第21章
"Chop him down! chop him down" was the cry; and a trio of axes were twanging against the birch tree, while the other men shouted and laughed and pelted the tree with ice to keep the prisoner from climbing down.
Prosper neither shouted nor chopped, but he grinned a little as he watched the tree quiver and shake, and heard the rain of "SACRES!"and "MAUDITS!" that came out of the swaying top.He grinned--until he saw that a half-dozen more blows would fell the birch right on the roof of the shanty.
"Are you crazy?" he cried, as he picked up an axe; "you know nothing how to chop.You kill a man.You smash the cabane.Let go!" He shoved one of the boys away and sent a few mighty cuts into the side of the birch that was farthest from the cabin; then two short cuts on the other side; the tree shivered, staggered, cracked, and swept in a great arc toward the deep snow-drift by the brook.As the top swung earthward, Raoul jumped clear of the crashing branches and landed safely in the feather-bed of snow, buried up to his neck.
Nothing was to be seen of him but his head, like some new kind of fire-work--sputtering bad words.
Well, this was the first thing that put an edge on Vaillantcoeur's hunger to fight.No man likes to be chopped down by his friend, even if the friend does it for the sake of saving him from being killed by a fall on the shanty-roof.It is easy to forget that part of it.What you remember is the grin.
The second thing that made it worse was the bad chance that both of these men had to fall in love with the same girl.Of course there were other girls in the village beside Marie Antoinette Girard--plenty of them, and good girls, too.But somehow or other, when they were beside her, neither Raoul nor Prosper cared to look at any of them, but only at 'Toinette.Her eyes were so much darker and her cheeks so much more red--bright as the berries of the mountain-ash in September.Her hair hung down to her waist on Sunday in two long braids, brown and shiny like a ripe hazelnut; and her voice when she laughed made the sound of water tumbling over little stones.
No one knew which of the two lovers she liked best.At school it was certainly Raoul, because he was bigger and bolder.When she came back from her year in the convent at Roberval it was certainly Prosper, because he could talk better and had read more books.He had a volume of songs full of love and romance, and knew most of them by heart.But this did not last forever.'Toinette's manners had been polished at the convent, but her ideas were still those of her own people.She never thought that knowledge of books could take the place of strength, in the real battle of life.She was a brave girl, and she felt sure in her heart that the man of the most courage must be the best man after all.
For a while she appeared to persuade herself that it was Prosper, beyond a doubt, and always took his part when the other girls laughed at him.But this was not altogether a good sign.When a girl really loves, she does not talk, she acts.The current of opinion and gossip in the village was too strong for her.By the time of the affair of the "chopping-down" at Lac des Caps, her heart was swinging to and fro like a pendulum.One week she would walk home from mass with Raoul.The next week she would loiter in the front yard on a Saturday evening and talk over the gate with Prosper, until her father called her into the shop to wait on customers.
It was in one of these talks that the pendulum seemed to make its last swing and settle down to its resting-place.Prosper was telling her of the good crops of sugar that he had made from his maple grove.
"The profit will be large--more than sixty piastres--and with that Ishall buy at Chicoutimi a new four-wheeler, of the finest, a veritable wedding carriage--if you--if I--'Toinette? Shall we ride together?"His left hand clasped hers as it lay on the gate.His right arm stole over the low picket fence and went around the shoulder that leaned against the gate-post.The road was quite empty, the night already dark.He could feel her warm breath on his neck as she laughed.
"If you! If I! If what? Why so many ifs in this fine speech? Of whom is the wedding for which this new carriage is to be bought? Do you know what Raoul Vaillantcoeur has said? 'No more wedding in this parish till I have thrown the little Prosper over my shoulder!'"As she said this, laughing, she turned closer to the fence and looked up, so that a curl on her forehead brushed against his cheek.
"BATECHE! Who told you he said that?"
"I heard him, myself."
"Where?"
"In the store, two nights ago.But it was not for the first time.
He said it when we came from the church together, it will be four weeks to-morrow.""What did you say to him?"
"I told him perhaps he was mistaken.The next wedding might be after the little Prosper had measured the road with the back of the longest man in Abbeville."The laugh had gone out of her voice now.She was speaking eagerly, and her bosom rose and fell with quick breaths.But Prosper's right arm had dropped from her shoulder, and his hand gripped the fence as he straightened up.
"'Toinette!" he cried, "that was bravely said.And I could do it.
Yes, I know I could do it.But, MON DIEU, what shall I say? Three years now, he has pushed me, every one has pushed me, to fight.And you--but I cannot.I am not capable of it."The girl's hand lay in his as cold and still as a stone.She was silent for a moment, and then asked, coldly, "Why not?""Why not? Because of the old friendship.Because he pulled me out of the river long ago.Because I am still his friend.Because now he hates me too much.Because it would be a black fight.Because shame and evil would come of it, whoever won.That is what I fear, 'Toinette!"Her hand slipped suddenly away from his.She stepped back from the gate.