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    [oe] replaces the oe ligature
    bold text: =equals signs=
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    vail replaced with veil
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    Acadie replaced with Acadia

Uncommon and inconsistent hyphenation and spelling have been retained;
typographical errors have been corrected.

CAMERON OF LOCHIEL

    Works of
    Charles G. D. Roberts

    The Prisoner of Mademoiselle
    The Watchers of the Trails
    The Kindred of the Wild
    The Heart of the Ancient Wood
    Earth's Enigmas
    Barbara Ladd
    The Forge in the Forest
    A Sister to Evangeline
    By the Marshes of Minas
    A History of Canada
    The Book of the Rose
    Poems
    New York Nocturnes
    The Book of the Native
    In Divers Tones (_Out of print_)
    Songs of the Common Day (_Out of print_)

    Cameron of Lochiel

    (_Translated from the French of Philippe Aubert
    de Gaspé_)

    L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
    New England Building
    Boston, Mass.

    [Illustration

     Illustration: _Cameron of Lochiel._]

    (_See page 68._)

    CAMERON OF
    LOCHIEL

    BY
    PHILIPPE AUBERT DE GASPÉ

    TRANSLATED BY
    CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS

    NEW EDITION
    _With a frontispiece by_
    H. C. EDWARDS

    BOSTON
    L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
    _MDCCCCV_

    _Copyright, 1890_
    +By D. Appleton and Company+

    _Copyright, 1905_
    +By L. C. Page & Company+
    (INCORPORATED)

PREFACE TO NEW EDITION

This leisurely and loose-knit romance of de Gaspé's, which he called
"Les Anciens Canadiens," has for hero one who was not a Canadian, but
a Scotch exile sojourning in Canada. It is on the creation of this
character, consistently developed and convincingly presented, that the
book must mainly base its claim to be called a work of fiction, rather
than a volume of memoirs and folklore. I have ventured, therefore, at
the suggestion of my publishers, to take a liberty with the author's
title, and name the story after this young Scotch exile, "Cameron of
Lochiel." I am the more willing to take this liberty because I feel
that de Gaspé has not hitherto been granted the place he is entitled to
in the ranks of Canadian fictionists. Considered purely as a romance,
it seems to me that the sincerity, simplicity, and originality of this
work quite outweigh its sprawling looseness of structure, and make it
one of the unique ornaments of the composite literature which we are
building up in Canada. If by so changing its title as to emphasize the
fictional character of the work I can the better call attention to the
worth of de Gaspé's achievement, I feel that I am justified, even in
the face of such anticipatory protest as may seem to be implied in the
author's too modest introduction.

When all this has been said, however, the fact remains that it was
not its many merits as a romance that induced me to translate this
work, but the riches of Canadian tradition, folk-lore, and perished
customs embalmed in the clear amber of its narrative, coupled with my
own anxiety to contribute, in however humble a way, to the increase
of understanding and confidence between the two great branches of the
Canadian people. It is a beautiful and gracious life, that of old
French Canada, as depicted in de Gaspé's lucent pages,--a life of high
ideals, and family devotion, and chivalry, and courage. This is an
atmosphere it is wholesome to breathe. These are people it is excellent
to know; and the whole influence of the story makes for trust and a
good understanding.

C. G. D. R.

+Fredericton, N. B.+, _May, 1905_.

PREFACE.

In Canada there is settling into shape a nation of two races; there
is springing into existence, at the same time, a literature in
two languages. In the matter of strength and stamina there is no
overwhelming disparity between the two races. The two languages are
admittedly those to which belong the supreme literary achievements of
the modern world. In this dual character of the Canadian people and the
Canadian literature there is afforded a series of problems which the
future will be taxed to solve. To make any intelligent forecast as to
the solution is hardly possible without a fair comprehension of the two
races as they appear at the point of contact. We, of English speech,
turn naturally to French-Canadian literature for knowledge of the
French-Canadian people. The romance before us, while intended for those
who read to be entertained, and by no means weighted down with didactic
purpose, succeeds in throwing, by its faithful depictions of life and
sentiment among the early French Canadians, a strong side-light upon
the motives and aspirations of the race.

In spite of the disclaimer with which the author begins, the romance
of Les Anciens Canadiens is a classic. From the literary point of
view it is markedly the best historical romance so far produced in
French Canada. It gathers up and preserves in lasting form the songs
and legends, the characteristic customs, the phases of thought and
feeling, the very local and personal aroma of a rapidly changing
civilization. Much of what de Gaspé has so vividly painted from his
boyish reminiscences had faded out of the life upon which his alert
eyes rested in old age. The origin of the romance, as given by his
biographer, the Abbé Casgrain, is as follows:

When, in 1861, that patriotic French-Canadian publication the _Soirées
Canadiennes_ was established, its inaugurators adopted as their motto
the words: "Let us make haste to write down the stories and traditions
of the people, before they are forgotten." M. de Gaspé was struck with
the idea; and seeing that the writers who were setting themselves the
laudable task were all young men, he took the words as a summons to his
old age, and so the book came to be written.

Patriotism, devotion to the French-Canadian nationality, a just pride
of race, and a loving memory for his people's romantic and heroic
past--these are the dominant chords which are struck throughout the
story. Of special significance, therefore, are the words which are put
in the mouth of the old seigneur as he bids his son a last farewell.
The father has been almost ruined by the conquest. The son has left
the French army and taken the oath of allegiance to the English crown.
"Serve thy new sovereign," says the dying soldier, "as faithfully as I
have served the King of France; and may God bless thee, my dear son!"

In the present day, when nationalism in Quebec appears rather given
to extravagant dreams, it would be well for the distant observer to
view the French Canadians through the faithful medium which de Gaspé's
work affords him. Under constitutional forms of government it is
inevitable that a vigorous and homogeneous minority, whose language
and institutions are more or less threatened by the mere preponderance
of the dominant race, should seem at times overvehement in its
self-assertion. A closer knowledge leads us to conclude that perhaps
the extreme of Quebec nationalism is but the froth on the surface of a
not unworthy determination to keep intact the speech and institutions
of French Canada. However this may be, it is certain that the point of
contact between the two races in Canada is at the present day as rich
a field for the romancer as de Gaspé found it at the close of the _old
régime_.

According to the Histoire de la littérature Canadienne of Edmond
Lareau, Philippe Aubert de Gaspé was born in Quebec on the 30th of
October, 1786. He died in 1871. He belonged to a noble French-Canadian
family. At the manor of St. Jean-Port-Joli, of which he was seigneur,
he passed a large part of his life; and there he laid the chief scenes
of his great romance. He was educated at the seminary of Quebec, and
then studied law in the city, under Sewell, afterward chief-justice.
Only for a few years, however, did he devote himself to his
profession--one from which so many a poet and man of letters has broken
loose. He accepted the position of sheriff of Quebec, and afterward
came misfortunes which Lareau passes over with sympathetic haste. His
lavish generosity to his friends and the financial embarrassments into
which he fell, his four years' confinement in the debtors' prison, his
sufferings of soul and body, all doubtless contributed to the poignant
coloring with which he has painted the misfortunes of M. d'Egmont,
_le bon gentilhomme_. On his release from prison he retired to his
estate of St. Jean-Port-Joli, but not to the solitude and benevolent
melancholy of D'Egmont. The romancer was of too sunny a disposition,
he was too genuine and tolerant a lover of his kind, to run much
risk of becoming a recluse. A keynote to his nature may be found in
the bright _Bonsoir la compagnie_ with which, in the words of an old
French-Canadian song, he closed his literary labors at the age of
seventy-nine, when the last page of the Mémoires was completed.

The story we have translated, under the title of The Canadians of Old,
was published in 1862. It is accompanied in the original by a mass of
curious information, in the shape of notes and _addenda_, such as would
hardly interest the general reader. They will more than repay, however,
the attention of any one who wishes to study the French-Canadian people
as they were in their early days. The story itself has the air of being
the product of a happy leisure. The style is quaint and unhurried,
with no fear of the printer's devil before its eyes. The stream of the
narrative, while swift enough and direct enough at need, is taught
to digress into fascinating cross-channels of highly colored local
tradition, or to linger felicitously in eddies of feast and song.

The work begun in Les Anciens Canadiens De Gaspé carried to completion
in his second and last composition, the Mémoires, published in 1866.
As the former work is a vivid epitome of life at the _seigneuries_ and
among the _habitants_ of those days, so the latter reproduces and fixes
for us the picturesque effects of life in the city of Quebec itself in
the generation or two succeeding the conquest--a period during which
the French-Canadian _noblesse_ yet maintained, about the person of
the English governor, something of the remembered splendor of the old
vice-regal court.

C. G. D. R.

_Windsor, Nova Scotia, 1890._

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER   PAGE

   +Foreword+      ix

    I. +D'Haberville and Cameron of Lochiel+                          19

    II. +A Night with the Sorcerers+                                  31

    III. +La Corriveau+                                               45

    IV. +The Breaking up of the Ice+                                  56

    V. +A Supper at the House of a French-Canadian
    Seigneur+                                                         76

    VI. +D'Haberville Manor House+                                    99

    VII. +The May-Feast+                                             115

    VIII. +The Feast of St. Jean-Baptiste+                           124

    IX. "+The Good Gentleman+"                                       137

    X. +Madame D'Haberville's Story+                                 154

    XI. +The Burning of the South Shore+                             167

    XII. +A Night Among the Savages+                                 180

    XIII. +The Plains of Abraham+                                    198

    XIV. +The Shipwreck of the Auguste+                              213

    XV. +Lochiel and Blanche+                                        228

    XVI. +The Family Hearth+                                         254

    XVII. +Conclusion+                                               269

FOREWORD.

As my story lays no claim to classicism, either in style or structure,
this foreword may as well be made to play the part of a preface. My
acquaintances will, doubtless, open their eyes on seeing me thus
enter, at the age of seventy-six, on the perilous paths of authorship.
Possibly I owe them an explanation. Although tired of reading all these
years with so little profit either to myself or others, I yet dreaded
to pass the Rubicon. A matter small enough in itself in the end decided
me.

One of my friends, a man of parts, whom I met last year in St Louis
Street, in our good city of Quebec, grasped me warmly by the hand and
exclaimed:

"Awfully glad to see you! Do you know, my dear fellow, I have talked
this morning with no fewer than eleven people, not one of them with
half an idea in his noddle!" And he wrung my arm almost out of joint.

"Really," said I, "you are very complimentary; for I perceive by the
warmth of your greeting that I am the exception, the man you--"

"Oh, yes, indeed," he cried, without letting me finish my sentence,
"those are the only sensible words I have heard this morning." And he
crossed the street to speak to some one, probably his addle-pate number
twelve, who was seeking to attract his attention.

"The devil!" thought I to myself, "if what I just said is in any way
brilliant, it would seem easy enough to shine. Though I have never yet
been suspected of it, I must be rather a clever fellow."

Much elated with this discovery, and congratulating myself that I had
more brains than the unhappy eleven of whom my friend had spoken, I
hurry to my library, I furnish myself, perhaps all too appropriately,
with a ream of the paper called "foolscap," and I set myself to work.

I write for my own amusement, at the risk of wearying the reader who
may have the patience to go through this volume. But, as Nature has
made me compassionate, I will give this dear reader a little good
advice. He had better throw away the unlucky book without taking the
trouble to criticise it, which would be making it much too important,
and would be, moreover, but wasted labor for the serious critic; for,
unlike that old Archbishop of Granada, so touchy on the subject of his
sermons, of whom Gil Blas has told us, I am, for my part, blessed with
an easy humor, and, instead of retorting to my critic, "I wish you good
luck and very much better taste," I will frankly admit that my book has
a thousand faults, of most of which I have a lively consciousness.

As for the unfriendly critic, his work will be all in vain, debarred as
he will be from the privilege of dragging me into a controversy. Let me
say beforehand that I grieve to deprive him of his gentle diversion,
and to clip his claws so soon. I am old and indolently content, like
Figaro of merry memory. Moreover, I have not enough self-conceit to
engage in any defense of my literary productions. To record some
incidents of a well-loved past, to chronicle some memories of a youth
long flown--this is my whole ambition.

Many of the anecdotes, doubtless, will appear insignificant and
childish to some readers. Let these lay the blame upon certain of our
best men-of-letters, who besought me to leave out nothing which could
illustrate the manners and customs of the early Canadians. "That which
will appear insignificant and childish to the eyes of strangers," they
urged, "in the records of a septuagenarian, born but twenty-eight years
after the conquest of New France, will yet not fail to interest true
Canadians."

This production of mine shall be neither very dull nor surpassingly
brilliant. An author should assuredly have too much self-respect to
make his appeal exclusively to the commonplace; and if I should make
the work too fine, it would be appreciated by none but the _beaux
esprits_. Under a constitutional government, a candidate must concern
himself rather with the number than the quality of his votes.

This work will be Canadian through and through. It is hard for an old
fellow of seventy to change his ancient coat for garb of modern pattern.

I must have also plenty of elbow-room. As for rule and precept--which,
by the way, I am well enough acquainted with--I can not submit myself
to them in a work like this. Let the purists, the past masters in the
art of literature, shocked at my mistakes, dub my book romance, memoir,
annals, miscellany, hotch-potch. It is all the same to me.

Having accomplished my preface, let me make a serious beginning with
the following pretty bit of verse, hitherto unpublished, and doubtless
now much surprised to find itself in such unworthy company:

QUEBEC, 1757.

