If the Church is one great institution of that country, the St. Lawrence is no less another,—displaying thirty miles unbroken blue on a clear day in the direction of the distant hill of Montreal, and on the other hand, towards Lake St. Peter, a vista oceanlike and unhorizoned. In certain regions numerous flat islands, covered by long grasses and rushes intersected by labyrinthine passages, hide the boatman from the sight of the world and form innumerable nooks of quiet which have a class of scenery and inhabitants altogether their own. As the chaloupe glides around some unsuspected corner, the crane rises heavily at the splash of a paddle, wild duck fly off low and swiftly, the plover circle away in bright handsome flocks, the gorgeous kingfisher leaves his little tree. In the water different spots have their special finny denizens. In one place a broad deep arm of the river—which throws off a dozen such arms, each as large as London's Thames, without the main stream appearing a whit less broad—shelters among its weeds exhaustless tribes of perch and pickerel; in another place a swifter and profounder current conceals the great sturgeon and lion-like maskinonge; while among certain shallower, less active corners, the bottom is clothed with muddy cat fish.

They approached a region of this kind, skimmed along by spirited athletic strokes, and had arrived at the head of the low-lying archipelago just described, where they came upon a motionless figure sitting fishing in a punt, some distance along a broad passage to the left.

Short blue blouse, little cap and flat-bottomed boat, the appearance of the figure at that hour made one with the drifting mists and rural strangeness of the landscape, and Chrysler knew it was Le Brun, and remarked so to Haviland.

"Without doubt, Bonhomme is part of nature and unmistakable—Hola Bonhomme!"

"Mo-o-o-o-nseigneur," he sung in reply, without looking up or taking further notice of them.

Haviland gave a few more vigorous strokes.

"How does it bite, Bonhomme?"

"A little badly, monseigneur; all perch here; one pickerel. Shall we enter the little channels?"

"I do not wish to enter the little channels: I remain here."

They were soon fishing beside him, Chamilly at one end of the skiff intent upon his sport. The old man's flat punt was littered with perch. How early he must have risen! He was small of figure, weathered of face, simple and impassive of manner.

"Good day," Chrysler opened; "the weather is wettish."

"It is morningy, Monsieur."—

"My son knows you, Monsieur," he said again humbly, after a pause.

As Chrysler could not recall his son, as such, he waited before replying.

"He saw you at Benoit's."

Still Chrysler paused.

"On Sunday."

"A—ha, now I remember. That fine young man is your son?"

"That fine young man, sir," he assented with perfect faith.

After adjusting a line for Chrysler, he continued.

"Do you not think, monsieur, that my son is fine enough for Josephte Benoit?"

"Assuredly. Does he like her?"

"They are devoted to each other."

"If she accepts him then, why not? You do not doubt your son?"

"Never, Monsieur! what is different is Jean. He thinks my Francois too poor for his Josephte, and he is for ever planning to discourage their love. Grand Dieu, he is proud! Yet his father and I were good friends when we were both boys. He wants Mlle. Josephte to take the American."

"Reassure yourself; that will never be. No, Bonhomme, trust to me; that shall never he," exclaimed Chamilly.

"How did you come to know these parties, sir," he put in English. But without awaiting an answer he continued: "Benoit is crazy to marry his daughter to that rowdy. Benoit was always rather off on the surface, but he has usually been shrewder at bottom. Cuiller infatuates him. He hasn't a single antecedent, but has been treating Benoit so much to liquor and boasting, that the foolish man follows him like a dog."

"My son has been to Montreal,—he has done business," said the Bonhomme with pride—"he is a good young man—and he had plenty of money before he lost it on the journey."

"How did he lose his money?"

"Some one stole it. He was coming down to marry Josephte. If he had had his money Jean would have let her take him.—But he can earn more."

"There was a mysterious robbery of Francois' money on the steam boat a couple of weeks ago," said Chamilly in English again, "I shall have to lend him some to set him up in business here, but mustn't do it till after my election."



CHAPTER XXVI.

THE IDEAL STATE.

The air, meanwhile, had been losing its dampness and the mist disappearing, when Haviland drew up his rod and threw it into the boat, and called upon his friend to turn and look at the sunrise.

American sunsets and sunrises, owing to the atmosphere, are famous for their gorgeousness; but some varieties are especially noble. Mountain ones charm by floods of lights and coloring over the heights and ravines, to whose character indeed the sky effects make but a clothing robe, and it is the mountains, or the combination, that speaks. But looking along this glassy avenue of water, flushed with the reflection, it was the great sunrise itself, in its own unobstructed fullness, spreading higher and broader than ever less level country had permitted the Ontarian to behold it, that towered above them over the reedy landscape, in grand suffusions and surges of color.

"It is in Nature," said Chamilly, comprehending that Chrysler felt the scene, "that I can love Canada most, and become renewed into efforts for the good of her human sons. I feel in the presence of this,"—he waved his hand upward, "that I could speak of my ideas."

"You would please me. You said a nation must have a reason for existing and that Canada should have a clear ideal of hers. What is the raison d'etre of Canada?"

"To do pre-eminently well a part of the highest work of all the world! If by being a nation we can advance mankind; if by being a nation we can make a better community for ourselves; our aims are founded on the highest raison d'etre,—the ethical spirit. We must deliberately mark out our work on this principle; and if we do not work upon it we had better not exist."

Then Haviland related to Chrysler freely and fully the comprehensive plan which he had worked out for the building of the nation.

"First of all," he said, "as to ourselves, there are certain things we must clearly take to mind before we begin:"

"That we cannot do good work without making ourselves a good people;"

"That we cannot do the best work without being also a strong and intellectual people;"

"And that we cannot attain to anything of value at haphazard; but must deliberately choose and train for it."

"Labors worthy of Hercules!" ejaculated the old gentleman.

"Worthy of God," the young one replied. The difference of age between himself and the Ontarian seemed to disappear, and he proceeded confidently:

"The foundation must be the Ideal Physical Man. We must never stop short of working until,—now, do not doubt me, sir,—every Canadian is the strongest and most beautiful man that can be thought. No matter how utterly chimerical this seems to the parlor skeptic who insists on our seeing only the common-place, it cannot be so to the true thinker who knows the promises of science and reflects that a nation can turn its face to endeavours which are impossible for a person. Physical culture must be placed on a more reasonable basis, and made a requisite of all education. We need a Physical Inspector in every School. We need to regularly encourage the sports of the country. We require a military term of training, compulsory on all young men, for its effect in straightening the person and strengthening the will. We must have a nation of stern, strong men—a careless people can never rise; no deep impression, no fixed resolve, will ever originate from easy-going natures."

"Next, the most crying requirement is True Education. The source of all our political errors and sufferings is an ignorant electorate, who do not know how to measure either the men or the doctrines that come before them. There is necessity in the doctrine of the State's right over secular education. Democracy, gives you and me an inalienable interest, social and political, in the education of each voter, because its very principle is the right to choose our rulers. As to religious education, that of course is sacred, where it does not encroach on the State's right, and the arrangement I favor is that secular studies be enforced during certain hours, and the use of the school buildings granted to religious instructors at others."

"I notice you say true education."

"A man is being truly educated when his training is exactly levelled at what he ought to be:—first of all a high type of man in general, and next, a good performer of his calling. Let him have a scheme of facts that will give him an idea of the ALL: then show him his part in it."

"Let him be taught in a simple way the logic of facts."

"Let him be taught to seek the best sources only of information."

"Let him be taught in school the falsity of the chief political sophisms."

"Let him be branded with a few business principles of life in general: such as how much to save, and where to put it, and the wisdom of insurance."

"Let him learn these three maxims of experience:"

"Gain experience."

"Gain experience at the lowest possible price."

"Never risk gaining the same experience twice."

"Seek for him, in fine, not learning so much as wisdom, the essence of learning."

"But especially, let every Canadian be educated to see The National Work, and how to do it."

"In short, educate for what you require and educate most for the greatest things you require, and in manner such that everyone may be equipped to stand anywhere without help, and fight a good battle."

"It is an Ideal Character, however, a character perfectly harmonized with his destinies as a soul, and his condition as a citizen, that is the most important armour in the panoply of the Canadian. Purity and elevation of the national character must be held sacred as the snowy peaks of Olympus to the Greek. And as those celestial summits could never have risen to their majesty without foundations of more humble rocks and earth; so we must lay foundations for our finer aspirations by the acquirement of certain basal habits:"

"The Habit of Industry."

"The Habit of Economy."

"The Habit of Progress."

"The Habit of Seriousness."

"In other words the habits of honestly acquiring, keeping and improving, all good things, material, intellectual and moral, and of dealing with the realities of things."

"The Habit of Seriousness may seem strange to insist upon, but one has only to mark the injury to everything noble, of an atmosphere of flippancy and constant strain after smart language. There is nothing in flippancy to have awe of—any one can learn the knack of it—but it is foolish and degrading, while seriousness is the color of truth itself."

"As to the Habit of Industry, there is no other way that can be depended upon for becoming wealthy in goods, or learning, or in good deeds. Materially, if we can learn to employ all our available time at something, we shall be the richest of nations. Why have we so many men idling about the villages? Why do so many women simply live on a relative? How different the country would look if the man spent his waste moments in building a gallery, an oriel window, or an awning, to his house, and the idle girl practised some home manufacture. The prosperity of certain Annapolis valley farmers once struck me. 'Do you know why it is?' said a gentleman who was born there. 'The forefathers of these people were a colony of weavers, and there is a loom in every house.'"

"The Habit of Economy is simply making the best use of our possessions and powers."

"The Habit of Progress, or of constantly seeking to improve, is to be deeply impressed. It alone will bring us everything. It is never time to say, 'Let us remain as we are.'"

"We could attend to some minor habits with benefit. How the popular intelligence would be improved, for instance, by:—"

"A habit of asking for the facts."

"A habit of thinking before asserting."

"A mean between liberality and tenacity of conviction."

"Now one more piece of equipment, but it is the highest: The Canadian, if he is to live a life thoroughly scaled on the scale of the reasonable, must place the greatest importance on those interests which transcend all his others, his future fare beyond this make-shift existence; his relations to the unseen world; and how to lay hold on purity and righteousness. Think what he may of them, life should at any rate think. Let him set apart times to ponder over these matters: and for this, I say that to be a lofty and noble nation, we must all borrow the rational observance of the Sabbath, not as a day merely of rest and still less of flighty recreation, but a necessary period devoted to man's thought upon his more tremendous affairs."

