The Ruling Passion | Page 7

eat and a chance to sing, and he's all right. What's he 'magine

about a house of his own, and a barn, and sich things?"
Hosea's illustration was suggested by his own experience. He had just
put the profits of his last summer's guiding into a new barn, and his
imagination was already at work planning an addition to his house in
the shape of a kitchen L.
But in spite of his tone of contempt, he had a kindly feeling for the
unambitious fiddler. Indeed, this was the attitude of pretty much every
one in the community. A few men of the rougher sort had made fun of
him at first, and there had been one or two attempts at rude handling.
But Jacques was determined to take no offence; and he was so
good-humoured, so obliging, so pleasant in his way of whistling and
singing about his work, that all unfriendliness soon died out.
He had literally played his way into the affections of the village. The
winter seemed to pass more swiftly and merrily than it had done before
the violin was there. He was always ready to bring it out, and draw all
kinds of music from its strings, as long as any one wanted to listen or to
dance.
It made no difference whether there was a roomful of listeners, or only
a couple, Fiddlin' Jack was just as glad to play. With a little, quiet
audience, he loved to try the quaint, plaintive airs of the old French
songs--"A la Claire Fontaine," "Un Canadien Errant," and "Isabeau s'y
Promene"--and bits of simple melody from the great composers, and
familiar Scotch and English ballads--things that he had picked up
heaven knows where, and into which he put a world of meaning, sad
and sweet.
He was at his best in this vein when he was alone with Serena in the
kitchen--she with a piece of sewing in her lap, sitting beside the lamp;
he in the corner by the stove, with the brown violin tucked under his
chin, wandering on from one air to another, and perfectly content if she
looked up now and then from her work and told him that she liked the
tune.
Serena was a pretty girl, with smooth, silky hair, end eyes of the colour

of the nodding harebells that blossom on the edge of the woods. She
was slight and delicate. The neighbours called her sickly; and a great
doctor from Philadelphia who had spent a summer at Bytown had put
his ear to her chest, and looked grave, and said that she ought to winter
in a mild climate. That was before people had discovered the
Adirondacks as a sanitarium for consumptives.
But the inhabitants of Bytown were not in the way of paying much
attention to the theories of physicians in regard to climate. They held
that if you were rugged, it was a great advantage, almost a virtue; but if
you were sickly, you just had to make the best of it, and get along with
the weather as well as you could.
So Serena stayed at home and adapted herself very cheerfully to the
situation. She kept indoors in winter more than the other girls, and had
a quieter way about her; but you would never have called her an invalid.
There was only a clearer blue in her eyes, and a smoother lustre on her
brown hair, and a brighter spot of red on her cheek. She was
particularly fond of reading and of music. It was this that made her so
glad of the arrival of the violin. The violin's master knew it, and turned
to her as a sympathetic soul. I think he liked her eyes too, and the soft
tones of her voice. He was a sentimentalist, this little Canadian, for all
he was so merry; and love--but that comes later.
"Where'd you get your fiddle, Jack? said Serena, one night as they sat
together in the kitchen.
"Ah'll get heem in Kebeck," answered Jacques, passing his hand lightly
over the instrument, as he always did when any one spoke of it. "Vair'
nice VIOLON, hein? W'at you t'ink? Ma h'ole teacher, to de College,
he was gif' me dat VIOLON, w'en Ah was gone away to de woods."
"I want to know! Were you in the College? What'd you go off to the
woods for?"
"Ah'll get tire' fraum dat teachin'--read, read, read, h'all taim'. Ah'll not
lak' dat so moch. Rader be out-door--run aroun'--paddle de
CANOT--go wid de boys in de woods--mek' dem dance at ma

MUSIQUE. A-a-ah! Dat was fon! P'raps you t'ink dat not good, hem?
You t'ink Jacques one beeg fool, Ah suppose?"
"I dunno," said Serena, declining to commit herself, but pressing on
gently, as women do, to