Part 7 (1/2)

How awfully silent it was! There was no breath in the chill, still air; there was no sound of life in all the dark, close brushwood; the oxen slept; and Saul, appalled by the silence that had come with his silence, appalled to realise more vividly than ever that he, and he alone, had been the instigator of voice in all that region, was cowed into thinking that, if the dead could rise from the grave for purposes of revenge, how much more easily could he rise now from so crude a coffin as he himself had helped to construct for him!

It was in this absolute silence that he heard a sound. He heard the dead man turn in his coffin! He heard, and did not doubt his hearing; it was not a thing that he could easily be deceived about as he sat with his elbow on the coffin. He sat there not one instant longer; the next moment he was twenty feet away, standing half-hidden in the edge of the brushwood, staring at the cart and the coffin, ready to plunge into the icy swamp and hide farther among the young trees if occasion required.

Occasion did not require. The oxen dozed on; the cart, the barrel, and the coffin stood just as he had left them.

Perhaps for five minutes the frightened man was still. Gradually his muscles relaxed, and he ceased to stand with limbs and features all drawn in horror away from the coffin. He next pulled back his foot from the icy marsh; but even then, having regained his equilibrium on the road, he had not decided what to do, and it took him some time longer to turn over the situation in his mind. He had heard the dead man move; he was terribly frightened; still, it might have been a mistake, and, any way, the most disagreeable course, clearly, was to remain there till nightfall. He had run backward in his first alarm; so, to get to the nearest habitation, it would be necessary to pa.s.s the cart on the road, even if he left it there. Had any further manifestation of vitality appeared on the part of the corpse he would have felt justified in running back into the forest, but this was an extreme measure. He did not wish to go near the cart, but to turn his back upon it seemed almost as fearsome. He stood facing it, as a man faces a fierce dog, knowing that if he turns and runs the dog will pursue. He supposed that as long as he stared at the coffin and saw nothing he could be sure that the deceased remained inside, but that if he gave the ghost opportunity to get out on the sly it might afterwards come at him from any point of the compa.s.s. He was an ignorant man, with a vulgar mind; he had some reverence for a corpse, but none whatever for a ghost. His mind had undergone a change concerning the dead the moment he had heard him move, and he looked upon his charge now as equally despicable and gruesome.

After some further delay he discovered that the course least disagreeable would be to drive the oxen with his voice and walk as far behind the cart as he now was, keeping the pine box with four nails on its lid well in view. Accordingly, making a great effort to encourage himself to break the silence, he raised his shout in the accustomed command to the oxen, and after it had been repeated once or twice, they strained at the cart and set themselves to the road again. They did not go as fast as when the goad was within reach of their flanks; or rather; they went more slowly than then, for ”fast” was not a word that could have been applied to their progress before. Yet they went on the whole steadily, and the ”Gee” and ”Haw” of the gruff voice behind guided them straight as surely as bit and rein.

At length it could be seen in the distance that the road turned; and round this turning another human figure came in sight. Perhaps in all his life Saul never experienced greater pleasure in meeting another man than he did now, yet his exterior remained gruff and unperturbed. The only notice that he appeared to take of his fellow-man was to adjust his pace so that, as the other came nearer the cart in front, Saul caught up with it in the rear. At last they met close behind it, and then, as nature prompted, they both stopped.

The last comer upon the desolate scene was a large, hulking boy. He had been plodding heavily with a sack upon his back. As he stopped, he set this upon the ground and wiped his brow.

The boy was French; but Saul, as a native of the province, talked French about as well as he did English--that is to say, very badly. He could not have written a word of either.--The conversation went on in the _patois_ of the district.

”What is in the box?” asked the boy, observing that the carter's eyes rested uneasily upon it.

”Old Cameron died at our place the day before yesterday,” answered Saul, not with desire to evade, but because it did not seem necessary to answer more directly.

”What of?” The boy looked at the box with more interest now.

”He died of a fall”--briefly.

The questioner looked at the pinewood box now with considerable solicitude. ”Did his feet swell?” he asked. As Saul did not immediately a.s.sent, he added--”When the old M. Didier died, his feet swelled.”

”What do you think of the coffin?” Saul said this eyeing it as if he were critically considering it as a piece of workmans.h.i.+p.

”M. Didier made a much better one for his little child,” replied the boy.

”If he did, neither Mr. Bates nor me is handy at this sort of work. We haven't been used to it. It's a rough thing. Touch it. You will see it's badly made.”

He gained his object. The boy fingered the coffin, and although he did not praise the handiwork, it seemed to Saul that some horrid spell was broken when human hands had again touched the box and no evil had resulted.

”Why didn't you bury him at home?” asked the boy. ”He was English.”

”Mr. Bates has strict ideas, though he is English. He wanted it done proper, in a graveyard, by a minister. He has wrote to the minister at St. Hennon's and sent money for the burying--Mr. Bates, he is always particular.”

”You are not going to St. Hennon's?” said the boy incredulously. ”I'll stay to-night at Turrifs, and go on in the morning. It's four days' walk for me and the cattle to go and come, but I shall take back a man to cut the trees.”

”Why not send him by the new railroad?”

”It does not stop at Turrifs.”

”Yes; they stop at the cross-roads now, not more than three miles from Turrifs, There's a new station, and an Englishman set to keep it. I've just brought this sack of flour from there. M. Didier had it come by the cars.”

”When do they pa.s.s to St. Hennon's?” asked Saul meditatively,--”But anyway, the Englishman wouldn't like to take in a coffin.”

”They pa.s.s some time in the night; and he must take it in if you write on it where it's going. It's not his business to say what the cars will take, if you pay.”

”Well,” said Saul. ”Good-day. Yo-hoist! Yo, yo, ho-hoist!”