Flamsted quarries Part 67

A woman's shriek rent the air--a fearful cry:

"Jean--mon Jean!"

A moment more and Sister Ste. Croix reached the spot--she took his head on her lap.

"Jean--mon Jean," she cried again.

The eyes, dimmed already, opened; he made a supreme effort to speak--

"Margot--p't.i.te Truite--"...

Thus, after six and forty years of silence, Love spoke once; that Love, greater than State and Church because it is the foundation of both, and without it neither could exist; that Love--co-eval with all life, the Love which defies time, sustains absence, glorifies loss--remains, thank G.o.d! a deathless legacy to the toiling Race of the Human, and, because deathless, triumphant in death.

It triumphed now....

The ponderous crash of the derrick followed by the screams of the two boys, brought the quarrymen, the women and children, rus.h.i.+ng in terrified haste from their evening meal. But when they reached the spot, and before Champney Googe, running over the granite slopes, as once years before he ran from pursuing justice, could satisfy himself that his boy was uninjured, at what a sacrifice he knew only when he knelt by the prostrate form, before Jim McCann, seizing a lever, could shout to the men to "lift all together," the life-blood ebbed, carrying with it on the hurrying out-going tide the priest's loving undaunted spirit.

All work at the quarries and the sheds was suspended during the following Sat.u.r.day; the final service was to be held on Sunday.

All Sat.u.r.day afternoon, while the bier rested before the altar in the stone chapel by the lake sh.o.r.e, a silent motley procession filed under the granite lintel:--stalwart Swede, blue-eyed German, sallow-cheeked Pole, dark-eyed Italian, burly Irish, low-browed Czechs, French Canadians, stolid English and Scotch, Henry Van Ostend and three of the directors of the Flamsted Quarries Company, rivermen from the Pen.o.bscot, lumbermen from farther north, the Colonel and three of his sons, the rector from The Bow, a dignitary of the Roman Catholic Church from New York, the little choir boys--children of the quarrymen--and Augustus Buzzby, members of the Paulist Order, Elmer Wiggins, Octavius Buzzby supporting old Joel Quimber, Nonna Lisa--in all, over three thousand souls one by one pa.s.sed up the aisle to stand with bared bowed head by that bier; to look their last upon the mask of the soul; to render, in spirit, homage to the spirit that had wrought among its fellows, manfully, unceasingly, to realize among them on this earth a long-striven-for ideal.

Many a one knelt in prayer. Many a mother, not of English tongue, placing her hand upon the head of her little child forced him to kneel beside her; her tears wet the stone slabs of the chancel floor.

Just before sunset, the Daughters of the Mystic Rose pa.s.sed into the church; they bore tapers to set upon the altar, and at the head and foot of the bier. Two of them remained throughout the night to pray by the chancel rail; one of them was Sister Ste. Croix. Silent, immovable she knelt there throughout the short June night. Her secret remained with her and the one at whose feet she was kneeling.

The little group of special friends from The Gore came last, just a little while before the face they loved was to be covered forever from human gaze: Aileen with her four-months' babe in her arms, Aurora Googe leading little Honore by the hand, Margaret McCann with her boy, Elvira Caukins and her two daughters. Silent, their tears raining upon the awed and upturned faces of the children, they, too, knelt; but no sound of sobbing profaned the great peaceful silence that was broken only by the faint _chip-chip-chipping_ monotone from Shed Number Two. In that four men were at work. Champney Googe was one of them.

He was expecting them at this appointed time. When he saw them enter the chapel, he put aside hammer and chisel and went across the meadow to join them. He waited for them to come out; then, taking the babe from his wife's arms, he gave her into his mother's keeping. He looked significantly at his wife. The others pa.s.sed on and out; but Aileen turned and with her husband retraced her steps to the altar. They knelt, hand clasped in hand....

When they rose to look their last upon that loved face, they knew that their lives had received through his spirit the benediction of G.o.d.

Champney returned to his work, for time pressed. The quarrymen in The Gore had asked permission the day before to quarry a single stone in which their priest should find his final resting place. Many of them were Italians, and Luigi Poggi was spokesman. Permission being given, he turned to the men:

"For the love of G.o.d and the man who stood to us for Him, let us quarry the stone nearest heaven. Look to the ridge yonder; that has not been opened up--who will work with me to open up the highest ridge in The Gore, and quarry the stone to-night."

