← catalogue

The Seats of the Mighty, Complete

by Gilbert Parker · English · Gutenberg #6229 · 700,713 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Seats of the Mighty, Complete
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Seats of the Mighty, Complete

Author: Gilbert Parker


        
Release date: November 17, 2004 [eBook #6229]
                Most recently updated: December 29, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6229

Credits: Produced by Andrew Sly, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY, COMPLETE ***



Produced by Andrew Sly





THE SEATS OF THE MIGHTY

BEING THE MEMOIRS OF CAPTAIN ROBERT MORAY, SOMETIME AN OFFICER IN THE
VIRGINIA REGIMENT, AND AFTERWARDS OF AMHERST’S REGIMENT

By Gilbert Parker


To the Memory of Madge Henley.


CONTENTS


Chapter          Introduction to the Imperial Edition
          Prefatory note to First Edition
      I   An escort to the citadel
     II   The master of the King’s magazine
    III   The wager and the sword
     IV   The rat in the trap
      V   The device of the dormouse
     VI   Moray tells the story of his life
    VII   “Quoth little Garaine”
    VIII   As vain as Absalom
     IX   A little concerning the Chevalier de la Darante
      X   An officer of marines
     XI   The coming of Doltaire
    XII   “The point envenomed too!”
    XIII   A little boast
    XIV   Argand Cournal
     XV   In the chamber of torture
    XVI   Be saint or imp
   XVII   Through the bars of the cage
  XVIII   The steep path of conquest
    XIX   A Danseuse and the Bastile
     XX   Upon the ramparts
    XXI   La Jongleuse
   XXII   The lord of Kamaraska
  XXIII   With Wolfe at Montmorenci
   XXIV   The sacred countersign
    XXV   In the cathedral
   XXVI   The secret of the tapestry
  XXVII   A side-wind of revenge
 XXVIII   “To cheat the Devil yet”
    XXIX   “Master Devil” Doltaire
    XXX   “Where all the lovers can hide”
           Appendix--Excerpt from ‘The Scot in New France’




INTRODUCTION TO THE IMPERIAL EDITION

It was in the winter of 1892, when on a visit to French Canada, that I
made up my mind I would write the volume which the public knows as ‘The
Seats of the Mighty,’ but I did not begin the composition until early in
1894. It was finished by the beginning of February, 1895, and began to
appear in ‘The Atlantic Monthly’ in March of that year. It was not my
first attempt at historical fiction, because I had written ‘The Trail of
the Sword’ in the year 1893, but it was the first effort on an ambitious
scale, and the writing of it was attended with as much searching of
heart as enthusiasm. I had long been saturated by the early history of
French Canada, as perhaps ‘The Trail of the Sword’ bore witness, and
particularly of the period of the Conquest, and I longed for a subject
which would, in effect, compel me to write; for I have strong views upon
this business of compulsion in the mind of the writer. Unless a thing
has seized a man, has obsessed him, and he feels that it excludes
all other temptations to his talent or his genius, his book will
not convince. Before all else he must himself be overpowered by the
insistence of his subject, then intoxicated with his idea, and, being
still possessed, become master of his material while remaining the slave
of his subject. I believe that every book which has taken hold of the
public has represented a kind of self-hypnotism on the part of the
writer. I am further convinced that the book which absorbs the author,
which possesses him as he writes it, has the effect of isolating
him into an atmosphere which is not sleep, and which is not absolute
wakefulness, but a place between the two, where the working world
is indistinct and the mind is swept along a flood submerging the
self-conscious but not drowning into unconsciousness.

Such, at any rate, is my own experience. I am convinced that the books
of mine which have had so many friends as this book, ‘The Seats of the
Mighty’, has had in the English-speaking world were written in just such
conditions of temperamental isolation or absorption. First the subject,
which must of itself have driving power, then the main character, which
becomes a law working out its own destiny; and the subject in my own
work has always been translatable into a phrase. Nearly every one of my
books has always been reducible to its title.

For years I had wished to write an historical novel of the conquest
of Canada or the settlement of the United Empire loyalists and the
subsequent War of 1812, but the central idea and the central character
had not come to me; and without both and the driving power of a big idea
and of a big character, a book did not seem to me possible. The human
thing with the grip of real life was necessary. At last, as pointed out
in the prefatory note of the first edition, published in the spring of
1896 by Messrs. D. Appleton & Co., of New York, and Messrs. Methuen &
Co., of London, I ran across a tiny little volume in the library of Mr.
George M. Fairchild, Jr., of Quebec, called the Memoirs of Major
Robert Stobo. It was published by John S. Davidson, of Market Street,
Pittsburgh, with an introduction by an editor who signed himself “N.
B.C.”

The Memoirs proper contained about seventeen thousand words, the
remaining three thousand words being made up of abstracts and appendices
collected by the editor. The narrative was written in a very ornate and
grandiloquent style, but the hero of the memoirs was so evidently a man
of remarkable character, enterprise and adventure, that I saw in the few
scattered bones of the story which he unfolded the skeleton of an ample
historical romance. There was necessary to offset this buoyant and
courageous Scotsman, adventurous and experienced, a character of the
race which captured him and held him in leash till just before the
taking of Quebec. I therefore found in the character of Doltaire--which
was the character of Voltaire spelled with a big D--purely a creature
of the imagination, one who, as the son of a peasant woman and Louis
XV, should be an effective offset to Major Stobo. There was no hint of
Doltaire in the Memoirs. There could not be, nor of the plot on which
the story was based, because it was all imagination. Likewise, there
was no mention of Alixe Duvarney in the Memoirs, nor of Bigot or
Madame Cournal and all the others. They too, when not characters of the
imagination, were lifted out of the history of the time; but the first
germ of the story came from ‘The Memoirs of Robert Stobo’, and when ‘The
Seats of the Mighty’ was first published in ‘The Atlantic Monthly’ the
subtitle contained these words: “Being the Memoirs of Captain Robert
Stobo, sometime an officer in the Virginia Regiment, and afterwards of
Amherst’s Regiment.”

When the book was published, however, I changed the name of Robert Stobo
to Robert Moray, because I felt I had no right to saddle Robert Stobo’s
name with all the incidents and experiences and strange enterprises
which the novel contained. I did not know then that perhaps it might
be considered an honour by Robert Stobo’s descendants to have his name
retained. I could not foresee the extraordinary popularity of ‘The
Seats of the Mighty’, but with what I thought was a sense of honour I
eliminated his name and changed it to Robert Moray. ‘The Seats of the
Mighty’ goes on, I am happy to say, with an ever-increasing number
of friends. It has a position perhaps not wholly deserved, but it has
crystallised some elements in the life of the continent of America, the
history of France and England, and of the British Empire which may serve
here and there to inspire the love of things done for the sake of a
nation rather than for the welfare of an individual.

I began this introduction by saying that the book was started in
the summer of 1894. That was at a little place called Mablethorpe in
Lincolnshire, on the east coast of England. For several months I worked
in absolute seclusion in that out-of-the-way spot which had not then
become a Mecca for trippers, and on the wonderful sands, stretching for
miles upon miles coastwise and here and there as much as a mile out
to the sea, I tried to live over again the days of Wolfe and Montcalm.
Appropriately enough the book was begun in a hotel at Mablethorpe called
“The Book in Hand.” The name was got, I believe, from the fact that, in
a far-off day, a ship was wrecked upon the coast at Mablethorpe, and the
only person saved was the captain, who came ashore with a Bible in his
hands. During the writing now and again a friend would come to me from
London or elsewhere, and there would be a day off, full of literary
tattle, but immediately my friends were gone I was lost again in the
atmosphere of the middle of the eighteenth century.

I stayed at Mablethorpe until the late autumn, and then I went to
Harrogate, exchanging the sea for the moors, and there, still living the
open-air life, I remained for several months until I had finished the
book. The writing of it knew no interruption and was happily set. It
was a thing apart, and not a single untoward invasion of other interests
affected its course.

The title of the book was for long a trouble to me. Months went by
before I could find what I wanted. Scores of titles occurred to me,
but each was rejected. At last, one day when I was being visited by
Mr. Grant Richards, since then a London publisher, but at that time a
writer, who had come to interview me for ‘Great Thoughts’, I told him of
my difficulties regarding the title. I was saying that I felt the title
should be, as it were, the kernel of a book. I said: “You see, it is a
struggle of one simple girl against principalities and powers; it is the
final conquest of the good over the great. In other words, the book will
be an illustration of the text, ‘He has put down the mighty from their
seats, and has exalted the humble and meek.’” Then, like a flash, the
title came ‘The Seats of the Mighty’.

Since the phrase has gone into the language and was from the very first
a popular title, it seems strange that the literary director of the
American firm that published the book should take strong exception to
it on the ground that it was grandiloquent. I like to think that I was
firm, and that I declined to change the title.

I need say no more save that the book was dramatised by myself, and
produced, first at Washington by Herbert (now Sir Herbert) Beerbohm Tree
in the winter of 1897 and 1898, and in the spring of 1898 it opened his
new theatre in London.



PREFATORY NOTE TO FIRST EDITION

This tale would never have been written had it not been for the kindness
of my distinguished friend Dr. John George Bourinot, C.M.G., of Ottawa,
whose studies in parliamentary procedure, the English and Canadian
Constitutions, and the history and development of Canada have been
of singular benefit to the Dominion and to the Empire. Through Dr.
Bourinot’s good offices I came to know Mr. James Lemoine, of Quebec, the
gifted antiquarian, and President of the Royal Society of Canada.
Mr. Lemoine placed in my hands certain historical facts suggestive
of romance. Subsequently, Mr. George M. Fairchild, Jr., of Cap Rouge,
Quebec, whose library contains a valuable collection of antique Canadian
books, maps, and prints, gave me generous assistance and counsel,
allowing me “the run” of all his charts, prints, histories, and memoirs.
Many of these prints, and a rare and authentic map of Wolfe’s operations
against Quebec are now reproduced in this novel, and may be considered
accurate illustrations of places, people, and events. By the insertion
of these faithful historical elements it is hoped to give more vividness
to the atmosphere of the time, and to strengthen the verisimilitude of a
piece of fiction which is not, I believe, out of harmony with fact.

Gilbert Parker



PRELUDE


To Sir Edward Seaforth, Bart., of Sangley Hope in Derbyshire, and
Seaforth House in Hanover Square.

Dear Ned: You will have them written, or I shall be pestered to my
grave! Is that the voice of a friend of so long standing? And yet it
seems but yesterday since we had good hours in Virginia together, or met
among the ruins of Quebec. My memoirs--these only will content you? And
to flatter or cajole me, you tell me Mr. Pitt still urges on the matter.
In truth, when he touched first upon this, I thought it but the courtesy
of a great and generous man. But indeed I am proud that he is curious to
know more of my long captivity at Quebec, of Monsieur Doltaire and all
his dealings with me, and the motions he made to serve La Pompadour on
one hand, and, on the other, to win from me that most perfect of ladies,
Mademoiselle Alixe Duvarney.

Our bright conquest of Quebec is now heroic memory, and honour and fame
and reward have been parcelled out. So I shall but briefly, in these
memoirs (ay, they shall be written, and with a good heart), travel the
trail of history, or discourse upon campaigns and sieges, diplomacies
and treaties. I shall keep close to my own story; for that, it would
seem, yourself and the illustrious minister of the King most wish to
hear. Yet you will find figuring in it great men like our flaming hero
General Wolfe, and also General Montcalm, who, I shall ever keep on
saying, might have held Quebec against us, had he not been balked by the
vain Governor, the Marquis de Vaudreuil; together with such notorious
men as the Intendant Bigot, civil governor of New France, and such noble
gentlemen as the Seigneur Duvarney, father of Alixe.

I shall never view again the citadel on those tall heights where I
was detained so barbarously, nor the gracious Manor House at Beauport,
sacred to me because of her who dwelt therein--how long ago, how long!
Of all the pictures that flash before my mind when I think on those
times, one is most with me: that of the fine guest-room in the Manor
House, where I see moving the benign maid whose life and deeds alone can
make this story worth telling. And with one scene therein, and it the
most momentous in all my days, I shall begin my tale.

I beg you convey to Mr. Pitt my most obedient compliments, and say that
I take his polite wish as my command.

With every token of my regard, I am, dear Ned, affectionately your
friend,

Robert Moray




I. AN ESCORT TO THE CITADEL


When Monsieur Doltaire entered the salon, and, dropping lazily into a
chair beside Madame Duvarney and her daughter, drawled out, “England’s
Braddock--fool and general--has gone to heaven, Captain Moray, and your
papers send you there also,” I did not shift a jot, but looked over at
him gravely--for, God knows, I was startled--and I said,

“The General is dead?”

I did not dare to ask, Is he defeated? though from Doltaire’s look I was
sure it was so, and a sickness crept through me, for at the moment that
seemed the end of our cause. But I made as if I had not heard his words
about my papers.

“Dead as a last years courtier, shifted from the scene,” he replied;
“and having little now to do, we’ll go play with the rat in our trap.”

I would not have dared look towards Alixe, standing beside her mother
then, for the song in my blood was pitched too high, were it not that a
little sound broke from her. At that, I glanced, and saw that her face
was still and quiet, but her eyes were shining, and her whole body
seemed listening. I dared not give my glance meaning, though I wished to
do so. She had served me much, had been a good friend to me, since I was
brought a hostage to Quebec from Fort Necessity. There, at that little
post on the Ohio, France threw down the gauntlet, and gave us the great
Seven Years War. And though it may be thought I speak rashly, the lever
to spring that trouble had been within my grasp. Had France sat still
while Austria and Prussia quarreled, that long fighting had never been.
The game of war had lain with the Grande Marquise--or La Pompadour, as
she was called--and later it may be seen how I, unwillingly, moved her
to set it going.

Answering Monsieur Doltaire, I said stoutly, “I am sure he made a good
fight; he had gallant men.”

“Truly gallant,” he returned--“your own Virginians among others” (I
bowed); “but he was a blunderer, as were you also, monsieur, or you had
not sent him plans of our forts and letters of such candour. They have
gone to France, my captain.”

Madame Duvarney seemed to stiffen in her chair, for what did this
mean but that I was a spy? and the young lady behind them now put her
handkerchief to her mouth as if to stop a word. To make light of the
charges against myself was the only thing, and yet I had little heart to
do so. There was that between Monsieur Doltaire and myself--a matter I
shall come to by-and-bye--which well might make me apprehensive.

“My sketch and my gossip with my friends,” said I, “can have little
interest in France.”

“My faith, the Grande Marquise will find a relish for them,” he said
pointedly at me. He, the natural son of King Louis, had played the part
between La Pompadour and myself in the grave matter of which I spoke.
“She loves deciding knotty points of morality,” he added.

“She has had chance and will enough,” said I boldly, “but what point of
morality is here?”

“The most vital--to you,” he rejoined, flicking his handkerchief a
little, and drawling so that I could have stopped his mouth with my
hand. “Shall a hostage on parole make sketches of a fort and send them
to his friends, who in turn pass them on to a foolish general?”

“When one party to an Article of War brutally breaks his sworn promise,
shall the other be held to his?” I asked quietly.

I was glad that, at this moment, the Seigneur Duvarney entered, for
I could feel the air now growing colder about Madame his wife. He, at
least, was a good friend; but as I glanced at him, I saw his face was
troubled and his manner distant. He looked at Monsieur Doltaire a
moment steadily, stooped to his wife’s hand, and then offered me his
own without a word; which done, he went to where his daughter stood. She
kissed him, and, as she did so, whispered something in his ear, to which
he nodded assent. I knew afterwards that she had asked him to keep me to
dinner with them.

Presently turning to Monsieur Doltaire, he said inquiringly, “You have a
squad of men outside my house, Doltaire?”

Doltaire nodded in a languid way, and answered, “An escort--for Captain
Moray--to the citadel.”

I knew now, as he had said, that I was in the trap; that he had begun
the long sport which came near to giving me the white shroud of death,
as it turned white the hair upon my head ere I was thirty-two. Do I not
know, the indignities, the miseries I suffered, I owed mostly to him,
and that at the last he nearly robbed England of her greatest pride,
the taking of New France?--For chance sometimes lets humble men like
me balance the scales of fate; and I was humble enough in rank, if in
spirit always something above my place.

I was standing as he spoke these words, and I turned to him and said,
“Monsieur, I am at your service.”

“I have sometimes wished,” he said instantly, and with a courteous if
ironical gesture, “that you were in my service--that is, the King’s.”

I bowed as to a compliment, for I would not see the insolence, and I
retorted, “Would I could offer you a company in my Virginia regiment!”

“Delightful! delightful!” he rejoined. “I should make as good a Briton
as you a Frenchman, every whit.”

I suppose he would have kept leading to such silly play, had I not
turned to Madame Duvarney and said, “I am most sorry that this mishap
falls here; but it is not of my doing, and in colder comfort, Madame, I
shall recall the good hours spent in your home.”

I think I said it with a general courtesy, yet, feeling the eyes of the
young lady on me, perhaps a little extra warmth came into my voice, and
worked upon Madame, or it may be she was glad of my removal from contact
with her daughter; but kindness showed in her face, and she replied
gently, “I am sure it is only for a few days till we see you again.”

Yet I think in her heart she knew my life was perilled: those were rough
and hasty times, when the axe or the rope was the surest way to deal
with troubles. Three years before, at Fort Necessity, I had handed
my sword to my lieutenant, bidding him make healthy use of it, and,
travelling to Quebec on parole, had come in and out of this house with
great freedom. Yet since Alixe had grown towards womanhood there had
been strong change in Madame’s manner.

“The days, however few, will be too long until I tax your courtesy
again,” I said. “I bid you adieu, Madame.”

“Nay, not so,” spoke up my host; “not one step: dinner is nearly served,
and you must both dine with us. Nay, but I insist,” he added, as he saw
me shake my head. “Monsieur Doltaire will grant you this courtesy, and
me the great kindness. Eh, Doltaire?”

Doltaire rose, glancing from Madame to her daughter. Madame was smiling,
as if begging his consent; for, profligate though he was, his position,
and more than all, his personal distinction, made him a welcome guest
at most homes in Quebec. Alixe met his look without a yes or no in her
eyes--so young, yet having such control and wisdom, as I have had reason
beyond all men to know. Something, however, in the temper of the scene
had filled her with a kind of glow, which added to her beauty and
gave her dignity. The spirit of her look caught the admiration of this
expatriated courtier, and I knew that a deeper cause than all our past
conflicts--and they were great--would now, or soon, set him fatally
against me.

“I shall be happy to wait Captain Moray’s pleasure,” he said presently,
“and to serve my own by sitting at your table. I was to have dined with
the Intendant this afternoon, but a messenger shall tell him duty stays
me.... If you will excuse me!” he added, going to the door to find a
man of his company. He looked back for an instant, as if it struck him I
might seek escape, for he believed in no man’s truth; but he only said,
“I may fetch my men to your kitchen, Duvarney? ‘Tis raw outside.”

“Surely. I shall see they have some comfort,” was the reply.

Doltaire then left the room, and Duvarney came to me. “This is a bad
business, Moray,” he said sadly. “There is some mistake, is there not?”

I looked him fair in the face. “There is a mistake,” I answered. “I am
no spy, and I do not fear that I shall lose my life, my honour, or my
friends by offensive acts of mine.”

“I believe you,” he responded, “as I have believed since you came,
though there has been gabble of your doings. I do not forget you bought
my life back from those wild Mohawks five years ago. You have my hand in
trouble or out of it.”

Upon my soul, I could have fallen on his neck, for the blow to our cause
and the shadow on my own fate oppressed me for the moment.