After the equipment of the ideal Canadians, Chamilly proceeded to describe their work. They were to see its pattern above them in the skies—The Perfect Nation.

Among themselves a few great ideas were to be striven for: "We must be One People," "Canada must be Perfectly Independent:" "There must be No Proletariat"

The principle of government was to be "Government by the Best Intelligence."

"We must try to amend unfair distributions of wealth. Yet not to take from the rich, but give to the poor. Fortunes should be looked upon as national, and we should seek means to bring the wealthy to apply their fortunes to patriotic uses. The surroundings of the poor should be made beautiful. No labour should be wasted. Men should learn several occupations, and Government find means of instant communication between those who would work and those who would employ. The lot of the poor must not be made hopeless from generation to generation!"

The next demand of the Ideal was, "There must be No Vice."

"The difficulties!" sighed Chrysler.

"We ought to be ashamed to complain till we have done as well as Sweden."

"Again, we must stamp our action with the Spirit of Organization. The nation must work all together as a whole. The public plan must be clearly disseminated, and especially the aim 'To do pre-eminently well our portion of the improvement of the world.' Consecrated by our ideal also we must seek to draw together, and foster a national distinctiveness. Canada must mean to us the Sacred Country, and our young men learn to weigh truly the value of such living against foreign advantages. For there is no surety of any excellence equal to a national atmosphere of it. They have always been artists in Italy; they have always been sternly free in Scotland: for a word of glory the French rush into the smoke of battle: the Englishman is a success in courage and practicality; the German has not given his existence in vain to thoroughness; nor the American to business. Let us make to ourselves proper customs and peculiarities, like the good old New Year's call, the Winter Carnival, the snow-shoe costume, and a secular procession of St. Jean Baptiste. Tradition too! Why should we forget the virtues of our fathers; or perhaps still better their faults? Let the man who was a hero—Daulac; Brock; the twelve who sortied at Lacolle Mill; our deathless three hundred of Chateauguay,—never to be forgotten. Have them in our books, our school books, our buildings. Make a Fund for Tablets; so that the people may read everywhere: 'Here died McGee, who loved this nation.' 'Papineau spoke here.' 'In this house dwelt Heavysege.' So might all Canada be a Quebec of memories."

He held that the office of our literature and art was to express the spirit of our work. "Nor let the poet," he said, "find the keystone of our spirits dull; let him not fear he sings a vain song when he leaves that voice lingering in some vale of ours that conjures about it forever its moment of richest beauty and romance."

In dress, in manners, we should be common-sense, tasteful and fearless, and in the development of our territory energetic and full of hope. "Believe me, sir, we shall yet learn how to have bright fire-sides on the shores of the Arctic."

"And where is our world-work?" Chrysler asked, like one awakening.

"Wherever there is world-work undone that we can reach to do."

"Think," cried he, finally, "of a country that lives, as I am suggesting, on the deepest and highest principle of the seen and the unseen—what has been the aspiration of the lonely great of other nations, the clear purpose of all is this: what have been the virtues of a few in the past, determined here to be those of the whole; and every citizen ennobled by the consciousness that he is equally possessed of the common glory!"

"It can be done! Heaven and earth tell us that all is under laws of cause and effect, and that this, which has been once, can be made universal. I hear the voice of Science, 'It can be done. It can be done!' I hear the voice of Duty, 'It must be done!' Inextinguishable voices!!"

"It comes to me so vividly that I almost point you to that sunrise and say, 'See yon beautiful city whose palaces and churches tower with the grace and splendors of all known architecture; those rural plains and vales of park and garden, where every home nestles so as one could not conceive it more lovely; that race of heroes and goddesses in strength and thought; those proud tablets and monuments of national and international honor and achievement and blessing.' And if any say, 'How can we attain to that greatness?' I would write him this amulet: 'Begin at the POSSIBLE!'"

The patriot ended, and when he had finished, Chrysler exclaimed:

"Work it out, Haviland! If a convert is any use to you, take me over and send me forth. It's a noble scheme. But, for Heaven's sake, fortify yourself. How many proselytes do you expect in the first hundred years?"

"You forget," replied Haviland. "I have always this faithful little legion of Dormilliere. Has not Lareau said," and he smiled half in joke, half seriously, "that we are a people of ideals."

They returned to their fishing in silence, broken by a meditative query now and then from Chrysler, but no movement of curiosity from the Bonhomme.



CHAPTER XXVII.

JOSEPHTE.

"Sister Elisa," lisped Rudolphe, the tiny boy. (In the garden the children of the farmer of the domain, and of Pierre, were playing together.) "Mr. Ch'ysl' has told me he was a Canadian."

"Did he say so, mon fin?" asked motherly ten-year-old Elisa, picking a "belle p'tite" flower for the little fellow, whom she held by the hand.

"He's not Canadian," put in the large boy, Henri, with contempt befitting his twelve years of experience. "Because he doesn't speak French. He's an English."

"Speaking French don't make a Canadian," answered Elisa. "The Honorable says every one who is native in Canada is a Canadian, speak he French, speak he English."

"O, well—the Honorable—the Honorable—" retorted Henri, testily.

While this went on, the voice of Josephte could be heard singing low and happy, in a corner of the walk of pines which surrounded the garden and the back of the grounds:

"Eglantine est la fleur que j'aime La violette est ma couleur...."[H]

Next, lower, but as if stirred softly by the lingering strain rather than feeling its sadness:

[Footnote H: "Eglantine is the flower I love, My color is the violet"]

"....Dans le souci tu vois l'embleme Des chagrins de mon triste coeur."[I]

[Footnote I:

"....The symbol shall the emblem prove Of my sad heart and eyelids wet"]

When she got thus far, she stopped and called out, cheerfully:—"Come along, my little ones; come along; come along and recite your duties!" And in a trice they all raced in and were panting in a row about her.

Thus one sultry afternoon, Mr. Chrysler found her sitting, book and sewing on her lap and only a rosary about her neck to relieve the modest black dress, whose folds,

"Plain in their neatness," accorded well with her indefinably gentle bearing. Seeing him, she stopped and dropped her head, like a good convent maiden.

"Procedez, ma'amselle," he said, nodding benevolently. "Do not disturb yourself."

"But, monsieur," she said, and blushed in confusion.

"Go on. I shall be interested in these young people's lessons."

"As monsieur wishes," she replied. "Now, my little ones, your catechism."

They ranged themselves in a line.

"Elisa, thee first; repeat the Commandments of God."

Elisa commenced a rhyming paraphrase of the Ten Commandments.

"Ah, no, cherie,—more reverence. Say it as to the Holy Virgin."

Elisa went through it in a soft manner to the end.

"Rudolphe; the Seven Commandments of the Church."

The childish accents of the little one repeated them:—

1. Mass on Sundays them shalt hear And on feasts commanded thee.

2. Once at least in every year, Must thy sins confessed be.

3. Thy Creator take at least At Easter with humility.

4. And keep holy every feast, Whereof thou shalt have decree.

5. Quatre-temps, Vigils, fasts are met, And in Lent entirely.

6. Fridays flesh thou shalt not eat; Saturdays the same shall be.

7. Church's every tithe and fee Thou shalt pay her faithfully.

"Henri, what is the Church which Jesus Christ has established?"

"The Church which Jesus Christ has established," said he stoutly, "is the Church Catholic, Apostolic and Roman."

The next was Henri's eight year old sister.

"Can anyone be saved outside of the Church Catholic, Apostolic and Roman?"

"No," (solemnly,) "out of the Church there is no salvation."

"Say now the Act of Faith all together."

"My God," said the children in unison, "I believe firmly all that the Holy Catholic Church believes and teaches, because it is you who have said it and you are Truth Itself."

"You may rest yourselves."

Chrysler was most curious regarding what he heard thus instilled. The thought struck him: "There's something like that, in our Calvinism too."

"My dear demoiselle," he said aloud, "as I am a Protestant—"

"A Protestant, sir!" She regarded him with visibly extraordinary emotions, and involuntarily crossed herself.

"It is impossible!"

It was the first time a Protestant and she had ever been face to face. "Monsieur," she appealed in agitation "why do you not enter the bosom of the true Church?"

"Must one not act as he believes?"

"But, sir," said the dear girl, painfully, still regarding him with great wonder, "on studying true doctrine, the saints will make you believe; the priest can baptize you. He will be delighted, I am certain, to save a soul from destruction." She could not restrain the flow of a tear.

"My child," Chrysler said, for he saw that curiosity had led him too far: "Leave this to God, who is greater than you or I and knows every heart."

"Monsieur, then, believes in God!" Her present astonishment was equal to that before.

The rising voices of the children relieved him. That of Elisa, who sat in a ring of the rest, nodding her head decidedly and rhythmically, was conspicuous:

"I am going to join the Sisterhood of the Holy Rosary and go to church early, early, often, often, four times a day, and pray, pray, and say my paters and my aves, and gain my indulgences, and be more devout than Sister Jesus of God; and then I am going to take the novitiate and wear a beautiful white veil and fast every day, and at last—at last—I am going to be a Religieuse."

"What name will you take, Elisa?"

"I have decided," the little convent girl responded, "to take the name of 'Sister St. Joseph of the Cradle.'"

"Mais, that is pretty, that! But I prefer 'St. Mary of the Saviour.'"

"What are you going to be?" Elisa asked of the smaller girl.

"I will be—I will be—I will take my first communion."

"I have taken it already," replied Elisa, with superiority.

"Henri! Henri! it is your turn."

"I am going to be an advocate."

"And I am going to be a Rouge," replied little Rudolphe.

"Hah,—we are all Rouges," replied Henri.

"O, well—I will be, then—Monseigneur, like Monsieur Chamilly."

The garden stretched behind the manor-house. Along its paths these children delighted to explore the motherly currant-bushes. Old-fashioned flowers stocked it, and, as Chrysler walked away among them, they reminded him of the simple gardens of his childhood before the showy house-plant era had modernized our grounds. There were erect groups and rows of hollyhocks; monkshood offered its clusters of blue caps; striped tulips and crimson poppies flourished in beds of generous shapes; delicate astors, rich dahlias, and neat little bachelors' buttons peeped in crowds from green freshnesses. This was one of Madame's domains, where she walked, weeded and superintended every morning in broad straw hat and apron; and it was to Chrysler one of the attractions of the Manoir.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

GRANDMOULIN.

