fore the twins outgrew their French baby talk the famous cradle
was too small to hold their sturdy bodies, and they were promoted to a
trundle-bed on the floor. The cradle was an awkward bit of furniture
in such a little house, and Angelique was for giving it away or
breaking it up for kindling-wood.

"But no!" said Pat. "We have plenty of wood for kindlings in this
country without burning the cradle. Besides, this wood means more to
us than any old tree--it has rocked our hopes. Let us put it in the
corner of the kitchen--what? Come--perhaps we may find a use for it,
who knows?"

"Go along," said Angelique, giving him a friendly box on the ear, "you
old joker! Off with you, _vieux bavasseur_--put the cradle where you
like."

So there it stood, in the corner beside the stove, on the night of my
story. Pat had gone down to Quebec on the first of June (three days
ahead of time) to meet me there and help in packing the goods for a
long trip up the Peribonca River. Angelique was sleeping the sleep of
the innocent and the just in the bedroom, with the twins in their
trundle-bed beside her, and the door into the kitchen half-open.

What it was that waked her she did not know--perhaps a bad dream, for
Pat had given her a bit of trouble that spring, with a sudden
inclination for drinking and carousing, and she was uneasy about his
long absence. A man in the middle years sometimes has a bit of folly,
and a woman worries about him without knowing exactly why. At all
events, Angelique came wide awake in the night with a sense of fear in
her heart, as if she had just heard something terrible about her
husband which she could not remember.

She listened to the breathing of the twins in the darkness. It was
soft and steady as the falling of tiny ripples upon the beach. But
presently she was aware of a louder sound in the kitchen. It was
regular and even, like the ticking of a clock. There was a roll and a
creak in it, as if somebody was sitting in the rocking-chair and
balancing back and forth.

She slipped out of bed and opened the door a little wider. There was a
faint streak of moonlight slanting through the kitchen window, and she
could see the tall back of the chair, with its red-and-white tidy,
vacant and motionless.

In the corner was the cradle, with the children's clothes hanging over
the head of it and their two ragged dolls tucked away within. It was
rocking evenly and slowly, as if moved by some unseen force.