At this point the ladies left the room to make some little toilette
before dinner, and as they passed me the sleeve of Alixe’s dress touched
my arm. I caught her fingers for an instant, and to this day I can feel
that warm, rich current of life coursing from finger-tips to heart. She
did not look at me at all, but passed on after her mother. Never till
that moment had there been any open show of heart between us. When I
first came to Quebec (I own it to my shame) I was inclined to use
her youthful friendship for private and patriotic ends; but that soon
passed, and then I wished her companionship for true love of her. Also,
I had been held back because when I first knew her she seemed but a
child. Yet how quickly and how wisely did she grow out of her childhood!
She had a playful wit, and her talents were far beyond her years. It
amazed me often to hear her sum up a thing in some pregnant sentence
which, when you came to think, was the one word to be said. She had such
a deep look out of her blue eyes that you scarcely glanced from them
to see the warm sweet colour of her face, the fair broad forehead, the
brown hair, the delicate richness of her lips, which ever were full
of humour and of seriousness--both running together, as you may see a
laughing brook steal into the quiet of a river.

Duvarney and I were thus alone for a moment, and he straightway dropped
a hand upon my shoulder. “Let me advise you,” he said, “be friendly with
Doltaire. He has great influence at the Court and elsewhere. He can make
your bed hard or soft at the citadel.”

I smiled at him, and replied, “I shall sleep no less sound because of
Monsieur Doltaire.”

“You are bitter in your trouble,” said he.

I made haste to answer, “No, no, my own troubles do not weigh so
heavy--but our General’s death!”

“You are a patriot, my friend,” he added warmly. “I could well have been
content with our success against your English army without this deep
danger to your person.”

I put out my hand to him, but I did not speak, for just then Doltaire
entered. He was smiling at something in his thought.

“The fortunes are with the Intendant always,” said he. “When things are
at their worst, and the King’s storehouse, the dear La Friponne, is to
be ripped by our rebel peasants like a sawdust doll, here comes this
gay news of our success on the Ohio; and in that Braddock’s death the
whining beggars will forget their empty bellies, and bless where
they meant to curse. What fools, to be sure! They had better loot La
Friponne. Lord, how we love fighting, we French! And ‘tis so much easier
to dance, or drink, or love.” He stretched out his shapely legs as he
sat musing.

Duvarney shrugged a shoulder, smiling. “But you, Doltaire--there’s no
man out of France that fights more.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “One must be in the fashion; besides, it does
need some skill to fight. The others--to dance, drink, love: blind men’s
games!” He smiled cynically into the distance.

I have never known a man who interested me so much--never one so
original, so varied, and so uncommon in his nature. I marvelled at the
pith and depth of his observations; for though I agreed not with him
once in ten times, I loved his great reflective cleverness and his fine
penetration--singular gifts in a man of action. But action to him was a
playtime; he had that irresponsibility of the Court from which he came,
its scornful endurance of defeat or misery, its flippant look upon the
world, its scoundrel view of women. Then he and Duvarney talked, and I
sat thinking. Perhaps the passion of a cause grows in you as you suffer
for it, and I had suffered, and suffered most by a bitter inaction.
Governor Dinwiddie, Mr. Washington (alas that, as I write the fragment
chapters of my life, among the hills where Montrose my ancestor fought,
George leads the colonists against the realm of England!), and the rest
were suffering, but they were fighting too. Brought to their knees, they
could rise again to battle; and I thought then, How more glorious to
be with my gentlemen in blue from Virginia, holding back death from the
General, and at last falling myself, than to spend good years a hostage
at Quebec, knowing that Canada was for our taking, yet doing nothing to
advance the hour!

In the thick of these thoughts I was not conscious of what the two were
saying, but at last I caught Madame Cournal’s name; by which I guessed
Monsieur Doltaire was talking of her amours, of which the chief and
final was with Bigot the Intendant, to whom the King had given all civil
government, all power over commerce and finance in the country. The
rivalry between the Governor and the Intendant was keen and vital at
this time, though it changed later, as I will show. At her name I looked
up and caught Monsieur Doltaire’s eye.

He read my thoughts. “You have had blithe hours here, monsieur,” he
said--“you know the way to probe us; but of all the ladies who could be
most useful to you, you left out the greatest. There you erred. I say it
as a friend, not as an officer, there you erred. From Madame Cournal
to Bigot, from Bigot to Vaudreuil the Governor, from the Governor to
France. But now--”

He paused, for Madame Duvarney and her daughter had come, and we all
rose.

The ladies had heard enough to know Doltaire’s meaning. “But
now--Captain Moray dines with us,” said Madame Duvarney quietly and
meaningly.

“Yet I dine with Madame Cournal,” rejoined Doltaire, smiling.

“One may use more option with enemies and prisoners,” she said keenly,
and the shot ought to have struck home. In so small a place it was
not easy to draw lines close and fine, and it was in the power of the
Intendant, backed by his confederates, to ruin almost any family in the
province if he chose; and that he chose at times I knew well, as did my
hostess. Yet she was a woman of courage and nobility of thought, and I
knew well where her daughter got her good flavor of mind.

I could see something devilish in the smile at Doltaire’s lip’s, but
his look was wandering between Alixe and me, and he replied urbanely, “I
have ambition yet--to connive at captivity”; and then he looked full and
meaningly at her.

I can see her now, her hand on the high back of a great oak chair, the
lace of her white sleeve falling away, and her soft arm showing, her
eyes on his without wavering. They did not drop, nor turn aside; they
held straight on, calm, strong--and understanding. By that look I saw
she read him; she, who had seen so little of the world, felt what he
was, and met his invading interest firmly, yet sadly; for I knew long
after that a smother was at her heart then, foreshadowings of dangers
that would try her as few women are tried. Thank God that good women are
born with greater souls for trial than men; that, given once an anchor
for their hearts, they hold until the cables break.

When we were about to enter the dining-room, I saw, to my joy, Madame
incline towards Doltaire, and I knew that Alixe was for myself--though
her mother wished it little, I am sure. As she took my arm, her
finger-tips plunged softly into the velvet of my sleeve, giving me a
thrill of courage. I felt my spirits rise, and I set myself to carry
things off gaily, to have this last hour with her clear of gloom, for it
seemed easy to think that we should meet no more.

As we passed into the dining-room, I said, as I had said the first
time I went to dinner in her father’s house, “Shall we be flippant, or
grave?”

I guessed that it would touch her. She raised her eyes to mine and
answered, “We are grave; let us seem flippant.”

In those days I had a store of spirits. I was seldom dismayed, for life
had been such a rough-and-tumble game that I held to cheerfulness and
humour as a hillsman to his broadsword, knowing it the greatest of
weapons with a foe, and the very stone and mortar of friendship. So we
were gay, touching lightly on events around us, laughing at gossip of
the doorways (I in my poor French), casting small stones at whatever
drew our notice, not forgetting a throw or two at Chateau Bigot, the
Intendant’s country house at Charlesbourg, five miles away, where
base plots were hatched, reputations soiled, and all clean things
dishonoured. But Alixe, the sweetest soul France ever gave the world,
could not know all I knew; guessing only at heavy carousals, cards,
song, and raillery, with far-off hints of feet lighter than fit in
cavalry boots dancing among the glasses on the table. I was never before
so charmed with her swift intelligence, for I never had great nimbleness
of thought, nor power to make nice play with the tongue.

“You have been three years with us,” suddenly said her father, passing
me the wine. “How time has flown! How much has happened!”

“Madame Cournal’s husband has made three million francs,” said Doltaire,
with dry irony and truth.

Duvarney shrugged a shoulder, stiffened; for, oblique as the suggestion
was, he did not care to have his daughter hear it.

“And Vaudreuil has sent bees buzzing to Versailles about Bigot and
Company,” added the impish satirist.

Madame Duvarney responded with a look of interest, and the Seigneur’s
eyes steadied to his plate. All at once by that I saw the Seigneur had
known of the Governor’s action, and maybe had counseled with him, siding
against Bigot. If that were so--as it proved to be--he was in a nest of
scorpions; for who among them would spare him: Marin, Cournal, Rigaud,
the Intendant himself? Such as he were thwarted right and left in this
career of knavery and public evils.

“And our people have turned beggars; poor and starved, they beg at the
door of the King’s storehouse--it is well called La Friponne,” said
Madame Duvarney, with some heat; for she was ever liberal to the poor,
and she had seen manor after manor robbed, and peasant farmers made to
sell their corn for a song, to be sold to them again at famine prices
by La Friponne. Even now Quebec was full of pilgrim poor begging against
the hard winter, and execrating their spoilers.

Doltaire was too fond of digging at the heart of things not to admit she
spoke truth.

  “La Pompadour et La Friponne!
  Qu’est que cela, mon petit homme?”
   “Les deux terribles, ma chere mignonne,
        Mais, c’est cela--
  La Pompadour et La Friponne!”

He said this with cool drollery and point, in the patois of the native,
so that he set us all laughing, in spite of our mutual apprehensions.

Then he continued, “And the King has sent a chorus to the play, with
eyes for the preposterous make-believe, and more, no purse to fill.”

We all knew he meant himself, and we knew also that so far as money went
he spoke true; that though hand-in-glove with Bigot, he was poor, save
for what he made at the gaming-table and got from France. There was the
thing that might have clinched me to him, had matters been other than
they were; for all my life I have loathed the sordid soul, and I would
rather, in these my ripe years, eat with a highwayman who takes his life
in his hands than with the civilian who robs his king and the king’s
poor, and has no better trick than false accounts, nor better friend
than the pettifogging knave. Doltaire had no burning love for France,
and little faith in anything; for he was of those Versailles water-flies
who recked not if the world blackened to cinders when their lights went
out. As will be seen by-and-bye, he had come here to seek me, and to
serve the Grande Marquise.

More speech like this followed, and amid it all, with the flower of the
world beside me at this table, I remembered my mother’s words before I
bade her good-bye and set sail from Glasgow for Virginia.

“Keep it in mind, Robert,” she said, “that an honest love is the thing
to hold you honest with yourself. ‘Tis to be lived for, and fought for,
and died for. Ay, be honest in your loves. Be true.”

And there I took an oath, my hand clenched beneath the table, that Alixe
should be my wife if better days came; when I was done with citadel and
trial and captivity, if that might be.

The evening was well forward when Doltaire, rising from his seat in the
drawing-room, bowed to me, and said, “If it pleases you, monsieur?”

I rose also, and prepared to go. There was little talk, yet we all kept
up a play of cheerfulness. When I came to take the Seigneur’s hand,
Doltaire was a distance off, talking to Madame. “Moray,” said the
Seigneur quickly and quietly, “trials portend for both of us.” He nodded
towards Doltaire.

“But we shall come safe through,” said I.

“Be of good courage, and adieu,” he answered, as Doltaire turned towards
us.

My last words were to Alixe. The great moment of my life was come. If I
could but say one thing to her out of earshot, I would stake all on the
hazard. She was standing beside a cabinet, very still, a strange glow in
her eyes, a new, fine firmness at the lips. I felt I dared not look as
I would; I feared there was no chance now to speak what I would. But
I came slowly up the room with her mother. As we did so, Doltaire
exclaimed and started to the window, and the Seigneur and Madame
followed. A red light was showing on the panes.

I caught Alixe’s eye, and held it, coming quickly to her. All backs were
on us. I took her hand and pressed it to my lips suddenly. She gave a
little gasp, and I saw her bosom heave.

“I am going from prison to prison,” said I, “and I leave a loved jailer
behind.”

She understood. “Your jailer goes also,” she answered, with a sad smile.

“I love you! I love you!” I urged.

She was very pale. “Oh, Robert!” she whispered timidly; and then, “I
will be brave, I will help you, and I will not forget. God guard you.”

That was all, for Doltaire turned to me then and said, “They’ve made of
La Friponne a torch to light you to the citadel, monsieur.”

A moment afterwards we were outside in the keen October air, a squad
of soldiers attending, our faces towards the citadel heights. I looked
back, doffing my cap. The Seigneur and Madame stood at the door, but my
eyes were for a window where stood Alixe. The reflection of the far-off
fire bathed the glass, and her face had a glow, the eyes shining
through, intent and most serious. Yet how brave she was, for she lifted
her handkerchief, shook it a little, and smiled.

As though the salute were meant for him, Doltaire bowed twice
impressively, and then we stepped forward, the great fire over against
the Heights lighting us and hurrying us on.

We scarcely spoke as we went, though Doltaire hummed now and then the
air La Pompadour et La Friponne. As we came nearer I said, “Are you sure
it is La Friponne, monsieur?”

“It is not,” he said, pointing. “See!”

The sky was full of shaking sparks, and a smell of burning grain came
down the wind.

“One of the granaries, then,” I added, “not La Friponne itself?”

To this he nodded assent, and we pushed on.




II. THE MASTER OF THE KING’S MAGAZINE


“What fools,” said Doltaire presently, “to burn the bread and oven too!
If only they were less honest in a world of rogues, poor moles!”

Coming nearer, we saw that La Friponne itself was safe, but one
warehouse was doomed and another threatened. The streets were full of
people, and thousands of excited peasants, laborers, and sailors were
shouting, “Down with the palace! Down with Bigot!”

We came upon the scene at the most critical moment. None of the
Governors soldiers were in sight, but up the Heights we could hear the
steady tramp of General Montcalm’s infantry as they came on. Where
were Bigot’s men? There was a handful--one company--drawn up before La
Friponne, idly leaning on their muskets, seeing the great granary burn,
and watching La Friponne threatened by the mad crowd and the fire. There
was not a soldier before the Intendant’s palace, not a light in any
window.

“What is this weird trick of Bigot’s?” said Doltaire, musing.

The Governor, we knew, had been out of the city that day. But where was
Bigot? At a word from Doltaire we pushed forward towards the palace, the
soldiers keeping me in their midst. We were not a hundred feet from
the great steps when two gates at the right suddenly swung open, and a
carriage rolled out swiftly and dashed down into the crowd. I recognized
the coachman first--Bigot’s, an old one-eyed soldier of surpassing
nerve, and devoted to his master. The crowd parted right and left.
Suddenly the carriage stopped, and Bigot stood up, folding his arms,
and glancing round with a disdainful smile without speaking a word. He
carried a paper in one hand.

Here were at least two thousand armed and unarmed peasants, sick with
misery and oppression, in the presence of their undefended tyrant.
One shot, one blow of a stone, one stroke of a knife--to the end of a
shameless pillage. But no hand was raised to do the deed. The roar of
voices subsided--he waited for it--and silence was broken only by the
crackle of the burning building, the tramp of Montcalm’s soldiers in
Mountain Street, and the tolling of the cathedral bell. I thought it
strange that almost as Bigot came out the wild clanging gave place to a
cheerful peal.

After standing for a moment, looking round him, his eye resting on
Doltaire and myself (we were but a little distance from him), Bigot said
in a loud voice: “What do you want with me? Do you think I may be moved
by threats? Do you punish me by burning your own food, which, when the
English are at our doors, is your only hope? Fools! How easily could I
turn my cannon and my men upon you! You think to frighten me. Who do you
think I am?--a Bostonnais or an Englishman? You--revolutionists! T’sh!
You are wild dogs without a leader. You want one that you can trust; you
want no coward, but one who fears you not at your wildest. Well, I will
be your leader. I do not fear you, and I do not love you, for how have
you deserved my love? By ingratitude and aspersion? Who has the King’s
favour? Francois Bigot. Who has the ear of the Grande Marquise? Francois
Bigot. Who stands firm while others tremble lest their power pass
to-morrow? Francois Bigot. Who else dare invite revolution, this
danger”--his hand sweeping to the flames--“who but Francois Bigot?” He
paused for a moment, and looking up to the leader of Montcalm’s soldiers
on the Heights, waved him back; then he continued:

“And to-day, when I am ready to give you great news, you play the mad
dog’s game; you destroy what I had meant to give you in our hour of
danger, when those English came. I made you suffer a little, that
you might live then. Only to-day, because of our great and glorious
victory--”

He paused again. The peal of bells became louder. Far up on the Heights
we heard the calling of bugles and the beating of drums; and now I saw
the whole large plan, the deep dramatic scheme. He had withheld the news
of the victory that he might announce it when it would most turn to his
own glory. Perhaps he had not counted on the burning of the warehouse,
but this would tell now in his favour. He was not a large man, but he
drew himself up with dignity, and continued in a contemptuous tone:

“Because of our splendid victory, I designed to tell you all my plans,
and, pitying your trouble, divide among you at the smallest price, that
all might pay, the corn which now goes to feed the stars.”

At that moment some one from the Heights above called out shrilly, “What
lie is in that paper, Francois Bigot?”

I looked up, as did the crowd. A woman stood upon a point of the great
rock, a red robe hanging on her, her hair free over her shoulders, her
finger pointing at the Intendant. Bigot only glanced up, then smoothed
out the paper.

He said to the people in a clear but less steady voice, for I could
see that the woman had disturbed him, “Go pray to be forgiven for your
insolence and folly. His most Christian Majesty is triumphant upon the
Ohio. The English have been killed in thousands, and their General with
them. Do you not hear the joy-bells in the Church of Our Lady of the
Victories? and more--listen!”

There burst from the Heights on the other side a cannon shot, and
then another and another. There was a great commotion, and many ran
to Bigot’s carriage, reached in to touch his hand, and called down
blessings on him.

“See that you save the other granaries,” he urged, adding, with a sneer,
“and forget not to bless La Friponne in your prayers!”

It was a clever piece of acting. Presently from the Heights above came
the woman’s voice again, so piercing that the crowd turned to her.

“Francois Bigot is a liar and a traitor!” she cried. “Beware of Francois
Bigot! God has cast him out.”

A dark look came upon Bigot’s face; but presently he turned, and gave a
sign to some one near the palace. The doors of the courtyard flew open,
and out came squad after squad of soldiers. In a moment, they, with the
people, were busy carrying water to pour upon the side of the endangered
warehouse. Fortunately the wind was with them, else it and the palace
also would have been burned that night.

The Intendant still stood in his carriage watching and listening to the
cheers of the people. At last he beckoned to Doltaire and to me. We both
went over.

“Doltaire, we looked for you at dinner,” he said. “Was Captain
Moray”--nodding towards me--“lost among the petticoats? He knows the
trick of cup and saucer. Between the sip and click he sucked in secrets
from our garrison--a spy where had been a soldier, as we thought. You
once wore a sword, Captain Moray--eh?”

“If the Governor would grant me leave, I would not only wear, but use
one, your excellency knows well where,” said I.

“Large speaking, Captain Moray. They do that in Virginia, I am told.”

“In Gascony there’s quiet, your excellency.”

Doltaire laughed outright, for it was said that Bigot, in his coltish
days, had a shrewish Gascon wife, whom he took leave to send to heaven
before her time. I saw the Intendant’s mouth twitch angrily.

“Come,” he said, “you have a tongue; we’ll see if you have a stomach.
You’ve languished with the girls; you shall have your chance to drink
with Francois Bigot. Now, if you dare, when we have drunk to the first
cockcrow, should you be still on your feet, you’ll fight some one among
us, first giving ample cause.”

“I hope, your excellency,” I replied, with a touch of vanity, “I have
still some stomach and a wrist. I will drink to cockcrow, if you will.
And if my sword prove the stronger, what?”

“There’s the point,” he said. “Your Englishman loves not fighting for
fighting’s sake, Doltaire; he must have bonbons for it. Well, see: if
your sword and stomach prove the stronger, you shall go your ways to
where you will. Voila!”

If I could but have seen a bare portion of the craftiness of this pair
of devils artisans! They both had ends to serve in working ill to me,
and neither was content that I should be shut away in the citadel, and
no more. There was a deeper game playing. I give them their due: the
trap was skillful, and in those times, with great things at stake,
strategy took the place of open fighting here and there. For Bigot I was
to be a weapon against another; for Doltaire, against myself.

What a gull they must have thought me! I might have known that, with my
lost papers on the way to France, they must hold me tight here till
I had been tried, nor permit me to escape. But I was sick of doing
nothing, thinking with horror on a long winter in the citadel, and I
caught at the least straw of freedom.

