Chapter II: Part 2

ALL other business in the hall was suspended. Perhaps the fire and success of Dollard’s courtship kindled envy in ruder breasts; but in Mother Mary’s it kindled that beacon which a vestal keeps ready against the inroads of the cloister’s despoilers.

Pallid and stately she placed herself before the pair. And during this conference she made dabs forward with her head, as a poor hen may be seen to do when the hawk has stolen her chicken.

“We did not understand, monsieur, that the commandant of Montreal sought a wife.”

“Reverend mother,” said Dollard, shielding the side of Claire’s face with his hand as he held her head against him, “I never dared seek such a blessing as this. The saints have given it to me.”

“But mademoiselle is not here to be married, monsieur.”

“I understand that, reverend mother.”

“And do you understand that she is the cousin of the Bishop of New France?”

“All Mademoiselle Laval’s history is known to me. I have adored her a lifetime.”

“And was it to meet this young seignior, mademoiselle, that you insisted on coming into the wife market?”

“Reverend mother,” replied Dollard, himself glowing as he felt Claire’s face burn under his hand, “blame the saints, not us. We have been flung together from the ends of the earth. It is a blessed miracle.”

Mother Mary made a dab with her head which meant, “Do not be deceived, my son.”

Dollard understood a movement Claire made, and gave her his arm to lead her away.

“And the demoiselle takes this young commandant for her husband?”

“I do, reverend mother,” the demoiselle replied, lifting up a countenance set in the family cast of stern stubbornness.

“It will be my duty to send an instant message to the bishop.”

“The bishop may still be found at the council. I have just been with him,” said Dollard. “Let your messenger make haste, reverend mother, for I leave Quebec directly.”

“Then there is no need of haste. The Sieur des Ormeaux can present his suit to the bishop next time he comes to Quebec.”

“I shall never come to Quebec again, reverend mother.”

Claire looked above the level of her own eyes to understand this riddle.

Dollard was scarcely twenty-five years old. His crystal love, so strong that it had him in possession, shone through a face set in lines of despair.

“Surely you can come again in a week?”

“My darling, it may take nearly that long to reach Montreal. How little you know of distances in this savage country!”

“Monsieur, I will send for the bishop,” said Mother Mary of the Incarnation.

As her black robe moved away, the other people in the hall, seeing nothing further to gaze at, resumed their wooing and bargaining.

“What did you mean when you said you shall never come to Quebec again?” inquired Claire.

Dollard penetrated her with his look.

“Will you marry me this moment?”

“Monsieur, how can I marry you this moment?”

“By going to the notary, who has a table downstairs, and afterward to Father de Casson, who, fortunately, is waiting for me in the cathedral now. I see what will happen if I wait to demand you in marriage of the bishop. There will be delays and obstacles, if not a flat refusal.”

“The commandant truly takes me for a king’s girl,” she said, her teeth showing in laughter, though her black eyelashes started into crescent-like prominence on whitening cheeks.

“Have you I will, however I take you; the whole world shall not prevent that now. And listen: suppose I had taken vows,--wait!--honorable vows. It will surely be as well with you after my pledges are fulfilled as it was before we met here. This hard convent life in New France, you cannot endure that. You will be the lady of my poor seigniory, and perhaps I may add some glory to the name. My Claire, do you love me?”

“Sieur des Ormeaux, is not that enough to admit in one day?”

“No, it is not. When was a day ever granted to us before? If we lose this point of time, the dead wall of separation will rise again, and I shall be robbed of you forever.”

“But why can you not come back again?”

“Because the bounds are set for me. Yet, if I could come again, would I prosper any better? Claire, if my suit is even listened to, there will be messages to the king, and to the Montmorency in France, and a year’s or two years’ delay. As for me, I shall be dead long before then. We can go to the notary this moment. We can go to the cathedral to Father de Casson. We can go forthwith to my boat and start up the St. Lawrence. O my love!”--Dollard’s voice was searching and deep in pleading,--“can you not stoop to this haste for me? I shall carry you into hardship, but carry you like the cross. While we stand here the abbess sends for the bishop; the bishop comes and says, ‘Go back, fair cousin, into the convent; and you, Dollard, whoever you may be, get yourself off to Montreal.’ I could not then urge you against your kinsman’s authority. But now the word is unspoken. Shall we stand here and wait until it is spoken?”

“I see no reason why we should, monsieur,” she replied, pink as a flower.

“Then you will consent to be married at once?”

“There is, I believe, but one staircase,” said Claire. “It would not be pleasant to meet the bishop or Mother Mary of the Incarnation as we go down.”

“Let us make haste, therefore,” he deduced from her evasive reply; and haste they made, so that several pairs were kept waiting by the notarial table while the commandant was served.

The cathedral of Notre Dame in Quebec stood, and still stands, on the opposite side of the square. It was a massive pile of masonry, compared to the cabins of Lower Town, and held its cross far up in their northern sky. Within were holy dimness and silence, broken only by the footfalls of occasionally coming and going devotees. Though not yet rich in altars and shrines, paintings, and glittering crystal and metal, the young cathedral had its worthy relics, and its humble offerings of tinsel and ribbon-tied paper flowers. The merchant people from Lower Town, and peasants from adjacent river côtes and Laval’s great seigniory, came here to bathe their souls in thoughts of heaven, and to kneel on the pavement beside governor or high dame.

At this hour of morning only two persons sat in the church as if waiting for some kind of service.

There were three nuns, indeed, kneeling in a row before the chancel rail, their three small red noses just appearing beyond their black veils--noses expressing quiet sanctity. And a confessional was perhaps occupied.

