A Cry in the Wilderness

by Mary E. Waller

IX

For five and twenty years no man had seen in Tadoussac old André's face nor heard his voice upon the river's lower course. Both long and late within their icy caves the winters dwelt. The spring-tides, messaging the wild emancipated water's glee, rushed down to meet the short-lived summer joy, and autumn after autumn fled with torch of flaming leaf, reversed, death-heralding, far up the Saguenay's dark winding gorge—yet André came no more in all that time.

And now, behold them both, in Tadoussac! old André and his dog, Pierre, le brave, or was it Pierre's son?—lean-ribbed, thin-haunched and tragic-eyed, with fell of wolf, Pierre! How well they all remembered him, le brave! The frosts were in his bones, oh, long ere this; so Pierre's offspring, then?—as large as life! And André, too, old guide and voyageur!

Of notches six times ten had André cut within the shaft of one great pine that sings above that wonderful caprice of pool, and quiet river reach, and torrent wild, men long have called the Upper Saguenay. That very day when his boy's heart beat wild to suffocation, as upon the bank he landed his first salmon—nom de Dieu, no sunset glow e'er equalled in his eyes that palpitant and silver-scalèd mass of vibrant rose!—the sap from that first notch had oozed; and now they said in Tadoussac that André never knew his age!

Oh, fools! What matter of a few years more or less? He counted all his years by his heart's youth, as here he was in Tadoussac to prove.

"And whither away?"—"To see Mère Guillardeau?"—"To visit once again in Richelieu-en-Bas?"—"Or else Trois Rivières where long ago the maskinonge leaped for him?" "To see the Seigniory of Lamoral where lived his grandpère's seignior, lived and died?"—"A pilgrimage? Sainte Anne de Beaupré, then?"—"Or Indian Lorette just by Quebec?" The questions multiplied. "Come, tell us all." And André told them all.

"'Tis true," he said, "that there upon the Upper Saguenay strange tales are rife. From o'er the distant sea the English came to camp within the wilds, and I was guide. I listened to their tales whene'er the camp-fire crackled and the snow, the feather-snow that melted from the pines, fell hissing on the glowing arch of logs."

How André loved that sound! How dear to him was that one time in all the year's full round, when freeze the nights, the sap grows chill and numb; when warms the rising sun at early dawn and that sweet ichor runs! It kept him young; within him stirred his youthful forest hopes and joys with that first mounting life. And loud he laughed, nor gave the secret of his youth, his woodsman's lasting joys.

He told them how with mien impassive he had listened well, reflected long on what the English said, till May clouds, mirrored in the darkling pools, foreshadowed substance for those haunting dreams of glories human eyes had never seen; for far away upon the Lake there stood a city marvellous, the English said,—and they to André never yet had lied,—and who beheld it saw with naked eye the glories of the New Jerusalem.

And André, marking how the little runs were earlier loosened from their icy chains, how soft beneath the black and sodden leaves the water trickled free with here and there a bubble rising, proving spring had come—old André, listening so, the echo caught of that far song of storm-tossed Michigan as its wild waters, mingling with the rest, pursued their steady seaward course and swept with undertones enticing past the gorge of Saguenay and sang in André's ear:

"Viens, viens, tu trouveras
Là bas, là bas,
Le royaume cher et merveilleux
Du bon Dieu."

What wonder that his simple woodsman's heart was moved to quick response! That ere one moon had waxed and waned his dugout was prepared for its long journey inland, west by south, along the waterway of two great Lands! He showed it now in Tadoussac with pride: this fruit of two Canadian winters' toil. Its ample hull was shiny black with age. Its prow sharp-nosed and long to cleave, pike-like, the rapids' wave, capricious, treacherous. Its stern was truncated like tail of duck, the waters never closed but on it pressed, and sped it on the river's lower course.

For twenty years he watched the sturdy growth of one great tree that towered above its mates; and when the noble bole, both straight and strong, was grown to such proportions that he deemed it fit to brave the rapids, such its curve, he laid the monarch low, and hewed, and shaped, and burned, and thickly overlaid with pitch, and launched it on the Lower Saguenay—a fine, well-balanced craft, his floating camp; and this was thirty years or more agone.

