Jock Filmer was coming to the belief that there was a Destiny shaping his ends roughly, smooth-hew them as he had ever tried to do. Jock was pursued, there was no doubt of that. For reasons of his own he had drifted into St. Angé when very young. Most conveniently and soothingly memory and old habits dropped from him—they had clung tenaciously to Gaston. Jock adapted himself to circumstances and new environment with flattering promptness.
The Black Cat felt no resentment toward him after the first few months. His English became blurred with regard to grammar; the local speech was good enough for him. When Jock's Past became troublesome, as it had done from the very first, the Black Cat had consolation for its latest recruit; and, while he did not sink quite so far as some of the natives, the shortcoming was attributed more to youth than to the putting on of airifications, as Tate said.
In a boyish, off-hand way, Filmer had always regarded Gaston as a sign-board in an unexplored country. If things ever pressed too close, Filmer believed Gaston would point him to safety.
A mystic something held them together. A common interest, consciously cast into oblivion, but perfectly tangible and not to be denied, was the unspoken passport in their intercourse.
Later, during the building of Drew's bungalow and their joint sympathy for, and with, Joyce, Filmer had acknowledged Gaston, as a superior and, spiritually, regarded him as a leader in an interesting adventure.
Gaston, the night when he faced Jude and him with the pointed question, "What you going to do about it?" had fallen from Jock's high opinion, and the crash had affected him to a painful extent.
"Oh! what's the good?" he had finally concluded.
Another friendship that had been formed in the lonely woods yet remained to him, and he made the most of that. Drew's personality had stirred Jock's emotions from the start. To look forward to a renewal of the companionship was a distinct pleasure in the time when the dust of Gaston's fallen image was blinding his eyes and smarting his heart.
Drew came, sick but unconquered. All the chivalry in Filmer rose to the call. He gave his time to the young minister. Using up the little money he had earned as builder, resigning his chance to go into camp, he devoted himself to Drew day and night. He became one of the family at the bungalow and a jocose familiarity was as much a part of Jock's liking for a person, as were his tireless patience and capacity for single-minded service.
Drew's maiden aunt, prim, proper and worldly-wise, was as much Aunt Sally to Filmer as she was to her niece and nephew. Jock jollied the aristocratic lady as freely as he did Drew, toward whom he held the tolerant admiration that he had given him from the beginning. But poor Jock was not to have his own easy planning of the new situation in all directions. Constance Drew took a hand in the game, and Jock, with trailing plume, plodded on behind her.
If he could gibe and tease, she could bring him about with her cool audacity and comical dignity.
The girl's splendid physique, her athletic tendencies, her endurance and pluck, compelled Jock's masculine admiration. Her love for her brother, her tenderness and cheerfulness toward him, won his heart; but her mental make-up, her strange seriousness where her own private interests were concerned, caused the young fellow no end of amusement and delight. He had never seen any one in the least like her, and the new sensation held him captive.
Poor Jock! He was never again to walk through life without a chain and ball; but little he heeded that while he had strength and spirit to drag them.
With Drew's partial recovery the bungalow household lost its head a little. Aunt Sally's gratitude overflowed into every house in St. Angé. She felt as if the natives, not the pine-laded air, had been instrumental in this regained health and joyousness.
"I can never thank you enough," was her constant greeting; and so sincere was her gratitude that eventually the back doors of the squalid houses opened to her unconsciously—and of true friendship there is no greater proof in a primitive village. Sitting in their kitchens, it was easy for her to reach down into their hearts, and many a St. Angé woman poured her troubles into Aunt Sally's ears, and went forever after with uplifted head.
"Why, my dear," the old lady said to Ralph, after Peggy Falstar had taken her into her confidence, "these people are much like others, only they have the rough bark on. They are a great deal more vital—the bark has, somehow, kept the sap richer."
Drew laughed heartily.
"The polishing takes something away, Auntie," he replied. "The bark is hard to get through; it's tough and prickly and not always lovely, but it's the sap that counts in every case, and that's what I used to tell you and Connie. Every time I tapped these people up here, I saw and felt the rich possibilities."
"Now, you go straight to sleep," his aunt always commanded at that juncture.
She was not yet able to face the probability of a final settlement in these backwoods, but she saw with alarm that her nephew was planting his hopes deep and accepting the inevitable.
"It's all such a horrible sacrifice of his young life," she confided to Constance.
"His young life!" the girl had returned with a straight, clear look. "Why, I begin to think the only life he has, Auntie, is what St. Angé offers—he must take that or nothing. Oh! if only that little beast down there in New York had had the courage of a mouse, and the imagination of a mole, she might have made Ralph's life—this life—a thing to go thundering down into history! It's splendid up here! It's the sort of thing that makes your soul feel like something tangible. My!" And with that, on a certain mid-winter day, the young woman strode forth.
A long fur-lined coat protected her from the deceiving cold. The dryness of the air was misleading to a coast-bred girl. A dark red hood covered the ruddy, curly hair, and skin gloves gave warm shelter to the slim, white hands.
Down the snow-covered road Constance walked. She was tingling with the joy of her life—her life and the dear, new life given to her brother.
The pines pointed darkly to a sky so faultlessly blue that it seemed a June heirloom to a white winter.
The snow was crisp and smooth; a durable snow that must last until spring. It knew its business and what was expected of it, so it was not to be impressed by mere footsteps, or the touch of prowling beast.
Constance slid and tripped along. She sang snatches of old, remembered songs, and talked aloud for very fulness of heart and the sense of her Mission rising strong within her.