“Captain Moray will like to spend a couple of hours at his lodgings
before he joins us at the palace,” the Intendant said, and with a nod
to me he turned to his coachman. The horses wheeled, and in a moment the
great doors opened, and he had passed inside to applause, though here
and there among the crowd was heard a hiss, for the Scarlet Woman had
made an impression. The Intendant’s men essayed to trace these noises,
but found no one. Looking again to the Heights, I saw that the woman had
gone. Doltaire noted my glance and the inquiry in my face, and he said:

“Some bad fighting hours with the Intendant at Chateau Bigot, and then a
fever, bringing a kind of madness: so the story creeps about, as told by
Bigot’s enemies.”

Just at this point I felt a man hustle me as he passed. One of the
soldiers made a thrust at him, and he turned round. I caught his eye,
and it flashed something to me. It was Voban the barber, who had shaved
me every day for months when I first came, while my arm was stiff from
a wound got fighting the French on the Ohio. It was quite a year since
I had met him, and I was struck by the change in his face. It had grown
much older; its roundness was gone. We had had many a talk together; he
helping me with French, I listening to the tales of his early life in
France, and to the later tale of a humble love, and of the home which
he was fitting up for his Mathilde, a peasant girl of much beauty, I
was told, but whom I had never seen. I remembered at that moment, as he
stood in the crowd looking at me, the piles of linen which he had bought
at Ste. Anne de Beaupre, and the silver pitcher which his grandfather
had got from the Duc de Valois for an act of merit. Many a time we had
discussed the pitcher and the deed, and fingered the linen, now talking
in French, now in English; for in France, years before, he had been a
valet to an English officer at King Louis’s court. But my surprise had
been great when I learned that this English gentleman was no other than
the best friend I ever had, next to my parents and my grandfather. Voban
was bound to Sir John Godric by as strong ties of affection as I. What
was more, by a secret letter I had sent to George Washington, who was
then as good a Briton as myself, I had been able to have my barber’s
young brother, a prisoner of war, set free.

I felt that he had something to say to me. But he turned away and
disappeared among the crowd. I might have had some clue if I had known
that he had been crouched behind the Intendant’s carriage while I was
being bidden to the supper. I did not guess then that there was anything
between him and the Scarlet Woman who railed at Bigot.

In a little while I was at my lodgings, soldiers posted at my door and
one in my room. Doltaire gone to his own quarters promising to call for
me within two hours. There was little for me to do but to put in a bag
the fewest necessaries, to roll up my heavy cloak, to stow safely my
pipes and two goodly packets of tobacco, which were to be my chiefest
solace for many a long day, and to write some letters--one to Governor
Dinwiddie, one to George Washington, and one to my partner in Virginia,
telling them my fresh misfortunes, and begging them to send me money,
which, however useless in my captivity, would be important in my fight
for life and freedom. I did not write intimately of my state, for I was
not sure my letters would ever pass outside Quebec. There were only two
men I could trust to do the thing. One was a fellow-countryman, Clark,
a ship-carpenter, who, to save his neck and to spare his wife and child,
had turned Catholic, but who hated all Frenchmen barbarously at heart,
remembering two of his bairns butchered before his eyes. The other was
Voban. I knew that though Voban might not act, he would not betray
me. But how to reach either of them? It was clear that I must bide my
chances.

One other letter I wrote, brief but vital, in which I begged the
sweetest girl in the world not to have uneasiness because of me; that
I trusted to my star and to my innocence to convince my judges; and
begging her, if she could, to send me a line at the citadel. I told her
I knew well how hard it would be, for her mother and her father would
not now look upon my love with favour. But I trusted all to time and
Providence.

I sealed my letters, put them in my pocket, and sat down to smoke and
think while I waited for Doltaire. To the soldier on duty, whom I did
not notice at first, I now offered a pipe and a glass of wine, which he
accepted rather gruffly, but enjoyed, if I might judge by his devotion
to them.

By-and-bye, without any relevancy at all, he said abruptly, “If a little
sooner she had come--aho!”

For a moment I could not think what he meant; but soon I saw.

“The palace would have been burnt if the girl in scarlet had come
sooner--eh?” I asked. “She would have urged the people on?”

“And Bigot burnt, too, maybe,” he answered.

“Fire and death--eh?”

I offered him another pipeful of tobacco. He looked doubtful, but
accepted.

“Aho! And that Voban, he would have had his hand in,” he growled.

I began to get more light.

“She was shut up at Chateau Bigot--hand of iron and lock of steel--who
knows the rest! But Voban was for always,” he added presently.

The thing was clear. The Scarlet Woman was Mathilde. So here was the end
of Voban’s little romance--of the fine linen from Ste. Anne de Beaupre
and the silver pitcher for the wedding wine. I saw, or felt, that in
Voban I might find now a confederate, if I put my hard case on Bigot’s
shoulders.

“I can’t see why she stayed with Bigot,” I said tentatively.

“Break the dog’s leg, it can’t go hunting bones--mais, non! Holy, how
stupid are you English!”

“Why doesn’t the Intendant lock her up now? She’s dangerous to him. You
remember what she said?”

“Tonnerre, you shall see to-morrow,” he answered; “now all the sheep go
bleating with the bell. Bigot--Bigot--Bigot--there is nothing but Bigot!
But, pish! Vaudreuil the Governor is the great man, and Montcalm, aho!
son of Mahomet! You shall see. Now they dance to Bigot’s whistling; he
will lock her safe enough to-morrow, ‘less some one steps in to help
her. Before to-night she never spoke of him before the world--but a
poor daft thing, going about all sad and wild. She missed her chance
to-night--aho!”

“Why are you not with Montcalm’s soldiers?” I asked. “You like him
better.”

“I was with him, but my time was out, and I left him for Bigot. Pish! I
left him for Bigot, for the militia!” He raised his thumb to his nose,
and spread out his fingers. Again light dawned on me. He was still with
the Governor in all fact, though soldiering for Bigot--a sort of watch
upon the Intendant.

I saw my chance. If I could but induce this fellow to fetch me Voban!
There was yet an hour before I was to go to the intendance.

I called up what looks of candour were possible to me, and told him
bluntly that I wished Voban to bear a letter for me to the Seigneur
Duvarney’s. At that he cocked his ear and shook his bushy head, fiercely
stroking his mustaches.

I knew that I should stake something if I said it was a letter for
Mademoiselle Duvarney, but I knew also that if he was still the
Governor’s man in Bigot’s pay he would understand the Seigneur’s
relations with the Governor. And a woman in the case with a
soldier--that would count for something. So I said it was for her.
Besides, I had no other resource but to make a friend among my enemies,
if I could, while yet there was a chance.

It was like a load lifted from me when I saw his mouth and eyes open
wide in a big soundless laugh, which came to an end with a voiceless
aho! I gave him another tumbler of wine. Before he took it, he made a
wide mouth at me again, and slapped his leg. After drinking, he said,
“Poom--what good? They’re going to hang you for a spy.”

“That rope’s not ready yet,” I answered. “I’ll tie a pretty knot in
another string first, I trust.”

“Damned if you haven’t spirit!” said he. “That Seigneur Duvarney, I know
him; and I know his son the ensign--whung, what saltpetre is he! And the
ma’m’selle--excellent, excellent; and a face, such a face, and a seat
like leeches in the saddle. And you a British officer mewed up to kick
your heels till gallows day! So droll, my dear!”

“But will you fetch Voban?” I asked.

“To trim your hair against the supper to-night--eh, like that?”

As he spoke he puffed out his red cheeks with wide boylike eyes, burst
his lips in another soundless laugh, and laid a finger beside his nose.
His marvellous innocence of look and his peasant openness hid, I saw,
great shrewdness and intelligence--an admirable man for Vaudreuil’s
purpose, as admirable for mine. I knew well that if I had tried to bribe
him he would have scouted me, or if I had made a motion for escape he
would have shot me off-hand. But a lady--that appealed to him; and that
she was the Seigneur Duvarney’s daughter did the rest.

“Yes, yes,” said I, “one must be well appointed in soul and body when
one sups with his Excellency and Monsieur Doltaire.”

“Limed inside and chalked outside,” he retorted gleefully. “But M’sieu’
Doltaire needs no lime, for he has no soul. No, by Sainte Helois! The
good God didn’t make him. The devil laughed, and that laugh grew into
M’sieu’ Doltaire. But brave!--no kicking pulse is in his body.”

“You will send for Voban--now?” I asked softly.

He was leaning against the door as he spoke. He reached and put the
tumbler on a shelf, then turned and opened the door, his face all
altered to a grimness.

“Attend here, Labrouk!” he called; and on the soldier coming, he blurted
out in scorn, “Here’s this English captain can’t go to supper without
Voban’s shears to snip him. Go fetch him, for I’d rather hear a calf in
a barn-yard than this whing-whanging for ‘M’sieu’ Voban!’”

He mocked my accent in the last two words, so that the soldier grinned,
and at once started away. Then he shut the door, and turned to me
again, and said more seriously, “How long have we before Monsieur
comes?”--meaning Doltaire.

“At least an hour,” said I.

“Good,” he rejoined, and then he smoked while I sat thinking.

It was near an hour before we heard footsteps outside; then came a
knock, and Voban was shown in.

“Quick, m’sieu’,” he said. “M’sieu’ is almost at our heels.”

“This letter,” said I, “to Mademoiselle Duvarney,” and I handed four:
hers, and those to Governor Dinwiddie, to Mr. Washington, and to my
partner.

He quickly put them in his coat, nodding. The soldier--I have not yet
mentioned his name--Gabord, did not know that more than one passed into
Voban’s hands.

“Off with your coat, m’sieu’,” said Voban, whipping out his shears,
tossing his cap aside, and rolling down his apron. “M’sieu’ is here.”

I had off my coat, was in a chair in a twinkling, and he was clipping
softly at me as Doltaire’s hand turned the handle of the door.

“Beware--to-night!” Voban whispered.

“Come to me in the prison,” said I. “Remember your brother!”

His lips twitched. “M’sieu’, I will if I can.” This he said in my ear as
Doltaire entered and came forward.

“Upon my life!” Doltaire broke out. “These English gallants! They go to
prison curled and musked by Voban. VOBAN--a name from the court of the
King, and it garnishes a barber. Who called you, Voban?”

“My mother, with the cure’s help, m’sieu’.”

Doltaire paused, with a pinch of snuff at his nose, and replied lazily,
“I did not say ‘Who called you VOBAN?’ Voban, but who called you here,
Voban?”

I spoke up testily then of purpose: “What would you have, monsieur? The
citadel has better butchers than barbers. I sent for him.”

He shrugged his shoulders and came over to Voban. “Turn round, my
Voban,” he said. “Voban--and such a figure! a knee, a back like that!”

Then, while my heart stood still, he put forth a finger and touched
the barber on the chest. If he should touch the letters! I was ready to
seize them--but would that save them? Twice, thrice, the finger prodded
Voban’s breast, as if to add an emphasis to his words. “In Quebec you
are misplaced, Monsieur le Voban. Once a wasp got into a honeycomb and
died.”

I knew he was hinting at the barber’s resentment of the poor Mathilde’s
fate. Something strange and devilish leapt into the man’s eyes, and he
broke out bitterly,

“A honey-bee got into a nest of wasps--and died.”

I thought of the Scarlet Woman on the hill.

Voban looked for a moment as if he might do some wild thing. His spirit,
his devilry, pleased Doltaire, and he laughed. “Who would have thought
our Voban had such wit? The trade of barber is double-edged. Razors
should be in fashion at Versailles.”

Then he sat down, while Voban made a pretty show of touching off my
person. A few minutes passed so, in which the pealing of bells, the
shouting of the people, the beating of drums, and the calling of bugles
came to us clearly.

A half hour afterwards, on our way to the Intendant’s palace, we
heard the Benedictus chanted in the Church of the Recollets as we
passed--hundreds kneeling outside, and responding to the chant sung
within:

“That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hands of all
that hate us.”

At the corner of a building which we passed, a little away from
the crowd, I saw a solitary cloaked figure. The words of the chant,
following us, I could hear distinctly:

“That we, being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve
Him without fear.”

And then, from the shadowed corner came in a high, melancholy voice the
words:

“To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Looking closer, I saw it was Mathilde.

Doltaire smiled as I turned and begged a moment’s time to speak to her.

“To pray with the lost angel and sup with the Intendant, all in
one night--a liberal taste, monsieur; but who shall stay the good
Samaritan!”

They stood a little distance away, and I went over to her and said,
“Mademoiselle--Mathilde, do you not know me?”

Her abstracted eye fired up, as there ran to her brain some little
sprite out of the House of Memory and told her who I was.

“There were two lovers in the world,” she said: “the Mother of God
forgot them, and the devil came. I am the Scarlet Woman,” she went on;
“I made this red robe from the curtains of Hell--”

Poor soul! My own trouble seemed then as a speck among the stars to
hers. I took her hand and held it, saying again, “Do you not know me?
Think, Mathilde!”

I was not sure that she had ever seen me, to know me, but I thought
it possible; for, as a hostage, I had been much noticed in Quebec, and
Voban had, no doubt, pointed me out to her. Light leapt from her black
eye, and then she said, putting her finger on her lips, “Tell all the
lovers to hide. I have seen a hundred Francois Bigots.”

I looked at her, saying nothing--I knew not what to say. Presently her
eye steadied to mine, and her intellect rallied. “You are a prisoner,
too,” she said; “but they will not kill you: they will keep you till
the ring of fire grows in your head, and then you will make your scarlet
robe, and go out, but you will never find It--never. God hid first, and
then It hides.... It hides, that which you lost--It hides, and you can
not find It again. You go hunting, hunting, but you can not find It.”

My heart was pinched with pain. I understood her. She did not know her
lover now at all. If Alixe and her mother at the Manor could but care
for her, I thought. But alas! what could I do? It were useless to ask
her to go to the Manor; she would not understand.

Perhaps there come to the disordered mind flashes of insight,
illuminations and divinations, greater than are given to the sane, for
she suddenly said in a whisper, touching me with a nervous finger, “I
will go and tell her where to hide. They shall not find her. I know
the woodpath to the Manor. Hush! she shall own all I have--except the
scarlet robe. She showed me where the May-apples grew. Go,”--she pushed
me gently away--“go to your prison, and pray to God. But you can not
kill Francois Bigot, he is a devil.” Then she thrust into my hands a
little wooden cross, which she took from many others at her girdle. “If
you wear that, the ring of fire will not grow,” she said. “I will go
by the woodpath, and give her one, too. She shall live with me: I will
spread the cedar branches and stir the fire. She shall be safe. Hush!
Go, go softly, for their wicked eyes are everywhere, the were-wolves!”

She put her fingers on my lips for an instant, and then, turning, stole
softly away towards the St. Charles River.

Doltaire’s mockery brought me back to myself.

“So much for the beads of the addled; now for the bowls of sinful man,”
 said he.




III. THE WAGER AND THE SWORD


As I entered the Intendant’s palace with Doltaire I had a singular
feeling of elation. My spirits rose unaccountably, and I felt as though
it were a fete night, and the day’s duty over, the hour of play was
come. I must needs have felt ashamed of it then, and now, were I not
sure it was some unbidden operation of the senses. Maybe a merciful
Spirit sees how, left alone, we should have stumbled and lost ourselves
in our own gloom, and so gives us a new temper fitted to our needs. I
remember that at the great door I turned back and smiled upon the ruined
granary, and sniffed the air laden with the scent of burnt corn--the
peoples bread; that I saw old men and women who could not be moved by
news of victory, shaking with cold, even beside this vast furnace, and
peevishly babbling of their hunger, and I did not say, “Poor souls!”
 that for a time the power to feel my own misfortunes seemed gone, and a
hard, light indifference came on me.

For it is true I came into the great dining-hall, and looked upon the
long loaded table, with its hundred candles, its flagons and pitchers
of wine, and on the faces of so many idle, careless gentlemen bid to a
carouse, with a manner, I believe, as reckless and jaunty as their own.
And I kept it up, though I saw it was not what they had looked for. I
did not at once know who was there, but presently, at a distance from
me, I saw the face of Juste Duvarney, the brother of my sweet Alixe,
a man of but twenty or so, who had a name for wildness, for no badness
that I ever heard of, and for a fiery temper. He was in the service of
the Governor, an ensign. He had been little at home since I had come to
Quebec, having been employed up to the past year in the service of the
Governor of Montreal. We bowed, but he made no motion to come to me, and
the Intendant engaged me almost at once in gossip of the town; suddenly,
however, diverging upon some questions of public tactics and civic
government. He much surprised me, for though I knew him brave and able,
I had never thought of him save as the adroit politician and servant of
the King, the tyrant and the libertine. I might have known by that very
scene a few hours before that he had a wide, deep knowledge of human
nature, and despised it; unlike Doltaire, who had a keener mind, was
more refined even in wickedness, and, knowing the world, laughed at it
more than he despised it, which was the sign of the greater mind. And
indeed, in spite of all the causes I had to hate Doltaire, it is but
just to say he had by nature all the great gifts--misused and disordered
as they were. He was the product of his age; having no real moral sense,
living life wantonly, making his own law of right or wrong. As a lad, I
was taught to think the evil person carried evil in his face, repelling
the healthy mind. But long ago I found that this was error. I had no
reason to admire Doltaire, and yet to this hour his handsome face, with
its shadows and shifting lights, haunts me, charms me. The thought came
to me as I talked with the Intendant, and I looked round the room. Some
present were of coarse calibre--bushranging sons of seigneurs and petty
nobles, dashing and profane, and something barbarous; but most had gifts
of person and speech, and all seemed capable.

My spirits continued high. I sprang alertly to meet wit and gossip, my
mind ran nimbly here and there, I filled the role of honoured guest. But
when came the table and wine, a change befell me. From the first drop I
drank, my spirits suffered a decline. On one side the Intendant rallied
me, on the other Doltaire. I ate on, drank on; but while smiling by
the force of will, I grew graver little by little. Yet it was a gravity
which had no apparent motive, for I was not thinking of my troubles, not
even of the night’s stake and the possible end of it all; simply a
sort of gray colour of the mind, a stillness in the nerves, a general
seriousness of the senses. I drank, and the wine did not affect me,
as voices got loud and louder, and glasses rang, and spurs rattled on
shuffling heels, and a scabbard clanged on a chair. I seemed to feel and
know it all in some far-off way, but I was not touched by the spirit
of it, was not a part of it. I watched the reddened cheeks and loose
scorching mouths around me with a sort of distant curiosity, and the
ribald jests flung right and left struck me not at all acutely. It was
as if I were reading a Book of Bacchus. I drank on evenly, not doggedly,
and answered jest for jest without a hot breath of drunkenness. I looked
several times at Juste Duvarney, who sat not far away, on the other side
of the table, behind a grand piece of silver filled with October roses.
He was drinking hard, and Doltaire, sitting beside him, kept him at it.
At last the silver piece was shifted, and he and I could see each other
fairly. Now and then Doltaire spoke across to me, but somehow no word
passed between Duvarney and myself.

Suddenly, as if by magic--I know it was preconcerted--the talk turned on
the events of the evening and on the defeat of the British. Then, too,
as strangely I began to be myself again, amid a sense of my position
grew upon me. I had been withdrawn from all real feeling and living for
hours, but I believe that same suspension was my salvation. For with
every man present deeply gone in liquor round me--every man save
Doltaire--I was sane and steady, and settling into a state of great
alertness, determined on escape, if that could be, and bent on turning
every chance to serve my purposes.