But the pair who waited were neither nuns nor penitents. They had taken the usual moisture from the font of holy water, wherein many devout fingers had deposited considerable sediment. They had bowed towards the altar and told their prayers from station to station, and were now anxious to be joined in matrimony lest Dollard should arrive and cut off all chance of collecting the governor’s bounty by his impatient haste.

Still, as no priest appeared, Jacques and Louise sat in repose with their eyes cast down. The feverish activity of this new world would never touch their veins or quicken the blood of any of their descendants. How many generations before them had been calmed into this pastoral peace on sun-soaked lands! Years of dwelling among pines and mountains and azure lakes, of skimming on snow-shoes over boundless winter whiteness, of shooting rapids, and of standing on peaks, would all fail to over-exhilarate blood so kindly bovine and unhurried in its action.

The penitent came out of the confessional closet and stalked away--an Algonquin Indian, with some slight smell of rum about him and a rebuked expression of countenance. A fringe or thread of his blanket trailed on the pavement as he went. Then Dollier de Casson, who never omitted confessing any sinner that appealed to him, strode out of the confessional himself on gigantic soles, though with the soft tread which nature and training impart to a priest. He saw the waiting couple, and as serenely as he would have prepared for such an office in some river cabin, he took his stole out of a large inner pocket of his cassock and invested himself in it.

During this pause Dollard came hastily into the cathedral with a muffled lady on his arm. He took her at once to Father de Casson, and beckoned Jacques to follow them to the altar.

Jacques followed with Louise, his face waxing in anxiety, until a heavy heart brought down his knees with a bump behind Dollard and that unknown dame.

“How is this, my son?” inquired Father de Casson of Dollard as he rested his eyes on the commandant’s bride.

“Father, let the service go on at once, and I will make all due explanation when there is more time. The civil marriage is completed.”

Father de Casson took his book to administer the sacrament of marriage to these two pairs, when Jacques, walking on his knees, brought himself behind Dollard’s ear.

“Father,” he whispered to the priest, the hisses of his suppressed voice scattering through the place, “I have on my mind what must first be said to my master.”

“When did ye all confess last?” inquired Dollier de Casson.

“Father,” urged Dollard, “believe me, we are all prepared for the sacrament of marriage.”

“But, m’sieur,” anxiously hissed Jacques at his ear, “I did not know you were going to take a wife too.”

“Suppose you didn’t know,” exclaimed Dollard, turning towards him in impatience; “what is it to you?”

“You will have to change your will, m’sieur.”

“Certainly I will have to change my will; but you shall not be injured.”

“That’s not it, m’sieur,” persisted Jacques. “Whatever is right to you will be right to me. But here’s this girl. I’ve nearly promised her the seigniory, and what will she say when she’s cut out of it?”

“Get back to your place and let the service go on,” said Dollard, half rising in menace.

“But I ought to take her out and explain this to her first,” insisted Jacques. “Then if she chooses to go into the marriage she can blame no one but herself.”

“Will you get back to your place and cease your interruption,” whispered Dollard, with fierceness, “or must I take you by the neck and toss you out of the cathedral?”

“No, m’sieur, I’ll not interrupt it. I’ll marry her. But what she will do with me afterwards is the load upon my mind.”

So, rubbing his knees on the pavement, Jacques returned like a crab to his immovable bride, and dejectedly bore his part in the service. Yet before this ordeal of marriage was over, the pastoral peace had returned to his countenance, and solemn relief appeared in his eyes. As Louise Bibelot became transmuted into Louise Goffinet, he said within himself:

“Now, if she be well contented with the commandant’s change of mind, all will go right. But if she turns rebellious at these new orders, threatening to desert, and wanting the entire earth with the seigniory thrown in, there’ll be only one thing for me to do. I’ll whip her!”

VI.

A RIVER CÔTE.

THE four Huron Indians, cut off abruptly from the luxury of a Lower Town drinking-shop, sat in sulky readiness with their grasp upon the oars. Dollard was at the stern of the boat beside Claire, whom he had wrapped in bear-skins, because at high noon the April air was chill upon the river.

Dollier de Casson had likewise taken to his canoe with his servant and pack of sacred utensils, and this small craft rested against the larger one to resist the current’s dragging. Dollard’s rope yet held to the shore. His impatient eyes watched Quebec Heights for the appearance of Jacques and Louise.

Water lapping the two boats brought them together with faint jars and grindings of the edges. Dollier de Casson, sitting thus facing the contraband bride, beheld her with increasing interest.

Jacques and Louise, carrying the bride’s caskets and impedimenta of their own, finally appeared on Quebec’s slopes, descending with deliberation to the landing.

They had no breath to spend in chat, but Jacques realized with voiceless approval that Louise carried manfully her portion of the freight.

He rolled his keg into the boat, slipped the boxes aboard, and helped Louise to a bench in front of himself; then, untying the rope, he sprung in.

The Hurons bent to their oars and the boat shot out into the river, Dollier de Casson’s canoe-man following. Above water murmur and rhythmic splash of oars Dollard then called his vassal to account, addressing him over the Indians’ swaying shoulders.

“What have you been doing this hour by the sun, Jacques Goffinet?”

“Hour, m’sieur? I have trotted myself into a sweat since we left the cathedral, and thrown away all my bounty the king pays a bachelor on his marriage, except this keg of salt meat and eleven crowns in money. That because of your hot haste, m’sieur. I lose an ox, a cow, a pair of fine hogs, and such chickens as never crowed on St. Bernard, and yet I have been an hour, have I?--May the saints never let ruin and poverty tread on my heels so fast another hour while I live!”

