"Do not fear that I am proposing anything too sombre, Chamilly: It is an agreeable life. There is no demand for your being shut up in the place; and one can surround himself very conveniently with his private tastes."

But I did not feel the scheme repugnant. The house and locality had struck me before as a comfortable retirement to prosecute the study of Art, "and perhaps, I might bring here"—(I dared not put her name into syllables in such a flight of hope.)

"You will find, though, more than you anticipate to do"

I looked up.

"And greater undertakings to accomplish properly than I have been strong enough to meet."

"What do you mean, sir?" I enquired.

"These poor simple people," he said, "have many enemies, and they sometimes do not know their friends. You are their hereditary guardian. Instead of mediaeval protection, you must give them that of a nineteenth century Chief."

"A nineteenth century Chief?" I could not but exclaim, "What is a nineteenth century Chief?"

"The people's friend and leader."

"Yes, but what am I to do, sir?"

"In the first place, discourage litigation and its miseries. Offer mediation wherever you can. Keep drink out of the villages. Preserve the ancient forms of courtesy. Grow timber, and introduce improvements in farming."

He spoke of other things. I was to fight especially the Ultramontanes and the demagogues. My father was an uncompromising Liberal of the old school.

"But what can I do about this?" I asked, my artistic skies beginning to cloud with the prospect.

"You can speak! I know you will make an orator. You will be a member at Quebec; and then you can effect something. I mourn over the state of affairs, but I do not fear for the true end; and I yearn, as if across the grave to see the vigor of another generation of us pressing into the struggle. Remember our ancient motto," and he laid his finger on the little coat of arms on the iron box, with its scroll: "Sans Hesiter."

I did not answer him, but sat thinking, while gathering up the documents into the box, he carried it back to the office.

END OF THE FIRST PART OF THE BOOK OF ENTHUSIASMS.

When Chrysler arrived next morning at the break in Chamilly's manuscript, the sun was rising high and shining upon the river and front hedge, and on the green lawn before the Ontarian's window, and he could see Haviland walking backwards and forwards meditatively across the grass waiting for him to descend to breakfast. He hurried down, and as he came to his host, remarked, "The drift of your story is not quite clear to me."

"I wish I had the sequel written," the young man replied, "I am trying to lead on to a great matter."



BOOK II.



CHAPTER XVI.

A POLITICAL SERMON.

"In the crowded old Cathedral all the town were on their knees."

—D'ARCY MCGEE

"That's not preaching la morale. And it's actionable!" a vigorous man energetically gesticulated among the crowd in the Circuit Court Room.

The subject of excitement was a sermon by the Cure.

Messire L'Archeveque, of Dormilliere, was in most respects an unimpeachable priest. He ministered to the sick faithfully, after the rites of the Church, he gave to the poor, he rendered unto Caesar. But—but, he hated Liberalism. On this point he was rabid; and as his Reverence was a stout, apoplectic person, of delivery and opinions not accustomed to criticism, it sometimes laid him somewhat open to ridicule.

How the sermon was delivered, matters little to us. Suffice it that it was a bold denunciation of the Liberals, named by their party name, and that there were some strong expressions in it:

"My brothers—when the priest speaks, it is not he who speaks,—but God."

"My brethren, when the Priest commands you, it is the Church which commands you; and the voice of the Church is the voice of the Eternal. ... Look at France. Remind yourselves what she was in the centuries of her faith, devout and glorious, the lily among the kingdoms of the earth, because she was the Eldest Daughter of the Church. Behold her at this time, among the nations, dying in the terrible embraces of FREE-MASONRY!!"

"Take warning by her, brethren. Follow her not! It is the Liberals who have done this. Crush out the seeds of that doctrine! Let the spirits which call themselves by this name never have peace among you. Avoid them! Distrust them! Have nothing to do with that people! May the wrath of our Father descend upon them, the damnation of the infernal dungeons! and—" he brought down his book's edge loudly on the pulpit,—"the excommunication of the Church of God, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman!"

The book was taken up once more, and slamming it down again with all its force, the good cure turned and waddled from the pulpit.

* * * * *

Since the first moments when Chrysler's eyes rested on the village of Dormilliere from the steamer's deck, the observations of the place and its people were to him a piquant and suggestive study.

He had been there but a few hours when he discovered its central fact. The Central Fact of Dormilliere was the Parish Church.

First, it was the centre in prominence as a feature of the view, for with the exception of the Convent school, no one of the string of cottages and buildings, stone, brick and wood, which constitute the single street of the place, presumed to rival it even in size, but all of them disposed themselves about it, and, as it were, rested humbly in its protection, particularly the Convent school itself, a plain red-brick building, which stood by its side.

It was also the centre by position; being situate about mid-way between the ends of the long street, standing back commanding the only square, which was flanked on its two sides by the sole other edifices of public character, the priest's residence, or presbytere, and the friars' school for boys.

It is needless to say that the Church was the central fact architecturally also. Large and of ancient look, its wrinkled, whited, rude-surfaced face was impressive, notwithstanding that it was relieved by but little ornament; for its design was from the hand of some by-gone architect of broad and quiet ability.

Be in no hurry, friend reader, but let us look it over, for it is an antiquity, and worthy of the title.

The facade consisted of a great gable, flanked by two square towers. The gable roof had a steep mediaeval pitch, and was pinnacled by the statue of a saint. A small circular window was set in the angle, and looked like the building's eye. Three larger windows and the great door came below in the broad front at their proper stages of the design; and in the centre a cut stone oval, bore the date "1761," in quaint figures—a date that seemed a monument of the fatal storming of Quebec, just over, and the final surrender of Montreal, just to be made—the end of French dominion over three quarters of North America!

A number of details afforded entertainment to the curious eye. There were the rude capitals "St. J.B." and "St. F.X." on the keystone of the round-arched side doors at the foot of the towers. There were the series of circular windows leading one above another, on the towers, up to the charming belfry spire which crowned them. There were high up in the air on the latter, the fleur-de-lys and cock weather-vane, symbolical of France. Nine gables too, had the church, of various sizes. Its roof was shingled and black, and where it sloped down in the rear, a little third belfry pointed its spire. A stout, stone sacristy grew out behind. A low pebbled platform, two steps high, extended in front, and had a crier's pulpit upon it. And amid these varied features, the body of the church on all sides cloaked itself in its black roof with a mien of dignity, and its graceful tin-covered belfries, fair in their mediaeval patterns and pointing sweetly to heaven, glinted far over the leagues of the River.

Yet it was not alone as to prominence of appearance, situation, and architectural attractiveness—that Dormilliere found its centre in the Parish Church. No relation of life, no thought, no interest, no age in years, but had its most intimate relation with it. There alike weary souls crept to pray for consolation, and vain minds sought the pomp of its ecclesiastic spectacles and ceremonies; the bailiff cried his law-sales before it, the bellman his advertisements; there was holy water for the babe, holy oil for the dying, masses for the departed; the maiden and the laborer unveiled their secret lives in its confessional-box; and all felt the influence, yea some at that period, the sternly asserted rule, of the Master of the institution.

Chamilly went with Chrysler to it on the first morning of his stay in Dormilliere, which was a Sunday. As they approached it through the square, filled with the tied teams of the congregation, a beadle, gorgeous in livery of black and red, with knee-breeches and cocked hat, emerged from the side door and proceeded to drive the groups of stragglers gently inwards with his staff, as a shepherd guides a flock.

Haviland looked at his friend, smiling.

"You are not in Ontario," he said.

"Clearly not," replied Chrsyler, "In my democratic Province, such a proceeding would be impossible."

When they entered, the gorgeous beadle led them soberly up one of the aisles,—carrying his staff in a stately manner—to the seigneurial pew, a large, high enclosure, with a railing about the top like a miniature balustrade, and a coat-of-arms painted on the door; and into this he ushered them with grave form, and the Ontarian vividly began to realize that he was in a feudal land: after which he took a glance about him.

Filling the great phalanx of soiled and common pews in the nave, were the first representative mass of French-Canadians whom he had been brought to face. "Here," he thought, "are those who speak the partner voice in our Confederation, and whom we should know as brothers."

A few stood out in the quality of parts of the whole, but only to emphasize it as a mass. Above the crowd, he marked, for instance, the sober, responsible faces of the Marguilliers. A girl's face too, particularly attracted him—that of one who sat beside the Sisters attendant over the convent children in their gallery. No romantic seraphieness glowed upon her features or her form; but she was following the service with the light of simply such spiritual earnestness and intelligence about her that she seemed to sit there a superior being. But it was the faces of the laborer and the solid farmer that oftenest dotted the surface of the sea of heads. So typical to him were the features and responses of all, that he could not shake off the feeling that it was not individuals he saw, but a People.

A People! No flippant thing is it to feel oneself in the presence of so great an Organism. If some hour of one man's pain, or of the grandeur of some other one, may be thought-worthy things, how reverently must breath be hushed as we stand in presence of a race's life, and think we hear its sorrows, cries and voices! Ever, thou People's Song, must thou stir the heart that listens, sweeping its tenderest chords of pity, and chanting organ music to its aspirations.

The cure's sermon following as before detailed, the congregation appeared oppressed with its denunciation, but it produced, no effect whatever upon Haviland, the Liberal leader, whose countenance rested its dark eyes on the tablets of his ancestors in the transept wall before him.



CHAPTER XVII.

ZOTIQUE'S RECEPTION.

A noble looking man of fifty years, stood waiting to meet them as they made their way out. Of olive complexion, small cherry mouth and features, yet fine head and person, and smiling benignly, he advanced a step before Chrysler noticed him.