Now and again I caught my own name mentioned with a sneer, then with
remarks of surprise, then with insolent laughter. I saw it all. Before
dinner some of the revellers had been told of the new charge against me,
and, by instruction, had kept it till the inflammable moment. Then, when
the why and wherefore of my being at this supper were in the hazard, the
stake, as a wicked jest of Bigot’s, was mentioned. I could see the flame
grow inch by inch, fed by the Intendant and Doltaire, whose hateful
final move I was yet to see. For one instant I had a sort of fear, for I
was sure they meant I should not leave the room alive; but anon I felt
a river of fiery anger flow through me, rousing me, making me loathe
the faces of them all. Yet not all, for in one pale face, with dark,
brilliant eyes, I saw the looks of my flower of the world: the colour of
her hair in his, the clearness of the brow, the poise of the head--how
handsome he was!--the light, springing step, like a deer on the sod of
June. I call to mind when I first saw him. He was sitting in a window of
the Manor, just after he had come from Montreal, playing a violin which
had once belonged to De Casson, the famous priest whose athletic power
and sweet spirit endeared him to New France. His fresh cheek was bent
to the brown, delicate wood, and he was playing to his sister the air of
the undying chanson, “Je vais mourir pour ma belle reine.” I loved the
look of his face, like that of a young Apollo, open, sweet, and bold,
all his body having the epic strength of life. I wished that I might
have him near me as a comrade, for out of my hard experience I could
teach him much, and out of his youth he could soften my blunt nature, by
comradeship making flexuous the hard and ungenial.

I went on talking to the Intendant, while some of the guests rose and
scattered about the rooms, at tables, to play picquet, the jesting on
our cause and the scorn of myself abating not at all. I would not have
it thought that anything was openly coarse or brutal; it was all by
innuendo, and brow-lifting, and maddening, allusive phrases such as it
is thought fit for gentlefolk to use instead of open charge. There was
insult in a smile, contempt in the turn of a shoulder, challenge in the
flicking of a handkerchief. With great pleasure I could have wrung their
noses one by one, and afterwards have met them tossing sword-points in
the same order. I wonder now that I did not tell them so, for I was ever
hasty; but my brain was clear that night, and I held myself in proper
check, letting each move come from my enemies. There was no reason why
I should have been at this wild feast at all, I a prisoner, accused
falsely of being a spy, save because of some plot by which I was to have
fresh suffering and some one else be benefited--though how that could be
I could not guess at first.

But soon I understood everything. Presently I heard a young gentleman
say to Duvarney over my shoulder:

“Eating comfits and holding yarn--that was his doing at your manor when
Doltaire came hunting him.”

“He has dined at your table, Lancy,” broke out Duvarney hotly.

“But never with our ladies,” was the biting answer.

“Should prisoners make conditions?” was the sharp, insolent retort.

The insult was conspicuous, and trouble might have followed, but that
Doltaire came between them, shifting the attack.

“Prisoners, my dear Duvarney,” said he, “are most delicate and exacting;
they must be fed on wine and milk. It is an easy life, and hearts grow
soft for them. As thus--Indeed, it is most sad: so young and gallant; in
speech, too, so confiding! And if we babble all our doings to him, think
you he takes it seriously? No, no--so gay and thoughtless, there is a
thoroughfare from ear to ear, and all’s lost on the other side. Poor
simple gentleman, he is a claimant on our courtesy, a knight without a
sword, a guest without the power to leave us--he shall make conditions,
he shall have his caprice. La, la! my dear Duvarney and my Lancy!”

He spoke in a clear, provoking tone, putting a hand upon the shoulder of
each young gentleman as he talked, his eyes wandering over me idly, and
beyond me. I saw that he was now sharpening the sickle to his office.
His next words made this more plain to me:

“And if a lady gives a farewell sign to one she favours for the moment,
shall not the prisoner take it as his own?” (I knew he was recalling
Alixe’s farewell gesture to me at the manor.) “Who shall gainsay our
peacock? Shall the guinea cock? The golden crumb was thrown to the
guinea cock, but that’s no matter. The peacock clatters of the crumb.”
 At that he spoke an instant in Duvarney’s ear. I saw the lad’s face
flush, and he looked at me angrily.

Then I knew his object: to provoke a quarrel between this young
gentleman and myself, which might lead to evil ends; and the Intendant’s
share in the conspiracy was to revenge himself upon the Seigneur for his
close friendship with the Governor. If Juste Duvarney were killed in the
duel which they foresaw, so far as Doltaire was concerned I was out of
the counting in the young lady’s sight. In any case my life was of
no account, for I was sure my death was already determined on. Yet it
seemed strange that Doltaire should wish me dead, for he had reasons for
keeping me alive, as shall be seen.

Juste Duvarney liked me once, I knew, but still he had the Frenchman’s
temper, and had always to argue down his bias against my race, and to
cherish a good heart towards me; for he was young, and most sensitive to
the opinions of his comrades. I can not express what misery possessed
me when I saw him leave Doltaire, and, coming to me where I stood alone,
say--

“What secrets found you at our seigneury, monsieur?”

I understood the taunt--as though I were the common interrogation mark,
the abuser of hospitality, the abominable Paul Pry. But I held my wits
together.

“Monsieur,” said I, “I found the secret of all good life: a noble
kindness to the unfortunate.”

There was a general laugh, led by Doltaire, a concerted influence on the
young gentleman. I cursed myself that I had been snared to this trap.

“The insolent,” responded Duvarney, “not the unfortunate.”

“Insolence is no crime, at least,” I rejoined quietly, “else this room
were a penitentiary.”

There was a moment’s pause, and presently, as I kept my eye on him, he
raised his handkerchief and flicked me across the face with it, saying,
“Then this will be a virtue, and you may have more such virtues as often
as you will.”

In spite of will, my blood pounded in my veins, and a devilish anger
took hold of me. To be struck across the face by a beardless Frenchman,
scarce past his teens!--it shook me more than now I care to own. I felt
my cheek burn, my teeth clinched, and I know a kind of snarl came from
me; but again, all in a moment, I caught a turn of his head, a motion
of the hand, which brought back Alixe to me. Anger died away, and I saw
only a youth flushed with wine, stung by suggestions, with that foolish
pride the youngster feels--and he was the youngest of them all--in
being as good a man as the best, and as daring as the worst. I felt how
useless it would be to try the straightening of matters there, though
had we two been alone a dozen words would have been enough. But to try
was my duty, and I tried with all my might; almost, for Alixe’s sake,
with all my heart.

“Do not trouble to illustrate your meaning,” said I patiently. “Your
phrases are clear and to the point.”

“You bolt from my words,” he retorted, “like a shy mare on the curb;
you take insult like a donkey on a well-wheel. What fly will the English
fish rise to? Now it no more plays to my hook than an August chub.”

I could not help but admire his spirit and the sharpness of his speech,
though it drew me into a deeper quandary. It was clear that he would
not be tempered to friendliness; for, as is often so, when men have said
things fiercely, their eloquence feeds their passion and convinces them
of holiness in their cause. Calmly, but with a heavy heart, I answered:

“I wish not to find offense in your words, my friend, for in some good
days gone you and I had good acquaintance, and I can not forget that the
last hours of a light imprisonment before I entered on a dark one were
spent in the home of your father--of the brave Seigneur whose life I
once saved.”

I am sure I should not have mentioned this in any other situation--it
seemed as if I were throwing myself on his mercy; but yet I felt it was
the only thing to do--that I must bridge this affair, if at cost of some
reputation.

It was not to be. Here Doltaire, seeing that my words had indeed
affected my opponent, said: “A double retreat! He swore to give a
challenge to-night, and he cries off like a sheep from a porcupine; his
courage is so slack, he dares not move a step to his liberty. It was a
bet, a hazard. He was to drink glass for glass with any and all of us,
and fight sword for sword with any of us who gave him cause. Having
drunk his courage to death, he’d now browse at the feet of those who
give him chance to win his stake.”

His words came slowly and bitingly, yet with an air of damnable
nonchalance. I looked round me. Every man present was full-sprung with
wine; and a distance away, a gentleman on either side of him, stood the
Intendant, smiling detestably, a keen, houndlike look shooting out of
his small round eyes.

I had had enough; I could bear no more. To be baited like a bear by
these Frenchmen--it was aloes in my teeth! I was not sorry then that
these words of Juste Duvarney’s gave me no chance of escape from
fighting; though I would it had been any other man in the room than
he. It was on my tongue to say that if some gentleman would take up his
quarrel I should be glad to drive mine home, though for reasons I cared
not myself to fight Duvarney. But I did not, for I knew that to carry
that point farther might rouse a general thought of Alixe, and I had no
wish to make matters hard for her. Everything in its own good time, and
when I should be free! So, without more ado, I said to him:

“Monsieur, the quarrel was of your choosing, not mine. There was no need
for strife between us, and you have more to lose than I: more friends,
more years of life, more hopes. I have avoided your bait, as you call
it, for your sake, not mine own. Now I take it, and you, monsieur, show
us what sort of fisherman you are.”

All was arranged in a moment. As we turned to pass from the room to the
courtyard, I noted that Bigot was gone. When we came outside, it was
just one, as I could tell by a clock striking in a chamber near. It was
cold, and some of the company shivered as we stepped upon the white,
frosty stones. The late October air bit the cheek, though now and then
a warm, pungent current passed across the courtyard--the breath from
the people’s burnt corn. Even yet upon the sky was the reflection of the
fire, and distant sounds of singing, shouting, and carousal came to us
from the Lower Town.

We stepped to a corner of the yard and took off our coats; swords were
handed us--both excellent, for we had had our choice of many. It was
partial moonlight, but there were flitting clouds. That we should have
light, however, pine torches had been brought, and these were stuck in
the wall. My back was to the outer wall of the courtyard, and I saw the
Intendant at a window of the palace looking down at us. Doltaire stood
a little apart from the other gentlemen in the courtyard, yet where he
could see Duvarney and myself at advantage.

Before we engaged, I looked intently into my opponent’s face, and
measured him carefully with my eye, that I might have his height and
figure explicit and exact; for I know how moonlight and fire distort,
how the eye may be deceived. I looked for every button; for the spot in
his lean, healthy body where I could disable him, spit him, and yet not
kill him--for this was the thing furthest from my wishes, God knows.
Now the deadly character of the event seemed to impress him, for he was
pale, and the liquor he had drunk had given him dark hollows round the
eyes, and a gray shining sweat was on his cheek. But his eyes themselves
were fiery and keen and there was reckless daring in every turn of his
body.

I was not long in finding his quality, for he came at me violently from
the start, and I had chance to know his strength and weakness also. His
hand was quick, his sight clear and sure, his knowledge to a certain
point most definite and practical, his mastery of the sword delightful;
but he had little imagination, he did not divine, he was merely a
brilliant performer, he did not conceive. I saw that if I put him on the
defensive I should have him at advantage, for he had not that art of
the true swordsman, the prescient quality which foretells the opponents
action and stands prepared. There I had him at fatal advantage--could,
I felt, give him last reward of insult at my pleasure. Yet a lust of
fighting got into me, and it was difficult to hold myself in check at
all, nor was it easy to meet his breathless and adroit advances.

Then, too, remarks from the bystanders worked me up to a deep sort of
anger, and I could feel Doltaire looking at me with that still, cold
face of his, an ironical smile at his lips. Now and then, too, a ribald
jest came from some young roisterer near, and the fact that I stood
alone among sneering enemies wound me up to a point where pride was more
active than aught else. I began to press him a little, and I pricked him
once. Then a singular feeling possessed me. I would bring this to an end
when I had counted ten; I would strike home when I said “ten.”

So I began, and I was not aware then that I was counting aloud.
“One--two--three!” It was weird to the onlookers, for the yard grew
still, and you could hear nothing but maybe a shifting foot or a hard
breathing. “Four--five--six!” There was a tenseness in the air, and
Juste Duvarney, as if he felt a menace in the words, seemed to lose all
sense of wariness, and came at me lunging, lunging with great swiftness
and heat. I was incensed now, and he must take what fortune might send;
one can not guide one’s sword to do the least harm fighting as did we.

I had lost blood, and the game could go on no longer. “Eight!” I pressed
him sharply now. “Nine!” I was preparing for the trick which would end
the matter, when I slipped on the frosty stones, now glazed with our
tramping back and forth, and, trying to recover myself, left my side
open to his sword. It came home, though I partly diverted it. I was
forced to my knees, but there, mad, unpardonable youth, he made another
furious lunge at me. I threw myself back, deftly avoided the lunge, and
he came plump on my upstretched sword, gave a long gasp, and sank down.

At that moment the doors of the courtyard opened, and men stepped
inside, one coming quickly forward before the rest. It was the Governor,
the Marquis de Vaudreuil. He spoke, but what he said I knew not, for the
stark upturned face of Juste Duvarney was there before me, there was a
great buzzing in my ears, and I fell back into darkness.




IV. THE RAT IN THE TRAP


When I waked I was alone. At first nothing was clear to me; my brain was
dancing in my head, my sight was obscured, my body painful, my senses
were blunted. I was in darkness, yet through an open door there showed a
light, which, from the smell and flickering, I knew to be a torch. This,
creeping into my senses, helped me to remember that the last thing I
saw in the Intendant’s courtyard was a burning torch, which suddenly
multiplied to dancing hundreds and then went out. I now stretched forth
a hand, and it touched a stone wall; I moved, and felt straw under me.
Then I fixed my eyes steadily on the open door and the shaking light,
and presently it all came to me: the events of the night, and that I
was now in a cell of the citadel. Stirring, I found that the wound in
my body had been bound and cared for. A loosely tied scarf round my arm
showed that some one had lately left me, and would return to finish the
bandaging. I raised myself with difficulty, and saw a basin of water,
a sponge, bits of cloth, and a pocket-knife. Stupid and dazed though I
was, the instinct of self-preservation lived, and I picked up the knife
and hid it in my coat. I did it, I believe, mechanically, for a hundred
things were going through my mind at the time.

All at once there rushed in on me the thought of Juste Duvarney as I saw
him last--how long ago was it?--his white face turned to the sky, his
arms stretched out, his body dabbled in blood. I groaned aloud. Fool,
fool! to be trapped by these lying French! To be tricked into playing
their shameless games for them, to have a broken body, to have killed
the brother of the mistress of my heart, and so cut myself off from her
and ruined my life for nothing--for worse than nothing! I had swaggered,
boasted, had taken a challenge for a bout and a quarrel like any
hanger-on of a tavern.

Suddenly I heard footsteps and voices outside; then one voice, louder
than the other, saying, “He hasn’t stirred a peg--lies like a log!” It
was Gabord.

Doltaire’s voice replied, “You will not need a surgeon--no?” His tone,
as it seemed to me, was less careless than usual.

Gabord answered, “I know the trick of it all--what can a surgeon do?
This brandy will fetch him to his intellects. And by-and-bye crack’ll go
his spine--aho!”

You have heard a lion growling on a bone. That is how Gabord’s voice
sounded to me then--a brutal rawness; but it came to my mind also that
this was the man who had brought Voban to do me service!

“Come, come, Gabord, crack your jaws less, and see you fetch him on his
feet again,” said Doltaire. “From the seats of the mighty they have said
that he must live--to die another day; and see to it, or the mighty folk
will say that you must die to live another day--in a better world, my
Gabord.”

There was a moment in which the only sound was that of tearing linen,
and I could see the shadows of the two upon the stone wall of the
corridor wavering to the light of the torch; then the shadows shifted
entirely, and their footsteps came on towards my door. I was lying on my
back as when I came to, and, therefore, probably as Gabord had left
me, and I determined to appear still in a faint. Through nearly closed
eyelids however I saw Gabord enter. Doltaire stood in the doorway
watching as the soldier knelt and lifted my arm to take off the bloody
scarf. His manner was imperturbable as ever. Even then I wondered what
his thoughts were, what pungent phrase he was suiting to the time and
to me. I do not know to this day which more interested him--that
very pungency of phrase, or the critical events which inspired his
reflections. He had no sense of responsibility; his mind loved talent,
skill, and cleverness, and though it was scathing of all usual ethics,
for the crude, honest life of the poor it had sympathy. I remember
remarks of his in the market-place a year before, as he and I watched
the peasant in his sabots and the good-wife in her homespun cloth.

“These are they,” said he, “who will save the earth one day, for they
are like it, kin to it. When they are born they lie close to it, and
when they die they fall no height to reach their graves. The rest--the
world--are like ourselves in dreams: we do not walk; we think we fly,
over houses, over trees, over mountains; and then one blessed instant
the spring breaks, or the dream gets twisted, and we go falling,
falling, in a sickening fear, and, waking up, we find we are and have
been on the earth all the while, and yet can make no claim on it,
and have no kin with it, and no right to ask anything of it--quelle
vie--quelle vie!”

Sick as I was, I thought of that as he stood there, looking in at me;
and though I knew I ought to hate him, I admired him in spite of all.

Presently he said to Gabord, “You’ll come to me at noon to-morrow, and
see you bring good news. He breathes?”

Gabord put a hand on my chest and at my neck, and said at once, “Breath
for balloons--aho!”

Doltaire threw his cloak over his shoulder and walked away, his
footsteps sounding loud in the passages. Gabord began humming to himself
as he tied the bandages, and then he reached down for the knife to cut
the flying strings. I could see this out of a little corner of my eye.
When he did not find it, he settled back on his haunches and looked at
me. I could feel his lips puffing out, and I was ready for the “Poom!”
 that came from him. Then I could feel him stooping over me, and his
hot strong breath in my face. I was so near to unconsciousness at that
moment by a sudden anxiety that perhaps my feigning had the look of
reality. In any case, he thought me unconscious and fancied that he
had taken the knife away with him; for he tucked in the strings of the
bandage. Then, lifting my head, he held the flask to my lips; for which
I was most grateful--I was dizzy and miserably faint.

I think I came to with rather more alacrity than was wise, but he was
deceived, and his first words were, “Ho, ho! the devil’s knocking; who’s
for home, angels?”

It was his way to put all things allusively, using strange figures and
metaphors. Yet, when one was used to him and to them, their potency
seemed greater than polished speech and ordinary phrase.

He offered me more brandy, and then, without preface, I asked him the
one question which sank back on my heart like a load of ice even as I
sent it forth. “Is he alive?” I inquired. “Is Monsieur Juste Duvarney
alive?”

With exasperating coolness he winked an eye, to connect the event with
what he knew of the letter I had sent to Alixe, and, cocking his head,
he blew out his lips with a soundless laugh, and said:

“To whisk the brother off to heaven is to say good-bye to sister and
pack yourself to Father Peter.”

“For God’s sake, tell me, is the boy dead?” I asked, my voice cracking
in my throat.

“He’s not mounted for the journey yet,” he answered, with a shrug, “but
the Beast is at the door.”

I plied my man with questions, and learned that they had carried Juste
into the palace for dead, but found life in him, and straightway used
all means to save him. A surgeon came, his father and mother were sent
for, and when Doltaire had left there was hope that he would live.

I learned also that Voban had carried word to the Governor of the deed
to be done that night; had for a long time failed to get admittance to
him, but was at last permitted to tell his story; and Vaudreuil had gone
to Bigot’s palace to have me hurried to the citadel, and had come just
too late.

After answering my first few questions, Gabord say nothing more, and
presently he took the torch from the wall and with a gruff good-night
prepared to go. When I asked that a light be left, he shook his head,
said he had no orders. Whereupon he left me, the heavy door clanging
to, the bolts were shot, and I was alone in darkness with my wounds and
misery. My cloak had been put into the cell beside my couch, and this
I now drew over me, and I lay and thought upon my condition and my
prospects, which, as may be seen, were not cheering. I did not suffer
great pain from my wounds--only a stiffness that troubled me not at all
if I lay still. After an hour or so passed--for it is hard to keep count
of time when one’s thoughts are the only timekeeper--I fell asleep.

I know not how long I slept, but I awoke refreshed. I stretched forth my
uninjured arm, moving it about. In spite of will a sort of hopelessness
went through me, for I could feel long blades of corn grown up about
my couch, an unnatural meadow, springing from the earth floor of my
dungeon. I drew the blades between my fingers, feeling towards them as
if they were things of life out of place like myself. I wondered what
colour they were. Surely, said I to myself, they can not be green, but
rather a yellowish white, bloodless, having only fibre, the heart all
pinched to death. Last night I had not noted them, yet now, looking
back, I saw, as in a picture, Gabord the soldier feeling among them
for the knife that I had taken. So may we see things, and yet not be
conscious of them at the time, waking to their knowledge afterwards.
So may we for years look upon a face without understanding, and then,
suddenly, one day it comes flashing out, and we read its hidden story
like a book.