"Que Demosthenes, En haranguant, Entraine Athenes, Come un torrent!"

—JACQUES VIORR—LE JARGON DU BEL-ESPRIT.

The events to which all others were leading now began to happen.

The great nomination day,—Sunday—is here. Mass is over, the whole parish, aye and crowds from far and near behind, surge all over the square, where the Church looks down upon them in serenity and silence.

When Chrysler came up, the Cure and his vicar were sitting on their gallery, and a man of strong frame stood upon the crier's rostrum looking round with the assertive consciousness that he was a recognized figure. His face wore a beard of strong but thin black wisps, which would have been Vandyke in form had it been heavier, but allowed the forcible outlines of his chin and cheek to be visible; and his locks, imitated by many a follower throughout the Province, were worn like Gainbetta's in a long and swelling black mass behind. His countenance, evidently from long experience, was so controlled that no trace of natural expression could be discerned upon it beyond an appearance of caution and diplomacy; but whatever its specific character, it bore without gainsay the stamp of power.

The man was Grandmoulin.

After looking this way and that way for several moments allowing the assemblage to hush, he began in a quiet tone.

"My friends!"

He paused deliberately some moments to permit the people's curiosity to concentrate upon him.

"My brothers!"

This with a rising, powerful voice.—Then higher:

"French—Canadians!!" separating the two words.

The audience strained with attention to hear him. What he had to say next became a matter of suspense.

Then with inflection of passionate enthusiasm:

"Canadian FRENCHMEN!!!" he cried, hurling out all his force. And the people could no longer restrain themselves; the rhetorical artifice took them by storm, and they shouted and cheered with one loud, far-echoing, unanimous voice.

Grandmoulin kept his attitude erect and immovable.

"My friends," he proceeded, when the applause began to subside, "I address you as heritors and representatives of a glorious national title. To wear it—to be called 'Frenchman' is to stand in the ranks of the nobility of the human race. I address you as a generous, a great, a devoted people, a people brave of heart and unequalled in intellectual ability, a people proud of themselves, their deeds and the deeds of their fathers in New France and in the fair France of the past, a people above all intensely national, patriotic, jealous for the advancement of their tongue and their race. I address you as faithful of the ancient Church which was founded on the Petrine Rock, and names itself Catholic, Apostolic, Roman; whose altars God has preserved unshaken through the centuries amid terrible hosts of enemies, bitter oppressions, diabolical persecutions; of whose faith your hearts, your bodies, your race itself, are the consecrated depositories set apart and blessed of Heaven."

"I address you further, Frenchmen of Canada, as an oppressed remnant, long crushed and evil treated under alien conquerors; who despoiled you of your dominion, your freedom and your future, and whose military despotism, history records, spurned your cry during eighty years with unspeakable arrogance; till you rose like men in the despair of the '37, for the simplest rights, brandishing in your hands poor scythes and knives against armies with cannon, O my compatriots!—and compelled them to dole you a little justice!"

"The brave and generous who still remain of the generation before, recount to you those living scenes, and your hearts take part with the wronged and valiant of your blood!"

"In this secluded countryside you see too little how they still insult you. Ask yourselves frankly whether that for which our nation strove has ever yet been had. What have we gained? Is not the battle still to be fought? There are no facts more patent than that the English are our conquerors, that they rule our country, that they are aliens, heretics, enemies of our Holy Religion, and that they are heaping up unrighteous riches, while we are becoming despised and poor."

"Think not that I speak without emotions in my breast. There was a day, my poor French-Canadian brothers,—a solemn day, when I bound myself by a great oath to the cause of my people. It was when my father told me, his voice choking with, tears, of the murder of my grandfather, ignominiously thrown from the gallows for the felony of patriotism! Was I wrong to rise in grief and wrath, and swear with tears and prayers before our good Ste. Anne that I would never rest or taste a pleasure until I free the French-Canadians?"

"'It is I who will defend my race and my religion!' cried I then, and I have ever striven to do this, and still so strive."

Having thus played along each different key of his hearer's prejudices, he turned them towards his end.

"It is possible you may think I have, been speaking of everything but politics, and that you are asking yourselves what I really mean. Do you know what this election signifies? It is a contest of the French with the English. It is a question whether that arrogant minority shall continue to impose their ideas, their leaders, their execrable heresies, their taxes and restrictions upon this great French-Canadian Province—the only country which you have been able to hold for your own. You are here, at least, the majority! If their artifices have succeeded in excluding you from a part in governing the Dominion, there is one thing left; you can govern this Province if you stand by me! If you stand by my me you can make our country purely and powerfully French! The ballot gives us the government: we will legislate the English. We will repay their oppressions with taxes and leave the Frenchman free; we will overvalue their properties, and undervalue our own; we will divide their constituencies; we will proclaim parishes out of townships; we will deprive them of offices, harass their commerce, vex their heretical altars; we will force new privileges from the Federal power; we will colonize the public lands with our own people exclusively, and repatriate our children lost; we will possess ourselves of those palaces and that vast wealth they wring from our labor, and finally, free as these great stretches of the valley, we shall live at peace in our own land."

A sullen murmur passed about. The passions were being roused. "The English eat the French-Canadians," repeated several.

"Messieurs of Dormilliere, you can judge of me! They have said of me all sorts of calumnies, all kinds of insinuations. I have been painted as black as the evil spirits. Men are here who will tell you 'Grandmoulin is a hypocrite; Grandmoulin is a robber, a liar, a libertine,'—that I have ruined my Province and sold my people and committed all the list of mortal sins. But, my brothers, I turn from those who assert these wicked falsehoods and I justify myself to you."

"Because I have not sought peace with the strong—because I have not acted a vanquished to the victors—because I have suffered—but that is nothing—because I have freely poured out every energy, as I do to-day," (and there was certainly vast physical effort in the output he was then making of himself) "they have branded me that disturber, that robber, that murderer, that liar and that villain."

"Messieurs, let me tell you a secret that will explain! Scan close and you will find that there is no man who says these things of me who is not either a friend of the English, and traitor to you, or else has been rejected by my associates as unworthy to represent our patriotic ambitions. I must speak even of the agreeable young man of intellect and eloquence who opposes me. I do not blame him: I forgive him. He is young and inexperienced, and he sees things from certain aspects only. Have you never considered that it was natural for one whose father was an Englishman, and whose Protestant grandfather came across the seas among the army that conquered us, to look from a standpoint different from ours. If his birth and sympathies lead him in another direction from me, and my enemies have succeeded in prejudicing his mind, make allowance for him as I myself do, and trust me. I adjure you by the holy names of Mary and Joseph, I am your friend: understand only that Grandmoulin is your friend! Let the confidence be complete, and the triumph of your race in the Province of Quebec is secure!"

To Chrysler's utter surprise, the orator, pausing a moment, singled him out; pointed his finger towards him, and, turning to the people, cried: "Have I not said Mr. Haviland was a friend of your conquerors? Let me show you his adviser at this crisis of his plans!"

Grandmoulin knew he was in a community saturated with the Rouge tradition. He knew that even with all the weak and corruptible elements of the "back parishes" his chances were inferior on their face to Chamilly's, and he felt that he must at least retain his adherents here or lose the county. It was only after a final, truly magnificent effort of eloquence that he withdrew, and cheers upon cheers followed him, especially from a party among whom Cuiller, in a state of intoxication, was prominent. It was the first time that Grandmoulin had appeared in the neighborhood, and he had evidently created a great impression.



CHAPTER XXIX.

CHAMILLY.

"Mais, n'avons-nous pas, je vous prie, Encore de plus puissants liens? A tout preferons la patrie: Avant tout soyons Canadiens."

—POPULAR SONG.

Chamilly rose upon the rostrum when Grandmoulin went down. He opened quietly, after the exciting peroration of his opponent, and in a manner which lulled and calmed the assembly.

"People of Dormilliere, I have had a cause for wonder during Mr. Grandmoulin's discourse. I have been wondering at the perfect courage with which he invents a fact, a reason, a principle, an emotion, in cases where almost the whole world knows that none of these exist."

"I am accounted a person informed in the events of '37. I have studied all the accounts and documents that are accessible, and have made a point of conversing with the survivors of that time. I state with the fullest knowledge, and you have long known the value of my word, that it is a falsehood that Mr. Grandmoulin's grandfather died a martyr as he has alleged, nor is he known to have been concerned in the rebellion in any way."

This statement created a visible sensation over the audience.

"Zotique called out: 'The National Liar!'"

Grandmoulin remained immovable.

"His assertion that I am an Englishman," went on Chamilly, "is as absurd as it is futile here. Friends of mine through my youth, and children of the friends of my forefathers, whose lives arose and declined in this place like ours, am I not bound to you by ties which forbid that I should be named a stranger!"

(Cries of "Oui, Oui," "Notre frere!" and "Notre Chamilly!")

"Mr. Grandmoulin speaks a falsehood of perhaps not less importance in his assertion that the English are oppressing us. Where is the oppression of which he makes cry? The very existence of each of you in his full liberty and speaking French ought to be a sufficient argument. Speak, act, worship, buy, sell,—who hinders us so long as we obey the laws? Would you like a stronger evidence of our freedom? Grandmoulin himself presents it when he proclaims his violent incitations! Of oppression by our good fellow-citizens, let then no more be said.—"

"The object of Mr. Grandmoulin in these bold falsifications is I think sufficiently suspected by you, when you have it on the evidence of your senses that they are invented. Let us leave both them and him aside and keep ourselves free to examine that theme of far transcending importance, the true position of the French-Canadians."

"What is our true position? Is it to be a people of Ishmaelites, who see in every stranger an enemy, who, having rejected good-will, shall have chosen to be those whose existence is an intrigue—a people accepting no ideas, and receiving no benefits? Will they be happy in their hatred? Will they progress? Will they be permitted to exist?"

"Or shall their ideas be different? Tell me, ye who are of them; is it more natural or not that they shall open their generous hearts to everyone who will be their friend, their minds to every idea, their conceptions to the noon-day conception of the fraternity of mankind, liberty, equality, good-will? Is it more natural or not that we should find pride in a country and a nation which have accepted our name and history, and are constantly seeking our citizen-like affection to make the union with us complete? French-Canadians, the honor of this Dominion, which promises to be one of the greatest nations of the earth, is peculiarly yours. You are of the race which were the first to call themselves Canadians! The interests of your children are bound up in its being; your honor in its conduct; your glory in its success. Work for it, think on it, pray for it; let no illusion render you untrue to it: beware of the enemy who would demolish the foundation of one patriotism under pretext of laying the stones of another."