"Salut, M'sieu L'Honorable," bowed Haviland.

"Good-day, Chamilly," he replied quickly, without ceasing to smile directly towards the other man and holding out his hand.

Chrysler looked closer at his features.

"Ah, Mr. Genest!" he exclaimed, with pleasure, recognizing the Hon. Aristide Genest, a personage potent in his time in Dominion Councils.

"I hope now to know the gentleman as completely as I have admired him," Genest complimented in the French way, twinkling his eyes merrily. "Many a time I have listened to your advices in the Parliament. I say to you 'Welcome.'"

Chamilly started off to talk with his innumerable constituents in the crowd.

"Let us cross over here, sir, and hear what they have to say about the sermon," proposed Genest.

They crossed to a stone building on the other side of the road, and passed through a group of countrymen into a hall of some length, where sat sunk in a rustic rocking-chair, a singular individual, whose observations seemed to be amusing the crowd.

In appearance, he reminded one of no less remarkable a person than the Devil, for he bore the traditional nose and mouth of that gentleman, and his body was lean as Casca's; but he seemed at worst a Mephistopheles from the extravagance of the delivery of his sarcasms.

The subject of discussion was the sermon.

"Bapteme, it is terrible!" exclaimed the cadaverous humorist. "Ever this indigenous Pius IX—fulminating, fulminating, fulminating!—Too much inferno. The cure does half his burning for Beelzebub! We are served in a constant auto-da-fe."

"Heh, heh, heh," creaked an old skin-and-bones, with one tooth visible, which shook as the laugh emerged. Stolid men smoking, deigned to smile.

People seemed prepared to laugh at anything he said.

"What is it that an auto-da-fe is?" a young man demanded from a corner.

"You don't know auto-da-fes?—A dish, my child.—An auto-da-fe is Liberal broiled."

The character of the room, at which Chrysler now had time to glance, explained itself by a large painting of that lion-and-unicorn-supporting -the-British-arms, which embellishes Courts of Justice.

"This room is the Circuit Court," Genest remarked—"Zotique there, calls it the Circuitous Court—A very poor pun is received with hospitality here."

"I should like to know that man," said Chrysler.

"Nothing easier. Zotique, come here, my cousin."

He caught sight of them, and rising, without altogether dropping his broadly humorous expression, extended an invitation to take his rocking-chair, which Chrysler accepted.

Zotique was like the Mephistopheles he resembled, one of those who have been every where, seen much, done everything. Born respectably,—a cousin of L'Honorable's—he had executed in his younger days a record of pranks upon the neighbors, which at a safe-distance of time became good humoredly traditional. The trial and despair of Pere Galibert, and the disapproved of Chamilly's father, he ran away to Trois-Rivieres as soon as he knew enough to do so; thence to Montreal, and Joliette; and a Fur Post near Saipasou (or, "Nobody-knows-Where," for Zotique asserts the region has that name); then was a veracious steamboat guide for tourists to the Gulf; edited a comic weekly at Quebec, "illustrated" it, itself cheerfully and truly confessed, "with execrable wood-engravings;" as Papal Zouave, he embarked for Rome to gallant in voluminous trousers on four sous a day; fought wildly, for the fun of it, at the Pia Gate against Victor Emmanuel's red-shirted patriots,—and came back to Dormilliere disgusted. The Registrarship of the county being vacant, a pious government appointed him to the position, upon recommendation by the "high Clergy," as a martyr for the good cause; and on a similar sacred ground he obtained the passage of a private bill through the Legislature, admitting him to the honorable profession of notary without the trouble of studying.

So it came to pass that our friend was installed in the Registry Office end of the long cottage known as the Circuit Court House, and made use of the Court Hall itself for his Sunday receptions to the people.

The people themselves were worth a brief catalogue.

Jacques Poulin, the horse trader, stood against a window, with his big straw hat on. His trotting sulky was outside. Gagnant, the established merchant, with contented reticence of well-to-do-ness, was remarking of some enterprise, "It won't pay its tobacco." Toutsignant, his insecure and overdaring young rival; who was bound to cut trade, and let calculation take care of itself, sat on the opposite side of the room, and, bantering with him, the shrewd habitants, Bourdon and Desrochers, who were to profit by his theory of an advance in rye. The young doctor, Boucher from Boucherville, leaned near, superior in broad-cloth frock coat, red tie, and silk hat. Along a bench, squeezed a jolly half-dozen "garcons," and a special mist of tobacco smoke hung imminent over their heads. About the floor, the windows, the corners of the room, the bar of the court, sat, lounged, smoked, and stood, in friendly groups, a host of neighbors, amiably listening, more or less, to Zotique's harangues and conversations. It cannot be said, however, that they abated much of their own little discussions. Every now and then some private Babel would break in like a surge, over the general noise, and attract attention for an instant.

"The auto-da-fe—alas, it recalls me the ravishing country of Spain! O those Sierras!—those Vegas! the mountains shirting with snow! the green plains watered!—but misere! hot as—the disposition of the Cure. To-day, gentlemen, the affair becomes serious, for lo, the approach of a doubtful election, and a trifle of clerical interference, like a seed upon the balance, might well—" the sentence was appendixed by an explosive shrug.

"Now, the Council of war! we must have a command to him from the Bishop; and it is I, Zotique Genest, as prominent citizen! as Registrar! as Zouave! who will write and get it."

"But more—that sacre Grandmoulin is coming, and we must receive him at point of bayonet, a la charge de cuirasse! that sacre Grandmoulin!"

"He will be received!" called out a voice.

"The National Liar!" proposed another.

"The breach in our wall is the Cure," continued Zotique.

"Mais."

Qu'allons nous faire, Dans cette gallere?

"If we could only strap him up with, every mark of respect, like the sacred white elephant of the Indies!—But first, the Bishop's order! Remark my brother, I am not advocating disobedience:—only coercion."

The laugh rose again. It was not so much anything he said, but his extraordinarily grotesque ways—a roll of his large eyes, or a drawing down of his long, thin mouth, with some quick action of the head, arms or shoulders, that amused them.

"Me, I say sacre to the Cures," boasted a heavy, bleared fellow, stepping forward and looking round. His appearance indicated the class of parodies on the American citizen, known vulgarly as "Yankees from Longueuil," and as he continued, "I say to them,"—he added a string of blasphemy in exaggerated Vermontese.

"Be moderate, Mr. Cuiller," Zotique interposed, "None of us have the honor of being ruffians."

"In the Unyted Staytes," continued Cuiller, however, jerking his heavy shoulder forward, "when a cure comes to them they say 'Go on, cursed rascal,'" More oaths in English. The hearers looked on without knowing how to act, some of them, without doubt, in that atmosphere, tremblingly admiring his hardihood.

"Cuiller,"—commenced the Honorable, easily.

"My name is Spoon," the Yankee from Longueuil drawled, "I've got a white man's name."

Cuiller, in fact, was of the host who have Anglicised their patronymics. Many a man who goes as "White" in New England, is really Le Blanc; Desrochers translates himself "Stone," Monsieur Des Trois-Maisons calls himself "Mr. Three-Houses," and it is well authenticated that a certain Magloire Phaneuf exists who triumphs in the supreme ingenuity of "My-glory Makes-nine."

"There is a respect due," proceeded the Honorable, ignoring the correction "to what others consider sacred, even by those who themselves respect nothing. This gentleman, besides, sir, is an English gentleman, and your use of his tongue cannot but be a barbarism to his taste."

The big fellow shoved his hands into the hip pockets of his striped trousers; and putting on a leer of pretended indifference, turned to a man named Benoit, who was regarding him with admiration.

This was an orator and a Solomon. He was a farmer, middle-aged, and somewhat short, whose shaven lips were drawn so over-soberly as to express a complete self-conviction of his own profundity, while his unstable averted glance warned that his alliances were not to be depended on where he was likely to be a material loser. A particularly "fluent" man, accomplished in gestures such as form an ingredient in all French conversation, he was in Zotique's Sunday afternoons a zestful contestant. His clothes were of homespun, dyed a raw, light blue, and he was proud of his choice of the color, for its singularity.

"Monsieur Genest," he began, with oratorical impressiveness, coming forward, and bowing to Zotique, "Monsieur l'Honorable; Monsieur;" bowing low; "and Messieurs. I speak not against the clergy, whom the good God and His Pontifical Holiness have set over us for instruction and guidance. I am not speaking against those holy men. But it seems to me to-day that you, my friend, are a little rash—a very little severe—in reproaching my friend, Mr. Cuiller, upon the language which he uses, coming from a foreign country where neither the expressions, nor the customs, are the same as ours; and it seems to me that there is a point a little subtle which should have been noticed by you before commencing, and on which I dare to base my exception to the form; and this point is, I pretend, that Mr. Cuiller has said nothing directly himself against the clergy, but has simply told how they were treated in the United States."

This beginning, delivered with appropriate gestures—now a bow, now an ultra-crossing of the arms, only to throw them apart again, now a chopping down with both hands from the elbow, now again a graceful clasping of them in front, made a satisfactory impression on Benoit himself, who prepared to continue indefinitely had not Zotique interrupted.

"Benoit, you are too fine for good millstone. But respecting friend Cuiller, we are willingly converted to your delusion. He is honorably acquitted of his crime."

"And now," he cried, "Oyez! Let all who have not forgotten how to make their marks, sign the requisition which I observe in the hands of Maitre Descarries."