The volunteers were practically all the men in the Upper and Lower Quarries; the foreman was obliged to draw lots. The men worked in s.h.i.+fts--worked during that entire night; they bared a s.p.a.ce of sod; cleared off the surface layer; quarried the rock, using the hand drill entirely. Towards morning the thick granite slab, that lay nearest to the crimsoning sky among the Flamsted Hills, was hoisted from its primeval bed and lowered to its place on the car.

It was then that four men, Champney Googe, Antoine, Jim McCann, and Luigi Poggi a.s.serted their right, by reason of what the dead had been to them, to cut and chisel the rock into sarcophagus shape. Luigi and Antoine asked to cut the cover of the stone coffin.

All Sat.u.r.day afternoon, the four men in Shed Number Two worked at their work of love, of unspeakable grat.i.tude, of pa.s.sionate devotion to a sacrificed manhood. They wrought in silence. All that afternoon, they could see, by glancing up from their work and looking out through the shed doors across the field, the silent procession entering and leaving the chapel. Sometimes Jim McCann would strike wild in his feverish haste to ease, by mere physical exertion, his great over-charged heart of its load of grief; a muttered curse on his clumsiness followed. Now and then Champney caught his eye turned upon him half-appealingly; but they spoke no word; _chip-chip-chipping_, they worked on.

The sun set; electricity illumined the shed. Antoine worked with desperation; Luigi wrought steadily, carefully, beautifully--his heart seeking expression in every stroke. When the dawn paled the electric lights, he laid aside his tools, took off his canvas ap.r.o.n, and stepped back to view the cover as a whole. The others, also, brought their stone to completion. As with one accord they went over to look at the Italian's finished work, and saw--no carving of archbishop's mitre, no sculpture of cardinal's hat (O mother, where were the day-dreams for your boy!), but a rough slab, in the centre of which was a raised heart of polished granite, and, beneath it, cut deep into the rock--which, although lying yesterday nearest the skies above The Gore, was in past aeons the foundation stone of our present world--the words:

THE HEART OF THE QUARRY.

The lights went out. The dawn was reddening the whole east; it touched the faces of the men. They looked at one another. Suddenly McCann grasped Champney's hand, and reaching over the slab caught in his the hands of the other two; he gripped them hard, drew a long shuddering breath, and spoke, but unwittingly on account of his habitual profanity, the last word:

"By Jesus Christ, men, we're brothers!"

The full day broke. The men still stood there, hand clasping hand.

A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction.

Abner Daniel. By Will N. Harben.

Adventures of A Modest Man. By Robert W. Chambers.

Adventures of Gerard. By A. Conan Doyle.

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. By A. Conan Doyle.

Ailsa Page. By Robert W. Chambers.

Alternative, The. By George Barr McCutcheon.

Ancient Law, The. By Ellen Glasgow.

Angel of Forgiveness, The. By Rosa N. Carey.

Angel of Pain, The. By E. F. Benson.

Annals of Ann, The. By Kate Trimble Sharber.

Anna the Adventuress. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.

Ann Boyd. By Will N. Harben.

As the Sparks Fly Upward. By Cyrus Townsend Brady.

At the Age of Eve. By Kate Trimble Sharber.

At the Mercy of Tiberius. By Augusta Evans Wilson.

At the Moorings. By Rosa N. Carey.

Awakening of Helen Richie, The. By Margaret Deland.

Barrier, The. By Rex Beach.

Bar 20. By Clarence E. Mulford.

Bar-20 Days. By Clarence E. Mulford.

Battle Ground, The. By Ellen Glasgow.

Beau Brocade. By Baroness Orczy.

Beechy. By Bettina von Hutten.

Bella Donna. By Robert Hichens.

Beloved Vagabond, The. By William J. Locke.

Ben Blair. By Will Lillibridge.

Best Man, The. By Harold McGrath.

Beth Norvell. By Randall Parrish.

Betrayal, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim.

Better Man, The. By Cyrus Townsend Brady.

Beulah. (Ill.u.s.trated Edition.) By Augusta J. Evans.

Bill Toppers, The. By Andre Castaigne.

Blaze Derringer. By Eugene P. Lyle, Jr.

Bob Hampton of Placer. By Randall Parrish.

Bob, Son of Battle. By Alfred Ollivant.

Bra.s.s Bowl, The. By Louis Joseph Vance.

Bronze Bell, The. By Louis Joseph Vance.