At another time Cragstone
would have felt sympathetic, now he was only irritated; he wanted
to find Lydia, to look in her laughless eyes, to feel her fingers
in his hair, to tell her he did not care if she were a hundred
times a thief, that he loved her, loved her, loved her, and he
would marry her despite the Church, despite--
"Joe, he's near dead, you come now?" broke in August's voice.
Cragstone turned impatiently, got his prayer-book, followed the
trapper, took his place in the canoe, and paddled in silence up
the bay.
The moon arose, large, limpid, flooding the cabin with a wondrous
light, and making more wan the features of a dying man, whose
fever-wasted form lay on some lynx skins on the floor.
Cragstone was reading from the Book of Common Prayer the exquisite
service of the Visitation of the Sick. Outside, the loons clanged
up the waterways, the herons called across the islands, but no
human things ventured up the wilds. Inside, the sick man lay,
beside him August Beaver holding a rude lantern, while Cragstone's
matchless voice repeated the Anglican formula. A spasm, an uplifted
hand, and Cragstone paused. Was the end coming even before a
benediction? But the dying man was addressing Beaver in Chippewa,
whispering and choking out the words in his death struggle.
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