Then he took five little cups
that fitted snugly into each other, separated them, and put them also
near the fire. None of the party spoke. A change seemed to pass over the
faces of all except Cloud-in-the-Sky. He smoked on unmoved. At length
Hume spoke cheerily: "Now, men, before we turn in we'll do something in
honour of the day. Liquor we none of us have touched since we started;
but back there in the fort, and maybe in other places too, they will be
thinking of us; so we'll drink a health to them, though it's but a
spoonful, and to the day when we see them again!"
The cups were passed round. The sub-factor measured out a very small
portion to each. They were not men of uncommon sentiment; their lives
were rigid and isolated and severe. Fireside comforts under fortunate
conditions they saw but seldom, and they were not given to expressing
their feelings demonstratively. But each man then, save Cloud-in-the-Sky,
had some memory worth a resurrection.
Jaspar Hume raised his cup; the rest followed his example. "To absent
friends and the day when we see them again!" he said; and they all drank.
Gaspe Toujours drank solemnly, and, as though no one was near, made the
sign of the cross; for his memory was with a dark-eyed, soft-cheeked
habitant girl of the parish of Saint Gabrielle, whom he had left behind
seven years before, and had never seen since.
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