the lantern of the tower is just beginning to glow with orange radiance above the shadow of the island—in that far-away place, in that mystical hour, you should hear the story of the light and its keeper.
When the lighthouse was built, many years ago, the island had another name. It was called the Isle of Birds. Thousands of sea-fowl nested there. The handful of people who lived on the shore robbed the nests and slaughtered the birds, with considerable profit. It was perceived in advance that the building of the lighthouse would interfere with this, and with other things. Hence it was not altogether a popular improvement. Marcel Thibault, the oldest inhabitant, was the leader of the opposition.
“That lighthouse!” said he, “what good will it be for us? We know the way in and out when it makes clear weather, by day or by night. But when the sky gets swampy, when it makes fog, then we stay with ourselves at home, or we run into La Trinite, or Pentecote. We know the way. What? The stranger boats? B’EN! the stranger boats need not to come here, if they know not the way. The more fish, the more seals, the more everything will there be left for us. Just because of the stranger boats, to build something that makes all the birds wild and spoils the hunting—that is a fool’s work. The good God made no stupid light on the Isle of Birds. He saw no necessity of it.”
“Besides,” continued Thibault, puffing slowly at his pipe, “besides—those stranger boats, sometimes they are lost, they come ashore. It is sad! But who gets the things that are saved, all sorts of things, good to put into our houses, good to eat, good to sell, sometimes a boat that can be patched up almost like new—who gets these things, eh? Doubtless those for whom the good God intended them. But who shall get them when this sacre lighthouse is built, eh? Tell me that, you Baptiste Fortin.”
Fortin represented the party of progress in the little parliament of the beach. He had come down from Quebec some years ago bringing with him a wife and two little daughters, and a good many new notions about life. He had good luck at the cod-fishing, and built a house with windows at the side as well as in front. When his third girl, Nataline, was born, he went so far as to paint the house red, and put on a kitchen, and enclose a bit of ground for a yard. This marked him as a radical, an innovator. It was expected that he would defend the building of the lighthouse. And he did.
“Monsieur Thibault,” he said, “you talk well, but you talk too late. It is of a past age, your talk. A new time comes to the Cote Nord. We begin to civilize ourselves. To hold back against the light would be our shame. Tell me this, Marcel Thibault, what men are they that love darkness?”
“TORRIEUX!” growled Thibault, “that is a little strong. You say my deeds are evil?”
“No, no,” answered Fortin; “I say not that, my friend, but I say this lighthouse means good: good for us, and good for all who come to this coast. It will bring more trade to us. It will bring a boat with the mail, with newspapers, perhaps once, perhaps twice a month, all through the summer. It will bring us into the great world. To lose that for the sake of a few birds—CA SERA B’EN DE VALEUR! Besides, it is impossible. The lighthouse is coming, certain.”
Fortin was right, of course. But Thibault’s position was not altogether unnatural, nor unfamiliar. All over the world, for the past hundred years, people have been kicking against the sharpness of the pricks that drove them forward out of the old life, the wild life, the free life, grown dear to them because it was so easy. There has been a terrible interference with bird-nesting and other things. All over the world the great Something that bridges rivers, and tunnels mountains, and fells forests, and populates deserts, and opens up the hidden corners of the earth, has been pushing steadily on; and the people who like things to remain as they are have had to give up a great deal. There was no exception made in favour of Dead Men’s Point. The Isle of Birds lay in the line of progress. The lighthouse arrived.
It was a very good house for that day. The keeper’s dwelling had three rooms and was solidly built. The tower was thirty feet high. The lantern held a revolving light, with a four-wick Fresnel lamp, burning sperm oil. There was one of Stevenson’s new cages of dioptric prisms around the flame, and once every minute it was turned by clockwork, flashing a broad belt of radiance fifteen miles across the sea. All night long that big bright eye was opening and shutting. “BAGUETTE!” said Thibault, “it winks like a one-eyed Windigo.”
The Department of Marine and Fisheries sent down an expert from Quebec to keep the light in order and run it for the first summer. He took Fortin as his assistant. By the end of August he reported to headquarters that the light was all right, and that Fortin was qualified to be appointed keeper. Before October was out the certificate of appointment came back, and the expert packed his bag to go up the river.
“Now look here, Fortin,” said he, “this is no fishing trip. Do you think you are up to this job?”
“I suppose,” said Fortin.
