will put us
off at Father Point, and then we will come back slow to the village on
the good Ste. Anne and live there ver' quiet.' When I say that to her
she laugh back at me and say, 'Beau! beau!' and she laugh in the child's
eyes, and speak--nom de Dieu! she speak so gentle and light--and say to
the child: 'Would you like go with your father a pretty journey down the
gulf?' And the little child laugh back at her, and shake its soft brown
hair over its head. They were both so glad to go. I went to the captain
of the ship. I say to him, 'I will take my wife and my little child, and
when we come to Father Point we will go ashore.' Bien, the captain laugh
big, and it was all right. That was long time ago--long time."

He paused again, threw his head back with a despairing toss, his chin
dropped on his breast, his hands clasped between his knees, and his
pipe, laid beside him on the bench, was forgotten.

Pierre quietly put some wood upon the fire, opened his kit, drew out
from it a little flask of rum and laid it upon the bench beside the
pipe. A long time passed. At last Gaspard roused himself with a long
sigh, turned and picked up the pipe, but, seeing the flask of rum,
lifted it, and took one long swallow before he began to fill and light
his pipe. There came into his voice something of iron hardness as he
continued his story.

"Alors, we went into the boat. As we travelled down the gulf a great
storm came out of the north. We thought it would pass, but it stayed on.
When we got to the last place where the pilot could land, the waves were
running like hills to the shore, and no boat could live between the ship
and the point. For myself, it was nothing--I am a strong man and a great
swimmer. But when a man has a wife and a child, it is differen'. So the
ship went on out into the ocean with us. Well, we laugh a little, and
think what a great brain I had when I say to my wife: 'Come and bring
the child for the last voyage of Gaspard the pilot.' You see, there we
were on board the ship, everything ver' good, plenty to eat, much to
drink, to smoke, all the time. The sailors, they were ver' funny, and to
see them take my child, my little Babette, and play with her as she roll
on the deck--merci, it was gran'! So I say to my wife:

"'This will be bon voyage for all.' But a woman, she has not the mind
like a man. When a man laugh in the sun and think nothing of evil, a
woman laugh too, but there come a little quick sob to h