Jean Baptiste: A Story of French Canada

by James Edward Le Rossignol

CHAPTER XXIII

THE CURE

Already the healing power of the wilderness had begun its work, and as the days passed Jean gradually recovered the tone and balance of mind that had been so much disturbed. Without knowing it he had been under a strain for a long time, that tension of brain and nerve so characteristic of modern life, which the strongest and most ambitious must endure, when they forsake the old ways and go out into the unknown to make new paths wherein the feet of generations to come may safely tread. In the vanguard of progress they do the work of pioneers; in breaking new ground they are themselves broken; and the army of civilisation marches on over their graves.

But Jean Baptiste had left his place in the front rank, and gone to the rear, to the very remotest rear, where there were no people and neither sight nor sound of war, where the forest was his hospital and Nature his physician. What wonder that he grew to love the quiet retreat, and to wish that he might never hear the battle-call again?

By night he slept a dreamless sleep, undisturbed by the cry of the loon, the hoot of the owl, the wail of the lynx, or any call of birds or beasts that hunt by night. He was up with the dawn, and out in the open, refreshed and strong, with bright eyes and a joyous heart, breathing the fragrant morning air, rejoicing in the free movement of every limb, his whole being expanding in the growing light, and leaping up to meet the rising sun.

To Jean the wilderness was as the garden of the Lord. All the trees that he loved were there, all the wild flowers of the season, with ferns and mosses of many kinds; there were bubbling springs and clear streams, shallow ponds and deep lakes, dense thickets and open glades, narrow glens and broad valleys, low ridges and high mountains, whence he could look out upon a sea of forest-clad hills stretching away and beyond to meet the circle of the sky.

But it was the lake by the cabin that Jean loved most of all, and there he spent many hours of every day in his birch canoe; plying long strokes of the paddle; skimming along here and there; exploring creeks and bays or floating in the shade of a rocky point, at the mouth of a stream or by a sunken log, while he cast a fly upon the water to lure the wary trout. When the lake was calm he could see not only the rocks and trees of the shore, but his own thoughts and feelings reflected there; for it was a mirror to his soul. When a wind came up and ruffled the surface with little dancing waves, his thoughts seemed to dance and sparkle in their turn; and he would sing the song of the voyageur to the hum of the breeze and the lapping of the waves. When a white squall came, raising great waves capped with foam, the soul of Jean Baptiste was stirred to its depths and rose up to meet the foe; as with a strong grip on the tough paddle he held the canoe to the wind and rode out the storm; mounting on the crest of the waves, beating down into the trough, splashed and buffeted, rocked and tossed; but all the time pushing on toward the lee shore, where at last he lay in calm water, serenely watching the tempest as it passed.

Like the human heart, the lake was never twice the same. Even at dawn it varied with the breeze, the mist, the clouds, the rain, the light of the waning moon, the gleam of the morning star. All the days were different, each from the others; so also the nights. Now the lake was a crystal, now a pearl, now of a pale turquoise blue, now blue like a sapphire or green as an emerald; and often, at sunset, it was like an opal with fire in its heart, changing soon to violet and purple tints, and then taking on the deep indigo of the evening sky, shot with points and threads of gold. Even on sunless days, when the clouds hung low and rain fell, there was a pensive beauty in the lake, like the sweet, pale face of a nun trying to forget the light and love of bygone days in thinking of the glory that should appear in the eternal world. Truly, thought Jean, it was good to be in the wilderness, and gladly would he live and die beside a lake like this.

Jean was alone in the forest, and yet he had many companions. One who goes carelessly through the Laurentian woods sees few signs of life, and hears few sounds; though many eyes watch him, and many creatures come out of hiding when he has passed by. To Jean, trained in woodcraft from his early years, the timid creatures showed themselves and spoke in many tongues. Not only the bold blue jay and the camp-robber came about the cabin; but the red-headed woodpecker, the chickadee, the wren and the waxwing came; the crossbill, too, the linnet and the wood-thrush--all curious to see the strange being that lived there, and eager to pick up any crumbs that might be lying about. Chipmunks came every day; sometimes red squirrels; now and then a marten; and often, in the twilight, a porcupine came, shuffling along, rattling his quills, and nosing about for scraps of fish and bacon to add to his meagre diet of bark and roots.

Not far from the cabin was a pond where a colony of beavers played and worked every night, diving, swimming and splashing about, slapping the water with their tails, climbing about on the embankment, or venturing into the woods to eat pieces of juicy bark or to gnaw patiently at the trunks of young birches that were to be timber for building and a store of food for the long winter. There were mink and otter, too, in various places; and Jean would have made war on them as enemies of the trout, but that he wished to leave them for trapping later in the year, when the skins would be in prime condition and would fetch high prices in the fur market at Quebec.