“Well now, do you remember all this business about the machinery that turns the lenses? That ‘s the main thing. The bearings must be kept well oiled, and the weight must never get out of order. The clock-face will tell you when it is running right. If anything gets hitched up here’s the crank to keep it going until you can straighten the machine again. It’s easy enough to turn it. But you must never let it stop between dark and daylight. The regular turn once a minute—that’s the mark of this light. If it shines steady it might as well be out. Yes, better! Any vessel coming along here in a dirty night and seeing a fixed light would take it for the Cap Loup-Marin and run ashore. This particular light has got to revolve once a minute every night from April first to December tenth, certain. Can you do it?”
“Certain,” said Fortin.
“That’s the way I like to hear a man talk! Now, you’ve got oil enough to last you through till the tenth of December, when you close the light, and to run on for a month in the spring after you open again. The ice may be late in going out and perhaps the supply-boat can’t get down before the middle of April, or thereabouts. But she’ll bring plenty of oil when she comes, so you’ll be all right.”
“All right,” said Fortin.
“Well, I’ve said it all, I guess. You understand what you’ve got to do? Good-by and good luck. You’re the keeper of the light now.”
“Good luck,” said Fortin, “I am going to keep it.” The same day he shut up the red house on the beach and moved to the white house on the island with Marie-Anne, his wife, and the three girls, Alma, aged seventeen, Azilda, aged fifteen, and Nataline, aged thirteen. He was the captain, and Marie-Anne was the mate, and the three girls were the crew. They were all as full of happy pride as if they had come into possession of a great fortune.
It was the thirty-first day of October. A snow-shower had silvered the island. The afternoon was clear and beautiful. As the sun sloped toward the rose-coloured hills of the mainland the whole family stood out in front of the lighthouse looking up at the tower.
“Regard him well, my children,” said Baptiste; “God has given him to us to keep, and to keep us. Thibault says he is a Windigo. B’EN! We shall see that he is a friendly Windigo. Every minute all the night he shall wink, just for kindness and good luck to all the world, till the daylight.”
On the ninth of November, at three o’clock in the afternoon, Baptiste went into the tower to see that the clockwork was in order for the night. He set the dial on the machine, put a few drops of oil on the bearings of the cylinder, and started to wind up the weight.
It rose a few inches, gave a dull click, and then stopped dead. He tugged a little harder, but it would not move. Then he tried to let it down. He pushed at the lever that set the clockwork in motion.
He might as well have tried to make the island turn around by pushing at one of the little spruce trees that clung to the rock.
Then it dawned fearfully upon him that something must be wrong. Trembling with anxiety, he climbed up and peered in among the wheels.
The escapement wheel was cracked clean through, as if some one had struck it with the head of an axe, and one of the pallets of the spindle was stuck fast in the crack. He could knock it out easily enough, but when the crack came around again, the pallet would catch and the clock would stop once more. It was a fatal injury.
Baptiste turned white, then red, gripped his head in his hands, and ran down the steps, out of the door, straight toward his canoe, which was pulled up on the western side of the island.
“DAME!” he cried, “who has done this? Let me catch him! If that old Thibault—”
As he leaped down the rocky slope the setting sun gleamed straight in his eyes. It was poised like a ball of fire on the very edge of the mountains. Five minutes more and it would be gone. Fifteen minutes more and darkness would close in. Then the giant’s eye must begin to glow, and to wink precisely once a minute all night long. If not, what became of the keeper’s word, his faith, his honour?
No matter how the injury to the clockwork was done. No matter who was to be blamed or punished for it. That could wait. The question now was whether the light would fail or not. And it must be answered within a quarter of an hour.
That red ray of the vanishing sun was like a blow in the face to Baptiste. It stopped him short, dazed and bewildered. Then he came to himself, wheeled, and ran up the rocks faster than he had come down.
“Marie-Anne! Alma!” he shouted, as he dashed past the door of the house, “all of you! To me, in the tower!”
He was up in the lantern when they came running in, full of curiosity, excited, asking twenty questions at once. Nataline climbed up the ladder and put her head through the trap-door.
“What is it?” she panted. “What has hap—”
“Go down,” answered her father, “go down all at once. Wait for me. I am coming. I will explain.”
The explanation was not altogether lucid and scientific. There were some bad words mixed up with it.
Baptiste was still hot with anger and the unsatisfied desire to whip somebody, he did not know whom, for something, he did not know what. But angry as he was, he was still sane enough to hold his mind hard and close to the main point. The crank must be adjusted; the machine must be ready to turn before dark. While he worked he hastily made the situation clear to his listeners.