    An eagle city on her heights austere,
      Taker of tribute from the chainless flood,
    She watches wave above her in the clear
      The whiteness of her banner purged with blood.

    Near her grim citadel the blinding sheen
      Of her cathedral spire triumphant soars,
    Rocked by the Angelus, whose peal serene
      Beats over Beaupré and the Lévis shores.

    Tossed in his light craft on the dancing wave,
      A stranger where he once victorious trod,
    The passing Iroquois, fierce-eyed and grave,
      Frowns on the flag of France, the cross of God.

Let him who knows this Quebec of ours betake himself, in body or in
spirit, to the market of the Upper Town, and consider the changes which
the region has undergone since the year of grace 1757, whereat my story
opens. There was then the same cathedral, minus its modern tower, which
seems to implore the charitable either to raise it to its proper height
or to decapitate its lofty and scornful sister.

The Jesuits' College, at a later date transformed into a barrack,
looked much the same as it does to-day; but what has become of the
church which stood of old in the place of the present halls? Where
is the grove of venerable trees behind the building, which adorned
the grounds, now so bare, of this edifice sacred to the education of
Canadian youth? Time and the axe, alas! have worked their will. In
place of the merry sports, the mirthful sallies of the students, the
sober steps of the professors, the high philosophic discourse, we hear
now the clatter of arms, the coarse jest of the guard.

Instead of the market of the present day, some low-built butchers'
stalls, perhaps seven or eight in number, occupied a little plot
between the cathedral and the college. Between these stalls and the
college prattled a brook, which, after descending St. Louis Street and
dividing Fabrique, traversed Couillard and the hospital garden, on its
way to the river St. Charles. Our fathers were bucolic in their tastes!

It is the end of April. The brook is overflowing; children are amusing
themselves by detaching from its edges cakes of ice, which, shrinking
as they go, overleap all barriers, and lose themselves at last in the
mighty tide of the St. Lawrence. A poet, who finds "sermons in stones,
books in the running brooks," dreaming over the scene, and marking
the descent of the ice-cakes, their pausings, their rebuffs, might
have compared them to those ambitious men who, after a restless life,
come with little wealth or fame to the end of their career, and are
swallowed up in eternity.

The houses neighboring the market-place are, for the most part, of
but one story, unlike our modern structures, which tower aloft as if
dreading another deluge.

It is noon. The Angelus rings out from the cathedral belfry. All the
city chimes proclaim the greeting of the angel to the Virgin, who is
the Canadian's patron saint. The loitering _habitants_, whose calashes
surround the stalls, take off their caps and devoutly murmur the
Angelus. All worshiping alike, there is none to deride the pious custom.

Some of our nineteenth-century Christians seem ashamed to perform
before others an act of worship; which is proof, to say the least, of a
shrinking or cowardly spirit. The followers of Mohammed, who have the
courage of their convictions wherever they may chance to be, will seven
times daily make their prayers to Allah under the eyes of the more
timid Christians.

The students of the Jesuits' College, noisy enough on ordinary
occasions, move to-day in a serious silence from the church wherein
they have been praying. What causes this unusual seriousness? They are
on the eve of separation from two beloved fellow-students. The younger
of the two, who, being more of their age, was wont to share more often
in their boyish sports, was the protector of the feeble against the
strong, the impartial arbitrator in all their petty disagreements.

The great door of the college opens, and two young men in traveling
dress join the group of their fellow-students. Two leathern
portmanteaus, five feet long, adorned with rings, chains, and padlocks
which would seem strong enough for the mooring of a ship, lie at their
feet. The younger of the two, slight and delicate-looking, is perhaps
eighteen years old. His dark complexion, great black eyes, alert and
keen, his abruptness of gesture, proclaim his French blood. His name is
Jules D'Haberville. His father is one of the seigneurs, captain of a
company in the colonial marine.

His companion, who is older by two or three years, is much taller and
more robust of frame. His fine blue eyes, his chestnut hair, his blonde
and ruddy complexion with a few scattered freckles on face and hands,
his slightly aggressive chin--all these reveal a foreign origin. This
is Archibald Cameron of Lochiel, commonly known as Archie of Lochiel, a
young Scotch Highlander who has been studying at the Jesuits' College
in Quebec. How is it that he, a stranger, finds himself in this remote
French colony? We will let the sequel show.

The young men are both notably good looking. They are clad alike with
hooded overcoat, scarlet leggings edged with green ribbon, blue woolen
knitted garters, a broad belt of vivid colors embroidered with glass
beads, deer-hide moccasins tied in Iroquois fashion, the insteps
embroidered with porcupine-quills, and, finally, caps of beaver-skin
fastened over the ears by means of a red silk handkerchief knotted
under the chin.

The younger betrays a feverish eagerness, and keeps glancing along
Buade Street.

"You are in a hurry to leave us, Jules," said one of his friends,
reproachfully.

"No," replied D'Haberville, "oh, no, indeed, my dear De Laronde, I
assure you; but, since this parting must take place, I wish it over. It
unnerves me; and it is natural that I should be in a hurry to get back
home again."

"That is right," said De Laronde; "and, moreover, since you are a
Canadian, we hope to see you again before very long."

"But with you the case is different, my dear Archie," said another. "I
fear this parting will be forever, if you return to your own country."

"Promise us that you will come back," cried all the students.

During this conversation Jules darts off like an arrow to meet two men,
each with an oar on his right shoulder, who are hastening along by the
cathedral. One of them wears the costume of the _habitants_--capote
of black homespun, gray woolen cap, gray leggings and garters, belt
of many colors, and heavy cowhide larrigans tied in the manner
of the Iroquois. The dress of the other is more like that of our
young travelers, although much less costly. The first, tall and
rough-mannered, is a ferryman of Point Lévis. The second, shorter,
but of athletic build, is a follower of Captain D'Haberville, Jules's
father. In times of war, a soldier; in peace, he occupies the place of
a favored servant. He is the captain's foster-brother and of the same
age. He is the right hand of the family. He has rocked Jules in his
arms, singing him the gay catches of our up-river boatmen.

"Dear José, how are you? How have you left them all at home?" cried
Jules, flinging his arms about him.

"All well enough, thank God," replied Jose; "they send you all kinds o'
love, and are in a great way to see you. But how you have grown in the
last few months! Lord! Master Jules, but it is good to set eyes on you
again."

In spite of the familiar affection lavished upon José by the whole
D'Haberville family, he never forgot to be scrupulously respectful.

Jules overwhelms him with eager inquiries. He asks about the
servants, about the neighbors, and about the old dog whom, when in
his thirty-sixth lesson, he had christened _Niger_ to display his
proficiency in Latin. He has forgiven even the greedy cat who, the year
before, had gobbled up a young pet nightingale which he had intended to
take to college with him. In the first heat of his wrath, it is true,
he had hunted the assassin with a club, under tables, chairs, and beds,
and finally on to the roof itself, which the guilty animal had sought
as an impregnable refuge. Now, however, he has forgiven the creature's
misdeeds and makes tender inquiry after its health.

"Hello there!" grumbles the ferryman, who takes very little interest in
the above scenes, "when you have done slobbering and chattering about
the cat and dog, perhaps you'll make a move. The tide won't wait for
nobody."

In spite of the impatience and ill-humor of the ferryman, it took long
to say farewell. Their instructors embraced them affectionately.

"You are to be soldiers, both of you", said the principal. "In daily
peril of your life upon the battle-field, you must keep God ever
before you. It may be the will of Heaven that you fall. Be ready,
therefore, at all times, that you may go before the judgment-seat with
a clear conscience. Take this for your battle-cry--'God, the King, and
Fatherland!'"

"Farewell!" exclaimed Archie--"you who have opened your hearts to the
stranger. Farewell, kind friends, who have striven to make the poor
exile forget that he belonged to an alien race. Farewell, perhaps
forever."

"This parting would be hard indeed for me," said Jules, deeply moved,
"had I not the hope that my regiment will soon be ordered to Canada."
Then, turning to his instructors, he said:

"I have tried your patience sorely, gentlemen, but you know that my
heart has always been better than my head; I beg that you will forgive
the one for the sake of the other.--As for you, my fellow-students," he
continued, with a lightness that was somewhat forced, "you must admit
that, if I have tormented you sadly with my nonsense during the last
ten years, I have at least succeeded in sometimes making you laugh."

Seizing Archie by the arm, he hurried him off in order to conceal his
emotion.

We may leave our travelers now to cross the St. Lawrence, and rejoin
them a little later at Point Lévis.

+The Author.+

CAMERON OF LOCHIEL

CHAPTER I.

D'HABERVILLE AND CAMERON OF LOCHIEL.

    Give me, oh! give me back the days
    When I--I too--was young,
    And felt, as they now feel, each coming hour,
    New consciousness of power....

    The fields, the grove, the air was haunted,
    And all that age has disenchanted....

    Give me, oh! give youth's passions unconfined,
    The rush of joy that felt almost like pain.

+Goethe.+

Archibald Cameron of Lochiel, son of a Highland chief who had wedded
a daughter of France, was but four years old when he lost his mother.
Brought up by his father, who was, in the language of the Scriptures,
a valiant hunter in the sight of God, ever since ten years old he had
followed him in the chase of the roebuck and other wild beasts, scaling
the highest mountains, swimming the icy torrents, making his couch on
the wet sod with no covering but his plaid, no roof but the vault of
heaven. Under such a Spartan training the boy came to find his chief
delight in this wild and wandering life.

When Archie was but twelve years old, in the year 1745, his father
joined the standard of that unhappy young prince who, after the
old romantic fashion, threw himself into the arms of his Scottish
countrymen, and called upon them to win him back a crown which the
bloody field of Culloden forced him to renounce forever.

In the early days of this disastrous struggle, courage was triumphant
over numbers and discipline, and their mountains re-echoed to their
outmost isles the songs of victory. The enthusiasm was at its height.
The victory seemed already won. But short-lived was their triumph.
After achievements of most magnificent heroism they were forced to bow
their necks to defeat. Lochiel shared the fate of the many brave whose
blood reddened the heather on Culloden.

An uncle of Archie's, who had also followed the standard and fortunes
of the unhappy prince, had the good fortune, after the disaster of
Culloden, to save his head from the scaffold. Through a thousand
perils, over a thousand obstacles, he made good his flight to France
with his orphan nephew. The old gentleman, ruined in fortune and under
sentence of banishment, was having a hard struggle to support himself
and his charge, when a Jesuit, an uncle of the boy on his mother's
side, undertook a share of the burden. Archie was sent to the Jesuits'
College in Quebec. Having completed a thorough course in mathematics,
he is leaving college when the reader makes his acquaintance.

Archibald Cameron of Lochiel, whom the harsh hand of misfortune had
brought to an early maturity, knew not at first what to make of a boy
noisy, troublesome and mocking, who seemed the despair alike of masters
and students. To be sure, the boy had not all the fun on his own side.
Out of twenty canings and impositions bestowed upon his class, Jules
D'Haberville was sure to pocket at least nineteen for his share.

It must be acknowledged, also, that the older pupils, driven to the
end of their patience, bestowed upon him sometimes more knocks than
nuts; but you would have thought the youngster regarded all this as an
encouragement, so ready was he to resume his tricks. We may add that
Jules, without being vindictive, never wholly overlooked an injury.
In one way or another he always made matters even. His satire, his
home thrusts, which could bring a flush to the face of even the most
self-possessed, served his purpose very effectually with the masters or
with those larger students whom he could not otherwise reach.

He had adopted it as his guiding principle, that he would never
acknowledge himself beaten; and it was necessary, therefore, for his
opponents, when weary of war, to make him proposals of peace.

The reader will doubtless conclude that the boy was cordially disliked;
on the contrary, every one was fond of him; he was the pet of the
college. The truth is, Jules had such a heart as pulses all too rarely
in the breast of man. To say that he was generous to a fault, that he
was ever ready to defend the absent, to sacrifice himself in order to
conceal the faults of others, would not give an adequate description of
his character. The following incident will reveal him more effectively:
When he was about twelve years old, a senior student got out of
patience and kicked him; with no intention, however, of hurting him
much. It was contrary to Jules's code of honor to carry complaints to
the masters. He contented himself with replying to his assailant: "You
are too thick-headed, you big brute, for me to waste any sarcasm on
you. You would not understand it. One must pierce your hide in some
other way; but be patient, you will lose nothing by waiting!"

After rejecting certain more or less ingenious schemes of vengeance,
Jules resolved to catch his enemy asleep and shave his eyebrows--a
punishment which would be easy to inflict, as Dubuc, the youth who had
kicked him, was a mighty heavy sleeper. This plan had the further
advantage of touching him on a most sensitive point, for he was a
handsome fellow and a good deal of a dandy.

Jules had just decided on this revenge, when he heard Dubuc say to one
of his friends, who had rallied him on looking gloomy:

"Indeed, I have good reason to be, for I expect my father to-morrow. I
have got into debt with the shop-keepers, hoping that my mother would
come to Quebec ahead of him, and would relieve me without his knowing
anything about it. Father is close-fisted and violent. He will probably
strike me in the first heat of his anger; and I don't know where to
hide my head. I have a mind to run away until the storm is over."

"Oh," said Jules, "why don't you let me help you out of the scrape?"

"The devil you say!" exclaimed Dubuc, shaking his head.

"Why," said Jules, "do you think that on account of a kick, more or
less, I would leave a fellow-student in a scrape and exposed to the
violence of his amiable papa? To be sure, you almost broke my back, but
that is another affair, which we will settle later. How much cash do
you want?"

