"I hope you like your eggs," she said presently.

"They are very nice, indeed, thank you," rejoined Amherst.

"And I have made your coffee as you like it?"

"Perfectly, thank you. But you—you are not eating anything! Why is that?"

As he asked the question he turned quickly around, in order to rise that he might help her with the ponderous kettle that she was about lifting off the camp-fire, when a long strand of her hair again escaping from its coil blew directly across his face. Amherst uttered a radiant "Oh!", and taking it to his lips forgot himself so far as to press kiss after kiss upon it. The lady stood as if transfixed and did not move, even when Amherst actually swept all her hair down over one arm and turning her face to his, pressed one long long kiss on her forehead.

The moment he had done this his senses returned and he stepped back in indignation with himself. But his companion was still apparently transfixed. Amherst looked at her in dismay. She did not seem to see him and had grown very pale. He touched her gently on the arm but she did not show that she felt the touch. He retreated a few paces and stood by himself, overcome with shame and contrition. What had he done? How should he ever atone for such an unwarrantable action? Had it been the outcome of any ordinary flirtation, he would have felt no such scruples, but the encounter, though short, had been one of singular idyllic charm until he had by his own rash act spoilt it. A few minutes passed thus in self contemplation appeared like an eternity. He must speak.

"If you would allow me—"

But the lady put out her left hand in deprecation as it were and he got no further. The silence was unendurable. Amherst took a step or two forward and perceived great tears rolling down her cheeks.

"Oh!" he began desperately, "won't you allow me to say a word to tell you how very, very sorry I am, how grieved I am and always shall be? I never—I give you my word of honor—I never do those sort of things, have never done such a thing before! But I can't tell what it was, the place is so beautiful, and when all that lovely hair came sweeping past my face, I could not help doing as I did, it was so electrical! Any man would have done the same. I know that sounds like a miserable, cowardly excuse, but it is true, perfectly true." The lady seemed to struggle to appear calm and with a great effort she turned her face towards Amherst.

"I know one man," she said, in a voice choked with sobs, "who would not have done it"

Amherst started. "I am sorrier than ever, believe me. I might have known you were engaged, or had a lover—one so Charming"—

"It is not that," said the lady. "I am married." She was still struggling with her emotion.

Amherst recoiled. He was torn with conflicting thoughts. What if he had been seen giving that involuntary salute? He might have ruined her peace for ever. Who would believe in the truth of any possible explanation?

"I will leave you at once;" he said stiffly, "there is nothing more to be said."

"Oh! You will reproach me now!" said his companion, wiping her eyes as the tears came afresh.

"I will try not to;" said Amherst, "but you could so easily have told me; I do not think it was—quite—fair." Yet he could not be altogether angry with the partner of his thoughtlessness, nor could he be entirely cold. Her beautiful eyes, her despairing attitude would haunt him he knew for many a day. She had ceased weeping and stood quietly awaiting his departure. Amherst felt all the force of a strong and novel passion sweep along his frame as he looked at her. Was she happy, was she a loved and loving wife? Somehow the conviction forced itself upon him that she was not. Yet he could not ask her, it must remain her secret.

Amherst looked at his watch. It aroused her.

"What is the time?" she said lifting her head for the first time since he had kissed her.

"Ten minutes past six," Amherst replied.

"You must go," she said, with an effort at self-control. "I shall have much to do presently."

He cast one look about and approached her.

"Will you forgive me"—he began in a tone of repression, then with another mighty and involuntary movement he caught her hands and pressed them to his breast. "My God," he exclaimed, "how I should have loved you!"

A moment after he flung her hands away and strode down the cliff, unfastened his boat and rowed away in the direction of the hotel as fast as he could. Rounding a sharp rock that hid what lay beyond it, he nearly succeeded in overturning another boat like his own, in which sat a gentleman of middle age, stout and pleasant and mild of countenance. The bottom of the boat was full of fish. Amherst made an incoherent apology, to which the gentleman answered with a good-natured laugh, insisting that the fault was his own. He would have liked to enter into conversation with Amherst, but my friend was only anxious to escape from the place altogether and forget his recent adventure in the hurry of departure from the hotel. Three days after he embarked at Quebec for England, and never revisited Canada. But he never married and never forgot the woman whom he always asserted he might have truly and passionately loved. He was about twenty-eight when that happened and perfectly heart-whole. Why— I used to say to him, why did you not learn her name and that of her husband? Perhaps she is a widow now, perhaps you made as great an impression upon her mind and affections as she did upon yours.

But my friend Admiral Amherst, as the world knew him, was a strange, irrational creature in many ways, and none of these ideas would he ever entertain. That the comfortable gentleman in the boat was her husband he never doubted; more it was impossible to divine. But the cool northern isle, with its dark fringe of pines; its wonderful moss, its fragrant and dewy ferns, its graceful sumacs, just putting on their scarlet-lipped leaves, the morning stillness broken only by the faint unearthly cry of the melancholy loon, the spar-dyked cliffs of limestone, and the fantastic couch, with its too lovely occupant, never faded from his memory and remained to the last as realities which indeed they have become likewise to me, through the intensity with which they were described to me.



The Story of Delle Josephine Boulanger



CHAPTER I.

Delle Josephine Boulanger, Miss Josephine Baker, Miss Josephine Baker, Delle Josephine Boulanger. What a difference it makes, the language! What a transformation! I thought this to myself as I stood on the opposite side of the street looking at the sign. To be sure, it, was only printed in French and sad little letters they were that composed the name, but my mind quickly translated them into the more prosaic English as I stood and gazed. Delle Josephine was a milliner and I had been recommended to try and get a little room "sous les toits" that she sometimes had to let, during my stay in the dismal Canadian village with the grand and inappropriate name of Bonheur du Roi. Bonneroi, or Bonneroy, it was usually called. Such a dismal place it seemed to be; one long street of whitewashed or dirty wooden houses, two raw red brick "stores," and the inevitable Roman Catholic Church, Convent and offices, still and orderly and gray, with the quiet priests walking about and the occasional sound of the unmistakeable convent bell. I arrived on a sleety winter's day early in December. Everything was gray, or colorless or white; the people's faces were pinched and pale, the sky was a leaden gray in hue, and I thought as I stood opposite to my future abode under Delle Josephine's roof that the only bit of "local color" so far was to be found in her window. I could distinctly see from where I stood the most extraordinary hat I had ever seen. I immediately crossed the road to examine it. It was a triumph in lobster-color. In shape like a very large Gainsborough, it was made of shirred scarlet satin with large bows of satin ribbon of the same intense color and adorned with a bird of paradise. I can see it now and can recall the images it suggested to my mind at the time. These were of cardinals and kings, of sealing-wax and wafers, of tropic noons and tangled marshes, of hell and judgment and the conventional Zamiel. It looked fit to be worn by a Mrs. Zamiel, if there be such a person. I looked so long and earnestly that I evidently attracted the notice of the mistress of the shop, for I saw a hand push back the faded red curtain that veiled the interior and a queer little visage appeared regarding me with something I thought of distrust. Did I look as if I might break the glass and run off with the hat? Perhaps I did, so I entered the shop immediately and said in a reasoning tone,

"I am looking for rooms in the village, Mademoiselle, and hear you have one to let. Can I see it now, if not too much trouble?"

"You come from Morreall?"

This I learnt was meant for Montreal.

"Yes," I returned.

"You are by yourself, Monsieur, you are sure? No ladees, eh?"

"O dear! No" said I laughing. "I am making some studies—sketches— in this locality and am entirely alone. Do you find ladies a trouble?"

"Oh, perhaps not always. But there was one Mees I had. I did not like her, and so I said—we will have no more Mees, but again and always Messieurs." She was frank enough but not unpleasant in her manner. A little bit of a woman, thin and shrivelled, with one shoulder slightly higher than the other, black beads for eyes, and the ugliest mouthful of teeth that I had ever seen on any one. Had it not been that her expression was honest and good natured and her manner bright and intelligent, I should have recoiled before the yellow tusks of eye-teeth, and the blackened stumps and shrunken gums revealed to me every time she spoke. She wore a print dress made neatly enough which was very clean, and a black crape ruff round her sallow neck. The shop was small but clean and at the back I saw, a kind of little sitting room. Into this I went while she ran up-stairs to prepare the room for my inspection. The carpet was the usual horribly ingenious affair of red squares inside green octagons, and green squares inside red octagons, varied by lengthwise stripes of bright purple. The walls were plain white, covered with many prints in vivid colors of the Crucifixion, the Annunciation and the Holy Family; also three pictures of three wonderful white kittens which adorn so many nurseries and kitchens. There were no ornaments, but there was a large looking glass framed in walnut, and over it a dismal wreath of roses and their leaves done in human gray hair. The glass was opposite the door and I saw Delle Josephine descending to meet me just as I was turning away from this suggestive "in memoriam." A crooked little stairway brought me to a small landing, and three more steps to my room. I may call it that, for I took it on the spot It was large enough for my wants and seemed clean and when the paper blinds, yellow, with a black landscape on them, were raised, rather cheerful. We were opposite the chief "epicerie," the only "marchandise seches" and a blacksmith, whose jolly red fire I could sometimes catch a glimpse of.

