The Heart of A Man by William Merriam Rouse Read online

  upon him of their remarks about the house of him from madness during the years that Fortier. However, this information was followed.

  enough so that he could piece together a fairly For, during the years that came after

  accurate picture of her life.

  that day of his cowardice. Achille Boivin held She no longer laughed; and her only

  a peculiar place in the village, of Riviere du smiles were those of pity and sympathy. She Loup. For his failure to fight for the thing still lived with her father, but without being a which he should have guarded dearer than life, daughter to him. She was a housekeeper

  the love of Angelique, he was despised more merely, who worked for her board and

  or less by every one; but for his artistry with clothing and such money as he chose to give the tools of his trade he was respected, not her. They lived not exactly as enemies in the only by the people of his own parish, but by same house, but as two persons who were

  those who came from as far away as Montreal strangers to each other, and always would be.

  and Quebec. All of him that was left alive, it Of course it goes without saying that

  seemed, went into the making of beautiful

  the priest did all in his power to straighten out things. These he sold as his reputation spread this tangle of human lives. But at length he, for greater and greater sums of money, until at being a man of God and wise, perhaps, in the length he was held to be a rich man.

  ways of heaven, decided to let the affair find Never once did he cross the bridge

  ills natural channel after the manner of a river.

  which Marcellin Fortier had forbidden In him; So it finally came about that the village

  never once did he approach it or dare to gaze accepted things as they were ... the triangle of directly at the blacksmith’s daughter when she the man whose eyes seldom left the ground,

  was in the garden, Catin went on all errands to the gorillalike blacksmith, and the girl who

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  was perpetually sad.

  wonderful care. No work was too pressing for At the end of the third year Achille,

  him to leave if he thought the pup had

  finding himself rotting with lonesomeness, wandered toward the bridge. Time was of no and being afraid for the soundness of his account if Bijou needed exercise: for when mind, got him a young dog, hardly yet weaned Tibere began to show a disposition to roam

  from its mother. This pup was of that kind, from the neighborhood of the maison Fortier, prevalent in French Canada, which seems to

  Boivin took to keeping his dog tied up all the combine within a single hide all the virtues of time. In defense of Bijou it must be said here, many breeds. Achille called it Bijou, which however, that he was a real dog, with the joy means jewel in the English tongue. And he

  of life in his bark, the love of man in his soft cherished and nursed it through the ills of eyes, and the bravery of a faithful soldier in puppyhood as though it had been indeed a

  his little heart.

  jewel of great worth. The dog repaid him with Thus Bijou grew up, beating against

  love; for although Bijou had the tail of a pug the restrictions with which a too jealous care and the ears of a hound, he was more fox-had hedged him, but nevertheless loyal to the terrier than anything else, and it is well known human being who had worshiped him almost

  that un petit fox loves his master, and him from the first opening of his puppy eyes. The only.

  man and the dog were practically alone in a As though to lake this single joy out of

  world of people, and the man had very nearly the life of Achille Boivin, a dog appeared

  permitted himself to be content with that

  about the blacksmith-shop. This animal was

  strange condition when came the last effort of the newly acquired property of Marcellin le bon Dieu to save him from himself.

  Fortier, taken in trade, and he wore a look It was a shimmering August day, such

  upon his scarred visage which corresponded

  a day as that upon which Achille had gone to well to the expression of his owner. Heavy in the bridge and back again five years before, the chest, broken-toothed, woven with iron-when Tibere decided to cross the bridge and hard muscles, one had to take no more than a seek whatever trouble might be found in the single glance at Tibere, as he was called, to other portion of the village. Boivin, glancing know that he was a fighter of many battles.

  casually out of his shop door, saw the ugly Although his color was a jaundiced

  yellow beast trotting up the hill with his

  yellow, he was predominantly bull, and he had muzzle swinging low and his reddened eyes

  been bred to the pit. If Fortier got him with a peering right and left. He drew abreast of the thought to Boivin, then he was well rewarded.

  maison Boivin.

