Part 14

“No, never,” said Prosper; “you shall not take that word from me. It is nothing. It will make worse trouble. I will never send it.”

“What then?” said the priest. “Shall I tell him that you forgive him?”

“No, not that,” answered Prosper, “that would be a foolish word. What would that mean? It is not I who can forgive. I was the one who struck hardest. It was he that fell from the tower.”

“Well, then, choose the word for yourself. What shall it be? Come, I promise you that he shall hear it. I will take with me the notary, and the good man Girard, and the little Marie Antoinette. You shall hear an answer. What message?”

“Mon pere,” said Prosper, slowly, “you shall tell him just this. I, Prosper Leclere, ask Raoul Vaillantcoeur that he will forgive me for not fighting with him on the ground when he demanded it.”

Yes, the message was given in precisely those words. Marie Antoinette stood within the door, Bergeron and Girard at the foot of the bed, and the cure spoke very clearly and firmly. Vaillantcoeur rolled on his pillow and turned his face away. Then he sat up in bed, grunting a little with the pain in his shoulder, which was badly set. His black eyes snapped like the eyes of a wolverine in a corner.

“Forgive?” he said, “no, never. He is a coward. I will never forgive!”

A little later in the afternoon, when the rose of sunset lay on the snowy hills, some one knocked at the door of Leclere's house.

“ENTREZ!” he cried. “Who is there? I see not very well by this light. Who is it?”

“It is me,” said 'Toinette, her cheeks rosier than the snow outside, “nobody but me. I have come to ask you to tell me the rest about that new carriage--do you remember?”

III

The voice in the canoe behind me ceased. The rain let up. The SLISH, SLISH of the paddle stopped. The canoe swung sideways to the breeze. I heard the RAP, RAP, RAP of a pipe on the gunwale, and the quick scratch of a match on the under side of the thwart.

“What are you doing, Ferdinand?”

“I go to light the pipe, m'sieu'.”

“Is the story finished?”

“But yes--but no--I know not, m'sieu'. As you will.”

“But what did old Girard say when his daughter broke her engagement and married a man whose eyes were spoiled?”

“He said that Leclere could see well enough to work with him in the store.”

“And what did Vaillantcoeur say when he lost his girl?”

“He said it was a cursed shame that one could not fight a blind man.”

“And what did 'Toinette say?”

“She said she had chosen the bravest heart in Abbeville.”

“And Prosper--what did he say?”

“M'sieu', I know not. He said it only to 'Toinette.”

IV. THE GENTLE LIFE

Do you remember that fair little wood of silver birches on the West Branch of the Neversink, somewhat below the place where the Biscuit Brook runs in? There is a mossy terrace raised a couple of feet above the water of a long, still pool; and a very pleasant spot for a friendship-fire on the shingly beach below you; and a plenty of painted trilliums and yellow violets and white foam-flowers to adorn your woodland banquet, if it be spread in the month of May, when Mistress Nature is given over to embroidery.

It was there, at Contentment Corner, that Ned Mason had promised to meet me on a certain day for the noontide lunch and smoke and talk, he fishing down Biscuit Brook, and I down the West Branch, until we came together at the rendezvous. But he was late that day--good old Ned! He was occasionally behind time on a trout stream. For he went about his fishing very seriously; and if it was fine, the sport was a natural occasion of delay. But if it was poor, he made it an occasion to sit down to meditate upon the cause of his failure, and tried to overcome it with many subtly reasoned changes of the fly--which is a vain thing to do, but well adapted to make one forgetful of the flight of time.

So I waited for him near an hour, and then ate my half of the sandwiches and boiled eggs, smoked a solitary pipe, and fell into a light sleep at the foot of the biggest birch tree, an old and trusty friend of mine. It seemed like a very slight sound that roused me: the snapping of a dry twig in the thicket, or a gentle splash in the water, differing in some indefinable way from the steady murmur of the stream; something it was, I knew not what, that made me aware of some one coming down the brook. I raised myself quietly on one elbow and looked up through the trees to the head of the pool. “Ned will think that I have gone down long ago,” I said to myself; “I will just lie here and watch him fish through this pool, and see how he manages to spend so much time about it.”