Since coming to St. Angé she had not, until now, had time to think of her Mission—her last Mission;—for Constance Drew was a connoisseur in Missions. But now she must waste no more time.
She patted her long pocket on the right-hand side—yes, the book and an assorted lot of pencils were there. She preferred pencils to fountain pens. The points were nicer to bite on, and she wasn't sure, in this climate, but that ink might freeze just when a soul-flight was about to land genius on a mountain-top.
There was a beautiful log halfway between the bungalow and Gaston's shack. It was a sheltered log, with a delectable hump on it where one could rest the base of one's spinal column when victory, in the form of inspiration, was about to perch.
Constance sought this log when long, ambitious thoughts possessed her. The snow had been removed, and a cushion of moss, also bare of snow, made a resting place for two small feet, warmly incased in woollen-lined "arctics."
Constance sat down and drew the red-covered book from her pocket, and placed the seven sharply-pointed pencils, side by side and near at hand.
A sound startled the girl. Her brow puckered. Even in the deep woods inspiration was not safe from intrusion.
Well, since some bothering person must take this time for appearing, Constance hoped it would be Joyce, for she wanted to see her and talk with her. Joyce did not invite intimacy. Up there alone in her shack, waiting for Gaston's return, she was grappling with matters too sacred and agonizing to permit of curious interruption. That Drew's family should overlook any little social shortcoming in her and seek to meet her on an equal footing, did not interest her in the least—she wanted to be alone, and for the most part she was.
But it was not Joyce who appeared on the road. It was Jock Filmer and he came, without invitation, to the log and put his foot on the end nearest the girl.
"Pleasant summer weather, hey?"
Constance raised her eyes from the little book in which she had been writing, and gave Jock the benefit of her honest inspection.
"If you had ever lived where winter was meted out to you in the form of frozen moisture," she said, "you'd know how to appreciate this nice, clean, undisguised cold."
"I know the other kind." Jock nodded reminiscently. "It is like being slapped in the face with a sheet wet with ice water, isn't it?"
"Ha! ha! so you haven't always lived here? I thought as much. Indeed I have a note to that effect—here." The girl tapped the red-covered book.
"No; I've travelled some," Jock confessed, "I've been to Hillcrest several times."
"I believe you are masquerading." Constance viewed him keenly. "I've written to my married sister about you all up here; I call you and that—that Mr. Gaston, the Masqueraders."
"So!" Jock smoothed his chin with his heavily gloved hand. "That sister of yours, doubtlessly, could spot us all on sight just by your description. It ain't safe. How's your aunt and the Reverend Kid?" Jock grinned amiably. The past weeks had given him time and opportunity for broadening his views of life and enjoyment.
"Ralph is fine"; the clear, gray eyes shone with the joy of the fact; "and Auntie is having the time of her life. You know she never had her lighter vein developed. Our city connection is awfully proper and cultivated. I always knew auntie was a Bohemian, and up here—she's plunging!"
"Umph! And you?"
"Oh! I'm getting—material."
"Excuse me." Jock passed his hand over his mouth. "There are times when I think you're a comicaller little cuss than your brother!"
"Mr. Filmer!"
"Oh, come down! Mr. Filmer don't go in the woods in the middle of winter. What do you want for your Christmas?"
"When you make fun of me"—the girl was trying hard not to laugh—"you anger me beyond—expression."
A guffaw greeted this. Then:
"What was you making in your little book when I came up?"
"Character sketches."
"Sho! Let's have a look. I like pictures."
"They're pen-pictures."
"All the same to me. Pencil, pen, or paint-brush."
"But you do not understand. They are word pictures. Descriptions, you know."
"Well, now you have got me! Show up, anyhow."
Constance opened the little book, and spread it out on her knee.
"I am getting material for a novel," she said impressively. "The great American novel has yet to be written. I do not want you to think me conceited, Jock, but I have had exceptional advantages—I may be the chosen one to write this—this great novel."
"Who knows?" Jock's serious gaze was a perfect disguise for his true inward state.
"Yes; who knows? You see I can speak freely to you."
"Sure thing," assented Jock. "Dumb animals can't blab, and once you turn your back on St. Angé I'll be a dumb beast all right!"
"My back will never be turned permanently on St. Angé, I think!" the girl spoke slowly. "I agree with Ralph that for the future his home will probably be here; and where Ralph is——"
"The lamb will surely come. Go on, child, and hang up your pictures." They both laughed now.
"First," Constance folded her hands over the open pages of her book, "I wonder, Jock, if you would like to hear—something of my life? It would explain this—this—great ambition of mine."
"Well," Jock drawled, "if you don't think me too young and innocent for such excitement, fire away. Histories have always had a hold on me. Most of 'em ain't true, but they tickle your imagination."
"Jock! But I'm in earnest. I have felt that I must have a confidant. Some one who will—sympathize. I'm going to have a woman friend in a day or so—but a man—one who is disinterested, so to speak, is always such a comfort to a girl when she faces a great epoch in her life."
Jock swallowed his rising mirth and his face became a blank so far as expression was concerned.
"I have had wonderful advantages," Constance began, "that is what makes me dare to hope. Advantages of wealth, society and—and a deep insight into people's innermost souls."
"Gosh!" Jock exploded; "excuse me; I always burst out that way when I'm—moved." He sat down on the end of the log, and clutched his knees in his strong arms. "Somehow you don't look like such a desperate character," he added blandly, "known sin and conquered it, and all the rest?"
Constance sniffed, but a little jocularity was not going to deter her from the luxury of confession.