  From the time of the appearance of Tibere, the Just as Achille dashed from the shop

  nights and days of Achille were filled with his ears were smitten by a sharp defiance from worry.

  the throat of Bijou, whom he had left safely The cabinet-maker was too young to

  tied to a ring in the stone doorstep. That

  wither in flesh, but inwardly he became staccato bark was enough for the dog of somewhat like an old woman, and if the end

  Marcellin Fortier. With a bound he cleared the had not come as it did he would have lived to fence. Boivin, forgetting his habitual fear, ran be one of those soft men whom no one straight in front of the bulldog and threw out respects one of those men who have many

  his arms in a gesture, such as one might use to colds during the winter, and who complain in unruly chickens. Tibere crouched, with

  a squeaky voice.

  murder in his eyes, and in another instant he He cherished Bijou, did Achille, with a

  would have jumped at the throat of Boivin,

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  7

  now suddenly paralyzed with terror.

  longer he lay in contemplation of the works of Then it was that Bijou snapped the old

  Fortier the stronger grew this plant, until it clothes line with which he had been tied. Like seemed that little branches of it had reached a living bullet he hurled himself at Tibere.

  into every vein and artery of his body.

  Four times heavier than himself, and his

  Achille got up with movements more

  slender jaws ripped flashingly at the throat and swift and sure than any he had made outside shoulders of the other dog. Five seconds, of his shop for years. From a closet he look perhaps, and the bulldog was covered with his the hardhack club he had shaped so long ago own blood; but in that time he had his grip, a now grown ten times more hard with age.

  grip which nothing but death or insensibility Steadily he walked out of the house and down could break.

  the hill toward the bridge. The eyes of Catin Without

  mercy

  his teeth sank through

  were upon him from behind the shelter of

  and through the throat of the little dog. Bijou some curtain, he guessed, but it made no

  fought to the last, even while his life was difference to him now whether no one or

  running red over his white coat; and the last whether all the world saw.

  look of his glazing eyes was turned toward the In the past hour of agony he had at last

  master who stood helpless as he died. A final let go his jealous grip upon life; he was

  crunch, a shake, and then Tibere went away

  willing to die because there was something to toward home with his blood-spattered muzzle be done which had become to him more

  swinging low, and his red eyes sweeping the important than life. The blood of Bijou and his sides of the road.

  own wrongs cried out for justice—for the first Achille moved dazedly toward the time an ideal triumphed over the fear which door of his h
ouse and beheld old Catin had been beaten into him by Marcellin Fortier.

  standing (here, expressionless, stony, but with He walked hatless under the hot sun,

  her eyes drilling into his own.

  with the club swinging lightly in his hand: and

  “Thou coward!” she whispered, as she

  there was that in the look of his face, shining made way for him to enter.

  with the glorious illumination of righteous He went into his room and flung battle and of self-victory, which told the few himself face downward upon the bed as he

  who saw him that something was about to

  had done on that other August day five years happen at the blacksmith-shop. It must have before. But now tears came. He wept until the carried, that feeling, beyond word of mouth, power to weep was no longer in him; then for for Angelique came out into the garden and

  a long time he lay quiet, slowly gathering the looked up toward the road that led to the

  weakened forces of his soul for something he maison Boivin.

  did not know what. He knew only that it

  It was at the other end of the bridge he

  would be something measuring in bigness to

  had been forbidden to cross that Achille met the catastrophe which had befallen him.

  Tibere, and the dog tried to bar his passage.