Now, this is a really a true story of French Canadian life, or rather let me say, a true story of one of my own French Canadian experiences, and so I must confess that once installed in my little room chez Delle Josephine Boulanger, nothing whatever of any interest took place until I had been there quite a week. I lived most regularly and monotonously; rising at eight I partook of coffee made by my landlady, accompanied by tinned fruit for which I formed a great taste. Then I went out, getting my mid-day meal where I could, eggs and bacon at a farmhouse, or tough steak at the hotel, and sometimes not getting anything at all until I returned ravenously hungry to my lodging. On these occasions the little Frenchwoman showed herself equal to the extent of cooking a chicken or liver and bacon very creditably and then I would write and read in my own room till eleven. I must not forget to say that I never failed to look at the wonderful scarlet hat in the window every time I went out or came in. Purchasers for it would be rare I thought; I half formed the idea of buying it myself when I went away as a "Souvenir."

One day I came home very tired. After walking about, vainly waiting for a terrific snowstorm to pass over that I might go on with my work— the frozen fall of Montmorenci, framed in the dark pines and somber rocks that made such a back ground for its glittering thread of ice, I gave it up, chilled in every limb, and began to consider whether I was not a fool for pains. Although I started quite early in the afternoon on my homeward walk, the snow, piled in great masses everywhere along the route, impeded my progress to such an extent that it was nearly seven o'clock and pitch-dark when I got into the village. Bonneroy was very quiet. Shutters were up to every shop, nobody was out except a dog or two and the snow kept falling, falling, still in as persistent a fashion as if it had not been doing the same thing for six hours already. I found the shop shut up and the door locked. I looked everywhere for a bell or knocker of some description. There was neither, so I began to thump as hard as I could with my feet against the door. In a minute or two I heard Delle Josephine coming. Perhaps I had alarmed the poor soul. She did look troubled on opening the door and admitted me hurriedly, even suspiciously, I thought. The door of the little sitting-room was closed, so fancying that perhaps she had a visitor I refrained from much talking and asking her to cook me some eggs presently and bring them up, I went to my room.

These cold days I had to keep a fire in the small open "Franklin" stove going almost constantly. She had not forgotten to supply it with coals during my absence, and lighting my two lamps I was soon fairly comfortable. How it did snow! Lifting the blind I could actually look down on an ever-increasing drift below my window and dimly wonder if I should get out at all on the morrow. If not, I proposed to return to Montreal at once. I should gain nothing by being confined in the house at Bonneroy. Delle Josephine appeared with eggs and tea—green tea, alas for that village shortcoming— there was no black tea to be found in it, and I looked narrowly at her as she set it down, wondering if anything was amiss with her. But she seemed all right again and I conjectured that I had simply interrupted a tete-a-tetewith some visitor in the sitting-room at the time of my return. When I had finished my tea I sat back and watched my fire. Those little open "Franklin" stoves are almost equal to a fireplace; they show a great deal of fire and you can fancy your flame on an English hearth very easily—if you have any imagination. As I sat there, it suddenly came home to me what a curious life this was for me; living quite alone over a tiny village shop in Le Bos Canada, with a queer little spinster like Delle Josephine. Snowed up, with her too! To-morrow I would certainly have to go and shovel that snow away from the front door and take down the shutters and discover again to the world the contents of the one window, particularly that frightful hat! I would—here I started it must be confessed almost out of my seat, as turning my head suddenly I saw on a chair behind the door the identical hat I was thinking about! I sat up and looked at it. It must have been there all the time I was eating my tea. I still sat and looked. I felt vaguely uncomfortable for a moment, then my common sense asserted itself and told me that Delle Josephine must have been altering it or something of that kind and had forgotten to take it away. I wondered if she sat in my room when I was away. I had rather she did not. Just as I was about to rise and look at it more closely, a tap came at my door. I rose and admitted Delle Josephine. She took the tea-things away in her usual placid manner, but came back the next moment as if she had forgotten something, clearly the hat. With a slight deprecatory laugh she removed it and went hurriedly down the stair. Whatever had she been doing with it, I thought, and settled with a sigh of satisfaction once more to my work, now that the nightmare in red, a kind of mute scarlet "Raven," was gone from my room. How very quiet it was. Not a single sleigh passed, no sounds came from the houses opposite or from next door, the whole world seemed smothered in the soft thick pillows of snow quietly gathering upon it. After a while, however, I could distinctly hear the sound of voices downstairs. Delle Josephine had a visitor, undoubtedly. Was it a man or a woman? Not a large company I gathered; it seemed like one person besides herself. I opened my door, it sounded so comfortably in my lonely bachelor ear to catch in that strange little house anything so cheerful as the murmur of voices. My curiosity once aroused, did not stop here. I went outside the door, not exactly to listen, but as one does sometimes in a lazy yet inquisitive mood, when anything is going on at all unusual. This was an unusual occurrence. If Delle Josephine had visitors often, I was not aware of it. Never before had I noticed the slightest sound proceed from her sitting-room after dusk. So I waited a bit listening. Yes there was talking going on, but in French. As I did not understand her patois very clearly, I thought there would be no harm in overhearing, and further I thought I should like to have a peep at her and her companion. I could see that the door was partly open. Taking off my slippers, I ran softly down and found it wide enough open to admit of my seeing the entire room and occupants in the looking-glass, that being opposite. It was quite dark in the little hall and I should be unobserved. So I crept—most rudely I am willing to say—into the furthest shadow of this hall and looked straight before me.

I saw none but Delle Josephine herself. But she was a sight for the gods. Seated on a kind of ottoman, directly in front of the looking-glass, she was holding an animated conversation with herself, wearing a large white antimacassar—one of those crocheted things all in wheels—pinned under her chin and falling away at the back like a cloak, and upon her head—the wonderful scarlet hat! I was amazed, startled, dismayed. To see that shrivelled little old woman so travestying her hideous charms, smiling at and bowing to herself, her yellow skin forming a frightful contrast to the intense red of her immense hat and her bright black eyes, was a pitiful and unique spectacle. I had intended but to take a peep at the supposed visitor and then go back to my room, but the present sight was one which fascinated me to such an extent that I could only look and wonder. She spoke softly to herself in French, appearing to be carrying on a conversation with her image in the glass. The feathers of the bird of paradise swept her shoulder—the one that was higher than the other—and mingled with the wheels of the white antimacassar. I looked as long as I dared and then, fearing from her movements that the strange scene would soon be over I went softly up again to my room. But I thought about it all evening, all night in fact. The natural inquiry was—was the poor girl a maniac? Even if only a harmless one, it would be well to know. As I sat down again by my fire I considered the matter in every light. It was a queer prospect. Outside the snow still fell. Inside, the fire languished and the time wore on till at half-past ten I really was compelled to call on my landlady for more coal. I could hear the muttered French still going on, but I did not know where the coal was and could not fetch it myself. I must break in upon her rhapsodizing.

"Delle Boulanger!" I called from my open door. "Delle Boulanger!"

The talking stopped. In a few moments Delle Josephine appeared, calm and smiling, minus the hat and the antimacassar. "Coming, monsieur"

"I shall want some more coal," said I, "It is getting colder, I think, every minute!"

"Mais oui, monsieur; il fait fret, il fait bien fret ce soir, and de snow—oh! It is comme—de old winter years ago, dat I remember, monsieur, but not you. Eh! bien, the coal!"

I discovered nothing morbid about her manner; she was amiable and respectful as usual, if a little more garrulous. The French will talk at all times about anything, but our conversation always came to a sudden stop the moment one of us relapsed into the mother tongue. As long as a sort of common maccaronic was kept to we managed to understand one another. After I made up my fire I sat up till long past twelve. I heard no more talking downstairs but I could fancy her still arrayed in those festive yet ghastly things, seated opposite her own reflection, intent as a mummy and not unlike one restored in modern costume. Pulling the blind aside before going to bed, I could see with awe the arching snowdrifts outside my window. If it went on snowing, I should not be able to open it on the morrow.



CHAPTER II

My prediction was verified in the morning. The snow had ceased falling, but lay piled up against the lower half of my window. On the level there appeared to be about three feet, while the drifts showed from six to twenty feet I had never seen anything like it, and was for sometime lost in admiration. Across the road the children of the epider and the good man himself were already busy trying to shovel some of it away from the door. It seemed at first sight a hopeless task and I, looking down at Delle Josephine's door, wondered how on earth we were ever to get out of it when not a particle of it was to be seen. Not all that day did I get out of the house, and but for the absorbing interest I suddenly found centred in Delle Josephine I would have chafed terribly at being so shut up. Trains, were blockaded of course, it was the great fall of '81, and interrupted travel for half of a week. All that day I waited so to speak for the evening. Snow-boys there were many; customers none. The little Frenchwoman brought me some dinner at one o'clock, pork, tinned tomatoes, and a cup of coffee. About five o'clock I strolled down into the shop, it was lighted very meagrely with three oil lamps. Delle Josephine was seated on a high chair behind the one counter at work on some ribbon—white ribbon. She was quilling it, and looked up with some astonishment as I walked up to her.

