Old Man Savarin and Other Stories

E >> Edward William Thomson >> Old Man Savarin and Other Stories

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Our young surveyor took no thought of the beauty and majesty of the
forest he was leaving. His thoughts and those of his men were set
solely on getting ahead; for all hands had been promised double pay
for their whole winter, in case they should succeed in running a line
round the disputed Moose Lake timber berth before the tenth of April.

Their success would secure the claim of their employer, Old Dan
McEachran, whereas their failure would submit him perhaps to the loss
of the limit, and certainly to a costly lawsuit with "Old Rory"
Carmichael, another potentate of the Upper Ottawa.

At least six weeks more of fair snow-shoeing would be needed to
"blaze" out the limit, even if the unknown country before them should
turn out to be less broken by cedar swamps and high precipices than
they feared. A few days' thaw with rain would make slush of the eight
feet of snow, and compel the party either to keep in camp, or risk
_mal de raquette_,--strain of legs by heavy snow-shoeing. So they were
in great haste to make the best of fine weather.

Tom thrust his Jacob's-staff into the snow, set the compass sights to
the right bearing, looked through them, and stood by to let Big
Baptiste get a course along the line ahead. Baptiste's duty was to
walk straight for some selected object far away on the line. In
woodland the axemen "blazed" trees on both sides of his snow-shoe
track.

Baptiste was as expert at his job as any Indian, and indeed he looked
as if he had a streak of Iroquois in his veins. So did "Frawce,"
"Jawnny," and all their comrades of the party.

"The three pines will do," said Tom, as Baptiste crouched.

"Good luck to-day for sure!" cried Baptiste, rising with his eyes
fixed on three pines in the foreground of the distant timbered ridge.
He saw that the line did indeed run clear of trees for two miles along
one side of the long, narrow beaver meadow or swale.

Baptiste drew a deep breath, and grinned agreeably at Tom Dunscombe.

"De boys will look like dey's all got de double pay in dey's pocket
when dey's see _dis_ open," said Baptiste, and started for the three
pines as straight as a bee.

Tom waited to get from the chainmen the distance to the edge of the
wood. They came on the heels of the axemen, and all capered on their
snow-shoes to see so long a space free from cutting.

It was now two o'clock; they had marched with forty pound or "light"
packs since daylight, lunching on cold pork and hard-tack as they
worked; they had slept cold for weeks on brush under an open tent
pitched over a hole in the snow; they must live this life of hardship
and huge work for six weeks longer, but they hoped to get twice their
usual eighty-cents-a-day pay, and so their hearts were light and
jolly.

But Big Baptiste, now two hundred yards in advance, swinging along in
full view of the party, stopped with a scared cry. They saw him look
to the left and to the right, and over his shoulder behind, like a man
who expects mortal attack from a near but unknown quarter.

"What's the matter?" shouted Tom.

Baptiste went forward a few steps, hesitated, stopped, turned, and
fairly ran back toward the party. As he came he continually turned
his head from side to side as if expecting to see some dreadful thing
following.

The men behind Tom stopped. Their faces were blanched. They looked,
too, from side to side.

"Halt, Mr. Tom, halt! Oh, _monjee_, M'sieu, stop!" said Jawnny.

Tom looked round at his men, amazed at their faces of mysterious
terror.

"What on earth has happened?" cried he.

Instead of answering, the men simply pointed to Big Baptiste, who was
soon within twenty yards.

"What is the trouble, Baptiste?" asked Tom.

Baptiste's face was the hue of death. As he spoke he shuddered:--

"_Monjee_, Mr. Tom, we'll got for stop de job!"

"Stop the job! Are you crazy?"

"If you'll not b'lieve what I told, den you go'n' see for you'se'f."

"What is it?"

"De track, seh."

"What track? Wolves?"

"If it was only wolfs!"

"Confound you! can't you say what it is?"