Maitre Descarries, Notary, an elderly, active little man, carefully attired and wearing his white hair brushed back from his forehead, in a manner resembling a halo, or some silvery kind of old-time wig, stood at the door holding a document,—a paper nominating Sieur Chamilly Haviland to represent the Electoral District of Argentenaye.

The Notary, advancing, laid it on the bar of the Court, and everybody crowded to look on and see those requested to sign do so.

The Honorable, the first to be called, went forward and affixed his name, and Maitre Descarries turned to a person who was apparently an old farmer, but a man with a face of conspicuous dignity.

"Will you sign, Mr. De La Lande?"

"Ah yes, Monsieur Descarries—'with both hands,'"—answered he, bowing quickly; and his signature read, to the Ontarian's astonishment: "De La Lande, Duke of St. Denis, Peer of France."

Thus, at this after-mass reception, Chrysler was introduced to a circle of whom he was to see much in the events to follow.



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE AMERICAN FRANCE.

Chrysler and Genest, after reaching the Manoir, sat conversing under the large triple tree on the side of the lawn.

"You have no idea of the simplicity of life here," l'Honorable philosophised. "We dwell as peacefully, in general, and almost as much in one spot as these great trees. After all, is there any condition in which mortal existence is happier than that of pure air and tranquility. We have a proverb, 'Love God and go thy path.' To love God, to live, to die, are the complete circle."

Chamilly's entrance put an end to these idyllic observations. He was driven up in a cart by a country jehu, and leaping out, there followed him a couple of friends.

Haviland called Tardif, the head servant, who appeared at the door of the house, bareheaded, with an apron on:

"Bring the dinner out here, Tardif," he ordered; and a light table was set under the spreading boughs.

"Now tell us, De La Lande, about your trip to Montreal."

Of the two friends who drove up with their host in the cart, one was Breboeuf, a hunchback. This little creature on being introduced, bowed and shook hands with an aspect of hopeless resignation, and sitting down, relapsed into thought, telescoping his neck into his squarish shoulders. His companion was a young man of small build, but spirited, good-looking face—De La Lande, schoolmaster of the village, a son of the farmer "Duke."

"And where commence?" responded the schoolmaster to the request for an account of the trip to Montreal.

"In the middle, as I am doing," retorted Haviland, flourishing the carving-knife over the joint.

"Ah well. The middle was the climax with me. It was the Fete of St. Jean Baptiste!"

"You saw Notre Dame, and the great procession?" inquired the Honorable.

"Yes, I saw that vast Cathedral fifteen thousand full! And the Cure of Colonization climbed up in the midst, and I heard the most glorious words that were ever spoken to French Canadians!"

"Was the procession like ours here?"

"At Dormilliere? Pah!—we have two Cures, a beadle and the choir-boys! Theirs was a mile in length. There were nineteen bands playing music, all in fine uniforms, and there were all the Societies of St. Jean Baptiste walking, with their gold chains and their badges, and as many as forty magnificently decorated cars, bearing representations of the discovery of Canada by Jacques Cartier, and the workings of all the trades, and innumerable splendid banners, of white, and blue, and red and green, with gold inscriptions and pictures—and the Cure of Col——"

"Were the streets well decorated? How were the arches and flags?"

"They were good. The streets were full of flying tricolors and Union Jacks stretched across them. They were lined with green saplings as we do here. The crowd was enormous. There were thousands from the States. And the Cathedral of Notre Dame was all excitement; for the Cure——,"

"Tell us about it! Every one speaks of it! What did he say?"

(A well-known priest had just electrified the people of the land with an extraordinary declaration.)

"But, to speak of his aims, I must recollect the numbers of our people."

"Breboeuf, mon brebis," said Chamilly, turning to the little fellow, "what is the number of the French Canadians?"

The hunchback lifted his face gravely, and issued in a monotonous voice, but with the precision of a machine:—"One million, eighty-two thousand, nine hundred and forty-three, in Canada, by the census of 1870; one million, one hundred and ten thousand, in Canada, by the computation of the Abbe Zero; four hundred and thirty-five thousand in the United States by the computation of the same."

The Ontarian was surprised at his odd, machine-like accuracy, but Haviland only laughed a little chuckle and Chrysler's glance was drawn away towards a figure entering the gate, walking abstractedly, his hands in his hip pockets and eyes on the path. He was of slender but agile person, the decision which marked every movement showing his consciousness of latent activity. Haviland espied him presently:

"Bravo, here is Quinet. Quinet, what are you doing?"

"Cultivating dulness," replied the figure, scarcely glancing up.

"Come and cultivate us, for a contrast, my friend."

"Would I be changing occupation?"

"Sit here and we will show you. Yourself may be as dull as you like."

The stranger, nonchalantly, and half-defiantly, seated himself, after introduction. Chrysler scanned him curiously in recollection of the references to him in Haviland's Book of Enthusiasms, and recognized the strange red-brown scale of hues of hair, eyebrows and moustache, which gave character to his appearance; but the pale countenance was strong now, and tanned, though spare, and all the signs of former weakness had departed.

Chamilly continued to Chrysler:

"I am not a little proud of the cheerfulness, the spirit, the respectability, the intelligence of my little people. And if you had seen the mottoes which I have read on cars and banners in the processions of our national saint; such as, "GOD HAS MADE LAW TO EVERY MAN TO LABOR," and: "TO MAKE THE PEOPLE BETTER,"—you would have felt with me that it must be a people responsive to sober and admirable aims."

"I have no doubt of it," remarked the visitor genially.

"But I scarcely think you can be familiar with a group of startling projects lately cherished in our circles."

"Plots against everybody," Quinet remarked. "Have the goodness to pass me the asparagus."

"The Continent of North America is a large acre," continued Haviland. "Can you fancy a race who a century ago were but ninety thousand, aspiring and actually planning for its complete control?"

Chrysler looked amused at the idea, for the handful of French-Canadians.

"That is our firmly-persuaded future!" asserted the young man, De La Lande, eagerly and boldly. "The Cure of Colonization has demonstrated that it is possible. We shall reconquer the continent!"

"Is it your view?" Chrysler asked of Chamilly.

"I instance it," he returned, "because it shows that my people are capable of thinking high."

"There is a progression of plans!" went on the eager De La Lande. "The first is to get control of the six English counties!"

"I will trust the Anglo-Saxon for holding his own," the Ontarian laughed, in the amusement of vigorous confidence.

"But we gain!" the young man cried. "Our race is always French! We win fast the British strongholds in our dear Province."

"This the least, of the plans," Haviland remarked. "All are founded on a curious fact."

"What fact is that?"

"Our phenomenal multiplication in numbers," returned the seigneur, smiling.

"What?" cried Chrysler.

He stopped a moment open-eyed, and then laughed heartily and long. He could not satisfy his laughter at such a basis for conquest of a continent, and it burst forth again at intervals for some time.

"Nevertheless it is true,—and Biblical," continued the undaunted schoolmaster. "Sicut saggittae in manu potentis, ita filii excussorum."

"Breboeuf," said Haviland, who took some part with De La Lande but joined in Chrysler's amusement, "help us. What was the number of French-Canadians at the conquest by the English?"

"Sixty-nine thousand two hundred and sixty-five, by the census of the General Murray in 1765, including approximately 500 others."

"And now?"

"One million and eight-two thousand nine hundred and forty, by the census of 1870."

"You see, sir, what a growth. The clergy encourage it with satisfaction. It is not comfortable for bachelors in some of our parishes."

All at the table were laughing, more or less, except De La Lande and the hunchback, who were perfectly serious.

"One plan, sir, I confess freely," said the former, "affects yourself. You are perfectly acquainted with the Ottawa River, separating your Province from our own, and that it cuts across and above yours, which is a peninsula. The fourth great plan (out of six), is to plant centres along the Ottawa which shall exert their expansive force downwards to overrun your peninsula."

"What a dangerous race!"

"While another contingent meets it further south, where our progress is well known. So we shall win the centre itself of the Dominion. Let us possess the North, says our Peter the Hermit, and we can rest sure of the whole. Yes, let us possess the North! let us populate the shores of Hudson's Bay!" the enthusiast cried, losing himself in his vision, "Let us possess the shores of Hudson's Bay, where d'Iberville of old dislodged our enemies!"

"Peter the Hermit!" laughed Chamilly. "What a name for our jolly old Cure of Colonization. But all that is well enough for ecclesiastics to recommend, since none others would invite their friends to die on those refrigerated wastes.—Yet the people themselves are heroically willing."

"Our next ambition," proceeded De La Lande, absorbed in his enthusiasm and quite guileless of any personal enmities, "is the conquest of the United States. Northern Maine is French Canadian. In New England we count half a million. Lowell, Worcester, Lawrence, Nashua and Fall River are ours. In farms, in parishes, in solid masses, we shall establish ourselves on the banks of the Merrimac as we have on our own historic streams, to increase and multiply and possess the land, replacing the degenerate New Englander, possedentes januas hostium, performing a divine mission, working out a high destiny for our language and the Catholic faith, and establishing a new, magnificent State out of the portions of those destroyed, over which shall fly the lilies of old—"

"And perhaps reign a duly fat Bourbon," interrupted Quinet over his salad.

"We shall re-unite at last again with France! The affection of this remnant of her children, turned adrift in their few arpents of snow, has never died towards the land so changed from the time of our forefathers. It is still to us the Palestine of our speech, our history and our faith of St. Louis! We are the American France! We are all ready. We are the people of God. In the words of a brother: 'This blood was set in America in the midst of a material world, like France in Europe, to regenerate these peoples and perpetuate the reign of ideals. God has willed it: 'GESTA DEI PER FRANCOS!'"

