For a moment there was a painful hush. The crowd drew back involuntarily and left a clear s.p.a.ce, in which stood the blasphemer--a middle-sized, athletic fellow, with black beard, thick, waving hair, and flashing brown eyes. His white teeth were showing now in a snarl like a dog's, his cap was on the ground, his hair was tumbled, his hands were twitching with pa.s.sion, his foot was stamping with fury, and every time it struck the ground a little silver bell rang at his knee--a pretty sylvan sound, in no keeping with the scene. It heightened the distress of the fellow's blasphemy and ungovernable anger. For a man to curse his baptism was a wicked thing; but the other oath was not fit for human ears, and horror held the crowd moveless for a moment.

Then, as suddenly as the stillness came, a low, threatening mumble of voices rose, and a movement to close in on the man was made; but a figure pushed through the crowd, and, standing in front of the man, waved the people back. It was the Cure, the beloved M. Fabre, whose life had been spent among them, whom they obeyed as well as they could, for they were but frail humanity, after all--crude, simple folk, touched with imagination.

"Luc Pomfrette, why have you done this? What provocation had you?"

The Cure's voice was stern and cold, his usually gentle face had become severe, his soft eyes were piercing and determined.

The foot of the man still beat the ground angrily, and the little bell kept tinkling. He was gasping with pa.s.sion, and he did not answer yet.

"Luc Pomfrette, what have you to say?" asked the Cure again. He motioned back Laca.s.se, the constable of the parish, who had suddenly appeared with a rusty gun and a more rusty pair of handcuffs.

Still the voyageur did not answer.

The Cure glanced at Lajeunesse the blacksmith, who stood near.

"There was no cause--no," sagely shaking his head said Lajeunesse, "Here stand we at the door of the Louis Quinze in very good humour. Up come the voyageurs, all laughing, and ahead of them is Luc Pomfrette, with the little bell at his knee. Luc, he laugh the same as the rest, and they stand in the door, and the garcon bring out the brandy--just a little, but just enough too. I am talking to Henri Beauvin. I am telling him Junie Gauloir have run away with Dicey the Protestant, when all very quick Luc push between me and Henri, jump into the street, and speak like that!"

Lajeunesse looked around, as if for corroboration; Henri and others nodded, and some one said:

"That's true; that's true. There was no cause."

"Maybe it was the drink," said a little hunchbacked man, pushing his way in beside the Cure. "It must have been the drink; there was nothing else--no."

The speaker was Parpon the dwarf, the oddest, in some ways the most foolish, in others the wisest man in Pontiac.

"That is no excuse," said the Cure.

"It is the only one he has, eh?" answered Parpon. His eyes were fixed meaningly on those of Pomfrette.

"It is no excuse," repeated the Cure sternly. "The blasphemy is horrible, a shame and stigma upon Pontiac for ever." He looked Pomfrette in the face. "Foul-mouthed and wicked man, it is two years since you took the Blessed Sacrament. Last Easter day you were in a drunken sleep while Ma.s.s was being said; after the funeral of your own father you were drunk again. When you went away to the woods you never left a penny for candles, nor for Ma.s.ses to be said for your father's soul; yet you sold his horse and his little house, and spent the money in drink. Not a cent for a candle, but--"

"It's a lie," cried Pomfrette, shaking with rage from head to foot.

A long horror-stricken "Ah!" broke from the crowd. The Cure's face became graver and colder.

"You have a bad heart," he answered, "and you give Pontiac an evil name.

I command you to come to Ma.s.s next Sunday, to repent and to hear your penance given from the altar. For until--"

"I'll go to no Ma.s.s till I'm carried to it," was the sullen, malevolent interruption.

The Cure turned upon the people.

"This is a blasphemer, an evil-hearted, shameless man," he said. "Until he repents humbly, and bows his vicious spirit to holy Church, and his heart to the mercy of G.o.d, I command you to avoid him as you would a plague. I command that no door be opened to him; that no one offer him comfort or friendship; that not even a bon jour or a bon soir pa.s.s between you. He has blasphemed against our Father in heaven; to the Church he is a leper." He turned to Pomfrette. "I pray G.o.d that you have no peace in mind or body till your evil life is changed, and your black heart is broken by sorrow and repentance."

Then to the people he said again: "I have commanded you for your souls' sake; see that you obey. Go to your homes. Let us leave the leper--alone." He waved the awed crowd back.

"Shall we take off the little bell?" asked Lajeunesse of the Cure.

Pomfrette heard, and he drew himself together, his jaws shutting with ferocity, and his hand flying to the belt where his voyageur's case-knife hung. The Cure did not see this. Without turning his head towards Pomfrette, he said:

"I have commanded you, my children. Leave the leper alone."

Again he waved the crowd to be gone, and they scattered, whispering to each other; for nothing like this had ever occurred in Pontiac before, nor had they ever seen the Cure with this granite look in his face, or heard his voice so bitterly hard.

He did not move until he had seen them all started homewards from the Four Corners. One person remained beside him--Parpon the dwarf.

"I will not obey you, M'sieu' le Cure," said he. "I'll forgive him before he repents."

"You will share his sin," answered the Cure sternly. "No; his punishment, M'sieu'," said the dwarf; and turning on his heel, he trotted to where Pomfrette stood alone in the middle of the road, a dark, morose figure, hatred and a wild trouble in his face.