"Do you object to a visitor Miss Josephine?" said I with the most amiable manner I could muster. Poor soul! I should have thought she would have welcomed one.

"Mais non Monsieur but I speak so little English."

"And I so little French. But we can manage to understand each other a little, I think. What do you say to the weather? When shall I be able to go out?"

Delle Josephine laughed. She went on quilling the ribbon that looked so white against her yellow hands.

"O Monsieur could go out dis day if he like, but de snow ver bad, very thick."

"Do you ever go out, Miss Josephine?"

"Non Monsieur. I have not been out for what you call a valk—it will be five years that I have not been."

"But you go to church, I suppose?"

"Mais oui Monsieur, but that is so near. And the good Pere Le Jeune—he come to see me. He is all the frien Delle Josephine has, ah! oui Monsieur."

"Ah! Bonneroi isn't much of a place, is it? Have you ever been to Quebec or Montreal?"

"Ah! Quebec—oui, I live there once, many years ago. I was taken when I was ver young by Madame de la Corne de la Colombiere pour une bonne; vous comprenez?"

"Oh! bonne, yes, we use that word too. It means a nursemaid, eh! Were there children in the family?"

Delle Josephine dropped her ribbon and threw up her hands.

"Mon Dieu! les enfants! Mais oui, Monsieur, they were nine children! There was Maamselle Louise and Maamselle Angelique with the tempaire of the diable himself oui Monsieur, and Francois and Rene and l'petite Catherine, and the rest I forget Monsieur. And dey live in a fine chateau, with horse and carridge and everything as it would be if they were in their own France. Monsieur has been in France?"

Only in Paris, I told her; a spasmodic run across the Channel—Paris in eight hours. Two days there then return—

"That does not give one much idea of France."

"Nou, non, Monsieur. But there is no countree like France dey say dat familee—and that is true, eh, Monsieur?"

"I am afraid I cannot agree with you, Delle Josephine," said I. "To me there is no country like England, but that may be because I am an Englishman. Tell me how long did you live in Quebec with this family?"

"I was there ten year Monsieur. Then one day, I had a great accidence—oh! a ver sad ting, ver sad!" The Frenchwoman laid down the ribbon and went on. "A ver sad ting happen to me and the bebe Catherine. We were out l'ptite and me, for a valk, and we come to a part of the town ver slant, ver hilly. L'ptite Catherine was in her carridge and I let go, and she go all down, Monsieur, and I too over the hill—the cleef, you call it—but the bebe was killed and I Monsieur, I was alive, but like this!" showing her shoulder. "And what did they do?"

"At the chateau? Ah, figure-toi, monsieur, the agony of dat pauvre dame! I was sent away, she would not see me, and I left Quebec at once. I was no more bonne, monsieur; Delle Josephine was enough dat. I could make de hats and de bonnets for de ladees, so I come away out to Bonneroi, and I haf made de hats and de bonnets for the ladees of Bonneroi for twenty year."

"Is it possible?" I said, much touched by the little story. "And the ladies of Bonneroi, are they hard to please?"

Delle Josephine, who had spoken with the customary vim and gesture of the French while—telling her tale, resumed her quilling and said, with a shrug of one shoulder,

"They do not know much, and dat is true." I laughed at the ironical tone.

"And you—you provide the modes?"

"I haf been to Quebec" she said quietly.

"Twenty years ago," I thought, but had too much respect for the queer little soul to say it aloud.

"I see amongst other things," I went on, "a most—remarkable—a very pretty, I should say—hat in your window. The red one, you know, with the bird of paradise."

Delle Josephine looked up quickly. "Dat is not for sale, monsieur."

"No? Why, I had some idea of perhaps purchasing it for a friend of mine. Did you make that hat yourself?"

She nodded with a sort of conscious pride. Yet it was not for sale! I wondered why. The strange scene of the foregoing evening came into my mind, and I began to understand this singular—case of monomania. It must be that having lived so many years in almost solitary confinement, one might say, her mind had slightly given away, and she found her only excitement and relaxation in posing before the glass in that extraordinary manner. I hardly knew whether it would be an act of kindness to remove the hat; she talked quite rationally and cheerfully, and remembering the innate vanity of the French as a nation, I concluded to let the matter rest That night I heard no talking in the sitting-room. I slept profoundly, and woke up later than usual We were not dug out yet, though two snow-boys with their shovels were doing their best to unearth us. I waited some time for Delle Josephine to appear with the tray; but she too was late, evidently, for at ten o'clock she had not come. I dressed and went down stairs. As I passed the sitting-room I saw her tricked out as before in the hat and the antimacassar seated on the ottoman in front of the looking-glass. Heavens, she looked more frightful than ever! I made up my mind to speak to her at, once, and see if I could not stop such hideous mummery. But when I advanced I perceived that indeed I had come too late. The figure on the ottoman was rigid in death. How it ever held itself up at all I could never think, for I gave a loud cry, and rushing from the room knocked against the open door and fell down senseless.

Outside, I suppose, the snow-boys shovelled away as hard as ever. When I came to myself I did not need to look around; I knew in a flash where I was, and remembered what had happened. I ran to the shop door and hammered with all my might.

"Let me out!" I cried. "Open the door! open the door! for Heaven's sake!" Then I ran upstairs, and did the same at my window. It seemed years upon years of time till they were enabled to open the door and let me out. I rushed out bareheaded, forgetful of the intense cold, thinking first of all of the, priest Pere Le Jeune, so strong is habit, so potent are traditions. I knew where he lived, up the first turning in a small red brick house next the church of St. Jean Baptiste. I told him the facts of the case as well as I could and he came back at once with me. There was nothing to be done. Visitation of God or whatever the cause of death Delle Josephine Boulanger was dead. The priest lifted his hands in horror when he saw the ghostly hat. I asked him what he knew about her, but he seemed ignorant of everything concerning the poor thing, except the aves she repeated and the number of times she came to confession. But when we came to look over her personal effects in the drawers and boxes of the shop, there could be no doubt but that she had been thoroughly though harmlessly insane. We found I should think about one hundred and fifty boxes: from tiny little ones of pasteboard to large square ones of deal, full of rows and rows of white quilled ribbon, similar to the piece I had seen her working at on that last night of her life on earth. Some of the ribbon was yellow with age, others fresher looking, but in each box was a folded bit of paper with these words written inside,

Pour l'ptite Catherine.

"What money there was, Pere Le Jeune must have appropriated for I saw nothing of any. After the dismal funeral, to which I went, I gathered my effects together and went to the hotel. The first day I could proceed, I returned to Montreal and have not visited Bonneroi since. The family of de la Corne de La Colombiere still reside somewhere near Quebec, I believe. The chateau is called by the charming name of Port Joli, and perhaps some day I may feel called upon to tell them of the strange fate which befell their poor Josephine. Whether the melancholy accident which partly bereft her of her reason was the result of carelessness I cannot say but I shall be able, I think, to prove to them that she never forgot the circumstance, and was to the day of her death occupied in making ready for the little coffin and shroud of her 'p'tite Catherine.' My sketch of the frost bound Montmorenci was never finished, and indeed my winter sketching fell through altogether after that unhappy visit to Bonneroy. I was for weeks haunted by that terrible sight, half ludicrous, half awful, and I have, now that I am married, a strong dislike to scarlet in the gowns or head-gear of my wife and daughter."



The Story of Etienne Chezy D'Alencourt



CHAPTER I.

As my friends know, I was born an Englishman, spending the first twenty-four years of my life in England. On my twenty-fifth birthday I set foot on the shore of the great North American Continent, destined for a time to be my home. Two days afterwards I entered the office set apart for me in the handsome Government Buildings at Ottawa, and began my duties. A transfer had recently been effected between the Home and Canadian Civil Service, and I had been chosen to fill the vacant colonial post. Having no ties or obligations of any kind I had nothing to lose by the transaction except the pleasure and advantage of living in England, which, however, had ceased for one or two reasons to be dear to me.

I did not, however, remain very long in the Service. I found it pleasant work but monotonous, and receiving shortly after I went out a legacy bequeathed by a widowed aunt I had almost forgotten, determined to leave it and devote myself to study and travel. Like many Englishmen, I had taken no trouble to ascertain the real points of interest about me. I had been content with mastering and getting through my work, and with mingling out of hours with the small but thoroughly charming set I had found ready to welcome me on my arrival as the "new Englishman." On the whole, I was popular, though one great flaw—i.e.—lack of high birth and desirable home connections, weighed to an alarming extent with the dowagers of the Capital.

I had, on leaving the Service, made up my mind to study the people of the Dominion. The English Canadians were easily disposed of in this way; most of them were Scotch, and the rest appeared to be Irish. I then began on the Indian population. But this was not so easy. It seemed impossible to find even a single Indian without going some distance.

At last I unearthed one descendant of the Red man who kept a small tavern in the lower part of the town; a dirty frame tenement almost entirely hidden by an immense sign hanging outside, having the figure, heroic size of an Iroquois in full evening dress, feathers, bare legs and tomahawk.