Chamilly turned to Chrysler as the school master ended, and said with a smile: "Do you not think there is enterprise in a people like this?"



CHAPTER XVIII.

A DISAPPEARING ORDER.

"Qu'il est triste d'etre vaincu!—"

—DU CALVET.

From Quinet who had been deliberately dealing with his dessert, now came words:

"Mistaken impulses! Led after will o' the wisps by dreamers and designers! If it were not that all movements work but one way, like the backward and forward of a machine—towards advancement, these things would make a man despond."

"What then, sir," Chrysler asked, "are your ideas?"

"Hear me, like a different messenger from the same battle. The motto, 'God has made Law to Every Man to Labour,' means that the slaves of priestcraft are to be contented with their servitude. 'To Make the People Better,' means to blind the second eye of their obedience."

"To—?"

"Stop my dear friend," Chamilly interrupted with emotion, "that motto's words are sacred to me and will ever justly be to all our people. Do not disparage that motto?"

"I will never disparage making the people truly better. It is to the tone of those who usurp the aim, you should apply my critique. The men who lip these terms are none other than the evil geniuses of history. It is the Jesuits who would make us poor and miserable,—who have wrecked French America, past and future. Without them we should have welcomed to our dominions from the first, an immigration twice larger than England's: we should have held the continent north, south and centre; our people would have been vitalized by education instead of so ignorant that no commoner but one ever wrote a book; they would have built and flourished and extended; and in place of a poor and helpless people they would have been rich, powerful, and self-reliant, like the Bostonians; Bigot and his nest of horse-leeches would never have sucked our blood and left us to ruin!"

He paused, but as if not yet quite finished. His hearers listened.

"And since—," he suddenly and energetically added, with a stern look around and a bitter suggestiveness on the word as if it were enough to pronounce it; and in truth, it silenced both De La Lande and Chamilly, and appeared to make a completely effective ending.

In the evening, walking out on the road before retiring, Chamilly and Chrysler commented on the discussion, and Chrysler said, "I must say I was unprepared for this debate. I was a poor helpless Briton, caught like Braddock in Mr. De La Lande's ambush. Tell me what you think yourself of these things."

"It is a sad thing to belong to a disappearing order," Haviland replied, "Sympathising with my people, I am grieved in a sense to believe their present aspirations dreams. It is sad to behold any race, and deeply so if it is your own, blind in the presence of unalterable forces which will soon begin their removal of what it considers to be dearest."

"I sympathize with them and you," Chrysler said.

"Ecclesiasticism ruins us!" exclaimed Quinet the Radical, who was with them:

"Quiconque me resiste et me brave est impie Ce qu'ici-bas j'ecris, la-haut Dieu la copie."

"You should moderate your animosity," Chamilly said. "These Jesuits are most certainly humble, self-devoted men?"

"I detest them as machines, not as men!" retorted the Radical.



CHAPTER XIX.

HUMAN NATURE.

"Va ... A monsieur le Cure Lui dire que sa paroisse Est tout bouleversee."

—POPULAR BALLAD.

Cure L'Archeveque, black skull-cap on head, was in the best of humour, playing with his little dog in the ample reception-room of the parsonage, when a laborer came and brought an account of several late doings in the village.

When Messire heard what had been said at Zotique's, his rotund black stole writhed as if founts of lava boiled in him; his face swelled to the likeness of a fiery planet; indignation choked his speech for four minutes by the face of the tall clock in his sitting-room; and then the lava rose to the surface in jets:

"Gang of accurseds!"

"Atheists!"

"Freemasons!"

He turned for a moment to the laborer again who had come to inform him. Then he exploded successively as before:

"They laughed?"

"They laughed!"

"I will make them laugh!"

The young cure, his vicar, who was present, tried to calm him, but could not.

His energies turned to action; he dismissed the parishioner, who, hat in hand, stood humbly by the door, and sitting down began to write letters and concoct vows.

The first of the latter was to announce a spiritual boycott from the pulpit on Zotique and his iniquitous hall; and with this he wrote to the Attorney-General on the scandal of the gross misuse of the Circuit Court and the bad character of the local Registrar.

The second bitter vow was that the Liberals should lose their election: this inspired a letter to Grandmoulin, the "Cave" Chief.

There were other vows and other letters; one each to the Bishop and the Archbishop,—whose contents are unknown.

At similar times, however, the Reverend gentleman had a recreation to which he was accustomed to turn for refreshment, and this was not long in rising in his mind. By law he was Visitor to the secular school: than which there was nothing he considered more nearly the root of all evil. He therefore took up his brown straw hat and black cane, and started determinedly out to exercise his habit of vexing the high spirit of the school master, De La Lande.

"Ah bon, fratello!" cried Zotique that afternoon when de La Lande appeared at his door, "How goes it? Come in and speak to Mr. Chrysler, here."

"It goes ill, Zotique," answered the school master, gloomily, "I have had the Cure again."

"And what did he say to you?"

"Quarrels with everything in the system. Our geography was galimatias, and book-keeping a crime: the people must not think they were on a level with the learned, and the children must do this and that. At last—at last—I was exasperated, and told him I had a right under the laws to my position and powers. He said there can be no right against the Right! I told him there were many wrongs against the Right! And he went away saying he would bring me to a bed of straw."

"Let him do!" laughed the Registrar.

But Zotique himself was not to escape quite scot-free, for when Chrysler stopped next day at his office, as he was getting accustomed to do, he found him in one of his excitements.

[F]"Ac-re-ye!" he was ejaculating.

[Footnote F: NOTE—An evasive form of "Sacre," analogous to "Sapre," "Sacristie," "Sac," "St. Christophe," &c.]

"Ah, good day, sir. Come in and take a seat Aa-a-creye, how they enrage us!"—and he cast an impatient glance on the floor at a large envelope deeply marked with his heel.

"What is the matter?" Chrysler queried.

"The matter, sir, is that!"—spurning the envelope.

"An official notification?"

"Not official!—No, sir, unofficial! ultra-official, contra-official, pseud-official! See, read it!"

He picked up and handed over the objectionable letter, which was headed with the stamp of the Attorney-General's Office:—"Dear Sir,—You are requested to grant Mr. Cletus Libergent the use of the Circuit Court edifice and rooms, which are in your charge, for whatever purpose he may desire, for the space of three weeks from the present date."

T. OUAOUARON, Attorney-General.

Chrysler smiled to Zotique. Could a Government that openly granted the public buildings to partisans pretend to a sense of right or dignity?

As to the effects of the Cure's second vow, they remain matter for narration to come.



CHAPTER XX.

CHEZ NOUS.

"Bonjour le maitre et la maitresse Et tous les gens de la maison."

—THE GUIGNOLEE CAROL.

The crimson and gold of sunset were stained richly across the west. Chrysler was walking leisurely out in the country. A mile from Dormilliere, a white stone farm-house stood forward near the road. In front, across the highway, the low cliff swelled out into the stump of a headland, which bore spreading on its grassy top three mighty and venerable oaks.

Chrysler, pondering as was his wont upon this and everything, noting the surges of color in the sky, the clear view, the procession of odd-looking homesteads down the road; their narrow fields running back indefinitely; the resting flocks and herds; here a group of thatched-roof barns, and there a wayside cross; passed along and mused on the peace of life in this prairie country, and the goodness of the Almighty to His children of every tongue.

The strains of a violin in the farm-house struck his ear. Someone was fiddling the well-known sprightly air, "Vive la Canadienne:"

"Long live the fair Canadian girl, With her sweet, tender eyes."

The house was a large cottage, having around its door a slender gallery, at whose side went down a stair. Its chimnies were stout, and walls thick, its roof pitched very steep and clipped off short at the eaves; a garden of lilac-bushes and shrubs, some of which pressed their dark green against its spotless white-wash, surrounding it in front and on one side, while on the other lay the barn-yard, with a large wooden cross in its centre, protected by a railing. Two hundred years ago such houses were built in Brittany.

Chrysler's glances took in with curiosity the tiny window up in the gable, the quaint-cut iron bars of the cellar openings, the small-paned sashes of the four front windows.

Above the door, was the rude-cut inscription:

A DIEU LA GLOIRE J.B. 1768.

The fiddler drew his attention particularly, however, to the people on the gallery. There was one at least whom he had seen before. A cavalier of much shirt-front and large mouth, and on whose make-up, Nature had printed "BAR-TENDER" in capitals—in short the "Spoon" of Zotique's reception—was sitting on the balustrade of the little gallery, making courtship over the shoulder of a dark-eyed maid, whose mother—a square-waisted archetype of her—stood in the door. Paterfamilias sat on the top step with his back to Chrysler, barring the stair rather awkwardly with his legs. A second young man slender, and dressed in a frock coat of black broad-cloth, and silk hat, and with face pale, but of undiscourageable obserfulness, though without doubt repulsed by the father's attitude from a front attack on the position, was taking the three steps in the garden necessary to bring him alongside the gallery. And, unobserved, down beside her dress, the maiden's fair hand was dropping him a sprig of lilac.

Within, the grandfather bent crooked over his violin.

Our traveller halted, there was a whisper, and the music stopped.

"Salut, Monsieur," cried the householder, stumbling down the steps and hurrying half-way across the garden, where he took up a position, "Monsieur is tired. Will he honour my roof? All here is yours, and I and my family are at your service. Enter, Monsieur."

A dramatic gesture of humility recalled at once the man in blue homespun, who had addressed the crowd at Zotique's.

