After some further delay he discovered that the course least disagreeable would be to drive the oxen with his voice and walk as far behind the cart as he now was, keeping the pine box with four nails on its lid well in view.  Accordingly, making a great effort to encourage himself to break the silence, he raised his shout in the accustomed command to the oxen, and after it had been repeated once or twice, they strained at the cart and set themselves to the road again.  They did not go as fast as when the goad was within reach of their flanks; or rather; they went more slowly than then, for “fast” was not a word that could have been applied to their progress before.  Yet they went on the whole steadily, and the “Gee” and “Haw” of the gruff voice behind guided them straight as surely as bit and rein.

At length it could be seen in the distance that the road turned; and round this turning another human figure came in sight.  Perhaps in all his life Saul never experienced greater pleasure in meeting another man than he did now, yet his exterior remained gruff and unperturbed.  The only notice that he appeared to take of his fellow-man was to adjust his pace so that, as the other came nearer the cart in front, Saul caught up with it in the rear.  At last they met close behind it, and then, as nature prompted, they both stopped.

The last comer upon the desolate scene was a large, hulking boy.  He had been plodding heavily with a sack upon his back.  As he stopped, he set this upon the ground and wiped his brow.

The boy was French; but Saul, as a native of the province, talked French about as well as he did English—­that is to say, very badly.  He could not have written a word of either.—­The conversation went on in the patois of the district.

“What is in the box?” asked the boy, observing that the carter’s eyes rested uneasily upon it.

“Old Cameron died at our place the day before yesterday,” answered Saul, not with desire to evade, but because it did not seem necessary to answer more directly.

“What of?” The boy looked at the box with more interest now.

“He died of a fall”—­briefly.

The questioner looked at the pinewood box now with considerable solicitude.  “Did his feet swell?” he asked.  As Saul did not immediately assent, he added—­“When the old M. Didier died, his feet swelled.”

“What do you think of the coffin?” Saul said this eyeing it as if he were critically considering it as a piece of workmanship.

“M.  Didier made a much better one for his little child,” replied the boy.

“If he did, neither Mr. Bates nor me is handy at this sort of work.  We haven’t been used to it.  It’s a rough thing.  Touch it.  You will see it’s badly made.”

He gained his object.  The boy fingered the coffin, and although he did not praise the handiwork, it seemed to Saul that some horrid spell was broken when human hands had again touched the box and no evil had resulted.