I put my hand out farther, then brought it back near to my couch,
feeling towards its foot mechanically, and now I touched an earthen pan.
A small board lay across its top, and moving my fingers along it I
found a piece of bread. Then I felt the jar, and knew it was filled with
water. Sitting back, I thought hard for a moment. Of this I was sure:
the pan and bread were not there when I went to sleep, for this was the
spot where my eyes fell naturally while I lay in bed looking towards
Doltaire; and I should have remembered it now, even if I had not noted
it then. My jailer had brought these while I slept. But it was still
dark. I waked again as though out of sleep, startled: I was in a dungeon
that had no window!

Here I was, packed away in a farthest corner of the citadel, in a deep
hole that maybe had not been used for years, to be, no doubt, denied all
contact with the outer world--I was going to say FRIENDS, but whom could
I name among them save that dear soul who, by last night’s madness,
should her brother be dead, was forever made dumb and blind to me? Whom
had I but her and Voban!--and Voban was yet to be proved. The Seigneur
Duvarney had paid all debts he may have owed me, and he now might,
because of the injury to his son, leave me to my fate. On Gabord the
soldier I could not count at all.

There I was, as Doltaire had said, like a rat in a trap. But I would not
let panic seize me. So I sat and ate the stale but sweet bread, took a
long drink of the good water from the earthen jar, and then, stretching
myself out, drew my cloak up to my chin, and settled myself for sleep
again. And that I might keep up a kind delusion that I was not
quite alone in the bowels of the earth, I reached out my hand and
affectionately drew the blades of corn between my fingers.

Presently I drew my chin down to my shoulder, and let myself drift out
of painful consciousness almost as easily as a sort of woman can call
up tears at will. When I waked again, it was without a start or moving,
without confusion, and I was bitterly hungry. Beside my couch, with his
hands on his hips and his feet thrust out, stood Gabord, looking down at
me in a quizzical and unsatisfied way. A torch was burning near him.

“Wake up, my dickey-bird,” said he in his rough, mocking voice, “and
we’ll snuggle you into the pot. You’ve been long hiding; come out of the
bush--aho!”

I drew myself up painfully. “What is the hour?” I asked, and meanwhile I
looked for the earthen jar and the bread.

“Hour since when?” said he.

“Since it was twelve o’clock last night,” I answered.

“Fourteen hours since THEN,” said he.

The emphasis arrested my attention. “I mean,” I added, “since the
fighting in the courtyard.”

“Thirty-six hours and more since then, m’sieu’ the dormouse,” was his
reply.

I had slept a day and a half since the doors of this cell closed on me.
It was Friday then; now it was Sunday afternoon. Gabord had come to me
three times, and seeing how sound asleep I was had not disturbed me, but
had brought bread and water--my prescribed diet.

He stood there, his feet buried in the blanched corn--I could see the
long yellowish-white blades--the torch throwing shadows about him, his
back against the wall. I looked carefully round my dungeon. There was no
a sign of a window; I was to live in darkness. Yet if I were but allowed
candles, or a lantern, or a torch, some books, paper, pencil, and
tobacco, and the knowledge that I had not killed Juste Duvarney, I
could abide the worst with some sort of calmness. How much might have
happened, must have happened, in all these hours of sleep! My letter to
Alixe should have been delivered long ere this; my trial, no doubt, had
been decided on. What had Voban done? Had he any word for me? Dear Lord!
here was a mass of questions tumbling one upon the other in my head,
while my heart thumped behind my waistcoat like a rubber ball to a
prize-fighter’s fist. Misfortunes may be so great and many that one may
find grim humour and grotesqueness in their impossible conjunction and
multiplicity. I remembered at that moment a friend of mine in Virginia,
the most unfortunate man I ever knew. Death, desertion, money losses,
political defeat, flood, came one upon the other all in two years, and
coupled with this was loss of health. One day he said to me:

“Robert, I have a perforated lung, my liver is a swelling sponge, eating
crowds my waistband like a balloon, I have a swimming in my head and
a sinking at my heart, and I can not say litany for happy release from
these for my knees creak with rheumatism. The devil has done his worst,
Robert, for these are his--plague and pestilence, being final, are the
will of God--and, upon my soul, it is an absurd comedy of ills!” At that
he had a fit of coughing, and I gave him a glass of spirits, which eased
him.

“That’s better,” said I cheerily to him.

“It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul,” he answered; “for I owed it to my head
to put the quid refert there, and here it’s gone to my lungs to hurry
up my breathing. Did you ever think, Robert,” he added, “that this
breathing of ours is a labor, and that we have to work every second to
keep ourselves alive? We have to pump air in and out like a blacksmith’s
boy.” He said it so drolly, though he was deadly ill, that I laughed for
half an hour at the stretch, wiping away my tears as I did it; for his
pale gray face looked so sorry, with its quaint smile and that odd, dry
voice of his.

As I sat there in my dungeon, with Gabord cocking his head and his eyes
rolling, that scene flashed on me, and I laughed freely--so much so
that Gabord sulkily puffed out his lips, and flamed like bunting on
a coast-guard’s hut. The more he scowled and spluttered, the more I
laughed, till my wounded side hurt me and my arm had twinges. But my
mood changed suddenly, and I politely begged his pardon, telling him
frankly then and there what had made me laugh, and how I had come to
think of it. The flame passed out of his cheeks, the revolving fire of
his eyes dimmed, his lips broke into a soundless laugh, and then, in his
big voice, he said:

“You’ve got your knees to pray on yet, and crack my bones, but you’ll
have need to con your penitentials if tattle in the town be true.”

“Before you tell of that,” said I, “how is young Monsieur Duvarney?
Is--is he alive?” I added, as I saw his face look lower.

“The Beast was at door again last night, wild to be off, and foot of
young Seigneur was in the stirrup, when along comes sister with drug got
from an Indian squaw who nursed her when a child. She gives it him, and
he drinks; they carry him back, sleeping, and Beast must stand there
tugging at the leathers yet.”

“His sister--it was his sister,” said I, “that brought him back to
life?”

“Like that--aho! They said she must not come, but she will have her way.
Straight she goes to the palace at night, no one knowing but--guess who?
You can’t--but no!”

A light broke in on me. “With the Scarlet Woman--with Mathilde,” I said,
hoping in my heart that it was so, for somehow I felt even then that
she, poor vagrant, would play a part in the history of Alixe’s life and
mine.

“At the first shot,” he said. “‘Twas the crimson one, as quiet as a baby
chick, not hanging to ma’m’selle’s skirts, but watching and whispering a
little now and then--and she there in Bigot’s palace, and he not knowing
it! And maids do not tell him, for they knew the poor wench in better
days--aho!”

I got up with effort and pain, and made to grasp his hand in gratitude,
but he drew back, putting his arms behind him.

“No, no,” said he, “I am your jailer. They’ve put you here to break your
high spirits, and I’m to help the breaking.”

“But I thank you just the same,” I answered him; “and I promise to give
you as little trouble as may be while you are my jailer--which, with all
my heart, I hope may be as long as I’m a prisoner.”

He waved out his hands to the dungeon walls, and lifted his shoulders
as if to say that I might as well be docile, for the prison was safe
enough. “Poom!” said he, as if in genial disdain of my suggestion.

I smiled, and then, after putting my hands on the walls here and there
to see if they were, as they seemed, quite dry, I drew back to my couch
and sat down. Presently I stooped to tip the earthen jar of water to my
lips, for I could not lift it with one hand, but my humane jailer took
it from me and held it to my mouth. When I had drunk, “Do you know,”
 asked I as calmly as I could, “if our barber gave the letter to
Mademoiselle?”

“M’sieu’, you’ve travelled far to reach that question,” said he,
jangling his keys as if he enjoyed it. “And if he had--?”

I caught at his vague suggestion, and my heart leaped.

“A reply,” said I, “a message or a letter,” though I had not dared to
let myself even think of that.

He whipped a tiny packet from his coat. “‘Tis a sparrow’s pecking--no
great matter here, eh?”--he weighed it up and down on his fingers--“a
little piping wren’s par pitie.”

I reached out for it. “I should read it,” said he. “There must be no
more of this. But new orders came AFTER I’d got her dainty a m’sieu’!
Yes, I must read it,” said he--“but maybe not at first,” he added, “not
at first, if you’ll give word of honour not to tear it.”

“On my sacred honour,” said I, reaching out still.

He looked it all over again provokingly, and then lifted it to his nose,
for it had a delicate perfume. Then he gave a little grunt of wonder and
pleasure, and handed it over.

I broke the seal, and my eyes ran swiftly through the lines, traced in a
firm, delicate hand. I could see through it all the fine, sound nature,
by its healthy simplicity mastering anxiety, care, and fear.


“Robert,” she wrote, “by God’s help my brother will live, to repent with
you, I trust, of Friday night’s ill work. He was near gone, yet we have
held him back from that rough-rider, Death.

“You will thank God, will you not, that my brother did not die? Indeed,
I feel you have. I do not blame you; I know--I need not tell you
how--the heart of the affair; and even my mother can see through the
wretched thing. My father says little, and he has not spoken harshly;
for which I gave thanksgiving this morning in the chapel of the
Ursulines. Yet you are in a dungeon, covered with wounds of my brother’s
making, both of you victims of others’ villainy, and you are yet to bear
worse things, for they are to try you for your life. But never shall I
believe that they will find you guilty of dishonour. I have watched you
these three years; I do not, nor ever will, doubt you, dear friend of my
heart.

“You would not believe it, Robert, and you may think it fanciful, but as
I got up from my prayers at the chapel I looked towards a window, and
it being a little open, for it is a sunny day, there sat a bird on the
sill, a little brown bird that peeped and nodded. I was so won by it
that I came softly over to it. It did not fly away, but hopped a little
here and there. I stretched out my hand gently on the stone, and putting
its head now this side, now that, at last it tripped into it, and
chirped most sweetly. After I had kissed it I placed it back on the
window-sill, that it might fly away again. Yet no, it would not go,
but stayed there, tipping its gold-brown head at me as though it would
invite me to guess why it came. Again I reached out my hand, and once
more it tripped into it. I stood wondering and holding it to my bosom,
when I heard a voice behind me say, ‘The bird would be with thee, my
child. God hath many signs.’ I turned and saw the good Mere St. George
looking at me, she of whom I was always afraid, so distant is she. I
did not speak, but only looked at her, and she nodded kindly at me and
passed on.

“And, Robert, as I write to you here in the Intendant’s palace (what a
great wonderful place it is! I fear I do not hate it and its luxury as
I ought!), the bird is beside me in a cage upon the table, with a little
window open, so that it may come out if it will. My brother lies in the
bed asleep; I can touch him if I but put out my hand, and I am alone
save for one person. You sent two messengers: can you not guess the one
that will be with me? Poor Mathilde, she sits and gazes at me till I
almost fall weeping. But she seldom speaks, she is so quiet--as if she
knew that she must keep a secret. For, Robert, though I know you did not
tell her, she knows--she knows that you love me, and she has given me a
little wooden cross which she said will make us happy.

“My mother did not drive her away, as I half feared she would, and at
last she said that I might house her with one of our peasants. Meanwhile
she is with me here. She is not so mad but that she has wisdom too, and
she shall have my care and friendship.

“I bid thee to God’s care, Robert. I need not tell thee to be not
dismayed. Thou hast two jails, and one wherein I lock thee safe is warm
and full of light. If the hours drag by, think of all thou wouldst do if
thou wert free to go to thine own country--yet alas that thought!--and
of what thou wouldst say if thou couldst speak to thy ALIXE.

“Postscript.--I trust that they have cared for thy wounds, and that thou
hast light and food and wine. Voban hath promised to discover this for
me. The soldier Gabord, at the citadel, he hath a good heart. Though
thou canst expect no help from him, yet he will not be rougher than his
orders. He did me a good service once, and he likes me, and I him. And
so fare thee well, Robert. I will not languish; I will act, and not be
weary. Dost thou really love me?”




V. THE DEVICE OF THE DORMOUSE


When I had read the letter, I handed it up to Gabord without a word. A
show of trust in him was the only thing, for he had enough knowledge of
our secret to ruin us, if he chose. He took the letter, turned it over,
looking at it curiously, and at last, with a shrug of the shoulders,
passed it back.

“‘Tis a long tune on a dot of a fiddle,” said he, for indeed the
letter was but a small affair in bulk. “I’d need two pairs of eyes
and telescope! Is it all Heart-o’-my-heart, and
Come-trip-in-dewy-grass--aho? Or is there knave at window to bear
m’sieu’ away?”

I took the letter from him. “Listen,” said I, “to what the lady says of
you.” And then I read him that part of her postscript which had to do
with himself.

He put his head on one side like a great wise magpie, and “H’m--ha!”
 said he whimsically, “aho! Gabord the soldier, Gabord, thou hast a good
heart--and the birds fed the beast with plums and froth of comfits till
he died, and on his sugar tombstone they carved the words, ‘Gabord had a
good heart.’”

“It was spoken out of a true spirit,” said I petulantly, for I could not
bear from a common soldier even a tone of disparagement, though I saw
the exact meaning of his words. So I added, “You shall read the whole
letter, or I will read it to you and you shall judge. On the honour of a
gentleman, I will read all of it!”

“Poom!” said he, “English fire-eater! corn-cracker! Show me the ‘good
heart’ sentence, for I’d see how it is written--how GABORD looks with a
woman’s whimsies round it.”

I traced the words with my fingers, holding the letter near the torch.
“‘Yet he will not be rougher than his orders,’” said he after me, and
“‘He did me a good service once.’”

“Comfits,” he continued; “well, thou shalt have comfits, too,” and he
fished from his pocket a parcel. It was my tobacco and my pipe.

Truly, my state might have been vastly worse. Little more was said
between Gabord and myself, but he refused bluntly to carry message or
letter to anybody, and bade me not to vex him with petitions. But he
left me the torch and a flint and steel, so I had light for a space, and
I had my blessed tobacco and pipe. When the doors clanged shut and the
bolts were shot, I lay back on my couch.

I was not all unhappy. Thank God, they had not put chains on me, as
Governor Dinwiddie had done with a French prisoner at Williamsburg, for
whom I had vainly sought to be exchanged two years before, though he was
my equal in all ways and importance. Doltaire was the cause of that,
as you shall know. Well, there was one more item to add to his
indebtedness. My face flushed and my fingers tingled at thought of him,
and so I resolutely turned my meditations elsewhere, and again in a
little while I seemed to think of nothing, but lay and bathed in the
silence, and indulged my eyes with the good red light of the torch,
inhaling its pitchy scent. I was conscious, yet for a time I had no
thought: I was like something half animal, half vegetable, which feeds,
yet has no mouth, nor sees, nor hears, nor has sense, but only lives.
I seemed hung in space, as one feels when going from sleep to waking--a
long lane of half-numb life, before the open road of full consciousness
is reached.

At last I was aroused by the sudden cracking of a knot in the torch. I
saw that it would last but a few hours more. I determined to put it out,
for I might be allowed no more light, and even a few minutes of this
torch every day would be a great boon. So I took it from its place, and
was about to quench it in the moist earth at the foot of the wall, when
I remembered my tobacco and my pipe. Can you think how joyfully I packed
full the good brown bowl, delicately filling in every little corner, and
at last held it to the flame, and saw it light? That first long whiff
was like the indrawn breath of the cold, starved hunter, when, stepping
into his house, he sees food, fire, and wife on his hearthstone.
Presently I put out the torchlight, and then went back to my couch and
sat down, the bowl shining like a star before me.

There and then a purpose came to me--something which would keep my
brain from wandering, my nerves from fretting and wearing, for a time
at least. I determined to write to my dear Alixe the true history of my
life, even to the point--and after--of this thing which now was bringing
me to so ill a pass. But I was in darkness, I had no paper, pens, nor
ink. After a deal of thinking I came at last to the solution. I would
compose the story, and learn it by heart, sentence by sentence, as I so
composed it.

So there and then I began to run back over the years of my life, even to
my first remembrances, that I might see it from first to last in a sort
of whole and with a kind of measurement. But when I began to dwell upon
my childhood, one little thing gave birth to another swiftly, as you may
see one flicker in the heaven multiply and break upon the mystery of
the dark, filling the night with clusters of stars. As I thought, I kept
drawing spears of the dungeon corn between my fingers softly (they had
come to be like comrades to me), and presently there flashed upon me the
very first memory of my life. It had never come to me before, and I knew
now that it was the beginning of conscious knowledge: for we can never
know till we can remember. When a child remembers what it sees or feels,
it has begun life.

I put that recollection into the letter which I wrote Alixe, and it
shall be set down forthwith and in little space, though it took me so
very many days and weeks to think it out, to give each word a fixed
place, so that it should go from my mind no more. Every phrase of that
story as I told it is as fixed as stone in my memory. Yet it must not be
thought I can give it all here. I shall set down only a few things, but
you shall find in them the spirit of the whole. I will come at once to
the body of the letter.




VI. MORAY TELLS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE


“...I would have you know of what I am and whence I came, though I have
given you glimpses in the past. That done, I will make plain why I am
charged with this that puts my life in danger, which would make you
blush that you ever knew me if it were true. And I will show you first
a picture as it runs before me, sitting here, the corn of my dungeon
garden twining in my fingers:--

“A multiplying width of green grass spotted with white flowers, an
upland where sheep browsed on a carpet of purple and gold and green,
a tall rock on a hill where birds perched and fluttered, a blue sky
arching over all. There, sprawling in a garden, a child pulled at long
blades of grass, as he watched the birds flitting about the rocks, and
heard a low voice coming down the wind. Here in my dungeon I can hear
the voice as I have not heard it since that day in the year 1730--that
voice stilled so long ago. The air and the words come floating down (for
the words I knew years afterwards):

  ‘Did ye see the white cloud in the glint o’ the sun?
    That’s the brow and the eye o’ my bairnie.
  Did ye ken the red bloom at the bend o’ the crag?
    That’s the rose in the cheek o’ my bairnie.
  Did ye hear the gay lilt o’ the lark by the burn?
    That’s the voice of my bairnie, my dearie.
  Did ye smell the wild scent in the green o’ the wood?
    That’s the breath o’ my ain, o’ my bairnie.
  Sae I’ll gang awa’ hame, to the shine o’ the fire,
    To the cot where I lie wi’ my bairnie.’

“These words came crooning over the grass of that little garden at
Balmore which was by my mother’s home. There I was born one day in June,
though I was reared in the busy streets of Glasgow, where my father was
a prosperous merchant and famous for his parts and honesty.

“I see myself, a little child of no great strength, for I was, indeed,
the only one of my family who lived past infancy, and my mother feared
she should never bring me up. She, too, is in that picture, tall,
delicate, kind yet firm of face, but with a strong brow, under which
shone grave gray eyes, and a manner so distinguished that none might
dispute her kinship to the renowned Montrose, who was lifted so high in
dying, though his gallows was but thirty feet, that all the world has
seen him there. There was one other in that picture, standing near
my mother, and looking at me, who often used to speak of our great
ancestor--my grandfather, John Mitchell, the Gentleman of Balmore, as he
was called, out of regard for his ancestry and his rare merits.

“I have him well in mind: his black silk breeches and white stockings
and gold seals, and two eyes that twinkled with great humour when, as he
stooped over me, I ran my head between his calves and held him tight. I
recall how my mother said, ‘I doubt that I shall ever bring him up,’ and
how he replied (the words seem to come through great distances to me),
‘He’ll live to be Montrose the second, rascal laddie! Four seasons
at the breast? Tut, tut! what o’ that? ‘Tis but his foolery, his
scampishness! Nae, nae! his epitaph’s no for writing till you and I are
tucked i’ the sod, my Jeanie. Then, like Montrose’s, it will be--

  ‘Tull Edinburrow they led him thair,
    And on a gallows hong;
  They hong him high abone the rest,
    He was so trim a boy.’