Claire held out to Dollard, from her furs, a square watch having a mirror set in its back, saying:

“You see, we waited scarcely twenty-five minutes.”

Dollard laughed, but called again to his vassal:

“A cow, an ox, a load of swine, and a flock of chickens! And having freighted the boat with these, where did you intend to carry the lady of St. Bernard, your seignior, your wife, yourself, and the rowers, my excellent Jacques? Were we to be turned out as guests to the bishop?”

“Saints forbid, m’sieur,” Jacques called back sincerely. “The bishop and the abbess stood by while my wife brought madame’s caskets from the convent, and they smiled so ’twould make a man’s teeth chatter. I am not skilled in the looks of holy folks, but I said to my wife as we came away, ‘These Quebec Jesuits, they begrudge the light of day to Montreal.’ So it would be cold cheer you got of bishop or abbess, m’sieur.”

Dollard and the fur-wrapped bride looked up at Quebec promontory which they were rounding, heights of sheer rock stretching up and holding the citadel in mid-heaven. The Indians steadily flung the boat up-stream.

Claire turned over in her mind that mute contempt which Mother Mary evidently felt for what she would call a girl’s fickleness. Her ungracious leave-taking of the upright and duty-loving abbess was a pain to her. As to the bishop, she could not regret that his first benediction had been final. Resentment still heated her against both those strict devotees. She was yet young enough to expect perfect happiness, for the children of man live much before they learn to absorb the few flawless joys which owe their perfection to briefness.

One such moment Claire had when her soldier leaned over her in silence.

“We are going farther from France. Are you homesick, dear?”

“No; I am simply in a rage at the bishop of New France and the abbess of the Ursulines.”

“There they go behind the rock of Quebec, entirely separated from us. Have you regrets that you bore such a wedding for my sake?”

“Sieur des Ormeaux, I have but a single fault to find with you.”

“What is that?” Dollard anxiously inquired.

“The edge of your hat is too narrow.”

“Why, it is the usual head-cover of a French officer of my rank; but I will throw it into the river.”

“O, monsieur! that would be worse than ever. If you despise me for seizing on you as I did----”

“O Claire!”

“What will you think when I own my depravity now? The abbess might well smile. She doubtless knows I will say this to you. Are those yellow-feathered men watching us?”

“Not at all. They watch the St. Lawrence.”

“Louise’s back is turned. But your servant?”

“Can he do anything but stare at Louise?”

“I forgot the priest.”

“His boat is many lengths behind.”

“Sieur des Ormeaux, this is a lovely voyage. But do you remember climbing the convent wall and dropping into the garden once where your cousin and I sat with our needlework?”

“Once? Say many times. I spent much of my life on that convent wall. You saw me once.”

“You fell on one knee, monsieur, and seized my work and kissed it. That silk mess; I often looked at it afterward. Men have very queer tastes, have they not? It is a shocking thing when a girl has just flown the convent and her own family, but, O Sieur des Ormeaux! I want to kiss you!”

A sail-boat, perhaps venturing down from Three Rivers, cut past them in the distance. Other craft disappeared. No stealthy canoe shot from cover of rock or headland. As Claire half closed her eyes and leaned against the rest provided for her, she thought she saw a heron rise from shallows at the water’s edge, trailing its legs in flight. Catbirds and blue jays could be seen like darting specks, describing lineless curves against the sky or shore.

Sometimes Dollier de Casson’s boat lagged, or again it shot close behind Dollard’s. The first stop was made on a flat rocky island where there was a spring of clear water. Louise and Jacques spread out as a bridal repast such provisions as Dollard had hurriedly bought in Quebec, with dried eels and cured fish from the St. Bernard cellar. The pause was a brief one. And no tale of this island was dropped in Claire’s ear, or of another island nearer the St. Lawrence’s mouth: how two hundred Micmac Indians camped there for the night, beaching their canoes and hiding their wives and children in a recess of the rocks; how the Iroquois surprised and blotted them all out. That dreaded war-cry, “Kohe--Kohe!” might well be living in the air along the river yet.

Before reëntering the boat Claire went to the spring for a last cup of water, taking Louise with her.

“And what did the bishop say?” she seized this chance to inquire.

“Mademoiselle--madame, he did nothing but look, as my husband said. We were all four surprised, the bishop, the abbess, my husband, and I.”

“Did the abbess accept my purse I bade you leave for the convent?”

“Madame, I left it lying on the floor where she dropped it. She has no doubt picked it up and counted the coins out to charity by this. The whole marriage seems a miracle, with my mother helping the blessed saints.”

“Were you, then, pleased, my child?”

“Mademoiselle, I was stupid with delight. For you will now be my mistress and have me to wait on you the rest of our lives. Had _you_ no terrors at coming away with a strange man, mademoiselle?”

“Strange man, tongue of pertness! when the Sieur des Ormeaux has been my lover these many years.”

“Was he, indeed, one of those troublesome wooers who drove you out of France? You said this morning you would never be yoked in marriage, and long before the sun goes down you are a bride! Ah, madame, the air of this country must be favorable to women!”

Again the boats pushed up-river, following the afternoon westward.

They had passed Cap Rouge, a cluster of cabins, the seignior’s substantial stone hut forming one side of the fort-like palisades. The strip farms extended in long ribbons back from the shore. Their black stubble of stumps, mowed by ax and fire, crouched like the pitiful impotence of man at the flanks of unmeasured forest.