"Good evening, Mr. Benoit," the Ontarian said, opening the gate and mustering his French, "I shall be charmed."

The air immediately bustled with hospitality.

"Come in, sir, come in," feebly rasped the voice of the old man from the door. "Josephte, bring a chair for Monsieur." "I will fetch one!" cried the good-wife. The girl Josephte, rose from her seat and followed her mother quickly into the house; the pale young man in the garden doubled his cheerful smile; and only the bar-tender endued himself in an aggressive grin of independence.

"I assure you, monsieur," pronounced Jean Benoit, with his full armory of oratorical gestures, "that a friend of Monseigneur Chamilly will always have our best. Ascend, sir.—Josephte, place Monsieur the chair."

Never was there a greater occasion of state.

Their guest raised his hat to the young lady and her mother, who threw into her carriage all the dignity and suavity she could command. Then he ascended and sat gratefully down, for he was fatigued.

The grandfather had laid his instrument on a spinning-wheel within the door, and slowly lit a pipe with both hands. The bar-tender jumped from his perch and stood with a familiar leer, of which when Benoit said "Mr. Cuiller, monsieur," Chrysler took trifling notice. On the other hand the pale lover remained modestly down the steps, and his cheerfulness redoubled when Chrysler nodded to him, passingly introduced as "Le Brun."

"Does the gentleman take white whiskey,[G] or well milk?" asked the old man. "Josephte, bring some milk."

[Footnote G: Highwines.]

The daughter darted into the house.—"There is tea on the stove, Josephte!" Madame called hurriedly inwards, "and bring out some cakes and apples, and perhaps Monsieur would like new honey.—Be comfortable, sir."

"Monsieur has come into the parish for the election?" the old man queried politely.

"Only to see what passes," he replied, accepting the bowl of milk which Josephte tendered him, and a piece of raisin cake from a pile on a blue-pattern plate.—"What do you think of it?"

But a diversion occurred. The wife had retired a few moments, and a veteran piano commenced playing, while a spirited boy's voice struck up a hymn from the services of the Church,—"O Salutaris Hostia." It was her youngest son, whom she had not been able to resist showing off a little. Chrysler praised the voice, which was excellent, and the boy, attired in a neat, black, knee-breeches suit with white stockings, was proudly brought forward and presented.

The grandfather had the twinkle in his eye of a true country violinist.

"I was going to tell them a story of the old times, sir. Will you pardon me?" he said, with the twinkle sparkling.

Chrysler protested his own desire to listen.

"We always like to hear about the old times," said young Le Brun, apologetically.

"It's about a rascality of Zotique's, the droll boy, when we were young—the delectable history of Mouton. Mouton, the servant of Pere Galibert, who in those times was Cure, was a fat man, of the air of a tallow image. You know Legros—the butcher's son,—just like that. If he had had red hair there would have been spontaneous combustion."

"Someone stole the sacramental wine of Pere Galibert, and everyone except the Pere knew it was Mouton. Messire would never believe them, though it so angered him he preached fourteen discourses against the thief. They were eloquent sermons."

"One Sunday afternoon—it was about the Day of St. Michel, when we went in to pay the seigneur his rents—Zotique was at the presbytere with me and his brother the Honorable, and all of us playing cards with Pere Galibert. Zotique had come down from the city with a new keg of wine for the Sacrament, and they were discussing the disappearance. Mouton was there, and he says never a word. "Let it alone," says Zotique, and he looks around and takes up the inkbottle carelessly from the shelf and goes off to the kitchen and down into the cellar, where he puts away the wine, and then he comes back to us, upstairs. Mouton disappears in a moment. Zotique pretends to play,—but he is calculating the seconds. Presently he says, "Monsieur le Cure, you and I are too good players. Let Mouton take my place, and do you play against Benoit and my cousin," and without waiting for any answer he flies out to the kitchen, and cries sharply: "Mouton, Messire wants you!" adding, "Quick, quick, tete de Mouton!" Mouton rushes upstairs, brushing his mouth. There he stands before us, solid as the image of tallow; but his mouth was as black as an oven's, and his features indistinguishable with ink."

The circle, all eagerly listening, burst forth:

"How did Zotique do it?" they cried.

"Voila the mystery."

"What was done to Mouton?"

"Pere Galibert boiled him down into tapers, and sold him to the congregation."

The old man put his pipe, which had gone out, once more to his lips and nonchalantly repeated the operation of lighting it between his hands.

Spoon, his low felt hat tipped over his eyes made Josephte blush crimson with his attentions. Her glances and smiles were to Francois.

Chrysler as he watched her, saw that it was she whose spiritual expression had attracted him at church. Near at hand, he took notes of her appearance. She was of modest face, regular and handsome in features, though not striking, and her cheek wore just a suggestion of color. Dressed in black, her apparel and demeanor were quietly perfect.

The fine sweep of view from the gallery across the water attracted him, and his eyes rested upon the leafy monarchs shadowing the river-bank before them.

"Your house is well placed," he said in admiration.

"Yes, Monsieur," replied the old man, simply, and he pointed out the various parishes whose spires could be descried across the water.

Thus conversing and observing, the Ontarian spent an instructive and delightful hour. When he rose to go, calm and rested, the hospitality again became profuse. "The gentleman will not walk!" shrilly protested highly-pleased mater familias. "Go Francois," turning to young Le Brun: "row Monsieur to the Manoir, you and Mr. Cuiller. Take the rose chaloupe, and Josephte shall go too."

Chrysler made a very admirable guest. He would have struck you as a fine, large man, of kindly face, and influential manner, and people pressed upon him their best wherever he went. "You speak our tongue, sir," said the grandfather, "That is a great thing. I have often thought that if all the people of the earth spoke but one speech they would all be brothers. What an absurdity to be divided by mere syllables."

So they parted, with many "Au revoirs" and mutual compliments at the water-side. The willing Francois planted one foot on a stone in the water and handed the young lady into the boat, and Cuiller hastening for the seat next her, made a pretended accidental lunge of his heavy shoulder at him into the water. Francois kept his balance and, quite unconscious of the malicious stratagem, held the ill-wisher himself from going over, which he almost did, to Josephte's demure amusement; next Chrysler got in and Francois essayed to push off. But as the boat stuck in the bottom and refused to stir, he suddenly dropped his hold, and with an "Avance done!" gallantly slushed his way into the water alongside, in his Sunday trousers, lifted the gunwale and started her afloat, amidst a shower of final "Au revoirs," and the rose chaloupe moved with noiseless smoothness down the current.

Peace reigned over every surrounding. The broad, molten-like surface; the dusky idealizing of the lines of cottages and delicate silhouetting of the trees along the shore near them; the artistic picture of the old white farm-house, mystic-looking in the soft evening light, with its shapes of lilac-trees rioting about it and the three great oaks darkening the bank in front; the ghost of light along the distant horizon; the gentle coolness of the air; the occasional far-off echo of some cry; and the regular splash and gleam of the oars as they leave the water or dip gently in again. A fish leaps. An ocean steamer, low in the distance, can be descried creeping noiselessly on. The islands and shores mirror themselves half-distinctly in the water.

A mile above, some boatful of pensive hearts are singing. So calm is the evening that the cadences come distinctly to us, and almost the words can be plainly caught. In a lull of their song, faint sounds of another arrive from far away. Rising and falling, now heard and now not, plaintive and recurring, it is like the voices of spirits.

But farther, farther yet, a still more distant echo—a suggestion scarcely real—floats also to us. The whole river, in its length and breadth, from Soulanges and the Lake of Two Mountains, and the tributary Ottawa, to Quebec and Kamouraska and the shores of the Gulf beyond, all is alive with plaintive sweetness, echoing from spirit to spirit, (for it is a fiction that music is a thing of lips and ears), old accents of Normandy, Champagne, and Angouleme.

The brimming Francois strikes up by natural suggestion of his dipping oars;

A la claire fontaine M'en allant promener.

I.

Beside the crystal fountain Turning for ease to stray, So fair I found the waters My limbs in them I lay.

Long is it I have loved thee, Thee shall I love alway, My dearest. Long is it I have loved thee, Thee shall I love alway.

So fair I found the waters, My limbs in them I lay: Beneath an oak tree resting, I heard a roundelay. Long is it, &c.

III

Beneath an oak tree resting, I heard a roundelay, The nightingale was singing On the oak tree's topmost spray. Long is it, &c.

IV.

The nightingale was singing On the oak tree's topmost spray:— Sing, nightingale, keep singing, Thou who hast heart so gay! Long is it, &c.

V.

Sing, nightingale, keep singing, Thou hast a heart so gay, Thou hast a heart so merry, While mine is sorrow's prey. Long is it, &c.

VI.

For I have lost my mistress, Whom I did true obey, All for a bunch of roses, Whereof I said her nay. Long is it, &c.

VII.

I would those luckless roses, Were on their bush to-day, And that itself the rosebush Were plunged in ocean's spray. Long is it I have loved thee, Thee shall I love alway, My dearest Long is it I have loved thee, Thee shall I love alway.

The melody was of a quiet, haunting strangeness, and from the end of the words "Thou who hast heart so gay," the maiden perfected it by interweaving an exquisite contralto into the chorus,

Long is it I have loved thee, Thee shall I love alway.

In this fashion was Chrysler delivered at the Manoir, and when Chamilly asked him "Where have you been-this evening?" as he entered the grounds, he answered, "In Arcadia!"



CHAPTER XXI.

DELIVER US FROM THE EVIL ONE.

"Aie! cela ressemble un peu a certaine fable celebre, dont la morale se resume ceci ne comptez pas sans votre hote."