"Money should only be regarded," she went on, "as a sacred trust, and a means of enriching one's life. And as for Society—that is a bore! Dances, theatres, dinners and luncheons. Chaperons tagging around after you, suggesting by their mere presence that, unless you're watched, you'll do something desperate in the wild desire to break the monotony. Well, I drank deep of that life," Constance looked dreamily over the stretch of meadow and pine-edged woods, all dazzling with a shimmer of icy snow, "before I took to——"
"Crime?" Jock suggested. "It would seem that that was the natural sequence to such a career."
"Jock Filmer—I took to philanthropy."
"As bad as that?" Jock roared with laughter.
"I only tell you this to explain my present position." Constance drew her fur-clad shoulders up. "I became a Settlement worker; but," confidently, "that was worse than Society. It was Society with another setting. 'Thanks be!' as Auntie says, I have a sense of humour and a remnant of Scotch canniness. It made me laugh—when it didn't make me ashamed—to put on a sort of livery—plain frock, you know, and go down to the Settlement in the most businesslike way to 'do' for those poor people. It cost an awful lot to run our Settlement, about two-thirds of all the money. One-third went to the poor. We had plenty of fun down there. All slummy outside and lovely things inside, you know. It was like making believe. You see," she paused impressively, "when you have a Mission like Settlement work, you don't have to have a chaperon."
"Ten to one, they're needed, though." Jock was keenly interested. "Cutting loose from familiar ties and acting up sort of detached that way, must have a queer effect upon some."
"Well, I just got enough of it. Why, one Christmas, we at the Settlement House had a tree and gifts that cost hundreds of dollars. We had a big dance. Evening dress and all the rest. Young men and women who, had they been in their own homes, would have been under some one's watchful eye, were having a jolly, good fling down there that Christmas Eve, I can tell you.
"Right in the middle of the evening, a call came from a family in a tenement around the corner. I knew all about them—or I thought I did—so I went. I just flung a cloak about me and ran off alone. Somehow I did not want any one with me."
Constance's eyes grew dim, and her under lip quivered.
"It was awful." Her voice sank low. "You see, with all the preparations going on at the Settlement House, we had sort of forgotten this—this family. They were not the noisy, begging kind, but there was a pitiful, little sick girl whom I had taken a liking to and to think that I should have forgotten her—and at that time, too! There was no tree in that home, Jock, there was nothing much, but the little dying girl and her mother.
"They didn't even blame me—oh, if they only had!" The honest tears ran down Constance's cheeks. "But they didn't. The mother said—and she apologized for troubling me, think of that!—that the baby wanted me to tell her a Christmas story. She just wouldn't go to sleep until I did, and she had been ailing all day. I—I forgot my dress, and tore off my cloak in that cold, empty room and I took that poor baby in my arms. Then—then the hardest part came—she—she didn't know me. She got the queerest little notion in her baby head—she—she thought I was an—angel. Oh! oh! and I wanted her to know me."
Down went the girlish head in the open pages of the character sketches.
"Well of all gol-durned nonsense!" Jock blurted out. "The whole blamed show oughter been exposed. I reckon the best job the company ever had to its credit was that happening of yours—the dress and the—the—rest of the picter. Lord!" Jock's feelings were running over as he looked upon the bowed head. The story had got hold of his tender heart. "Lord above! Just think of that sort of rum suffering going on back there. It's worse than what happens here. We've got wood to keep the kids warm in winter, and there's clean air and coolness in summer. I'm durned glad I cut it when"—he stopped short. Constance was looking at him with wide, questioning eyes.
"When I did," Jock added helplessly. "And now go on with that poor little child what you took to your bosom."
"That's all." Constance choked painfully. "The baby—died while I was telling her about the wonderful tree, and Santa Claus and the other joys she should have had, and never did have. I can see that hideous empty room, and—and that poor baby every time I shut my eyes."
"Here, look up now," Jock commanded, his feelings getting the best of him. "When life's so empty that you can't find things to do by opening your eyes, you better keep your eyes shut to all eternity. Calling up the past is the rottenest kind of folly in a world where things is happening."
Constance rallied to the stern call.
"And now," she said briskly, "I've given myself, heart and soul to—literature. I'll write of what I have seen, and lived!
"Listen, I'll read you a sketch or so. But first I'll explain. The local colour of my novel is drawn from—here."
Jock pulled himself together.
"Well, I'll be blowed!" he sympathetically ejaculated, "Here where there ain't, what you might say, enough local color to more than touch up the noses of the Black Catters."
"Jock! Now, see if you'd know it." She read a scrappy description of the village. "Would you recognize it?"
"With a footnote, it would go." Jock was all attention. "But I have my doubts as to whether Pete Falstar will take kindly to his place of residence being classified as a human pig-sty. That's laying the local colour on, with a whitewash brush, don't you think? A little dirt and disorder don't seem to call for such language."
"That is artistic license." Constance explained.
"Well, you ought to pay high for that kind of license—but maybe you do. Go on."
"I handle my subject without gloves," Constance began again.
"By gosh! I'd keep 'em on when I was tackling pig-stys and such; but don't mind me."
"And here; see if you can guess who this is?
"'The sleek, fat proprietor looked oily within and oily without. He oozed oil on the community that he was demoralizing with his poisonous whiskey and doctored beer.'"
"God bless and save us!" Jock rolled from side to side. "If you don't beat all for gol-durned sass. Why, Tate will sue you for damages if that great American novel ever strikes his vision. Oil! Thunderation; and poisonous whiskey, and doctored beer. Was it Society or Settlement what let light in on you, about such terms?"
