Fidèle reached a cabin in the outskirts, of square logs, whitewashed, one window and a door, with a "lean-to" addition of boards in the rear, where the cooking-stove stood in the warm weather. Entering, she found her sister Thérèse awaiting her, who with very few words proceeded to strip off her own brightly printed cotton gown. Fidèle carried the child into the room behind, and returning, removed her blanket and dripping headgear.
"Ouff," said Thérèse, undoing the gay handkerchief from her head and picking up the hat in evident disgust. "No good."
There was a small silver cross hanging from her neck by a black riband, to which Fidèle stretched out her hand expecting it to be taken off likewise. But no. Thérèse drew back with a head-shake, explaining that that belonged to the ladies of the Convent school, adding, that it was bad enough to give up the smart frock and kerchief in exchange for such a hat and a damp blanket. Fidèle reminded her of the new ones she was to receive from Paul, after she had worn the blanket for a week, and again snatched at the nuns' silver badge of merit. Thérèse caught the hand and bit it. Fidèle screamed, and a battle was imminent, when Paul's growl from the back room, threatening violence, restored calm, and Thérèse sulkily took up the blanket and drew it over her head. Presently, Paul looked out to bid her begone, and Thérèse, through the open door, saw enough to silence remonstrance, and send her trembling away.
Paul entered as Thérèse went out, and stood before his squaw. He spoke in Iroquois, briefly, and in the conclusive tone which admits neither of question nor reply. Another, Messieurs the Benedicts, of those natural gifts dropped by the way in the march of improvement. The squaw never "speaks back," but the "last word" belongs of right to every self-respecting Christian woman, and she takes it. Ask the ladies!
"To work at once," was the purport of Paul's orders, "then sweep up. Put on your sister's gown, and that black blanket over all. Go out by the back, into the bush. Hide in the old roothouse by the corner of the clearing till sundown; then away, across the reservation. Take care you are not seen. Travel all night, going west. Stay in the woods to-morrow till dusk. Travel your quickest till you reach Ogdensburg. Cross the river there, and go west to Brantford, taking your own time. Go to your brother, and tell him to expect me next winter." And so saying, he went out by the front of the house, locking the door behind him.
Fidèle set her teeth and proceeded to obey. It was a repulsive sight which she beheld on entering the inner room, and the work set her to do was horrible. A board or two of the flooring had been pulled up, and there was a sack filled with the earth brought up through the opening. The hole was a foot or two deep, and it was shaped like a grave. Paul must have been terribly in earnest to have it rightly done, seeing he had dug it himself. There was a box--a soap-box seemingly, from the village store--hammer and nails, a bundle of withered grass, and the baby asleep lying on it. The sight of the baby must have been too much for Paul, for part of an old buffalo robe had been thrown over it. He had his design fixed and firm, but having also a squaw why should he likewise discompose himself? Civilization had at least eaten so far into his nature that to extinguish a helpless and unresisting life was no longer delightful enough to compensate the risk--and he had the squaw.
Fidèle sat down on the ground with the poor little thing in her lap. How peacefully it slept! Was it angels whispering in those little ears which made it smile in its sleep, as the ladies of the Convent had said? Could viewless spirits be hovering around, seeing and noting all that passed? Involuntarily she looked over her shoulder expecting almost to behold a presence. Then she shook herself and snorted. Why should she call up shadowy fears to make harder for herself the work she had to do? If she failed to do it she knew full surely the terrors would be all too real--bruises, wounds, possibly death by violence; assuredly violence in any less degree.
The child lay sleeping on her lap, so fair and soft of skin, rounded and dainty in every joint. She could not but recall the picture in the church, of the Holy Mother with her ever Blessed Son, high up above the altar, amid the star-like twinkling of the tapers and the cloudy incense ascending before it in solemn fragrance, while holy nuns and innocent choristers sang hymns of adoration; and all she had learned to think of blessedness beyond the grave, attainable only by more than common goodness, was that it would be like that. The little rings of hair that framed the face were bright and shining like burnished gold, a glory like the gilded halos about the heads in that sacred picture; and the long eyelashes laid peacefully upon the reddening cheeks, like clouds at daybreak, promising so enhanced a brightness at the awakening. Fidèle laid her fingers on the little neck. How dark and evil they looked upon its creamy whiteness! How could she ever grasp it hard and cruelly, till the heaving bosom grew convulsed to bursting at the interrupted breath, and the sweet face grew black and distorted in fruitless gaspings? Her fingers lay more heavily as she thought, and the slight pressure disturbed the sleeper. The plump round shoulder and cheek were drawn together as if tickling were the subject of her dreams; the lips parted in a smile, the eyes unclosed, and the child awoke with a low and merry laugh. She looked so fearless and trustful out of her blue eyes and crowed so gleefully, caressing with her own tiny palms the dusky fingers so near her throat, and with such fell intent, that surely a fiend must have abandoned the thought of doing her harm. And Fidèle was no fiend at all. Ignorance and a narrow horizon had left her sympathies to slumber, but, so far as she could see or know, she was true and good. To serve her man had seemed the chief if not the only end of her being, and she had done it blindly hitherto; but it appeared to her now that to do this thing was more than she ought, or could.