“I can hear his laugh this minute, as he gave an accent to the words by
stirring me with his stick, and I caught the gold head of it and carried
it off, trailing it through the garden, till I heard my mother calling,
and then forced her to give me chase, as I pushed open a little gate and
posted away into that wide world of green, coming quickly to the river,
where I paused and stood at bay. I can see my mother’s anxious face now,
as she caught me to her arms; and yet I know she had a kind of pride,
too, when my grandfather said, on our return, ‘The rascal’s at it early.
Next time he’ll ford the stream and skirl at ye, Jeanie, from yonder
bank.’

“This is the first of my life that I remember. It may seem strange to
you that I thus suddenly recall not only it, but the words then spoken
too. It is strange to me, also. But here it comes to me all on a sudden
in this silence, as if another self of me were speaking from far places.
At first all is in patches and confused, and then it folds out--if not
clearly, still so I can understand--and the words I repeat come as if
filtered through many brains to mine. I do not say that it is true--it
may be dreams; and yet, as I say, it is firmly in my mind.

“The next that I remember was climbing upon a chair to reach for my
grandfather’s musket, which hung across the chimney. I got at last upon
the mantelshelf, and my hands were on the weapon, when the door opened,
and my grandfather and my father entered. I was so busy I did not hear
them till I was caught by the legs and swung to a shoulder, where I
sat kicking. ‘You see his tastes, William,’ said my grandfather to my
father; ‘he’s white o’ face and slim o’ body, but he’ll no carry on your
hopes.’ And more he said to the point, though what it was I knew not.
But I think it to have been suggestion (I heard him say it later) that I
would bring Glasgow up to London by the sword (good doting soul!) as my
father brought it by manufactures, gaining honour thereby.

“However that may be, I would not rest till my grandfather had put the
musket into my arms. I could scarcely lift it, but from the first it had
a charm for me, and now and then, in spite of my mother’s protests,
I was let to handle it, to learn its parts, to burnish it, and
by-and-bye--I could not have been more than six years old--to rest it on
a rock and fire it off. It kicked my shoulder roughly in firing, but I
know I did not wink as I pulled the trigger. Then I got a wild hunger
to fire it at all times; so much so, indeed, that powder and shot were
locked up, and the musket was put away in my grandfather’s chest. But
now and again it was taken out, and I made war upon the unresisting
hillside, to the dismay of our neighbours in Balmore. Feeding the
fever in my veins, my grandfather taught me soldiers’ exercises and the
handling of arms: to my dear mother’s sorrow, for she ever fancied me
as leading a merchant’s quiet life like my father’s, hugging the
hearthstone, and finding joy in small civic duties, while she and my
dear father sat peacefully watching me in their decline of years.

“I have told you of that river which flowed near my father’s house. At
this time most of my hours were spent by it in good weather, for at last
my mother came to trust me alone there, having found her alert fears
of little use. But she would very often come with me and watch me as
I played there. I loved to fancy myself a miller, and my little
mill-wheel, made by my own hands, did duty here and there on the stream,
and many drives of logs did I, in fancy, saw into piles of lumber, and
loads of flour sent away to the City of Desire. Then, again, I made
bridges, and drove mimic armies across them; and if they were enemies,
craftily let them partly cross, to tumble them in at the moment when
part of the forces were on one side of the stream and part on the other,
and at the mercy of my men.

“My grandfather taught me how to build forts and breastworks, and I lay
in ambush for the beadle, who was my good friend, for my grandfather,
and for half a dozen other village folk, who took no offense at my
sport, but made believe to be bitterly afraid when I surrounded them and
drove them, shackled, to my fort by the river. Little by little the
fort grew, until it was a goodly pile; for now and then a village youth
helped me, or again an old man, whose heart, maybe, rejoiced to play at
being child again with me. Years after, whenever I went back to Balmore,
there stood the fort, for no one ever meddled with it, nor tore it down.

“And I will tell you one reason why this was, and you will think it
strange that it should have played such a part in the history of the
village, as in my own life. You must know that people living in secluded
places are mostly superstitious. Well, when my fort was built to such
proportions that a small ladder must be used to fix new mud and mortar
in place upon it, something happened.

“Once a year there came to Balmore--and he had done so for a
generation--one of those beings called The Men, who are given to prayer,
fasting, and prophesying, who preach the word of warning ever, calling
even the ministers of the Lord sharply to account. One day this Man came
past my fort, folk with him, looking for preaching or prophesy from him.
Suddenly turning he came inside my fort, and, standing upon the ladder
against the wall, spoke to them fervently. His last words became a
legend in Balmore, and spread even to Glasgow and beyond.

“‘Hear me!’ cried he. ‘As I stand looking at ye from this wall, calling
on ye in your natural bodies to take refuge in the Fort of God, the
Angel of Death is looking ower the battlements of heaven, choosing ye
out, the sheep frae the goats; calling the one to burning flames, and
the other into peaceable habitations. I hear the voice now,’ cried he,
‘and some soul among us goeth forth. Flee ye to the Fort of Refuge.’
I can see him now, his pale face shining, his eyes burning, his beard
blowing in the wind, his grizzled hair shaking on his forehead. I had
stood within the fort watching him. At last he turned, and, seeing me
intent, stooped, caught me by the arms, and lifted me upon the wall.
‘See you,’ said he, ‘yesterday’s babe a warrior to-day. Have done,
have done, ye quarrelsome hearts. Ye that build forts here shall lie in
darksome prisons; there is no fort but the Fort of God. The call comes
frae the white ramparts. Hush!’ he added solemnly, raising a finger.
‘One of us goeth hence this day; are ye ready to walk i’ the fearsome
valley?’

“I have heard my mother speak these words over often, and they were,
as I said, like an old song in Balmore and Glasgow. He set me down, and
then walked away, waving the frightened people back; and there was none
of them that slept that night.

“Now comes the stranger thing. In the morning The Man was found dead in
my little fort, at the foot of the wall. Henceforth the spot was sacred,
and I am sure it stands there as when last I saw it twelve years ago,
but worn away by rains and winds.

“Again and again my mother said over to me his words, ‘Ye that build
forts here shall lie in darksome prisons’; for always she had fear of
the soldier’s life, and she was moved by signs and dreams.

“But this is how the thing came to shape my life:

“About a year after The Man died, there came to my grandfather’s house,
my mother and I being present, a gentleman, by name Sir John Godric,
and he would have my mother tell the whole story of The Man. That being
done, he said that The Man was his brother, who had been bad and wild in
youth, a soldier; but repenting had gone as far the other way, giving up
place and property, and cutting off from all his kin.

“This gentleman took much notice of me and said that he should be glad
to see more of me. And so he did, for in the years that followed he
would visit at our home in Glasgow when I was at school, or at Balmore
until my grandfather died.

“My father liked Sir John greatly, and they grew exceedingly friendly,
walking forth in the streets of Glasgow, Sir John’s hand upon my
father’s arm. One day they came to the school in High Street, where I
learned Latin and other accomplishments, together with fencing from an
excellent master, Sergeant Dowie of the One Hundredth Foot. They
found me with my regiment at drill; for I had got full thirty of my
school-fellows under arms, and spent all leisure hours in mustering,
marching, and drum-beating, and practising all manner of discipline and
evolution which I had been taught by my grandfather and Sergeant Dowie.

“Those were the days soon after which came Dettingen and Fontenoy and
Charles Edward the Pretender, and the ardour of arms ran high. Sir John
was a follower of the Stuarts, and this was the one point at which he
and my father paused in their good friendship. When Sir John saw me with
my thirty lads marching in fine order, all fired with the little sport
of battle--for to me it was all real, and our sham fights often saw
broken heads and bruised shoulders--he stamped his cane upon the ground,
and said in a big voice, ‘Well done! well done! For that you shall have
a hundred pounds next birthday, and as fine a suit of scarlet as you
please, and a sword from London too.’

“Then he came to me and caught me by both shoulders. ‘But alack, alack!
there needs some blood and flesh here, Robert Moray,’ said he. ‘You have
more heart than muscle.’

“This was true. I had ever been more eager than my strength--thank
God, that day is gone!--and sometimes, after Latin and the drill of
my Lightfoots, as I called them, I could have cried for weakness and
weariness, had I been a girl and not a proud lad. And Sir John kept his
word, liking me better from that day forth, and coming now and again to
see me at the school,--though he was much abroad in France--giving many
a pound to my Lightfoots, who were no worse soldiers for that. His eye
ran us over sharply, and his head nodded, as we marched past him; and
once I heard him say, ‘If they had had but ten years each on their
heads, my Prince!’

“About this time my father died--that is, when I was fourteen years old.
Sir John became one of the executors with my mother, and at my wish, a
year afterwards, I was sent to the university, where at least fifteen
of my Lightfoots went also; and there I formed a new battalion of them,
though we were watched at first, and even held in suspicion, because of
the known friendship of Sir John for me; and he himself had twice been
under arrest for his friendship to the Stuart cause. That he helped
Prince Charles was clear: his estates were mortgaged to the hilt.

“He died suddenly on that day of January when Culloden was fought,
before he knew of the defeat of the Prince. I was with him at the last.
After some most serious business, which I shall come to by-and-bye,
‘Robert,’ said he, ‘I wish thou hadst been with my Prince. When thou
becomest a soldier, fight where thou hast heart to fight; but if thou
hast conscience for it, let it be with a Stuart. I thought to leave thee
a good moiety of my fortune, Robert, but little that’s free is left for
giving. Yet thou hast something from thy father, and down in Virginia,
where my friend Dinwiddie is Governor, there’s a plantation for thee,
and a purse of gold, which was for me in case I should have cause to
flee this troubled realm. But I need it not; I go for refuge to my
Father’s house. The little vineyard and the purse of gold are for thee,
Robert. If thou thinkest well of it, leave this sick land for that new
one. Build thyself a name in that great young country, wear thy sword
honourably and bravely, use thy gifts in council and debate--for
Dinwiddie will be thy friend--and think of me as one who would have
been a father to thee if he could. Give thy good mother my loving
farewells.... Forget not to wear my sword--it has come from the first
King Charles himself, Robert.’

“After which he raised himself upon his elbow and said, ‘Life--life, is
it so hard to untie the knot?’ Then a twinge of agony crossed over his
face, and afterwards came a great clearing and peace, and he was gone.

“King George’s soldiers entered with a warrant for him even as he died,
and the same moment dropped their hands upon my shoulder. I was kept in
durance for many days, and was not even at the funeral of my benefactor;
but through the efforts of the provost of the university and some good
friends who could vouch for my loyal principles, I was released. But
my pride had got a setback, and I listened with patience to my mother’s
prayers that I would not join the King’s men. With the anger of a youth,
I now blamed his Majesty for the acts of Sir John Godric’s enemies. And
though I was a good soldier of the King at heart, I would not serve him
henceforth. We threshed matters back and forth, and presently it was
thought I should sail to Virginia to take over my estate. My mother
urged it, too, for she thought if I were weaned from my old comrades,
military fame would no longer charm. So she urged me, and go I did, with
a commission from some merchants of Glasgow, to give my visit to the
colony more weight.

“It was great pain to leave my mother, but she bore the parting bravely,
and away I set in a good ship. Arrived in Virginia, I was treated with
great courtesy in Williamsburg, and the Governor gave me welcome to
his home for the sake of his old friend; and yet a little for my own, I
think, for we were of one temper, though he was old and I young. We were
both full of impulse and proud, and given to daring hard things, and my
military spirit suited him.

“In Virginia I spent a gay and busy year, and came off very well with
the rough but gentlemanly cavaliers, who rode through the wide, sandy
streets of the capital on excellent horses, or in English coaches, with
a rusty sort of show and splendour, but always with great gallantry. The
freedom of the life charmed me, and with rumours of war with the French
there seemed enough to do, whether with the sword or in the House of
Burgesses, where Governor Dinwiddie said his say with more force than
complaisance. So taken was I with the life--my first excursion into the
wide working world--that I delayed my going back to Glasgow, the more so
that some matters touching my property called for action by the House of
Burgesses, and I had to drive the affair to the end. Sir John had done
better by me than he thought, and I thanked him over and over again for
his good gifts.

“Presently I got a letter from my father’s old partner to say that my
dear mother was ill. I got back to Glasgow only in time--but how glad I
was of that!--to hear her last words. When my mother was gone I turned
towards Virginia with longing, for I could not so soon go against her
wishes and join the King’s army on the Continent, and less desire had
I to be a Glasgow merchant. Gentlemen merchants had better times in
Virginia. So there was a winding-up of the estate, not greatly to my
pleasure; for it was found that by unwise ventures my father’s partner
had perilled the whole, and lost part of the property. But as it was,
I had a competence and several houses in Glasgow, and I set forth to
Virginia with a goodly sum of money and a shipload of merchandise, which
I should sell to merchants, if it chanced I should become a planter
only. I was warmly welcomed by old friends and by the Governor and his
family, and I soon set up an establishment of my own in Williamsburg,
joining with a merchant there in business, while my land was worked by a
neighbouring planter.

“Those were hearty days, wherein I made little money, but had much
pleasure in the giving and taking of civilities, in throwing my doors
open to acquaintances, and with my young friend, Mr. Washington, laying
the foundation for a Virginian army, by drill and yearly duty in camp,
with occasional excursions against the Indians. I saw very well what the
end of our troubles with the French would be, and I waited for the time
when I should put to keen use the sword Sir John Godric had given me.
Life beat high then, for I was in the first flush of manhood, and the
spirit of a rich new land was waking in us all, while in our vanity we
held to and cherished forms and customs that one would have thought to
see left behind in London streets and drawing-rooms. These things, these
functions in a small place, kept us a little vain and proud, but, I also
hope it gave us some sense of civic duty.

“And now I come to that which will, comrade of my heart, bring home to
your understanding what lies behind the charges against me:

“Trouble came between Canada and Virginia. Major Washington, one Captain
Mackaye, and myself marched out to the Great Meadows, where at Fort
Necessity we surrendered, after hard fighting, to a force three times
our number. I, with one Captain Van Braam, became a hostage. Monsieur
Coulon Villiers, the French commander, gave his bond that we should be
delivered up when an officer and two cadets, who were prisoners with us,
should be sent on. It was a choice between Mr. Mackaye of the Regulars
and Mr. Washington, or Mr. Van Braam and myself. I thought of what would
be best for the country; and besides, Monsieur Coulon Villiers pitched
upon my name at once, and held to it. So I gave up my sword to Charles
Bedford, my lieutenant, with more regret than I can tell, for it was
sheathed in memories, charging him to keep it safe--that he would use it
worthily I knew. And so, sorrowfully bidding my friends good-by, away we
went upon the sorry trail of captivity, arriving in due time at Fort
Du Quesne, at the junction of the Ohio and the Monongahela, where I
was courteously treated. There I bettered my French and made the
acquaintance of some ladies from Quebec city, who took pains to help me
with their language.

“Now, there was one lady to whom I talked with some freedom of my early
life and of Sir John Godric. She was interested in all, but when I named
Sir John she became at once much impressed, and I told her of his
great attachment to Prince Charles. More than once she returned to the
subject, begging me to tell her more; and so I did, still, however,
saying nothing of certain papers Sir John had placed in my care. A few
weeks after the first occasion of my speaking, there was a new arrival
at the fort. It was--can you guess?--Monsieur Doltaire. The night after
he came he visited me in my quarters, and after courteous passages, of
which I need not speak, he suddenly said, ‘You have the papers of Sir
John Godric--those bearing on Prince Charles’s invasion of England?’

“I was stunned by the question, for I could not guess his drift or
purpose, though presently it dawned upon me.--Among the papers were many
letters from a great lady in France, a growing rival with La Pompadour
in the counsels and favour of the King. She it was who had a secret
passion for Prince Charles, and these letters to Sir John, who had been
with the Pretender at Versailles, must prove her ruin if produced. I had
promised Sir John most solemnly that no one should ever have them while
I lived, except the great lady herself, and that I would give them to
her some time, or destroy them. It was Doltaire’s mission to get these
letters, and he had projected a visit to Williamsburg to see me, having
just arrived in Canada, after a search for me in Scotland, when word
came from the lady gossip at Fort Du Quesne (with whom he had been on
most familiar terms in Quebec) that I was there.

“When I said I had the papers, he asked me lightly for ‘those
compromising letters,’ remarking that a good price would be paid, and
adding my liberty as a pleasant gift. I instantly refused, and told him
I would not be the weapon of La Pompadour against her rival. With cool
persistence he begged me to think again, for much depended on my answer.

“‘See, monsieur le capitaine,’ said he, ‘this little affair at Fort
Necessity, at which you became a hostage, shall or shall not be a war
between England and France as you shall dispose.’ When I asked him how
that was, he said, ‘First, will you swear that you will not, to aid
yourself, disclose what I tell you? You can see that matters will be
where they were an hour ago in any case.’

“I agreed, for I could act even if I might not speak. So I gave my word.
Then he told me that if those letters were not put into his hands, La
Pompadour would be enraged, and fretful and hesitating now, would join
Austria against England, since in this provincial war was convenient
cue for battle. If I gave the letters up, she would not stir, and the
disputed territory between us should be by articles conceded by the
French.

“I thought much and long, during which he sat smoking and humming, and
seeming to care little how my answer went. At last I turned on him, and
told him I would not give up the letters, and if a war must hang on a
whim of malice, then, by God’s help, the rightness of our cause would be
our strong weapon to bring France to her knees.

“‘That is your final answer?’ asked he, rising, fingering his lace, and
viewing himself in a looking-glass upon the wall.

“‘I will not change it now or ever,’ answered I.

“‘Ever is a long time,’ retorted he, as one might speak to a wilful
child. ‘You shall have time to think and space for reverie. For if you
do not grant this trifle you shall no more see your dear Virginia; and
when the time is ripe you shall go forth to a better land, as the Grande
Marquise shall give you carriage.’

“‘The Articles of Capitulation!’ I broke out protestingly.

“He waved his fingers at me. ‘Ah, that,’ he rejoined--‘that is a matter
for conning. You are a hostage. Well, we need not take any wastrel or
nobody the English offer in exchange for you. Indeed, why should we be
content with less than a royal duke? For you are worth more to us just
now than any prince we have; at least so says the Grande Marquise. Is
your mind quite firm to refuse?’ he added, nodding his head in a bored
sort of way.

“‘Entirely,’ said I. ‘I will not part with those letters.’

“‘But think once again,’ he urged; ‘the gain of territory to Virginia,
the peace between our countries!’

“‘Folly!’ returned I. ‘I know well you overstate the case. You turn
a small intrigue into a game of nations. Yours is a schoolboy’s tale,
Monsieur Doltaire.’

“‘You are something of an ass,’ he mused, and took a pinch of snuff.

“‘And you--you have no name,’ retorted I.

“I did not know, when I spoke, how this might strike home in two ways or
I should not have said it. I had not meant, of course, that he was King
Louis’s illegitimate son.

“‘There is some truth in that,’ he replied patiently, though a red spot
flamed high on his cheeks. ‘But some men need no christening for their
distinction, and others win their names with proper weapons. I am not
here to quarrel with you. I am acting in a large affair, not in a small
intrigue; a century of fate may hang on this. Come with me,’ he added.
‘You doubt my power, maybe.’

“He opened the door of the cell, and I followed him out, past the
storehouse and the officers’ apartments, to the drawbridge. Standing in
the shadow by the gate, he took keys from his pocket. ‘Here,’ said he,
‘are what will set you free. This fort is all mine: I act for France.
Will you care to free yourself? You shall have escort to your own
people. You see I am most serious,’ he added, laughing lightly. ‘It is
not my way to sweat or worry. You and I hold war and peace in our hands.
Which shall it be? In this trouble France or England will be mangled.
It tires one to think of it when life can be so easy. Now, for the last
time,’ he urged, holding out the keys. ‘Your word of honour that the
letters shall be mine--eh?’

“‘Never,’ I concluded. ‘England and France are in greater hands than
yours or mine. The God of battles still stands beside the balances.’