"Neither. It's—inspiration."
"It's just plain imperdence, and it'll get you in trouble. Are you going to use names in that novel of yours?"
"Certainly not. Do you think I do not know my art? But you recognize Tate? Then he lives!"
"Good Lord! Know him? How under the everlasting firmament could I help knowing him? What other proprietor is there in St. Angé, you comical little bag of words? specially one as demoralizes the community with poisoned whiskey and doctored beer? Balls of fire! but this beats the band. Go on; go on."
When a man of thirty steps out of a starved exile and comes in contact with a girl like Constance Drew, it may be dangerous to "go on," but the exile will certainly want to.
Nothing loath; all sparkling and radiant, Constance swept along.
"And I've got—you, but maybe you will never forgive me. I took you at your—your worst—for don't you see when I use you—later—I'm going to redeem you and have you come out truly splendid."
Jock's jaw dropped, and the laugh fled from his overflowing eyes.
"Me?" he gasped. Constance nodded, and waved a pointed pencil toward him.
"Wait!" she ran her eye down the page. "'Beautiful woman—with a—Past'—that's the girl up in the other Masquerader's shack, that girl Joyce, you know, and Gaston—and here's Peggy Falstar—'woman sunk to man's level and reproducing her kind'—brief note of Billy Falstar as 'impish child'—oh! here you are!
"'Village Bacchus. Tall, handsome, but lost, apparently, to shame. Swaggering criss-cross down the road, laughing senselessly and shouting songs. Slave to appetite. Controlled by his brutal passions. When spoken to in this state, assumes manner of gentleman. Subconscious self—study in heredity.—Let a strong influence enter his life—handsome noble girl—redemption at end—splendid character.'"
"Good God!"
Constance dropped the book. The eyes that met her own had a look in them that drove the cold, which she had not felt before, to her very heart.
"What—what—is the matter?" she gasped.
"Did you—ever see me—like that?" The words came hoarsely.
"Yes. One day a few weeks ago. Ralph wanted you. I went to find you—and"—the girl's eyes dropped. She felt a sudden humiliation as if he had detected her reading his private letters.
"And I talked—rot and all the rest?"
"Yes. I never told Ralph; I knew it would hurt him—I had—no right to tell you this—it is only—copy for me."
"Copy?"
"Yes; stuff to work into the—novel."
"The novel? Ah, I remember. I'm going to be stuffed in with Tate and—and the others?"
"Yes; but don't you recall, you are to be redeemed—you are to be my—my hero—in the end you are to be—splendid."
A deep groan was the only reply to this; the groan and the look of growing misery on the man's face.
"You're to go back—you see I feel you once belonged somewhere else—and take up your life-work with——"
"With?" Jock repeated the word hopelessly.
"With her—the girl."
"Why the girl I'm going to create. First I thought I'd have her—Joyce; but that doesn't stand clear in my thought—I cannot quite see just the sort of girl—that could rouse you to—to great things."
Filmer was staring at the speaker with dazed and pitiful eyes. Then Constance beheld a miracle. The stony misery melted as an infinite sadness and pity overflowed.
Jock stood up, plunged his hands in his pockets and looked down at the dissecter who had bared every sensitive nerve in his heart and soul.
"When—you write that book," the words drawled out the bitter thought, "just omit—me—please—if you have any mercy."
"Jock!" Constance sprang to her feet. "Jock—how could I know that you would care?"
"You—couldn't, of course."
"Is it because I saw you so?"
"No."
"You know of course—that I'd never speak of that to any one—I only used it for my book."
"If that will help your book—take it; but leave out——"
"What?"
"The girl—the redemption—and——"
"Why?"
"Can't you—guess?"
"No." But as the word passed her lips, she did guess—and what she surmised sent the blood rushing through her body.
"Don't be frightened, Miss Drew," Filmer was getting command of himself; "there isn't going to be any redemption; nor any girl—that's all; don't you see? There never is in such cases, and you want to be true to life in that first, great American novel. You got your brush in the wrong pot of local colour when you daubed me. No offence intended, or taken, I hope. God bless you! strike your pencil through all that came after the spree part. You're welcome to that, but I decline to let you ruin your reputation by offering up the rest to the public."
He was laughing again, and the agony had passed from his careless face.
"And now?" he asked, "which way?"
"I'm going—home."
"Well, well, come along. I'm bound for the Reverend Kid myself. I've got his mail in my pockets—and yours, too by thunder! You're too diverting, Miss Drew, you took my thoughts off business. Come on."
Joyce, waiting in the solitude of the shack under the pines, heard and saw little of what was going on in St. Angé. She was living at high pressure, and she had not even the relief of companionship to divert her from her lonely vigils.
Naturally the exhilaration of the night that Gaston left her, passed and the dull monotony of the daily tasks performed perfunctorily with no charm of another's approbation and sharing, lost the power of holding her thoughts.
She ate, and made tidy the little house in quite the old way, but the large dreaming eyes looked beyond the narrow confines, and grew pathetic as they searched the white fields and hidden trails off toward the Northern and Southern Solitudes.
Which way had he gone? From which direction would he return? Everything was ready for him—it always had been since the night he left—and she, herself, once the daily routine was over, donned her prettiest garments, not the golden gown! and waited either by the glowing fire or by the little windows.
Early in the day following Gaston's departure, she had discovered the key in the lock of the chest! The sight for a moment, made her tremble.
Had he left it by mistake? Had he left it designedly, now that he had taken her completely into his confidence?
But had he? Joyce flushed and paled at the thought. After all, what had he really told her? She did not know, even, his true name nor the place from which he had come.
