The Magnetic North | Page 9

"Me help Father Brachet," observed Nicholas proudly. "Me show him
boys how make traps, show him girls how make mucklucks." "What!"
gasps the horrified Mac, "Father Brachet has got a family?"
"Famly?" inquired Nicholas. "Kaiomi"; and he shook his head
uncertainly.
"You say Father Brachet has got boys, and"--as though this were a yet
deeper brand of iniquity--"girls?"
Nicholas, though greatly mystified, nodded firmly.
"I suppose he thinks away off up here nobody will ever know. Oh,
these Jesuits!"

"How many children has this shameless priest?"
"Father Brachet, him got seventeen boys, and--me no savvy how much
girl--twelve girl ... twenty girl ..."
The Boy, who had been splitting with inward laughter, exploded at this
juncture.
"He keeps a native school, Mac."
"Yes," says Nicholas, "teach boy make table, chair, potatoes grow--all
kinds. Sisters teach girl make dinner, wash--all kinds. Heap good
people up at Holy Cross."
"Divil a doubt of it," says O'Flynn.
But this blind belauding of the children of Loyola only fired Mac the
more to give the heathen a glimpse of the true light. In what darkness
must they grope when a sly, intriguing Jesuit (it was well known they
were all like that) was for them a type of the "heap good man"--a priest,
forsooth, who winked at Sabbath-breaking because he and his
neighbouring nuns shared in the spoil!
Well, they must try to have a truly impressive service. Mac and the
Colonel telegraphed agreement on this head. Savages were said to be
specially touched by music.
"I suppose when you were a kid the Jesuits taught you chants and so
on," said the Colonel, kindly.
"Kaiomi," answered Nicholas after reflection.
"You can sing, can't you?" asks O'Flynn.
"Sing? No, me dance!"
The Boy roared with delight.
"Why, yes, I never thought of that. You fellows do the songs, and

Nicholas and I'll do the dances."
Mac glowered angrily. "Look here: if you don't mind being
blasphemous for yourself, don't demoralise the natives."
"Well, I like that! Didn't Miriam dance before the Lord? Why shouldn't
Nicholas and me?"
The Colonel cleared his throat, and began to read the lessons for the
day. The natives sat and watched him closely. They really behaved very
well, and the Boy was enormously proud of his new friends. There was
a great deal at stake. The Boy felt he must walk warily, and he already
regretted those light expressions about dancing before the Lord. All the
fun of the winter might depend on a friendly relation between Pymeut
and the camp. It was essential that the Esquimaux should not only
receive, but make, a good impression.
The singing "From Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand"
seemed to please them; but when, after the Colonel's "Here endeth the
second lesson," Mac said, in sepulchral tones, "Let us pray," the
visitors seemed to think it was time to go home.
"No," said Mac sternly, "they mustn't go in the middle of the meeting";
and he proceeded to kneel down.
But Nicholas was putting on his fur coat, and the others only waited to
follow him out. The Boy, greatly concerned lest, after all, the visit
should end badly, dropped on his knees to add the force of his own
example, and through the opening phrases of Mac's prayer the agnostic
was heard saying, in a loud stage-whisper, "Do like me--down! Look
here! Suppose you ask us come big feast, and in the middle of your
dance we all go home--.
"Oh no," remonstrated Nicholas.
"Very well. These friends o' mine no like man go home in the middle.
They heap mad at me when I no stay. You savvy?"

"Me savvy," says Nicholas slowly and rather depressed.
"Kneel down, then," says the Boy. And first Nicholas, and then the
others, went on their knees.
Alternately they looked in the Boy's corner where the grub was, and
then over their shoulders at the droning Mac and back, catching the
Boy's eye, and returning his reassuring nods and grins.
Mac, who had had no innings up to this point, was now embarked upon
a most congenial occupation. Wrestling with the Lord on behalf of the
heathen, he lost count of time. On and on the prayer wound its slow
way; involution after involution, coil after coil, like a snake, the Boy
thought, lazing in the sun. Unaccustomed knees grew sore.
"Hearken to the cry of them that walk in darkness, misled by wolves in
sheep's clothing--wolves, Lord, wearing the sign of the Holy Cross--"
O'Flynn shuffled, and Mac pulled himself up. No light task this of
conveying to the Creator, in covert terms, a due sense of the iniquity of
the Jesuits, without, at the same time, stirring O'Flynn's bile, and seeing
him get up and stalk out of meeting, as had happened once before.