Marshpee

“ With the vision of Fleur strangely sensing the impending separation from her master, as her wail of despair rose from the stockade the night he left her to go north, constantly before his eyes, Jean Marcel reached the coast and turned south. The thought of his puppy muzzled and bound in the canoe two days ahead of him lent power to every lunge of his paddle. Also, the knowledge that, back at Whale River, instead of walking the river shore in the long twilight with Jean Marcel, as he had dreamed, Julie would have Wallace at her side, added to the viciousness of his stroke. ”

“ There was nothing left him but the love of his puppy. She would never desert Jean Marcel.
But Jean Marcel was a trapper, and the precious days before the ice would close the upper Whale and the Ghost to canoe travel were slipping past. His partners of the previous winter had agreed to take with them the supplies which he had drawn from the post, but he was certain that they would not net fish for his dog. They would not plan for the dog they had been confident he would not recover. ”

“ Due to the wind there was as yet little snow on the trail over the bay ice and the freshened dogs, with lowered heads, swung up the coast at a trot. All day, with but short respite, men and dogs battled on against the norther. The mouth of the Little Salmon was the goal Marcel had set for himself—the river valley from which they would cut overland behind the gray cape, to the north coast. Forty miles away it lay—forty cruel miles of the torturing beat of shotlike snow in the faces of men and dogs, forty miles of endless pull and drag for the iron thews of Fleur and the whelps of the wolf. ”

“ The true birds of the marsh, those that feed and nest in the grass, have the spirit of the great marsh-mother. The sandpiper is not her bird. It belongs to the shore, living almost exclusively along sandy, pebbly margins, the margins of any, of almost every water, from Delaware Bay to the tiny bubbling spring in some Minnesota pasture. Neither is the killdeer her bird. The upland claims it, plover though it be. A barren, stony hillside, or even a last year's corn-field left fallow, is a better-loved breast to the killdeer than the soft brooding breast of the marsh. ”

“ In the morning Jean waked with the problem of a supply of fish for Fleur and himself troubling him, for one of the precepts of André Marcel had been, “Save your fish for the tail of the winter, for no one knows where the caribou will be.” Down at Conjuror’s Falls he had cached less than two months’ rations for his dog, and they were facing seven months of the long snows. To be sure, she could live on meat, if meat was to be had, but a husky thrives on fish, and Marcel determined that she should have it. ”

“ Somewhere, far down the bold east coast the Great Whale River emptied into the salt “Big Water” of the Crees. It would take about four days of hard paddling to make it, if the sea was flat and the wind light. But if he were wind-bound, as was likely heading south in the spring, it might take weeks. He had a hundred pounds of cured fish and could wait out the wind, but the thought of Julie, who by this time must have learned from his partners of his mad journey, made Jean anxious to reach the post. He preferred to be welcomed living than mourned as dead. ”

“ While the black eyes of Julie flashed in response to the admiring glances of Wallace, Jean Marcel ate in silence his last meal at Whale River for many a long week, torn by his longing for the dog carried down the coast in the canoe of the thieves and by the hopelessness of his love for this girl who was manifestly thrilling to the compliments of a man who knew the world of men and cities, who had seen many women, yet found this rose of the north fair. ”

“ Soon he came to a broad river, where he shook himself again, and swam across it in the shape of a silver salmon, and when he had reached the other side he shook himself once more, and flew in the shape of a dove, quicker than the wind, over hill and dale. Before the King in his camp could have dreamt it possible, Marzi had reached the palace ”

“ With the sunrise the wind had increased and the heartsick Marcel groaned at the strength-sapping floundering in breast-high drifts which faced his devoted dogs, when he needed them fresh for the race up the sea ice of the coast beyond. Before he slept he had weighed the toil of ten miles of drift-barred short cut across the cape against the alternative of doubling the headland on the ice. He had decided that no men or dogs could face the maelstrom of wind and snow which churned around the cape’s bald buttresses, no strength force its way, no endurance prevail against it. ”