—BENJAMIN SULTE

"St. Gregory the Great! Here comes the Small-pox!" exclaimed Zotique, as he and Chamilly, with their guest, were off behind the Manoir, and standing by the weather-worn Chapel in the hayfields, which served as the tomb of the first Haviland, "the Protestant Seigneur."

The name "Picault" offered itself so readily to the pun of "Picotte,"—Small-pox,—that the jest had become almost a usage.

Startled by Zotique's exclamation, Mr Chrysler looked from the commemorative table on the Chapel's side (whose rivulet of eulogies he was reading line by line), towards the pine-walk round the Manoir, whence a distant figure was sauntering towards them along the path, meditatively smoking a cigar.

"That's a fact," exclaimed Chamilly, straining his eyes towards the figure; and the three looked at each other in astonishment. "Has he actually the enterprise to try me again? Or what can he want?"

"I can answer you," the veracious Zotique undertook, "my eyes are good.—He is smiling fully a second hundred thousand."

"That is courage after what I gave him for the first."

"It is doubtless, then, glory:—say Member of the Council."

"Did I ever tell you of the last time he came to me, and offered not only that Membership, but finally advanced to the Presidency of it. Imagine the recklessness of the Province's interests—A President of the Council at twenty-four years! More than that, if I wished for active glory, he would give either the local Premiership, or undertake to combine the French parties at Ottawa, and put me at their head, with a surety of being Premier of the whole country. And this again for a youth of twenty-four years!—He tried to flatter me that I was a Pitt or a Napoleon. And I answered, that no man guilty of such a compact could be either."

"You will do it without him," replied Zotique, confidently.

Chrysler looked closely at the approaching figure, growing larger and clearer.

"Where is he Member for?" he asked.

"Member for Hoang-ho in partibus infidelium," replied Zotique, sarcastically.

Picault sauntered up with a smile of unfaltering genial sang-froid, bowed, removed his cigar, and addressed them.

"Salut, my dear Haviland, salut Messieurs. Oh! my dear Genest, how goes it?" offering his hand, which Zotique took with a caricature of extravagant joy and imitation of the other's style:

"My dear Small-pox—pardon me—my dear friend, I am charmed to meet again a man of so much sense and honor."

"Ah yes, we have fought on many a field, but we respect each other 'Honneur au plus vaillant.' But why, my dear Haviland," turning, "why should the valiant oppose each other, and half of them lose at each battle? Is it not because they are divided? Union makes strength!"

"Yes, it is because they are divided by impassable gulfs," said Chamilly, coldly. "Did you come to see me, Monsieur?"

"My dear fellow, can't we have a little private conversation together? I am, of course, in the country to oppose your politics, but being in Dormilliere, I cannot forget our social acquaintanceship."

"Do me the honor of saying here what you desire to say, Monsieur. I have no political secrets from these friends."

"Pardon me, what I have to tell you, is strictly private."

"If it is in political matters, I do not wish it to be so."

"It is personal, I assure you."

"Then you will humor me, sir, by writing it."

"My friend, do not let party differences put grimaces at each other on our real faces:—I would say rather party names; for I am in reality as much a Red as yourself. If you were willing we would prove that to you by changing the title, of our side to yours."

"At that moment, sir, there would be what I live for in the name 'Blue.'"

Picault drew a deliberative puff at his cigar, and lowered it again.

"You will not, then, do me the honor of a personal interview?" he asked, smiling unprovokably still.

"Cease, cease!" replied Haviland, "It will soon be the noon of plain words!"

The tempter with nice discernment, perceiving that this short and bold interview was useless, and that he ought to withdraw, put his cigar between his lips, puffed a "Good-day, gentlemen," and turned back meditatively, along the path towards the pines of the Manoir.

"Au plaisir!" returned Zotique to him with facetious exactitude.

Haviland was furious.

"Shall the children of these men, enriched perhaps and elevated through their crimes," he exclaimed, "pretend in time to come that they obtained their 'Honorables,' and Knighthoods, and seats on the Bench of Justice, and of Cabinets fairly from their country, and were the world's great and true? Forbid it, and forbid that their names should live except in memory of their paltriness!"

"But dear Mr. Chrysler," he added in a moment, "you must not take us for party bigots. The masses of the Bleus are honest, and any day our own name may be desecrated by a clique of knaves, our principles represented by the other name."



CHAPTER XXII.

THE MANUFACTORY OF REFLECTIONS.

Haviland's approaching election kept him very busy from this time forward, and deluged him with interviews, canvasses, meetings, great and little, and perpetual calls on his attention. His conscientiousness made him work almost unremittingly, for he determined his part in the struggle to be far more than a matter of mere verbiage and smiles. Mr. Chrysler, like a sensible fellow-Member, quite comprehended the situation, and was content to note the admirable way in which his friend did everything; to receive a smile or friendly direction here and there, and to fall back on the attentions of l'Honorable, and the over-zealous Zotique. He felt his entry free, however, to the office where Haviland was principally employed, and which was not uninteresting of itself. There the young man had gathered a library of statistical volumes and other statesman's lore, with busts of Thiers and Caesar and strangely ideal and unlike the rest,—a pure white classic mask of Minerva on the wall opposite his chair, as if to strike the note of a higher life; while Breboeuf, curious little object, devoured some blue-book in a corner.

Now what were those great aims of Haviland's? NATION-MAKING, we know in general. But what was the work upon which he was employed as the means?

On the occasion of one of Chrysler's quiet entries, Haviland rose from his table as the light began to fall, threw off his toils with a breath of relief, and turning towards the older gentleman, called his attention to a large green tin case of pigeon-holes and drawers of different sizes, labelled.

"Here," he said, "is my manufactory of reflections."

One compartment was marked "FINANCES," another "LABOUR," a small one "DEFENCE," and a drawer lying open for use was titled "THE UNITY OF RACES."

"Take out a paper, Mr. Chrysler."

Chrysler put forth his hand willingly, and withdrawing one, held it to the window and read as follows:

"A great thought can be thought in any place. A great Empire may be planned in any corner."

The second was a note from "GENERAL NEEDS."

"What the country most requires is Devoted Men."

Others read similarly, some long, some short.

"I can show you what will strike you more," exclaimed Chamilly, in a moment. "I have been planning your visit a little."

"Have you a geyser or a catacomb?"

"No sir,—a fountain of life," replied he, jocosely. "Let us get our hats."



CHAPTER XXIII.

THE STATESMAN'S DREAM.

As they went down the village, he continued to banter.

"You great Ontarians believe too firmly that there is no progress here. According to you there is no being to be met in these forsaken wastes, except a superstitious peasant, clothed all the year in 'beefs' and homespun, capped with the tuque, girded with the sash, and carrying the capuchin hood on his shoulders, like the figure on some of our old copper sous;—who sows, after the manner of his fathers, a strip of the field of his grandfathers, and cherishes to his heart every prejudice of his several great, great-grandfathers."

"I do not think so," interrupted Chrysler laughing, "I might put you fifty years behind the age, but no further."

"Yes, but you, sir, have seen us. Why do not more of you come and see?"

"For some of the same reasons perhaps why you do not know us."

Some distance past the Church northward, the village, obscured by the great, irregularly-occurring pines, takes a turn and a sudden dip. The dip and the pines, which are thick at that end, obscure a section of the village known locally as La Reveilliere.

As they came to the high ground where the dip occurs, the vista appeared below of a spacious avenue, down whose centre ran a straight and smooth road-bed, and on either side twice its breadth of lawn, rolled and cut, forming a sort of common, ornamented by a sparing group or two of the ubiquitous pines of the neighbourhood. Along the edges of this avenue or common, lay what could only be called a sort of transfigured French-Canadian village, looking, in the quiet light of evening, as if pictured by some artist out of studies of the places in the country about. The dwellings were larger, better drawn, their windows, attics and wings more varied in design, but amid their picturesque variety could be discerned in several, a suggestion of the chimney of a certain wild little cot in a dell near the Manoir; in others, of the solid stone home of Jean Benoit; in many the chalet-eaved pattern of the ordinary cottage. Perhaps the latter were made prettiest of all—they were at least the airiest looking. It was in the colors and stainings applied to the gables and other parts that the greatest care had been taken. These were selected out of the ordinary red, yellow, white, and sage-green washes in common use, with such taste as to effect a deeply harmonious and ideal issue. Again, the plan of the village was peculiar. It was simply an improvement on that of the local villages in general, the dwellings being upon the border of the street and not far apart, with their little, foot-wide flower-gardens close against the front. The circular fan of a patent windmill lifted itself lightly, the most prominent object in the settlement, and a charming Gothic schoolhouse crouched farther down on the opposite side. Behind the houses, growths of trees formed an enclosing background, according to the tastes of the owners, but guided by some harmonizing supervision like the colors. And at a short distance the avenue was crossed by a white poplar grove, which brought the scene to a limit, and separated this dream of a rural statesman from the common world.

"V'la, monsieur," said Zotique, who had joined them, stretching his hand, "Behold the cherished work of our young seigneur."

Upon the galleries, the verandahs, the green lawn, the picture moved with life. A half-haze, precursive of the twilight, lent scenic softness to the forms of old men puffing their pipes before the doors, a maiden listlessly strolling on the sward, a swarm of children playing near the road, a distant toiler making his way home, bearing his scythe. The visitors went down into the place and Chrysler saw that the artistic shapes and ideal colors were worn with daily use, the men and women, serene-looking, were still the every day mortals of the region.

"I think I have gained a great step in the houses and street," said Haviland.