That crank must be turned by hand, round and round all night, not too slow, not too fast. The dial on the machine must mark time with the clock on the wall. The light must flash once every minute until daybreak. He would do as much of the labour as he could, but the wife and the two older girls must help him. Nataline could go to bed.
At this Nataline’s short upper lip trembled. She rubbed her eyes with the sleeve of her dress, and began to weep silently.
“What is the matter with you?” said her mother, “bad child, have you fear to sleep alone? A big girl like you!”
“No,” she sobbed, “I have no fear, but I want some of the fun.”
“Fun!” growled her father. “What fun? NOM D’UN CHIEN! She calls this fun!” He looked at her for a moment, as she stood there, half defiant, half despondent, with her red mouth quivering and her big brown eyes sparkling fire; then he burst into a hearty laugh.
“Come here, my little wild-cat,” he said, drawing her to him and kissing her; “you are a good girl after all. I suppose you think this light is part yours, eh?”
The girl nodded.
“B’EN! You shall have your share, fun and all. You shall make the tea for us and bring us something to eat. Perhaps when Alma and ‘Zilda fatigue themselves they will permit a few turns of the crank to you. Are you content? Run now and boil the kettle.”
It was a very long night. No matter how easily a handle turns, after a certain number of revolutions there is a stiffness about it. The stiffness is not in the handle, but in the hand that pushes it.
Round and round, evenly, steadily, minute after minute, hour after hour, shoving out, drawing in, circle after circle, no swerving, no stopping, no varying the motion, turn after turn—fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven—what’s the use of counting? Watch the dial; go to sleep—no! for God’s sake, no sleep! But how hard it is to keep awake! How heavy the arm grows, how stiffly the muscles move, how the will creaks and groans. BATISCAN! It is not easy for a human being to become part of a machine.
Fortin himself took the longest spell at the crank, of course. He went at his work with a rigid courage. His red-hot anger had cooled down into a shape that was like a bar of forged steel. He meant to make that light revolve if it killed him to do it. He was the captain of a company that had run into an ambuscade. He was going to fight his way through if he had to fight alone.
The wife and the two older girls followed him blindly and bravely, in the habit of sheer obedience. They did not quite understand the meaning of the task, the honour of victory, the shame of defeat. But Fortin said it must be done, and he knew best. So they took their places in turn, as he grew weary, and kept the light flashing.
And Nataline—well, there is no way of describing what Nataline did, except to say that she played the fife.
She felt the contest just as her father did, not as deeply, perhaps, but in the same spirit. She went into the fight with darkness like a little soldier. And she played the fife.
When she came up from the kitchen with the smoking pail of tea, she rapped on the door and called out to know whether the Windigo was at home to-night.
She ran in and out of the place like a squirrel. She looked up at the light and laughed. Then she ran in and reported. “He winks,” she said, “old one-eye winks beautifully. Keep him going. My turn now!”
She refused to be put off with a shorter spell than the other girls. “No,” she cried, “I can do it as well as you. You think you are so much older. Well, what of that? The light is part mine; father said so. Let me turn, va-t-en.”
When the first glimmer of the little day came shivering along the eastern horizon, Nataline was at the crank. The mother and the two older girls were half asleep. Baptiste stepped out to look at the sky. “Come,” he cried, returning. “We can stop now, it is growing gray in the east, almost morning.”
“But not yet,” said Nataline; “we must wait for the first red. A few more turns. Let’s finish it up with a song.”
She shook her head and piped up the refrain of the old Canadian chanson:
“En roulant ma boule-le roulantEn roulant ma bou-le.”
And to that cheerful music the first night’s battle was carried through to victory.
The next day Fortin spent two hours in trying to repair the clockwork. It was of no use. The broken part was indispensable and could not be replaced.
At noon he went over to the mainland to tell of the disaster, and perhaps to find out if any hostile hand was responsible for it. He found out nothing. Every one denied all knowledge of the accident. Perhaps there was a flaw in the wheel; perhaps it had broken itself. That was possible. Fortin could not deny it; but the thing that hurt him most was that he got so little sympathy. Nobody seemed to care whether the light was kept burning or not. When he told them how the machine had been turned all night by hand, they were astonished. “CRE-IE!” they cried, “you must have had a great misery to do that.” But that he proposed to go on doing it for a month longer, until December tenth, and to begin again on April first, and go on turning the light by hand for three or four weeks more until the supply-boat came down and brought the necessary tools to repair the machine—such an idea as this went beyond their horizon.
