"He says he's bad man," spoke Beaver. A horrible, humorous sensation swept over Cragstone; he hated himself for it, but at college he had always ridiculed death-bed confessions; but in a second that feeling had vanished, he bent his handsome, fair face above the copper-colored countenance of the dying man. "Joe," he said, with that ineffable tenderness that had always drawn human hearts to him; "Joe, tell me before I pronounce the Absolution, how you have been 'bad'?"
"I steal three times," came the answer. "Oncet horses, two of them from farmer near Barrie. Oncet twenty fox-skins at North Bay; station man he in jail for those fox-skins now. Oncet gold watch from doctor at Penetanguishene."
The prayer-book rattled from Cragstone's hands and fell to the floor.
"Tell me about this watch," he mumbled. "How did you come to do it?"
"I liffe at the doctor's; I take care his horse, long time; old
River's girl, Lydia, she work there too; they say she steal it;
I sell to trader, the doctor he nefer know, he think Lydia."
Cragstone was white to the lips. "Joe," he faltered, "you are dying; do you regret this sin, are you sorry?"
An indistinct "yes" was all; death was claiming him rapidly.
But a great, white, purified love had swept over the young clergyman. The girl he worshipped could never now be a reproach to his calling, she was proved blameless as a baby, and out of his great human love arose the divine calling, the Christ-like sense of forgiveness, the God-like forgetfulness of injury and suffering done to his and to him, and once more his soft, rich voice broke the stillness of the Northern night, as the Anglican absolution of the dying fell from his lips in merciful tenderness:
"O Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy forgive thee thine offences, and by His authority committed to me I absolve thee from all thy sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."
Beaver was holding the lantern close to the penitent's face; Cragstone, kneeling beside him, saw that the end had come already, and, after making the sign of the Cross on the dead Indian's forehead, the young priest arose and went silently out into the night.