FullReads

“What will you say to the Bishop, Parpon?” asked the Cure.

The congregation stirred in their seats, for they saw that the Cure intended Parpon to go.

Parpon went up two steps of the chancel quietly and caught the arm of the Cure, drawing him down to whisper in his ear.

A flush and then a peculiar soft light passed over the Cure’s face, and he raised his hand over Parpon’s head in benediction and said: “Go, my son, and the blessing of God and of His dear Son be with you.”

Then suddenly he turned to the altar, and, raising his hands, he tried to speak, but only said: “O Lord, Thou knowest our pride and our vanity, hear us, and–“

Soon afterwards, with tearful eyes, he preached from the text:

“And the Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.”

…………………..

Five days later a little, uncouth man took off his hat in the chief street of Quebec, and began to sing a song of Picardy to an air which no man in French Canada had ever heard. Little farmers on their way to the market by the Place de Cathedral stopped, listening, though every moment’s delay lessened their chances of getting a stand in the market-place. Butchers and milkmen loitered, regardless of waiting customers; a little company of soldiers caught up the chorus, and, to avoid involuntary revolt, their sergeant halted them, that they might listen. Gentlemen strolling by–doctor, lawyer, officer, idler–paused and forgot the raw climate, for this marvellous voice in the unshapely body warmed them, and they pushed in among the fast-gathering crowd. Ladies hurrying by in their sleighs lost their hearts to the thrilling notes of:

“Little grey fisherman,
Where is your daughter?
Where is your daughter so sweet?
Little grey man who comes Over the water,
I have knelt down at her feet,
Knelt at your Gabrielle’s feet—ci ci!”

Presently the wife of the governor stepped out from her sleigh, and, coming over, quickly took Parpon’s cap from his hand and went round among the crowd with it, gathering money.

“He is hungry, he is poor,” she said, with tears in her eyes. She had known the song in her childhood, and he who used to sing it to her was in her sight no more. In vain the gentlemen would have taken the cap from her; she gathered the money herself, and others followed, and Parpon sang on.

A night later a crowd gathered in the great hall of the city, filling it to the doors, to hear the dwarf sing. He came on the platform dressed as he had entered the city, with heavy, home-made coat and trousers, and moccasins, and a red woollen comforter about his neck–but this comforter he took off when he began to sing. Old France and New France, and the loves and hates and joys and sorrows of all lands, met that night in the soul of this dwarf with the divine voice, who did not give them his name, so that they called him, for want of a better title, the Provencal. And again two nights afterwards it was the same, and yet again a third night and a fourth, and the simple folk, and wise folk also, went mad after Parpon the dwarf.

Then, suddenly, he disappeared from Quebec City, and the next Sunday morning, while the Cure was saying the last words of the Mass, he entered the Church of St. Saviour’s at Pontiac. Going up to the chancel steps he waited. The murmuring of the people drew the Cure’s attention, and then, seeing Parpon, he came forward.

Parpon drew from his breast a bag, and put it in his hands, and beckoning down the Cure’s head, he whispered.

The Cure turned to the altar and raised the bag towards it in ascription and thanksgiving, then he turned to Parpon again, but the dwarf was trotting away down the aisle and from the church.

“Dear children,” said the Cure, “we are saved, and we are not shamed.” He held up the bag. “Parpon has brought us two thousand dollars: we shall have food to eat, and there shall be more money against seed-time. The giver of this good gift demands that his name be not known. Such is all true charity. Let us pray.”

So hard times passed from Pontiac as the months went on; but none save the Cure and the Avocat knew who had helped her in her hour of need.