"Eet's de--It ain't safe for told its name out loud, for dass de way
it come--if it's call by its name!"

"Windego, eh?" said Tom, laughing.

"I'll know its track jus' as quick 's I see it."

"Do you mean you have seen a Windego track?"

"_Monjee_, seh, _don't_ say its name! Let us go back," said Jawnny.
"Baptiste was at Madores' shanty with us when it took Hermidas
Dubois."

"Yesseh. That's de way I'll come for know de track soon 's I see it,"
said Baptiste. "Before den I mos' don' b'lieve dere was any of it. But
ain't it take Hermidas Dubois only last New Year's?"

"That was all nonsense about Dubois. I'll bet it was a joke to scare
you all."

"Who 's kill a man for a joke?" said Baptiste.

"Did you see Hermidas Dubois killed? Did you see him dead? No! I heard
all about it. All you know is that he went away on New Year's morning,
when the rest of the men were too scared to leave the shanty, because
some one said there was a Windego track outside."

"Hermidas never come back!"

"I'll bet he went away home. You'll find him at Saint Agathe in the
spring. You can't be such fools as to believe in Windegos."

"Don't you say dat name some more!" yelled Big Baptiste, now fierce
with fright. "Hain't I just seen de track? I'm go'n' back, me, if I
don't get a copper of pay for de whole winter!"

"Wait a little now, Baptiste," said Tom, alarmed lest his party should
desert him and the job. "I'll soon find out what's at the bottom of
the track."

"Dere's blood at de bottom--I seen it!" said Baptiste.

"Well, you wait till _I_ go and see it."

"No! I go back, me," said Baptiste, and started up the slope with the
others at his heels.

"Halt! Stop there! Halt, you fools! Don't you understand that if there
was any such monster it would as easily catch you in one place as
another?"

The men went on. Tom took another tone.

"Boys, look here! I say, are you going to desert me like cowards?"

"Hain't goin' for desert you, Mr. Tom, no seh!" said Baptiste,
halting. "Honly I'll hain' go for cross de track." They all faced
round.

Tom was acquainted with a considerable number of Windego
superstitions.

"There's no danger unless it's a fresh track," he said. "Perhaps it's
an old one."

"Fresh made dis mornin'," said Baptiste.

"Well, wait till I go and see it. You're all right, you know, if you
don't cross it. Isn't that the idea?"

"No, seh. Mr. Humphreys told Madore 'bout dat. Eef somebody cross de
track and don't never come back, _den_ de magic ain't in de track no
more. But it's watchin', watchin' all round to catch somebody what
cross its track; and if nobody don't cross its track and get catched,
den de--de _Ting_ mebby get crazy mad, and nobody don' know what it's
goin' for do. Kill every person, mebby."

Tom mused over this information. These men had all been in Madore's
shanty; Madore was under Red Dick Humphreys; Red Dick was Rory
Carmichael's head foreman; he had sworn to stop the survey by hook or
by crook, and this vow had been made after Tom had hired his gang from
among those scared away from Madore's shanty. Tom thought he began to
understand the situation.

"Just wait a bit, boys," he said, and started.

"You ain't surely go'n' to cross de track?" cried Baptiste.

"Not now, anyway," said Tom. "But wait till I see it."

When he reached the mysterious track it surprised him so greatly that
he easily forgave Baptiste's fears.

If a giant having ill-shaped feet as long as Tom's snow-shoes had
passed by in moccasins, the main features of the indentations might
have been produced. But the marks were no deeper in the snow than if
the huge moccasins had been worn by an ordinary man. They were about
five and a half feet apart from centres, a stride that no human legs
could take at a walking pace.

Moreover, there were on the snow none of the dragging marks of
striding; the gigantic feet had apparently been lifted straight up
clear of the snow, and put straight down.

Strangest of all, at the front of each print were five narrow holes
which suggested that the mysterious creature had travelled with bare,
claw-like toes. An irregular drip or squirt of blood went along the
middle of the indentations! Nevertheless, the whole thing seemed of
human devising.