“ So with fur pack and outfit, and as much smoked caribou as he dared carry, Marcel poled his canoe up the Ghost, later to portage across the divide into the trailless land where, in the memory of living man, the feet of no hunter of the Hudson’s Bay Company had strayed. ”

“ The perplexed husky unable to meet Marcel’s piercing eyes sprang to her feet with a yelp.
“Good!” he cried. “We mak’ de beeg hunt!” He had had his answer and on the yelp of his dog had staked their fate. To-morrow he would push on into the barrens and find the caribou drifting north again, or flicker out with his dog as men for centuries had perished, beaten by the long snows.
In the morning he divided his remaining food into four parts; a breakfast and a supper for himself and Fleur, for two days. ”

“ In the soft mud of the shore ran the clearly marked tracks of a man and dog. The footprints of the dog seemed large for Fleur, but Marcel had not seen her in six weeks, and the puppy was growing fast.
“Fleur!” he said aloud. “Weel you remember Jean Marcel after all these weeks wid dem?”
He had seen no smoke of a fire and the tracks were at least two days old. His men were doubtless on the west shore of the bay where the rank grass grew to the height of a man’s head; but he would find them. The guns of the hunters would betray their whereabouts. ”

“ For a week Wallace remained at Whale River and then, assured by Doctor Hunter of Julie’s safety, left, to return later. When he met Marcel in the trade house and attempted to thank him, the cold glitter in the eyes of the Frenchman as he listened with impassive face to the halting words of the great man of the coast filled Colin Gillies with inward delight. ”

“ It was Julie who greeted him.
“Jean Marcel! Thank God!” she cried, and impulsively kissed the cheeks of the blushing lad. A whine of protest, followed by a smothered rumble at such familiarity with the master, drew her glance to the great puppy. “Fleur! You brought Fleur with you, Jean, as you said you would! Oh, we have had much worry about you, Jean Marcel—and how thin you are!” She led man and dog into the building. “Henri! Come quick and see whom we have with us!” ”

“ Calling some sailors, the lieutenant said to the Cree:
"Go below and make your dog fast to the tackle they lower; but remember, if you attempt to escape, you are a dead man,"
Laroque dropped down the ladder to the canoe, to meet the rough caresses of two hairy paws and swift licks from a hot tongue, while the rumble in the deep throat of the husky voiced his joy at his master's return.
As the nimble fingers of the Cree fashioned a sling from the lowered ropes for his protesting dog, his small eyes furtively swept the rail above him. The muzzles of a dozen rifles covered the canoe. ”

“ Again that shade of introspective bitterness clouded Marshby's face. "Yes," said he, involuntarily. "But how about her? Is she lucky?"
"Yes," replied Jerome, steadily. "She's got what she wants. She won't worship you any the less because you don't worship yourself. That's the mad way they have—women. It's an awful challenge. You've got a fight before you, if you don't refuse it.".
"God!" groaned Marshby to himself, "it is a fight. I can't refuse it."
Wilmer put his question without mercy. "Do you want to?"
"I want her to be happy," said Marshby, with a simple humility afar from cowardice. ”

“ One climbs the Keep, up a tortuous spiral of stone, worn now to the pitch of perforation, and there one is lifted to the centre of far more than a hemisphere of view. Away below one's feet, almost at the bottom of the hill, the Marsh begins, and spreads and spreads in a mighty crescent that sweeps about the sea, the Marsh dotted with the church towers of forgotten mediæval towns and breaking at last into the low blue hills of Winchelsea and Hastings ”

“ Fleur burst into a frenzy of yelping. Seizing her, Marcel calmed her into silence. Then, after an interval, the cry of the pack slowly faded, and shortly the man’s straining ears caught no sound save the fretting of the wind through the spruce.
Wolves he had often heard, singly and in groups of four or five, but the hunting howl which had been brought to him through the hills by the wind was not the clamor of a handful of timber wolves, but the blood chorus of a pack. None but the white wolves which far to the north hung on the flanks of the caribou herds could raise such a hunting cry. ”