This place was known as "Tommy's." But Tommy himself was only half an Indian, and swore such bad swears in excellent English, that I was forced to leave after a minute's inspection.

Then I began on the French-Canadians. There were plenty of them. In the Buildings, on the streets, in the markets, in shops, they were all over. Some of the most charming people I know were French-Canadians. My landlady and her husband, quiet, sober devout people, were French-Canadians.

What I wanted to find, though, was a genuine unadulterated French-Canadian of the class known as the habitans. I could recollect many dark-eyed, fierce-mustached men whom I had seen since my residence in Canada, and whom I conjectured must have been habitans. Up the Gatineau and down the St. Lawrence, it would be easy to find whom I wanted, but I preferred to wait on in town. I had many a disappointment. One day it would be a cabman, another day a clerk. Though they all looked French, they invariably turned out to be English or Scotch. My notions of hair and skin and eyes were being all turned upside down; my favorite predispositions annulled, my convictions changed to fallacies—in short I was thoroughly bewildered. I could not find my habitant. At the same time, when I did find him, he would have to know how to speak some English, for I could only speak very little French. I read it well of course, wrote it quite easily, but on essaying conversation was always seized with that instinctive horror of making a fool of myself, which besets most Englishmen when they would attempt a foreign language. Besides, the patois these people spoke was vastly different from ordinary French, as taught in schools and colleges, and what it might be like I had not in those days the faintest idea, not having read Rabelais.

The worst desillusionnement I suffered I will recount. One day I noticed an elderly man clad in corduroy trousers, shabby brown velveteen coat, conical straw hat and dirty blue shirt, lounging about a wharf I sometimes frequented where, at one time, would lay from thirty to fifty barges laden with lumber. Bargetown it might have been called; it was a veritable floating colony of French and Swede, Irish and Scotch, jabbering and smoking by day and lying quietly at night under the stars, save for the occasional jig and scrape of the fiddle of some active Milesian. Here, had I fully known it, was my chance for observation, but I was ignorant at that time of the ways of these people and did not venture among them. But the man in the velvet coat interested me. He gesticulated the whole time most violently, waved his arms about and made great use of his pipe, which he used to point with. I could not hear what he was saying for his back was turned to me and the wind carried all he said to the bargemen, as he wished it to do I suppose.

How splendidly that coat becomes him, thought I. The descendant of some fine old French settler, how superbly he carries himself!

The conical becomes on him a cocked hat and in place of ragged fringe and buttons hanging by a single string, I see the buckles and bows, the sword and cane of a by-gone age!

I made up my mind to address him, when to my disgust he got into one of the barges, which moved off slowly, transporting him, as I supposed, to his northern home.

The next morning the bell of my front door attracted my attention by ringing three or four times. Evidently my landlady was out. I sauntered to the door and found my habitant of the velveteen coat and duty blue shirt!

Gracious heaven! I was overcome! By what occult power had he been driven here to deliver himself into my hands? Before I could speak, he said:

"Av ye plaze, sorr, will yez be having any carrpets to bate? I'm taking orders against the sphring claning, sorr."

"Oh! are you?" said I. I began to feel very sorry for myself, very sorry, indeed, at this supreme instant. "Do you live near here?" I further inquired.

"Shure and I do, sorr. Jist beyant yez. I pass yez every day in the week. Me number's 415"—He was about handing me a greasy bit of paper, when I slammed the door in his face and retired to my own room to meditate on the strange accent and peculiar calling of this descendant of the "fine old French settler."

My next choice, however, proved a fortunate one. I got into a street-car one evening late in the month of March. It was the winter street-car, a great dark caravan, with a long narrow bench down either side and a mass of hay all along the middle, with a melancholy lamp at the conductor's end. Although fairly light outside, it was quite dark inside the caravan, so the conductor set about lighting the lamp. This is the way he did it. Opening the door he put his head in, looked all around, shut the door and stopped his horses. Then he opened the door again and put his head in again, keeping the door open this time that we might inhale the fresh March night air. I say we, because when I grew accustomed to the dark, I saw there was another occupant of the car, a man seated on the opposite seat a little way down. The conductor felt under the seat for something which I suppose was the can which, taken presently by him to the corner grocery before which we had stopped, came back replenished with coal oil. After he had filled the lamp, he lit in succession three matches, persistently holding them up so that they all went out one after the other. He felt in his pockets but he had no more. Then he asked me. I had none. Then he asked the other man. The other man laughed and replied in French. I did not understand what he said but saw him supply the conductor with a couple of matches. When the lamp was finally lighted I looked more closely at him. He was a working man from his attire: colored shirt, coat of a curious bronze colour much affected by the Canadian labourer, old fur cap with ears, and moccasins. At his feet stood a small tin pail with a cover. His face was pale and singularly well-cut. His hair was black and very smooth and shiny; a very slight moustache gave character to an otherwise effeminate countenance and his eyes were blue, very light blue indeed and mild in their expression. We smiled involuntarily as the conductor departed. The man was the first to speak:

"De conductor not smoke, surely," he said, showing me his pipe in one hand. "I always have the matches."

"So do I, as a general thing,". I rejoined. "One never knows when a match may be wanted in this country." I spoke rather surlily, for I had been getting dreadfully chilled while the conductor was opening and shutting the door. The man bent forward eagerly, though without a trace of rudeness in his manner.

"You do not live here, eh?"

"Oh! yes, I do now, but I was thinking of England when I spoke."

"That is far away from here, surely."

"Ah! yes," I sighed. So did the man opposite me. We were silent then for a few moments when he spoke again.

"There is a countree I should like to see and dat is France. I hear, sir, I hear my mother talk of dat countree, and I tink—I should like to go there. But that is far away from here, too far away, sure."

My heart leapt up. Here, if ever, must be the man I was in search of.

"You are a French-Canadian, I suppose?"

"Yes, Sir, I am dat."

"And where do you live?" said I.

"I work in de mill; de largess mill in the Chaudiere. You know dat great water, the fall under the bridge, dat we call the Chaudiere."

"I know it well," said I, "but I have never gone properly over any of the mills. I should like to go some day very much. Should I see you anywhere if I went down?"

He stared, but gave me the name of his mill. It belonged to one of the wealthiest lumber kings of the district. I resolved to go down the next day.

"What is your name," I asked. The man hesitated a minute before he replied,

"Netty."

"Netty!" I repeated "What a curious name! You have another name, I expect. That must only be a nickname."

"Mais oui Monsieur. My name is much longaire than dat. My whole name is Etienne Guy Chezy D'Alencourt, but no man call me dat, specially in de mill. 'Netty'—dey all know 'Netty.'"

It was a long name, truly, and a high-sounding one,—but I preferred thinking of him by it than by the meaningless soubriquet of "Netty." At the next corner he got out, touching his cap to me quite politely as he passed.

I was in high spirits that evening, for I believed I had found my habitant. I went down to the Chaudiere the following day, and got permission to go over Mr. ——'s mill I found it very interesting, but my mind was not sufficiently centered on planks and logs and booms to adequately appreciate them. I wanted "Netty." After I had made the complete round of the mill I came upon him hard at work in his place turning off planks in unfailing order as they whizzed along. The noise was deafening, of bolts and bars, and saws and chains, with the roar of the great cascade outside. He saw me and recognized me on my approach, but he could not speak for some time. It was most monotonous work, I thought. No conversation allowed, not even possible; the truly demoniacal noise, yet just outside on the other side of a small window, the open country, the mighty waters of the ever-boiling "Kettle," or Chauldron, and the steep spray-washed cliff. Standing on my toes I could, looking out of Netty's small window, discover all this. The ice was still in the river, half the fall itself was frozen stiff, and reared in gabled arches to the sky. I watched the two scenes alternately until at 6 o'clock the wheels ran down, the belts slackened and the men knocked off.

Netty walked out with me at my request, and learning that he had to return in an hour I proposed we should have a meal together somewhere and a talk at the same time. He must have been greatly astonished at a complete stranger in another walk of life fastening upon him in this manner, but he gave no hint of either surprise or fear, and maintained the same mild demeanour I had noticed in him the day before.

It was darkening rapidly and I did not know where to go for a meal. Netty told me he ought to go to St. Patrick St. I knew the locality and did not think it necessary to go all that way, "unless anybody will be waiting for you, expecting you."

"Oh! not dat I live in a boarding house, my mother—she in the countree, far from here."

"Then, 'I said,' you can go where you like. Do you know any place near here where we can get a cup of tea and some eggs? What will do for you, I daresay, and I hardly want as much."

But he knew of no reliable place and after walking about for a quarter of an hour we finally went to the refreshment room at the station and ordered beer and tea and sandwiches.

"I daresay you wonder at my bringing you out here with me. You'd get a better meal perhaps at your boarding-house. But do you know I've taken a fancy to you and, I want to see a little more of you and learn how you live, if you will kindly tell me. I am interested in your people, the French-Canadians."

This sounds very clumsily put and so it did then, but I was obliged to explain my actions in some way and what is better than the truth? Lies, I have no doubt to some people, but I was compelled to be truthful to this man who carried a gentle and open countenance with him. No gentleman could have answered me more politely than he did now.