This track, Tom reflected, was consistent with the Indian superstition
that Windegos are monsters who take on or relinquish the human form,
and vary their size at pleasure. He perceived that he must bring the
maker of those tracks promptly to book, or suffer his men to desert
the survey, and cost him his whole winter's work, besides making him a
laughingstock in the settlements.

The young fellow made his decision instantly. After feeling for his
match-box and sheath-knife, he took his hatchet from his sash, and
called to the men.

"Go into camp and wait for me!"

Then he set off alongside of the mysterious track at his best pace. It
came out of a tangle of alders to the west, and went into such another
tangle about a quarter of a mile to the east. Tom went east. The men
watched him with horror.

"He's got crazy, looking at de track," said Big Baptiste, "for that's
the way,--one is enchanted,--he must follow."

"He was a good boss," said Jawnny, sadly.

As the young fellow disappeared in the alders the men looked at one
another with a certain shame. Not a sound except the sough of pines
from the neighboring forest was heard. Though the sun was sinking in
clear blue, the aspect of the wilderness, gray and white and severe,
touched the impressionable men with deeper melancholy. They felt
lonely, masterless, mean.

"He was a good boss," said Jawnny again.

"_Tort Dieu!_" cried Baptiste, leaping to his feet. "It's a shame to
desert the young boss. I don't care; the Windego can only kill me. I'm
going to help Mr. Tom."

"Me also," said Jawnny.

Then all wished to go. But after some parley it was agreed that the
others should wait for the portageurs, who were likely to be two miles
behind, and make camp for the night.

Soon Baptiste and Jawnny, each with his axe, started diagonally across
the swale, and entered the alders on Tom's track.

It took them twenty yards through the alders, to the edge of a warm
spring or marsh about fifty yards wide. This open, shallow water was
completely encircled by alders that came down to its very edge. Tom's
snow-shoe track joined the track of the mysterious monster for the
first time on the edge--and there both vanished!

Baptiste and Jawnny looked at the place with the wildest terror, and
without even thinking to search the deeply indented opposite edges of
the little pool for a reappearance of the tracks, fled back to the
party. It was just as Red Dick Humphreys had said; just as they had
always heard. Tom, like Hermidas Dubois, appeared to have vanished
from existence the moment he stepped on the Windego track!

* * * * *

The dimness of early evening was in the red-pine forest through which
Tom's party had passed early in the afternoon, and the belated
portageurs were tramping along the line. A man with a red head had
been long crouching in some cedar bushes to the east of the "blazed"
cutting. When he had watched the portageurs pass out of sight, he
stepped over upon their track, and followed it a short distance.

A few minutes later a young fellow, over six feet high, who strongly
resembled Tom Dunscombe, followed the red-headed man.

The stranger, suddenly catching sight of a flame far away ahead on the
edge of the beaver meadow, stopped and fairly hugged himself.

"Camped, by jiminy! I knowed I'd fetch 'em," was the only remark he
made.

"I wish Big Baptiste could see that Windego laugh," thought Tom
Dunscombe, concealed behind a tree.

After reflecting a few moments, the red-headed man, a wiry little
fellow, went forward till he came to where an old pine had recently
fallen across the track. There he kicked off his snow-shoes, picked
them up, ran along the trunk, jumped into the snow from among the
branches, put on his snow-shoes, and started northwestward. His new
track could not be seen from the survey line.

But Tom had beheld and understood the purpose of the manoeuvre. He
made straight for the head of the fallen tree, got on the stranger's
tracks and cautiously followed them, keeping far enough behind to be
out of hearing or sight.

The red-headed stranger went toward the wood out of which the
mysterious track of the morning had come. When he had reached the
little brush-camp in which he had slept the previous night, he made a
small fire, put a small tin pot on it, boiled some tea, broiled a
venison steak, ate his supper, had several good laughs, took a long
smoke, rolled himself round and round in his blanket, and went to
sleep.