"My dear fellow," answered Dubuc, "that would be abusing your kindness.
I need a large sum, and I know you are not in funds just now; for you
emptied your purse to help that poor woman whose husband was killed the
other day."

"A pretty story," said Jules. "As if one could not always find money
to save a friend from the wrath of a father who is going to break his
neck! How much do you want?"

"Fifty francs!"

"You shall have them this evening," said the boy.

Jules, an only son, belonging to a rich family, indulged by everybody,
had his pockets always full of money. Father and mother, uncles and
aunts, godfathers and godmothers, they all kept loudly proclaiming that
boys should not have too much money to spend. At the same time they
outdid each other in surreptitiously supplying his purse!

Dubuc, however, had spoken truly; the boy's purse was empty for the
moment. Fifty francs was, moreover, quite a sum in those days. The King
of France was paying his red allies only fifty francs for an English
scalp. His Britannic Majesty, richer or more generous, was paying a
hundred for the scalp of a Frenchman!

Jules did not care to apply to his uncles and his aunts, the only
relations he had in the city. His first thought was to borrow fifty
francs by pawning his gold watch, which was worth at least twenty-five
louis. Revolving the matter, however, he bethought himself of a certain
old woman, a servant of the house, whom his father had dowered at her
marriage, and to whom he had afterward advanced enough money to set
her up in business. The business had prospered in her hands. She was a
widow, rich and childless.

There were difficulties to surmount, however. The old dame was rather
avaricious and crusty; and on the occasion of Jules's last visit they
had not parted on the best terms possible. She had even chased him
into the street with a broomstick. The boy had done nothing more,
however, than play her a little trick. He had given her pet spaniel a
dose of snuff, and when the old lady ran to the help of her dog, who
was conducting himself like a lunatic, he had emptied the rest of the
snuff-box into a dandelion salad which she was carefully picking over
for her supper.

"Hold on, mother," he cried, as he ran away, "there is a good seasoning
for you."

Jules saw that it was very necessary to make his peace with the good
dame, and hence these preliminaries. He threw his arms about her neck
on entering, in spite of the old woman's attempt to shield herself from
these too ardent demonstrations, after the way he had affronted her.

"See, my dear Madeleine," he cried, "I am come to pardon thine offenses
as thou must pardon all who have offended against thee. Everybody says
thou art stingy and revengeful, but that is no business of mine. Thou
wilt get quit of it by roasting a little while in another world. I wash
my hands of it entirely."

Madeleine hardly knew whether to laugh or be angry at this fantastic
preamble; but, as she was fond of the boy, for all his tricks, she took
the wiser course and smiled good-naturedly.

"Now that we are in a better humor," continued Jules, "let us proceed
to business. I have been a little foolish and have got into debt, and I
dread to trouble my good father about it. In fact, I want fifty francs
to settle the unfortunate business. Can you lend me that much?"

"Indeed, now, Master D'Haberville," answered the old dame, "if that
were all I had in the world, I would give it all to save your father
any trouble. I owe so much to your father."

"Tut!" said Jules, "if you talk of those ha'pennies, there's an end of
business. But listen, my good Madeleine, since I might break my neck
when I least expect it, or still more probably when climbing on the
roof or among the city bells, I must give you a bit of writing for
security. I hope, however, to pay you back in a month at latest."

At this Madeleine was seriously offended. She refused the note, and
counted him out the money. Jules almost choked her with his embrace,
sprang through the window into the street and hurried back to the
college.

At recess time that evening Dubuc was freed from all anxiety on the
score of his amiable papa.

"But remember," said D'Haberville, "I still owe you for that kick."

"Hold on, dear boy," exclaimed Dubuc, with feeling. "I wish you would
settle that right now. Break my head or my back with the poker, only
let us settle it. To think that, after all you have done for me, you
are still bearing me a grudge, would be nothing less than torture."

"A fine idea that," exclaimed the boy, "to think that I bear any one
a grudge because I am in his debt in regard to a little exchange of
compliments! So that is how you take it, eh? Shake, then, and let us
think no more about it. You may brag of being the only one to scratch
me without my having drawn his blood in return."

With these words he sprang upon the young man's shoulders like a
monkey, pulled out a few hairs to satisfy his conscience, and scampered
off to join the merry group which was waiting for him.

Archibald of Lochiel, matured by bitter experiences, and on that
account more self-contained and more reserved than other boys of his
age, on his first coming to college hardly knew whether to smile or
be angry at the frolics of the little imp who seemed to have taken
him for his special butt, and who hardly left him any peace. He could
not be expected to divine that this was Jules's manner of showing his
affection for those he loved the most. One day, driven to the end of
his forbearance, Archie said to him:

"Do you know, you would try the patience of a saint! Verily I don't
know what to do with you."

"But you have a way out of your difficulties," answered Jules. "My skin
itches; give me a good hiding, and I'll leave you in peace. That will
be easy enough for you, you young Hercules."

Lochiel, indeed, accustomed from his infancy to the trying sports of
the young Highlanders, was at fourteen marvelously strong for his years.

"Do you think," exclaimed Archie, "that I am such a coward as to strike
a boy younger and weaker than myself?"

"Oh, no," said Jules; "I see we agree on that score--never a knock for
a little fellow. What suits me is a good tussle with a fellow of my
own age, or even a little older; then shake hands and think no more
about it. By the way," continued Jules, "you know that comical dog De
Chavigny? He is older than I am, but so weak and miserable that I have
never had the heart to punch him, although he has played me such a
trick as even St. Francis himself would hardly pardon. Just think of
him running to me all out of breath and exclaiming: 'I've just snatched
an egg from that greedy Letourneau, who had stolen it out of the
refectory. Here, hide it; he's after me!'

"'Where do you want me to hide it?' said I.

"'Oh, in your hat,' he answered; 'he'll never think of looking for it
there.'

"As for me, I was fool enough to do it. I ought to have mistrusted him."

In a moment Letourneau came up and jammed my cap down over my eyes.
The accursed egg nearly blinded me, and I swear did not smell like a
rose-garden! It was an addled egg found by Chavigny in a nest which the
hen had probably abandoned a month before. I got out of that mess with
the loss of a cap, a vest, and other garments. Well, after the first
of my fury was over, I could not help laughing; and if I bear him any
grudge at all, it is for having got ahead of me with so neat a trick. I
should love to get it off on Derome, who keeps his hair so charmingly
powdered. As for Letourneau, since he was too stupid to have invented
the trick myself, I contented myself with saying to him, 'Blessed are
they of little wit'; and he professed himself proud of the compliment,
being glad enough, after all, to get off so cheaply.

"And now, my dear Archie," continued Jules, "let us come to terms. I
am a kindly potentate, and my conditions shall be most easy. To please
you, I undertake, on the word of a gentleman, to diminish by one third
those tricks of mine which you lack the good taste to appreciate.
Come, now, you ought to be satisfied with that if you are not utterly
unreasonable, for you see, my dear boy, I love you. I would not have
made peace with any one else on such advantageous terms."

Lochiel could not help laughing as he shook the irrepressible lad. It
was from this conversation that the friendship between the two boys
took its beginning--on Archie's part with a truly Scottish restraint,
on the side of Jules with the passionate warmth of which the French
heart is capable.

A few weeks later, about a month before the vacation, which began then
on the 15th of August, Jules seized his friend's arm and whispered:

"Come into my room. I have just had a letter from father which concerns
you."

"Concerns me!" exclaimed the other in astonishment.

"Why are you surprised?" retorted D'Haberville. "Do you think you
are not of sufficient importance for any one to concern himself about
you? Why, all New France is talking about the handsome Scotchman. The
mammas, fearing your influence on the inflammable hearts of their
daughters, talk seriously of petitioning our principal never to let you
appear in public except with a veil on, like the women of the East."

"Come, stop your fooling, and let me go on with my reading."

"But I am very much in earnest," said Jules. And, dragging his friend
along with him, he read him part of a letter from his father, which ran
as follows:

"What you tell me about your young friend, Master de Lochiel, interests
me very much. I grant your request with the greatest pleasure. Give
him my compliments, and beg him to come and spend his next vacation
with us, and all his vacations so long as he is attending college. If
he does not consider this invitation sufficiently formal, I will write
to him myself. His father sleeps upon a glorious field. Soldiers are
brothers everywhere; so should their sons be likewise. Let him come to
our own hearth-stone, and our hearts shall open to him as to one of our
own blood."

Archie was so affected by the warmth of this invitation that for some
moments he could not answer.

"Come, my haughty Scotlander, will you do us the honor?" said his
friend. "Or must my father send, on a special embassy, his chief
butler, José Dubé, with the bagpipes slung on his back in the form of
a St. Andrew's cross--as is the custom, I believe, among your Highland
chiefs--to present you his invitation with all due formality?"

"As, fortunately, I am no longer in my Highlands," said Archie,
laughing, "we can dispense with these formalities. I shall write at
once to Captain D'Haberville, and thank him with my whole heart for his
noble generosity to the exiled orphan."

"Then, let us speak reasonably for once," said Jules, "if only
for the novelty of the thing. You think me very light, silly, and
scatter-brained. I acknowledge that there is a little of all that in
me, which does not prevent me from being in earnest more often than
you think. I have long been seeking a friend, a true and high-hearted
friend. I have watched you very closely, and I find you all I could
wish. Lochiel, will you be my friend?"

"Without a moment's question, my dear boy," answered Archie, "for I
have always felt strongly attracted toward you."

"Well, then," cried Jules, grasping his hand warmly, "it is for life
and death with us Lochiel!"

Thus, between a boy of twelve and a boy of fourteen, was ratified a
friendship which in the sequel will be exposed to the crudest tests.

"Here's a letter from mother," said Jules, "in which there is a word
for you":

"I hope your friend, Master de Lochiel, will do us the pleasure of
accepting your father's invitation. We are all eager to meet him. His
room is ready, alongside of your own. In the box which José will hand
you there is a parcel for him which he would grieve me greatly by
refusing. In sending it I am thinking of the mother he has lost."

The box contained equal shares for the two boys of cakes, sweetmeats,
jams, and other dainties.

The friendship between the two boys grew stronger day by day. They
became inseparable. Their college-mates dubbed them variously Damon and
Pythias, Orestes and Pylades, Nisus and Euryalus. At last they called
them the brothers.

All the time Lochiel was at college he spent his vacations with the
D'Habervilles, who made no difference between the two boys unless to
lavish the more marked attentions upon the young Scotchman who had
become as it were a son of the house. It was most natural, then, that
Archie, before sailing for Europe, should accompany Jules on his
farewell visit to his father's house.

The friendship between the two young men, as we have already said, is
destined to be put to the bitterest trial, when that code of honor
which has been substituted by civilization for the truest sentiments
of the human heart, shall come to teach them the obligations of men
who are fighting under hostile flags. But why anticipate the dark
future? Have they not enjoyed during almost ten years of college life
the passing griefs, the little jealousies, the eager pleasures, the
differences and ardent reconciliations which characterize a boyish
friendship?

CHAPTER II.

A NIGHT WITH THE SORCERERS.

    Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!
    Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned,
    Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell.

_Hamlet._

    Ecoute comme les bois crient. Les hiboux fuient épouvantés....
    Entends-tu ces voix dans les hauteurs, dans le lointain, ou près
       de nous?...
    Eh! oui! la montagne retentit, dans toute sa longueur, d'un furieux
    chant magique.

_Faust._

    Lest bogles catch him unawares....

    Where ghaits and howlets nightly cry....

    When out the hellish legion sallied.

+Burns.+

As soon as our young travelers, crossing the St. Lawrence opposite
Quebec, have reached Point Lévis, José makes haste to harness a
splendid Norman horse into one of those low sledges which furnish the
only means of transport at this season, when the roads are only covered
here and there with snow or ice, and when overflowing streams intercept
the way at intervals. When they come to one of these obstacles José
unharnesses the horse, all three mount, and the brook is speedily
forded. It is true that Jules, who clasps José around the waist, tries
every now and then to throw him off, at the risk of partaking with him
the luxury of a bath at a little above zero. He might as well have
tried to throw Cape Tourmente into the St. Lawrence. José, who, in
spite of his comparatively small stature, is as strong as an elephant,
laughs in his sleeve and pretends not to notice it. The brook forded,
José goes back for the sledge, reharnesses the horse, climbs into the
sledge with the baggage in front of him lest he should get it wet, and
speedily overtakes his fellow-travelers, who have not halted a moment
in their march.

Thanks to Jules, the conversation never flags during the journey.
Archie does nothing but laugh over the witticisms that Jules
perpetrates at his expense. He has long given up attempting any retort.

"We must hurry," exclaimed D'Haberville; "it is thirty-six miles from
here to St. Thomas. My uncle De Beaumont takes supper at seven. If we
get there too late, we shall probably make a poor meal. The good things
will be all gobbled up. You know the proverb, _tarde venientibus ossa_."

"Scotch hospitality is proverbial," exclaimed Archie. "With us the
welcome is the same day or night. That is the cook's business."

"Verily," said Jules, "I believe it as if I saw it with my own eyes;
were it otherwise it would show a plentiful lack of skill or good-will
on the part of your peticoated cooks. It is delightfully primitive,
that Scotch cookery of yours. With a few handfuls of oatmeal sodden in
cold water--since you have neither wood nor coal in your country--you
can make an excellent soup at little cost and with no great expenditure
of culinary science, and feast your guests as well in the night as in
the daytime. It is quite true that, when some distinguished personage
seeks your hospitality--which often happens, since Scotland is loaded
down with enough coats-of-arms to crush a camel--it is true I say, that
you set before him, in addition to your oatmeal soup, the head, feet,
or nice, juicy tail of a sheep, with salt for sauce; the other parts
of the animal never seem to grow in Scotland."

