PAGE 9
The Reward of Virtue
by
“What a misfortune!” I cried. “The pretty house is gone. I am so sorry, Patrick. And the box of money on the mantel-piece, that is gone, too, I fear–all your savings. What a terrible misfortune! How did it happen?”
“I cannot tell,” he answered rather slowly. “It is the good God. And he has left me my Angelique. Also, m’sieu’, you see”–here he went over to the pile of ashes, and pulled out a fragment of charred wood with a live coal at the end–“you see”–puff, puff–“he has giv
en me”–puff, puff–“a light for my pipe again”–puff, puff, puff!
The fragrant, friendly smoke was pouring out now in full volume. It enwreathed his head like drifts of cloud around the rugged top of a mountain at sunrise. I could see that his face was spreading into a smile of ineffable contentment.
“My faith!” said I, “how can you be so cheerful? Your house is in ashes; your money is burned up; the voyage to Quebec, the visit to the asylum, the little orphan–how can you give it all up so easily?”
“Well,” he replied, taking the pipe from his mouth, with fingers curling around the bowl, as if they loved to feel that it was warm once more–“well, then, it would be more hard, I suppose, to give it up not easily. And then, for the house, we shall build a new one this fall; the neighbours will help. And for the voyage to Quebec– without that we may be happy. And as regards the little orphan, I will tell you frankly”–here he went back to his seat upon the flat stone, and settled himself with an air of great comfort beside his partner–“I tell you, in confidence, Angelique demands that I prepare a particular furniture at the new house. Yes, it is a cradle; but it is not for an orphan.”
IV
It was late in the following summer when I came back again to St. Gerome. The golden-rods and the asters were all in bloom along the village street; and as I walked down it the broad golden sunlight of the short afternoon seemed to glorify the open road and the plain square houses with a careless, homely rapture of peace. The air was softly fragrant with the odour of balm of Gilead. A yellow warbler sang from a little clump of elder-bushes, tinkling out his contented song like a chime of tiny bells, “Sweet–sweet–sweet–sweeter– sweeter–sweetest!”
There was the new house, a little farther back from the road than the old one; and in the place where the heap of ashes had lain, a primitive garden, with marigolds and lupines and zinnias all abloom. And there was Patrick, sitting on the door-step, smoking his pipe in the cool of the day. Yes; and there, on a many-coloured counterpane spread beside him, an infant joy of the house of Mullarkey was sucking her thumb, while her father was humming the words of an old slumber-song:
Sainte Marguerite,
Veillez ma petite!
Endormez ma p’tite enfant
Jusqu’a l’age de quinze ans!
Quand elle aura quinze ans passe
Il faudra la marier
Avec un p’tit bonhomme
Que viendra de Rome.
“Hola! Patrick,” I cried; “good luck to you! Is it a girl or a boy?”
“SALUT! m’sieu’,” he answered, jumping up and waving his pipe. “It is a girl AND a boy!”
Sure enough, as I entered the door, I beheld Angelique rocking the other half of the reward of virtue in the new cradle.