"And the Reveilliere is proud of its founder," added l'Honorable.

"We have a little newspaper—Le Coup d'Oeil,"—cried Zotique.

Chrysler congratulated Chamilly on his felicity of design in the dwellings.

The greater size of the houses was chiefly for better ventilation. The windmill was part of a simple water-works system, which supplied the village with draughts from the bottom of the river. The school was a gift of Chamilly's.

"If we had some great architect among us," replied he, "he would transmute for our country a national architecture."

A little house, conspicuous for the delicacy of its architecture, stood near them, and a young man—the schoolmaster—who was on the verandah, reading, in his shirtsleeves, threw down his newspaper at the call of Zotique, came forward and entered eloquently into the work of information about the Reveilliere, flinging his cotton-clad arms recklessly towards the winds of heaven.

"The Institute—the fountain of all—the gentleman has not seen the Institute?" inquired he, looking to the two Frenchmen.

"I believe not," Zotique said. "Have you seen it, sir?"

"Not that I know of."

"Monsieur, you must see the Institute."

"What is this Institute?"

"The enfant perdu of Liberalism, the mainspring of Dormilliere, the hope of French America!"



CHAPTER XXIV.

THE INSTITUTE.

"The battle for the sway, Of liberty, Fraternity, And light of the new day"

—MARY MORGAN.

"About eighteen hundred and fifty," explained the Honorable, "L'Institut Canadien was our national thinking Society, and the spark of an awakening of great promise."

"Under the French regime, our people received no education. They knew the forests, the rapids, the science of trapping beaver, and when to expect the Iroquois, and sow grain. The English, conquest came next and cut us off from the new birth, of modern France, and the Church, our only institution, was very willing to ignore that stimulation of ideas. We lived on; we read little; we labored much.—But, monsieur," said l'Honorable, with his quiet dignity, "we were of the race of Descartes."

"We slept. At last the awakening! Our griefs and our grievances forced the Rebellion; they brought our thoughts together and made us reason in common; we demanded a new Canada, relieved of bureaucracy, of political disabilty, of seignioral oppression, some said even of abuses of the Church—a Canada of the People, in which every citizen should stand up equal and free."

"The first result demanded—and obtained—was responsible government. Among others came preparations for the abolition of feudal tenure, making a vassal population freeholders!"

"The next cry was Education! The French-Canadians were delighted with the opening world of knowledge and ideas, and there is no race which ever rose with greater enthusiasm to pursue progress and science. A few young men of Montreal were banded into a Society for mutual advancement, to hold debates at which all races were to be free to contribute opinions, to open a library of useful books, and to seek truth without any conditions. That was the Institut Canadien!"

"These noble young enthusiasts soon attracted chosen spirits, a precious essence of the race. They sprang into fame;—fourteen were returned to Parliament in one year. They called all the world freely to their discussions, and created eclat by the brillancy of their programme. The province kindled—every village had its Institute!" "But 'sa-a-a-cr!'" savagely ejaculated Zotique, and his eyes grew intense in their fierceness."

"The Institut Canadien gradually excited the jealousy of certain ecclesiastics by its free admissions and the liberality of its researches. What is known as the "Struggle" commenced. A series of combined assaults by episcopal summons, a pulpit crusade, excommunication, refusal of burial, encouragement of dissensions, and the establishment of rival Institutes bearing names such as "Institut Canadien Francais," most of which existed only on paper, finally succeeded in crushing the movement."

"Ac"—ejaculated Zotique.

"The Institute at Dormilliere is the insignificant sole survivor."

"I understand now your Reveilliere," Chrysler said.



CHAPTER XXV.

THE CAMPAIGN PLAN.

On Saturday evening of Chrysler's first week at the Manoir, they went to the Institute. It was a house down the Dormilliere Street, that held its head somewhat higher, and tipped it back a little more proudly than the rest,—a long old fashioned wooden cottage, of many windows, and some faded pretensions to the ornamental: still elegant in the light curve of its capacious grey roof, the slender turned pillars of its gallery, separated by horizontal oval arches, its row of peaked and moulded dormer windows, its ornaments, its broad staircase climbing up to the doorway, and the provincial-aristocratic look of its high set-back position in its garden. The name of a rich money-lender, who had been feared in days gone by—"Cletus the Ingrate,"—was mentioned under breath in the stories about it. But ever since his death, many years before, it had been the faded outer shell into which the intellectual kernel of Dormilliere life withdrew itself, and in the passage as one entered, the sign "INSTITUT CANADIEN," which had once had its place on the front, might be seen resting on the floor,—a beehive and the motto "Altius Tendimus," occupying the space between the two words.

The interior was a very great contrast to the outside. Its fittings were in the pleasantest of light-hued paints and varnished pine: maps, casts, and pictures enlivened the walls and corners; a handsome library and nucleus of a museum, with reading tables, opened to the left, and a large debating hall to the right—together occupying the whole of the principal floor.

That evening the row of front windows shone with particular illumination for a meeting of Chamilly's supporters, and as Chrysler entered with Haviland and Zotique, they caught from De La Lande the fragmentary assertion, "It is France that must be preached!"

"Aux armes, citoyens!" roared Zotique, entering like a captain on the stage. "Give me my battalion! Write me my letters of marque:" Then throwing one hand in air: "Allons! what has been done?"

The audience sitting around on tables and windowsills, as well as on groups of chairs, laughed boisterously and thumped the floor, and recalled to the proper work of the meeting, commenced a cry of "l'Honorable!"

"The Honorable presides!" intoned Benoit, like a crier; and Genest, accustomed to understand their wishes, seated himself in the chair, while a momentary lull fell over the noisiness.

"A Secretary!"

"De La Lande!"

"Calixte Lefebvre!"

"Le Brun, Le Brun, Le Brun, Le Brun!"

"I nominate our good friend Descarries," smilingly spoke the Chairman. "Does the meeting agree?"

"Yes!" "Yes!" "Maitre Descarries for Secretary!" "Maitre Descarries!" "Carried!" were the responses shouted together from all sides.

"We have to consider this evening," continued the Chairman, after the white-wigged official had seated himself in his place as Secretary, "our general organization and appointment of districts. The aim is to work hard for Monsieur during the times coming. The people's meeting to take place to-morrow, is to be addressed for Libergent by Grandmoulin himself, and Picault will be in the county with them till the election. So you see our task is not less than to defeat the whole strength of the Cave. As we fight with men of stature, there is need of valor and address."

"We'll have to pull the devil by the tail!" cried one. The words were those of a common proverb referring to "close shaving."

The Chairman added: "Mr. De La Lande, the floor seems to be already yours."

"I have heard," began De La Lande, "that Grandmoulin has commenced to raise the issue of French patriotism."

"You are right," said Zotique.

"Well, then, why can we not use a like word, that shall go to the heart of the people? Give us a national cry! Let the struggle rest on our fundamental emotions of race! Why can we not"—The face of the impetuous schoolmaster began to flame into eagerness and fire.

"Because," interrupted Haviland, firmly, "we are in this particular country. Would you have us enter upon a campaign of injustice and ill-will? Leave that, and the glory of it, to Grandmoulin and to Picault!"

"But, my chief, the positions of the French and the English!—We who were first, are becoming last!"

"Come here if you please, sir," Haviland said, turning to Chrysler, who rose and advanced to him surprised. Haviland took him, and passing over to De La Lande, placed the hand of the Ontario gentleman in that of the high-spirited schoolmaster, who accepted it, puzzled. "There!" cried Haviland, raising his voice to a pitch of solemnity. "Say whatever you can in that position. That is the position of the Canadian races?"

A shout rose in the hall, and every man sprang to his feet. Cheer rose upon cheer, while De La Lande shook the hand in his with feeling; and the cheering, smiling, and hand shaking, lasted nearly a minute.

It ended at a story by Zotique.

"When I was a boy,"—he began, in a deep, exaggerated voice, and whirling his two arms so as to include the whole of those present in the circle of his address. The cheers and confusion broke into a roar of laughter for a moment, that stifled itself almost as quickly, as they listened.

"We lived for a year in the Village Ste. Aldegonde, near to Montreal. In the Village Ste. Aldegonde there was a nation of boys. All these boys marched in daily to town to the great School of the Blessed Brothers. Along the way to the School of the Blessed Brothers, many English boys lay in wait between us and learning, and we passed certain streets like Hurons passing through the forests of Iroquois. Often we went in large war parties, and repeated the charges of Waterloo for hours up and down streets."

"One afternoon I passed there alone—accompanied by a great boaster. We behold three big English boys. We cross the street. They come after:—get before us:—command us to stop!"

The audience were worked up into suppressed fits, for Zotique's gestures were inimitable.

"My friend the boaster steps forward with the air Napoleonic! He sticks out his breast like this; he shortens his neck, like this; he frowns his brows; he glares at them a terrible look; he cries: 'I am of the Canadian blood!'"

"And what does he do next, gentlemen?" Zotique paused a moment.

—"Runs for his life!"

The roar that followed shook the apartment. Zotique stopped it.

"But what did I do, gentlemen?"

No one ventured to guess.

"I—perhaps because I was of the Dormilliere blood—did not run, but looked at the English.—We laughed all together.—And I passed along unmolested."

"Messieurs,—with the exception of our excellent De La Lande, I am afraid it is too often those who lack the virtues of their race who make most cry of it."

The meeting now resumed its discussions.

"We require strategy!" asserted a burly, red-haired lawyer from the City.