Lochiel contented himself with glancing at Jules over his shoulder and
repeating:

"'Quis talia fando Myrmidonum, Dolopumve'--"

"What's that?" exclaimed Jules, in assumed indignation; "you call me
a Myrmidon, a Dolopian--me, the philosopher! And, moreover, my worthy
pedant, you abuse me in Latin--you who so murder the accent with your
Caledonian tongue that Virgil must squirm in his grave! You call me
a Myrmidon--me, the geometrician of my class! You remember that the
Professor of Mathematics predicted that I should be another Vauban--"

"Yes, indeed," interrupted Archie, "in recognition of your famous
perpendicular line, which leaned so much to the left that all the class
trembled lest it should fall and crush its base; seeing which, our
professor sought to console you by predicting that your services would
be required in case of the reconstruction of the Tower of Pisa."

Jules struck a tragic attitude and cried:

"'Tu t'en souviens, Cinna! et veux m'assassiner.'

"You are going to stab me upon the king's highway, beside this mighty
St. Lawrence, untouched by all the beauty of nature which surrounds
us--untouched by yon lovely cascade of Montmorency, which the
_habitants_ call 'The Cow,' a title very much the reverse of poetic,
but which, nevertheless, expresses well enough the exquisite whiteness
of the stream which leaps from its bosom like the rich and foaming flow
from the milch-cow's udder. You are going to stab me right in sight
of the Isle of Orleans, which, as we go on, conceals from our view
the lovely waterfall which I have so poetically described! Heartless
wretch! will nothing make you relent--not even the sight of poor José
here, who is touched by all this wisdom and eloquence in one so young,
as Fénelon would have said could he have written my adventures?"

"Do you know," interrupted Archie, "you are at least as remarkable in
poetry as you are in geometry?"

"Who can doubt it?" answered Jules. "No matter, my perpendicular made
you all laugh and myself most of all. You know, however, that that
was only another trick of that scamp De Chavigny, who had stolen my
exercise and rolled up another in place of it, which I handed in to the
teacher. You all pretended not to believe me, since you were but too
glad to see the trickster tricked."

José, who ordinarily took little part in the young men's conversation,
and who, moreover, had been unable to understand what they had just
been talking about, now began to mutter under his breath:

"What a queer kind of a country that, where the sheep have only heads,
feet, and tails, and not even a handful of a body! But, after all, it
is none of my business; the men who are the masters will fix things to
suit themselves; but I can't help thinking of the poor horses!"

José, who was a regular jockey, had a most tender consideration for
these noble beasts. Then, turning to Archie, he touched his cap and
said:

"Saving your presence, sir, if the gentry themselves eat all the oats
in your country, which is because they have nothing better to eat, I
suppose, what do the poor horses do? They require to be well fed if
they do much hard work."

The young men burst out laughing. José, a little abashed by their
ridicule, exclaimed:

"Excuse me if I have said anything foolish. One may make mistakes
without being drunk, just like Master Jules there, who was telling you
that the _habitants_ call Montmorency Falls 'The Cow' because their
foam is white as milk. Now, I have a suspicion that it is because they
bellow like a cow in certain winds. At least that is what the old
bodies say when they get chattering."

"Don't be angry, old boy," answered Jules, "you are probably quite
right. We were laughing because you thought there were horses in
Scotland. The animal is unknown in that country."

"What! no horses, sir? What do the folks do when they want to travel?"

"When I say no horses," answered D'Haberville, "you must not understand
me too literally. They have an animal resembling our horses, but not
much taller than my big dog Niger. It lives in the mountains, wild as
our caribous, and not altogether unlike them. When a Highlander wants
to travel, he sounds his bagpipe; all the villagers gather together
and he unfolds to them his project. Then they scatter through the
woods, or rather through the heather, and after a day or two of toil
and tribulation they succeed, occasionally, in capturing one of these
charming beasts; then, after another day or two, if the brute is not
too obstinate, and if the Highlander has enough patience, he sets out
on his journey, and sometimes even succeeds in coming to the end of it."

"Well, I must say," retorted Lochiel, "you are a pretty one to be
making fun of my Highlanders! You have good right to be proud of this
princely turn-out of your own! It will be hard for posterity to believe
that the high and mighty lord of D'Haberville sends for his son and
heir in a sort of dung-cart without wheels! Doubtless he will send some
outriders on ahead of us, in order that nothing shall be lacking in our
triumphal approach to the manor of St. Jean Port Joli!"

"Well done, Lochiel! you are saved, brother mine," cried Jules. "A
very neat home thrust. Claws for claws, as one of your Scottish saints
exclaimed one day, when he was having a scrimmage with the devil."

José, during this discussion, was scratching his head disconsolately.
Like Caleb Balderstone, in The Bride of Lammermoor, he was very
sensitive on all subjects touching his master's honor.

"What a wretched fool I am!" he cried in a piteous voice. "It is all my
fault. The seigneur has four carryalls in his coach-house, of which
two are brand new and varnished up like fiddles, so that I used one
for a looking-glass last Sunday. So, then, when the seigneur said to
me yesterday morning, 'Get ready, José, for you must go to Quebec to
fetch my son and his friend Mr. de Lochiel; see that you take a proper
carriage'--I, like a fool, said to myself that when the roads were so
bad the only thing to take was a sled like this! Oh, yes, I'm in for a
good scolding! I shall get off cheap if I have to do without my brandy
for a month! At three drinks a day," added José, "that will make a loss
of ninety good drinks, without counting extras. But it's all the same
to me; I'll take my punishment like a man."

The young men were greatly amused at José's ingenious lying for the
honor of his master.

"Now," said Archie, "since you seem to have emptied your budget of all
the absurdities that a hair-brained French head can contain, try and
speak seriously, and tell me why the Isle of Orleans is called the
Isle of the Sorcerers."

"For the very simple reason," answered Jules, "that a great many
sorcerers live there."

"There you begin again with your nonsense," said Lochiel.

"I am in earnest," said Jules. "These Scotch are unbearably conceited.
They can't acknowledge any excellence in other nations. Do you think,
my dear fellow, that Scotland has the monopoly of witches and wizards?
I would beg you to know that we too have our sorcerers; and that two
hours ago, between Point Lévis and Beaumont, I might as easily as not
have introduced you to a very respectable sorceress. I would have you
know, moreover, that on the estate of my illustrious father you shall
see a witch of the most remarkable skill. The difference is, my dear
boy, that in Scotland you burn them, while here we treat them in a
manner fitting their power and social influence. Ask José if I am not
telling the truth?"

José did not fail to confirm all he said. In his eyes the witches of
Beaumont and St. Jean Port Joli were genuine and mighty sorceresses.

"But to speak seriously," continued Jules, "since you would make a
reasonable man of me, _nolens volens_, as my sixth-form master used to
say when he gave me a dose of the strap, I believe the fable takes its
rise from the fact that the _habitants_ on the north and south shores
of the river, seeing the islanders on dark nights go out fishing with
torches, mistake their lights for will-o'-the-wisps. Then, you know
that our country folk regard the will-o'-the-wisps as witches, or as
evil spirits who endeavor to lure the wandering wretch to his death.
They even profess to hear them laugh when the deluded traveler falls
into the quagmire. The truth is, that there is an inflammable gas
continually escaping from our bogs and swampy places, from which to the
hobgoblins and sorcerers is but a single step."

"Impossible," said Archie; "your logic is at fault, as the professor so
often had to tell you. You see the inhabitants of the north and south
shores themselves go fishing with torches, whence, according to your
reasoning, the islanders should have called them sorcerers; which is
not the case."

While Jules was shaking his head, with no answer ready, José took up
the word.

"If you would let me speak, gentlemen, I might explain your difficulty
by telling you what happened to my late father who is now dead."

"Oh, by all means, tell us that; tell us what happened to your late
father who is now dead," cried Jules, with a marked emphasis on the
last four words.

"Yes, my dear José, do us the favor of telling us about it," added
Lochiel.

"I can't half tell the story," answered José, "for, you see, I have
neither the fine accent nor the splendid voice of my lamented parent.
When he used to tell us what happened to him in his vigil, our bodies
would shake so, as if with ague, as would do you good to see. But I'll
do my best to satisfy you:

"It happened one day that my late father, who is now dead, had left the
city for home somewhat late. He had even diverted himself a little, so
to speak, with his acquaintances in Point Lévis. Like an honest man, he
loved his drop; and on his journeys he always carried a flask of brandy
in his dogfish-skin satchel. They say the liquor is the milk for old
men."

"_Lac dulce_," interjected Archie, sententiously.

"Begging your pardon, Mr. Archie," answered José, with some warmth, "it
was neither _sweet water_ (_de l'eau_ _douce_) nor _lake-water_ (_eau
de lac_), but very good, unadulterated brandy which my late father, now
dead, was carrying in his satchel."

"Capital, upon my word!" cried Jules. "It serves you right for your
perpetual Latin quotations!"

"I beg your pardon, José," said Lochiel, very seriously. "I intended
not the shadow of disrespect to your late father."

"You are excused, sir," said José, entirely mollified. "It happened
that it was quite dark when my father at last got under way. His
friends did their best to keep him all night, telling him that he would
have to pass, all by himself, the iron cage wherein _La Corriveau_ did
penance for having killed her husband.

"You saw it yourselves, gentlemen, when leaving Point Lévis at one
o'clock. She was quiet then in her cage, the wicked creature, with her
eyeless skull. But never you trust to her being blind. She is a cunning
one, you had better believe! If she can't see in the daytime, she knows
well enough how to find her way to torment poor folks at night. Well,
as for my late father, who was as brave as his captain's sword, he told
his friends that he didn't care--that he didn't owe _La Corriveau_ a
farthing--with a heap more reasons which I can not remember now. He put
the whip to his horse, a fine brute that could travel like the wind,
and was gone in a second.

"As he was passing the skeleton, he thought he heard a noise, a sort
of wailing; but, as a heavy southwest wind was blowing, he made up his
mind it was only the gale whistling through the bones of the corpse. It
gave him a kind of a start, nevertheless, and he took a good pull at
the flask to brace himself up. All things considered, however, as he
said to himself, Christians should be ready to help each other; perhaps
the poor creature was wanting his prayers. He took off his cap and
devoutly recited a _de profundis_ for her benefit, thinking that, if it
didn't do her any good, it could at least do her no harm, and that he
himself would be the better for it. Well, then he kept on as fast as he
could; but, for all that, he heard a queer sound behind him--tic-tac,
tic-tac, like a piece of iron striking on the stones. He thought it
was the tire of his wheel, or some piece of the wagon, that had come
unfastened. He got out to see, but found everything snug. He touched
the horse to make up for lost time, but after a little he heard again
that tic-tac, tic-tac, on the stones. Being brave, he didn't pay much
attention.

"When he got to the high ground of St. Michel, which we passed a little
way back, he grew very drowsy. 'After all,' said my late father, 'a
man is not a dog! let us take a little nap; we'll both be the better
for it, my horse and I.' Well, he unharnessed his horse, tied his legs
so he would not wander too far, and said: 'There, my pet, there's good
grass, and you can hear the brook yonder. Good-night.'

"As my late father crawled himself into the wagon to keep out of the
dew, it struck him to wonder what time it was. After studying the
'Three Kings' to the south'ard and the 'Wagon' to the north'ard, he
made up his mind it must be midnight. 'It is time,' said he, 'for
honest men to be in bed.'

"Suddenly, however, it seemed to him as if Isle d'Orléans was on fire.
He sprang over the ditch, leaned on the fence, opened his eyes wide,
and stared with all his might. He saw at last that the flames were
dancing up and down the shore, as if all the will-o'-the-wisps, all
the damned souls of Canada, were gathered there to hold the witches'
sabbath. He stared so hard that his eyes which had grown a little dim
grew very clear again, and he saw a curious sight; you would have said
they were a kind of men, a queer breed altogether. They had a head big
as a peck measure, topped off with a pointed cap a yard long; then they
had arms, legs, feet, and hands armed with long claws, but no body
to speak of. Their crotch, begging your pardon, gentlemen, was split
right up to their ears. They had scarcely anything in the way of flesh;
they were kind of all bone, like skeletons. Every one of these pretty
fellows had his upper lip split like a rabbit's, and through the split
stuck out a rhinoceros tusk a foot long, like you see, Mr. Archie, in
your book of unnatural history. As for the nose, it was nothing more
nor less, begging your pardon, than a long pig's snout, which they
would rub first on one side and then on the other of their great tusk,
perhaps to sharpen it. I almost forgot to say that they had a long
tail, twice as long as a cow's, which they used, I suppose, to keep off
the flies.

"The funniest thing of all was that there were but three eyes to every
couple of imps. Those that had but one eye, in the middle of the
forehead, like those Cyclopes that your uncle, who is a learned man,
Mr. Jules, used to read to us about out of that big book of his, all
Latin, like the priest's prayer-book, which he called his Virgil--those
that had but one eye held each by the claw two novices with the proper
number of eyes. Out of all these eyes spurted the flames which lit up
Isle d'Orléans like broad day. The novices seemed very respectful to
their companions, who were, as one might say, half blind; they bowed
down to them, they fawned upon them, they fluttered their arms and
legs, just like good Christians dancing the minuet.