"Canadians!"—He lingered on the sound with tones of striking richness which sank into the hearts of his hearers. "Canadians!—Great title of the future, syllable of music, who is it that shall hear it in these plains in centuries to come, and shall forget the race who chose it, and gave it to the hundred peoples who arrive to blend in our land? To your stock the historic part and the gesture of respect is assigned, from the companies of the incoming stream. My brothers, let us be benign, and accept our place of honor. Identify yourselves with a nation vaster than your race, and cultivate your talents to put you at its head."

He said he had no condemnation, however, for those who were rightly proud of the deeds of the French race and its old heroes.

"I have nothing but the enthusiasm of a comrade for any true to the noble feelings which it would be a shame to let die! I entreat that they be cherished, and let them incite us to new assurance of our capabilities for enterprises fitting to our age. Let the virtues of old take new forms, and courage will still be courage, hospitality hospitality, and patriotism patriotism! Away with dragging for inglorious purposes the banner of the past through the dust of the present! Let the present be made glorious, and not inglorious, in its own kind, and the past shine on at its enchanted distance of beauty!"

* * * * *

"What shall that greatness be—that splendor of our Canada to come?" He pictured its possibilities in grand vistas. The people were spell-bound by noble hopes and emotions which carried them upward. Involuntarily, as Chrysler looked at his face and bearing, he was reminded of the prophets, and the old white church behind seemed to be rising and throwing back its head, and withdrawing its thoughts into some proud region of the great and supernatural. The old man forgot the crowd and the crowd totally forgot Chrysler:

"Canadians!" Chamilly closed, his figure drawn up like a hero's and his rich voice sounding the name again with that wonderful utterance, "the memories of our race are compatible only with the good of the world and our country. If you are unwilling to accept me on this basis, do not elect me, for I will only express my convictions."



CHAPTER XXX.

AN ORATION UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

"On high in yonder old church tower, * * * * * The ancient bell rings out the hour, Sometimes with voice of wondrous power."

—JOHN BREAKENRIDGE.

Monsieur Editor Quinet mounted the platform and stood there, cool and masterful.

At the same moment the Cure in his black gown, bolted up from his chair beside his young vicar, on the gallery of the parsonage, and regarding the orator with indignation, raised his breviary towards the church with outstretched arm.

"Messieurs, what ruins us".... Quinet commenced.

His sentence was shattered to pieces!

"KLING-KLANG-G-G-G!" a loud church bell resounded from one of the towers, sending a visible shock over the assembly and drowning the succeeding words.

"What ruins us".... Quinet, with imperturbable composure, commenced again in a louder voice.

A cashing peal from the opposite belfry replied to the first and compelled him to stop.

The Cure, swelling with triumph, marched up and down his gallery, turning quickly at each end; while the bells of both the towers, swinging confusedly in their belfries, sent forth one horrible continued torrent of clangor over the amazed crowd.

The speaker was soon convinced that no amount of cool waiting would prevail. He did, therefore, what was a more keenly effective continuation of his sentence than any words,—raised his finger and pointed it steadily for a few moments at the Cure, and then withdrew.

For many a day the story of Quinet and the bells was told in Dormilliere.



CHAPTER XXXI.

LIBERGENT.

During the addresses, Libergent, Chamilly's nominal opponent, seemed to do nothing more than stand behind the rostrum and let things proceed. Libergent, lawyer, was a man of a shrewd low order of ability. About forty years of age and medium height, his compact, athletic physique, partly bald head, small but well rounded skull, close iron-grey hair and moustache would have made him a perfect type of the French military man, were it not for a sort of stoop of determination, which, however, added to his appearance of athletic alertness, while it took away much dignity. The expression of his face was not bad. The decided droop of the corners of the mouth, and hardness of his grey-brown eyes indicated, it is true, a measure of irritability, but on the whole, the objectionable element of the expression was only that of a man who was accustomed to measure all things on the scale of common-place personal advantage. His life was not belied by his appearance. He found his chief pleasures in fishing, and shooting, and kept a trotter of rapid pace. His quarters were comfortable in the sense of the smoker and sportsman. When he did not wear an easier costume for convenience, his shining hat and broad-cloth coat would have been the envy of many a city confrere. He lived a very moderate, regular life: now and then took a little liquor with a friend, but always with some sage remark against excess; made himself for the most part a reasonable and sufficiently agreeable companion; and had no higher tastes, unless a collection of coins, well mounted and arranged and at times added to, may claim that title. He therefore considered Haviland stark mad in spending so much money and brains upon nonsense; and the subject made him testy when he reviewed his refusal to accept some arrangement by which they could share the local political advantages between them.

"Politics is a sphere of business like any other," he said. "Haviland is doing the injury to himself and me that a theorist in business always does. He makes himself a cursed nuisance."



CHAPTER XXXII.

MISERICORDE.

Fiercely the election stirred the energies of Dormilliere. For more than a generation, enthusiasm for political contest had been a local characteristic; but now the feelings of the village,—as pronounced and hereditary a "Red" stronghold, as Vincennes across the river was hereditarily "Blue,"—may be likened only to the feeling of the Trojans at the famous siege of Troy. Their Seigneur was the Hector, and their strand beheld debarking against it the boldest pirates of the French-Canadian Hellas.

In Chrysler's walks he met signs of the excitement even where a long stroll brought him far back into the country.

The one of such corners named Misericorde from its wretchedness, was a hamlet of thirty or forty cabins crowded together among some scrub trees in the midst of a stony moor. The inhabitants, of whom a good share were broken-down beggars and nondescript fishermen, varied their discouraged existences by drinking, wood sawing and doing odd jobs for the surrounding farmers, while their slatternly women idled at the doors and the children grew up wild, trooping over the surrounding waste. Politically, the place was noted for its unreliability. It was well known that every suffrage in it was open to corruption. In ordinary times the Rouges troubled themselves little about this, but the strong combination they had now to fight might make the vote of La Misericorde of considerable importance; hence, there was some value in the trust which had been placed, at the meeting, in Benoit and Spoon.

Here the latter, even more than at Dormilliere, was in his element.

A drinking house, misnamed "hotel," was the most prominent building in Misericorde. It would not have ornamented a more respectable locality but, on the whole, possessed a certain picturesqueness, among these hovels, and arrested the Ontarian's steps. Stained a dark grey by at least fifty years of exposure, yet slightly tinted with the traces of a by-gone coat of green, it lifted a high peaked roof in air, which in descent, suddenly curving, was carried far out over a high-set front gallery reached by very steep steps. On the stuck-out sign, which was in the same faded condition as the rest of the building, were with difficulty to be distinguished in a suggestion of yellow color the shapes of a large and small French loaf, and the inscription "BOULONGE," but the baking had apparently passed away with the paint. While he was curiously surveying this antique bit, a loud voice sounded through the open door, and the heavy form of the "Yankee from Longueuil" precipitated itself proudly, though a trifle unsteadily, forward down the steps and along the middle of the street, swearing, boasting and heading a swarm of men and boys, and loudly drawling a line of Connecticut notions in blasphemy.

It could be seen that Spoon was some kind of a hero in the eyes of Misericorde. Rich,—for he had paid the drinks; travelled,—they had his assertion for it; courageous,—he could anathematize the Archbishop; Misericorde had seldom such a novelty all to itself.

"Sacre! To blazes wit' you; set 'em up all roun', you blas' Canaydjin nigger! Du gin, vite done! John Collins' pour le crowd! I'm a white man, j'sht un homme blanc, j'sht Americain; I'm from the Unyted States, I am! Sacre bleu! Health to all!"

"Health, monsieur!"

"Health, monsieur!"

"A thousand thanks."

"Set 'em up again, bapteme, you blas' Canayjin nigger!"

"What does he say!" inquired the landlord, on the verge of being offended.

"Shut up, Potdevin!" said the only man who understood English, fearful lest the second treat should go astray.

"Take!" cried Spoon, in a at of reconciliation, throwing down a five dollar bill; and at the sight of the money, Potdevin, true landlord, proceeded with the pouring out of the beverages into very small glasses with very thick bottoms.

It was funny, when he had precipitated himself from the door, as above said, to contemplate the fellow with his low hat on one side and far down on his nose, his swelling shirt-front, striped breeches, and mighty brass chain, leading the trooping crowd like some travelling juggler.

All this, however, was election work.

Was it the kind of method Chamilly would approve? There was a short and certain answer.

Which then of Haviland's friends supplied Spoon with money for these only too obvious processes of vote-obtaining. It was not the Honorable, it was not De La Lande, it would not be penurious Benoit?

"Ah, well," Chrysler thought, "I am here but to observe. Am I not under obligations to Zotique, if it be he, which prevent my interfering?"

Another of Chrysler's theories too was exploded. He had long revolved a suspicion that it was Cuiller who had stolen Francois' $750. "Where else," thought he, "does he get these liberal sums to spend?" Once he had ventured to ask Spoon himself about Le Brun's loss but was plumply faced with the growl, "Do you suppose I stole it?" and, ashamed of himself, withdrew the theory almost from his own mind. How he could explain even the American's expenditure.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

BLEUS.

The Haviland party were not the only people alive to the necessities of the contest. It was not seldom that in the Ontarian's walks during those few days, the steady, inscrutable bust of Grandmoulin passed him, driven in one direction or another by Libergent; and sometimes Picault accompanied.

Grandmoulin, indeed, made herculean efforts. His grand chefs d'oeuvre of oratory—soul stirring appeals, in the name of all that was sacred in honor and religion, for his hypocritical and corrupt purposes, were lifted in noble structures of eloquence before the people, till it seemed as if the lavishness of his genius and labor could only be explained by the desire of challenging the other great orator of the race. The young energies of Haviland responded readily. Their speeches were reported in full for the journals of the cities and watched for everywhere. It was the battle of Cataline and Cicero.

The back parishes were not so soundly "Red" as Dormilliere: they usually polled a considerable Blue vote, and were very unstable. Here were concentrated the efforts of Grandmoulin to cajole and Picault to buy.

Once thus Chrysler met Libergent driving Grandmoulin in a "buck-board," while another person sat in the back seat.