“He shrugged a shoulder. ‘Oh well,’ said he, ‘that ends it. It will be
interesting to watch the way of the God of battles. Meanwhile you travel
to Quebec. Remember that however free you may appear you will have
watchers, that when you seem safe you will be in most danger, that in
the end we will have those letters or your life; that meanwhile the war
will go on, that you shall have no share in it, and that the whole power
of England will not be enough to set her hostage free. That is all there
is to say, I think.... Will you have a glass of wine with me?’ he added
courteously, waving a hand towards the commander’s quarters.

“I assented, for why, thought I, should there be a personal quarrel
between us? We talked on many things for an hour or more, and his
I found the keenest mind that ever I have met. There was in him a
dispassionateness, a breadth, which seemed most strange in a trifler of
the Court, in an exquisite--for such he was. I sometimes think that his
elegance and flippancy were deliberate, lest he should be taking himself
or life too seriously. His intelligence charmed me, held me, and, later,
as we travelled up to Quebec, I found my journey one long feast of
interest. He was never dull, and his cynicism had an admirable grace and
cordiality. A born intriguer, he still was above intrigue, justifying it
on the basis that life was all sport. In logic a leveller, praising the
moles, as he called them, the champion of the peasant, the apologist for
the bourgeois--who always, he said, had civic virtues--he nevertheless
held that what was was best, that it could not be altered, and that it
was all interesting. ‘I never repent,’ he said to me one day. ‘I have
done after my nature, in the sway and impulse of our time, and as the
King has said, After us the deluge. What a pity it is we shall see
neither the flood nor the ark! And so, when all is done, we shall miss
the most interesting thing of all: ourselves dead and the gap and ruin
we leave behind us. By that, from my standpoint,’ he would add, ‘life is
a failure as a spectacle.’

“Talking in this fashion and in a hundred other ways, we came to Quebec.
And you know in general what happened. I met your honoured father, whose
life I had saved on the Ohio some years before, and he worked for my
comfort in my bondage. You know how exchange after exchange was refused,
and that for near three years I have been here, fretting my soul out,
eager to be fighting in our cause, yet tied hand and foot, wasting time
and losing heart, idle in an enemy’s country. As Doltaire said, war was
declared, but not till he had made here in Quebec last efforts to get
those letters. I do not complain so bitterly of these lost years, since
they have brought me the best gift of my life, your love and friendship;
but my enemies here, commanded from France, have bided their time,
till an accident has given them a cue to dispose of me without openly
breaking the accepted law of nations. They could not decently hang a
hostage, for whom they had signed articles; but they have got their
chance, as they think, to try me for a spy.

“Here is the case. When I found that they were determined and had ever
determined to violate their articles, that they never intended to set
me free, I felt absolved from my duty as an officer on parole, and I
therefore secretly sent to Mr. Washington in Virginia a plan of Fort Du
Quesne and one of Quebec. I knew that I was risking my life by so doing,
but that did not deter me. By my promise to Doltaire, I could not tell
of the matter between us, and whatever he has done in other ways, he has
preserved my life; for it would have been easy to have me dropped off by
a stray bullet, or to have accidentally drowned me in the St. Lawrence.
I believe this matter of the letters to be between myself and him and
Bigot--and perhaps not even Bigot, though he must know that La Pompadour
has some peculiar reason for interesting herself in a poor captain
of provincials. You now can see another motive for the duel which was
brought about between your brother and myself.

“My plans and letters were given by Mr. Washington to General Braddock,
and the sequel you know: they have fallen into the hands of my enemies,
copies have gone to France, and I am to be tried for my life. Preserving
faith with my enemy Doltaire, I can not plead the real cause of my long
detention; I can only urge that they had not kept to their articles, and
that I, therefore, was free from the obligations of parole. I am sure
they have no intention of giving me the benefit of any doubt. My real
hope lies in escape and the intervention of England, though my country,
alas! has not concerned herself about me, as if indeed she resented the
non-delivery of those letters to Doltaire, since they were addressed to
one she looked on as a traitor, and held by one whom she had unjustly
put under suspicion.

“So, dear Alixe, from that little fort on the banks of the river Kelvin
have come these strange twistings of my life, and I can date this dismal
fortune of a dungeon from that day The Man made his prophecy from the
wall of my mud fort.

“Whatever comes now, if you have this record, you will know the private
history of my life.... I have told all, with unpractised tongue, but
with a wish to be understood, and to set forth a story of which the
letter should be as true as the spirit. Friend beyond all price to me,
some day this tale will reach your hands, and I ask you to house it in
your heart, and, whatever comes, let it be for my remembrance. God be
with you, and farewell!”




VII. “QUOTH LITTLE GARAINE”


I have given the whole story here as though it had been thought out
and written that Sunday afternoon which brought me good news of Juste
Duvarney. But it was not so. I did not choose to break the run of the
tale to tell of other things and of the passing of time. The making
took me many, many weeks, and in all that time I had seen no face but
Gabord’s, and heard no voice but his, when he came twice a day to
bring me bread and water. He would answer no questions concerning Juste
Duvarney, or Voban, or Monsieur Doltaire, nor tell me anything of what
was forward in the town. He had had his orders precise enough, he said.
At the end of my hints and turnings and approaches, stretching himself
up, and turning the corn about with his foot (but not crushing it, for
he saw that I prized the poor little comrades), he would say:

“Snug, snug, quiet and warm! The cosiest nest in the world--aho!”

There was no coaxing him, and at last I desisted. I had no light. With
resolution I set my mind to see in spite of the dark, and at the end of
a month I was able to note the outlines of my dungeon; nay, more, I was
able to see my field of corn; and at last what joy I had when, hearing
a little rustle near me, I looked closely and beheld a mouse running
across the floor! I straightway began to scatter crumbs of bread, that
it might, perhaps, come near me--as at last it did.

I have not spoken at all of my wounds, though they gave me many painful
hours, and I had no attendance but my own and Gabord’s. The wound in my
side was long healing, for it was more easily disturbed as I turned in
my sleep, while I could ease my arm at all times, and it came on slowly.
My sufferings drew on my flesh, my blood, and my spirits, and to this
was added that disease inaction, the corrosion of solitude, and the
fever of suspense and uncertainty as to Alixe and Juste Duvarney. Every
hour, every moment that I had ever passed in Alixe’s presence, with many
little incidents and scenes in which we shared, passed before me--vivid
and cherished pictures of the mind. One of those incidents I will set
down here.

A year or so before, soon after Juste Duvarney came from Montreal, he
brought in one day from hunting a young live hawk, and put it in a cage.
When I came the next morning, Alixe met me, and asked me to see what
he had brought. There, beside the kitchen door, overhung with
morning-glories and flanked by hollyhocks, was a large green cage, and
in it the gray-brown hawk. “Poor thing, poor prisoned thing!” she said.
“Look how strange and hunted it seems! See how its feathers stir! And
those flashing, watchful eyes, they seem to read through you, and to
say, ‘Who are you? What do you want with me? Your world is not my world;
your air is not my air; your homes are holes, and mine hangs high up
between you and God. Who are you? Why do you pen me? You have shut me in
that I may not travel, not even die out in the open world. All the world
is mine; yours is only a stolen field. Who are you? What do you want
with me? There is a fire within my head, it eats to my eyes, and I burn
away. What do you want with me?’”

She did not speak these words all at once as I have written them here,
but little by little, as we stood there beside the cage. Yet, as she
talked with me, her mind was on the bird, her fingers running up and
down the cage bars soothingly, her voice now and again interjecting soft
reflections and exclamations.

“Shall I set it free?” I asked her.

She turned upon me and replied, “Ah, monsieur, I hoped you
would--without my asking. You are a prisoner too,” she added; “one
captive should feel for another.”

“And the freeman for both,” I answered meaningly, as I softly opened the
cage.

She did not drop her eyes, but raised them shining honestly and frankly
to mine, and said, “I wished you to think that.”

Opening the cage door wide, I called the little captive to freedom.
But while we stood close by it would not stir, and the look in its eyes
became wilder. I moved away, and Alixe followed me. Standing beside
an old well we waited and watched. Presently the hawk dropped from the
perch, hopped to the door, then with a wild spring was gone, up, up, up,
and was away over the maple woods beyond, lost in the sun and the good
air.

I know not quite why I dwell on this scene, save that it throws some
little light upon her nature, and shows how simple and yet deep she was
in soul, and what was the fashion of our friendship. But I can perhaps
give a deeper insight of her character if I here set down the substance
of a letter written about that time, which came into my possession long
afterwards. It was her custom to write her letters first in a book, and
afterwards to copy them for posting. This she did that they might be an
impulse to her friendships and a record of her feelings.


ALIXE DUVARNEY TO LUCIE LOTBINIERE.

QUEBEC CITY, the 10th of May, 1756.

MY DEAR LUCIE: I wish I knew how to tell you all I have been thinking
since we parted at the door of the Ursulines a year ago. Then we were
going to meet again in a few weeks, and now twelve months have gone! How
have I spent them? Not wickedly, I hope, and yet sometimes I wonder if
Mere St. George would quite approve of me; for I have such wild spirits
now and then, and I shout and sing in the woods and along the river as
if I were a mad youngster home from school. But indeed, that is the
way I feel at times, though again I am so quiet that I am frightened of
myself. I am a hawk to-day and a mouse to-morrow, and fond of pleasure
all the time. Ah, what good days I have had with Juste! You remember him
before he went to Montreal? He is gay, full of fancies, as brave as can
be, and plays and sings well, but he is very hot-headed, and likes to
play the tyrant. We have some bad encounters now and then. But we
love each other better for it; he respects me, and he does not become
spoiled, as you will see when you come to us.

I have had no society yet. My mother thinks seventeen years too few
to warrant my going into the gay world. I wonder will my wings be any
stronger, will there be less danger of scorching them at twenty-six?
Years do not make us wise; one may be as wise at twenty as at fifty. And
they do not save us from the scorching. I know more than they guess how
cruel the world may be to the innocent as to--the other. One can not
live within sight of the Intendant’s palace and the Chateau St. Louis
without learning many things; and, for myself, though I hunger for all
the joys of life, I do not fret because my mother holds me back from the
gay doings in the town. I have my long walks, my fishing and rowing, and
sometimes hunting, with Juste and my sweet sister Georgette, my drawing,
painting, music, and needlework, and my housework.

Yet I am not entirely happy, I do not know quite why. Do you ever feel
as if there were some sorrow far back in you, which now and then rushed
in and flooded your spirits, and then drew back, and you could not give
it a name? Well, that is the way with me. Yesterday, as I stood in the
kitchen beside our old cook Jovin, she said a kind word to me, and my
eyes filled, and I ran up to my room, and burst into tears as I lay upon
my bed. I could not help it. I thought at first it was because of the
poor hawk that Captain Moray and I set free yesterday morning; but it
could not have been that, for it was FREE when I cried, you see. You
know, of course, that he saved my father’s life, some years ago? That is
one reason why he has been used so well in Quebec, for otherwise no one
would have lessened the rigours of his captivity. But there are tales
that he is too curious about our government and state, and so he may be
kept close jailed, though he only came here as a hostage. He is much
at our home, and sometimes walks with Juste and me and Georgette, and
accompanies my mother in the streets. This is not to the liking of the
Intendant, who loves not my father because he is such a friend of our
cousin the Governor. If their lives and characters be anything to the
point the Governor must be in the right.

In truth, things are in a sad way here, for there is robbery on every
hand, and who can tell what the end may be? Perhaps that we go to
the English after all. Monsieur Doltaire--you do not know him, I
think--says, “If the English eat us, as they swear they will, they’ll
die of megrims, our affairs are so indigestible.” At another time he
said, “Better to be English than to be damned.” And when some one asked
him what he meant, he said, “Is it not read from the altar, ‘Cursed
is he that putteth his trust in man’? The English trust nobody, and we
trust the English.” That was aimed at Captain Moray, who was present,
and I felt it a cruel thing for him to say; but Captain Moray, smiling
at the ladies, said, “Better to be French and damned than not to be
French at all.” And this pleased Monsieur Doltaire, who does not love
him. I know not why, but there are vague whispers that he is acting
against the Englishman for causes best known at Versailles, which have
nothing to do with our affairs here. I do believe that Monsieur Doltaire
would rather hear a clever thing than get ten thousand francs. At such
times his face lights up, he is at once on his mettle, his eyes look
almost fiendishly beautiful. He is a handsome man, but he is wicked, and
I do not think he has one little sense of morals. I do not suppose he
would stab a man in the back, or remove his neighbour’s landmark in
the night, though he’d rob him of it in open daylight, and call it
“enterprise”--a usual word with him.

He is a favourite with Madame Cournal, who influences Bigot most, and
one day we may see the boon companions at each other’s throats; and if
either falls, I hope it maybe Bigot, for Monsieur Doltaire is, at least,
no robber. Indeed, he is kind to the poor in a disdainful sort of way.
He gives to them and scoffs at them at the same moment; a bad man, with
just enough natural kindness to make him dangerous. I have not seen much
of the world, but some things we know by instinct; we feel them; and
I often wonder if that is not the way we know everything in the end.
Sometimes when I take my long walks, or go and sit beside the Falls of
Montmorenci, looking out to the great city on the Heights, to dear Isle
Orleans, where we have our pretty villa (we are to go there next week
for three months--happy summer months), up at the blue sky and into the
deep woods, I have strange feelings, which afterwards become thoughts;
and sometimes they fly away like butterflies, but oftener they stay with
me, and I give them a little garden to roam in--you can guess where. Now
and then I call them out of the garden and make them speak, and then I
set down what they say in my journal; but I think they like their garden
best. You remember the song we used to sing at school?

  “‘Where do the stars grow, little Garaine?
    The garden of moons, is it far away?
  The orchard of suns, my little Garaine,
    Will you take us there some day?’

  “‘If you shut your eyes,’ quoth little Garaine,
    ‘I will show you the way to go
  To the orchard of suns, and the garden of moons,
    And the field where the stars do grow.

  “‘But you must speak soft,’ quoth little Garaine,
    ‘And still must your footsteps be,
  For a great bear prowls in the field of the stars,
    And the moons they have men to see.

  “‘And the suns have the Children of Signs to guard,
    And they have no pity at all--
  You must not stumble, you must not speak,
    When you come to the orchard wall.

  “‘The gates are locked,’ quoth little Garaine,
    ‘But the way I am going to tell?
  The key of your heart it will open them all:
    And there’s where the darlings dwell!’”

You may not care to read these lines again, but it helps to show what I
mean: that everything is in the heart, and that nothing is at all if we
do not feel it. Sometimes I have spoken of these things to my mother,
but she does not see as I do. I dare not tell my father all I think,
and Juste is so much a creature of moods that I am never sure whether he
will be sensible and kind, or scoff. One can not bear to be laughed at.
And as for my sister, she never thinks; she only lives; and she looks
it--looks beautiful. But there, dear Lucie, I must not tire you with my
childish philosophy, though I feel no longer a child. You would not know
your friend. I can not tell what has come over me. Voila!

To-morrow we go to visit General Montcalm, who has just arrived in the
colony. Bigot and his gay set are not likely to be there. My mother
insists that I shall never darken the doors of the Intendant’s palace.

Do you still hold to your former purpose of keeping a daily journal? If
so, I beg you to copy into it this epistle and your answer; and when I
go up to your dear manor house at Beauce next summer, we will read over
our letters and other things set down, and gossip of the changes come
since we met last. Do sketch the old place for me (as will I our new
villa on dear Isle Orleans), and make interest with the good cure to
bring it to me with your letter, since there are no posts, no postmen,
yet between here and Beauce. The cure most kindly bears this to you, and
says he will gladly be our messenger. Yesterday he said to me, shaking
his head in a whimsical way, “But no treason, mademoiselle, and no
heresy or schism.” I am not quite sure what he meant. I dare hardly
think he had Captain Moray in his mind. I would not for the world so
lessen my good opinion of him as to think him suspicious of me when no
other dare; and so I put his words down to chance hitting, to a humorous
fancy.

Be sure, dear Lucie, I shall not love you less for giving me a prompt
answer. Tell me of what you are thinking and what doing. If Juste can be
spared from the Governor’s establishment, may I bring him with me next
summer? He is a difficult, sparkling sort of fellow, but you are so
steady-tempered, so full of tact, getting your own way so quietly and
cleverly, that I am sure I should find plenty of straw for the bricks of
my house of hope, my castle in Spain!

Do not give too much of my share of thy heart elsewhere, and continue to
think me, my dear Lucie, thy friend, loyal and loving,

ALIXE DUVARNEY.

P.S.--Since the above was written we have visited the General. Both
Monsieur Doltaire and Captain Moray were there, but neither took much
note of me--Monsieur Doltaire not at all. Those two either hate each
other lovingly, or love hatefully, I know not which, they are so biting,
yet so friendly to each other’s cleverness, though their style of
word-play is so different: Monsieur Doltaire’s like a bodkin-point,
Captain Moray’s like a musket-stock a-clubbing. Be not surprised to
see the British at our gates any day. Though we shall beat them back, I
shall feel no less easy because I have a friend in the enemy’s camp. You
may guess who. Do not smile. He is old enough to be my father. He said
so himself six months ago.

ALIXE.




VIII. AS VAIN AS ABSALOM


Gabord, coming in to me one day after I had lain down to sleep, said,
“See, m’sieu’ the dormouse, ‘tis holiday-eve; the King’s sport comes
to-morrow.”

I sat up in bed with a start, for I knew not but that my death had been
decided on without trial; and yet on second thought I was sure this
could not be, for every rule of military conduct was against it.

“Whose holiday?” asked I after a moment; “and what is King’s sport?”

“You’re to play bear in the streets to-morrow--which is sport for the
King,” he retorted; “we lead you by a rope, and you dance the quickstep
to please our ladies all the way to the Chateau, where they bring the
bear to drum-head.”

“Who sits behind the drum?” I questioned.

“The Marquis de Vaudreuil,” he replied, “the Intendant, Master Devil
Doltaire, and the little men.” By these last he meant officers of the
colonial soldiery.

So then, at last I was to be tried, to be dealt with definitely on the
abominable charge. I should at least again see light and breathe fresh
air, and feel about me the stir of the world. For a long year I had
heard no voice but my own and Gabord’s, had had no friends but my pale
blades of corn and a timid mouse, day after day no light at all; and now
winter was at hand again, and without fire and with poor food my body
was chilled and starved. I had had no news of the world, nor of her who
was dear to me, nor of Juste Duvarney save that he lived, nor of our
cause. But succeeding the thrill of delight I had at thought of seeing
the open world again there came a feeling of lassitude, of indifference;
I shrank from the jar of activity. But presently I got upon my feet, and
with a little air of drollery straightened out my clothes and flicked a
handkerchief across my gaiters. Then I twisted my head over my shoulder
as if I were noting the shape of my back and the set of my clothes in a
mirror, and thrust a leg out in the manner of an exquisite. I had need
to do some mocking thing at the moment, or I should have given way to
tears like a woman, so suddenly weak had I become.

Gabord burst out laughing.

An idea came to me. “I must be fine to-morrow,” said I. “I must not
shame my jailer.” I rubbed my beard--I had none when I came into this
dungeon first.

“Aho!” said he, his eyes wheeling.

I knew he understood me. I did not speak, but went on running my fingers
through my beard.

“As vain as Absalom,” he added. “Do you think they’ll hang you by the
hair?”

“I’d have it off,” said I, “to be clean for the sacrifice.”

“You had Voban before,” he rejoined; “we know what happened--a dainty
bit of a letter all rose-lily scented, and comfits for the soldier.
The pretty wren perches now in the Governor’s house--a-cousining,
a-cousining. Think you it is that she may get a glimpse of m’sieu’ the
dormouse as he comes to trial? But ‘tis no business o’ mine; and if I
bring my prisoner up when called for, there’s duty done!”

I saw the friendly spirit in the words.

“Voban,” urged I, “Voban may come to me?”

“The Intendant said no, but the Governor yes,” was the reply; “and that
M’sieu’ Doltaire is not yet come back from Montreal, so he had no voice.
They look for him here to-morrow.”