Already banishment, isolation, seemed to possess Pomfrette, to surround him with loneliness. The very effort he made to be defiant of his fate appeared to make him still more solitary. All at once he thrust a hand inside his red shirt, and, giving a jerk which broke a string tied round his neck, he drew forth a little pad--a flat bag of silk, called an Agnus Dei, worn as a protection and a blessing by the pious, and threw it on the ground. Another little parcel he drew from his belt, and ground it into the dirt with his heel. It contained a woman's hair.

Then, muttering, his hands still twitching with savage feeling, he picked up his cap, covered with dirt, put it on, and pa.s.sed away down the road towards the river, the little bell tinkling as he went. Those who heard it had a strange feeling, for already to them the man was as if he had some baleful disease, and this little bell told of the pa.s.sing of a leper.

Yet some one man had worn just such a bell every year in Pontiac. It was the mark of honour conferred upon a voyageur by his fellows, the token of his prowess and his skill. This year Luc Pomfrette had won it, and that very day it had been buckled round his leg with songs and toasts.

For hours Pomfrette walked incessantly up and down the river-bank, muttering and gesticulating, but at last came quietly to the cottage which he shared with Henri Beauvin. Henri had removed himself and his belongings: already the ostracising had begun. He went to the bedroom of old Mme. Burgoyne, his cousin; she also was gone. He went to a little outhouse and called.

For reply there was a scratching at the door. He opened it, and a dog leaped out and upon him. With a fierce fondness he s.n.a.t.c.hed at the dog's collar, and drew the s.h.a.ggy head to his knee; then as suddenly shoved him away with a smothered oath, and going into the house, shut the door.

He sat down in a chair in the middle of the room, and scarcely stirred for half an-hour. At last, with a pa.s.sionate jerk of the head, he got to his feet, looking about the room in a half-distracted way. Outside, the dog kept running round and round the house, silent, watchful, waiting for the door to open.

As time went by, Luc became quieter, but the look of his face was more desolate. At last he almost ran to the door, threw it open, and called.

The dog sprang into the room, went straight to the fireplace, lay down, and with tongue lolling and body panting looked at Pomfrette with blinking, uncomprehending eyes.

Pomfrette went to a cupboard, brought back a bone well covered with meat, and gave it to the dog, which s.n.a.t.c.hed it and began gnawing it, now and again stopping to look up at his master, as one might look at a mountain moving, be aware of something singular, yet not grasp the significance of the phenomenon. At last, worn out, Pomfrette threw himself on his bed, and fell into a sound sleep. When he awoke, it was far into the morning. He lighted a fire in the kitchen, got a "spider,"

fried himself a piece of pork, and made some tea. There was no milk in the cupboard; so he took a pitcher and walked down the road a few rods to the next house, where lived the village milkman. He knocked, and the door was opened by the milkman's wife. A frightened look came upon her when she saw who it was.

"Non, non!" she said, and shut the door in his face. He stared blankly at the door for a moment, then turned round and stood looking down into the road, with the pitcher in his hand. The milkman's little boy, Maxime, came running round the corner of the house. "Maxime," he said involuntarily and half-eagerly, for he and the lad had been great friends.

Maxime's face brightened, then became clouded; he stood still an instant, and presently, turning round and looking at Pomfrette askance, ran away behind the house, saying: "Non, non!"

Pomfrette drew his rough knuckles across his forehead in a dazed way; then, as the significance of the thing came home to him, he broke out with a fierce oath, and strode away down the yard and into the road.

On the way to his house he met Duclosse the mealman and Garotte the lime-burner. He wondered what they would do. He could see the fat, wheezy Duclosse hesitate, but the arid, alert Garotte had determination in every motion and look. They came nearer; they were about to pa.s.s; there was no sign.

Pomfrette stopped short. "Good-day, lime-burner; good-day, Duclosse," he said, looking straight at them.

Garotte made no reply, but walked straight on. Pomfrette stepped swiftly in front of the mealman. There was fury in his face-fury and danger; his hair was disordered, his eyes afire.

"Good-day, mealman," he said, and waited. "Duclosse," called Garotte warningly, "remember!" Duclosse's knees shook, and his face became mottled like a piece of soap; he pushed his fingers into his shirt and touched the Agnus Dei that he carried there. That and Garotte's words gave him courage. He scarcely knew what he said, but it had meaning.

"Good-bye-leper," he answered.

Pomfrette's arm flew out to throw the pitcher at the mealman's head, but Duclosse, with a grunt of terror, flung up in front of his face the small bag of meal that he carried, the contents pouring over his waistcoat from a loose corner. The picture was so ludicrous that Pomfrette laughed with a devilish humour, and flinging the pitcher at the bag, he walked away towards his own house. Duclosse, pale and frightened, stepped from among the fragments of crockery, and with backward glances towards Pomfrette joined his comrade.

"Lime-burner," he said, sitting down on the bag of meal, and mechanically twisting tight the loose, leaking corner, "the devil's in that leper."

"He was a good enough fellow once," answered Garotte, watching Pomfrette.

"I drank with him at five o'clock yesterday," said Duclosse philosophically. "He was fit for any company then; now he's fit for none."

Garotte looked wise. "Mealman," said he, "it takes years to make folks love you; you can make them hate you in an hour. La! La! it's easier to hate than to love. Come along, m'sieu' dusty-belly."