"Chrysler! Chrysler!—Listen!" exclaimed the person in the back seat.

Chrysler recognized an Ottawa acquaintance.

"De Bleury! how do you do!"

De Bleury put his hand on the reins to stop the vehicle:

"Come up here, Chrysler, we go past the Manoir."

"Thank you, I enjoy walking."

"Come along, come along; we don't hear excuses in the country. Come, Chrysler, the road is long."

In order not to offend, Chrysler, in spite of his objection to the company, took the unoccupied place behind Grandmoulin.

With Libergent, Chrysler did not reap much in conversation. He was conciliatory in his solitary-like way, and had indulged for once in too much liquor.

"Right Hon'ble Premier,—Sec' State.—Hon'ble Mr. Grandm'lin—all my fren's. You know dose gen'lmen? All my fren's. Da's all. My fren's goin' make it all right, eh? I re'spect'ble 'nough." The half-seas-confidential style.

Grandmoulin acknowledged the stranger but gravely, and was at once immutable—oppressed with thought for the country's welfare! As he sat before Chrysler, and the latter felt the nearness of his broad shoulders and coarse black mass of hair, he could not but picture the man within sinking into littleness and self-contempt at the debased uses of his great talent.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE FREEMASON.

Ross de Bleury, the hospitable passenger, was a character. A man of immense physical strength and abounding spirits, soundly and stoutly built, of medium height, brown hair, full eyes and large nostrils, and strong merry lips, always devising some ingenious adventure.

One of his schemes, a quarter joke, three-quarters half-serious, was to band together all persons in the Dominion bearing the Ross name into one Canadian clan, he to be chief! His own surname had first of all been simply Bleury, but energetic genealogical researches having discovered to him that the founder of his line in France was a Scotch adventurer, he made bold to resurrect the original name, and add to it what was already a "Charles Rene Marie-Auguste-Raoul-St. Cyr-de Bleury."

Jest, quip and lively saying shortened his route to the doorway of the Circuit Court, and he insisted on Chrysler's passing to his quarters upstairs. The court-room was stocked with dusty benches and tables, on and about which a small but noisy company were postured. One reckless fellow swinging an ale-mug was singing:—

"Tant qu'on le pourra, larirette, On se damnera, larira!"

Two girls stood together near the door laughing brazen giggles.

They were the Jalberts, daughters of the innkeeper, who himself with two young politicians from Montreal were impressing on a habitant: "If you don't vote for Libergent, you can't go to heaven;" Jalbert being an adherent of the Blues in the hope of "running" Dormilliere, if they succeeded, for his license had been taken away by the new movement. The bailiff, a wolfish-looking creature, who was always to be had for drink, also sat there trailing his vast loose moustache over a table. When Grandmoulin entered, a little crowd, like the tail of a comet, followed him into the room. As he passed through he said no word, but drew his cloak about him and moved forward sphinx-like to the bar of the court, where he sat down and commenced to converse with Libergent.

Chrysler mounted the stairs with his entertainer and came upon an entirely different scene. De Bleury's spacious attic was appropriated to the rough and ready convenience of himself alone, and there was something quizzical about its expanses of brown dimnesses and darknesses, the cobwebby light that struggled in through the one high dormer window, the closet-like partition in the middle with a ticket-selling orifice, and the three or four rough chairs, which, with table, newspaper, and a basket of bottles, formed the furniture of this apartment. What work was done here, and how any one could choose such a spot to do work in were questions asked you mysteriously by every object about. As soon as he had waved Chrysler to one of the chairs and sank back upon another into a shadow, he stretched out his hand and pulled the basket of bottles towards him.

"Now, sir, the question of fortune to every good man as he enters the world: 'What will you have.' I don't believe in fate: I believe in fortune: good things for everybody; let him choose. It's the man who won't accept good mouthfuls who is miserable. My Lord, what will you have?"

"I never take anything, thank you!"

"Eh, Mon Dieu! You wouldn't have me drink alone! You grieve my soul, Chrysler! Bois, done, my dear friend, we will be merry together. In this cursed country, among these oxen of the farms, we don't often meet a civilized friend." In saying this, he was dexterously pulling the cork from a bottle of champagne, which his right hand now poured into two wine glasses, as skilfully as his left had whisked them out of a corner of the basket.

"Drink quickly,—Eh bien, you do not wish to? Your health then!—May you long survive your principles, and experience a blessed death of gout!"

He quaffed off the glass and poured out another, laughing and chatting on with such bounding, irresistible spirits that his guest caught a kind of sympathetic infection. Glass after glass interminable disappeared down his throat in a kind of intermittent cascade. The Ontarian laughed more than he had done for many a year.

"But, De Bleury," he got breath to say, "what is your important capacity here, that they give you such sumptuous quarters?"

"Commercial traveller in the only commerce of the country. We have no business here, you know, except statesmanship, the trade in voters, le metier de ministre. You see a man;—tell me how much he owns:—I can tell you his election price. The schedule is simply: How much taxes does he pay?—Pay my taxes; I vote your side. There lies the only shame of my Scotch blood that they have never devised a commerce so obvious. It's like a bailiff we used to tease; he had no money, poor devil, so when he came into the bar he used to say to us, 'Make me drunk and have some fun with me.' 'Pay my taxes and have some fun with me:' the same thing, you see. All men are merchandise. Ross de Bleury alone has no price—but for a regular good guzzler, I could embezzle a Returning Officer."

A rap sounded on the door of the stairs.

"I resemble my ancestor, the Chevalier Jean Ross, who, when he was storming a castle in Flanders, exclaimed: 'Victory, companions! we command the door of the wine cellar!'"

The words of a Persian proverb: "You are a liar, but you delight me," passed through Chrysler's mind.

The rap sounded again, and louder, on the door below.

De Bleury's manner changed. He looked at his companion as if revolving some plan; then moving rapidly to the ticket-office-like-closet, he opened a door, and beckoned him in, signing to sit down and keep quiet. The closet was darker than the darkest part of the surrounding garret, for the dormer window in it, similar to the one near the table, was boarded up, all but a single irregular aperture, admitting light enough only to reveal the surroundings after lapse of some time.

De Bleury, however, by holding his purse up to the chink of light, managed to assure himself of the denomination of a bank-note, and then, turning hastily, lifted the sliding door of the ticket-hole a trifle and pushing out the money, left it partly under the slide, letting in a grey beam on their darkness. He then silently applied his eye to an augur-hole above the slide, and waited. Meantime the knock sounded once more and pair of heavy steps came up the stairs, and tramped towards them; and some indefinable recognition of the heavy tread came vaguely to Chrysler. The steps stopped, the note was withdrawn, the tread sank away down the stairs, and De Bleury, rollicking with suppressed laughter, opened the door.

"You have overseen a ceremony of the Freemasons," he said. "Truly. You don't believe it? I am a Freemason, I am, Chrysler," he said, sententiously, with a trace of the champagne, "I have observed a square and compass among the charms at your watch-chain. You know, therefore, your duties towards a brother, not, perhaps, not to see; but having seen, not to divulge. You understand?"

"Perfectly, my dear De Bleury. Excuse me, I have an engagement at the Manoir."



CHAPTER XXXV.

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.

"Proneurs de l'ancien regime, dites-moi ce que vous faites de ces belles et riches natures de femmes, qui sortent du sang genereux du peuple?"

—ETIENNE PARENT.

During the excitement and bustle, Mr. Chrysler also sometimes fell into the modest society of Josephte. The girl seemed sad at these times, and to be losing the serene peace which at first seemed her characteristic. He remarked this to Madame Bois-Hebert one day as he met her sitting in the shades of the pine-walk reading a devotional work.

Madame was a figure still able to command as well as to attract respect. Dignity and ability had not yet departed from her face and bearing, and quietude was the only effect of age upon her, beyond falling cheeks and increasing absorption in exercises of religion.

"Does it not appear to you that your demoiselle is sad?" he asked.

"It is true, monsieur; her mind is troubled at present."

"The cause is some cavalier."

"You judge correctly. Benoit does not wish her to marry as she desires. And though he wishes her to unite herself to a brute compared with her cavalier, yet the latter is himself an individual of no consequence, and she has been well advised to relinquish him."

"Who is it advises that?"

"Her friends, who see in her a more lovely destiny. The dear child will make perhaps a Saint. You do not know the expiations and indulgences she has earned these several years by prayers and devotions, her pure nature, her admirable conduct. She is not for the world, but for God."

"What did Josepthe herself think?"

That which Madame had said of her nature was correct enough. She was a delight to the sisters in their sad, austere lives. "She is like an angel, and has the movements of one," they said. Very unlike to, for instance, the daughters Jalbert, those bold and idle girls, whose steady occupation was tom-boying scandalously with chance young men, and jeering impudent jeers at everybody.

Her haunts were in removed and shady nooks, such as the little dell behind the log cabin of the Le Bruns. There, one hot afternoon he found her sitting under the shade of the windmill, dressed as usual in neat black, and as usual lately, pale. The little ones ran, sat and played around her; Henri, Rudolphe and Elisa in the pride of their enterprise tugging the long beam by which horse or man in the preceding century had turned the conical cap of the mill; their efforts cracking and shaking the crazy roof, but availing nothing except to disturb a crow or two near by, among the white birches through whose clusters gleamed the River in the sun.

What brought Josephte to the Le Brun dell?

Et quoi! She was weeping.

Those little children saw not her silent tears. Chrysler beheld them—crystalline drops on pale, soft cheek, emblems of pure heart and secret sorrow; but she checked them when he drew near and sat up composed.

"Mademoiselle," he said, "What is it troubles thee so profoundly? Tell me; I am an old man and thy friend."

"Monsieur, Monsieur, I ask your pardon,"—she broke again into tears. Fortunately, all the children were running off among the trees.—"My sin is great:"

"And what is the offence, my child?"

Josephte was silent, and the blood rushed over her face.

"I mean thee no ill, Mlle. Josephte. Perhaps I can assist or advise thee."

"They have promised me to the good God: alas! and my heart thinks of a mortal! I never could be like the others.—I cannot forget," and she broke completely down, sobbing again and again. In a little while he spoke, hoping to soothe her.

"This may be no more than natural, my dear."

"The natural heart, monsieur, is full of sin; and that is ten times worse for a woman. O if I could love God alone!" and again she sobbed convulsively.