“But you are crazy, Baptiste,” they said, “you can never do it; you are not capable.”
“I would be crazy,” he answered, “if I did not see what I must do. That light is my charge. In all the world there is nothing else so great as that for me and for my family—you understand? For us it is the chief thing. It is my Ten Commandments. I shall keep it or be damned.”
There was a silence after this remark. They were not very particular about the use of language at Dead Men’s Point, but this shocked them a little. They thought that Fortin was swearing a shade too hard. In reality he was never more reverent, never more soberly in earnest.
After a while he continued, “I want some one to help me with the work on the island. We must be up all the nights now. By day we must get some sleep. I want another man or a strong boy. Is there any who will come? The Government will pay. Or if not, I will pay, moi-meme.”
There was no response. All the men hung back. The lighthouse was still unpopular, or at least it was on trial. Fortin’s pluck and resolution had undoubtedly impressed them a little. But they still hesitated to commit themselves to his side.
“B’en,” he said, “there is no one. Then we shall manage the affair en famille. Bon soir, messieurs!”
He walked down to the beach with his head in the air, without looking back. But before he had his canoe in the water he heard some one running down behind him. It was Thibault’s youngest son, Marcel, a well-grown boy of sixteen, very much out of breath with running and shyness.
“Monsieur Fortin,” he stammered, “will you—do you think—am I big enough?”
Baptiste looked him in the face for a moment. Then his eyes twinkled.
“Certain,” he answered, “you are bigger than your father. But what will he say to this?”
“He says,” blurted out Marcel—“well, he says that he will say nothing if I do not ask him.”
So the little Marcel was enlisted in the crew on the island. For thirty nights those six people—a man, and a boy, and four women (Nataline was not going to submit to any distinctions on the score of age, you may be sure)—for a full month they turned their flashing lantern by hand from dusk to day-break.
The fog, the frost, the hail, the snow beleaguered their tower. Hunger and cold, sleeplessness and weariness, pain and discouragement, held rendezvous in that dismal, cramped little room. Many a night Nataline’s fife of fun played a feeble, wheezy note. But it played. And the crank went round. And every bit of glass in the lantern was as clear as polished crystal. And the big lamp was full of oil. And the great eye of the friendly giant winked without ceasing, through fierce storm and placid moonlight.
When the tenth of December came, the light went to sleep for the winter, and the keepers took their way across the ice to the mainland. They had won the battle, not only on the island, fighting against the elements, but also at Dead Men’s Point, against public opinion. The inhabitants began to understand that the lighthouse meant something—a law, an order, a principle.
Men cannot help feeling respect for a thing when they see others willing to fight or to suffer for it.
When the time arrived to kindle the light again in the spring, Fortin could have had any one that he wanted to help him. But no; he chose the little Marcel again; the boy wanted to go, and he had earned the right. Besides, he and Nataline had struck up a close friendship on the island, cemented during the winter by various hunting excursions after hares and ptarmigan. Marcel was a skilful setter of snares. But Nataline was not content until she had won consent to borrow her father’s CARABINE. They hunted in partnership. One day they had shot a fox. That is, Nataline had shot it, though Marcel had seen it first and tracked it. Now they wanted to try for a seal on the point of the island when the ice went out. It was quite essential that Marcel should go.
“Besides,” said Baptiste to his wife, confidentially, “a boy costs less than a man. Why should we waste money? Marcel is best.”
A peasant-hero is seldom averse to economy in small things, like money.
But there was not much play in the spring session with the light on the island. It was a bitter job. December had been lamb-like compared with April. First, the southeast wind kept the ice driving in along the shore. Then the northwest wind came hurtling down from the Arctic wilderness like a pack of wolves. There was a snow-storm of four days and nights that made the whole world—earth and sky and sea—look like a crazy white chaos. And through it all, that weary, dogged crank must be kept turning—turning from dark to daylight.
It seemed as if the supply-boat would never come. At last they saw it, one fair afternoon, April the twenty-ninth, creeping slowly down the coast. They were just getting ready for another night’s work.
Fortin ran out of the tower, took off his hat, and began to say his prayers. The wife and the two elder girls stood in the kitchen door, crossing themselves, with tears in their eyes. Marcel and Nataline were coming up from the point of the island, where they had been watching for their seal. She was singing