"Sir I am astonish—oui un peu, but if there is anyting I can tell you, anyting I can show you I shall be ver glad. The mill—how do you find dat, Sir?

"I like to watch you work very much, but the noise"—

Netty laughed, showing his radiant white teeth.

"Mais oui, de noise is bad, but one soon custom to dat. I am in de mill for four year. I come from up in de north—from the Grand Calumet—do you know there, Sir?"

"That is an island is it not? Yes, I know where it is, near Allumette, but I have never been so far up on the Ottawa. And the Gatineau, that is a river, is it not? What pretty names these French ones are! Gatineau!" I repeated thinking. "That comes, I fancy having heard somewhere, from Demoiselle Marie Josephe Gatineau Duplessis, wife of one of the first French settlers. By the way your name is a curious one. Say it again."

Netty very gravely repeated, "Etienne Guy Chezy D'Alencourt."

"Was your father a native Canadian?"

"Oui Monsieur."

"The name seems familiar to me," I remarked. "I daresay if you cared to look the matter up, you might find that your great grandfather was something or other under the Intendant Bigot or Vaudreuil, or earlier still under Maisonneuve the gallant founder of Montreal. Ah! how everybody seems to have forgotten those old days. Even in Canada, you see, there is something to look back upon."

My companion seemed rather puzzled as I talked in this strain. Very probably it was over his head. I found he could neither read nor write, had been reared in the pine-clad and icy fastnesses of Grand Calumet Island all alone by his mother—an old dame now about seventy. He himself was about thirty he judged, though he was far from sure. He was a good Catholic in intention, though very ignorant of all ritual. From his youth he had been employed on the rafts and lumber-slides of the Ottawa river until his four years' session at the mill, where he had picked up the English he knew. He had made no friends he told me. The more I conversed with him the more I was impressed with his simple and polite manners, his innate good breeding, and his faith and confidence in the importance of daily toil and all honest labour. He smoked a little, drank a little, but never lost his head became obtrusively familiar, noisy or inquisitive. I felt ashamed to think how deliberately I had sought him out, to pry into the secrets and facts of his daily life, but solaced myself into the assurance that it could not at least bode him harm and it might possibly do him some service.

When we returned to the mill, I was astonished at the weirdness of the scene. The entire premises were flooded with the electric light and the men were working away, and the saws, belts and bars all in motion as if it were the middle of the day. What a pandemonium of sound and colour and motion it was! The strong resinous odor of the pine-wood mingled with the fresh air blown in from the river, and I inhaled both eagerly.

It was almost powerful enough to affect the head, and I fancied I caught myself reeling a little as I walked out on to the bridge, swaying just the least bit as the torrent of angry water swept under it I had said "Bonsoir" to my friend the Frenchman and was free to go home. But I lingered long on the heaving bridge, though it was cold and starless, and I got quite wet with the dashed-up spray.

Up the river gleamed the icy masses of the frozen fall, beyond that the northern country of the northern waters stretched away up to the North Pole with little, if any, human interruption.

Down the river on the three superb cliffs, rising high out of the water, sparkled the many lights in the Gothic windows of the buildings. On either side were the illuminated mills with their rushing logs and their myriad busy hands piling, smoothing and sawing the monsters of the forest helpless under the fetters of leather and steel.



CHAPTER II.

For the events which followed, I hold myself alone and altogether responsible. Nearly every evening I spent at the Chaudiere, either watching my new friend at his work or lounging on the bridge, and always finishing the day by walking home with him to his boarding house. Thus I got to know him very well, and I soon discovered one thing that he was far from strong. Even a life-long residence among the purifying and strengthening airs of the keen fresh North had not protected him from the insidious ravages of that dread complaint— consumption. I fancied the hereditary taint must be on his father's side, for he always alluded to his mother as being exceptionally healthy. On Sundays I accompanied him to Church in the morning at the Basilica; in the afternoons we used to walk all over the town in various directions. Of course, on all these excursions, I did most of the talking. He was a good listener, and readily improved in understanding and appreciation. Noticing that he was particularly fond of any story connected with the life of the early French in Canada, I read up all the works I could find on the subject, going often to the Parliamentary Library for that purpose, and retailing the more interesting and intelligible facts to him afterwards. Crusoe did not watch over and educate Friday any more carefully than I my mild and gentlemanly "Shantyman" in his blue shirt and canvas trowsers.

I grew at last, after three months' intimacy with him, quite to love him, and I am sure my affection was reciprocated for he ever welcomed me with a strong, clinging pressure of my hand and a smile which was a brighter one than that which his face had worn when I met him first. A strange friendship, but one which I felt to be so absorbing that I could not have endured other friends. April passed, and May, and with the hot weather Etienne, whose health gave way all at once, would have to return for a short visit to the old mother all by herself on the island of Grand Calumet.

I feared to let him go, he looked more delicate in my eyes every day, but I knew it would be good for him in many ways. So a day came that saw my friend D'Alencourt go back to his northern home. He would not ask me to go and visit him, he had too much natural pride for that, but I made up my mind to find him out, for all that. As may be supposed I was like the traditional fish out of the traditional water for some time after his departure.

I read and amused myself in any way that offered, but cared not to experiment on any more French-Canadians.

In my reading I read for two, and made notes of anything I thought would interest Etienne. One day I came across the same name as his own, borne by a certain young soldier, a sprig of the French noblesse who had followed in the train of Bigot, the dissolute and rapacious Governor of New France. I meditated long over this. The name was identical—Guy Chezy D'Alencourt. In the case of my friend the mill-hand there was simply the addition of Etienne, the first Christian name. Could he possibly be the descendant of this daring and gallant officer, of whose marriage and subsequent settling in Canada I could find no mention? The thing seemed unlikely, yet perfectly possible. I had predicted it myself. As if to fasten my thoughts even more securely on the absent Etienne that very day arrived a letter from Grand Calumet. It was addressed to me in a laboured but most distinct hand. I thought that Etienne had commissioned the priest doubtless to write for him or some other friend, but when I opened it I found to my great surprise that it was from Etienne himself and in his own handwriting, the result he told me of work at home in his Lower Town boarding-house.

I dropped the letter. He had taught himself to, write! This was the first fruit of my intimacy with him, and I hardly knew whether I was pleased or not. But I clearly saw that this night-work added to the arduous toil and late hours imposed upon him by his place in the mill had probably been the cause of undermining his bodily strength. The letter itself ran:

"Dear Sir,—The frend of Etienne D'Alenconrt, he can write you—he can send you a lettre from the Grand Calumet, his island that is green, Monsieur, and full of sweet berries. If you would come, Mossier, you would find Etienne and his mother reddy to do all they can. Still, Monsieur shall in this please alway himself, the friend and benefactor of Etienne Chezy D'Alencourt."

GRAND CALUMET ISLAND.

"It was at night, when Monsieur had gone home, that I learnt myself to write and thank him for all teaching from the books beside."

"E."

Of course, I would accept the invitation. I decided to go in a week's time and wrote to that effect. I wished to reprimand him for having overtaxed his strength as I was sure he had done in sitting up teaching himself how to write, but respect for the dear fellow's perseverance and ability restrained me.

Only when I got him again, I said to myself, I would stop that. I took with me a gun, fishing rods and tackle, a mosquito net, plenty of cigars and a hamper of tinned meats, tea, coffee and biscuits.

My journey was nearly altogether by water and I enjoyed every inch of the beautiful river. After I reached the landing stage, a place called Lichfield, I had to wait an hour before proceeding in the direction which I had found out it would be necessary to follow in order to find Etienne and his mother.

I shall never forget the delight of that one hour passed in rambling through the lonely green wood that covered the island down to the shore. The ferns were young and freshly unfurled, the moss was everywhere, green and close and soft like velvet and star-clustering, gray and yellow. The surviving flowers were the large white blossoms of the woodland lily, and the incoming Linnaea began to show the faint pink of its twin bells, afterwards to be so sweet and fragrant.

I thought of that passage in the letter which told of "the island that was green and full of sweet berries." Not a bad description for a person whom the world must perforce term an illiterate man.

When my conveyance arrived, it proved to be a stage of antiquated type and I suffered horribly during the journey of three hours. At the end of that time, I was set down with my luggage at the gate of a small log hut, with a little garden in front, bordered with beautiful pink and green stones, the like of which I had never seen before. A snake fence ran in front of this and on two sides, at the back was a thick wood.

Etienne was ready for me at which I rejoiced, fearing to make myself known to the dame his mother.

Once more I felt that honest and affectionate hand grasp, once more I met those clear and steady blue eyes, and I noted the flush of pride which overspread his face when I told him that I had received his letter and marvelled at it.

"Mossieu know so much and Etienne so ver little." But when the flush had died away, I was pained exceedingly to see the pallor of his cheeks and the prominence of his high cheekbones. His walk was unsteady too, he put his feet down, I noticed, as if they were light instead of solid supports for his body, a sure sign of great physical weakness. My worst fears were realized when I saw on the deal table in the front room, furnished with home-made rugs drawn from woolen rags dyed all colors and some plain deal furniture stained brown, a little pile of books. There were two copy-books, two dictionaries, a small "Histoire de Canada" and some illustrated magazines. I saw that he could read, too, pretty well, for he presently drew my attention to a very old book indeed, that lay on a shelf, a little Roman Catholic missal with tarnished gold clasps and scarlet edges.