Trained as the highest type of Catholic mind, her imagination habitually pictured two worlds—the one of exquisite spiritual light and purity, and spotless with the presence of saints, of the Virgin; of God the Father: the other the world of mankind,—the "world," shadowed with wickedness and mourning, and whose pleasure is itself a sin. She yearned towards the first; she sank back with acute sensitiveness from the second. For her, to enter a church was to be overpowered with the communion of spirits; to think a single thought leading away from God was to commit a crime. To know such a girl is to respect for ever the nun's orders in which natures like hers take refuge.

"Josephte, ma'amselle," said Chrysler very quietly and pleadingly, "do you not love Francois?"

The blood swept over her forehead again, and changed it once more from white to red. The tears stopped in her eyes and she regarded him for a moment with an intense look.

"Francois loves you," he proceeded.

He went on: "Where is the difficulty? Is it not very cruel to deny Francois your love? Who made you promise that?"

"O sir, they willed that I should marry another."

"It is only your father who wished you to marry Cuiller."

"Madame la Seigneuresse wished me to enter the convent." Again she burst into bitter tears. Rocking to and fro she continued with breaking heart, "I promised it to God himself."

Chrysler had no wish to meddle with the belief of his new friends. Here, however, it was a matter of humanity and common sense. He could not let the young girl's life be ruined. He said: "My child, le bon Dieu never asks the unreasonable. Is not God kinder than you; and will he demand of you and Francois what you would not of another?"

"Monsieur, is it possible that that is true?" sobbed she, weeping freer.

"Does not your heart say so?" said he.

"I know not. It must be so. You speak like a priest."

"Think," he said, "and pray to Him about it, and hope a little for Francois. He loves you. It would be so cruel to him to lose you."

Henri's voice broke joyously out of the shrubbery:—

"Good at all times Is sweet bread, But specially when With sugar spread."

Chrysler moved away, and passing through the trees stood on the bank, looking down on the beach and the sunny surface of the River. He had helped to right one little matter anyway, in Dormilliere.

A guttural call in a low voice startled him,—a subdued longdrawn "Hoioch!—hoioch!—hoioch!" followed by a few words of instructions rapidly uttered in what seemed a kind of patois—and on turning he saw below, along the shore at the left, the little figure of the Bonhomme rapidly pulling in one end of a net through the water, while the other end was managed by a younger fisherman attired as rudely and queerly. It needed a close glance to see that the second man was Francois, assisting his father. Together they suggested that strange caste—the fishers of the great river—a caste living in the midst of a civilization, yet as little of it as the gipsies—families handing down apart among themselves from generation to generation manners, customs, haunts, unique secrets of localities, and sometimes apparently a marvellous skill. These are the true geographers and unboasting Nimrods. You who have ever seen the strange sight of the spearing under the flame of immense torches in the rapids of the Buisson, where no straining of your own eyes could ever discern the trace of a fish; and you with whom it was an article of faith that certain death waited in every channel, swirl and white horse of the thundering Lachine Rapids, until one day some one speculated how the market boats of the lake above could turn up every morning safe and regular at the Bonsecours Market,—will be ready to understand.

However, it was not long before the net was drawn up and Chrysler stood beside them, the greetings were over and all three were duly seated, each on his chosen boulder under the green poplar saplings, talking:

"Francois," said the Bonhomme to his son, "Monsieur does not think it probable that Cuiller will marry Josephte."

The young man's unconquerable cheerfulness faded for a moment. He was silent.

"Why is it Mr. Benoit will not accept you?"—Chrysler asked, very interested.

"Solely because I lost my money, air. I was coming to receive his blessing on our wishes."

"How was the money lost? That was a singular circumstance."

"I had seven hundred and fifty dollars in my pocket. It was on the steamboat down from Montreal, at night time, in the lower cabin. I got a corner with Cuiller between two barrels and a bale of blankets and went to sleep from time to time. The lamps did not burn well. There was a crowd of people. A pedlar was next me whose features I have forgotten. Cuiller says it was that pedlar who took my money. I will not blame a man without knowing something about him; but the truth is that when I got up and searched my pockets, my purse, my money, my pleasure, my life's profit,—all were lost, and I had nothing for it but to sit down and cry tears, after enquiring of all the people."

"In what pieces was your money?"

"Six bills of a hundred, ten tens and ten fives, sir!"

"Don't you recollect anything about the pedlar?"

"I was certain I recollected him getting off, but Cuiller saw him later."

"If Cuiller knew he took your purse why didn't he wake you or stop him?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Cuiller is as much to blame as the pedlar."

"You think so?" said the simple Bonhomme.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

ZOTIQUE'S MISGIVING.

At sunset of the day before the Election, Chamilly came over very tired from the Institution and ordered tea to be brought out on the lawn. Little Breboeuf sat with them; the visiting politicians also; and last, least, and highly delighted at the honor, Francois Vadeboncoeur dit Le Brun. To-morrow is the election day.

"How do we stand, Zotique?" Chamilly asked, with some air of fatigue. Zotique's duty of directing the actual carrying out of the campaign made him an authority on the "feel" of the constituency.

"Breboeuf will give you figures," replied he, reticently, for the struggle had proved grave. The Cure had almost succeeded, so far, in keeping his vow.

"Eh bien, ma brebis?"

"From the lists as Zotique has marked them I compute a majority of 28."

"Morbleu,—that's not comfortable!" exclaimed a young editor, fond of old oaths.

"But these estimations of Mr. Genest's prove surprisingly accurate," explained Chamilly.

"A majority of 28, composed as follows:" Breboeuf continued; "Donnilliere, 83 to 44—majority 39; Petite Argentenaye, 96 to 47;—majority 49; St. Dominique, 11 to 19—majority 8; Misericorde, majority 47. Esneval.—"

"Wait!"

Zotique spoke, and his eyes darkened energetically.

"I cannot guarantee you, Misericorde."

All looked at each other. There was consternation.

"But surely Benoit has reported on that place," said Chamilly.

"In my absence. He has met me as little as possible. But Cuiller was seen an hour ago entering the Circuit Court."

"Traitors!" breathed de la Lande.

"I do not trust this American. Unless I was ever mistaken, he and Benoit are goods and effects of Libergent, and we must save Misericorde without letting those know, of perish. Let one go over; you cannot, and I cannot, nor any of the prominent, but let us send our Francois here, let him discover how it stands, and be back within two hours, so that we can work there, if needful, the rest of the night. This is the only salvation."

"I will go," cried Francois cheerfully, and picking up his hat, started rapidly away. Josephte came in at the gates as he was passing out; she bowed to him, and moved by us into the house, wrapped in the composure of one mourning at heart.

On hurried Francois, blithely unconscious of any dark prospect on his hopes of Josephte, but in visions, as he walked, of a little snow-white cottage known to him, with only one window in front, green-shuttered, but a dear little opening in the attic gable, and a leafy honey suckle creeping over the door way.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

A CRIME!

"The veil of mist that held her eyes was rent As by a lightning flash...."

—W. KIRBY

An hour passes. The shades draw on and begin to blend hues and forms. Chrysler moves his deliberative survey over the neat-clipped grass and the tall hedge, the poplars looking over it from the other side of the highway, the boughs and trunks of the great triple tree—and the little pinnacles along the Manor-house. A couple of the visitors along the paths are discussing the situation with dapper Parisian steps and gestures.

Suddenly the shades creep perceptibly deeper. The gate rattles. A wild acting man—it is Benoit in his sky-blue clothes—rushes panting in, throwing out his arms before him, stumbling and gasping inarticulately lamentations of anguish. "He is dead; my God, the poor young man! Poor Francois! My God! my God!"

Yes, it is Benoit Iscariotes.

Everyone springs to him. A great tragedy has occurred—for Dormilliere; perhaps little for a more experienced world. In Benoit's mind quivers a scene that has set shouting all the wild voices of his conscience. Ever-cheerful Francois, so full of life, so faithful, well named "Vadeboncoeur," lies motionless upon the highway, deadly white, with glazed, half-closed eyes. Blood trickles from his open mouth, scatters from a frightful gash over his forehead, and bathes the ground in a dark pool; and a heavy stone lies near and relates its murderous tale. This is what guilty Jean-Benoit saw at his feet, as, having finished his "labors" to his own satisfaction he was returning from Misericorde in the footsteps of his coadjutor Cuiller. O, as the poor body lay in the blood like a judgment before him, and those half-closed eyes seemed to gleam at him from their lids, what a fearful blow did Conscience strike that hypocrite, leaping from the lair in which it had long lain in wait!

He cannot stir. A mighty thunder cloud rises up from behind high above him, and darkens the earth. A silence lies on the trees, the road, the moor, and all around to the horizon—a silence accusing him.

Not a leaf moved. The sun went down. The bright little narrow gleam under the eyelids of the dead stared slily up to him with an awful triumph. His heart was caught by the grip of a skeleton hand. He could feel its several sinews as they tightened their grasp. It was impossible to break away—the grip of the hand was on the heart in, his breast, and he was in the power of the triumphant corpse!

What made him reel, what made him leap at length with such an insane cry, over the ghastly obstacle? He will go mad. This not quite balanced brain might coldly enough commit even some kinds of murder, but fright can unhinge it. Is he not mad, to flee so wildly? He runs—he runs—he gropes, under his black thundercloud and load of fright and agony, towards the glimmer that he must fly to those he has wronged. To her first—to Josephte, his cruelly-treated daughter—the hour tells him where she is! Flying, stumbling, pained, groaning, out of breath, fearing the lone hedges of the road, in wild struggle throwing his vain lust of appearances for once to the winds, and having behind and above him as he fled, the sky filled with vast pursuing shapes, with shrieks and curses, and before all the pursuers the CORPSE, he reaches at last the Manoir, and stops before it crying out. It seems as if the instinct failed him here, and the Mansion's imposing front forbade.

She hears though. The maiden's heart, and the world's indefinite voices, beats sharply at certain sounds before the ear has caught them, for they strike the inner strings of its being. First a pang of great alarm,—and then she heard. Rushing forth, she clasps the sobbing wretch in her arms and cries, "My father, what say'st thou! My God, what is it?—what has befallen Francois?—O my dear father!"

"He is dead, he is dead!—thy loved one,—at La Misericorde."

"O Holy Virgin!"

Josephte did not fall in a swoon: she darted towards the gate.