Hours passed before Tom ventured to crawl forward and peer into the
brush camp. The red-headed man was lying on his face, as is the custom
of many woodsmen. His capuchin cap covered his red head.

Tom Dunscombe took off his own long sash. When the red-headed man woke
up he found that some one was on his back, holding his head firmly
down.

Unable to extricate his arms or legs from his blankets, the red-headed
man began to utter fearful threats. Tom said not one word, but
diligently wound his sash round his prisoner's head, shoulders, and
arms.

He then rose, took the red-headed man's own "tump-line," a leather
strap about twelve feet long, which tapered from the middle to both
ends, tied this firmly round the angry live mummy, and left him lying
on his face.

Then, collecting his prisoner's axe, snow-shoes, provisions, and tin
pail, Tom started with them back along the Windego track for camp.

Big Baptiste and his comrades had supped too full of fears to go to
sleep. They had built an enormous fire, because Windegos are reported,
in Indian circles, to share with wild beasts the dread of flames and
brands. Tom stole quietly to within fifty yards of the camp, and
suddenly shouted in unearthly fashion. The men sprang up, quaking.

"It's the Windego!" screamed Jawnny.

"You silly fools!" said Tom, coming forward. "Don't you know my voice?
Am I a Windego?"

"It's the Windego, for sure; it's took the shape of Mr. Tom, after
eatin' him," cried Big Baptiste.

Tom laughed so uproariously at this, that the other men scouted the
idea, though it was quite in keeping with their information concerning
Windegos' habits.

Then Tom came in and gave a full and particular account of the
Windego's pursuit, capture, and present predicament.

"But how'd he make de track?" they asked.

"He had two big old snow-shoes, stuffed with spruce tips underneath,
and covered with dressed deerskin. He had cut off the back ends of
them. You shall see them to-morrow. I found them down yonder where he
had left them after crossing the warm spring. He had five bits of
sharp round wood going down in front of them. He must have stood on
them one after the other, and lifted the back one every time with the
pole he carried. I've got that, too. The blood was from a deer he had
run down and killed in the snow. He carried the blood in his tin pail,
and sprinkled it behind him. He must have run out our line long ago
with a compass, so he knew where it would go. But come, let us go and
see if it's Red Dick Humphreys."

Red Dick proved to be the prisoner. He had become quite philosophic
while waiting for his captor to come back. When unbound he grinned
pleasantly, and remarked:--

"You're Mr. Dunscombe, eh? Well, you're a smart young feller, Mr.
Dunscombe. There ain't another man on the Ottaway that could 'a' done
that trick on me. Old Dan McEachran will make your fortun' for this,
and I don't begrudge it. You're a man--that's so. If ever I hear any
feller saying to the contrayry he's got to lick Red Dick Humphreys."

And he told them the particulars of his practical joke in making a
Windego track round Madore's shanty.

"Hermidas Dubois?--oh, he's all right," said Red Dick. "He's at home
at St. Agathe. Man, he helped me to fix up that Windego track at
Madore's; but, by criminy! the look of it scared him so he wouldn't
cross it himself. It was a holy terror!"

THE SHINING CROSS OF RIGAUD.

I.

When Mini was a fortnight old his mother wrapped her head and
shoulders in her ragged shawl, snatched him from the family litter of
straw, and, with a volley of cautionary objurgations to his ten
brothers and sisters, strode angrily forth into the raw November
weather. She went down the hill to the edge of the broad, dark Ottawa,
where thin slices of ice were swashing together. There sat a
hopeless-looking little man at the clumsy oars of a flat-bottomed
boat.

"The little one's feet are out," said the man.

"So much the better! For what was another sent us?" cried Mini's
mother.

"But the little one must be baptized," said the father, with mild
expostulation.

