Chapter CXXV: Epilogue: I

(EXTRACT FROM A LETTER WRITTEN BY MADAME CHALICE TO MONSIEUR PADRE, CURE OF THE PARISH OF PONTIAC, THREE MONTHS AFTER VALMOND'S DEATH.)

" . . . And here, dear Cure, you shall have my justification for writing you two letters in one week, though I should make the accident a habit if I were sure it would more please you than perplex you.

"Prince Pierre, son of Prince Lucien Bonaparte, arrived in New York two days ago, and yesterday morning he came to the Atlantic Bank, and asked for my husband. When he made known his business, Harry sent for me, that I might speak with him.

"Dear Cure, hearts and instincts were right in Pontiac: our unhappy friend Valmond was that child of Napoleon, born at St. Helena, of whom he himself spoke at his death in your home. His mother was the Countess of Carnstadt. At the beginning of an illness which followed Napoleon's death, the child was taken from her by Prince Lucien Bonaparte, and was brought up and educated as the son of poor peasants in Italy. No one knew of his birth save the companions in exile of the Great Emperor. All of them, with the exception of Count Bertrand, believed, as Valmond said, that the child had died in infancy at St. Helena.

"Prince Lucien had sworn to the mother that he would care personally for the child, and he fulfilled his promise by making him a page in his household, and afterwards a valet--base redemption of a vow.

"But even as Valmond drew our hearts to him, so at last he won Prince Lucien's, as he had from the first won Prince Pierre's.

"It was not until after Valmond's death, when receiving the residue of our poor friend's estate, that Prince Pierre learned the whole truth from Count Bertrand. He immediately set sail for New York, and next week he will secretly visit you, for love of the dead man, and to thank you and our dear avocat, together with all others who believed in and befriended his unfortunate kinsman.

"Ah, dear Cure, think of the irony of it all--that a man be driven, by the very truth in his blood, to that strangest of all impostures --to impersonate himself--He did it too well to be the mere comedian; I felt that all the time. I shall show his relics now with more pride than sorrow. Prince Pierre dines with us to-night. He looks as if he had the Napoleonic daring,--or rashness,--but I am sure he has not the good heart of our Valmond Napoleon. . . ."

II

The haymakers paused and leaned upon their forks, children left the strawberry vines and climbed upon the fences, as the coach from the distant city dashed down the street towards the four corners, and the welcoming hotel, with its big dormer windows and well-carved veranda. As it whirled by, the driver shouted something at a stalwart forgeron, standing at the doorway of his smithy, and he passed it on to a loitering mealman and a lime-burner.

A girl came slowly over the crest of a hill. Feeling her way with a stick, she paused now and then to draw in long breaths of sweet air from the meadows, as if in the joy of Nature she found a balm for the cruelties of Destiny.

Presently a puff of smoke shot out from the hillside where she stood, and the sound of an old cannon followed. From the Seigneury, far over, came an answering report; and Tricolors ran fluttering up on flagstaffs, at the four corners, and in the Cure's garden.

The girl stood wondering, her fine, calm face expressing the quick thoughts which had belonged to eyes once so full of hope and blithe desire. The serenity of her life--its charity, its truth, its cheerful care for others, the confidence of the young which it invited, showed in all the aspect of her. She heard the flapping of the flag in the Cure's garden, and turned her darkened eyes towards it. A look of pain crossed her face, and a hand trembled to her bosom, as if to ease a great throbbing of her heart. These cannon shots and this shivering pennant brought back a scene at the four corners, years before.

Footsteps came over the hill: she knew them, and turned.

"Parpon!" she said, with a glad gesture.

Without a word he placed in her hand a bunch of violets that he carried. She lifted them to her lips. "What is it all?" she asked, turning again to the Tricolor.

"Louis Napoleon enters the Tuileries," he answered. "But ours was the son of the Great Emperor!" she said. "Let us be going, Parpon: we will plats these on his grave." She pressed the violets to her heart.

"France would have loved him, as we did," said the dwarf, as they moved on.

"As we do," the blind girl answered softly.