"The eyes of my late father were fairly starting out of his head. It
was worse and worse when they began to jump and dance without moving
from their places, and to chant in a voice as hoarse as that of a
choking cow, this song:

    "Hoary Frisker, Goblin gay,
    Long-nosed Neighbor, come away!
    Come my Grumbler in the mud,
    Brother Frog of tainted blood!
    Come, and on this juicy Christian
    Let us feast it while we may!"

"'Ah! the accursed heathens,' exclaimed my late father, 'an honest
man can not be sure of his property for a moment! Not satisfied with
having stolen my favorite song, which I always keep to wind up with at
weddings and feasts, just see how they've played the devil with it! One
would hardly recognize it. It is Christians instead of good wine that
they are going to treat themselves to, the scoundrels!'

"Then the imps went on with their hellish song, glaring at my late
father, and curling their long snouts around their great rhinoceros
tusks:

    "Come, my tricksy Traveler's Guide,
    Devil's Minion true and tried.
    Come, my Sucking-Pig, my Simple,
    Brother Wart and Brother Pimple;
    Here's a fat and juicy Frenchman
    To be pickled, to be fried!"

"'All that I can say to you just now, my darlings,' cried my late
father, 'is that if you get no more fat to eat than what I'm going to
bring you on my lean carcass you'll hardly need to skim your broth.'

"The goblins, however, seemed to be expecting something, for they kept
turning their heads every moment. My late father looked in the same
direction. What was that he saw on the hill-side? A mighty devil, built
like the rest, but as long as the steeple St. Michel, which we passed
awhile back. Instead of the pointed bonnet, he wore a three-horned
hat, topped with a big thorn bush in place of a feather. He had but
one eye, blackguard that he was, but that was as good as a dozen. He
was doubtless the drum-major of the regiment, for he held in his hand
a saucepan twice as big as our maple-sugar kettles, which hold twenty
gallons, and in the other hand a bell-clapper, which no doubt the dog
of a heretic had stolen from some church before its consecration. He
pounded on his saucepan, and all the scoundrels began to laugh, to
jump, to flutter, nodding to my late father as if inviting him to come
and amuse himself with them.

"'You'll wait a long time, my lambs,' thought my late father to
himself, his teeth chattering in his head as if he had the shaking
fever--'you will wait a long time, my gentle lambs. I'm not in any
hurry to quit the good Lord's earth to live with the goblins!'

"Suddenly the tall devil began to sing a hellish round, accompanying
himself on the saucepan, which he beat furiously, and all the goblins
darted away like lightning--so fast, indeed, that it took them less
than a minute to go all the way around the island. My poor late father
was so stupefied by the hubbub that he could not remember more than
three verses of the song, which ran like this:

  "Here's the spot that suits us well
  When it gets too hot in hell--
      Toura-loura;
  Here we go all round,
    Hands all round,
  Here we go all round.

  "Come along and stir your sticks,
  You jolly dogs of heretics--
      Toura-loura;
  Here we go all round,
    Hands all round,
  Here we go all round.

  "Room for all, there's room for all
  That skim or wriggle, bounce or crawl--
      Toura-loura;
  Here we go all round,
    Hands all round,
  Here we go all round."

"My late father was in a cold sweat; he had not yet, however, come to
the worst of it."

Here José paused. "But I am dying for a smoke, and, with your
permission, gentlemen, I'll light my pipe."

"Quite right, my dear José," answered D'Haberville. "For my own part,
I am dying for something else. My stomach declares that this is
dinner-hour at college. Let's have a bite to eat."

Jules enjoyed the privilege of aristocratic descent--he had always a
magnificent appetite. This was specially excusable to-day, seeing that
he had dined at noon, and had had an immense deal of exercise since.

CHAPTER III.

LA CORRIVEAU.

Sganarelle.--Seigneur commandeur, mon maitre, Don Juan, vous demande
si vous voulez lui faire l'honneur de venir souper avec lui.

Le même.--La statue m'a fait signe.

+Le Festin de Pierre.+

  What? the ghosts are growing ruder,
  How they beard me....

  To-night--why this is Goblin Hall,
  Spirits and specters all in all.

+Faustus.+

José, after having unbridled the horse and given him what he called
a mouthful of hay, made haste to open a box which he had ingeniously
arranged on the sled to serve, as needs might be, both for seat and
larder. He brought out a great napkin in which were wrapped up two
roast chickens, a tongue, a ham, a little flask of brandy, a good big
bottle of wine. He was going to retire when Jules said to him:

"Come along and take a bite with us, José."

"Yes, indeed, come and sit here by me," said Archie.

"Oh, gentlemen," said José, "I know my place too well--"

"Come now, no affectations," said Jules. "We are here like three
soldiers in camp; will you be so good as to come, you obstinate fellow?"

"Since you say so, gentlemen, I must obey my officers," answered Jules.

The two young men seated themselves on the box which served them also
for a table. José took his place very comfortably on a bundle of hay,
and all three began to eat and drink with a hearty appetite.

Archie, naturally abstemious, had soon finished his meal. Having
nothing better to do, he began to philosophize. In his lighter moods he
loved to propound paradoxes for the pleasure of the argument.

"Do you know, brother mine, what it was that interested me most in my
friend's story?"

"No," exclaimed Jules, attacking another drumstick; "and what's more,
for the next quarter of an hour I don't care. The hungry stomach has no
ears."

"Oh, that's no matter," said Archie. "It was those devils, goblins,
spirits, or whatever you choose to call them, with only one eye; I
wish that the fashion could be adopted among men; there would be fewer
hypocrites, fewer rogues, and therefore fewer dupes. Assuredly, it
is some consolation to see that virtue is held in honor even among
hobgoblins. Did you notice with what respect those one-eyed fellows
were treated by the other imps?"

"That may be," said Jules, "but what does it prove?"

"It proves," answered Lochiel, "that the one-eyed fellows deserved the
special attentions that were paid them; they are the _haute noblesse_
among hobgoblins. Above all they are not hypocrites."

"Nonsense," said Jules, "I begin to be afraid your brain is softening."

"Oh, no, I'm not so crazy as you think," answered Archie. "Just watch
a hypocrite with somebody he wants to deceive. With what humility he
keeps one eye half shut while the other watches the effect of his
words. If he had but one eye he would lose this immense advantage,
and would have to give up his _rôle_ of hypocrite which he finds
so profitable. There, you see, is one vice the less. My Cyclops of
a hobgoblin has probably many other vices, but he is certainly no
hypocrite; whence the respect to which he is treated by a class of
beings stained with all the vices in the category."

"Here's your health, my Scottish philosopher," exclaimed Jules, tossing
off a glass of wine. "Hanged if I understand a word of your reasoning
though."

"But it's clear as day," answered Archie. "The heavy and indigestible
stuff with which you are loading down your stomach must be clogging
your brains. If you ate nothing but oatmeal, as we Highlanders do, your
ideas would be a good deal clearer."

"That oatmeal seems to stick in your throat, my friend," said Jules;
"it ought to be easy enough to digest, however, even without the help
of sauce."

"Here's another example," said Archie. "A rogue who wishes to cheat an
honest man in any kind of a transaction always keeps one eye winking
or half shut, while the other watches to see whether he is gaining
or losing in the trade. One eye is plotting while the other watches.
That is a vast advantage for the rogue. His antagonist, on the other
hand, seeing one eye clear, frank, and honest, can not suspect what
is going on behind the eye which blinks, and plots, and calculates,
while its fellow keeps as impenetrable as fate. Now let us reverse the
matter," continued Archie. "Let us suppose the same rogue in the same
circumstances, but blind of one eye. The honest man watching his face
may often read in his eye his inmost thoughts; for my Cyclops, being
himself suspicious, is constrained to keep his one eye wide open."

"Rather," laughed Jules, "if he doesn't want to break his neck."

"Granted," replied Lochiel, "but still more for the purpose of reading
the soul of him he wants to deceive. He finds it necessary, moreover,
to give his eye an expression of candor and good-fellowship in order to
divert suspicion--which must absorb a portion of his wits. Then, since
there are few men who can follow, without the help of both their eyes,
two different trains of thought at the same time, our rogue finds that
he has lost half of his advantage. He renounces his wicked calling, and
society is the richer by one more honest man."

"My poor Archie," murmured Jules, "I see that we have exchanged
_rôles_; that I am now the Scotch philosopher, as I so courteously
entitle you, while you are the crazy Frenchman, as you irreverently
term me. For, don't you see, my new Prometheus, that this one-eyed race
of men, endowed with all the virtues which you intend to substitute,
might very readily blink, if that is an infallible recipe for
deception, and for the purpose of taking observations just open their
eye from time to time."

"Oh, you French, you frivolous French, you deluded French, no wonder
the English catch you on the hip in diplomacy!"

"It would seem to me," interrupted Jules, "that the Scotch ought to
know something by this time about English diplomacy!"

Archie's face saddened and grew pale; his friend had touched a sore
spot. Jules perceived this at once and said:

"Forgive me, dear fellow, if I have hurt you. I know the subject is one
that calls up painful memories. I spoke, as usual, without thinking.
One often thoughtlessly wounds those one best loves by a retort which
one may think very witty. But come, let us drink to a merry life! Go
on with your remarkable reasoning; that will be pleasanter for both of
us."

"The cloud has passed over, and I resume my argument," said Lochiel,
repressing his emotion. "Don't you see that my rascal could not shut
his eye for an instant without the risk of his prey escaping him? Do
you remember the squirrel that we saved last year from that great
snake, at the foot of the old maple-tree in your father's park;
remember how the snake kept its glowing eyes fixed upon the poor little
creature in order to fascinate it; how the squirrel kept springing from
branch to branch with piteous cries, unable to remove its gaze for an
instant from that of the hideous reptile? When we made it look away it
was saved. Do you remember how joyous it was after the death of its
enemy? Well, my friend, let our rogue shut his eye and his prey escapes
him."

"Verily," said Jules, "you are a mighty dialectician. I shouldn't
wonder if you would some day eclipse, if you don't do it already, such
prattlers as Socrates, Zeno, Montaigne, and other philosophers of that
ilk. The only danger is lest your logic should some day land you in the
moon."

"You think you can make fun of me," said Archie. "Very well, but only
let some pedant, with his pen behind his ear, undertake to refute my
thesis seriously, and a hundred scribblers in battle array will take
sides for and against, and floods of ink will flow. The world has been
deluged with blood itself in defense of theories about as reasonable as
mine. Why such a thing has often been enough to make a man famous."

"Meanwhile," answered Jules, "your argument will serve as one of those
after-pieces with which Sancho Panza used to put Don Quixote to sleep.
As for me, I greatly prefer the story of our friend José."

"You are easily pleased, sir," said the latter, who had been taking a
nap during the scientific discussion.

"Let us listen," said Archie; "_Conticuêre omnes, intentique ora
tenebant._"

"_Conticuêre_ ... you irrepressible pedant," cried D'Haberville.

"It's not one of the priest's stories," put in José briskly; "but it is
as true as if he had told it from the pulpit; for my late father never
lied."

"We believe you, my dear José," said Lochiel. "But now please go on
with your delightful narrative."

"Well," said José, "it happened that my late father, brave as he was,
was in such a devil of a funk that the sweat was hanging from the end
of his nose like a head of oats. There he was, the dear man, with his
eyes bigger than his head, never daring to budge. Presently he thought
he heard behind him the 'tic tac,' 'tic tac,' which he had already
heard several times on the journey; but he had too much to occupy his
attention in front of him to pay much heed to what might pass behind.
Suddenly, when he was least expecting it, he felt two great bony hands,
like the claws of a bear, grip him by the shoulders. He turned around
horrified, and found himself face to face with La Corriveau, who was
climbing on his back. She had thrust her hands through the bars of her
cage and succeeded in clutching him; but the cage was heavy, and at
every leap she fell back again to the ground with a hoarse cry, without
losing her hold, however, on the shoulders of my late father, who bent
under the burden. If he had not held tight to the fence with both
hands, he would have been crushed under the weight. My poor late father
was so overwhelmed with horror that one might have heard the sweat
that rolled off his forehead dropping down on the fence like grains of
duck-shot.

"'My dear Francis,' said La Corriveau, 'do me the pleasure of taking me
to dance with my friends of Isle d'Orléans?'

"'Oh, you devil's wench!' cried my late father. That was the only oath
the good man ever used, and that only when very much tried."

"The deuce!" exclaimed Jules, "it seems to me that the occasion was a
very suitable one. For my own part, I should have been swearing like a
heathen."

"And I," said Archie, "like an Englishman."

"Isn't that much the same thing," answered D'Haberville.

"You are wrong, my dear Jules. I must acknowledge that the heathen
acquit themselves very well; but the English? Oh, my! Le Roux who, soon
as he got out of college, made a point of reading all the bad books
he could get hold of, told us, if you remember, that that blackguard
of a Voltaire, as my uncle the Jesuit used to call him, had declared
in a book of his, treating of what happened in France in the reign
of Charles VII, when that prince was hunting the islanders out of
his kingdom--Le Roux told us that Voltaire had put it on record that
'every Englishman swears.' Well, my boy, those events took place about
the year 1445--let us say, three hundred years ago. Judge, then, what
dreadful oaths that ill-tempered nation must have invented in the
course of three centuries!"

"I surrender," said Jules. "But go on, my dear José."