"I confess myself in favor of strategy," admitted Zotique also;

"I am always in favor," said Chamilly, "of the strategy of organized tactics, of the avoidance of useless by-questions, and of spirit and intelligence in attack and defence."

"But you will not let us lie a little in protection of you," retorted Zotique. "To me the moral law is to beat Picault."

"Assuredly!" the red-haired lawyer said indignantly, looking a half air of patronage towards Chamilly, and breathing in for a steady blast of eloquence: "It is time these ridiculous ideas which forbid us so many successes were sent back to Paradise, and that such elections as the present were governed upon rational principles. We cannot offer the people directly what is good for them; because it is not what they want. What they want, is what we must first of all assume to provide. Once in power we can persuade them afterwards. Gentlemen, to get into power is the first absolute necessity. We cannot defeat the enemy except by opposing to them some of their own methods. Revive the courage of the young men by offering what they deserve—good places in case of success! Replenish the coffers by having our army of contractors to oppose to the ranks of theirs. If they lie, we have a right to lie. If they spend money, we must spend it. If they cajole with figures, surely our advantage as to the facts would enable us to produce others still more astonishing. Human nature is not angelic—and you can never make it otherwise."

"My friend," answered Chamilly, raising his strong frame deliberately, "these are the very principles that I am resolutely determined to battle with all my forces, I care not whether among my foes or my friends. Must our young Liberals learn over again what Liberalism is? The true way to enter polities is none other at any time than to deliberately choose a higher stand and methods. Trickeries are easier and sometimes lead to a kind of success: if our objects were sordid, we might descend to demeaning hypocrisies, we might cheat, we might thieve, perjure, and be puppets, and perhaps so win our way to power; we might think we could use these to better ends, though that doctrine succeeds but rarely;—and perhaps what we might achieve may appear to you of some value, even of great value to you."

"Yet, no, my friends of Dormilliere, your very work is to lay the foundations of sincerity deep in this sphere, and to withstand and eradicate the existing political evils. 'One must determine,' said a very great man, 'to serve the people and not to please them.' If some youth replies, 'This is a laborious, troublesome, hopeless occupation, in which there is not reward enough to make it worth my while,' I tell him but 'Attack it: rejoice to see something so near to challenge your mettle, and if you meet the battle boldly so, and ennoble yourself, you will immediately understand how to think of the ennoblement of your people and your country as glorious.' 'Altius tendimus! We move towards a higher!'—The country reads our motto, and is watching what we practise. Give it an answer in all your acts!"

Chamilly's manner of uttering these words produced the only perfect stillness the meeting observed during the evening, for the French-Canadians have a custom of talking among themselves throughout any ordinary debate. Their respect for Chamilly was striking. L'Honorable listened with a smile of pleasure; Zotique looked all loyalty: and the young men beamed their over-flowing flowing endorsation of sentiments worthy of the Vigers, Dorions, and Papineaus, those grand men whose portraits hung upon their walls.

As he stopped, there was a sudden movement all about. A spirit of energy took hold on all. Zotique, posing at the head of a large table in front of the Chair, almost at once had installed De La Lande assistant-secretary, to do the real work of which punctilious old Maitre Descarries could only make a courageous show; had swept towards him an inkstand, shaken open a drawer and whipped out some foolscap, and darting his cadaverous eyes from one to another around, despotically appointed them to places of various service, now sharply answering, now ignoring a question by the appointee, while De La Lande scribbled his directions; and everyone was so anxious to find some post that there was no grumbling at his heedless good generalship. In a trice they were all being called for at various tables and corners, which he fixed for the operations of the Committees.

The most zealous and loquacious of those who pressed forward to be given positions of trust was Jean Benoit.

"What pig will you shear?" demanded Zotique, (looking for an instant, as he turned to shout towards another quarter, "En'oyez done; en'oyez!")

"I take the Reveilliere."

"The Reveillere is parted among three."—("Be quiet there!")

"Well then,"—grandiloquently,—"I take from St. Jean de Dieu to the parish Church of Dormilliere."

"Too much for four?" pronounced Zotique.

Spoon pressed heavily behind Benoit, and whispered something.

"La Misericoide then," said Benoit, hastily.

Zotique shouted to the Secretary: "Jean Benoit the countryside of La Misericorde!" And to Benoit again:

"There is your committee."

But Jean would have a hand in shoving forward his admired bar-tender: "Give monsieur something near my own."

"Cuiller—the village of La Misericorde," directed Zotique. "Now, both of you, the chief thing you have to do is to report to us if the Bleus commence to work there. Go; go!"

"Salut, Benoit; how goes it; how is the wife? and the father?—the children also? I hope you are well. Comment ca-va-t-il Cuiller?"—asked Chamilly.

Spoon took the proffered hand with his sleepy grin. Benoit responded by an obsequiously graceful shaking and deliberative loquacity:

"Well; well, Monsieur the Seigneur,—We are very well. The wife is well, the father, the children also. And how is Madame the Seigneuresse? and yourself? The crisis approaches, does it not? Eh bien, at that point you will find Jean Benoit strong enough. I have a good heart, Monseigneur. Once Xiste Brin said to me, 'Monsieur the Director, you have a good heart.' Deign to accept my professions, monseigneur, of a loyalty the most solemn, of a breast for ever faithful."

"I have always accepted your friendship, Benoit, and trusted you," smiled generous Haviland. "See here, Zotique, give Benoit a responsible post.—How different must be our feelings at this priceless service of personal affection from those of our opponents, served only for money."

"No money!" blurted Spoon. "Taurieu! An election without money?"

Chamilly, with one quiet glance, turned away to L'Honorable. "Without 'tin,'—St. Christophe, I say!—St. Laurent!"

"Keep quiet—silence, I pray thee," returned Benoit, and drew his companion aside.

"Why did Benoit call himself Director?" Chrysler asked.

Haviland and the Honorable smiled. Chamilly answered:

"It is a weakness of his ever since he was put on the Board of our Agricultural Society. Do not laugh, unless at the common vanity of mankind."



CHAPTER XXV.

THE LOW-COUNTRY SUNRISE.

"Chacun son gout. Moi, j'aime mieux la nature primitive qui n'est pas a la mode du jour mais que l'on ne pourra jamais demoder ... J'aime ce que j'aime, et vous, vous aimez autre chose. Grand bien vous fasse—je vous admire, Monsieur Tout-le-Monde."

—Ben Sulte

"I am going to rise before the sun to-morrow. Would you like to come out fishing?" remarked Haviland, cheerfully, on the way home. Chrysler signified assent.

At grey dawn, before it was yet quite daybreak, they were on the road. All the houses in the neighbourhood looked asleep. Heavy dews lay upon the grass. The scene was chilly, and a little comfortless and suggestive of turning back to bed.

"Where are we going?" the visitor asked, trying to collect his spirits.

"To find Bonhomme Le Brun, who superintends the boating interest.—'Bonhomme'—'Good Man'—is a kind of jocular name we give to every simple old fellow. 'Le Brun' is not quite correct either. His real name—or rather the only one extant among the noms-de-guerre of his predecessors, is Vadeboncoeur—'Go willingly,' which the Notaries I suppose would write 'Vadeboncoeur dit Le Brun.'"

Notwithstanding the early hour they were not alone on the road. A wrinkled woman, bent almost double, was toiling slowly along with heavy sighs, under a sack of firewood.

"See here, madame," Charnilly called out, stepping forward to her, "give me the sack;" which he unloaded from her back and threw over his shoulder.

"You are always so good, monseigneur Chamilly," the old woman groaned in a plaintive, palsied voice, without straightening her doubled frame.

"Is the Bonhomme at the house?" he enquired.

"I think not, sir; he was preparing to go to Isle of Ducks."

"Just where I thought," exclaimed Haviland in English. "This Le Brun is of the oddest class—a secular hermit on the solitudes of the river—a species of mystery to the others. Sometimes he is seen paddling among the islands far down; sometimes seining a little, by methods invented by himself; sometimes carrying home an old gun and more or less loaded with ducks; sometimes his torch is seen far out in the dark, night-fishing; but few meet him face to face besides myself. When a boy I used to think he lived on the water because his legs were crooked, though more probably his legs are crooked because he avoids the land. He keeps my sail-boat for me and I let him use the old windmill we shall come to by those trees."

The windmill and the cot of Le Brun stood in a birch-grown hollow, not far off, where a stream cascaded into the St. Lawrence, and had worn down the precipitous bank of earth. It was a wild picture. The gable of the cot was stained Indian red down to the eaves, and a stone chimney was embedded irregularly in its log side. The windmill, towering its conical roof and rusty weather-vane a little distance off, and stretching out its gray skeleton arms as if to creak more freely in the sweep of gales from the river, was one of those rembrandtesque relics which prove so picturesquely that Time is an artist inimitable by man. A clay oven near the cot completed this group of erections, around and behind which the silver birches and young elms grew up and closed.

No, Messieurs, Le Brun was not at home; he had gone to Isle of Ducks; and all the blessings of the saints upon Monseigneur for his kindness to a poor old woman.—"Ah, Seigneur!"

Chamilly took his skiff from the boathouse himself, and was soon pulling swiftly from the shore, while as they got out upon it the vastness and power of the stream became apparent.

From its broad surface the mists began to rise gracefully in long drifts, moved by the early winds and partly obscuring the distant shores, whose fringe of little shut up houses still suggested slumber. The dews had freshened the pines of Dormilliere, and the old Church stood majestically forward among them, throwing back its head and keeping sleepless watch towards the opposite side. Gradually receding, too, the Manoir showed less and less gable among its mass of foliage.