  The life of his dog, the only being that

  Just for an instant the old fear gripped Boivin; loved him, had been blotted out; and he was then, with a glad laugh, he struck. Tibere

  more alone than ever for once having had that smashed against the stone parapet of the

  love. Through Marcellin Fortier this latest evil bridge. Achille feinted with his club, seized had come, as had come the loss of Angelique the animal by the scruff of his neck with the and his public shame. After a long time anger other hand, and dropped him over into the

  took the place of despair—it took root and

  churning rapids. The brute was light in his began to flourish like a magic plant. The hands, and he realized, with increasing self-

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  confidence, that the constant use of mallet and or the eyes of his flesh, he thought he saw the chisel and plane had given him twice the face of Angelique thought he saw it strength of five years gone.

  somewhere in the shadows mutely urging him

  He went on and up to the door of the

  to fight on. So, although his breath rasped in blacksmith-shop, brushing aside those who and out and points of light winked like had gathered there. The place had the very

  fireflies before his vision, he forced his right look of hell, as was fitting for Marcellin arm up and down, striking at the thick head of Fortier. Dim shapes of wagons and sleighs

  Fortier, while with his left hand he struggled loomed in the shadowed background. The to be free of the grip that was pushing him forge glowed white-hot, and Marcellin stood toward a death by fire.

  by it, the evil of his face intensified a

  There came a dreadful moment which

  hundredfold by that strong light. He looked he believed was the end. The heat of the forge up, blinking. His big underjaw dropped down scorched his back, and his hips were braced at sight of Achille Boivin.

  against the edge of the iron basin that was

  “I’ve killed your dog,” said Boivin,

  filled with white-hot coals and silent, blue almost with a trace of laughter in his voice, flames. His spine curved slowly backward.

  “and I’ve come to close my account with

  Then, as suddenly as Fortier had leaped to the you.”

  attack, his fingers slipped away from the

  As the last words were spoken Fortier

  throat of Achille. Like a huge lump of meat, sprang forward, his thick fingers reaching out he dropped among the hoof-parings and the

  for a hold. Achille brought down his club in a dirt of the floor and lay quivering there.

  swinging blow, and with all the force that the Boivin straightened. The joy of his

  weight of his body could give it. A howl from first winning fight was like cognac in his

  Marcellin filled the cavernous spaces of the brain, and he raised his club to strike again.

  building, and his right arm, the one upon

  The impossible happened. Fortier, the

  which he had caught the blow, fell to his side.

  hairy brute to whom the parish had paid

  Nevertheless, his left hand settled against the respect because of his strength, and who had throat of Boivin with snakelike quickness and made a mockery of Achille, groaned and lifted clung there, pressing harder and harder as they a massive arm. Now his mean eyes were

  swayed and reeled, Achille bearing always

  saturated with the fear of death; they rolled backward because of the weight of the upward so that the bloodshot whites showed.

  blacksmith.

  He tried to raise himself and failed, with a He struck until it seemed that no shudder of apprehension shaking his bulk.

  human skull could remain unbroken under the From iron he had turned to jelly.

  club. Still, Fortier held on, the fierce light of

  “Don’t!” he gasped. “Don’t hit me

  his eyes undimmed. Now it became apparent

  again!”

  to Achille that he was being forced steadily,

  “You are afraid of me!” cried Achille,

  despite the erratic, nature of their struggle, in words that rang like a Te Deum. To conquer toward the forge Marcelin was planning to

  Marcellin Fortier had been beyond his wildest bend him backward and down into the terrible dream: he had come expecting to die there in heat there. A coldness as terrible as that heat vindication of his manhood. To have the

  seized his vitals for one black moment, and blacksmith at his feet, stricken with fear and during that moment the devil tempted him to begging for mercy, made him doubt that he

  yield, to cry out for mercy.

  still lived in the world of men.

  But, whether with the eyes of his mind

  “He has always been afraid of any one

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  who could knock him down,” said a voice,

  knowledge had come to him with his victory.

  quiet but vibrant with happiness. “With men

  “If I had not been able to knock him

  of his own strength he is a coward!”

  down—if he had beaten me again!” he asked.

  Angelique was there beside Achille,

  “What of that—what of you in that case?”

  her eyes more softly glowing with love than

  “It was the courage to try that made

  ever in the old days. But now Achille, having you a brave man, my Achille!” she smiled. “I found himself, was able, to stand straight and would have married you five years ago if you alone in the sight of men, and even before the had dared to cross the bridge, no matter what love of a woman. Moreover, a certain my father might have done!”