Chrysler took the man and made him sit down on a bench,—a wild spectacle of reason in the course of dethronement. The household stood about: the two visitors looked on curiously and made useless suggestions. Haviland and Zotique, driving past to make sure of Misericorde, heard a commotion and turned their horses in. Benoit threw himself on his knees to Chamilly, violently begging his forgiveness, and incoherently confessing the evil work of himself and Spoon, whereat Zotique attacked him with maledictions.

Chamilly restrained his companion. Soul of man was never seen to soar more easily over injury.

"My dear friend, calm yourself. If there has been bad work, what should be done now is to try and rectify it. Repeat what you were saying of Francois."

"The poor young man! The poor young man! I have seen him dead on the road."

The impulse to act was that which came naturally to Haviland. "Not a moment, Zotique!" and almost immediately the rattle of the wheels was dying into the distance.



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE PASSING OF THE HOST.

They found Francois, Chamilly said, with Josephte kneeling over him loosening his collar, and tenderly binding her neckerchief over his head with neatness and gentleness quite enough indeed for any Heaven-selected Sister of Charity.

Running home breathless, dishevelled and desperate, she had frightened her brother and grandfather into speechless activity by a terrible command to harness a horse! Dragging out a light vehicle herself she speedily completed the arrangements, and whipping the animal pitiless lashes, dashed out of the presence of her relatives and was soon at the side of her injured lover, on the moorland road.

It must not tell against Zotique's humanity that he had all this time such a mastering sense of the necessity of getting on to Misericorde that, after barely aiding to place the body on Chamilly's vehicle, he took possession of the lighter one of Josephte, and sped on for his destination. The young girl and Haviland, however, conveyed their charge carefully and safely to the farm-house, had him laid upon her own prettily-belaced bed, and Haviland insisted—was it not a sacrifice in him on that critical evening of his election!—in watching with her the whole night by the bedside of Francois. As the silent hours were broken by the occasional sobs of Josephte, the young seigneur often gazed anxiously into the face of his faithful friend, wiping the bruised forehead and hoping that he might not die.

Chrysler hurried down into the village in the dusk for medicine. By the occasional lights of houses he discerned the people, up and out discussing the exciting topic. Shadowy young men were standing on the path, straining their eyes to make out who passed by; shadowy fathers of families sat together at their doorways; half discernible women conversed from window to window.

A hand-bell rings somewhere in the dark. It slowly swings and rings a thin, melancholy warning tone, comes nearer, a lantern appears, the young men, the fathers, the women, the miscellaneous groups, seem, for half-a-second, to disappear like lights put out, they drop on their knees so instantly wherever they happen to be. A white-robed figure—an acolyte—passes; feebly shone upon by a lantern; the "young cure" follows, bearing the holy wafer,—a ghostly procession; and Chrysler takes off his hat, for he recognizes it as the passing of the Host.

When they are fairly past, and have disappeared into the gloom, the shadowy shapes all rise from their knees, and follow the direction with eyes and ears, and a distinct, ominous murmur passes through the whole village, for clearly Francois Le Brun is in articulo mortis.



CHAPTER XXXIX.

THE ELECTION.

Election day at Dormilliere was as election days in country places always—that is, a great peal of driving to and fro, and a great deal of crowding about the doors of the poll, and a dense atmosphere of smoke and had jokes among the few to whom the polling-room was reserved, and now and then a flying visit from Haviland, Libergent, or Grandmoulin, for either of whom the people immediately made way by stumbling back on each other's toes; and intermittent activity at head-quarters; and ominous quiet at the parsonage.

Zotique was mysterious, and in better humor. He supervised with determination, and seemed to know how to calculate the exact effect of everything. Breboeuf was marvellously transformed into a little flying spider, running backwards and forwards strengthening Haviland's web. The Honorable seemed to act slowly, but really with deliberation and effect, remarking neglected points, and himself seeing that certain "weak ones" were brought to the right side of the poll. The schoolmaster was away haranguing the back parishes. For the Blue side, Picault and Grandmoulin appeared but once on the scene, but the energy of Ross de Bleury was astonishing. Cajoling, ordering, opening bottles aside and treating, volubly greeting everybody in his strong voice all day, he seemed to have raised supporters for his party of whom no one would have dreamt except Zotique; but the little closet up in the attic satisfied the requirements of strict logic.

Haviland had added the fatigues of the last night to weeks of wearing labor, with consequences at length upon his fund of spirits, and also plainly on his face. He felt, like Grandmoulin, that his battle was principally with De la Lande in the back of the county, cheering up his ranks.

About two o'clock Zotique drove over to Misericorde alone. He did not return for an hour and a half, and when he did, his expression had altered to one of decided triumph, though still mysterious and silent Zotique, in fact, the evening before, when he drove to Misericorde in Josephte's little gig, found what he had suspected to be the truth, that Benoit and Spoon had bought every vote of the hamlet; and paid for them, in the interest of Libergent; but he still believed it possible,—Benoit being incapacitated, and Spoon, he felt sure, not likely to turn up—to bend this plastic material the other way with the same tool, and casting, therefore, aside all delicate distinctions, he succeeded, by a reasonable hour in the evening, in obtaining once more the adhesion of the hotellier and most of the population, giving—for he had no Government funds like his opponents—his own personal notes for the amounts, and enjoining on the tavern-keeper to have the whole of the suffrages polled early. This was all he could do, as it was impossible for him to be present on the morrow, or to delegate any other person of Haviland's circle. His remaining anxiety was removed, when, on driving over, his investigations proved that the arrangement had been fully completed.

De Bleury only got the news in the morning, and Picault, who immediately hurried over at his suggestion, found himself too late, and his carefully prepared representation that "promissory notes representing an immoral compact were invalid" was of no use, while his invitation of the crowd to 'whiskeyblanc' only produced useless condolences. "C'est dommage, monsieur. If we could have known." He was not altogether displeased, however, to find what he considered the inevitable hole in Chamilly's professions of purity, and meeting the latter driving just outside the place, he wheeled his horse across the road and compelled an interview.

"You think you can do without Picault!" he laughed frankly.

"Let me pass, sir!" said Haviland, unwilling to put up with any nonsense.

"To take up the promissory notes of your friend?"

"Do you think sir, that I use your inventions? Let me pass, I tell you," and he rose with his whip.

"I have seen the cards, Haviland; take the game; let us be partners; what is the use of dissembling in this extraordinary manner?"

A flash of the whip,—a leap of the two animals,—Picault careening into the ditch, and Chamilly flying into Misericorde.



CHAPTER XL.

HAVILAND REFUSES

"Nobleness still makes us proud"

—FREDERICK GEORGE SCOTT

The election was Haviland's.

A great crowd gathered into Dormilliere at the close of that long day, thickening and pouring in from the country around, and arriving by boats across the river, to hear the returns: and as Zotique read them in triumph from a chair at the door of the Circuit Court, and the issue, at first breathlessly uncertain, finally appeared, the cheering became frantic. Chamilly himself came out to them, an incomprehensible, determined aspect on his face, and amid deafening hurrahs, was seized and hurried on their shoulders across the square to the crier's rostrum, where he stood up before them.

And then and there took place the most unheard of incident, the most remarkable outcome of Haviland's lofty character, of which there as yet was record.

His voice can be heard distinct and clear over a perfect hush. What does he say? tell me,—have we really caught it correctly? Fact unique in political history; he was refusing the election on account of the frauds!

"Grandmoulin,"—was Picault's subsequent remark, "The young fool has courage. What a deep game he is playing. I tell you he has more talent than the whole of our side together except yourself—curse him."

"It demonstrates the unpractically of his methods!" said the burly Montreal politician to Zotique, with self-satisfied disgust.

"No," returned Zotique, firmly, "If we had followed his methods it would have been far better. But nothing can make up for lack of intelligence: Sacre bleu. I ought to have had a better head than to leave these people to such as Cuiller and Benoit!"

Chamilly addressed firm words to the disappointed electorate: "I seek not my own cause, friends. It is yours in which I do this thing and do you, too, give all for country's honor. Lose not heart. Work on, like iron figures, receiving blows without feeling them. Be we young in our strength and hope, as Truth our mistress is perennial. Accept from me who according to the rule of faint hearts ought to be most crushed by our failure, the motto, "Encouraged by disaster!"



CHAPTER XLI.

FIAT JUSTITIA

"I wonder at you!—I wonder at you!" exclaimed Chrysler, pacing the drawing-room of the Manor-house, to his friend, "What will be the result of it?"

"Cher Monsieur," Haviland replied. "I have done my duty and what have I to do with events? What is Dormilliere county and a year or two of the consequences of this election? I do not live in them or of them."

The face of the far-seeing god himself, whose statue stood once more near, could scarcely show less regret than the easy, indomitable countenance of Chamilly; yet that his nerves had been strained to a severe pitch, lines of exhaustion upon it clearly told, and his restless, reckless movements from one spot and position to another made his friend anxious. A raw wind storm had risen quickly from the east and whistled without. He advanced to the window and threw both its curtains wide apart, revealing under an obscured snatch of struggling moonlight, the heavens covered with rapid-moving clouds, and the poplars opposite bending their vague shapes beneath the wind,—the beginning of one of those storms which come up from the Gulf, and overrun the whole region for days.

"I should like to be on the River now," he remarked exultingly. Madame entered at the moment and heard him.

"Be quiet, Chamilly," chided the Seigneuresse.

"Alors, Alors," he said impatiently, as if casting about for something active to do, and left the room.

"Madame de Bois-Hebert," Chrysler said, "have you news from Mademoiselle Josephte?"

"That young person," replied she, "has descended to the plane of her condition: I have no further interest in her."

But the devout lady sighed.

The Gulf storm lowered steadily and disagreeably all next day and the visitor saw nothing of Chamilly, who kept in his room until the evening. But there was one excitement which occupied everyone else's attention:

"Who do you think struck Francois?" Chrysler said to Zotique at the Circuit Court House.

"The Bonhomme has tracked Spoon through every bush and bay on the coast, and has caught him getting aboard the steamboat at Petite Argentenaye," the Registrar replied.

A crowd came down the road. All the crowd were excited. They ran about a long waggon in which were on the first seat, the Honorable and Bonhomme; on the second a constable and prisoner handcuffed. Spoon, who cowered like a captured wild beast ready to whine with fright, was clapped into a private room and a stray Bleu flew off for Libergent to act as advocate. The crowd, soon uncomfortably larger, diverted itself by taking oratorical views of his guilt or innocence: but the prevailing opinion of the prisoner personally was expressed by one in an unfastidious proverb: "Grosse crache, grosse canaille."