Before nightfall the voyagers came near a low beach where sand and gravel insensibly changed to flat clearing, and a côte of three or four families huddled together.

Wild red-legged children came shouting to the water’s edge before Dollier de Casson’s canoe was beached, and some women equally sylvan gathered shyly among the stumps to welcome him.

As the priest stepped from his boat he waved a hand in farewell to the other voyagers, and Dollard stood up, lifting his hat.

The sacrament of marriage, so easy of attainment in New France at that time, had evidently been dispensed with in the first hut this spiritual father entered. His man carried in his sacred luggage, and the temporary chapel was soon set up in a corner unoccupied. The children hovered near in delight, gazing at tall candles and gilt ornaments, for even in that age of poverty the pomps of the Roman Church were carried into settlers’ cabins throughout New France. Dollier de Casson had for his confessional closet a canopy of black cloth stretched over two supports. The penitent crept under this merciful wing, and the priest, seated on a stool, could examine the soul as a modern photographer examines his camera; except that he used ear instead of eye.

The interior of a peasant censitaire’s dwelling changes little from generation to generation. One may still see the crucifix over the principal bed, joints of cured meat hanging from rafters, and the artillery of the house resting there on hooks. A rough-built loom crowded inmates whom it clothed. And against the wall of the entrance side dangled a vial of holy water as a safeguard against lightning.

Dollier de Casson stood up to admonish his little flock, gathered from all the huts of the côte, into silence before him. The men took off their rough caps and put them under their arms, standing in a disordered group together. Though respectful and obedient, they did not crowd their spiritual father with such wild eagerness as the women, who, on any seat found or carried in, sat hungrily, hushing around their knees the nipped French dialect of their children.

“What is this, Antonio Brunette?” exclaimed Father de Casson after he had cast his eyes among them. “Could you not wait my coming, when you well knew I purposed marrying you this time? You intend to have the wedding and the christening together.”

“Father,” expostulated the swart youth, avoiding the priest to gaze sheepishly at his betrothed’s cowering distress, “Pierre’s daughter is past sixteen, and we would have been married if you had been here. You know the king lays a fine on any father who lets his daughter pass sixteen without binding her in marriage. And Pierre is a very poor man.”

“Therefore, to help Pierre evade his Majesty’s fine, you must break the laws of Heaven, must you, my son? Hearty penance shall ye both do before I minister to you the sacrament of marriage. My children, the evil one prowls constantly along the banks of this river, while your poor confessors can only reach you at intervals of months. Heed my admonitions. Where is Pierre’s wife?”

Down went Pierre’s face between his hands into his cap.

“Dead,” he articulated from its hollow. “Without absolution. And the little baby on her arm, it went with her, baptized by ourselves.”

“God have pity on you, my children,” said Dollier de Casson. “I will say masses over her grave, and it is well with the little unblemished soul. How many children have you, Pierre?”

“Seventeen, father.”

“Twenty-six, he should say, father,” a woman near the priest declared. “For the widow of Jean Ba’ti’ Morin has nine.”

“And why should Pierre count as his own the flock of Jean Ba’ti’ Morin’s widow?”

“Because he is to marry her, father, when Antonio Brunette marries his oldest girl.”

“If I come not oftener,” remarked the priest, “you will all be changed about and newly related to each other so that I shall not know how to name ye. I will read the service for the dead over your first wife, Pierre, before I marry you to your second. It is indeed better to be dwelling in love than in discord. Have you had any disagreements?”

“No, father; but Jean Ba’ti’s oldest boy has taken to the woods and is off among the Indians, leaving his mother to farm alone with only six little lads to help her.”

“Another coureur de bois,” said the priest in displeasure.

“Therefore, father,” opportunely put in Jean Ba’ti’s widow, “I having no man at all, and Pierre having no woman at all, we thought to wed.”

“Think now of your sins,” said Father de Casson, “from oldest to youngest. After penance and absolution and examination in the faith ye shall have mass.”

The solemn performance of these religious duties began and proceeded until dusk obliterated all faces in the dimly lighted cabin. Stump roots were piled up in the fire-place, and Pierre’s daughter, between her prayers, put on the evening meal to cook.

If a child tittered at going under the confessional tent, its mother gave it a rear prod with admonishing hand. In that humble darkness Father de Casson’s ear received the whispers of all these plodding souls, and his tongue checked their evil and nourished their good. The cabin became a chapel full of kneeling figures telling beads.

This portion of his duty finished, Dollier de Casson postponed the catechizing, and made Pierre take a lighted stick of pine and show him that ridge whereunder mother and baby lay. There was always danger of surprise by the Iroquois. The men and women who followed in irregular procession through the vast dimness of northern twilight kept on their guard against moving stumps or any sudden uprising like the rush of quails from some covert. In rapid tones the priest repeated the service for the dead; then called his followers from their knees to return to the house to celebrate the weddings of Pierre and Pierre’s daughter.

After this rite, supper was served in Pierre’s house, the other families dispersing to their own tables--cabbage-soup, fat pork, and coarse bread made from pounded grain; for this côte was too poor to have a mill. These were special luxuries for Father de Casson, for the usual censitaire supper consisted of bread and eels. The missionary priest, accustomed with equal patience to fasting or eating, spread his hands above unsavory steam and blessed the meal. Silently, while he spoke, the door opened and a slim dark girl entered the house.

VII.

A HALF-BREED.

SHE stood erect and silent against the closed door until Dollier de Casson, before he had taken his first mouthful, spoke to her.