The little hands were stretched up now to her face and the lips strained up to kiss her, and the clear blue light of the eyes penetrated the blackness of her own with a cooling purifying influence which made evil intent like a shadow slink away. She stooped and pressed the little pink lips to her own, and to her forehead and to her breast, and then with a big breath of resolution she got up and set the little one down in a corner while she fulfilled in seeming the orders she had received. She took the dried grass and laid it in the box which she then closed and placed in the bottom of the little grave. The grave she then filled up with earth from the sack, tramping it down tightly, and making the top level with the adjacent soil, and strewing what earth was left in the rain pools outside the house. She then nailed down the flooring as before, and swept the house, making it appear again as it had always been. No one could now suspect that there was a grave beneath his feet, nor could Paul that that grave was empty. Then concealing the child under her blanket she stole into the bush as she had been instructed to do, an instance of how the scrupulously obedient wife, even while obeying, may contrive to effect the exact opposite of her instructions; and showing, perhaps, that the equality and sympathy of the civilized home may secure a man the fulfilment of his wishes no less, at least, than the despotism of the barbarian plan.
In the twilight Fidèle left her place of concealment and stole away under the dripping-trees. The storm was over, and as the light died out of the heavens the stars came twinkling forth, awaiting the rising moon. It was a long and toilsome tramp across the reservation, through wet and tangled herbage, with many a slough and flooded brook, for she had been bidden to avoid observation and dared not avail herself of such paths and rude bridges as suffice the Indians on their own domain. At length when night had fully come, and home-going stragglers were no longer likely to be met, she reached a country road. The march of the stars pointed her way and further she knew not, for she had never been there before. She hurried along clasping her burden, which grew heavier as she went, for she had been travelling for hours. It was late and she had spent a long and a busy day, a day of hard work and much excitement. The child grew heavier, and as her own strength grew less, she clasped it the more tightly. Since she had saved the little one's life, something of a mother's feeling for it had stolen into her heart. It seemed dependent on her, and her very own; and were not the tiny fingers even then spreading themselves against her breast to gather warmth? The night seemed very long, and yet she feared to stop and rest. A pursuer might be on her track even now to seize her for child-stealing. And the child in her arms! She could not but be taken and punished, and the child given back. And even when her punishment was over, and she let out of jail, there would still be Paul to reckon with. And what might he not do? Her heart died within her at the thought, her limbs grew feeble, and the child heavier than lead. She staggered along looking behind her and before, but all was still, no one to be seen. And now she was approaching a village. The moonlight glittered on the tin belfry of the church, and there were houses, low-browed habitant houses, with deep projecting eaves and great black shadows lurking under the stoops and porches. Not a soul was stirring, but from those coverts of obscurity what or who might not rush forth on her as she went by? The law in some mysterious way might be lying in wait for her among the dusky shadows, or Paul himself might be in hiding to watch her pass, and see that he was obeyed. It would be bad for her if she were to meet him now, and bad for the child as well. She stopped, faltering as she thought of it, unable to go on. Ah! there stood one small house at a forking of the road, where one branch ran uphill through well-fenced woods, surrounding a mansion, doubtless, for the moonlight glistened on the tin of the roof; and the other branch ran downward to the village and the church, and there was a broad river beyond, with perhaps no bridge, and she might have to wait for morning to be ferried across. There might be a magistrate in the mansion, she would avoid that, and down in the village the child might be seen. No! she dared not carry it in either direction, but here in the corner of the ways stood the little habitant house, a good half-mile from both. Yet there was no light visible in the window; the house might be uninhabited; not a dog or pig was to be seen around. But then it was late. The voiceless stars and the silent sailing moon were whitening the slumbering world with dim and hazy dreams. Nothing was awake or moving but the vagrant breeze which rustled drowsily among the poplar leaves; and--yes, that decided her--the loose casement of the one window in the roof swaying back and forth against the flapping curtains within. There must be people in the house, people asleep, who would not awake till she had time to escape. She stepped on the little porch, laid down her burden, knocked, and fled into a neighbouring bank of shadow, where her dark blanketed figure was swallowed up in the gloom and she could wait and watch. Her moccasined feet made no sound, but the knock awoke a dog within. The dog barked, and presently a head looked out of the open casement. The baby, uncovered to the night air and laid on the hard boards, began to cry, and the head--it was a woman's and a mother's--recognized the voice of a bébé. The door was opened, the woman came out and took up the child.