The Beast of the Briar Woods

The man lying flat on the rock which crusted Beacon Hill raised his head with a snake-like motion, and then let it fall back again upon his folded arms. His body had not moved; it seemed part of the stone and moss.

The midsummer afternoon was sunny and hot, and the fussy little river rambling through the Long Meadow was talking in its sleep.

Lazily it wound around young maples, and ferny groups-it would crush them by and by, poor trusting things-then it would stumble against a rock or pile of loose stones, wake up and repeat the strain it had learned at its mother's breast, far up in the North Woods.

"I'm here! here! here! I'll be ready by and by, by, by, by." Then on again, a little faster perhaps, but still dreamily. Children's laughter sounded far below; a slouching man or woman making for the Black Cat bent on business or pleasure, passed now and then; all else was still and seemingly asleep.

Again Jude raised his head and gave that quick glance around.

Jude was awake at last. Little Billy Falstar had roused him two days before and set the world in a jangle. The child's impish words had struck the scales from Jude's eyes, and the blinding light made him shrink and suffer.

"Him and her," the boy had whispered, hugging his bruised and dirty knees as he squatted by Jude's door; "him and her is sparking some." Then he laughed the freakish laugh of mischief.

Jude was polishing the gun which John Gaston had given him a year before, and had trained him to use until he was second only to Gaston himself for marksmanship. "Him and her-who?" he asked, raising his dull eyes to Billy's tormenting face.

"Joyce and Mr. Gaston. Him and her is beaux, I reckon. She goes to his shack; I listened outside the winder once-he reads to her and tells her things. They walks in the Long Medder, too, and once I saw him kiss her."

Again the teasing laugh that set every nerve tingling.

Then it was that Jude awoke, and his hot French blood, mingled with his canny Scotch inheritance, rose in his veins and struck madly against brain and heart.

He stared at Billy as if the boy had given him a physical blow-then he looked beyond him at the woods, the sky, the highway and the dejected houses-nothing was familiar! They all seemed alive and alert. Unseen happenings were going on-he must understand.

"You saw-him-kiss-her?" The gun fell limply across the man's knees.

"Yep," Billy whipped his dramatic sense into action. He arose and strode before Jude with Gaston's own manner. "This way. His arms out, and him a-laughing like, and Joyce she kinder run inter his arms and he held her, like this-." The close embrace of the childish gesture seemed to strangle Jude, and he gave a muffled cry. This acted like a round of applause upon Billy.

"Yep, and he kept on hugging and kissing her like this-" Billy went into an ecstasy of portrayal. Suddenly, however, he reeled into sanity, for Jude had struck him across the cheek with the back of a hand trembling with new-born emotion.

"Take that, you impish brat," he had said, "and more like it if you stand there another minute with your lying capers."

"They ain't lies," wailed Billy, edging away and nursing his smarting face; "he did! he did! It was in his shack-I saw 'em!"

"Get out," yelled Jude, glowering darkly; "and you tell that to any one else and," he came nearer to the shrinking child, "I swear I'll choke yer till yer can't speak." So changed was Jude that Billy trembled before him.

"I won't," he whispered, "I swear I won't, Jude; don't-don't hit me again; I won't tell."

He was gone, but the old Jude was gone also. The new man finished the gun cleaning, his breath coming hard and fast meanwhile, and then, taking the gun with him, he went into the deep woods on the northern edge of the village.

All the rest of the day he watched Gaston's shack from a distance; as the darkness drew on he crept closer.

Joyce did not come near the place, and Gaston himself only returned when the night was well advanced.

Jude watched him light his lamp, and prepare his supper. Watched him, later, go into the inner room, and then he crept close to the broad window to see what Gaston was doing in there where no foot but Gaston's own, so it was said, ever entered. As he had raised his eyes to the level of the casement, Gaston's calm gaze met his with a laugh in it.