“Peace be with you, Massawippa.”

“Peace be also with you, father.”

Her voice was contralto without gutturals.

“You come in good time, my daughter. It is long since I examined you in the faith and absolved you.”

“Think of my soul later, father; I come from the chief.”

“Where is the chief?”

“Étienne Annahotaha sends for you,” she replied grandly. “I am to show you the way.”

Dollier de Casson did not ask why Étienne Annahotaha sent for the priest instead of coming to the priest himself. The Huron chief disdained his wife’s relatives with savage frankness.

“Very good, my daughter. In the morning, then, we will set out.”

“Annahotaha begs that you will come at once, father.”

“Hath he such urgent need of a priest?”

“He leaves his present camp early to-morrow, and he himself will tell you his urgent business.”

The girl’s eyes moved slightingly over this huge French family, holding them unfit to hear many words concerning her father.

“Very good, my daughter. As soon as I have finished my repast I shall be ready.”

Pierre muttered objections. His first wife’s grave was blessed, and his second wife was now comfortably his, but he grudged gospel privileges to that interloper Annahotaha, who had married his sister and made a white squaw of her, poor unsettled woman, paddling her from the island of Orleans to the lower Ottawa and back until she died.

All seats being occupied, Massawippa still stood by the entrance. Her uncle Pierre did point her to a place beside the table, but she shook her head.

Father de Casson was placed by himself at the table end, Pierre’s mob of children and step-children thronging below, the little ones standing wedged together, some with chins barely level with the board. Though scarcely more than fourteen years old, Massawippa looked well grown and tall. No civilized awkwardness of limb, or uncertainty of action when she moved, hampered her. Notwithstanding her cheek-bones were high and her mouth wide, she was full of vigorous young beauty. Her temples were round, and clasped as if by jet-black birdwings in hair which divided its weight betwixt two braids and measured half the length of her body.

Scarcely tolerant was the eye she kept on these French habitants her kinsfolks. She was princess; they were merely inferior white stock from whom her mother had sprung.

In personal appointments she was exquisite compared with the French women of the cabin. Her rich and glowing cheeks, her small dark ears and throat and hands, had reached a state of polish through unusual care. Her raiment appeared to be culled from the best fashions of both races. She wore the soft Indian moccasin, stitched with feather-work, and the woolen French stocking. All beaver skins in New France nominally belonged to the government; but this half-breed girl wore a pliant slim gown, chestnut-colored and silky, of beaver skin, reaching nearly to her ankles. It was girdled around the waist and collared around the top by bands of white wampum glittering like scales. A small light blanket of wool dyed a very dull red was twisted around her and hung over one arm.

A bud of a woman though still a child, full of the gentle dignity of the Hurons, who of all the great tribes along the St. Lawrence had lent themselves most kindly to Christian teaching, and undulled by her French peasant blood, Massawippa was comforting to eyes wearied by oily dark faces.

Dollier de Casson, gentleman and soldier before he became priest, always treated her with the deference she was inclined to exact as due her station.

Most Canadian half-breeds were the children of French fathers who had turned coureurs de bois and of Indian women briefly espoused by them. But the Huron chief had wedded Massawippa’s mother by priest and Latin service. The inmates of Pierre’s house regarded this girl as a misfortune that held them in awe. Her patent of nobility was dirt to them, yet by virtue of it she trod on air above their heads; and she was always so strangely clean and strangely handsome, this high young dame of the woods.

Pierre’s new wife, the corners of her mouth settling, regarded Massawippa with disfavor. The families in that côte knew well at whose door Jean Ba’ti’s widow laid the defection of her son.

One of Pierre’s little boys, creeping sidewise towards Massawippa, leaned against the door and looked up, courting her smile. He was very dirty, his cheeks new sodden with pork-fat being the most acceptable points of his surface. She did not encourage his advances, but met his look sedately.

“Thou know’st not what I know, Massawippa,” said he. “Thou know’st not who’s married.”

She remained silent, pride magnifying the natural indifference of her time of life to such news.

“The father Pierre is married. Dost guess he married our Angèle?” tempted the little boy, whose ideas of the extent of intermarriage surpassed even the generous views of his elders in the côte. “No! Antonio Brunette married our Angèle. Four people are married. It made me laugh. The widow of Jean Ba’ti’ Morin, she wedded Father Pierre, and you must tell La Mouche. Are you also married to La Mouche, Massawippa?”

Her aquiline face blazed with instant wrath, and Pierre’s little boy fell back from her as if scorched. Her hiss followed him.

“I do not myself speak to La Mouche!”

La Mouche’s mother was naturally the most interested witness of this falcon-like stoop of Massawippa’s, and as a mother she experienced deeper sense of injury.

VIII.

THE HURON.

A LIGHT rain was blistering the river and thickening an already dark landscape when Dollier de Casson, followed by his man carrying what might be called his religious tool-chest, crossed the clearing with Massawippa.

The child walked before them, her blanket drawn well up over her head and her moccasins taking no print afterwards visible from any soft earth they trod. The laden and much-enduring servant stumbled across roots, but labored on through sleek and treacherous wet spots with the zeal of a missionary servant.

Dollier de Casson gave him breathing periods by carrying the chapel himself. Thus had these two men helped each other in winter when the earth was banked in white, the river a glittering solid, and one’s breath came to him fluid ice and went from him an eruption of steam, as they toiled to parish or distant fort on snow-shoes. Thus did Jesuit and Sulpitian priests keep their religion alive on the St. Lawrence.

