The Shepherd of the North

Richard Aumerle Maher

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• Publié par: essu
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 41
• Langue: English

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Project Gutenberg's The Shepherd of the North, by Richard Aumerle Maher This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Shepherd of the North Author: Richard Aumerle Maher Release Date: September 26, 2009 [EBook #30093] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHEPHERD OF THE NORTH *** Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net THE SHEPHERD OF THE NORTH RICHARD AUMERLE MAHER Author of “The Heart of a Man,” etc. BY M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY CHICAGO NEW YORK Copyright 1916 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published, March, 1916. Reprinted March, 1916 June, 1916 October, 1916 February, 1917. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X THE WHITE H ORSE C HAPLAIN THE C HOIR U NSEEN GLOW OF D AWN THE ANSWER MON PERE JE ME ’C USE THE BUSINESS OF THE SHEPHERD THE INNER C ITADEL SEIGNEUR D IEU, WHITHER GO I? THE C OMING OF THE SHEPHERD THAT THEY BE N OT AFRAID 3 35 64 103 137 174 210 243 277 311 THE SHEPHERD OF THE NORTH THE SHEPHERD OF THE NORTH I THE WHITE HORSE CHAPLAIN The Bishop of Alden was practising his French upon Arsene LaComb. It was undoubtedly good French, this of M’sieur the Bishop, Arsene assured himself. It must be. But it certainly was not any kind of French that had ever been spoken by the folks back in Three Rivers. Still, what did it matter? If Arsene could not understand all that the Bishop said, it was equally certain that the Bishop could not understand all that Arsene said. And truly the Bishop was a cheery companion for the long road. He took his upsets into six feet of Adirondack snow, as man and Bishop must when the drifts are soft and the road is uncertain. In the purple dawn they had left Lowville and the railroad behind and had headed into the hills. For thirty miles, with only one stop for a bite of lunch and a change of ponies, they had pounded along up the half-broken, logging 3 roads. Now they were in the high country and there were no roads. Arsene had come this way yesterday. But a drifting storm had followed him down from Little Tupper, covering the road that he had made and leaving no trace of the way. He had stopped driving and held only a steady, even rein to keep his ponies from stumbling, while he let the tough, willing little Canadian blacks pick their own road. Twice in the last hour the Bishop and Arsene had been tossed off the single bobsled out into the drifts. It was back-breaking work, sitting all day long on the swaying bumper, with no back rest, feet braced stiffly against the draw bar in front to keep the dizzy balance. But it was the only way that this trip could be made. The Bishop knew that he should not have let the confirmation in French Village on Little Tupper go to this late date in the season. He had arranged to come a month before. But Father Ponfret’s illness had put him back at that time. Now he was worried. The early December dark was upon them. There was no road. The ponies were tiring. And there were yet twelve bad miles to go. Still, things might be worse. The cold was not bad. He had the bulkier of his vestments and regalia in his stout leather bag lashed firmly to the sled. They could take no harm. The holy oils and the other sacred essentials were slung securely about his body. And a tumble more or less in the snow was a part of the day’s work. They would break their way through somehow. So, with the occasional interruptions, he was practising his amazing French upon Arsene. Bishop Joseph Winthrop of Alden was of old Massachusetts stock. He had learned the French that was taught at Harvard in the fifties. Afterwards, after his conversion to the Catholic Church, he had gone to Louvain for his seminary studies. There he had heard French of another kind. But to the day he died he spoke his French just as it was written in the book, and with an aggressive New England accent. He must speak French to the children in French Village to-morrow, not because the children would understand, but because it would please Father Ponfret and the parents. They were struggling around the shoulder of Lansing Mountain and the Bishop was rounding out an elegant period to the bewildered admiration of Arsene, when the latter broke in with a sharp: “Jomp, M’sieur l’Eveque, jomp!” The Bishop jumped––or was thrown––ten feet into a snow-bank. While he gathered himself out of the snow and felt carefully his bulging breast pockets to make sure that everything was safe, he saw what had happened. The star-faced pony on the near side had slipped off the trail and rolled down a little bank, dragging the other pony and Arsene and the sled with him. It looked like a bad jumble of ponies, man and sled at the bottom of a little gully, and as the Bishop floundered through the snow to help he feared that it was serious. 