hid his face in his hands, and prayed in his own tongue.
“My God, it is here again! Was it not enough that I must be tempted once before? Must I have the madness yet another time? My God, show the mercy toward me, for the Blessed Virgin’s sake. I am a sinner, but not the second time; for the love of Jesus, not the second time! Ave Maria, gratia plena, ora pro me!”
The others did not understand what he was saying. Indeed, they paid little attention to him. They saw he was frightened, and thought it was with fear. They were already discussing what ought to be done about the fracas.
It was plain that Bull Corey, whose liquor had now taken effect suddenly, and made him as limp as a strip of cedar bark, must be thrown out of the door, and left to cool off on the beach. But what to do with Fiddlin’ Jack for his attempt at knifing—a detested crime? He might have gone at Bull with a gun, or with a club, or with a chair, or with any recognized weapon. But with a carving-knife! That was a serious offence. Arrest him, and send him to jail at the Forks? Take him out, and duck him in the lake? Lick him, and drive him out of the town?
There was a multitude of counsellors, but it was Hose Ransom who settled the case. He was a well-known fighting-man, and a respected philosopher. He swung his broad frame in front of the fiddler.
“Tell ye what we’ll do. Jess nothin’! Ain’t Bull Corey the blowin’est and the mos’ trouble-us cuss ’round these hull woods? And would n’t it be a fust-rate thing ef some o’ the wind was let out ‘n him?”
General assent greeted this pointed inquiry.
“And wa’n’t Fiddlin’ Jack peacerble ‘nough ‘s long ‘s he was let alone? What’s the matter with lettin’ him alone now?”
The argument seemed to carry weight. Hose saw his advantage, and clinched it.
“Ain’t he given us a lot o’ fun here this winter in a innercent kind o’ way, with his old fiddle? I guess there ain’t nothin’ on airth he loves better ‘n that holler piece o’ wood, and the toons that’s inside o’ it. It’s jess like a wife or a child to him. Where’s that fiddle, anyhow?”
Some one had picked it deftly out of Corey’s hand during the scuffle, and now passed it up to Hose.
“Here, Frenchy, take yer long-necked, pot-bellied music-gourd. And I want you boys to understand, ef any one teches that fiddle ag’in, I’ll knock hell out ‘n him.”
So the recording angel dropped another tear upon the record of Hosea Ransom, and the books were closed for the night.
III
For some weeks after the incident of the violin and the carving-knife, it looked as if a permanent cloud had settled upon the spirits of Fiddlin’ Jack. He was sad and nervous; if any one touched him, or even spoke to him suddenly, he would jump like a deer. He kept out of everybody’s way as much as possible, sat out in the wood-shed when he was not at work, and could not be persuaded to bring down his fiddle. He seemed in a fair way to be transformed into “the melancholy Jaques.”
It was Serena who broke the spell; and she did it in a woman’s way, the simplest way in the world—by taking no notice of it.
“Ain’t you goin’ to play for me to-night?” she asked one evening, as Jacques passed through the kitchen. Whereupon the evil spirit was exorcised, and the violin came back again to its place in the life of the house.
But there was less time for music now than there had been in the winter. As the snow vanished from the woods, and the frost leaked out of the ground, and the ice on the lake was honeycombed, breaking away from the shore, and finally going to pieces altogether in a warm southeast storm, the Sportsmen’s Retreat began to prepare for business. There was a garden to be planted, and there were boats to be painted. The rotten old wharf in front of the house stood badly in need of repairs. The fiddler proved himself a Jack-of-all-trades and master of more than one.
In the middle of May the anglers began to arrive at the Retreat—a quiet, sociable, friendly set of men, most of whom were old-time acquaintances, and familiar lovers of the woods. They belonged to the “early Adirondack period,” these disciples of Walton. They were not very rich, and they did not put on much style, but they understood how to have a good time; and what they did not know about fishing was not worth knowing.
Jacques fitted into their scheme of life as a well-made reel fits the butt of a good rod. He was a steady oarsman, a lucky fisherman, with a real genius for the use of the landing-net, and a cheerful companion, who did not insist upon giving his views about artificial flies and advice about casting, on every occasion. By the end of June he found himself in steady employment as a guide.
He liked best to go with the anglers who were not too energetic, but were satisfied to fish for a few hours in the morning and again at sunset, after a long rest in the middle of the afternoon. This was just the time for the violin; and if Jacques had his way, he would take it with him, carefully tucked away in its case in the bow of the boat; and when the pipes were lit after lunch, on the shore of Round Island or at the mouth of Cold Brook, he would discourse sweet music until the declining sun drew near the tree-tops and the veery rang his silver bell for vespers. Then it was time to fish again, and the flies danced merrily over the water, and the great speckled trout leaped eagerly to catch them. For trolling all day long for lake-trout Jacques had little liking.
“Dat is not de sport,” he would say, “to hol’ one r-r-ope in de ‘and, an’ den pool heem in wid one feesh on t’ree hook, h’all tangle h’up in hees mout’—dat is not de sport. Bisside, dat leef not taim’ for la musique.”
Midsummer brought a new set of guests to the Retreat, and filled the ramshackle old house to overflowing. The fishing fell off, but there were picnics and camping-parties in abundance, and Jacques was in demand. The ladies liked him; his manners were so pleasant, and they took a great interest in his music. Moody bought a piano for the parlour that summer; and there were two or three good players in the house, to whom Jacques would listen with delight, sitting on a pile of logs outside the parlour windows in the warm August evenings.
Some one asked him whether he did not prefer the piano to the violin.
“NON,” he answered, very decidedly; “dat piano, he vairee smart; he got plentee word, lak’ de leetle yellow bird in de cage—‘ow you call heem—de cannarie. He spik’ moch. Bot dat violon, he spik’ more deep, to de heart, lak’ de Rossignol. He mak’ me feel more glad, more sorree—dat fo’ w’at Ah lak’ heem de bes’!”
Through all the occupations and pleasures of the summer Jacques kept as near as he could to Serena. If he learned a new tune, by listening to the piano—some simple, artful air of Mozart, some melancholy echo of a nocturne of Chopin, some tender, passionate love-song of Schubert—it was to her that he would play it first. If he could persuade her to a boat-ride with him on the lake, Sunday evening, the week was complete. He even learned to know the more shy and delicate forest-blossoms that she preferred, and would come in from a day’s guiding with a tiny bunch of belated twin-flowers, or a few purple-fringed orchids, or a handful of nodding stalks of the fragrant pyrola, for her.
So the summer passed, and the autumn, with its longer hunting expeditions into the depth of the wilderness; and by the time winter came around again, Fiddlin’