No; she knew very little. Shaken from his indifference by her beauty and charm into a realizing sense of the woman he had helped to form, Gaston had indeed broken his silence and voiced the one great tragedy of his life to her—and she had superbly stood the test; but that was all!
In the chest lay, perhaps the rest! His name; the name of those who had taken part in all that had gone before the terrible time of his trouble. For a moment a paralyzing temptation came to Joyce to solve for herself, by the means at hand, the mystery which still surrounded the man she loved with a completeness and abandon that controlled every thought and act of her life. But it was only a momentary weakness. Her love shielded her from any shortcoming that could possibly lower her.
Bravely she walked up to the chest, and proved herself by trying the lid to see if the chest were unlocked. It was. Gaston had not even taken that precaution.
Joyce smiled—all was now safe with her. She would never feel tempted again. It became a comfort to sit near the chest. She deserted the living room and made a huge fire upon Gaston's hearth. Evenings she took her book or sewing there, and the chest with its secrets seemed like a friend who, from very nearness of comradeship, had no need to speak its hidden thoughts.
In the desolation of the mid-winter loneliness, the pale woman grew to feel, when in Gaston's room, a high courage and strength. Everything would come out right. Details were not to be considered. Gaston had always been all-powerful; he would conquer now. What did the waiting count? He, meanwhile, was tracing Jude. Soon he would return, having freed her from every evil thing of the past. He would find her as he had left her—a woman fitted by a great love to follow whither he led.
And then—as the long evenings pressed silently cold and dark around the shack, her fancy ran riot. All that she had yearned for; all, all that the books had suggested, she was to see. Mountain peaks and roaring ocean; strange people like, yet so unlike, Gaston. To think that all this was going to happen to her—old Jared's little Joyce.
A few days after Gaston's departure Jock Filmer walked into the shack quite as easily as if months had not passed without a sight of him; he came almost daily afterward. It was like Jock to assume the new relation in this easy, companionable way.
Joyce was grateful. This was but another proof of Gaston's greatness.
"Everything going straight, Joyce?" The question came one day while the keen eyes were taking in the store of wood, water and other necessaries.
"Everything, Jock; and the store-room is stocked. Sit down—and tell me the news."
Joyce was not particularly interested, but it would put Jock at ease.
Jock gracefully flung himself into Gaston's chair. The two were, of course, in the living room.
"There's company up to the bungalow," he spoke from the fullness of his heart; "a widder girl."
"A—a widow?" Joyce was for a moment perplexed.
"Yes. She don't look a day older than Drew's sister, and she's powerful cheerful for an afflicted person. But maybe she ain't afflicted. They ain't, always. She looks as if she was dressing up in them togs for fun, and at first glimpse it strikes one as sacrilegious. Something like a kid using holy words in its play."
Joyce smiled. After all it was good to have the dear human touch, even if the vital spark were lacking.
"Is—the widow-girl pretty, Jock?" she asked in order to detain Filmer.
"Well," a line came between Jock's eyes, "that's the puzzler. Now Drew's sister—" Jock spoke in this detached way of Constance Drew for self-defense—"Drew's sister stands for what she is; a good, honest, handsome girl. You own up to that and that's the end of it. This one sets you thinking. Is she, or ain't she pretty? you keep putting to yourself. Do you like her, or don't you? Is she thinking about what you're saying, or ain't she? That's the way your mind works when you are with her, till it seems a plain waste of time, and riles you way down to the ground. I like a woman what, having passed up her personality, lets you alone as to further guessing 'less you have a mind to guess. Joyce!"
"Yes, Jock."
"They want you up to the bungalow to help along with the Christmas doings. I never saw such happenings in all my life. All St. Angé is going to see what's what for once. Presents for everybody; big party at the bungalow Christmas night; the overflow is going even to reach up to the camps. Boxes and barrels arriving every day from down the State. Lord, but you should see Tom Smith's curiosity! There are big doings. They call it a kind of thanksgiving for the Reverend Kid's recovery; and they want you."
Joyce started back. She was interested, but only as it was apart from herself.
"Oh, Jock!" she cried. "I couldn't. I just couldn't."
"I thought you couldn't," Jock returned calmly; "and you shan't if you don't want to."
"Thank you. Don't let them feel hurt, but I could not go."
Jock cast a sympathetic glance toward her; and changed the subject.
"It's wonderful the grip that weak little Reverend has already got on this town," he went on. "He's a sly one. Preaching ain't in it with the undercurrent he's let loose here. It's just sapping the foundations of society. It's setting free a lot of good stuff, but it's striking Tate an all-fired blow."
"Tell me about it, Jock. It seems as if I had been asleep a—long while."
"Well there are sermons and sermons." Jock was flattered by the look in Joyce's large eyes. "If the Reverend Kid had opened shop in the regular way, Tate and his pals would have downed him in no time; but what you going to do about sermons that are slipped in with talks to women over their wash-tubs, and what not?
"Him and me was going by Falstar's the other day, and Peggy was washing uncommon hard. Drew, he steps close to the tubs and says he, 'I tell you, Mrs. Falstar, I don't know no better religion than getting the spots out instead of slighting them. It's like the little Scotch girl who said she knew when she got religion, for she had to sweep under the mats.' Peggy was all a-grin, and Lord! how she went at it. Later, she attacked the mats. It had set her thinking. I saw 'em hanging out, and she beating them as she must often feel like beating Pete." A real laugh greeted this, and Jock glowed with approval.