4 5 6 Arsene, his body pinned deep in the snow under the sled, his head just clear of the ponies’ heels, was talking wisely and craftily to them in the patois that they understood. He was within inches of having his brains beaten out by the quivering hoofs; he could not, literally, move his head to save his life, and he talked and reasoned with them as quietly as if he stood at their heads. They kicked and fought each other and the sled, until the influence of the calm voice behind them began to work upon them. Then their own craft came back to them and they remembered the many bitter lessons they had gotten from kicking and fighting in deep snow. They lay still and waited for the voice to come and get them out of this. As the Bishop tugged sturdily at the sled to release Arsene, he remembered that he had seen men under fire. And he said to himself that he had never seen a cooler or a braver man than this little French-Canadian storekeeper. The little man rolled out unhurt, the snow had been soft under him, and lunged for the ponies’ heads. “Up, Maje! Easee, Lisette, easee! Now! Ah-a! Bien!” He had them both by their bridles and dragged them skilfully to their feet and up the bank. With a lurch or two and a scramble they were all safe back on the hard under-footing of the trail. Arsene now looked around for the Bishop. “Ba Golly! M’sieur l’Eveque, dat’s one fine jomp. You got hurt, you?” The Bishop declared that he was not in any way the worse from the tumble, and Arsene turned to his team. As the Bishop struggled back up the bank, the little man looked up from his inspection of his harness and said ruefully: “Dat’s bad, M’sieur l’Eveque. She’s gone bust.” He held the frayed end of a broken trace in his hand. The trouble was quite evident. “What can we do?” asked the Bishop. “Have you any rope?” “No. Dat’s how I been one big fool, me. I lef’ new rope on de sled las’ night on Lowville. Dis morning she’s gone. Some t’ief.” “We must get on somehow,” said the Bishop, as he unbuckled part of the lashing from his bag and handed the strap to Arsene. “That will hold until we get to the first house where we can get the loan of a trace. We can walk behind. We’re both stiff and cold. It will do us good. Is it far?” “Dat’s Long Tom Lansing in de hemlocks, ’bout quarter mile, maybe.” The little man looked up from his work long enough to point out a clump of hemlocks that stood out black and sharp against the white world around them. As the Bishop looked, a light peeped out from among the trees, showing where life and a home fought their battle against the desolation of the hills. “I donno,” said Arsene speculatively, as he and the Bishop took up their tramp behind the sled; “Dat Long Tom Lansing; he don’ like Canuck. Maybe he don’ lend no harness, I donno.” “Oh, yes; he will surely,” answered the Bishop easily. “Nobody would refuse a bit of harness in a case like this.” 8 7 It was full dark when they came to where Tom Lansing’s cabin hid itself among the hemlocks. Arsene did not dare trust his team off the road where they had footing, so the Bishop floundered his way through the heavy snow to find the cabin door. It was a rude, heavy cabin, roughly hewn out of the hemlocks that had stood around it and belonged to a generation already past. But it was still serviceable and tight, and it was a home. The Bishop halloed and knocked, but there was no response from within. It was strange. For there was every sign of life about the place. After knocking a second time without result, he lifted the heavy wooden latch and pushed quietly into the cabin. A great fire blazed in the fireplace directly opposite the door. On the hearth stood a big black and white shepherd dog. The dog gave not the slightest heed to the intruder. He stood rigid, his four legs planted squarely under him, his whole body quivering with fear. His nose was pointed upward as though ready for the howl to which he dared not give voice. His great brown eyes rolled in an ecstasy of fright but seemed unable to tear themselves from the side of the room where he was looking. Along the side of the room ran a long, low couch covered with soft, well worn hides. On it lay a very long man, his limbs stretched out awkwardly and unnaturally, showing that he had been dragged unconscious to where he was. A candle stood on the low window ledge and shone down full into the man’s face. At the head of the couch knelt a young girl, her arm supporting the man’s head and shoulder, her wildly tossed hair falling down across his chest. She was speaking to the man in a voice low and even, but so tense that her whole slim body seemed to vibrate with every word. It was as though her very soul came to the portals of her lips and shouted its message to the man. The power of her voice, the breathless, compelling strength of her soul need seemed to hold everyth