"Dat was belong to my fader," he said, "for many a year; and it was from his fader he get it."

I looked at it eagerly all over. The fly-leaf bore no inscription, but up in one corner, in faded red ink, was something that looked like a monogram with a device underneath. I would have examined it at once but that Etienne was anxious to read me a little of the Latin which he had picked out with infinite patience, I should think. I promised to help him a little occasionally, but told him that he was not looking well and had better be content with ignorance in this lovely summer weather.

"When the winter comes and you are back at the mill, you can study as much as you like."

The old dame was sallow and sunken from a life of incessant hard work. The climate itself, so changeable as well as inclement in these northern wilds, is enough to pinch the face and freeze the blood, although at the time of my visit it was hot, intensely hot for so early in the summer. Moreover, the old dame was not given to talking. So taciturn a Frenchwoman I never met elsewhere. They are usually characterized by a vivacious loquacity which is the seal of their nationality. But this one was silent in the extreme and had, as her son told me, never once held a conversation with him on any subject whatever. Of his father he knew literally only this fact—that be had been a "shantyman" in his time too, and was killed by a strained rope striking him across the middle. Etienne did not remember him. The time sped on. They made me as comfortable as they could in the front or "best" room, but, when I thought it would not offend them, I slept outside—"couchant a la belle etoile" as Rousseau has it— and beautiful nights those were I spent in this manner. We had plenty of fruit—wild strawberries and raspberries—pork and beans and potatoes forming the staple articles of diet. There was no cow, no horse, no dog belonging to the house. Fish we could get ourselves in plenty, and eggs made their appearance in a farmer's wagon about twice a week. Etienne and I spent entire days out-of-doors, shooting, fishing, walking, reading. I tried to take his mind off his books, but it was of no use. He had got so attached to his studies and new pursuits in life that one day he startled me by asserting that he did not intend to go back to the mill in future. I remonstrated gently with him, reminding him that as yet his education was very incomplete, that few situations of the kind he probably aspired to would be open to him for some time to come, and that in the meantime he must suffer from want of money, and thus be the cause of seeing his mother suffer as well. But he startled me further in reply by stating that he knew himself to be slowly dying of consumption and that he would shortly be of little use to anyone. His wish was to leave Canada altogether and die in—France! France, the country of his dreams, the goal of his dying ambition, the land of the golden fleur de lis, of the chivalrous soldiers, the holy women and the pious fathers who colonized the land of his birth!

I remonstrated with him as I have said. I expostulated in every key; I took his mother into my confidence as well as I could since she knew not a word of English; I laughed at him, I wept over him, I endeavoured by every argument in my power to make him change my mind, but—

I failed. Then when I understood how firmly his mind was set upon this extraordinary idea, I made up my mind to accompany him, in fact, not to leave him at all until he either grew wiser and stronger, or else died the death he predicted for himself. I found that the old dame had quite a store of money saved by her little by little every year from Etienne's earnings, and from what she made by selling the rugs I mentioned. These sold for a dollar and upwards according to the size. Putting some of my own to this fund of hers, I calculated she had enough to go upon for at least a year. Wants are few in that district. Then I turned my attention to Etienne. He was growing worse; he would lie for hours reading or attempting to read with great beads of perspiration mounting on his brow. The heat was excessive and proved very bad for him. I judged he would be better in town and after I had been on the island for about two months, I begged him to return with me. I promised him that once there, I would not leave him for a day, and would even consider the possibility of taking him across the ocean. He still maintained his calm and perfect manners and insisted upon paying his fare down the river which I let him do, knowing that soon his stock of money would be exhausted and he would then be at my mercy. No sign of cupidity was apparent in his demeanor, yet I wondered how he ever thought to reach France unless I paid his way. Like all consumptives, he had a trick of rallying now and then and appearing better than he really was. This occurred on our arrival in town. He took long walks with me again daily and seemed so much stronger that I again dared to suggest the propriety of his returning to the mill, but to no purpose. He drooped at the very thought, and I perceived that his apparent recovery was but a delusion, I soon saw he was weaker than ever. But whenever he was at all able, he persisted in reading what he could understand and really his progress was a marvel to me. So it came about that one evening, towards the close of September where we had sometimes to light the lamp as early as half-past six, I returned to my rooms about that hour of the day (we shared rooms together, so fond had I grown of him, and I trust, he of me) to find him poring over the little Catholic Missal.

"In this light? This will never do. And you could not light the lamp yourself, my poor Etienne!"

When it was lighted, I saw indeed from his weak and excited appearance that he was unable to do anything for himself. Lying on my sofa, he had in one hand the scarlet-edged missal, and in the other the book I have referred to, which contained a short sketch of Guy Chezy D'Alencourt the handsome and reckless lieutenant of La Nouvelle France.

He could hardly speak but through his gasping I could gather that he wished me to examine the words in the corner of fly-leaf I had once noticed before and believed to be a monogram. I quieted him a little, then bringing the lamp-light to bear upon the faded ink, I was able to decipher the device, which comprised a crown, three fleurs-de-lis under, and a lamb bearing a banner, with the letters I.H.S. upon it.

"The arms of Rouen!" I exclaimed "and above them, some initials, yes, a monogram!"

My companion sat up in his excitement.

"Ah! dat is what I cannot make quite out! Tree letter—oui, vite, cher mosdieu, vite!"

I had to look very closely indeed to decipher these, but with the aid of a small lens I found them to be "G. C. D'A."

There could be little doubt but that Etienne was the lineal descendant of Guy Chezy D'Alencourt, native of Rouen, who came to Canada in the same year as Bigot. I told him so and wondered what his thoughts could be, for clasping my hands with as much force as he possessed—and that is at times a wonderful force in the clasp of the dying—he said with a great effort:

"If dat is so, mossieu, if dat is so, I have O le bon Dieu—I have—mossieu, I have—O if dat is true"—

He fell back and I caught no more. The excitement proved too much for my poor friend. When I spoke to him, he was unconscious and he never fully recovered his senses. Alas! he lay in a few weeks, beneath the sod of Grand Calumet Island, and France is ignorant of the fact that a true aristocrat and simple-hearted gentleman existed in the humble person of my friend the habitant, Etienne Guy Chezy D'Alencourt, alias "Netty."



Descendez a L'Ombre, ma Jolie Blonde.

The Honourable Bovyne Vaxine Vyrus refused to be vaccinated. Stoutly, firmly and persistently refused to be vaccinated. Not even the temptation of exposing to the admiring gaze of a medical man the superb muscles and colossal proportions of an arm which had beaten Grace and thrashed (literally) Villiers of the Guards, weighed with him.

"It's deuced cool!" he said, to his cousin Clarges, of Clarges St. Mayfair, a fair, slight fellow, with a tiny yellow moustache. "Haven't I been six times to India, and twice to Africa; that filthy Algiers, you remember, and Turkey, and New Orleans, and Lisbon, and Naples? and now, when I was done only eight years ago at home, here I am to be done again, where, I am sure, it all looks clean enough and healthy! It makes me ill, and I won't be done; laid up for a week and lose all the fun I came for!"

"Bovey, though you are the strongest fellow in England, you're no less a coward!"

Young Clarges looked up as he spoke, seriously: "I shall be done!"

"You? Well, so I should expect from a baby like you, Arthur! You will never grow up, never learn to think for yourself! Now let me alone on the subject, and let us look up this country place we were told about!" But Clarges was not easily silenced.

"Think of Lady Violet, Bovey! If anything were to happen to you out here, and the children, Bovey,—Rex and Florence, you know!"

"Oh! cut it, now, Arthur; I tell you it's of no use!"

Young Clarges looked out across the river, and bit the tiny yellow moustache. "Then I won't be done, either!" said he to himself. "It's borne in upon me that one of us has got to get this accursed thing, and if I can prevent it, it shan't be Bovey!" What a strange scene it was beneath, around, above and opposite them! Beneath flowed the river, solid with sawdust, the yellow accumulation of which sent up a strong resinous smell that almost made them giddy; to the left the tumultuous foam of the Chaudiere cast a delicate veil of spray over the sharp outlines of the bridge traced against a yellow sky; to the right, the water stretched away in a dull gray expanse, bordered by grim pines and flat sterile country. Around them the three mighty cliffs on which the Capital is built, above them the cold gray of an autumnal sky, and opposite them the long undulations of purplish brown hills that break the monotony of the view, and beyond which stretch away to an untrodden north the wastes and forests of an uncleared continent.

"Are we looking due north, now, Arthur, do you know?"

"I suppose so," returned Clarges. He was astride a cannon and still biting the tiny moustache. "Yes, by the direction of the sunset we must be, I suppose. I say, if we are, you know, I should like to be able to tell between what two trees—it would have to be between two of those trees there—we should have to walk to get to the North Pole."

The Hon. Bovyne looked around suddenly and laughed. He was fishing apparently in his pockets for a paper or something of the kind, as he had a number of letters in his hand, looking them over.