"And then what does that young lunger do, but gather in all the floating population in the kid line, and play games with 'em, and read thrillers to 'em up at the bungalow every evening. He's teaching them as wants to learn, too. He's got Tate flamgasted. You see, the old man depended, for the future, on them youngsters that haunted the tavern and got the drippings that fell from within. The Black Cat Tavern Kindergarten is busted, and the Bungalow stock is going up."
"Kindergarten? What's that, Jock?"
"Oh, it's a new-fangled idea in the way of schools. Sort of breaking up the ground for later planting."
"Who told you about it?"
"Why—Drew's sister." Jock's face looked stern and he gazed into space.
"It's a splendid idea, Jock." Joyce's interest was keen enough now. "Some one, even St. Angé's folks, should have seen how fine it is to keep the children away from the tavern. How we have let everything drift! Why Jock, if the boys and girls learn to hate the Black Cat; if they are given something good, why of course St. Angé is going to be another kind of place. Does Miss Drew help in teaching?"
"Does she?" Poor Jock smiled pitifully in his effort to appear unconcerned. "They sit at her feet lost to everything but what she tells 'em. Billy Falstar, before he left to be a camp fiddler, was a reformed brat. She had smote him hip and thigh, and finished him, as far as a career of crime is concerned. Do you know, he went up to see her with his red hair plastered down with lard until it was a dull maroon colour; his square cotton handkercher was perfumed with kerosene, and I tell you he was a sight and a smell to remember; but Drew's sister stood it without a word. She told me afterward that it was a proof conclusive—them's her words—of Billy's redemption.
"I saw the brat the day he started for camp. I tell you the ginger was all out of Billy. When he was obliged to swear he did it in whispers."
"Poor Billy! He's pretty young to begin camp life. There's good in Billy. I wish Mr. Drew would make Peter send him to school."
"That's what he's planning to do."
Soon after this, when Jock started to go, he said: "So everything's fit for a spell?"
"Everything Jock, until—"
They looked at each other mutely. Then Jock put his hand out awkwardly and took Joyce's.
"Good-bye," he said quietly. His manner puzzled the girl.
"Life's a queer jamboree," he laughed lightly. "It's a heap easier to stand it if you give yourself the hope of cutting it if you find the pace too fast. So 'good-bye' is always in order even if you're going to drop in to-morrow. Good-bye."
Joyce walked with him to the door. "Good-bye," she said with a growing doubt in her heart; "good-bye, Jock—and I can never tell you how I thank you."
It was many a long day before Joyce was to see Filmer again, and she always felt that she knew it as she saw him pass beyond the pines after that "good-bye."
Perhaps it was the boyish longing for Christmas cheer that struck such a deadly blow at the heart of Billy, the fiddler, in Camp 7. Perhaps it was the arrow that smites all, sooner or later. Be that as it may, as Christmas drew near the mournful tunes Billy managed to saw from his fiddle got on to the nerves of the men.
From remarks aimed at his efforts, pieces of wood and articles of clothing were aimed at him, and Billy's life became a burden in the dull, deep woods.
"I can't make jigs come," he whined one evening, "when I'm chock full of hymn tunes."
"You'll be chock full of cold lead if you fill this hull camp with them death dirges," warned one man who was bearing about all he could anyway.
"I wish to—I just wish I was plugged full of lead—and done for," was Billy's unlooked-for reply; and then, to the surprise of all, he bent his red curls over the fiddle and wept as only a homesick youngster can weep when the barriers of his fourteen years are down, and the flood has its way.
That night, Billy in his bunk, sleepless and consumed with longing for home and the excitement of the bungalow element, planned desertion. At midnight he crept to the larder and packed enough food to last for a couple of days, at four o'clock he stole from the sleeping-shed, and, cheered by the unanimous snores that rang in his ears, he turned his freckled, determined face toward St. Angé and the one absorbing passion of his life.
The outlook of the Solitude at four in the morning was not an altogether cheerful one even to ambitious youth. Indeed there was little, if any, outlook.
Blackness around; cold starlight overhead. Snow and ice everywhere except on the trail that a "V" plow had made through the forest.
It was cruelly still and lonely. "Gawd," said Billy raising his eyes to the emptiness above him, "you see me to the end of this, and, by gosh! I'll swear to go to Hillcrest to school."
From irreligious depravity, Billy had risen to reverent heights, and Hillcrest restraint was beautiful in his thought, as a method of preparing him for—Her.
A fear he had never known had birth in Billy's heart then as he slipped and slid down the icy trail that had been flooded and frozen for the passage of the logs. Even his unprotected boyhood had been shielded from four-o'clock journeys in the wintry woods heretofore.
The only help Billy could draw from the situation was, that so far he could refrain from whistling. When in this tense state a boy is reduced to whistling all hope for strength is gone.
A distant groan; swish! ah! ah! and crash! rent the stillness. The boy drew his breath in sharp.
"D—— blast that tree!" gurgled he, "what did it have to fall for now?"
Suddenly a deer darted across the trail and turned its wondering eyes on the small brother of the woods. Billy's spirits rose. The wild things were friends. The boy's depravity had always been redeemed by a lack of cruelty.
A little farther on the way, Billy seated himself on a fallen log, and cheered his inner man by a "bite of breakfast." Presently a shy, wild creature drew near; took note and courage and scurried to Billy's feet. With generous hand the boy shared his early meal, and made a familiar noise that further won the little animal's confidence.
Billy had his plans well laid. There was a lumberman's hut a day's walk from the camp; he must make that by night. There would be a rough bed and chopped wood; he could sleep and rest and then, if all went well, he ought to make St. Angé by the end of the following day, particularly if he got a "lift," which was not impossible.
