第11章

Thirty years brought many changes to Bytown.The wild woodland flavour evaporated out of the place almost entirely; and instead of an independent centre of rustic life, it became an annex to great cities.It was exploited as a summer resort, and discovered as a winter resort.Three or four big hotels were planted there, and in their shadow a score of boarding-houses alternately languished and flourished.The summer cottage also appeared and multiplied; and with it came many of the peculiar features which man elaborates in his struggle toward the finest civilization--afternoon teas, and amateur theatricals, and claw-hammer coats, and a casino, and even a few servants in livery.

The very name of Bytown was discarded as being too American and commonplace.An Indian name was discovered, and considered much more romantic and appropriate.You will look in vain for Bytown on the map now.Nor will you find the old saw-mill there any longer, wasting a vast water-power to turn its dripping wheel and cut up a few pine-logs into fragrant boards.There is a big steam-mill a little farther up the river, which rips out thousands of feet of lumber in a day; but there are no more pine-logs, only sticks of spruce which the old lumbermen would have thought hardly worth cutting.And down below the dam there is a pulp-mill, to chew up the little trees and turn them into paper, and a chair factory, and two or three industrial establishments, with quite a little colony of French-Canadians employed in them as workmen.

Hose Ransom sold his place on the hill to one of the hotel companies, and a huge caravansary occupied the site of the house with the white palings.There were no more bleeding-hearts in the garden.There were beds of flaring red geraniums, which looked as if they were painted; and across the circle of smooth lawn in front of the piazza the name of the hotel was printed in alleged ornamental plants letters two feet long, immensely ugly.Hose had been elevated to the office of postmaster, and lived in a Queen Antic cottage on the main street.Little Billy Ransom had grown up into a very interesting young man, with a decided musical genius, and a tenor voice, which being discovered by an enterprising patron of genius, from Boston, Billy was sent away to Paris to learn to sing.Some day you will hear of his debut in grand opera, as Monsieur Guillaume Rancon.

But Fiddlin' Jack lived on in the little house with the curved roof, beside the river, refusing all the good offers which were made to him for his piece of land.

"NON," he said; "what for shall I sell dis house? I lak' her, she lak' me.All dese walls got full from museek, jus' lak' de wood of dis violon.He play bettair dan de new feedle, becos' I play heem so long.I lak' to lissen to dat rivaire in de night.She sing from long taim' ago--jus' de same song w'en I firs come here.W'at for I go away? W'at I get? W'at you can gif' me lak' dat?"He was still the favourite musician of the county-side, in great request at parties and weddings; but he had extended the sphere of his influence a little.He was not willing to go to church, though there were now several to choose from; but a young minister of liberal views who had come to take charge of the new Episcopal chapel had persuaded Jacques into the Sunday-school, to lead the children's singing with his violin.He did it so well that the school became the most popular in the village.It was much pleasanter to sing than to listen to long addresses.

Jacques grew old gracefully, but he certainly grew old rapidly.His beard was white; his shoulders were stooping; he suffered a good deal in damp days from rheumatism--fortunately not in his hands, but in his legs.One spring there was a long spell of abominable weather, just between freezing and thawing.He caught a heavy cold and took to his bed.Hose came over to look after him.

For a few days the old fiddler kept up his courage, and would sit up in the bed trying to play; then his strength and his spirit seemed to fail together.He grew silent and indifferent.When Hose came in he would find Jacques with his face turned to the wall, where there was a tiny brass crucifix hanging below the violin, and his lips moving quietly.

"Don't ye want the fiddle, Jack? I 'd like ter hear some o' them old-time tunes ag'in."But the artifice failed.Jacques shook his head.His mind seemed to turn back to the time of his first arrival in the village, and beyond it.When he spoke at all, it was of something connected with this early time.

"Dat was bad taim' when I near keel Bull Corey, hein?"Hose nodded gravely.

"Dat was beeg storm, dat night when I come to Bytown.You remember dat?"Yes, Hose remembered it very well.It was a real old-fashioned storm.

"Ah, but befo dose taim', dere was wuss taim' dan dat--in Canada.

Nobody don' know 'bout dat.I lak to tell you, 'Ose, but I can't.

No, it is not possible to tell dat, nevair!"It came into Hose's mind that the case was serious.Jack was going to die.He never went to church, but perhaps the Sunday-school might count for something.He was only a Frenchman, after all, and Frenchmen had their own ways of doing things.He certainly ought to see some kind of a preacher before he went out of the wilderness.

There was a Canadian priest in town that week, who had come down to see about getting up a church for the French people who worked in the mills.Perhaps Jack would like to talk with him.

His face lighted up at the proposal.He asked to have the room tidied up, and a clean shirt put on him, and the violin laid open in its case on a table beside the bed, and a few other preparations made for the visit.Then the visitor came, a tall, friendly, quiet-looking man about Jacques's age, with a smooth face and a long black cassock.The door was shut, and they were left alone together.