Within the first pine covert three Hurons were waiting, evidently Massawippa’s escort. She now walked beside Dollier de Casson and they stalked ahead, threading a silent way through the darkness.

Spruce and white birch were all the trees that stood out distinctly to the senses, others massing anonymously in the void of night and their spring nakedness. The evergreen with prickling fingers brushed the passers’ faces; while the white birches in flecked shrouds crowded rank on rank like many lofty ghosts diverse of girth, and by their whiteness threw a gleam upon the eyeball.

Following the head Huron, Dollier de Casson’s company trod straight over soft logs where the foot sunk in half-rotten moss, and over that rustling, elastic cushion of dead leaves, histories of uncounted summers which padded the floor of the forests. Through roofing limbs the rain found it less easy to pelt them. They wound about rocks and climbed ascents, until Annahotaha’s camp-fire suddenly blinked beneath them and they could stand overlooking it.

He had pitched his bark tent in a small amphitheater sloping down to a tributary of the St. Lawrence. The camp-fire, hissing as slant lines of the shower struck it, threw light over the little river’s stung surface, on low shrubs and rocks, on the oblong lodge,[3] and the figures of some three dozen Indians squatting blanketed beside it, or walking about throwing long shadows over the brightened area.

Étienne Annahotaha sat just within the shelter of his lodge, and here he received the priest, standing almost as tall as Dollier de Casson, who bent his head to avoid the tent.

This shelter was, indeed, altogether for Massawippa; the chief preferred lying on the ground with his braves; but she was child of a mother long used to roofs, and was, besides, a being whom he would set up and guard as a sacred image. There was no woman in the camp.

When Dollier de Casson and Annahotaha sat silently down together, Massawippa crept up behind her father and rested her cheek against his back. He allowed this mute caress and gazed with stern gravity at the fire.

His soul was in labor, and the priest good-humoredly waited until it should bring forth its care. No religious instruction could be imparted to the camp while Annahotaha held his speech unspoken. Rain hissed softly through listening trees, paused to let damp boughs drip, and renewed itself with a rush. Evident vapor arose from the Indians beside the fire.

“The father’s boat was seen upon the river,” began Annahotaha. “I have sent for the father to tell him the thoughts which come up in my breast and give me no peace. I am a tree of rough bark, but I bear a flower branch. I go to the burning and my branch of flowers will not be cut off from me. I am an old bear, but how shall I make the Iroquois feel my claws if my cub be beside me? The lodge of her mother’s people is not fit to hold her. Continually her mother comes to me in dreams saying, ‘What have you done with the child?’ Shall I hang my branch of flowers in the lodges of my people? Behold the remnant of the Hurons!” He leaped to his feet with energetic passion, and flung his pointed finger at the steaming braves by the fire. They gave an instant’s attention to his voice, and went on toasting themselves as before. “We are trodden underfoot like leaves. The French, our white brothers, promise us protection, and our feeble ones are dragged to the stake and scalped before their eyes. We perish from the earth. Soon not a Huron will make the smoke of his lodge go up beside the great river. But before these Iroquois utterly tread our bones under the turf they shall feel the rage of Annahotaha. The last Hurons shall heap them up in destruction!”

He sat down and rested his savage face on his fists.

Massawippa resumed her attitude of satisfied tenderness; and shade by shade his wrath lifted until the father and not the chief again looked through the red of his mask-like face.

“If Annahotaha is leading a war party against the Iroquois,” began Dollier de Casson--

“Speak not of that. The old bear knows his own track; but no way for the tender feet of his cub.”

--“he will pass through Montreal,” continued the priest. “Now, if Annahotaha wishes to keep his gift of Heaven from contaminations of the world, why should he not lay her on the sacred altar? Place her with the sisters of St. Joseph, those good nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu.”

The chief, expectant and acquiescent, kept yet a wily side-glance on his cassocked guide. Honest Dollier de Casson brought his fist with a gentle spat upon his palm as he proceeded.

“No Indian woman ever hath joined the pious labors of our good nuns. You Hurons clamor without ceasing for protection to white brothers who can scarcely keep their own scalps on their heads, but the burdens and self-denials of our holy religion ye shirk. I speak truth to the chief of the Hurons. You even leave your farms and civilized life on the island of Orleans, and take to the woods.”

“We are dragged scalped from our farms,” interjected Annahotaha’s guttural voice.

“My son, the power of Heaven is over all. We gasp and bleed together; but, see you, we still live. Miracles are continually worked for us. They confound even the dark hearts of the Iroquois.”

Annahotaha smiled, perhaps with some reflection of Quebec distrust in Montreal miracles.

“Hast thou not heard,” insisted Father de Casson with that severe credulity which afflicted the best men of the time, “about Jean Saint-Père--slain by the Iroquois and beheaded, and his head carried off--speaking to them in warnings and upbraidings? Yea, the scalped skull ceased not threatening them with the vengeance of Heaven, in plain, well-spoken Iroquois.” Annahotaha sounded some guttural which the priest could not receive as assent.

“Blessed is a country, my son, when such notable miracles are done in it. For, see you, there was Father le Maître, who had his head likewise cut off by these children of evil, but without making the stain of blood on his handkerchief which received it. And there were his features stamped on the cloth so that any one might behold them. This miracle of Father le Maître hath scarcely ceased to ring in Montreal, for it is a late thing. I counsel the chief of the Hurons to give his child to the Church. The saints will then be around her in life, and in death they will gather her to themselves.”