His destination now made known, upon the river bank a crowd eyed him agape. With pride he showed to wondering Tadoussac how he had made provision for his voyage.

Along one side was lashed a sapling pine with seamless sail, three-cornered and close furled; 'twas fashioned from the stout flap of a tent. Along the other stretched two pockets strong of moose skin, hair side out to shed the rain. The topmost one he filled with ample store of salmon smoked on his own spit of ash, and good supply of that brown wrinkled leaf whose qualmy fragrance, issuing from the bowl of his loved pipe, had ever proved in camp and wild the solace of his lonely life.

Within the other pocket he had placed his comrade-breadwinner, his trusted gun. Its shining barrel glistened cunningly from out the soft black depths, and knowingly, for many a wingèd voyager of the air would it bring low to beat the lucent wave to crimson froth before the voyage were done. Both oars and paddles of well-seasoned ash he laid within the dugout's ample hulk.

Then he was ready to set out, and seek that shining wonder-city by the Lake—a "New Jerusalem", the English said, and they to André never yet had lied. His old-time friends were gathered at the pier to bid him on his quest "God Speed". They cast the painter loose.

"Adieu—adieu," a hand clasp here and there, and then again: "Adieu!"

Pierre, with forepaws stemmed against the prow, bayed musical farewell. Old André turned and murmuring, "Adieu," broke forth exultantly in joyous song:

"Je chercherai
Là bas, là bas
La ville de Dieu, la merveilleuse;
Si je la trouve, quand je serai
De mon retour,
Elle chante toujours, mon âme joyeuse,—
Les gloires de Dieu, les gloires de Dieu."

So aged André, guide and voyageur, his parchment face alight with inward joy, fared forth to seek that City in the West.

For you who love the sunlight on the wave, who hail with joy the sunrise ever new; for you to whom the starlight brings a thought of that high peace that guides the wanderer; for you who watch the coming of the day with eyes that see the miracle of life; for you who share in all the fair delights of sunlight, moonlight, starlight, twilight, dawn, and feel their charm in every mood and tense of nature's perfecting—for you alone I sing this voyage over inland seas.

By sunlight, moonlight, starlight, André fared along the river called "the Queen's Highway"; and soon there frowned upon him, dark, superb, the crested towering headland of Tourmente that signals to the Plains of Abraham. And ever westwards, west by south, he fared until he saw the shipping of Quebec like some huge cobweb outlined intricate in black against the golden gleaming west.

The sunset gun resounded in mid-air as André anchor dropped below the town. The man-of-war's huge bulk belched answering flame, and ere the cannon's echoing roar had ceased, a sharp report was heard, a pigmy sound that woke its pigmy echo from the Rock. So André fired salute and quickly ran aloft his tiny Union Jack. 'Twas seen along the quays; the sailors cheered and cheered, until Pierre bayed musical response.

Then André, when the moon had fully risen, stretched out along the stern and smoked his pipe, Pierre at his feet, and watched the Rock that, like a jewel many facetted, now held, now flashed at every point the lights along the Terrace in the Upper Town. He heard a merry song, a peal of bells, a strain of distant music, plash of oars—then silence. One by one the lights went out; the moon was riding high and full above the scarp and ramparts of the Citadel; beneath, the river rolled its silvered flood.

Then onwards, ever onwards toward the West fared steadily this old French voyageur, and as he passed the dreaded Raven Cape he trolled a catch, "Un noir corbeau", to ward all ill and evil from his sturdy craft. So sped unharmed, swift-paddling toward the broad and sunlit shallows of Saint Peter's lake, and ever westwards to the Royal Isle where Montreal's green height looks down upon its shadowy reflex in Saint Lawrence's wave.

On, on he sped and ever to the West, land-locked at times in prairie-bound canals; then pulling vigorously, the rapids past, along the River's narrowing polished curve, with oar stroke, swift and sweeping, keeping time to hit of merry raftsmen on the Sault.

