Jean Baptiste: A Story of French Canada

by James Edward Le Rossignol

The door was on the latch; and Jean went in; laid down his gun and pack; but immediately came out and took the path toward the lake. For a moment he turned aside into a dense growth of firs, and presently appeared again with a birch canoe on his shoulders, which he carried down to the shelving beach and placed in the water. Then he crept aboard, knelt in the stern, and with a long stroke of the paddle sent the light craft far out on the lake.

There was not a ripple on the water but the wavelet in front of the canoe and the long wake that trailed behind. There was not a living creature in sight but a pair of loons that floated beyond a rocky islet; and not a sound but their shrill, quavering cry that echoed and re-echoed in the hills. The granite rocks along the shore were reflected perfectly in the water, in all their colours--grey, blue, pink--and with all their covering of lichen, moss, grass, ferns, and trees. Birches with their silvery trunks, pines with their long branches, tall, spire-like spruces were there, pointing upward on the land and downward in the water; while above and below the trees was the red glow of sunset, and glorious clouds floated in an azure sky.

Presently the canoe shot into a long, narrow bay, where the shores came close together; the shadows met; and a panorama of new beauties unrolled at every turn. Here a flock of wild ducks rose quacking from the water and flew over the trees; there a long-legged heron stood in a marshy place among the rushes; there a doe and a half-grown fawn gazed in mild surprise, then leaped away and vanished in the woods. Suddenly the bay came to an end where a stream flowed over a steep cliff into a deep, clear pool; and here Jean stayed for a while, listening to the music of the waterfall, watching the trout that lurked under the stones, and wishing for a rod and line that he might try a cast to see what would rise out of the depths.

Night was coming on as Jean turned the prow of his canoe down the bay; soon it was quite dark; and only the glimmer of stars on the water and the dense blackness on either side showed the way. Silently the paddle rose and fell; and on went the canoe through the darkness; until at the last turn, where the bay joined the main body of the lake, a bright light appeared over the trees; and the moon rose, making a shining path across the water. With powerful strokes Jean shot the canoe along the bright way to the very end; and plunged again into the shadow near the shore. Presently the light craft touched the landing-place, where Jean stepped out, pulled the canoe out of the water, turned it bottom up on the shore, placed the paddle underneath, and went up to the cabin.

After having fasted all day, Jean was hungry as a bear, and was glad to find in his pack the food that his good mother had provided. By the light of a candle he ate his evening meal; and then, spreading his blankets on a bearskin in the corner, and with his knapsack as a pillow, he lay down to sleep.

"Ah!" he said to himself, as the tension of muscle and nerve was relaxed for the first time since the early morning. "How tired I am! I did not think that I could be so tired. How good it is to rest at the close of a long day! And such a day! Mon Dieu, but it was a day, a good day!"

"What, Jean Baptiste?" said his other self. "A good day, you call it, when you have fought like a beast and killed a fellow-man, a brother, one who might have been your friend! Do you know what you are saying? Wake up, Jean."

"Wake up? But no, I prefer to rest, to sleep--a long, long sleep. And it was a good day. I have lived. Yes, lived."

"But what of Pamphile?" said his good angel, in a far-away voice.

"Pamphile? Pamphile?" murmured Jean, as he went into the land of dreams. "That fellow with the pretty face? He got it, did he not? Got what he deserved. Regret it? No! A good fight! A good day!"