Annahotaha sat as if turning over in his mind this proposal, which he had secretly foreseen and wished.

“The father has spoken,” he finally pronounced; and silence closed this conference, as silence had preceded it.

Afterwards Dollier de Casson set up his chapel beside a sheltering rock and prepared to shrive the Huron camp, beginning with Massawippa. Her he confessed apart, in the inclosure of the lodge, probing as many of her nature’s youthful and tortuous avenues as the wisdom of man could penetrate. She raised no objection to that plan of life her father and her confessor both proposed for her; but the priest could not afterwards distinctly recall that she accepted it.

When Father de Casson called the congregation of Indians to approach his temporary chapel, one of the restless braves who had sauntered from sputtering fire to dripping tree skulked crouching in the shadow of Massawippa’s tent. He had a reason for avoiding the priest as well as one for seeking her.

When the others were taken up with their devotions he crept to the tent-flap, and firelight shone broadly on his dark side-countenance, separating him in race from the Hurons. He was a Frenchman. But his stiff black hair was close shorn except one bristling tuft, his oily skin had been touched with paint, and he wore the full war-dress of his foster tribe.

“Massawippa,” whispered this proselyte, raising the lodge-flap, “I have something here for you.”

The girl was telling her beads with a soft mutter in the little penances her priest had imposed upon her. He could see but her blurred figure in her dim shrine.

“Massawippa! La Mouche brings you a baked fish,” he whispered in the provincial French.

Her undisturbed voice continued its muttered orisons.

“Massawippa!” repeated the youth, speaking this time in Huron, his tone entreating piteously. “La Mouche brings you a baked fish. It comes but now from the fire.”

Her voice ceased with an indrawing of the breath, and she hissed at La Mouche.

“Return it then to the fire and thyself with it, thou French log!” she uttered in a screaming whisper in Huron, and hissed at him again as her humble lover dropped the lodge-flap.

The candles shone mellowly from the sheltered altar upon kneeling Indians, but La Mouche slunk off into the darkness.

IX.

THE LADY OF ST. BERNARD.

FIVE evenings later a boat was beached on one of the islands above Montreal lying near the south shore of the St. Lawrence. While this island presented rocky points, it had fertile slopes basking in the glow which followed a blue and vaporous April day, and trees in that state of gray greenness which shoots into leaf at the first hot shining.

The principal object on the island was a stone house standing inclosed by strong palisades above the ascent from the beach. It appeared to be built against a mass of perpendicular rock that towered over it on the west side. This was, in fact, the strongest seigniorial mansion west of the Richelieu. There was, in addition, a small stone mill for grinding grain, apart from it on the brink of the river.

Northward, the St. Lawrence spread towards the horizon in that distension of its waters called Lake St. Louis.

Out of the palisade door came a censitaire and his wife, who, having hurried to St. Bernard for protection at an alarm of Indians, staid to guard the seigniory house during Jacques Goffinet’s absence with Dollard.

“This is St. Bernard,” said Dollard, leading Claire up the slope. “Sometimes fog-covered, sometimes wind-swept, green as only islands can be, and stone-girdled as the St. Lawrence islands are. A cluster up-river belongs to the seigniory, but this is your fortress.”

“And yours,” she added.

“It will seem very rude to you.”

“After my life of convent luxury, monsieur?”

“After the old civilization of France. But I believe this can be made quite comfortable.”

“It looks delicious and grim,” said the bride. “Tragic things might happen here if there be a tragic side to life, which I cannot now believe. Yet a few months ago I said there was no happiness!”

Dollard turned his uneasy glance from her to the seigniory house.

“There is scarcely such another private stronghold in the province.”

“Did you build it?”

“Not I. Poor Dollard brought little here but his sword. One of my superior officers abandoned it in my favor, and took a less exposed seigniory near the Richelieu. I wish the inside appointments better befitted you. It was a grand château to me until I now compare it with its châtelaine.”

“Never mind, monsieur. When you demand my fortune from France, you can make your château as grand as you desire. I hope you will get some good of my fortune, for I never have done so. Seriously, monsieur, if no house were here, and there were only that great rock to shelter us, I should feel myself a queen if you brought me to it, so great is my lot.”

“You can say this to poor Adam Dollard, an obscure soldier of the province?”

“In these few days,” replied the girl, laughing, and she threw the light of her topaz eyes half towards him, “the way they call your name in this new country has become to me like a title.”

“You shall have more than a title,” burst out Dollard. “Heaven helping me, you shall yet have a name that will not die!”

They passed through the gate of the palisade, Jacques and Louise following with the loads of the expedition. To insure its safety the boat was afterwards dragged within the palisade.

The censitaire in charge, with his wife at his shoulder, stood grinning at Jacques’s approach.

“Thou got’st thyself a wife, hé, my pretty Jacques?”

“That did I, bonhomme Papillon. And a good wife, and a stout wife, and a handsome. Thou ’lt want to go to Quebec market thyself when the Indians carry off Joan.”

“Let me see him go to the Quebec market!” cried Joan, shaking her knuckled fist under his ear.

“It would trouble thee little to lose sight of him, Joan. But his coming back with such freight--it is _that_ would fire thee hotter than Iroquois torches. Alas, my children,” Jacques said, letting down his load inside the gate, “I bring much, but I leave much behind. If I am to hold this seigniory while my commandant is away, and feed ye both and my new wife, to say naught of Mademoiselle de Granville and our great lady, I need the cattle and swine and fowls which our king gave me for dower and my seignior made me throw over my shoulder.”

