This was the end of our hunting and fishing for that year. We spent the next two days in voyaging through a half-dozen small lakes and streams, in a farming country, on our way home. I observed that Patrick kept his souvenir pipe between his lips a good deal of the time, and puffed at vacancy. It seemed to soothe him. In his conversation he dwelt with peculiar satisfaction on the thought of the money in the cigar-box on the mantel-piece at St. Gerome. Eighteen piastres and twenty sous already! And with the addition to be made from the tobacco not smoked during the past month, it would amount to more than twenty-three piastres; and all as safe in the cigar-box as if it were in the bank at Chicoutimi! That reflection seemed to fill the empty pipe with fragrance. It was a Barmecide smoke; but the fumes of it were potent, and their invisible wreaths framed the most enchanting visions of tall towers, gray walls, glittering windows, crowds of people, regiments of soldiers, and the laughing eyes of a little boy—or was it a little girl?
When we came out of the mouth of La Belle Riviere, the broad blue expanse of Lake St. John spread before us, calm and bright in the radiance of the sinking sun. In a curve on the left, eight miles away, sparkled the slender steeple of the church of St. Gerome. A thick column of smoke rose from somewhere in its neighbourhood. “It is on the beach,” said the men; “the boys of the village accustom themselves to burn the rubbish there for a bonfire.” But as our canoes danced lightly forward over the waves and came nearer to the place, it was evident that the smoke came from the village itself. It was a conflagration, but not a general one; the houses were too scattered and the day too still for a fire to spread. What could it be? Perhaps the blacksmith shop, perhaps the bakery, perhaps the old tumble-down barn of the little Tremblay? It was not a large fire, that was certain. But where was it precisely?
The question, becoming more and more anxious, was answered when we arrived at the beach. A handful of boys, eager to be the bearers of news, had spied us far off, and ran down to the shore to meet us.
“Patrique! Patrique!” they shouted in English, to make their importance as great as possible in my eyes. “Come ‘ome kveek; yo’ ‘ouse ees hall burn’!”
“W’at!” cried Patrick. “MONJEE!” And he drove the canoe ashore, leaped out, and ran up the bank toward the village as if he were mad. The other men followed him, leaving me with the boys to unload the canoes and pull them up on the sand, where the waves would not chafe them.
This took some time, and the boys helped me willingly. “Eet ees not need to ‘urry, m’sieu’,” they assured me; “dat ‘ouse to Patrique Moullarque ees hall burn’ seence t’ree hour. Not’ing lef’ bot de hash.”
As soon as possible, however, I piled up the stuff, covered it with one of the tents, and leaving it in charge of the steadiest of the boys, took the road to the village and the site of the Maison Mullarkey.
It had vanished completely: the walls of squared logs were gone; the low, curved roof had fallen; the door-step with the morning-glory vines climbing up beside it had sunken out of sight; nothing remained but the dome of the clay oven at the back of the house, and a heap of smouldering embers.
Patrick sat beside his wife on a flat stone that had formerly supported the corner of the porch. His shoulder was close to Angelique’s—so close that it looked almost as if he must have had his arm around her a moment before I came up. His passion and grief had calmed themselves down now, and he was quite tranquil. In his left hand he held the cake of Virginia leaf, in his right a knife. He was cutting off delicate slivers of the tobacco, which he rolled together with a circular motion between his palms. Then he pulled his pipe from his pocket and filled the bowl with great deliberation.
“What a misfortune!” I cried. “The pretty house is gone. I am so sorry, Patrick. And the box of money on the mantel-piece, that is gone, too, I fear—all your savings. What a terrible misfortune! How did it happen?”
“I cannot tell,” he answered rather slowly. “It is the good God. And he has left me my Angelique. Also, m’sieu’, you see”—here he went over to the pile of ashes, and pulled out a fragment of charred wood with a live coal at the end—“you see”—puff, puff—“he has given me”—puff, puff—“a light for my pipe again”—puff, puff, puff!
The fragrant, friendly smoke was pouring out now in full volume. It enwreathed his head like drifts of cloud around the rugged top of a mountain at sunrise. I could see that his face was spreading into a smile of ineffable contentment.
“My faith!” said I, “how can you be so cheerful? Your house is in ashes; your money is burned up; the voyage to Quebec, the visit to the asylum, the little orphan—how can you give it all up so easily?”
“Well,” he replied, taking the pipe from his mouth, with fingers curling around the bowl, as if they loved to feel that it was warm once more—“well, then, it would be more hard, I suppose, to give it up not easily. And then, for the house, we shall build a new one this fall; the neighbours will help. And for the voyage to Quebec—without that we may be happy. And as regards the little orphan, I will tell you frankly”—here he went back to his seat upon the flat stone, and settled himself with an air of great comfort beside his partner—“I tell you, in confidence, Angelique demands that I prepare a particular furniture at the new house. Yes, it is a cradle; but it is not for an orphan.”
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