"What two trees? Where? Arthur, you are a donkey. What are you talking about?"

"I say," returned Clarges, "that it is perfectly true that as we sit here, facing due north, all we have to do is to walk straight over this river—"

"On the sawdust?"

"Certainly, over those hills and between two of those trees in order to get to the North Pole. Curious, isn't it? If you look awfully close, real hard, you know, you can almost count their branches as they stand up against the sky. Like little feathers—huff-f-f-f—one could almost blow them away!"

The Honorable Bovyne laughed again. Clarges was a mystery to him, as to many others. Half-witted he sometimes called him, though on other occasions he stood in awe of his bright, candid, fearless nature, and his truthful and reckless tongue.

"I say," went on Clarges excitedly, shading his eyes with his hand. "There are two trees out there in a straight line from this very cannon that—that I should know again, Bovey! Do look where I point now like a good fellow. Don't you see there, following the chimney of that big red place, factory or other, right in a line with that at the very top of the hill at its highest point, two trees that stand a little apart from the others and have such funny branches—Oh! you must be able to see them by those queer branches! One crooks out on one side just as the other does on the other tree. That isn't very lucid, but you see what I mean can't you? They make a sort of— of—lyre shape."

The Hon. Bovyne shaded his eyes with his hand and looked out over the river and distant hills. "I see a line of trees, feathery trees, you aptly call them my dear Arthur, but I can't make out your particular two. How is it possible, at such a distance, to see anything like a lyre of all things? Come along, I've found the address I wanted. It reads most peculiarly. It seems there are still a great number of French people around here, in fact, all over this Province which they sometimes call Lower Canada. Do you remember much of your French?" I spoke a lot in Algiers of course but I fancy it isn't much like this jargon. Our destination is or appears to be, c/o Veuve Peter Ross, Les Chats, pronounced Lachatte, so Simpson told me.

"Who told you about the place?" enquired young Clarges getting off the cannon? "Simpson? What sort of a fellow is he?"

"Who? Simpson?" said his cousin in turn. "Um—not bad. Been out here too long, though. Awfully quiet, goes in for steady work and takes hardly any exercise. I wonder why it is the fellows here don't walk more! New country and all that; I should have thought they would all go in for country walks and shooting and sports of all kinds. They don't, you know, from some reason or other. It can't be the fault of the country."

"You forget the roads, Bovey, and the fences, and the interminable distances and the immense rivers, and the long winter. I say, it looks like snow to-night, doesn't it?"

"What do you know about snow!" rejoined the Hon. Bovyne. "Let us get on, there's a good fellow—confound you! don't stare at those imaginary trees any longer, but come along."

Certainly young Clarges was possessed with the queerest fancy about those trees. "I say, Bovey, they were funny, though, to strike me like that, out of all the others! I am sure I should know them again. Perhaps some day we'll take a fly and go out there—I wonder if there's an inn? Does what's her name, your old Scotch lady, keep an inn, or is it a farm we're going to?"

"Scotch? Why do you say Scotch? She's French, I tell you. Simpson says she can't speak a word of English."

"But 'Peter Ross' is Scotch, isn't it? At least you can't make it French, however you twist it"

"I'm not anxious to twist it. Don't you see, Arthur, she is evidently a Frenchwoman who married a man called Peter Ross; she is the veuve, widow, you know! of the lamented Scotchman. Now do you understand? But it is peculiar."

"Very," said Clarges. "When do we start?"

"There's a train to-morrow morning at eight o'clock, but I thought we had better hire a trap, and a man to bring the trap back, and put all our things, tents and so on, into it, and go out comfortably so as to see the country."

"All right!" said Clarges. "By Jove, what a splendid night it's going to be, stars out already, Bovey! Don't you hope it'll be like this tomorrow? Shall we camp out the first night and think of—of— Lady Violet by our camp fire, and Rex and Florence—how they'd like to see us, wouldn't they? And they can't, you know, they're three thousand miles away, trying to make out each other's faces in the November fog, eh! Bovey? I say, what shall we get to eat out there, at Lachatte, you know, the country always makes me desperately hungry."

"Oh! we shall do well enough. Simpson says she is a capital old woman, lives entirely alone; will cook for us, wait on us, make us pancakes, I expect, and give us plenty of that stuff we had this morning at the hotel"

"Sweet stuff?" asked Clarges. "I know. Syrup, maple syrup, that'll do."

Simpson, the authority, thrice quoted by the elder of the two Englishmen, appeared at dinner with them that evening. He was a hard-working, stodgy son of person who had come out to the Canadian Civil Service fifteen years, ago, lived much by himself until he took a wife out of a Canadian village, a phlegmatic, stolid, unimaginative sort of a girl, who was nevertheless a good wife and an excellent housekeeper. Simpson sniffed at the dinner. It wasn't as good as his own. He felt ill at ease in the presence of the two men, whose airy talk and loud laughter struck him with a keen sense of its novelty. They joked about everything. Clarges particularly was in high feather. The wine, which came partly from the hotel and partly from the Hon. Bovyne's hamper, flowed often and freely, and Simpson, who was a very moderate fellow, wondered at the quantity his friends seemed to be able to imbibe. "Without showing any traces of it, either," he said to himself. "All this vivacity is natural; I remember the type; in fact, I was something like it myself ten or twelve years ago."

After dinner, Clarges rushed up stairs and down again with a small silk plush packet of photographs tied with ribbons. The men were in the smoking room.

"I say, I want Simpson to see Lady Violet, Bovey."

"All right, and the children too? You sentimental ass, Arthur!" Clarges laughed. It was a funny laugh, a kind of inane ripple that nevertheless tickled everybody who heard it. "But it's too smoky here. Come up stairs to the drawing room. There's a jolly big drawing room with a piano, and we can say what we want to, everyone stares here so!"

"I should think they would," said Simpson quietly. "Why do you get yourself up like that, simply because you're in Canada? A knitted waistcoat, three sizes too large for you—"

"That's to admit of heavy underclothing," said Clarges, not in the least perturbed. "Knickerbockers," continued Simpson, "that are certainly one size too small; a cap that looks like a hangman's, and a coat that must have come off Praed St."

The Hon. Bovyne laughed long and loud. "Oh, Arthur, Arthur!" he said. But young Clarges did not mind in the least. Indeed, had he but known it, and be it remembered to his merit that he did not know it, he made a fair and manly picture as he stood under the light of the chandelier. His slim, well-knit figure was more prepossessing than the herculean proportions of his cousin, "the strongest man in England;" his crisp fair hair brushed boyishly up on one side and his well-trimmed moustache of silky yellow, his keen gray eyes and delicate features, all went far in point of attractiveness, especially when added to these mere physical details, rang the infectious laugh, clear, hearty and youthful, and spoke the natural, honest, unrestrained tongue.

In the drawing room Clarges established himself on a sofa between the other two. "Now, Simpson," he said, "you must excuse me calling you Simpson so freely, by the way, but you know, Bovey always calls you Simpson—you don't mind, do you? You bang away at my clothing all you like, and in return I'll call you Simpson. Now I'm going to show you Lady Violet. You know who she is, she is Bovey's wife, and the loveliest woman in England. Loveliest woman in England, look at that!" Clarges held up very carefully, out at arm's length, a very fine photograph of an undeniably beautiful woman. "Bovey's wife." he ejaculated again. "You never saw her, so you don't know what beauty is, do you? But here's the next best thing, her photograph, and such a photograph! Now, you be good, as we say to the children, and I'll show you that again after all the others." Next he showed him in a sort of ecstasy, Bovey's children.

"Rex and Florence," he said, in an awe-struck tone. Bovey laughed, so did Simpson. So would anybody have done.

"What are you laughing at," said young Clarges, solemnly. "Oh, at me! that's all right, everybody laughs at me. I knew it couldn't be the children. Now here's another lovely girl," and then there was another and still another, and then a group in hunting attire just after the breakfast; then pretty interiors with dainty rooms and women and children and dogs, a capital likeness of Fred Burnaby, Vyrus' fellow-officer, autographs of Gordon and Wolseley, a garden party at Clarges Mount, a water-party at Richmond, photograph's and sketches taken in Algiers, Cairo, Damascus, Bombay and Edinburgh. Simpson sat through all this slightly bored and confused. What had he to do with this kind of life? Once he had had some gleams of it, it is true, but that was years ago, before his modest little establishment was in existence, presided over by the plain, but virtuous Matilda of his later days.

"Well, now," said he, preparing to take his leave, "is there anything further you want to know about your plans, for I suppose I shall scarcely see you again before you leave if you get off tomorrow morning as you intend. One thing—of course you've been vaccinated?"

The Hon. Bovyne muttered, "bah!" Clarges began putting the photographs away, all but Lady Violet.

"Then you haven't been done, eh?" said Simpson, interrogatively. "I would if I were you. You can't tell where you're going or whom you'll meet. Why, you can 'do' yourself if you object to a medical man fussing around."

"Can you?" said Clarges.