Just then, for the morning was beginning to show through the gaunt trees, a bird-note sounded. Billy rose quickly—there was no time to waste. Sometimes a bird sounded that warning when a storm was near. It would never do for him to face a storm so far from shelter.
All that day Billy trudged on. Fortunately it was a constant, though gradual, decline and the journey was made easier. He ate occasionally, and gained courage and strength, but it was nearly nine o'clock—though Billy was not aware of it—before the landmarks proved his hope true—the woodman's hut was near at hand.
The boy had all the keenness of his age and environment. He knew that others besides himself might avail themselves of the shelter, and he had reason for choosing his company; so, before he reached the house, he took to tip-toeing, and keeping clear of the underbrush.
The hut had one small window, before which hung a dilapidated shutter by a rusty hinge. The door opened, Billy knew, into a little passage from which the room door opened, and from which a rickety ladder led up to a loft, unused and apparently useless.
As the boy neared the house his trained senses detected the smell of fire and the sound of muffled voices. He crept to the window, and through the broken shutter saw two figures crouching by the blazing logs, but the faces were turned away, and the gloom of the room made it impossible for Billy to decide whether the men were familiars or strangers.
Meanwhile the wind was rising with a storm in its keeping; there was nothing to do but seek refuge, for, until he could determine his further course, Billy decided to take to the loft in order to reconnoitre.
Cautiously he made his way to the door, lifted the latch and gained the entry. There he paused, for the voices had ceased speaking and the boy feared that he had been heard. After a moment he concluded it was safer to be in the loft in case the men were suspicious, so he hurriedly mounted the ladder and crawled along the dusty floor of the space overhead.
Gratefully, to his half-frozen form, the heat from below rose, and with it came the odour of frying bacon, and the sound of sizzling fat.
Fortune was still further with Billy. There was a pile of discarded bedding and clothing on the floor. If worst came he could stay where he was and be partially comfortable.
As he reached this conclusion a voice from below caused his heart to stand still.
"I thought I'd seen the last of yer. You got all I had—what more do you want with me?"
It was Jude Lauzoon who spoke.
"See here, son"; and the smooth tones filled Billy with an old fear; "that was all a big mistake. My hand was out of the game. St. Angé had taken the nerve out of me. I've got my steam up now." It was Jared Birkdale! and Billy had hoped he was never to see the man again. From his babyhood up, a look from Jared had had power to quell him when a blow from another might fail.
"Well, I ain't got nothing more to give you." Jude sounded sullen and ugly.
Through a crack in the floor Billy could see that it was Jude who was preparing the evening meal, while Jared, as usual, was taking his ease, and discoursing at his leisure.
"You've got more to give than what you know Jude, my boy. What you doing here, anyway?"
"You see what I'm doing. Here, take this hunk of bread, and come nearer so I can flip the bacon on."
The sight and smell made Billy's mouth water, even while something in him foretold danger.
"Now, see here, Jude." Jared spoke through a full mouth. "You and me can't afford to work at cross purposes. Where we failed once, we are going to succeed next time."
"You darsn't show your face down there beyond the woods again, and you know it." Jude spoke doggedly. "They was after us both. Besides I can't stand transplanting. It would be the death of me. It nearly was."
"Don't be white-livered, Jude. You see the laws have changed more than any one could have thought, while I was browsing away in St. Angé. That's where I made my mistake. I ought to have taken time and got the lay of the land 'fore I beckoned to you; but it looked safe enough, and I had to take, or leave the Joint, sudden. How could any man know it was spotted, and so had to be got rid of? It was one on us and no mistake.
"Fill up my cup, Jude, you're a tasty one with cooking."
Jude obeyed and muttered as he did so: "Luck or no luck, I ain't got nothing, nor ever will have again, so that's an end of it."
"Jude, where you going to?"
"Where be you?"
Up aloft Billy waited.
"I'm going to St. Angé." There was defiance in Jude's tone—defiance and a sort of shame; Jude had again lost his grip.
"I've just come from there," said Jared.
And now Billy could see through his peephole that Jude started into life.
Jared gurgled assent.
"How is—she?"
"That's it, Jude. Now let's get down to business. Having to hide somewhere after that little unpleasantness down State, I ran up to St. Angé. Knowing the way about, it was a better place than some others, and I could keep from sight and find things out. I stopped at Laval's haunted shack." Billy shivered. "I kept clear of my place."
"Guess you wasn't disturbed none at Laval's," sneered Jude and he gave an unpleasant laugh.
"'Twas blasted cold, and I had the devil's time getting enough at night to keep me going by day; but I learned a heap, and I struck your gold mine all right, sonny."
"What you mean? Spit it out."
Billy crouched closer, and his breath came thick and fast.
"He's—left her!"
"Gaston?" An ugly oath escaped Jude.
"Gaston. But not for what you think. Jude, he's after you." Jared paused for effect.
"After me?" The ugliness gave place to a dull fear.
"You, my son. He wants you to free Joyce." Evidently this announcement failed to reach Jude's intelligence.
"Free her? Me? What's got you, old man? Didn't she cut, herself?"
"You don't catch on, Jude. He wants to do the big, white thing by the girl—marry her out of hand clean and particular, and he wants to get your word that you won't make any trouble."
A silence followed this. Jude was struggling to digest it; but the result was simple.
"Well, by thunder! Won't he have to pay high for it?"
There was excitement and feverish energy in Jude's voice now.
