quite young. And so at the last it was I
that went. On the way back we had to cross the river; the ice had
just gone out--it was in the spring--and as yet not a boat had been
put into the water. We found a great heavy tub that had been lying
in the sand all winter, and when we tried to run her down to the
water she was buried so deep in the sand and was so heavy that the
four of us could not so much as make her budge. Simon Martel was
there, big Lalancette of St. Methode, a third I cannot call to mind,
and myself; and we four, hauling and shoving to break our hearts as
we thought of this poor fellow on the other side of the river who
was in the way of dying like a heathen, could not stir that boat a
single inch. Well, the cure came forward; he laid his hand on the
gunwale--just laid his hand on the gunwale, like that--'Give one
more shove,' said he; and the boat seemed to start of herself and
slipped down to the water as though she were alive. The sick man
received the sacrament all right, and died like a Christian just as
day was breaking. Yes, a priest has strength beyond the strength of
men."

Maria was still sighing, but her heart discovered a melancholy peace
in the certainty and nearness of death. This unknown disorder, the
dread of what might be coming, these were dark and terrifying
phantoms against which one strove blindly, uncomprehendingly. But
when one was face to face with death itself all to be done was
plain--ordained these many centuries by laws beyond dispute. By day
or night, from far or near, the cure comes bearing the Holy
Sacrament-across angry rivers in the spring, over the treacherous
ice, along roads choked with snow, fighting the bitter north-west
wind; aided by miracles, he never fails; he fulfils his sacred
office, and thenceforward there is room for neither doubt nor fear.
Death is but a glorious preferment, a door that opens to the joys
unspeakable of the elect.

The wind had risen and was shaking the Partitions as window-panes
rattle in a sudden gust. The nor'wester came howling over the dark
tree-tops, fell upon the clearing about the little wooden
buildings--house, stable, barn--in' squalls and-wicked whirlwinds
that sought to lift the roof and smote the walls like a
battering-ram, before sweeping onward to the forest in a baffled
fury. The house trembled from base to chimneytop, and swayed on its
foundation in such a fashion that the inmates, feeling the
onslaught, hearing the roar a