The Boy stood behind the Colonel, unaccountably shy in the presence of the only white woman he had seen in nearly seven months. She couldn't be any older than he, and yet she was a nun. What a gulf opened at the word! Sister Winifred and her charges fell into rank at the tail of the little procession, and vanished in the falling snow. At breakfast the Colonel would not sit down till he was presented to Brother Paul.
"Sir," he said in his florid but entirely sincere fashion, "I should like to thank you for the pleasure of hearing that music to-day. We were much impressed, sir, by the singing. How old is the boy who played the organ?"
"Ten," said Brother Paul, and for the first time the Boy saw him smile. "Yes, I think he has music in him, our little Jerome."
"And how well all your choir has the service by heart! Their unison is perfect."
"Yes," said Father Brachet from the head of the table, "our music has never been so good as since Paul came among us." He lifted his hand, and every one bowed his head.
After grace Father Richmond took the floor, conversationally, as seemed to be his wont, and breakfast went on, as supper had the night before, to the accompaniment of his shrewd observations and lively anecdotes. In the midst of all the laughter and good cheer Brother Paul sat at the end of the board, eating absently, saying nothing, and no one speaking to him.
Father Richmond especially, but, indeed, all of them, seemed arrant worldlings beside the youngest of the lay-brethren. The Colonel could more easily imagine Father Richmond walking the streets of Paris or of Rome, than "hitting the Yukon trail." He marvelled afresh at the devotion that brought such a man to wear out his fine attainments, his scholarship, his energy, his wide and Catholic knowledge, in travelling winter after winter, hundreds of miles over the ice from one Indian village to another. You could not divorce Father Richmond in your mind from the larger world outside; he spoke with its accent, he looked with his humourous, experienced eyes. You found it natural to think of him in very human relations. You wondered about his people, and what brought him to this.
Not so with Brother Paul. He was one of those who suggest no country upon any printed map. You have to be reminded that you do not know his birthplace or his history. It was this same Brother Paul who, after breakfast and despite the Pymeut incident, offered to show the gold-seekers over the school. The big recitation-room was full of natives and decidedly stuffy. They did not stay long. Upstairs, "I sleep here in the dormitory," said the Brother, "and I live with the pupils—as much as I can. I often eat with them," he added as one who mounts a climax. "They have to be taught everything, and they have to be taught it over again every day."
"Except music, apparently."
"Except music—and games. Brother Vincent teaches them football and baseball, and plays with them and works with them. Part of each day is devoted to manual training and to sport."