Parables of a Province | Page 4

is the churning of the milk too, Dalice," answered Tinoir; "you
are not strong, and sometimes the butter comes slow; and there's the
milking also."
"Strength is coming to me fast, Tinoir," she said, and drew herself up;
but her dress lay almost flat on her bosom. Tinoir took her arm and felt
it above the elbow.
"It is like the muscle of a little child," he said.
"But I will drink those bottles of red wine the Governor sent the last
time you watched the fire on Shaknon," she said, brightening up, and
trying to cheer him. He nodded, for he saw what she was trying to do,
and said: "Also a little of the gentian and orange root three times a
day-eh, Dalice?"
After arranging for certain signs, by little fires, which they were to light
upon the hills and so speak with each other, they said, "Good day,
Dalice," and "Good day, Tinoir," drank a glass of the red wine, and
added: "Thank the good God;" then Tinoir wiped his mouth with his
sleeve, and went away, leaving Dalice with a broken glass at her feet,
and a look in her eyes which it was well that Tinoir did not see.
But as he went he was thinking how, the night before, Dalice had lain
with her arm round his neck hour after hour as she slept, as she did
before they ever had a child; and that even in her sleep, she kissed him
as she used to kiss him before he brought her away from the parish of
Ste. Genevieve to be his wife. And the more he thought about it the
happier he became, and more than once he stopped and shook his head
in pleased retrospection. And Dalice thought of it too as she hung over
the churn, her face drawn and tired and shining with sweat; and she
shook her head, and tears came into her eyes, for she saw further into
things than Tinoir. And once as she passed his coat on the wall, she
rubbed it softly with her hand, as she might his curly head when he lay
beside her.
From Shaknon Tinoir watched; but of course he could never see her
bright sickle shining, and he could not know whether her dress still

hung loose upon her breast, or whether the flesh of her arms was still
like a child's. If all was well with Dalice a little fire should be lighted at
the house door just at the going down of the sun, and it should be at
once put out. If she was ill, a fire should be lit and then put out two
hours after sundown. If she should be ill beyond any help, this fire
should burn on till it went out.
Day after day Tinoir, as he watched for the coming fleet, saw the fire lit
at sundown, and then put out. But one night the fire did not come till
two hours after sundown, and it was put out at once. He fretted much,
and he prayed that Dalice might be better, and he kept to his post,
looking for the fleet of the foe. Evening after evening was this other
fire lighted and then put out at once; and a great longing came to him to
leave this guarding of the fire, and go to her--"For half a day," he
said--"just for half a day!" But in that half day the fleet might pass, and
then it would be said that Tinoir had betrayed his country. At last sleep
left him, and he fought a demon night and day; and always he
remembered Dalice's arm about his neck, and her kisses that last night
they were together. Twice he started away from his post to go to her,
but before he had gone a hundred paces he came back.
At last one afternoon he saw ships, not far off, rounding the great cape
in the gulf, and after a time, at sunset, he knew by their shape it was the
fleet of the foe; and so he lighted his great fires, and they were
answered leagues away towards the city by another beacon.
Two hours after sunset of this day the fire in front of Tinoir's home was
lighted, and was not put out, and Tinoir sat and watched it till it died
away. So he lay in the light of his own great war-fire till morning, for
he could not travel at night, and then, his duty over, he went back to his
home. He found Dalice lying beside the ashes of her fire, past hearing
all he said in her ear, unheeding the kiss he set upon her lips.
Two nights afterwards, coming back from laying her beside her
children,