FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119  
120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   >>   >|  
should be that he was doing penance for the Pymeuts, but he couldn't smile with that offended archangel in front of him. "Thirty miles over the ice, in the face of a norther, hasn't been so 'easy' even for me. And I'm not old, nor sick--no, nor frightened, Brother Paul." He flung up his head, but his heart failed him even while he made the boast. Silently, for a moment, they confronted each other. "Where are you bound for?" "I--a--" The Boy had a moment of wondering if he was expected to answer "Hell," and he hesitated. "Are you on your way up the river?" "No--I" (was the man not going to let them rest their wicked bones there a single night?)--"a--I--" The frozen river and the wind-racked wood were as hospitable as the beautiful face of the brother. Involuntarily the Boy shivered. "I came to see the Father Superior." He dropped back into a chair. "The Father Superior is busy." "I'll wait." "And very tired." "So'm I." "--worn out with the long raging of the plague. I have waited till he is less harassed to tell him about the Pymeuts' deliberate depravity. Nicholas, too!--one of our own people, one of the first pupils of the school, a communicant in the church; distinguished by a thousand kindnesses. And this the return!" "The return is that he takes his backsliding so to heart, he can't rest without coming to confess and to beg the Father Superior--" "I shall tell the Father Superior what I heard and saw. He will agree that, for the sake of others who are trying to resist temptation, an example should be made of Nicholas and of his father." "And yet you nursed the old man and were kind to him, I believe, after the offense." "I--I thought you had killed him. But even you must see that we cannot have a man received here as Nicholas was--the most favoured child of the mission--who helps to perpetuate the degrading blasphemies of his unhappy race. It's nothing to you; you even encourage--" "'Pon my soul--" But Brother Paul struck in with an impassioned earnestness: "We spend a life-time making Christians of these people; and such as you come here, and in a week undo the work of years." "I--_I?_" "It's only eighteen months since I myself came, but already I've seen--" The torrent poured out with never a pause. "Last summer some white prospectors bribed our best native teacher to leave us and become a guide. He's a drunken wreck now somewhere up on the Yukon Flats. You tak
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119  
120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Father

 

Superior

 

Nicholas

 
moment
 
return
 

people

 
Brother
 

Pymeuts

 

mission

 

favoured


received
 

unhappy

 

struck

 

encourage

 

degrading

 
blasphemies
 

perpetuate

 

killed

 

couldn

 
resist

temptation

 
offense
 

thought

 

impassioned

 

penance

 

father

 

nursed

 
bribed
 

native

 

teacher


prospectors

 

summer

 

drunken

 

poured

 

Christians

 

making

 

torrent

 

eighteen

 

months

 

earnestness


backsliding

 

single

 

wicked

 

frozen

 

Involuntarily

 

shivered

 
brother
 

beautiful

 

racked

 

hospitable