The Complete Short Stories of Wilkie Collins. Уилки Коллинз

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СКАЧАТЬ but he forbade it; and, leaving them abruptly, walked swiftly onward with one young man only for his companion.

      Gabriel had committed his brother and his sisters to the charge of Perrine. They were to go to the farmhouse that night with his newly-married wife and her father and mother. Father Paul had desired that this might be done. When Gabriel and he were left alone to follow the path which led to the fisherman’s cottage, the priest never spoke while they walked on — never looked aside either to the right or the left — always held his ivory crucifix clasped to his breast. They arrived at the door.

      “Knock,” whispered Father Paul to Gabriel, “and then wait here with me.”

      The door was opened. On a lovely moonlight night Francois Sarzeau had stood on that threshold, years since, with a bleeding body in his arms. On a lovely moonlight night he now stood there again, confronting the very man whose life he had attempted, and knowing him not.

      Father Paul advanced a few paces, so that the moonlight fell fuller on his features, and removed his hat.

      Francois Sarzeau looked, started, moved one step back, then stood motionless and perfectly silent, while all traces of expression of any kind suddenly vanished from his face. Then the calm, clear tones of the priest stole gently on the dead silence. “I bring a message of peace and forgiveness from a guest of former years,” he said; and pointed, as he spoke, to the place where he had been wounded in the neck.

      For one moment, Gabriel saw his father trembling violently from head to foot — then his limbs steadied again — stiffened suddenly, as if struck by catalepsy. His lips parted, but without quivering; his eyes glared, but without moving in the orbits. The lovely moonlight itself looked ghastly and horrible, shining on the supernatural panic deformity of that face! Gabriel turned away his head in terror. He heard the voice of Father Paul saying to him: “Wait here till I come back.”

      Then there was an instant of silence again — then a low groaning sound that seemed to articulate the name of God; a sound unlike his father’s voice, unlike any human voice he had ever heard — and then the noise of a closing door. He looked up, and saw that he was standing alone before the cottage.

      Once, after an interval, he approached the window.

      He just saw through it the hand of the priest holding on high the ivory crucifix; but stopped not to see more, for he heard such words, such sounds, as drove him back to his former place. There he stayed, until the noise of something falling heavily within the cottage struck on his ear. Again he advanced toward the door; heard Father Paul praying; listened for several minutes; then heard a moaning voice, now joining itself to the voice of the priest, now choked in sobs and bitter wailing. Once more he went back out of hearing, and stirred not again from his place. He waited a long and a weary time there — so long that one of the scouts on the lookout came toward him, evidently suspicious of the delay in the priest’s return. He waved the man back, and then looked again toward the door. At last he saw it open — saw Father Paul approach him, leading Francois Sarzeau by the hand.

      The fisherman never raised his downcast eyes to his son’s face; tears trickled silently over his cheeks; he followed the hand that led him, as a little child might have followed it, listened anxiously and humbly at the priest’s side to every word that he spoke.

      “Gabriel,” said Father Paul, in a voice which trembled a little for the first time that night — ”Gabriel, it has pleased God to grant the perfect fulfillment of the purpose which brought me to this place; I tell you this, as all that you need — as all, I believe, that you would wish — to know of what has passed while you have been left waiting for me here. Such words as I have now to speak to you are spoken by your father’s earnest desire. It is his own wish that I should communicate to you his confession of having secretly followed you to the Merchant’s Table, and of having discovered (as you discovered) that no evidence of his guilt remained there. This admission, he thinks, will be enough to account for his conduct toward yourself from that time to this. I have next to tell you (also at your father’s desire) that he has promised in my presence, and now promises again in yours, sincerity of repentance in this manner: When the persecution of our religion has ceased — as cease it will, and that speedily, be assured of it — he solemnly pledges himself henceforth to devote his life, his strength and what worldly possessions he may have, or may acquire, to the task of re-erecting and restoring the roadside crosses which have been sacrilegiously overthrown and destroyed in his native province, and to doing good, go where he may. I have now said all that is required of me, and may bid you farewell — bearing with me the happy remembrance that I have left a father and son reconciled and restored to each other. May God bless and prosper you, and those dear to you, Gabriel! May God accept your father’s repentance, and bless him also throughout his future life!”

      He took their hands, pressed them long and warmly, then turned and walked quickly down the path which led to the beach. Gabriel dared not trust himself yet to speak; but he raised his arm, and put it gently round his father’s neck. The two stood together so, looking out dimly through the tears that filled their eyes to the sea. They saw the boat put off in the bright track of the moonlight, and reach the vessel’s side; they watched the spreading of the sails, and followed the slow course of the ship till she disappeared past a distant headland from sight.

      After that, they went into the cottage together. They knew it not then, but they had seen the last, in this world, of Father Paul.

Chapter V

       Table of Contents

      The events foretold by the good priest happened sooner even than he had anticipated. A new government ruled the destinies of France, and the persecution ceased in Brittany.

      Among other propositions which were then submitted to the Parliament, was one advocating the restoration of the roadside crosses throughout the province. It was found, however, on inquiry, that these crosses were to be counted by thousands, and that the mere cost of wood required to reerect them necessitated an expenditure of money which the bankrupt nation could ill afford to spare. While this project was under discussion, and before it was finally rejected, one man had undertaken the task which the Government shrank from attempting. When Gabriel left the cottage, taking his brother and sisters to live with his wife and himself at the farmhouse, Francois Sarzeau left it also, to perform in highway and byway his promise to Father Paul. For months and months he laboured without intermission at his task; still, always doing good, and rendering help and kindness and true charity to any whom he could serve. He walked many a weary mile, toiled through many a hard day’s work, humbled himself even to beg of others, to get wood enough to restore a single cross. No one ever heard him complain, ever saw him impatient, ever detected him in faltering at his task. The shelter in an outhouse, the crust of bread and drink of water, which he could always get from the peasantry, seemed to suffice him. Among the people who watched his perseverance, a belief began to gain ground that his life would be miraculously prolonged until he had completed his undertaking from one end of Brittany to the other. But this was not to be.

      He was seen one cold autumn evening, silently and steadily at work as usual, setting up a new cross on the site of one which had been shattered to splinters in the troubled times. In the morning he was found lying dead beneath the sacred symbol which his own hands had completed and erected in its place during the night. They buried him where he lay; and the priest who consecrated the ground allowed Gabriel to engrave his father’s epitaph in the wood of the cross. It was simply the initial letters of the dead man’s name, followed by this inscription: “Pray for the repose of his soul: he died penitent, and the doer of good works.”

      Once, and once only, did Gabriel hear anything of Father Paul. The good priest showed, by writing СКАЧАТЬ