“But I thought,” said Louise, in dismay, “that thou had’st such stores of vegetables and other provisions here.”

“Have no fear, my spouse. Thou shalt see how this garrison is provisioned. But what prudent man can drop without a sigh the moiety of his wife’s fortune? Here are Papillon and Joan, who hold the next island under our seignior. And here, timid Joan, is thy soldierly new neighbor Louise Goffinet, who squealed not in the dangers of the river.”

“Wert thou afraid?” Joan asked Louise, kindly.

“I was until I saw Madame des Ormeaux was not. And the Indians have a wonderful skill.”

“Did the commandant also marry her at the wife market?” pressed Joan, walking by Louise’s side behind the men. “She is surely the fairest woman in New France. I could have crawled before her when she gave me a smile.”

“My mother nursed her,” said Louise, with pride.

“Did she so! And is our lady some great dame from the king’s court, who heard of the commandant at Montreal?”

“Thou hast woman wit. It is exactly as thou sayest,” bragged Jacques, turning towards the mummied face of Papillon’s simple wife. “She is cousin to our holy bishop himself; and even that great man she left grinning and biting his nails, for he and the abbess they would make a nun of her. Thou dost not know the mightiness of her family. My Louise can charm thee with all that. But this lady was a princess in France, and voyaged here by the king’s ship, being vilely sickened and tossed about; and all for my commandant. Is not the Sieur des Ormeaux known in France?” Jacques snapped his fingers high in air.

The lowest floor of the seigniory house was the rock on which it was based. Here and within the stockade were such domestic animals as belonged to the island. A sheep rubbed against Louise, passing out as she passed in.

She looked around the darkened strong walls, unpierced by even a loop-hole, at the stores of provender for dumb and human inmates. Jacques had underestimated his wealth in collected food. His magazine seemed still overflowing when it was spring and seed-time, and the dearth of winter nearly past.

A stone staircase twisted itself in giving ascent to the next floor. Here were sleeping-cells for the seignior’s servants, and a huge kitchen having pillars of cemented rock across its center, and a fire-place like a cave. Lancelike windows gave it light, and in the walls were loop-holes which had been stopped with stone to keep out the Canadian winter.

A broader stairway of tough and well-dried wood in one corner led up to the seignior’s apartment above, which was divided into several rooms. The largest one, the saloon of the mansion, had also its cavern fire-place where pieces of wood were smoldering. A brass candelabrum stood on the mantel. Rugs of fawn skin beautifully spotted, and of bear skin relieved the dark unpolished floor. The walls of all the rooms were finished with a coarse plaster glittering with river sand. Some slender-legged chairs, a high-backed cushioned bench, a couch covered by moth-eaten tapestry, and a round black table furnished this drawing-room. Some cast-off pieces of armor hung over the mantel, and an embroidery frame stood at one side of the hearth.

There was but one window, and it swung outward on hinges, the sash being fitted with small square panes.

When Claire appeared from the private chamber where she had been taken to refresh herself with Louise to attend on her, Dollard came down the room, took her by the hands, and led her to this window. He pushed the sash open quite out of their way, and thus set the landscape in a deep frame of stone wall.

The two young lovers still met each other with shyness and reserve. From the hour of his impetuous marriage Dollard had watched his wife with passionate solicitude. But that day when his boat approached Montreal he had it brought to the dock and went ashore by himself, spending what Claire considered the best hours of the afternoon at the fort and on the streets, coming back flushed and repressed.

She felt the energetic pulses still beating in his face as he touched her forehead.

“You see now the way we came,” said Dollard, indicating the St. Lawrence sweeping towards the east.

“A lovely way it was,” said Claire. The river’s breath came to them fresh and clean, leaving a touch of dampness on the skin. Already the wooded south shore was clothing itself in purple, but northward the expanse of water still held to what it had received from sunset. “That was very different from the voyage on shipboard.”

“Are you not tired?”

“I was tired only once--at Montreal,” hinted Claire, gazing at the extremity of the island.

“Again I beg you to pardon that. I had been nearly ten days away from my command and there were serious matters to attend to. Put it out of your mind and let us be very happy this evening.”

“And every following evening. That goes without saying.”

“I must report at my fortress at daybreak to-morrow.”

“You should have left my caskets at Montreal, monsieur,” exclaimed Claire. “I could do without them here one night.”

“You want to turn your back on poor St. Bernard immediately?”

“Monsieur, you do not mean to separate yourself from me?” she inquired lightly, keeping control of her trembling voice.

“I brought you here to take possession of my land,” said Dollard.

“I have taken possession. The keys of the house of course I do not want. They shall in all courtesy be left with the resident châtelaine, your sister. Monsieur, where is your sister?”

Dollard glanced over his shoulder at the embroidery frame.

“She has been here or is coming. I have hardly prepared you for poor Renée. She lives in delusions of her own, and pays little regard to the courtesies of the outside world. My excellent Jacques waits on her as on a child.”

“Doubtless I thought too little about her,” Claire said, visibly shrinking. “She may object to me.”

“She will not even see you unless I put you before her eyes.”

“What ails your sister, monsieur? Is she a religious devotee?”

“Not strictly that. She is a nurser of delusions. I cannot remember when she was otherwise, though we have lived little together, for poor Renée is but my half-sister. Her father was a De Granville. You will not feel afraid of her when you have seen her; she is not unkind. She has her own chambers at the rock side of the house and lives there weeks together. I see her embroidery frame is set out, and that means we may expect her presence.”

While he was speaking, Mademoiselle de Granville had opened a door at the end of the room.