"Hello, Jude," the voice was unshaken; "playing Indian Brave? Got your gun, too? What you after, big game or-what?" Jude rose to his feet. He was trembling violently. Gaston watched him closely. "Come in?" he asked presently.

"No. I was only passing-thought I would look in. I'm going now."

"Hold on there, Jude, what's up?" Gaston leaned from the window. "Are you alone?"

"Yes. There ain't anything the matter."

"All right." Gaston looked puzzled. "Good night." He watched Jude until he was lost in the shadows, then he drew the heavy wooden shutters close, bolted the door and placed his pistol near at hand.

All the next day Jude haunted the vicinity of Joyce Birkdale's home, but he kept hidden, for Joyce was safe within doors and a drizzly rain was falling. Night again found him on guard; and now he lay on Beacon Hill in the hot sun, napping by snatches (for he was woefully tired) and scanning the Long Meadow, with his feverish eyes, in between times.

In his dreams the scene Billy Falstar had so luridly described was enacted again and again, until he felt as if he, Jude, had been the onlooker.

The people whom he had taken for granted in the past now assumed new meaning and importance. Gaston had slipped in among them three years before, and after the first few months of observation he had aroused no interest. He had minded his business, paid his way, taken his turn in camp at greenhorn jobs, accounted for his presence on the ground of seeking health, and that was all. Life went on as usual, sluggishly and dully-but on.

Jude had, before Billy's illumination, been thinking that after the next logging season he would annex Joyce Birkdale to his few belongings-the cabin, his dog and gun. The idea had not roused him much, but it had been a pleasurable conclusion to arrive at; and now? Every nerve was aching and the boy's heart was thumping heavily. Again he dropped his head, and he cursed everything his thought touched upon-even the girl he meant, in some way, still to have.

One, two, three hours passed. Jude's hilltop was touched by the sun, but in the meadow the purpling shadows were gathering slowly.

Suddenly Jude sprang up-something was happening down there below. Something in him had warned him.

From the southern edge of the meadow a tall man was swinging along with easy strides. He carried his broad-brimmed hat in his right hand and waved it as if in greeting. From the opposite direction a girl was approaching. She wore a blue-checked gown, and her pale hair seemed to shine in the dimming light. She wore no hat, and she walked with the quick freedom of a child who longed to reach something precious.

Midway of the meadow the girl and man met. He stretched out his arms, and they closed about the slim form.

Then he bent his head over the fair one on his breast-but he did not kiss it! Jude was burning and palpitating. He strained his hearing, forgetting time and space. They were talking, and he would never know what they said.

Presently the girl slipped from the enfolding arms, and, clinging to the man's hands, looked up into his face. Sometimes she bowed her head, and once she passed her hand across her eyes as if to wipe away tears. Then the man drew her close again. He raised the face that was crushed against his shoulder; he kissed the brow, the eyes, the chin-and then the lips.

Something blinded Jude. Something thick and hot like blood, and when he could see again, the two had parted. The man stood with bared head watching the slim, drooping figure as it retraced its steps with never a backward turn. When it was gone he replaced his hat and took his way-this time, toward the Black Cat.

Jude stood alone on his hilltop and watched the lights spring to life in cottage and tavern. The stars twinkled above him in the calm evening gloaming. The little river trilled a vesper hymn as it felt its way along the dark rocky path-and then tears came to Jude's relief, impotent, boyish, weak tears, such tears as he had not shed since his father and mother lay dead, and in childish fright and sorrow he had not known what to do next. But now, as then, he pulled himself together and set his teeth grimly.

He did the wisest thing he could have done. He went down the hill and strode toward the Birkdale house.

But he did not walk alone. Almost forgotten memories rose sharply and kept him company as he pushed on to meet his Fate.

Womankind in St. Angé was monotonous. There was a shading of individuality in the girls and newly-wed women, but it faded soon into the dull drab that seemed the only possible wearing-colour of the place. Occasionally, though, the sameness had been relieved by a vivid touch, but only for a short hour. The Fate who snips the threads, had invariably clipped such colouring from the St. Angé design, and tossed it aside as useless.