"Maybe he'll fling a bone to you—but don't you see, son, you can hold off and make him pay, and pay and pay?
"Now tell me, so true as you live, what was you going down to St. Angé for?"
"I was going down to"—Jude hesitated. "Well, I was tired of being hounded, and having to hide and starve. I was going down to get—what—I could—and no questions asked." A foolish laugh followed. Beside Jared's subtlety, Jude seemed a babbling infant with feeble aims.
Jared was contemptuous.
"Gosh darn it, Jude! It's good I fell across your path again. You might have thrown away the one, great, shining opportunity of your life. Listen to my plans. You better stay where you are, and let me run this here show. I got the tracks all laid out. I'm sort o' inspired where it comes to plotting for them I love. I'm going to write a touching letter to her. It's going to state that Gaston is laid up from an accident in a hut, further up to the north. A lumberman is going to write the letter—catch on? and she's wanted up to Gaston's dying bedside. The lumberman is going to meet her at Laval's. When she's caught safe and sure, Jock Filmer—he's the go-between in all this—will get that information, or the part about her going away, to Gaston; then the game's in our hands. If Gaston means business, he'll pay what we say. If he ain't sharp set as to a big figger, we've got Joyce; and by thunder! who's got a better right? Then we'll make tracks, after the spring freshet, to another place I know of where laws is stationary and folks ain't over keen, and where a handsome woman like Joyce will help. I've got money enough left from the wreck to tide us over, my son—unless Gaston planks down."
All this completed Billy's demoralization. His teeth chattered louder, and for the life of him he could not control an audible sound, half sob, half sigh. But Jude was evidently as much overpowered as Billy, for the boy suddenly heard him emit an oath, and then a volley of questions designed to clear the air after Jared's storm of eloquence.
"She'll come, all right." Jared had his answers ready. "It's an all-fired queer state of things down there to St. Angé. You and me ain't never struck Gaston's kind before. Joyce'll go when he calls, and don't you forget it—all I've got to do is to make the lumberman's letter real convincing.
"Sure! I'm the lumberman, all right. Camp up north? Nothing. I'll land her here where her rightful and loving husband will be waiting for her till further developments. How did I find out the lay of the land? Gosh! that was a tight squeeze. I found out he was over to Hillcrest, Gaston you know; and I run up, after dark to his shack, planning to get a haul from Joyce. I got into the back kitchen while she was outside, and before I could get away—in walks Gaston. What I saw and heard that evening, Jude, ain't necessary here, but it blazed our trail, boy, and I cut later—taking more than I planned for." Birkdale breathed hard. "You leave Gaston to me, curse 'im!
"Make trouble for us? How in thunder is a man to make trouble for a husband who is taking his own wife to his dishonoured bosom? Lord! Jude, you've got about as much backbone as an angle worm.
"What?" Some muttered words followed that Billy could not catch. Then—
"Trust me! Does any one know to this day, you blamed fool, who shot that government detective that was snooping into that clearing you and me made—five years back? Gaston'll pay or you'll take one of them never-failing shots of yours, and——"
It had been a hard day for Billy, and he was only fourteen.
The low, smoke-filled loft seemed to draw close about him, and it smothered the life out of him. He thought he screamed, but instead, an unseen power laid a kindly hand upon his trembling mouth, and a pause came in his troubled life. It was not sleep, nor was it faintness that struck like death the frightened boy—but an oblivion, from which he issued clear-headed and strengthened.
When he again realized his surroundings he was cramped and cold, and hungry as a wolf. From below two deep, unmusical snores rose comfortingly. There was but one thing to do—and Billy must prepare for it.
He ate every crumb of food that remained in his bag; then he rubbed himself until his numbness lessened. At last he was ready to set forth for St. Angé, and, be it forever to his glory, Billy the Redeemed, had only Joyce in mind when his grim little freckled face once more turned toward home!
Christmas, the joys of the bungalow, all, all were forgotten. It was a big and an awful thing he had on hand, but he must carry it out to the end. Floating gossip gained strength in Billy's memory as he trudged through the black morning of that second hard day.
Childhood was not much considered in St. Angé, but childhood protects itself to a certain degree, and Billy had never fully understood what the gossip about Joyce had meant. All at once he seemed to have become a man; and, oh! thank God, a man with a warm heart. A kinship of suffering and hope with Joyce made him wondrous tender. He'd stand by her. They should all see what he could do. And that hated Jared Birkdale should be driven forever from St. Angé.
It was a long, dreary journey which Billy took that day. The plentiful morning meal had beggared the future, but it had given the boy power to start well.
With daylight and home in view, although at a dim distance, Billy felt that he controlled Fate.
It would be some days before Jared could possibly get the letter to Joyce. Long before it came he, Billy, would be on the spot, and nothing could pass unnoticed before his eyes.
At eight o'clock of that second day, the boy, worn to the verge of exhaustion, staggered into his mother's kitchen, and almost frightened Peggy to death by simply announcing:
"I've cut, and I'll be eternally busted if I ever go back, so there! And I'm starved."
With the latter information Peggy could deal; the former was beyond her. She prepared a satisfying repast for her son; noting, as she hovered over him, the change that had come. He was no longer a child, therefore he was to be respected. An awe possessed Peggy. The awe of Man as she had ever known him. Her Billy was a man! Then she noticed how thin he was, and how his mouth drooped, and how black the circles were under his big eyes.
Had they been cruel to him in camp? They could be so cruel; but then, Billy was a favourite.
What had happened?
It was proof of Billy's spiritual and physical change that Peggy did not cuff him and demand an explanation.