Libergent, accompanied by De Bleury, came over at once, for he had a good deal at stake in seeing that Spoon's trial should lead to no unpleasant revelations or consequences to the party. Closeted not more than half an hour he came out and said publicly to l'Honorable, who took seat as Magistrate upon the Bench under the great lion-and-unicorn painting. "My client makes option of opening the investigation at once. He is not guilty of the charge and can clear himself."

The Bonhomme cried excitedly,—"It's false!" His wife joined him with a wild scream of disappointment. A murmuring ran about. "Silence!" shouted the constable.

Every one involuntarily obeyed; and Chrysler absorbed himself examining the articles taken from the prisoner's person.

The evidence was as soon disposed of as Libergent could have wished. Josephte gave her testimony to the appearance and surroundings of the injured man as she had found him. She could relate no circumstances that pointed to Spoon. The Bonhomme eagerly proffered his evidence. It was torn to tatters by the advocate: he had nothing to tell but rambling suspicions, and was told to stand down. It was discovered that none in fact had anything pertinent to say. Benoit was mad; Francois, unconscious; and Libergent triumphantly asked for the prisoner's immediate discharge.

The great doubt on the part of justice was, clearly, why did the prisoner disappear? But this was quickly resolved by witnesses who swore that Cuiller was entrusted with secret political business which necessitated absences and journeys in different parts of the country, and this, in the state of political affairs, was an obvious enough excuse.

Libergent pressed once again for the discharge.

"I must grant it," simply pronounced Mr. Genest.

Another scream pierced their ears. "Justice, oh God;" the old wife of Le Brun shrieked in trembling syllables. "They kill without hanging. I demand JUSTICE! Hear me, great God!" and her bent frame and wrinkled face writhed pitiably.

But it was done. Spoon descended with a sudden, wild grin and found himself free. "In a few hours," he probably thought obscurely, "I can be far on my road."

"Pardon me," said Chrysler, however, standing up, to the surprise of everybody. "Your Honor, I have another charge to bring against the prisoner, and I ask his re-arrest."

The Honorable made a sign to the constable to stay Cuiller.

"These bills," Chrysler said, holding out the bank notes which were found in the purse of Spoon, "are marked with the initials of Francois Le Brun's name. I am ready to charge the prisoner with having committed a larceny of money from Francois Le Brun on his journey from Montreal. I sustain it by these initials at the corners of bills just found on the prisoner's person. I am informed—"

"I object, your Honor," fairly shouted Libergent—"I object to any hearsay."

"What can you swear to of your own knowledge?" asked l'Honorable of Chrysler, gently.

"To seeing these marks—"

"Which might be anything!" snapped Libergent.

"To hearing—"

"No hearsay, sir!"

"To having a conviction—"

"Upon no grounds whatever!—Your Honor, I press my just application for an immediate discharge."

"I cannot see that there is yet evidence enough," l'Honorable said courteously. "There are two charges, but both of them seem founded on vague suspicions which I cannot consider sufficient to detain the prisoner."

Libergent triumphantly glanced from Spoon to the audience.

At that moment, however, the man at his side rose up:—Ross de Bleury!

"If what Monsieur says is true," he exclaimed to the Honorable, throwing out his clenched hand,—"if these letters are found upon those notes, then I understand it. I can prove that this infernal, greasy, treacherous devil,—be he friend or traitor, or whatever he chooses to be, to the Bleu party or myself,—committed that despicable larceny and has wronged that poor young man. I was on the steamboat. I saw it. I saw him do it to his friend. Talking to the purser, I saw the act, but could not believe it a reality. On the parole of all my ancestors, I would never go back on a common thief, I would keep faith inviolate with a parricide, I have a secret sympathy with every brigand, but I have no place out of l'enfer itself for a traitor, Dieu merci."

"Swear the informant," said the Magistrate.

The picture at this instant of the frightened face of Spoon who collapsed into a seat by the Bar, of the excitement of the crowd, which had been gradually brought to a climax, the disgust of Libergent, relief of Chrysler, satisfaction of the little Bonhomme and his wife, the cynical roll of Zotique's eyes round the room, and serene, judicial face of the Honorable on the bench above, would have made the reputation of the greatest painter in Paris.

After all, Spoon was remanded for trial, and in due time, the Queen's Bench Court condemned him to the fullest penalty of the law for his murderous assault and larceny.

Francois meanwhile recovered, and was taken, pale and weak, but indescribably happy, in a carriage one morning beside Josephte to church, where the young Cure made her his faithful bride.

As for Benoit, "il est tout en campagne," they said. In less expressive terms, "his mind was hopelessly wandering."

* * * * *

To return to our current day however; in the evening Chamilly came into the drawing room with some more manuscript, which he handed to Chrysler.

"Here is the rest of the story I have been writing," said he, "take it sir and may it amuse you a little; it is the key to the rest. I am going out on the River." And he went-out of the Manoir door into the storm.

The manuscript proceeded as follows:



BOOK III.

BOOK OF ENTHUSIASMS (CONTINUED.)



CHAPTER XLII.

QUINET'S CONTRIBUTION

"O, skyward-looking, fleet-winged soul, Earth hath no name for thine ideal flower!"

—MARY MORGAN.

For a night and a day after my talk with my father; I was a fool. Swelling names of ancestors rang proudly in my ears, and I shudder to think how easily I might have ended in a genealogist.

"Salut, Milord de Quinet."

"Bon soir, Chamilly," replied he, soberly.

"Aha, thou melancholy friend, the liver again, eh?".

We were strolling along the half illuminated Grosvenor street under the elms. The dim, substantial mansions in their grounds and trees, pleased my foreign eyes and I was glad to find the city of Alexandra able to vie with the great cities of the world, and I thought of her as near, and for, the moment, could not understand the humor of Quinet.

"You don't seem to know," said he, "at least, I thought I would tell you—that Miss Grant has gone away,"—he stopped and looked at me earnestly.—"I sympathise with you."

"Away!" I caught my breath. My spirits sank with disappointment. Alas! Heaven seemed to ordain that my passion for her should never become, a close communion, but only keep this light, ethereal touch upon me.

And so Quinet knew. "I do not ask you how: evidently you have known it all along?" (It was the first time I had been spoken to about my love for her, and it made me feel peculiarly.) "Mon ami, Quinet, tu es heureux ne pas aimer. Que penses tu de ma chere?"

"Go on, my friend Chamilly; be steadfast, for thou could'st not have chosen a sweeter, lovelier, holier divinity. O my friend, be steadfast and be happy. Yes, as thou hast said, I have known this."

Quinet was diverting our steps along up leading streets which tended towards the Mountain, and soon we reached the head of one, where a wall met us.

"This way," he said, striking aside into a field which formed part of the Park. "Adieu, civilization of street lights!" and he pressed up into a dark grove where I stumbled after, and next, under the twilight of a sky full of stars, could descry dim outlines of the surroundings of our path and even of the Mountain, silent above us like a huge black ghost. We toiled up the steep stair, guiding ourselves by feeling, and in a few minutes Were at Prospect Point, that jutting bit of turf on the precipice's edge where the trees draw back and allow in daytime a wide view of the city and surrounding country, and we both stood breathless there in the dimness, in front of a sight bewilderingly grand enough to of itself take one's breath away.

Above were the radiant constellations. Below, between a belt of weird horizon and the dark abyss at our feet, the city shone, its dense blackness mapped out in stars as brilliant and myriad-seeming as those overhead,—a Night above, a Night below! Once before had I looked from that crag upon Montreal, in a memorable sunset hour, and remembered my impression of its beauty. Below, the scarped rock fell: the tops of trees which grew up the steep face lost themselves, lower, in a mass of grove that flourished far out, and besieged the town in swollen battalions and columns of foliage. Half overwhelmed by this friendly assault, the City sat in her robes of grey and red, proud mistress of half-a continent, noble in situation as in destiny. A hundred spires and domes pointed up, from streets full of quaint names of saints and deeds of heroes. The pinnacled towers of Notre Dame rose impressively in the distance. Past ran the glorious St. Lawrence, with its lovely islands of St. Helen's and the Nuns'.

Now, however, it seemed no longer a place upon earth at all. It was a living spirit. Quiet as the sky itself, its bright eyes looked far upward, and it was communing, in the lowliness of Nature, with the constellations.

"This is Life!" cried Quinet, who had hitherto been excited with suppressed feeling. "The vast winds come in to us from Ether. Night hides all that is common, and sprinkles the dark-blue vault with gold-dust; the planets gleam far and pure amidst it, and Space sings his awful solo."

"All is one mighty Being. There he moves, the Great Creature, his crystal boundlessness encompassing his countless shapes. He faces us from every point. His God-soul looks through to us. He rises at our feet. He surrounds us in ourselves; speaks and lives in us. Is he not resplendent, wondrous?"

"We are out of the world of vain phantoms, Chamilly! We are above the chatter of a wretched spot, a narrow life. Down there, nothing is not ridiculed that is not some phase of a provinciality. The dances in certain houses, the faces of some conceited club, long-spun names, business or gossip, or to drive a double carriage, are the gaslight boundaries of existence! Pah! it is a courtyard, bounded by four square walls, a path or two to walk in, and the eyes of busybodies to order our doings and sneer us out of our souls. How they deny us that the centre of the systems is immeasurably off there in Pleiades! What fools we are. We follow trifles we value at the valuation of idiots; we cherish mean ideas; we believe contracted doctrines; we do things we are ashamed of; dropping at last like the animals, with alarm that we die."

"Look, off into the heart of It! the heart of It! beyond there!" he exclaimed, stretching his arm. "Forget our courtyard! Nay, returning there, let us remember that this infinite ocean is above it—a boundless sea beneath and around, an unknown universe within. Take in this scene and feel the rich thrills of its majesty stir you. You are of it; you came out of it; it is your mother, father, lover; it will never let you die; that heart of it to which your utmost straining cannot pierce, was once and will again be known to you. Its beauty caresses your soul from another world, and it is Love Divine which moves those stars.[J] Your own sweet passion, Chamilly, is the child of that divine Love, and in it you mount towards the heavens, and yearn as by inspiration, for a mysterious ideal existence? The poets and romancers lightly say of it "a divine power:" they think they say a metaphor—a lie; but I tell you it is true! May it assist you to live the life of the universe."