Jude remembered Marsena Riddall. What a woman she had been! What a menace to man's rights and woman's position.

She had demanded, and got her husband's wages as he returned from camp. She met him at the edge of the North Wood, and held him up, morally and physically. That she kept a clean and respectable house; that her children were well fed, clothed and cared for, had not counted to her credit one jot among the powers that be. Her husband was not safe on the man's side of the Black Cat screen. At ten o'clock, did Riddall brave his chances to that hour, Marsena would march boldly into the arena and claim her quarry. If a man rose to expostulate, Marsena was equal to him with tongue and wit. Masculine superiority trembled during Marsena's reign, which lasted five years; then Fate downed her.

Riddall was called away from his jailer by the command that even Marsena could not defy, and she and her children faced life in a village where a man was an absolute necessity unless there was money to take his place. Jude grimly smiled as he recalled how the men and boys gave Marsena and her brood a jeering send-off as the rattling train bore them away soon after Riddall had been laid behind the disused church.

So while Marsena was still in Jude's memory, he came upon the deserted and decaying cottage where once Lola Laval had sung her pretty French-Canadian song.

It was odd how Lola came always with that song accompaniment. Try as he might, even now, in this disordered moment, Jude heard the rippling little lark song rise and fall in the fragrant darkness.

Jude, while but a boy, liked to draw water for Lola and run her errands when young Pierre, the husband, was in camp. When the logging season was over, Lola's cottage vied with the Black Cat in popularity. Pierre was a noted card player, but, oh! Lola's song sounded above the slap of pasteboard and the click of glasses. How pretty she was-and how the women hated her! The men were eager to serve her. She had no need to command; her desires seemed granted before she voiced them-poor, pretty Lola!

Alouette, alouette, alouette, alouette.

Oh, alouette, chantez alouette,

Alouette, je te plumerai.

Alouette, chantez alouette,

Alouette, je te plumerai.

Je te plumerai le bec,

Je te plumerai le bec

A le bec,

A le bec,

Alouette,

Alouette.

Lola had not lasted long; only nineteen she was when Pierre in his jealousy struck the light from her eyes by a cruel blow, and the song fled from her lips; then taking warning from a well-directed signal from Beacon Hill, he had sought the Southern Solitude just before Justice, in the form of the Hillcrest constable, came stalking into St. Angé.

But the song was not dead. Again and again a man or woman would revive it and so it had become a part of the place. To Jude, now, it was painfully evident as he again plunged forward; it followed him sweetly, mockingly as it used to when Lola sent it after him to keep him from being afraid as he left her for his lonely home; he, a neglected little boy.

And now here was Joyce! With a stinging consciousness Jude realized this new personality that heretofore he had not suspected. Even as jealous anger spurred him on, a vague something he knew awaited him, calmed him and made him cautious.

While he longed to grip and command the situation, he was aware of a power in Joyce-a power he had unconsciously, perhaps, sensed before-that bade him stand afar until she beckoned him.

As he neared her little house, before even he saw the lights, he heard a song. It was that song! It met the rhythm in his own heated fancy-he and Joyce seemed to be singing it together:

Alouette,

Alouette.

The light was streaming through open window and door. Inside Joyce was preparing the evening meal, stepping lightly between table and stove as she sang. Jude dared not enter unannounced, and his pride held him silent.

What was he afraid of? Was he not he, and Joyce but a girl? Still he kept his distance.

"Joyce!" The song within ceased, and the singer stepped to the open doorway.

"That you, father?" No answer came. "Father?"

Then Jude came into the light.

"You, Jude? Come in; father's late. I never wait for him and I am as hungry as a wolf."

Joyce had been one of the few girls who had gone to the Hillcrest school as long as paternal authority permitted, and she showed her training.

"I ain't come for no friendly call," muttered Jude, slouching in and dropping on to a wooden chair beside the table.