Their figures against the setting sun took on a strange burnished radiance, so that they seemed as mystical pilgrims journeying into that golden haze, which veiled them in beyond the hill, as the Angelus sounded from the tower of the ancient church.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Vanity is the bane of mankind You cannot live long enough to atone for that impertinence

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE ENTIRE "VALMOND TO PONTIAC":

Conquest not important enough to satisfy ambition Face flushed with a sort of pleasurable defiance Her sight was bounded by the little field where she strayed I was never good at catechism The blind tyranny of the just Touch of the fantastic, of the barbaric, in all genius Vanity is the bane of mankind Visions of the artistic temperament--delight and curse We are only children till we begin to make our dreams our life You cannot live long enough to atone for that impertinence

THE TRAIL OF THE SWORD, Complete

By Gilbert Parker

CONTENTS:

EPOCH THE FIRST I. AN ENVOY EXTRAORDINARY II. THE THREAT OF A RENEGADE III. THE FACE AT THE WINDOW IV. THE UPLIFTING OF THE SWORDS V. THE FRUITS OF THE LAW VI. THE KIDNAPPING

EPOCH THE SECOND VII. FRIENDS IN COUNCIL VIII. AS SEEN THROUGH A GLASS, DARKLY IX. TO THE PORCH OF THE WORLD X. QUI VIVE! XI. WITH THE STRANGE PEOPLE XII. OUT OF THE NET

EPOCH THE THIRD XIII. "AS WATER UNTO WINE" XIV. IN WHICH THE HUNTERS ARE OUT XV. IN THE MATTER OF BUCKLAW XVI. IN THE TREASURE HOUSE XVII. THE GIFT OF A CAPTIVE XVIII. MAIDEN NO MORE

EPOCH THE FOURTH XIX. WHICH TELLS OF A BROTHER'S BLOOD CRYING FROM THE GROUND XX. A TRAP IS SET XXI. AN UNTOWARD MESSENGER XXII. FROM TIGER'S CLAW TO LION'S MOUTH XXIII. AT THE GATES OF MISFORTUNE XXIV. IN WHICH THE SWORD IS SHEATHED

WHEREIN IS SET FORTH THE HISTORY OF JESSICA LEVERET, AS ALSO THAT OF PIERRE LE MOYNE OF IBERVILLE, GEORGE GERING, AND OTHER BOLD SPIRITS; TOGETHER WITH CERTAIN MATTERS OF WAR, AND THE DEEDS OF ONE EDWARD BUCKLAW, MUTINEER AND PIRATE

DEDICATION

My Dear Father:

Once, many years ago, in a kind of despair, you were impelled to say
that I would "never be anything but a rascally lawyer." This, it
may be, sat upon your conscience, for later you turned me gravely
towards Paley and the Thirty-nine Articles; and yet I know that in
your deepest soldier's heart, you really pictured me, how
unavailingly, in scarlet and pipe-clay, and with sabre, like
yourself in youth and manhood. In all I disappointed you, for I
never had a brief or a parish, and it was another son of yours who
carried on your military hopes. But as some faint apology--I almost
dare hope some recompense for what must have seemed wilfulness, I
send you now this story of a British soldier and his "dear maid,"
which has for its background the old city of Quebec, whose high
ramparts you walked first sixty years ago; and for setting, the
beginning of those valiant fightings, which, as I have heard you
say, "through God's providence and James Wolfe, gave England her
best possession."

You will, I feel sure, quarrel with the fashion of my campaigns, and
be troubled by my anachronisms; but I beg you to remember that long
ago you gave my young mind much distress when you told that
wonderful story, how you, one man, "surrounded" a dozen enemies, and
drove them prisoners to headquarters. "Surrounded" may have been
mere lack of precision, but it serves my turn now, as you see. You
once were--and I am precise here--a gallant swordsman: there are
legends yet of your doings with a crack Dublin bully. Well, in the
last chapter of this tale you shall find a duel which will perhaps
recall those early days of this century, when your blood was hot and
your hand ready. You would be distrustful of the details of this
scene, did I not tell you that, though the voice is Jacob's the hand
is another's. Swordsmen are not so many now in the army or out of
it, that, among them, Mr. Walter Herrim Pollock's name will have
escaped you: so, if you quarrel, let it be with Esau; though, having
good reason to be grateful to him, that would cause me sorrow.

My dear father, you are nearing the time-post of ninety years, with
great health and cheerfulness; it is my hope you may top the arch of
your good and honourable life with a century key-stone.

Believe me, sir,

Your affectionate son,

GILBERT PARKER.

15th September, 1894,
7 Park Place,
St. James's S.W.