For the first time now the deep marks of illness upon the mother’s face appeared to husband and children as more than the passing traces of suffering, as imprints from the hand of death. The hard-drawn breath rattling in her throat no longer betokened conscious pain, but was the last blind remonstrance of the body rent by nearing dissolution.
“You do not think she will die before the curé comes back?” Maria asked.
Tit’Sèbe’s head and hand showed that he was helpless to answer. “I cannot tell … If your horse is able you would do well to seek him with the daylight.”
Their eyes searched the window, as yet only a square of darkness, and then returned to her who lay upon the bed … But five days ago a hearty, high-spirited woman, in full health of mind and body … It could not be that she was to die so soon as that. … But knowing now the sad inevitableness, every glance found a subtle change, some fresh token that this bedridden woman groaning in her blindness was no more the wife and mother they had known so long.
Half an hour went by; after casting his eyes toward the window Chapdelaine arose hurriedly, saying.—“I am going to put the horse in.”
Tit’Sèbe nodded. “That is well; you had better harness; it is near day.”
“Yes. I am going to put the horse in,” Chapdelaine repeated. But at the moment of his departure it swept over him suddenly that in going to bring the Blessed Sacrament he would be upon a solemn and a final errand, significant of death. The thought held him still irresolute. “I am going to put the horse in.” Shifting from foot to foot, he gave a last look at his wife and at length went out.
Not long after the coming of day the wind rose, and soon was sounding hoarsely about the house. “It is from the nor’west; there will be a blow,” said Tit’Sèbe.
Maria looked toward the window and sighed. “Only two days ago snow fell, and now it will be raised and drift. The roads were heavy enough before; father and the curé are going to have trouble getting through.”
But the bonesetter shook his head. “They may have a little difficulty on the road, but they will get here all the same. A priest who brings the Blessed Sacrament has more than the strength of a man.” His mild eyes shone with the faith that knows no bounds.
“Yes, power beyond the strength of a man has a priest bearing the Blessed Sacrament. It was three years ago that they summoned me to care for a sick man on the lower Mistassini; at once I saw that I could do nothing for him, and I bade them go fetch a priest. It was nighttime and there was not a man in the house, the father himself being sick and his boys quite young. And so at the last it was I that went. On the way back we had to cross the river; the ice had just gone out—it was in the spring—and as yet not a boat had been put into the water. We found a great heavy tub that had been lying in the sand all winter, and when we tried to run her down to the water she was buried so deep in the sand and was so heavy that the four of us could not so much as make her budge. Simon Martel was there, big Lalancette of St. Methode, a third I cannot call to mind, and myself; and we four, hauling and shoving to break our hearts as we thought of this poor fellow on the other side of the river who was in the way of dying like a heathen, could not stir that boat a single inch. Well, the curé came forward; he laid his hand on the gunwale—just laid his hand on the gunwale, like that—‘Give one more shove,’ said he; and the boat seemed to start of herself and slipped down to the water as though she were alive. The sick man received the sacrament all right, and died like a Christian just as day was breaking. Yes, a priest has strength beyond the strength of men.”
Maria was still sighing, but her heart discovered a melancholy peace in the certainty and nearness of death. This unknown disorder, the dread of what might be coming, these were dark and terrifying phantoms against which one strove blindly, uncomprehendingly. But when one was face to face with death itself all to be done was plain—ordained these many centuries by laws beyond dispute. By day or night, from far or near, the curé comes bearing the Holy Sacrament—across angry rivers in the spring, over the treacherous ice, along roads choked with snow, fighting the bitter northwest wind; aided by miracles, he never fails; he fulfils his sacred office, and thenceforward there is room for neither doubt nor fear. Death is but a glorious preferment, a door that opens to the joys unspeakable of the elect.
The wind had risen and was shaking the partitions as windowpanes rattle in a sudden gust. The nor’wester came howling over the dark treetops, fell upon the clearing about the little wooden buildings—house, stable, barn—in squalls and-wicked whirlwinds that sought to lift the roof and smote the walls like a battering-ram, before sweeping onward to the forest in a baffled fury. The house trembled from base to chimneytop, and swayed on its foundation in such a fashion that the inmates, feeling the onslaught, hearing the roar and shriek of the foe, were almost as sensible of the terrors of the storm as though they were exposed to it; lacking the consciousness of safe retreat that belongs to those who are sheltered by strong walls of stone.
Tit’Sèbe cast
