Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/81



HE house on the border of the lake had been "the studio" when Latham used to go there, before his marriage, for a summer's sketching. Now it was his home and he lived in it, with Gaspard to do the work. To the farmers who saw Gaspard, in his sparing trips to the village, he was "dumb Gasper," who had an unreasonable habit of silence, yet who knew intimate secrets of fishing and hunting, and would betray none of them to sportsmen from far-away places, though they offered big bribes for services. No one quite understood how his reputation had spread so far; but the world had taken note of it, and two or three times he was actually found and the question of hire put to him; but he had melted away into green coverts and made his flight his answer. To Latham, now that he had broken nearer ties, Gaspard was the world and all humanity. His silence was not wilful dumbness; it was the reserve learned from living among things larger than himself. His understanding and sometimes his speech were those of a man of breeding; his habit in service was perfect in its restrained humility.

It was the early December dusk, and the cabin was sombre with shadows, save about the fireplace, where they leaped responsive to the flame. Latham was stretched on the worn leather couch, his arms under his head, watching Gaspard moving like a gnome back and forth from the brightness into the dark. The old man was not tall, but he had great strength. His aquiline nose and small bright eyes were birdlike, and his skin was weather-worn; over the hard muscles the flesh looked like leather stretched on steel. Gaspard was unrolling a long parcel taken from a box in a cool corner under the eaves. First there was cloth, and then paper, tissue-paper, crumpled as if it had seen service, but still white "It is the candle, m'sieu'," he volunteered, answering Latham's comprehending gaze.

This was the second Christmas of their stay together, and a candle, the mate of this, had appeared the year before; yet Latham responded as if the story of it were still partly strange to him. He knew how the old man's reticent fancies stirred on this one night; it seemed niggardly to deny them utterance.

"Your sister sent it to you," Latham prompted.

"My sister, yes, m'sieu'. She lives down there by the sea. She is very old—like me. We are twins. It is not reasonable for twins to live so long. They should divide the years between them. But my sister stays outdoors all day, sometimes all night. Like me, she is a savage. Only it is by the sea."

"And she makes the candle."

"She gathers berries in the summertime, m'sieu', and makes the tallow. Smell, m'sieu'." He brought the candle gravely over to Latham's couch. It was a tall candle, smoothly moulded. He stood waiting in satisfaction while Latham took it and inhaled the bayberry.

"She makes two candles," he continued. "One is for her, one for me. To-night we burn them. To-night we are together."

"You hear the wind in the pine tops, and she hears the sea," said Latham, with the freedom of oblique speech made possible by Gaspard's reserves. It was like talking undisturbed to his own mind.

Gaspard was busy fitting the candle into a support of cedar wood. When it was safely upright, he placed it on a little stand in a dark corner.

"It is not much to do, m'sieu'," he said, suddenly, standing off to true it by his eye, "to spend all summer making two candles. But it is enough."

"Yes, Gaspard, it is enough."