The Ruling Passion [13]
The listener soothed him with gracious words; spoke of the mercy
that waits for all the penitent; urged him to open his heart without
delay.
"Well, then, mon pere, it is this that makes me fear to die. Long
since, in Canada, before I came to this place, I have killed a man.
It was--"
The voice stopped. The little round clock on the window-sill ticked
very distinctly and rapidly, as if it were in a hurry.
"I will speak as short as I can. It was in the camp of 'Poleon
Gautier, on the river St. Maurice. The big Baptiste Lacombe, that
crazy boy who wants always to fight, he mocks me when I play, he
snatches my violin, he goes to break him on the stove. There is a
knife in my belt. I spring to Baptiste. I see no more what it is
that I do. I cut him in the neck--once, twice. The blood flies
out. He falls down. He cries, 'I die.' I grab my violin from the
floor, quick; then I run to the woods. No one can catch me. A
blanket, the axe, some food, I get from a hiding-place down the
river. Then I travel, travel, travel through the woods, how many
days I know not, till I come here. No one knows me. I give myself
the name Tremblay. I make the music for them. With my violin I
live. I am happy. I forget. But it all returns to me--now--at the
last. I have murdered. Is there a forgiveness for me, mon pere?"
The priest's face had changed very swiftly at the mention of the
camp on the St. Maurice. As the story went on, he grew strangely
excited. His lips twitched. His hands trembled. At the end he
sank on his knees, close by the bed, and looked into the countenance
of the sick man, searching it as a forester searches in the undergrowth
for a lost trail. Then his eyes lighted up as he found it.
"My son," said he, clasping the old fiddler's hand in his own, "you
are Jacques Dellaire. And I--do you know me now?--I am Baptiste
Lacombe. See those two scars upon my neck. But it was not death.
You have not murdered. You have given the stroke that changed my
heart. Your sin is forgiven--AND MINE ALSO--by the mercy of God!"
The round clock ticked louder and louder. A level ray from the
setting sun--red gold--came in through the dusty window, and lay
across the clasped hands on the bed. A white-throated sparrow, the
first of the season, on his way to the woods beyond the St.
Lawrence, whistled so clearly and tenderly that it seemed as if he
were repeating to these two gray-haired exiles the name of their
homeland. "sweet--sweet--Canada, Canada, Canada!" But there was a
sweeter sound than that in the quiet room.
It was the sound of the prayer which begins, in every language
spoken by men, with the name of that Unseen One who rules over
life's chances, and pities its discords, and tunes it back again
into harmony. Yes, this prayer of the little children who are only
learning how to play the first notes of life's music, turns to the
great Master musician who knows it all and who loves to bring a
melody out of every instrument that He has made; and it seems to lay
the soul in His hands to play upon as He will, while it calls Him,
OUR FATHER!
Some day, perhaps, you will go to the busy place where Bytown used
to be; and if you do, you must take the street by the river to the
white wooden church of St. Jacques. It stands on the very spot
where there was once a cabin with a curved roof. There is a gilt
cross on the top of the church. The door is usually open, and the
interior is quite gay with vases of china and brass, and paper
flowers of many colours; but if you go through to the sacristy at
the rear, you will see a brown violin hanging on the wall.
Pere Baptiste, if he is there, will take it down and show it to you.
He calls it a remarkable instrument--one of the best, of the most
sweet.
But he will not let any one play upon it.