"I don't object," said Bovey, loftily; "but I must say I think it is making a ridiculous and most unnecessary fuss about the matter. Why, there are half a dozen diseases as virulent as the small-pox stalking about in every large town, and we don't take those! Why should we take the small-pox when we don't take the cholera, or the— the—"

"Yes," observed Simpson, in his quiet manner, "I thought you would stick for want of details. The fact is, that you can inoculate for small-pox, and you can't as yet, for cholera or leprosy, and so wise people accept the fact, the revelation if you will, and get vaccinated. However, as far as your immediate surroundings go, you're safe enough. Old Mrs. Ross will do all she can for you, and it isn't far, only twenty two miles from town after all. You'll be walking in in a day or two for another tent or a barrel of whiskey. Nothing like whiskey, Canadian whiskey, out in camp on cold nights." Simpson got up.

"I wonder," said he, suddenly, "how you escaped being done on the train. You came up from Quebec via St. Martin's Junction, didn't you?"

"Oh! your importunate Inspector did make an effort on my behalf, but I was firm. Nearly had a lodging in the Police Station though, but I told him who we were and swore to having marks the size of flat-irons on both arms, so he let me go."

"And you," said Simpson, turning to Clarges. "Me! oh! I shall be done. I say, couldn't I walk out with you now and see a doctor about it? I believe I will, Bovey, if you can spare me. For look you, Simpson, I am the plaything of his leisure hours, a kind of Yorick, you know, and he might be dull."

The Hon. Bovyne looked grave for a second, "I believe I should be dull without you, dear boy, though you are a crank. Let me see, how old are you, Arthur?"

"Twenty-two," answered Clarges. "Good heaven!" exclaimed the Hon. Bovine, "and I am getting perilously near to forty. We'll change the subject. I'm very sleepy. Don't expect to find me up when you come in, Arthur; to-morrow night, remember, we may be sleeping on the cold ground, I shall get all the rest I can to-night." Clarges and the other man took their leave.

"Once more, Bovey," said the former, "won't you be done? Simpson, make him! See here, look once more at Lady Violet, speak with her lips, look with her eyes—the loveliest woman in England!"

"Go and get 'done,' as you call it, for heaven's sake, and let me alone!" was all he got in reply.

But Clarges did not get done. He had an idea and this was his idea: To walk to some doctor recommended by Simpson and procure an instrument suitable for the purpose, and the necessary material, and to vaccinate his cousin himself. The first part was easy enough. Simpson vaguely wondering at his light-hearted talk, left him at a doctor's surgery door, and Clarges, who could always get what he wanted from anybody in any part of the world, soon persuaded the doctor to give him a "point" and all necessary instructions.

"A small lancet is really a better thing," said that gentleman, "but you will manage all right, I daresay. We must really take every precaution we can. Good evening."

All this was easy; now arose the difficulty, how best to tackle Bovey.

"He's such a giant of a fellow," thought Clarges. "But if he is only asleep as he hinted he would be, there'll not be much difficulty. What will he do when he finds it out in the morning, supposing I am successful in operating upon him to-night? What a suggestive word! I am quite the surgeon. But I'll do it—Arthur Clarges, see that you do do it, by all you hold dear and sacred in old England!"

On his return, however, to the hotel, he found that his cousin was clearly wide-awake again.

"Hang it all!" he said to himself, "why isn't he asleep?" But the Hon. Bovyne was not in the least sleepy. He rallied Arthur on his poor arm but fortunately did not ask to look at it. He ordered up a sherry cobbler apiece and brought out some of his rarest weeds. "I say, what do you think of Simpson, Bovey?" said Clarges, suddenly.

"Think? why, that there's nothing in him to think about."

"Did you know he was married?"

"No; is he?" Bovey was always laconic.

"Yes, and he has four children. Just think, four! Two boys and two girls."

"How interesting!" The two men smoked silently for a few minutes, then Clarges said, "It must be a beautiful thing to be married, you know."

"Well, I ought to know," returned his cousin.

Clarges put his cigar down and went on. "To have somebody that belongs to you, and to know that you belong to somebody; that's marriage, and I think it must be very beautiful. Of course, you belong to other people too, just the same, and they belong to you, but not so much, not in the same way. You don't go to church all in a tremble with your father and your mother, or your sister or your brother. You don't wear a ring—a beautiful, great broad band of gold, you know, always shining there on your finger—or you don't put one on for anybody else save just the person that belongs to you in that way, in the way of marriage, you know. And to be able to think wherever you are, 'Well, there is that person, anyway, thinking of me, waiting for me; the whole world doesn't matter if that person is really there, anywhere, thinking of me, waiting for me.' Now, you know, I'll never feel that, never, in this world. What good is there in me? I may be Arthur Clarges, of Clarges, of course, but without money, that means nothing. I say, Bovey, it's rather ghastly, but it's perfectly true. I haven't a single soul in the world but you and Lady Violet to think of me at all, or for me to think of."

"I don't suppose you have," said the Hon. Bovyne, thoughtfully. "You are a lone beggar, Arthur, but a cheery one nevertheless."

"So you see," Clarges went on, "If in accompanying you around the world in search of new pleasures and exciting experiences, anything happens to me, you know, Arthur Clarges, of Clarges, nobody need mind. There isn't anybody to mind."

"All this because Simpson has got four children! Well, I hope you'll get married yet, Arthur, you queer fish, and have six, two more than Simpson. I know what you are driving at, however. You think me a selfish brute. You can't understand how I can leave Lady Vi., and the two kids, and go off annually on tours of exploration and so forth. I tell you, I am the better for it, and she is the better for it, and nobody is any the worst for it, unless it be yourself. Men who have knocked about as I have done, will continue to knock about as long as they live. In the army, out of the army, all the same. Lady Vi. understands me, and I her, and you forget, Arthur, that you are very—young."

"Then may I never get any older," said Charles, almost rudely.

Not long afterwards his cousin, slightly heavy with wine, went to bed. Clarges, abnormally wakeful, tried to read Bell's Life which lay before him and waited until Bovey was fast asleep. They occupied the same room, a large double-bedded one, which opened into a bathroom and parlour en suite. When he was perfectly certain that his cousin was sound asleep, so sound that "a good yelp from the county pack, and a stirring chorus of 'John Peel' by forty in pink could not wake him," thought Clarges, the latter undertook his delicate task and accomplished it. He did it quickly and skilfully with a tiny lancet he found in his cousin's well-appointed travelling bag. Bovey never stirred. Clarges next undertook to "do" himself. Then a strange thing happened. He had gone to the glass and bared his left arm when a sudden faintness overcame him. He tried to shake it off and sat down. Presently it left him and he felt quite as usual. Then he made a second attempt. The same thing occurred again. This time it was worse, and sight and strength failing, he sank on his own bed, fainting. By a tremendous effort he prevented entire unconsciousness from taking place and lay there half dressed and tremulous.

"Well, I am a fool! I can't help it. I can't try any more to-night, for I am as weak and sleepy—if I can get up and undress it's as much as I am capable of. But Bovey's all right. There's Lady Violet"— turning his eyes to the photograph he had stuck in the looking glass frame—"she'd thank me if she knew." Sweet Lady Vi—so good to all around her—so good to me—dear Lady Vi, the loveliest woman in England!

When Clarges awoke he was chilled and dazed, couldn't remember where he was and what he had done. When he did recollect, he rose quietly, extinguished the gas and made the room as dark as possible, in hopes that Bovey might outsleep himself in the morning. Then he went to bed properly, putting as a final precaution, his watch an hour in advance. It thus happened that by Clarges' watch it was a quarter past ten when he awoke. He rose first and bullied his cousin to that extent that the latter tumbled out of bed and flung on his clothes without indulging in his usual bath. At eleven the trap was due and Bovey was all on fire, bundled his things around recklessly and swore a little at Clarges for keeping him up the night before. Clarges was nervous, but up to the present time was master of the situation. At breakfast, Bovey discovered the mistake, but attributed it to Clarges' carelessness in such matters aggravated by a probable bad arm.

"Why I took your watch for an authority instead of my own, I don't know," said he. "But last night I thought you were the clearer of the two, in fact, I don't recollect winding mine at all, and it seems now that you were the delinquent." "Yes, I must have been," said Clarges, self-reproachfully.

At eleven the trap came, and by noon they were half-way to their destination. The road winding higher and higher as it followed the magnificent curves of the Gatineau was very beautiful, and revealed at each turn a superb panorama of water, and wood and sky. For a long time the Buildings were visible, towering over trees and valleys. Once the sun came out and lit up the cold, gray scene.

"Pull up, Johnny," said the Hon. Bovyne, "I want to see this. Why, its immense, this is! Arthur, how's your arm?"

But Clarges was evidently struck with something. "I say, over there, is where we were yesterday, Bovey, I can imagine I see the very spot, cannon and all."

"Just as then you imagined you saw a couple of trees here, eh? Now go along, Johnny, and sit down, Arthur. It doesn't agree with you to be vaccinated. I'm afraid you're too imaginative already my boy. By the way, how is your arm?"

"Its a novel situation," thought Clarges. "He's the one, not me. Its his arm, not mine. But my turn will come to-night; pretty soon he'll find it out for himself."