"'Devil's wench!' exclaimed my late father, 'is that your gratitude for
my _de profundis_ and all my other prayers? You'd drag _me_ into the
orgie, would you? I was thinking you must have been in for at least
three or four thousand years of purgatory for your pranks; and you had
only killed two husbands--which was a mere nothing. So having always a
tender heart for everything, I felt sorry for you, and said to myself
we must give you a helping hand. And this is the way you thank me, that
you want to straddle my shoulders and ride me to hell like a heretic!'

"'My dear Francis,' said La Corriveau, 'take me over to dance with my
dear friends;' and she knocked her head against that of my late father
till her skull rattled like a dry bladder filled with pebbles.

"'You may be sure,' said my late father, 'You hellish wench of Judas
Iscariot, I'm not going to be your jackass to carry you over to dance
with those pretty darlings!'

"'My dear Francis,' answered the witch, 'I can not cross the St.
Lawrence, which is a consecrated stream, except with the help of a
Christian.'

"'Get over as best you can, you devilish gallows bird,' said my late
father. 'Get over as best you can; every one to his own business. Oh,
yes, a likely thing that I'll carry you over to dance with your dear
friends; but that will be a devil of a journey you have come, the Lord
knows how, dragging that fine cage of yours, which must have torn up
all the stones on the king's highway! A nice row there'll be when the
inspector passes this way one of these days and finds the road in such
a condition! And then, who but the poor _habitant_ will have to suffer
for your frolics, getting fined for not having kept the road properly!'

"The drum-major suddenly stopped beating on his great sauce-pan. All
the goblins halted and gave three yells, three frightful whoops, like
the Indians give when they have danced that war-dance with which they
always begin their bloody expeditions. The island was shaken to its
foundation, the wolves, the bears, all the other wild beasts, and the
demons of the northern mountains took up the cry, and the echoes
repeated it till it was lost in the forests of the far-off Saguenay.

"My poor, late father thought that the end of the world had come, and
the Day of Judgment.

"The tall devil with the sauce-pan struck three blows; and a silence
most profound succeeded the hellish hubbub. He stretched out his arm
toward my late father, and cried with a voice of thunder: 'Will you
make haste, you lazy dog? will you make haste, you cur of a Christian,
and ferry our friend across? We have only fourteen thousand four
hundred times more to prance around the island before cock-crow. Are
you going to make her lose the best of the fun?'

"'Go to the devil, where you all belong,' answered my late father,
losing all patience.

"'Come, my dear Francis,' said La Corriveau, 'be a little more
obliging. You are acting like a child about a mere trifle. Moreover,
see how the time is flying. Come, now, one little effort!'

"'No, no, my wench of Satan,' said my late father. 'Would to Heaven you
still had on the fine collar which the hangman put around your neck two
years ago. You wouldn't have so clear a wind-pipe.'

"During this dialogue the goblins on the island resumed their chorus:

  "'Here we go all round,
    Hands all round,
  Here we go all round.'

"'My dear Francis,' said the witch, 'if your body and bones won't carry
me over, I'm going to strangle you. I will straddle your soul and ride
over to the festival.' With these words, she seized him by the throat
and strangled him."

"What," exclaimed the young men, "she strangled your poor, late father,
now dead?"

"When I said strangled, it was very little better than that," answered
José, "for the dear man lost his consciousness."

"When he came to himself he heard a little bird, which cried _Qué-tu_?
(Who art thou?)

"'Oh, ho!' said my late father, 'it's plain I'm not in hell, since I
hear the dear Lord's birds!' He opened first one eye, then the other,
and saw that it was broad daylight. The sun was shining right in his
face; the little bird, perched on a neighboring branch, kept crying
_qué-tu_?'

"'My dear child,' said my late father, 'it is not very easy to answer
your question, for I'm not very certain this morning just who I am.
Only yesterday I believed myself to be a brave, honest, and God-fearing
man; but I have had such an experience this night that I can hardly be
sure that it is I, Francis Dubé, here present in body and soul. Then
the dear man began to sing:

  'Here we go all round,
    Hands all round,
  Here we go all round.'

"In fact, he was half bewitched. At last, however, he perceived that
he was lying full length in a ditch where, happily, there was more mud
than water; but for that my poor, late father, who now sleeps with the
saints, surrounded by all his relations and friends, and fortified by
all the holy sacraments, would have died without absolution, like a
monkey in his old tree, begging your pardon for the comparison, young
gentlemen. When he had got his face clear from the mud of the ditch,
in which he was stuck fast as in a vise, the first thing he saw was
his flask on the bank above him. At this he plucked up his courage and
stretched out his hand to take a drink. But no such luck! The flask was
empty! The witch had drained every drop."

"My dear José," said Lochiel, "I think I am about as brave as the next
one. Nevertheless, if such an adventure had happened to me, never again
would I have traveled alone at night."

"Nor I either," said D'Haberville.

"To tell you the truth, gentlemen," said José, "since you are so
discriminating, I will confess that my late father, who before this
adventure would not have turned a hair in the graveyard at midnight,
was never afterward so bold; he dared not even go alone after sunset to
do his chores in the stable."

"And very sensible he was; but finish your story," said Jules.

"It is finished," said José. "My late father harnessed his horse, who
appeared, poor brute, to have noticed nothing unusual, and made his way
home fast as possible. It was not till a fortnight later that he told
us his adventure."

"What do you say to all that, my self-satisfied skeptic who would
refuse to Canada the luxury of witches and wizards?" inquired
D'Haberville.

"I say," answered Archie, "that our Highland witches are mere infants
compared with those of New France, and, what's more, if ever I get
back to my Scottish hills, I'm going to imprison all our hobgoblins in
bottles, as Le Sage did with his wooden-legged devil, Asmodeus."

"Hum-m-m!" said José. "It would serve them just right, accursed
blackguards; but where would you get bottles big enough? There'd be the
difficulty."

CHAPTER IV.

THE BREAKING UP OF THE ICE.

On entendit du côté de la mer un bruit epouvantable, comme si des torrents
d'eau, mêlés à des tonnerres, eussent roulé du haut des montagnes;
tout le monde s'écria: voilà l'ouragan.

+Bernardin de Saint-Pierre.+

  Though aged, he was so iron of limb
  Few of your youths could cope with him.

+Byron.+

Que j'aille à son secours, s'écria-t-il, ou que je meure.

+Bernardin de Saint-Pierre.+

Les vents et les vagues sont toujours du côté du plus habile nageur.

+Gibbon.+

The travelers merrily continued their journey. The day drew to a close,
and they kept on for a time by starlight. At length the moon rose and
shone far over the still bosom of the Saint Lawrence. At the sight of
her, Jules broke out into rhapsodies, and cried:

"I feel myself inspired, not by the waters of Hippocrene, which I
have never tasted and which, I trust, I never shall taste, but by the
kindly juice of Bacchus, dearer than all the fountains in the world,
not even excepting the limpid wave of Parnassus. Hail to thee, fair
moon! Hail to thee, thou silvern lamp, that lightest the steps of two
men free as the children of our mighty forests, two men but now escaped
from the shackles of college! How many times, O moon, as thy pale rays
pierced to my lonely couch, how many times have I longed to break my
bonds and mingle with the joyous throngs at balls and routs, while a
harsh and inexorable decree condemned me to a sleep which I abhorred!
Ah, how many times, O moon, have I sighed to traverse, mounted upon
thy crescent at the risk of breaking my neck, the regions thou wast
illuminating in thy stately course, even though it should take me to
another hemisphere! Ah, how many times--"

"Ah, how many times in thy life hast thou talked nonsense!" exclaimed
Archie. "But, since frenzy is infectious, listen now to a true poet,
and abase thyself, proud spirit. O moon, thou of the threefold essence,
thou whom the poets of old invoked as Artemis the Huntress, how sweet
it must be to thee to forsake the dark realms of Pluto, and not less
the forests wherein, with thy baying pack, thou raisest a din enough
to deafen all the demons of Canada! How sweet it must be to thee, O
moon, to journey now in tranquil dominance, in stupendous silence, the
ethereal spaces of heaven! Repent of thy work, I beseech thee! Restore
the light of reason to this poor afflicted one, my dearest friend,
who--"

"O Phoebe, patron of fools," interrupted Jules, "not for my friend have
I any prayer to make thee. Thou art all guiltless of his infirmity, for
the mischief was done--"

"I say, gentlemen," exclaimed José, "when you are done your
conversation with my lady moon--I don't know how you find so much to
say to her--would it please you to notice what a noise they are making
in St. Thomas yonder?"

All listened intently. It was the church bell pealing wildly.

"It is the Angelus," exclaimed Jules D'Haberville.

"Oh, yes," exclaimed José, "the Angelus at eight o'clock in the
evening."

"Then it's a fire," said Archie.

"But we don't see any flames," answered José. "Whatever it is let's
make haste. There is something unusual going on yonder."

Driving as fast as they could, half an hour later they entered the
village of St. Thomas. All was silence. The village appeared deserted.
Only the dogs, shut up in some of the houses, were barking madly.
But for the noise of the curs they might have thought themselves
transported into that city which we read of in the Arabian Nights whose
inhabitants had all been turned into marble.

Our travelers were on the point of entering the church, the bell of
which was still ringing, when they noticed a light and heard shouts
from the bank by the rapids near the manor house. Thither they made
their way at full speed.

It would take the pen of a Cooper or a Chateaubriand to paint the scene
that met their eyes on the bank of South River.

Captain Marcheterre, an old sailor of powerful frame, was returning to
the village toward dusk at a brisk pace, when he heard out on the river
a noise like some heavy body falling into the water, and immediately
afterward the groans and cries of some one appealing for help. It was
a rash _habitant_ named Dumais, who, thinking the ice yet sufficiently
firm, had ventured upon it with his team, about a dozen rods southwest
of the town. The ice had split up so suddenly that his team vanished
in the current. The unhappy Dumais, a man of great activity, had just
succeeded in springing from the sled to a stronger piece of ice, but
the violence of the effort had proved disastrous; catching his foot in
a crevice, he had snapped his leg at the ankle like a bit of glass.

Marcheterre, who knew the dangerous condition of the ice, which was
split in many places, shouted to him not to stir, and that he was going
to bring him help. He ran at once to the sexton, telling him to ring
the alarm while he was routing out the nearest neighbors. In a moment,
all was bustle and confusion. Men ran hither and thither without
accomplishing anything. Women and children began to cry. Dogs began to
howl, sounding every note of the canine gamut; so that the captain,
whose experience pointed him out as the one to direct the rescue, had
great difficulty in making himself heard.

However, under the directions of Marcheterre, some ran for ropes and
boards while others stripped the fences and wood-piles of their cedar
and birch bark to make torches. The scene grew more and more animated,
and by the light of fifty torches shedding abroad their fitful glare
the crowd spread along the river bank to the spot pointed out by the
old sailor.

Dumais waited patiently enough for the coming of help. As soon as
he could make himself heard he implored them to hurry, for he was
beginning to hear under the ice low grumbling sounds which seemed to
come from far off toward the river's mouth.

"There's not a moment to lose, my friends," exclaimed the old captain,
"for that is a sign the ice is going to break up."

Men less experienced than he wished immediately to thrust out upon the
ice their planks and boards without waiting to tie them together; but
this he forbade, for the ice was already full of cracks, and moreover
the ice cake which supported Dumais was isolated, having on the one
side the shattered surface where the horse had been engulfed, and on
the other a large air-hole which cut off all approach. Marcheterre, who
knew that the breaking up was not only inevitable, but to be expected
at any moment, was unwilling to risk the life of so many people
without taking every precaution that his experience could dictate.

Some thereupon with hatchets began to notch the planks and boards; some
tied them together end to end; some, with the captain at their head,
dragged them out on the ice, while others were pushing from the bank.
This improvised bridge was not more than fifty feet from the bank when
the old sailor cried: "Now, boys, let some strong active fellows follow
me at a distance of ten feet from one another, and let the rest keep
pushing as before!"

Marcheterre was closely followed by his son, a young man in the prime
of life, who, knowing his father's boldness, kept within reach in
order to help him in case of need, for lugubrious mutterings, the
ominous forerunners of a mighty cataclysm, were making themselves heard
beneath the ice. But every one was at his post and every one doing his
utmost; those who broke through, dragged themselves out by means of the
floating bridge, and, once more on the solid ice, resumed their efforts
with renewed zeal. Two or three minutes more and Dumais would be saved.

The two Marcheterres, the father ahead, were within about a hundred
feet of the wretched victim of his own imprudence, when a subterranean
thunder, such as precedes a strong shock of earthquake, seemed to
run the whole length of South River. This subterranean sound was at
once followed by an explosion like the discharge of a great piece of
artillery. Then rose a terrible cry. "The ice is going! the ice is
going! save yourselves!" screamed the crowd on shore.

Indeed the ice cakes were shivering on all sides under the pressure
of the flood, which was already invading the banks. Then followed
dreadful confusion. The ice cakes turned completely over, climbed
upon each other with a frightful grinding noise, piled themselves to
a great height, then sank suddenly and disappeared beneath the waves.
The planks and boards were tossed about like cockle-shells in an ocean
gale. The ropes and chains threatened every moment to give away.

The spectators, horror-stricken at the sight of their kinsfolk exposed
to almost certain destruction, kept crying: "Save yourselves! save
yourselves!" It would have been indeed tempting Providence to continue
any longer the rash and unequal struggle with the flood.

Marcheterre, however, who seemed rather inspired than daunted by the
appalling spectacle, ceased not to shout: "Forward boys! forward, for
God's sake!"