"Give him to me, then," and the man took off his own ragged coat.
Beneath it he had nothing except an equally ragged guernsey, and the
wind was keen. The woman surrendered the child carelessly, and drawing
her shawl closer, sat frowning moodily in the stern. Mini's father
wrapped him in the wretched garment, carefully laid the infant on the
pea-straw at his feet, and rowed wearily away.

They took him to the gray church on the farther shore, whose tall
cross glittered coldly in the wintry sun. There Madame Lajeunesse, the
skilful washerwoman, angry to be taken so long from her tubs, and
Bonhomme Hamel, who never did anything but fish for _barbotes_, met
them. These highly respectable connections of Mini's mother had a
disdain for her inferior social status, and easily made it understood
that nothing but a Christian duty would have brought them out. Where
else, indeed, could the friendless infant have found sponsors? It was
disgraceful, they remarked, that the custom of baptism at three days
old should have been violated. While they answered for Mini's
spiritual development he was quiet, neither crying nor smiling till
the old priest crossed his brow. Then he smiled, and that, Bonhomme
Hamel remarked, was a blessed sign.

"Now he's sure of heaven when he does die!" cried Mini's mother,
getting home again, and tossed him down on the straw, for a conclusion
to her sentence.

But the child lived, as if by miracle. Hunger, cold, dirt, abuse,
still left him a feeble vitality. At six years old his big dark eyes
wore so sad a look that mothers of merry children often stopped to
sigh over him, frightening the child, for he did not understand
sympathy. So unresponsive and dumb was he that they called him
half-witted. Three babies younger than he had died by then, and the
fourth was little Angelique. They said she would be very like Mini,
and there was reason why in her wretched infancy. Mini's was the only
love she ever knew. When she saw the sunny sky his weak arms carried
her, and many a night he drew over her the largest part of his
deplorable coverings. She, too, was strangely silent. For days long
they lay together on the straw, quietly suffering what they had known
from the beginning. It was something near starvation.

When Mini was eight years old his mother sent him one day to beg food
from Madame Leclaire, whose servant she had been long ago.

"It's Lucile's Mini," said Madame, taking him to the door of the cosey
sitting-room, where Monsieur sat at _solitaire_.

"_Mon Dieu_, did one ever see such a child!" cried the retired notary.
"For the love of Heaven, feed him well, Marie, before you let him go!"

But Mini could scarcely eat. He trembled at the sight of so much food,
and chose a crust as the only thing familiar.

"Eat, my poor child. Have no fear," said Madame.

"But Angelique," said he.

"Angelique? Is it the baby?"

"Yes, Madame, if I might have something for her."

"Poor little loving boy," said Madame, tears in her kind eyes. But
Mini did not cry; he had known so many things so much sadder.

When Mini reached home his mother seized the basket. Her wretched
children crowded around. There were broken bread and meat in plenty.
"Here--here--and here!" She distributed crusts, and chose a
well-fleshed bone for her own teeth. Angelique could not walk, and did
not cry, so got nothing. Mini, however, went to her with the tin pail
before his mother noticed it.

"Bring that back!" she shouted.

"Quick, baby!" cried Mini, holding it that Angelique might drink. But
the baby was not quick enough. Her mother seized the pail and tasted;
the milk was still almost warm. "Good," said she, reaching for her
shawl.

"For the love of God, mother!" cried Mini, "Madame said it was for
Angelique." He knew too well what new milk would trade for. The woman
laughed and flung on her shawl.

"Only a little, then; only a cupful," cried Mini, clutching her,
struggling weakly to restrain her. "Only a little cupful for
Angelique."

"Give her bread!" She struck him so that he reeled, and left the
cabin. _Then_ Mini cried, but not for the blow.