“ Then in early afternoon when the sun hung low in the dim west, the men turned into the thick timber of the shores, where, sheltered from the wind, they shoveled out a camp ground with their snow-shoes and built a roaring fire while the puppies, ravenous for their supper, yelped and fretted until Jean threw them the frozen fish which they caught in the air and bolted. ”

“ The rich brown shadows on the smoke-stained walls and ceiling, the occasional starting into relief of the scutcheons of brilliant plumage, and the momentary glitter of the steel barrels, made a quaint background to this charming picture. Sitting there, and following some lingering memory of her tramp on the Marsh, she hummed to herself a few notes of the bugle call that had impressed her--at first softly, and finally with the full pitch of her voice. ”

“ The tide was well up, half the Marsh had already vanished, and the little creek where he had moored his skiff was now an empty shining river. The water was everywhere-- fringing the tussocks of salt grass with concentric curves of spume and drift, or tumultuously tossing its white-capped waves over the spreading expanse of the lower bay. The low thunder of breakers in the farther estuary broke monotonously on the ear. ”

“ I thought Marshlands was the most delightful spot I had ever seen. The long, low gray stone house, with its mullioned windows and flagged passages, stood just above the little village of Everton, on the verge of the moors, where one could catch a glint of the distant sea and the peaks of the Cumberland [67] mountains. ”

“ The puppy broke away and ran to the gate, turn [Pg 54] ing to him with pricked ears as she whined for the daily stroll into the scrub after snow-shoe rabbits.
"Non, ma petite! We walk not to-day!" He stroked the slate-gray back which trembled with her desire for a run with the master, then circling her shaggy neck with his arms, his face against hers, while she fretted as though she knew Jean was leaving her, said: "A'voir, Fleur!" and closed the gate.
She stood grieving, her black nose thrust between the slab pickets, the slant eyes following Marcel's back until he disappeared. ”

“ We were moving up the river, only a day's journey from Dunraven now, and with paddle in hand I pushed the little boat for all there was in her. But a few more hours and I would face my lord, and with sword in hand would end his troubles.
A low call floated out to me from the shore, and turning my head quickly, I saw standing upon the bank some fifty feet away, his face distorted by a ghastly smile, the apothecary, John Marsden. If I had seen a vision, I could not have been more surprised. I looked at him in amazement, as he raised his hands and beckoned me to approach him. ”

“ Because some half-breeds have brought a story to Whale River which was not true?”
“Well, enough of it is true, Julie, to make the Indians believe, when they hear it, that Jean Marcel killed his partners to save himself from starvation.”
“Not if Père Breton and Monsieur Gillies have any influence with the Crees!”
Marcel smiled indulgently at the girl’s ignorance of Cree psychology.
“The harm is already done,” he said. “No matter what M’sieu Gillies and Père Henri tell them they will believe the man of those three who got out alive is guilty.” ”

“ For one thing he was deeply thankful—Marie, in the shack with the dog, far up the river, had not been wakened. Now, moreover, she must never know the Cree tradition of the valley or he could not leave her again alone, with this yowling thing, beast or devil, to terrify her.
Hugging his replenished fire, Hertel smoked a pipe, wrestling with the mystery, as his dog whined and fretted beside him, then turned into his blankets. ”

“ Four days after Marcel reeled into Whale River with his battered dogs, bringing the man who was winning back life for Julie Breton, an exhausted dog team limped in from the south. Rushing into the trade house the white-faced Wallace grasped Gillies’ hand, hoarsely demanding:
“Does she live, Gillies?”
“She’s all right, Mr. Wallace; doing well, the doctor says,” answered Gillies. “She’s going to pull through, thanks to Jean Marcel and Doctor Hunter. I take my hat off to those two men.” ”

“ Thereupon he again changed himself into a dove, and, seizing the magic ring in its beak, flew with all haste out of the window. The long journey back to the camp, together with the weight of the ring, tired the poor little creature dreadfully; but it put forth all its strength, and flew cheerfully in the direction of the camp, where the King sat eagerly awaiting Marzi's return. But just as the dove came in sight of the camp a wind suddenly arose, and beat so violently against its wings that it was obliged to give up flying, and turn itself into a hare. ”