This old sea-lion, ever cool and unmoved when on the deck of his
reeling ship and directing a man[oe]uvre on whose success the lives of
all depended, was just as calm in the face of a peril which froze the
boldest hearts. Turning round, he perceived that, with the exception of
his son and Joncas, one of his sailors, the rest had all sought safety
in a headlong flight. "Oh, you cowards, you cowards!" he cried.

He was interrupted by his son, who, seeing him rushing to certain
death, seized him and threw him down on a plank, where he held him some
moments in spite of the old man's mighty struggles. Then followed a
terrible conflict between father and son. It was filial love against
that sublime self-abnegation, the love of humanity.

The old man, by a tremendous effort, succeeded in throwing himself off
the plank, and he and his son rolled on to the ice, where the struggle
was continued fiercely. At this crisis, Joncas, leaping from plank to
plank, from board to board, came to the young man's assistance.

The spectators, who from the shore lost nothing of the heart-rending
scene, in spite of the water already pursuing them, made haste to draw
in the ropes, and the united efforts of a hundred brawny arms were
successful in rescuing the three heroes. Scarcely, indeed, had they
reached a place of safety, when the great sheet of ice, which had
hitherto remained stationary in spite of the furious attacks of the
enemy assailing it on all sides, groaning, and with a slow majesty of
movement, began its descent toward the falls.

All eyes were straightway fixed upon Dumais. He was a brave man. Many a
time had he proved his courage upon the enemies of his country. He had
even faced the most hideous of deaths, when, bound to a post, he was on
the point of being burned alive by the Iroquois, which he would have
been but for the timely aid of his friends the Melicites. Now he was
sitting on his precarious refuge calm and unmoved as a statue of death.
He made some signs toward the shore, which the spectators understood as
a last farewell to his friends. Then, folding his arms, or occasionally
lifting them toward heaven, he appeared to forget all earthly ties and
to prepare himself for passing the dread limits which divide man from
the eternal.

Once safely ashore, the captain displayed no more of his anger.
Regaining his customary coolness he gave his orders calmly and
precisely.

"Let us take our floating bridge," said he, "and follow yonder sheet of
ice down river."

"What is the use?" cried some who appeared to have had experience. "The
poor fellow is beyond the reach of help."

"There's one chance yet, one little chance of saving him," said the
old sailor, giving ear to certain sounds which he heard far off to the
southward, "and we must be ready for it. The ice is on the point of
breaking up in the St. Nicholas, which, as you know, is very rapid.
The violence of the flood at that point is likely to crowd the ice of
South River over against our shore; and what's more, we shall have no
reason to reproach ourselves."

It fell out as Captain Marcheterre predicted. In a moment or two there
was a mighty report like a peal of thunder; and the St. Nicholas,
bursting madly from its fetters, hurled itself upon the flank of the
vast procession of ice floes which, having hitherto encountered no
obstacle, were pursuing their triumphant way to the St. Lawrence.
It seemed for a moment that the fierce and swift attack, the sudden
thrust, was going to pile the greater part of the ice cakes upon
the other shore as the captain hoped. The change it wrought was but
momentary, for the channel getting choked there was an abrupt halt,
and the ice cakes, piling one upon another, took the shape of a lofty
rampart. Checked by this obstacle, the waves spread far beyond both
shores and flooded the greater part of the village. This sudden deluge,
driving the spectators from the banks, destroyed the last hope of poor
Dumais.

The struggle was long and obstinate between the angry element and
the obstacle which barred its course; but at length the great lake,
ceaselessly fed by the main river and the tributaries, rose to the top
of the dam, whose foundations it was at the same time eating away from
beneath. The barrier, unable to resist the stupendous weight, burst
with a roar that shook both banks. As South River widens suddenly below
its junction with the St. Nicholas, the unchained mass darted down
stream like an arrow, and its course was unimpeded to the cataract.

Dumais had resigned himself to his fate. Calm amid the tumult, his
hands crossed upon his breast, his eyes lifted heavenward, he seemed
absorbed in contemplation.

The spectators crowded toward the cataract to see the end of the
tragedy. Numbers, roused by the alarm bell, had gathered on the other
shore and had supplied themselves with torches by stripping off the
bark from the cedar rails. The dreadful scene was lighted as if for a
festival.

One could see in the distance the long, imposing structure of the
manor house, to the southwest of the river. It was built on the top
of a knoll overlooking the basin and ran parallel to the falls. About
a hundred feet from the manor house rose the roof of a saw mill, the
sluice of which was connected with the fall itself. Two hundred feet
from the mill, upon the crest of the fall, were sharply outlined the
remnants of a little island upon which, for ages, the spring floods
had spent their fury. Shorn of its former size--for it had once been a
peninsula--the islet was not now more than twelve feet square.

Of all the trees that had once adorned the spot there remained but a
single cedar. This veteran, which for so many years had braved the fury
of the equinoxes and the ice floods of South River, had half given way
before the relentless assaults. Its crown hung sadly over the abyss in
which it threatened soon to disappear. Several hundred feet from this
islet stood a grist mill, to the northwest of the fall.

Owing to a curve in the shore, the tremendous mass of ice which,
drawn by the fall, was darting down the river with frightful speed,
crowded all into the channel between the islet and the flour mill, the
sluice of which was demolished in a moment. Then the ice cakes, piling
themselves against the timbers to the height of the roof, ended by
crushing the mill itself as if it had been a house of cards. The ice
having taken this direction, the channel between the saw mill and the
island was comparatively free.

The crowd kept running along the bank and watching with horrified
interest the man whom nothing short of a miracle could save from a
hideous death. Indeed, up to within about thirty feet of the island,
Dumais was being carried farther and farther from his only hope of
rescue, when an enormous ice cake, dashing down with furious speed,
struck one corner of the piece on which he was sitting, and diverted
it violently from its course. It wheeled upon the little island and
came in contact with the ancient cedar, the only barrier between Dumais
and the abyss. The tree groaned under the shock; its top broke off and
vanished in the foam. Relieved of this weight, the old tree recovered
itself suddenly, and made ready for one more struggle against the
enemies it had so often conquered.

Dumais, thrown forward by the unexpected shock, clasped the trunk
of the cedar convulsively with both arms. Supporting himself on one
leg, he clung there desperately while the ice swayed and cracked and
threatened every instant to drag him from his frail support.

Nothing was lacking to the lurid and dreadful scene. The hurrying
torches on the shores threw a grim light on the ghastly features and
staring eyes of the poor wretch thus hanging by a hair above the gulf
of death. Unquestionably Dumais was brave, but in this position of
unspeakable horror he lost his self-control.

Marcheterre and his friends, however, still cherished a hope of saving
him.

Descrying on the shore near the saw mill two great pieces of squared
timber, they dragged these to a rock which projected into the river
about two hundred feet above the fall; to each of these timbers they
attached a cable and launched them forth, in hopes that the current
would carry them upon the island. Vain attempt! They could not thrust
them far enough out into the stream, and the timbers, anchored, as it
were, by the weight of the chains, kept swaying mid way between shore
and island.

It seemed impossible to add to the awful sublimity of the picture, but
on the shore was being enacted a most impressive scene. It was religion
preparing the Christian to appear before the dread tribunal; it was
religion supporting him to endure the final agony.

The parish priest, who had been at a sick bed, was now upon the
scene. He was a tall old man of ninety. The burden of years had not
availed to bend this modern Nestor, who had baptized and married all
his parishioners, and had buried three generations of them. His long
hair, white as snow and tossed by the night wind, made him look like a
prophet of old. He stood erect on the shore, his hands stretched out
to the miserable Dumais. He loved him; he had christened him; he had
prepared him for that significant rite of the Catholic Church which
seems suddenly to touch a child's nature with something of the angelic.
He loved him also as the husband of an orphan girl whom the old priest
had brought up. He loved him for the sake of his two little ones, who
were the joy of his old age. Standing there on the shore, like the
Angel of Pity, he not only administered the consolations of his sacred
office, but spoke to him tender words of love. He promised him that the
seigneur would never let his family come to want. Finally, seeing the
tree yield more and more before every shock, he cried in a loud voice,
broken with sobs: "My son, make me the 'Act of Contrition' and I will
give you absolution." A moment later, in a voice that rang clear above
the roaring of the flood and of the cataract, the old priest pronounced
these words: "My son, in the name of God the Father, in the name of
Jesus Christ, his Son, by whose authority I speak, in the name of
the Holy Ghost, your sins are forgiven you. Amen." And all the people
sobbed, "Amen."

Then Nature reasserted herself, and the old man's voice was choked with
tears. Again he regained his self-control, and cried: "Kneel, brethren,
while I say the prayers for the dying."

Once more the old priest's voice soared above the tumult, as he cried:

"Blessed soul, we dismiss you from the body in the name of God
the Father Almighty who created you, in the name of Jesus Christ
who suffered for you, in the name of the Holy Ghost in whom you
were regenerate and born again, in the name of the angels and the
archangels, in the name of the thrones and the dominions, in the
name of the cherubim and seraphim, in the name of the patriarchs and
prophets, in the name of the blessed monks and nuns and all the saints
of God. The peace of God be with you this day, and your dwelling
forever in Sion; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." And all the
people wailed "Amen."

A death-like silence fell upon the scene, when suddenly shrieks were
heard in the rear of the crowd, and a woman in disordered garments,
her hair streaming out behind her, carrying a child in her arms and
dragging another at her side, pushed her way wildly to the river's
edge. It was the wife of Dumais.

Dwelling about a mile and a half from the village, she had heard the
alarm bell; but being alone with her children, whom she could not
leave, she had resigned herself as best she could till her husband
should return and tell her the cause of the excitement.

The woman, when she saw her husband thus hanging on the lip of the
fall, uttered but one cry, a cry so terrible that it pierced every
heart, and sank in a merciful unconsciousness. She was carried to the
manor house, where every care was lavished upon her by Madame de
Beaumont and her family.

As for Dumais, at the sight of his wife and children, a hoarse scream,
inarticulate and like the voice of a wounded beast, forced its way from
his lips and made all that heard it shudder. Then he appeared to fall
into a kind of stupor.

At the very moment when the old priest was administering the absolution
our travelers arrived upon the scene. Jules thrust through the crowd
and took his place between the priest and his uncle de Beaumont.
Archie, on the other hand, pushed forward to the water's edge, folded
his arms, took a rapid survey of the situation, and calculated the
chances of rescue.

After a moment's thought, he bounded rather than ran toward the group
surrounding Marcheterre. He began to strip off his clothes and to give
directions at the same time. His words were few and to the point:
"Captain, I am like a fish in the water; there is no danger for me,
but for the poor fellow yonder, in case I should strike that block of
ice too hard and dash it from its place. Stop me about a dozen feet
above the island, that I may calculate the distance better and break
the shock. Your own judgment will tell you what else to do. Now, for a
strong rope, but as light as possible, and a good sailor's knot."

While the old captain was fastening the rope under his arms, he
attached another rope to his body, taking the coil in his right hand.
Thus equipped, he sprang into the river, where he disappeared for an
instant, but when he came to the surface the current bore him rapidly
toward the shore. He made the mightiest efforts to gain the island, but
without succeeding, seeing which Marcheterre made all haste to draw
him back to land before his strength was exhausted. The moment he was
on shore, he made his way to the jutting rock. The spectators scarcely
breathed when they saw Archie plunge into the flood. Every one knew
of his giant strength, his exploits as a swimmer during his vacation
visits to the manor house of Beaumont. The anxiety of the crowd,
therefore, had been intense during the young man's superhuman efforts,
and, on seeing his failure, a cry of disappointment went up from every
breast.

Jules D'Haberville was all unaware of his friend's heroic undertaking.
Of an emotional and sympathetic nature, he could not endure the
heart-rending sight that met his view. After one glance of measureless
pity, he had fixed his eyes on the ground and refused to raise them.
This human being suspended on the verge of the bellowing gulf, this
venerable priest administering from afar under the open heaven the
sacrament of penance, the anguished prayers, the sublime invocation,
all seemed to him a dreadful dream.

Absorbed in these conflicting emotions, Jules D'Haberville had no idea
of Archie's efforts to save Dumais. He had heard the lamentations which
greeted the first fruitless effort, and had attributed them to some
little variation in the spectacle from which he withheld his gaze.

The bond between these two friends was no ordinary tie; it was the love
between a David and a Jonathan, "passing the love of woman."

Jules, indeed, spared Archie none of his ridicule, but the privilege
of tormenting was one which he would permit no other to share. Unlucky
would he be who should affront Lochiel in the presence of the impetuous
young Frenchman!

Whence arose this passionate affection? The young men had apparently
little in common. Lochiel was somewhat cold in demeanor, while Jules
was exuberantly demonstrative. They resembled one another, however, in
one point of profoundest importance; they were both high-hearted and
generous to the last degree.

José, who had been watching Lochiel's every movement, and who well knew
the extravagance of Jules's devotion, had slipped behind his young
master, and stood ready to restrain, by force, if necessary, this fiery
and indomitable spirit.

The anxiety of the spectators became almost unendurable over Archie's
second attempt to save Dumais, whom they regarded as utterly beyond
hope. The convulsive trembling of the unhappy man showed that his
strength was rapidly ebbing. Nothing but the old priest's prayers broke
the deathly silence.

As for Lochiel, his failure had but strengthened him in his heroic
purpose. He saw clearly that the effort was likely to cost him his
life. The rope, his only safety, might well break when charged with a
double burden and doubly exposed to the torrent's force. Too skillful
a swimmer was he not to realize the peril of endeavoring to rescue one
who could in no way help himself.