He placed a soft piece of bread and a thin shred of meat in
Angelique's thin little hand, but she could not eat, she was so weak.
The elder children sat quietly devouring their food, each ravenously
eying that of the others. But there was so much that when the father
came he also could eat. He, too, offered Angelique bread. Then Mini
lifted his hand which held hers and showed beneath the food she had
refused.

"If she had milk!" said the boy.

"My God, if I could get some," groaned the man, and stopped as a
shuffling and tumbling was heard at the door.

"She is very drunk," said the man, without amazement. He helped her
in, and, too far gone to abuse them, she soon lay heavily breathing
near the child she had murdered.

Mini woke in the pale morning thinking Angelique very cold in his
arms, and, behold, she was free from all the suffering forever. So he
_could_ not cry, though the mother wept when she awoke, and shrieked
at his tearlessness as hardhearted.

Little Angelique had been rowed across the great river for the last
time; night was come again, and Mini thought he _must_ die; it could
not be that he should be made to live without Angelique! Then a
wondrous thing seemed to happen. Little Angelique had come back. He
could not doubt it next morning, for, with the slowly lessening glow
from the last brands of fire had not her face appeared?--then her
form?--and lo! she was closely held in the arms of the mild Mother
whom Mini knew from her image in the church, only she smiled more
sweetly now in the hut. Little Angelique had learned to smile, too,
which was most wonderful of all to Mini. In their heavenly looks was a
meaning of which he felt almost aware; a mysterious happiness was
coming close and closer; with the sense of ineffable touches near his
brow, the boy dreamed. Nothing more did Mini know till his mother's
voice woke him in the morning. He sprang up with a cry of "Angelique,"
and gazed round upon the familiar squalor.

II.

From the summit of Rigaud Mountain a mighty cross flashes sunlight all
over the great plain of Vaudreuil. The devout _habitant_, ascending
from vale to hill-top in the county of Deux Montagnes, bends to the
sign he sees across the forest leagues away. Far off on the brown
Ottawa, beyond the Cascades of Carillon and the Chute a Blondeau, the
keen-eyed _voyageur_ catches its gleam, and, for gladness to be
nearing the familiar mountain, more cheerily raises the _chanson_ he
loves. Near St. Placide the early ploughman--while yet mist wreathes
the fields and before the native Rossignol has fairly begun his
plaintive flourishes--watches the high cross of Rigaud for the first
glint that shall tell him of the yet unrisen sun. The wayfarer marks
his progress by the bearing of that great cross, the hunter looks to
it for an unfailing landmark, the weatherwise farmer prognosticates
from its appearances. The old watch it dwindle from sight at evening
with long thoughts of the well-beloved vanished, who sighed to its
vanishing through vanished years; the dying turn to its beckoning
radiance; happy is the maiden for whose bridal it wears brightness;
blessed is the child thought to be that holds out tiny hands for the
glittering cross as for a star. Even to the most worldly it often
seems flinging beams of heaven, and to all who love its shining that
is a dark day when it yields no reflection of immortal meaning.

To Mini the Cross of Rigaud had as yet been no more than an indistinct
glimmering, so far from it did he live and so dulled was he by his
sufferings. It promised him no immortal joys, for how was he to
conceive of heaven except as a cessation of weariness, starvation, and
pain? Not till Angelique had come, in the vision did he gain certainty
that in heaven she would smile on him always from the mild Mother's
arms. As days and weeks passed without that dream's return, his
imagination was ever the more possessed by it. Though the boy looked
frailer than ever, people often remarked with amazement how his eyes
wore some unspeakable happiness.

Now it happened that one sunny day after rain Mini became aware that
his eyes were fixed on the Cross of Rigaud. He could not make out its
form distinctly, but it appeared to thrill toward him. Under his
intent watching the misty cross seemed gradually to become the centre
of such a light as had enwrapped the figures of his dream. While he
gazed, expecting his vision of the night to appear in broad day on the
far summit, the light extended, changed, rose aloft, assumed clear
tints, and shifted quickly to a great rainbow encircling the hill.

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