Fresh-hearted André! All the wholesome joys to which his simple life was consecrate were his as on he voyaged; his eventide brought joy and calm and light-of-evening peace. But once he would have tarried—as alights a wearied sea-mew on some lonely isle—when, paddling slow and noiselessly he steered his craft among the leafy waterways of that Arcadian Venice of our North: the Thousand Isles. His woodsman's heart beat high when, gliding silently past sunny glades and darkling glens, he heard the wavelets lap the crinkling sands and saw the water glint against the slopes fringed deep with June's lush green.

At times he paused, the paddle braced, and leaned thereon his weight; the while, his lungs inflate, he drew deep breaths of fragrance balsamic that flowed in counter currents, sensate, warm, from out the depths of cedar thickets gray, and red, and white. And then away, away he sped past gardens gay with summer blooms, past emerald lawns set round by sapphire waves. And here and there an islet laughed at him—a tiny patch of verdure overhung by one white birch that glistered in the sun.

And every night a strange enchantment wrought upon his spirit when, beneath the stars, on some long reach that narrowed suddenly, embraced by banks converging, forest clad, the dugout drifted 'twixt two firmaments. Then André dreamed of pool and river reach and ancient pine o'er-hanging torrents wild, far distant on the Upper Saguenay; and summer dwellers on those Fortunate Isles were ware at midnight of a singing voice and fragment of a song, like some last chord drawn lingeringly across responsive strings:

"Je cherche, je cherche, là bas, là bas,
La ville de Dieu, la merveilleuse;
Si je la trouve, quand je serai
De mon retour je chante toujours
Les gloires de Dieu, les gloires de Dieu."

Ontario, Ontario, all hail thou lovely Lake that in thy breast doth hide the many secrets of Niagara! Upon thy waves, soft thrilling joyously with rush of thunderous waters from afar, see, like a gull, the white three-cornered sail dip lightly to the fair breeze from the North!

"Là bas, là bas," sang André o'er and o'er, and e'en Pierre bayed long into the West, awoke shrill echoes from the border farms at early dawn, and told his nightly tale to waning summer moons till cliff and shore gave back the sound in echoes manifold.

And what of nights within some sheltered cove when storm and darkness claimed both sea and sky? And what of days when furious cross-winds rose, and smote the lake that hissed and writhed and roared beneath the scourge that welted its white breast? Then André crossed himself and told his beads; Pierre crouched low adown within the hull; the dugout rocked safe moored within the cove or, drawn up on a strip of pebbly beach, with softly-grating keel in rhythmic beats told off the lapsing surges till the West translucent 'neath the lifting cloud mass gleamed, and in the sedges near the shore he heard the reed birds whistle plaintively and low.

Three moons had waxed and waned since, far away upon the Upper Saguenay, the pools foreshadowed substance of those haunting dreams of glories human eye had never seen—thrice thirty days ere André neared his goal. At last, emerging from the narrow strait of savage Mackinac, he set his sail and voyaged ever southwards day by day with many a tack cajoling every breeze. The white fish leaped within the dugout's wake; the gulls' harsh cry was heard above the mast; at times a passing steamer's paddles throbbed an hour and broke the dead monotony of sea and sky on lonely Michigan.

On silent sea, neath silent skies he voyaged, till lo! one silent morn ere rise of sun, the light mists, veiling yet disclosing, crept slow-curling o'er the surface of the Lake to meet the brightening east, and there dissolved in sudden glory, leaving André rapt, with dripping oars suspended and with eyes intent upon a vision marvellous!—The softened radiance of breaking day shone clear, subdued, on dome and tower and arch, on rich facade and many-columned gate of that ethereal Wonder-City white, the fundaments of which in amethyst and chrysopras were seen deep down beneath the surface of the Lake that, motionless, reflected heaven on earth and earth in heaven!

And André, gazing so, bared his gray head, the slow tears coursing down his furrowed cheeks, and, folding on his breast his calloused hands, prayed low and fingered o'er his wellworn beads.

Old André moored his dugout to the pier, and leaving tragic-eyed Pierre within as sentinel, slow-blinking towards the east, he turned his steps to that high-columned gate, the prototype of heaven on this our earth, and passed beneath the portal as the sun rose o'er the Lake in gorgeous crimson state.