Preserving his coolness, however, he merely said to Marcheterre:

"We must change our tactics. It is this coil of rope in my right hand
which has hampered me from first to last."

Thereupon he enlarged the loop, which he passed over his right shoulder
and under his left armpit, in order to leave both arms free. This
done, he made a bound like that of a tiger, and, disappearing beneath
the waves, which bore him downward at lightning speed, he did not
come to the surface until within about a dozen feet of the island,
where, according to agreement, Marcheterre checked his course. This
movement appeared likely to prove fatal, for, losing his balance, he
was so turned over that his head remained under the waves while the
rest of his body was held horizontally on the surface of the current.
Happily his coolness did not desert him in this crisis, so great was
his confidence in the old sailor. The latter promptly let out two
more coils of rope with a jerky movement, and Lochiel, employing one
of those devices which are known to skillful swimmers, drew his heels
suddenly up to his hips, thrust them out perpendicularly with all his
strength, beat the water violently on one side with his hands, and so
regained his balance. Then, thrusting forward his right shoulder to
protect his breast from a shock which might be as fatal to himself as
to Dumais, he was swept upon the island in a flash.

Dumais, in spite of his apparent stupor, had lost nothing of what was
passing. A ray of hope had struggled through his despair at sight of
Lochiel's tremendous leap from the summit of the rock. Scarcely had
the latter, indeed, reached the edge of the ice, where he clung with
one hand while loosening with the other the coil of rope, than Dumais,
dropping his hold on the cedar, took such a leap upon his one uninjured
leg that he fell into Archie's very arms.

The torrent at once rose upon the ice, which, borne down by the
double weight, reared like an angry horse. The towering mass, pushed
irresistibly by the torrent, fell upon the cedar, and the old tree,
after a vain resistance, sank into the abyss, dragging with it in its
fall a large portion of the domain over which it had held sway for
centuries.

Mighty was the shout that went up from both banks of South River--a
shout of triumph from the more distant spectators, a heart-rending cry
of anguish from those nearer the stage whereon this drama of life and
death was playing itself out. Indeed, all had disappeared, as if the
wand of a mighty enchanter had been waved over scene and actors. From
bank to bank, in all its breadth, the cataract displayed nothing but a
line of gigantic waves falling with a sound of thunder, and a curtain
of pale foam waving to the summit of its crest.

Jules D'Haberville had not recognized his friend till the moment when,
for the second time, he plunged into the waves. Having often witnessed
his exploits as a swimmer, and knowing his tremendous strength, Jules
had manifested at first merely a bewildered astonishment; but when he
saw his friend disappear beneath the torrent, he uttered such a mad cry
as comes from the heart of a mother at sight of the mangled body of an
only son. Wild with grief, he was on the point of springing into the
river, when he felt himself imprisoned by the iron arms of José.

Prayers, threats, cries of rage and despair, blows and bites--all were
utterly wasted on the faithful José.

"There, there, my dear Master Jules," said José, "strike me, bite me,
if that's any comfort to you, but, for God's sake, be calm. You'll see
your friend again all right enough; you know he dives like a porpoise,
and one never knows when he is going to come up again when once he goes
under water. Be calm, my dear little Master Jules, you wouldn't want
to be the death of poor José, who loves you so, and who has so often
carried you in his arms. Your father sent me to bring you from Quebec.
I am answerable for you, body and soul, and it won't be my fault if I
don't hand you over to him safe and sound. Otherwise, you see, Master
Jules, why just a little bullet through old José's head! But, hold on,
there's the captain hauling in on the rope with all his might, and you
may be sure Master Archie is on the other end of it and lively as ever."

It was as José said; Marcheterre and his companions, in furious haste,
were running down the shore and by mighty armfuls dragging in the rope,
at the end of which they felt a double burden.

In another moment the weight was dragged ashore. It was all that they
could do to set Lochiel free from the convulsive clasp of Dumais, who
gave no other sign of life. Archie, on the other hand, when delivered
from the embrace which was strangling him, vomited a few mouthfuls of
water, breathed hoarsely, and exclaimed:

"He is not dead; it is nothing more than a swoon; he was lively enough
a minute ago."

Dumais was carried in all haste to the manor house, where everything
that the most loving care could suggest was done for him. At the end of
a half-hour some drops of wholesome moisture gathered upon his brow,
and a little later he reopened haggard eyes. After staring wildly
around the room for a time, he at length fixed his regard upon the old
priest. The latter placed his ear to Dumais's lips, and the first words
he gathered were: "My wife! My children! Mr. Archie!"

"Be at ease, my dear Dumais," said the old man. "Your wife has
recovered from her swoon; but, as she believes you to be dead, I must
be careful how I tell her of your deliverance, lest I kill her with
joy. As soon as prudent I will bring her to you. Meanwhile, here is Mr.
de Lochiel, to whom, through God, you owe your life."

At the sight of his deliverer, whom he had not yet recognized among the
attendants who crowded about him, a change came over the sick man. He
embraced Archie, he pressed his lips to his cheek, and a flood of tears
broke from his eyes.

"How can I ever repay you," said he, "for all you have done for me, for
my poor wife, and for my children?"

"By getting well again as soon as possible," answered Lochiel gayly.
"The seigneur has sent a messenger post-haste to Quebec to fetch the
most skillful surgeon, and another to place relays of horses along the
whole route, so that by midday to-morrow, at the latest, your leg will
be so well set that within two months you will be able again to carry
the musket against your old enemies the Iroquois."

When the old priest entered the room whither they had taken his adopted
daughter, the latter was sitting up in bed, holding her youngest child
in her arms while the other slept at her feet. Pale as death, cold, and
unresponsive to all that was said by Madame de Beaumont and the other
women, she kept repeating incessantly: "My husband! my poor husband!
I shall not even be allowed to kiss the dead body of my husband, the
father of my children!"

When she saw the old priest she stretched out her arms to him and
cried: "Is it you, my father, you who have been so kind to me since
childhood? Is it you who can have the heart to come and tell me all is
over? No, I know your love too well; you can not bring such a message.
Speak, I implore you, you whose lips can utter nothing but good!"

"Your husband," said the old man, "will receive Christian burial."

"He is dead, then," cried the unhappy woman; and for the first time she
burst into tears.

This was the reaction which the old priest looked for.

"My daughter," said he, "but a moment ago you were praying as a
peculiar favor that you might be permitted once more to embrace the
body of your husband, and God has heard your petition. Trust in him,
for the mighty hand which has plucked your husband out of the abyss is
able also to give him back to life." The young woman answered with a
fresh storm of sobs.

"He is the same all-merciful God," went on the old priest, "who said to
Lazarus in the tomb, 'Friend, I say unto you arise!' All hope is not
yet lost, for your husband in his present state of suffering--"

The poor woman, who had hitherto listened to her old friend without
understanding him, seemed suddenly to awaken as from a horrible
nightmare, and clasping her sleeping children in her arms she sprang to
the door.

On the meeting between Dumais and his family we will not intrude.

"Now, let us go to supper," said the seigneur to his venerable friend.
"We all need it, but more especially this heroic young man," added he,
bringing Archie forward.

"Gently, gently, my dear sir," said the old priest. "We have first
a more pressing duty to fulfill. We have to thank God, who has so
manifested his favor this night."

All present fell on their knees; and the old priest in a short but
touching prayer rendered thanks to Him who commands the sea in its
fury, who holds His creatures in the hollow of His hand.

CHAPTER V.

A SUPPER AT THE HOUSE OF A FRENCH-CANADIAN
SEIGNEUR.

  Half-cut-down, a pasty costly made,
  Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret, lay
  Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks
  Imbedded and injellied.

+Tennyson.+

The table was spread in a low but spacious room, whose furniture,
though not luxurious, lacked nothing of what an Englishman calls
comfort.

A thick woolen carpet, of Canadian manufacture and of a diamond
pattern, covered the greater part of the dining-room floor. The bright
woolen curtains, the backs of the mahogany sofa, ottomans, and chairs
were embroidered with gigantic birds, such as it would have puzzled the
most brilliant ornithologist to classify.

A great sideboard, reaching almost to the ceiling, displayed on its
many shelves a service of blue Marseilles china, of a thickness to defy
the awkwardness of the servants. Over the lower part of this sideboard,
which served the purpose of a cupboard and which might be called the
ground floor of the structure, projected a shelf a foot and a half
wide, on which stood a sort of tall narrow cabinet, whose drawers,
lined with green cloth, held the silver spoons and forks. On this shelf
also were some bottles of old wine, together with a great silver jar
of water, for the use of those who cared to dilute their beverage.

A pile of plates of the finest porcelain, two decanters of white wine,
a couple of tarts, a dish of whipped cream, some delicate biscuits, a
bowl of sweetmeats, on a little table near the sideboard covered with a
white cloth, constituted the dessert. In one corner of the room stood
a sort of barrel-shaped fountain of blue and white stone china, with
faucet and basin, where the family might rinse their hands.

In an opposite corner a great closet, containing square bottles filled
with brandy, absinthe, _liqueurs_ of peach kernel, raspberry, black
currant, anise, etc., for daily use, completed the furnishing of the
room.

The table was set for eight persons. A silver fork and spoon, wrapped
in a napkin, were placed at the left of each plate, and a bottle of
light wine at the right. There was not a knife on the table during the
serving of the courses; each was already supplied with this useful
instrument, which only the Orientals know how to do without. If the
knife one affected was a clasp knife, it was carried in the pocket;
if a sheath-knife, it was worn suspended from the neck in a case of
morocco, of silk, or even of birch-bark artistically wrought by the
Indians. The handles were usually of ivory riveted with silver; those
for the use of ladies were of mother-of-pearl.

To the right of each plate was a silver cup or goblet. These cups were
of different forms and sizes, some being of simple pattern with or
without hoops, some with handles, some in the form of a chalice, some
worked in relief, and very many lined with gold.

A servant, placing on a side-table the customary appetizers, namely,
brandy for the men and sweet cordials for the women, came to announce
that the supper was served. Eight persons sat down at the table--the
Seigneur de Beaumont and his wife; their sister, Madame Descarrières;
the old priest; Captain Marcheterre and his son Henri; and lastly
Archie and Jules. The lady of the house gave the place of honor at
her right to the priest, and the next place, at her left, to the old
captain. The _menu_ opened with an excellent soup (soup was then _de
rigueur_ for dinner and supper alike), followed by a cold pasty, called
the Easter pasty, which, on account of its immense proportions, was
served on a great tray covered with a napkin. This pasty, which would
have aroused the envy of Brillat-Savarin, consisted of one turkey, two
chickens, two partridges, two pigeons, the backs and thighs of two
rabbits, all larded with slices of fat pork. The balls of force-meat
on which rested, as on a thick, soft bed, these gastronomic riches,
were made of two hams of that animal which the Jew despises, but which
the Christian treats with more regard. Large onions scattered here
and there and a liberal seasoning of the finest spices completed the
appetizing marvel. But a very important point was the cooking, which
was beset with difficulty; for should the gigantic structure be allowed
to break, it would lose at least fifty per cent of its flavor. To guard
against so lamentable a catastrophe, the lower crust, coming at least
three inches up the sides, was not less than an inch thick. This crust
itself, saturated with the juices of all the good things inside, was
one of the best parts of this unique dish.

Chickens and partridges roasted in slices of pork, pigs feet _à la
Sainte-Ménéhould_, a hare stew, very different from that with which the
Spanish landlord regaled the unhappy Gil Blas--these were among the
other dishes which the seigneur set before his friends.

For a time there was silence with great appetites; but when dessert was
reached, the old sailor, who had been eating like a hungry wolf and
drinking proportionately, and all the time managing to keep his eyes on
Archie, was the first to break the silence.

"It would seem, young man," said he facetiously, "that you are not
much afraid of a cold in your head. It would seem, also, that you
don't really need to breathe the air of heaven, and that, like your
cousins the beaver and otter, you only put your nose out of water every
half-hour, for form sake, and to see what's going on in the upper
world. You are a good deal like a salmon--when one gives him line he
knows how to profit by it. It's my opinion, however, that gudgeons like
you are not found in every brook."

"It was only your presence of mind, captain," said Archie, "your
admirable judgment in letting out the exact quantity of rope, that
prevented me smashing my head or my stomach on the ice; and but for
you, poor Dumais, instead of being warm in bed would now be rolling
under the St. Lawrence ice."

"A nice joke," cried Marcheterre; "to hear him talk as if I had done
the thing! It was very necessary to give you line when I saw that
you threatened to stand on your head, which would have been a very
uncomfortable position in those waves. I wish to the d--Beg pardon,
your reverence, I was just going to swear; it is a habit with us
sailors."

"Nonsense," laughed the old priest, "you have been accustomed to it so
long, you old sinner, that one more or less hardly matters; your record
is full, and you no longer keep count of them."

"When the tally-board is quite full, reverend father," said
Marcheterre, "you shall just pass the plane over it, as you have done
so often before, and we'll run up another score. Moreover, I am sure
not to escape you, for you know so well when and where to hook me and
drag me into a blessed harbor with the rest of the sinners."

"You are too severe, sir," said Jules. "How could you wish to deprive
our dear captain of the comfort of swearing a little, if only against
his darky cook, who burns his fricassees as black as his own phiz?"

"You hair-brained young scoundrel," cried the captain with a comical
assumption of anger, "do you dare talk to me so after the trick you
played me?"

"I!" said Jules innocently, "I played you a trick? I am incapable of
it, dear captain. You are slandering me cruelly."