hill-lion, the beaver, the bear, and the sable; and in one corner was a
huge pile of them. Bare of the usual comforts as the room was, it had a
sort of refinement also, joined to an inexpressible loneliness; you could
scarce have told how or why.

"Father," said the boy, his face pinched with pain for a moment, "it
hurts so all over, every once in a while."

His fingers caressed the leg just below the knee. "Father," he suddenly
added, "what does it mean when you hear a bird sing in the middle of the
night?" The woodsman looked down anxiously into the boy's face. "It
hasn't no meaning, Dominique. There ain't such a thing on the Labrador
Heights as a bird singin' in the night. That's only in warm countries
where there's nightingales. So--bien sur!"

The boy had a wise, dreamy, speculative look. "Well, I guess it was a
nightingale--it didn't sing like any I ever heard."

The look of nervousness deepened in the woodsman's face. "What did it
sing like, Dominique?"

"So it made you shiver. You wanted it to go on, and yet you didn't want
it. It was pretty, but you felt as if something was going to snap inside
of you."

"When did you hear it, my son?"

"Twice last night--and--and I guess it was Sunday the other time. I don't
know, for there hasn't been no Sunday up here since mother went away--has
there?"