“Voban may come?” I asked again.

“At daybreak Voban--aho!” he continued. “There’s milk and honey
to-morrow,” he added, and then, without a word, he drew forth from his
coat, and hurriedly thrust into my hands, a piece of meat and a small
flask of wine, and, swinging round like a schoolboy afraid of being
caught in a misdemeanor, he passed through the door and the bolts
clanged after him. He left the torch behind him, stuck in the cleft of
the wall.

I sat down on my couch, and for a moment gazed almost vacantly at the
meat and wine in my hands. I had not touched either for a year, and now
I could see that my fingers, as they closed on the food nervously, were
thin and bloodless, and I realized that my clothes hung loose upon my
person. Here were light, meat, and wine, and there was a piece of bread
on the board covering my water-jar. Luxury was spread before me,
but although I had eaten little all day I was not hungry. Presently,
however, I took the knife which I had hidden a year before, and cut
pieces of the meat and laid them by the bread. Then I drew the cork from
the bottle of wine, and, lifting it towards that face which was always
visible to my soul, I drank--drank--drank!

The rich liquor swam through my veins like glorious fire. It wakened my
brain and nerved my body. The old spring of life came back. This wine
had come from the hands of Alixe--from the Governor’s store, maybe; for
never could Gabord have got such stuff. I ate heartily of the rich beef
and bread with a new-made appetite, and drank the rest of the wine. When
I had eaten and drunk the last, I sat and looked at the glowing
torch, and felt a sort of comfort creep through me. Then there came
a delightful thought. Months ago I had put away one last pipeful of
tobacco, to save it till some day when I should need it most. I got it,
and no man can guess how lovingly I held it to a flying flame of the
torch, saw it light, and blew out the first whiff of smoke into the
sombre air; for November was again piercing this underground house of
mine, another winter was at hand. I sat and smoked, and--can you not
guess my thoughts? For have you all not the same hearts, being British
born and bred? When I had taken the last whiff, I wrapped myself in my
cloak and went to sleep. But twice or thrice during the night I waked to
see the torch still shining, and caught the fragrance of consuming pine,
and minded not at all the smoke the burning made.




IX. A LITTLE CONCERNING THE CHEVALIER DE LA DARANTE


I was wakened completely by the shooting of bolts. With the opening of
the door I saw the figures of Gabord and Voban. My little friend the
mouse saw them also, and scampered from the bread it had been eating,
away among the corn, through which my footsteps had now made two
rectangular paths, not disregarded by Gabord, who solicitously pulled
Voban into the narrow track, that he should not trespass on my harvest.

I rose, showed no particular delight at seeing Voban, but greeted him
easily--though my heart was bursting to ask him of Alixe--and arranged
my clothes. Presently Gabord said, “Stools for barber,” and, wheeling,
he left the dungeon. He was gone only an instant, but long enough for
Voban to thrust a letter into my hand, which I ran into the lining of my
waistcoat as I whispered, “Her brother--he is well?”

“Well, and he have go to France,” he answered. “She make me say, look to
the round window in the Chateau front.”

We spoke in English--which, as I have said, Voban understood
imperfectly. There was nothing more said, and if Gabord, when he
returned, suspected, he showed no sign, but put down two stools, seating
himself on one, as I seated myself on the other for Voban’s handiwork.
Presently a soldier appeared with a bowl of coffee. Gabord rose, took it
from him, waved him away, and handed it to me. Never did coffee taste
so sweet, and I sipped and sipped till Voban had ended his work with me.
Then I drained the last drop and stood up. He handed me a mirror,
and Gabord, fetching a fine white handkerchief from his pocket, said,
“Here’s for your tears, when they drum you to heaven, dickey-bird.”

But when I saw my face in the mirror, I confess I was startled. My hair,
which had been black, was plentifully sprinkled with white, my face
was intensely pale and thin, and the eyes were sunk in dark hollows. I
should not have recognized myself. But I laughed as I handed back the
glass, and said, “All flesh is grass, but a dungeon’s no good meadow.”

“‘Tis for the dry chaff,” Gabord answered, “not for young grass--aho!”

He rose and made ready to leave, Voban with him. “The commissariat camps
here in an hour or so,” he said, with a ripe chuckle.

It was clear the new state of affairs was more to his mind than the
long year’s rigour and silence. It seemed to me strange then, and it has
seemed so ever since, that during all that time I never was visited by
Doltaire but once, and of that event I am going to write briefly here.

It was about two months before this particular morning that he came,
greeting me courteously enough.

“Close quarters here,” said he, looking round as if the place were new
to him and smiling to himself.

“Not so close as we all come to one day,” said I.

“Dismal comparison!” he rejoined; “you’ve lost your spirits.”

“Not so,” I retorted; “nothing but my liberty.”

“You know the way to find it quickly,” he suggested.

“The letters for La Pompadour?” I asked.

“A dead man’s waste papers,” responded he; “of no use to him or you, or
any one save the Grande Marquise.”

“Valuable to me,” said I.

“None but the Grande Marquise and the writer would give you a penny for
them!”

“Why should I not be my own merchant?”

“You can--to me. If not to me, to no one. You had your chance long ago,
and you refused it. You must admit I dealt fairly with you. I did not
move till you had set your own trap and fallen into it. Now, if you do
not give me the letters--well, you will give them to none else in this
world. It has been a fair game, and I am winning now. I’ve only used
means which one gentleman might use with another. Had you been a lesser
man I should have had you spitted long ago. You understand?”

“Perfectly. But since we have played so long, do you think I’ll give you
the stakes now--before the end?”

“It would be wiser,” he answered thoughtfully.

“I have a nation behind me,” urged I.

“It has left you in a hole here to rot.”

“It will take over your citadel and dig me out some day,” I retorted
hotly.

“What good that? Your life is more to you than Quebec to England.”

“No, no,” said I quickly; “I would give my life a hundred times to see
your flag hauled down!”

“A freakish ambition,” he replied; “mere infatuation!”

“You do not understand it, Monsieur Doltaire,” I remarked ironically.

“I love not endless puzzles. There is no sport in following a maze that
leads to nowhere save the grave.” He yawned. “This air is heavy,” he
added; “you must find it trying.”

“Never as trying as at this moment,” I retorted.

“Come, am I so malarious?”

“You are a trickster,” I answered coldly.

“Ah, you mean that night at Bigot’s?” He smiled. “No, no, you were to
blame--so green. You might have known we were for having you between the
stones.”

“But it did not come out as you wished?” hinted I.

“It served my turn,” he responded; and he gave me such a smiling,
malicious look that I knew sought to convey he had his way with Alixe;
and though I felt that she was true to me, his cool presumption so
stirred me I could have struck him in the face. I got angrily to my
feet, but as I did so I shrank a little, for at times the wound in my
side, not yet entirely healed, hurt me.

“You are not well,” he said, with instant show of curiosity; “your
wounds still trouble you? They should be healed. Gabord was ordered to
see you cared for.”

“Gabord has done well enough,” answered I. “I have had wounds before,
monsieur.”

He leaned against the wall and laughed. “What braggarts you English
are!” he said. “A race of swashbucklers--even on bread and water!”

He had me at advantage, and I knew it, for he had kept his temper. I
made an effort. “Both excellent,” rejoined I, “and English too.”

He laughed again. “Come, that is better. That’s in your old vein. I love
to see you so. But how knew you our baker was English?--which he is, a
prisoner like yourself.”

“As easily as I could tell the water was not made by Frenchmen.”

“Now I have hope of you,” he broke out gaily; “you will yet redeem your
nation.”

At that moment Gabord came with a message from the Governor to Doltaire,
and he prepared to go.

“You are set on sacrifice?” he asked. “Think--dangling from Cape
Diamond!”

“I will meditate on your fate instead,” I replied.

“Think!” he said again, waving off my answer with his hand. “The letters
I shall no more ask for; and you will not escape death?”

“Never by that way,” rejoined I.

“So. Very good. Au plaisir, my captain. I go to dine at the Seigneur
Duvarney’s.”

With that last thrust he was gone, and left me wondering if the Seigneur
had ever made an effort to see me, if he had forgiven the duel with his
son.

That was the incident.

 *   *   *   *   *

When Gabord and Voban were gone, leaving the light behind, I went over
to where the torch stuck in the wall, and drew Alixe’s letter from my
pocket with eager fingers. It told the whole story of her heart.

CHATEAU ST. LOUIS, 27th November, 1757.

Though I write you these few words, dear Robert, I do not know that they
will reach you, for as yet it is not certain they will let Voban visit
you. A year, dear friend, and not a word from you! I should have broken
my heart if I had not heard of you one way and another. They say you
are much worn in body, though you have always a cheerful air. There are
stories of a visit Monsieur Doltaire paid you, and how you jested. He
hates you, and yet he admires you too.

And now listen, Robert, and I beg you not to be angry--oh, do not
be angry, for I am all yours; but I want to tell you that I have not
repulsed Monsieur Doltaire when he has spoken flatteries to me. I have
not believed them, and I have kept my spirits strong against the evil
in him. I want to get you free of prison, and to that end I have to work
through him with the Intendant, that he will not set the Governor more
against you. With the Intendant himself I will not deal at all. So I use
the lesser villain, and in truth the more powerful, for he stands higher
at Versailles than any here. With the Governor I have influence, for he
is, as you know, a kinsman of my mother’s, and of late he has shown a
fondness for me. Yet you can see that I must act most warily, that I
must not seem to care for you, for that would be your complete undoing.
I rather seem to scoff. (Oh, how it hurts me! how my cheeks tingle when
I think of it alone! and how I clench my hands, hating them all for
oppressing you!)

I do not believe their slanders--that you are a spy. It is I, Robert,
who have at last induced the Governor to bring you to trial. They would
have put it off till next year, but I feared you would die in that awful
dungeon, and I was sure that if your trial came on there would be a
change, as there is to be for a time, at least. You are to be lodged in
the common jail during the sitting of the court; and so that is one step
gained. Yet I had to use all manner of device with the Governor.

He is sometimes so playful with me that I can pretend to sulkiness; and
so one day I said that he showed no regard for our family or for me in
not bringing you, who had nearly killed my brother, to justice. So he
consented, and being of a stubborn nature, too, when Monsieur Doltaire
and the Intendant opposed the trial, he said it should come off at
once. But one thing grieves me: they are to have you marched through
the streets of the town like any common criminal, and I dare show no
distress nor plead, nor can my father, though he wishes to move for you
in this; and I dare not urge him, for then it would seem strange the
daughter asked your punishment, and the father sought to lessen it.

When you are in the common jail it will be much easier to help you. I
have seen Gabord, but he is not to be bent to any purpose, though he is
kind to me. I shall try once more to have him take some wine and meat
to you to-night. If I fail, then I shall only pray that you may be given
strength in body for your time of trouble equal to your courage.

It may be I can fix upon a point where you may look to see me as you
pass to-morrow to the Chateau. There must be a sign. If you will put
your hand to your forehead--But no, they may bind you, and your hands
may not be free. When you see me, pause in your step for an instant, and
I shall know. I will tell Voban where you shall send your glance, if he
is to be let in to you, and I hope that what I plan may not fail.

And so, Robert, adieu. Time can not change me, and your misfortunes draw
me closer to you. Only the dishonourable thing could make me close the
doors of my heart, and I will not think you, whate’er they say, unworthy
of my constant faith. Some day, maybe, we shall smile at, and even
cherish, these sad times. In this gay house I must be flippant, for I
am now of the foolish world! But under all the trivial sparkle a serious
heart beats. It belongs to thee, if thou wilt have it, Robert, the heart
of thy

ALIXE.

An hour after getting this good letter Gabord came again, and with him
breakfast--a word which I had almost dropped from my language. True, it
was only in a dungeon, on a pair of stools, by the light of a torch, but
how I relished it!--a bottle of good wine, a piece of broiled fish, the
half of a fowl, and some tender vegetables.

When Gabord came for me with two soldiers, an hour later--I say an hour,
but I only guess so, for I had no way of noting time--I was ready for
new cares, and to see the world again. Before the others Gabord was the
rough, almost brutal soldier, and soon I knew that I was to be driven
out upon the St. Foye Road and on into the town. My arms were well
fastened down, and I was tied about till I must have looked like a bale
of living goods of no great value. Indeed, my clothes were by no means
handsome, and save for my well-shaven face and clean handkerchief I was
an ill-favoured spectacle; but I tried to bear my shoulders up as we
marched through dark reeking corridors, and presently came suddenly into
well-lighted passages.

I had to pause, for the light blinded my eyes, and they hurt me
horribly, so delicate were the nerves. For some minutes I stood there,
my guards stolidly waiting, Gabord muttering a little and stamping upon
the floor as if in anger, though I knew he was merely playing a small
part to deceive his comrades. The pain in my eyes grew less, and, though
they kept filling with moisture from the violence of the light, I soon
could see without distress.

I was led into the yard of the citadel, where was drawn up a company of
soldiers. Gabord bade me stand still, and advanced towards the officers’
quarters. I asked him if I might not walk to the ramparts and view the
scene. He gruffly assented, bidding the men watch me closely, and I
walked over to a point where, standing three hundred feet above the
noble river, I could look out upon its sweet expanse, across to the
Levis shore, with its serried legions of trees behind, and its
bold settlement in front upon the Heights. There, eastward lay the
well-wooded Island of Orleans, and over all the clear sun and sky,
enlivened by a crisp and cheering air. Snow had fallen, but none now lay
upon the ground, and I saw a rare and winning earth. I stood absorbed. I
was recalling that first day that I remember in my life, when at Balmore
my grandfather made prophecies upon me, and for the first time I was
conscious of the world.

As I stood lost to everything about me, I heard Doltaire’s voice
behind, and presently he said over my shoulder, “To wish Captain Moray a
good-morning were superfluous!”

I smiled at him: the pleasure of that scene had given me an impulse
towards good nature even with my enemies.

“The best I ever had,” I answered quietly.

“Contrasts are life’s delights,” he said. “You should thank us. You have
your best day because of our worst dungeon.”

“But my thanks shall not be in words; you shall have the same courtesy
at our hands one day.”

“I had the Bastile for a year,” he rejoined, calling up a squad of
men with his finger as he spoke. “I have had my best day. Two would be
monotony. You think your English will take this some time?” he asked,
waving a finger towards the citadel. “It will need good play to pluck
that ribbon from its place.” He glanced up, as he spoke, at the white
flag with its golden lilies.

“So much the better sport,” I answered. “We will have the ribbon and its
heritage.”

“You yourself shall furnish evidence to-day. Gabord here will see you
temptingly disposed--the wild bull led peaceably by the nose!”

“But one day I will twist your nose, Monsieur Doltaire.”

“That is fair enough, if rude,” he responded. “When your turn comes,
you twist and I endure. You shall be nourished well like me, and I shall
look a battered hulk like you. But I shall never be the fool that you
are. If I had a way to slip the leash, I’d slip it. You are a dolt.” He
was touching upon the letters again.

“I weigh it all,” said I. “I am no fool--anything else you will.”

“You’ll be nothing soon, I fear--which is a pity.”

What more he might have said I do not know, but there now appeared in
the yard a tall, reverend old gentleman, in the costume of the coureur
de bois, though his belt was richly chased, and he wore an order on
his breast. There was something more refined than powerful in his
appearance, but he had a keen, kindly eye, and a manner unmistakably
superior. His dress was a little barbarous, unlike Doltaire’s splendid
white uniform, set off with violet and gold, the lace of a fine
handkerchief sticking from his belt, and a gold-handled sword at his
side; but the manner of both was distinguished.

Seeing Doltaire, he came forward and they embraced. Then he turned
towards me, and as they walked off a little distance I could see that
he was curious concerning me. Presently he raised his hand, and, as if
something had excited him, said, “No, no, no; hang him and have done
with it, but I’ll have nothing to do with it--not a thing. ‘Tis enough
for me to rule at--”

I could hear no further, but I was now sure that he was some one of note
who had retired from any share in state affairs. He and Doltaire then
moved on to the doors of the citadel, and, pausing there, Doltaire
turned round and made a motion of his hand to Gabord. I was at once
surrounded by the squad of men, and the order to march was given. A drum
in front of me began to play a well-known derisive air of the French
army, The Fox and the Wolf.

We came out on the St. Foye Road and down towards the Chateau St. Louis,
between crowds of shouting people who beat drums, kettles, pans, and
made all manner of mocking noises. It was meant not only against myself,
but against the British people. The women were not behind the men in
violence; from them at first came handfuls of gravel and dust which
struck me in the face; but Gabord put a stop to that.

It was a shameful ordeal, which might have vexed me sorely if I had not
had greater trials and expected worse. Now and again appeared a face I
knew--some lady who turned her head away, or some gentleman who watched
me curiously, but made no sign.

When we came to the Chateau, I looked up as if casually, and there
in the little round window I saw Alixe’s face--for an instant only. I
stopped in my tracks, was prodded by a soldier from behind, and I then
stepped on. Entering, we were taken to the rear of the building, where,
in an open courtyard, were a company of soldiers, some seats, and a
table. On my right was the St. Lawrence swelling on its course, hundreds
of feet beneath, little boats passing hither and thither on its flood.

We were waiting about half an hour, the noises of the clamoring crowd
coming to us, as they carried me aloft in effigy, and, burning me at the
cliff edge, fired guns and threw stones at me, till, rags, ashes, and
flame, I was tumbled into the river far below. At last, from the Chateau
came the Marquis de Vaudreuil, Bigot, and a number of officers. The
Governor looked gravely at me, but did not bow; Bigot gave me a sneering
smile, eying me curiously the while, and (I could feel) remarking on my
poor appearance to Cournal beside him--Cournal, who winked at his wife’s
dishonour for the favour of her lover, who gave him means for public
robbery.

Presently the Governor was seated, and he said, looking round, “Monsieur
Doltaire--he is not here?”

Bigot shook his head, and answered, “No doubt he is detained at the
citadel.”

“And the Seigneur Duvarney?” the Governor added.

At that moment the Governor’s secretary handed him a letter. The
Governor opened it. “Listen,” said he. He read to the effect that the
Seigneur Duvarney felt he was hardly fitted to be a just judge in this
case, remembering the conflict between his son and the notorious Captain
Moray. And from another standpoint, though the prisoner merited any fate
reserved for him, if guilty of spying, he could not forget that his
life had been saved by this British captain--an obligation which,
unfortunately, he could neither repay nor wipe out. After much
thought, he must disobey the Governor’s summons, and he prayed that his
Excellency would grant his consideration thereupon.

I saw the Governor frown, but he made no remark, while Bigot said
something in his ear which did not improve his humour, for he replied
curtly, and turned to his secretary. “We must have two gentlemen more,”
 he said.

At that moment Doltaire entered with the old gentleman of whom I have
written. The Governor instantly brightened, and gave the stranger a warm
greeting, calling him his “dear Chevalier;” and, after a deal of urging,
the Chevalier de la Darante was seated as one of my judges: which did
not at all displease me, for I liked his face.

I do not need to dwell upon the trial here. I have set down the facts
before. I had no counsel and no witnesses. There seemed no reason why
the trial should have dragged on all day, for I soon saw it was intended
to find me guilty. Yet I was surprised to see how Doltaire brought up a
point here and a question there in my favour, which served to lengthen
out the trial; and all the time he sat near the Chevalier de la Darante,
now and again talking with him.

It was late evening before the trial came to a close. The one point to
be established was that the letters taken from General Braddock were
mine, and that I had made the plans while a hostage. I acknowledged
nothing, and would not do so unless I was allowed to speak freely. This
was not permitted until just before I was sentenced.

Then Doltaire’s look was fixed on me, and I knew he waited to see if
I would divulge the matter private between us. However, I stood by my
compact with him. Besides, it could not serve me to speak of it here, or
use it as an argument, and it would only hasten an end which I felt he
could prevent if he chose.

So when I was asked if I had aught to say, I pleaded only that they had
not kept the Articles of War signed at Fort Necessity, which provided I
should be free within two months and a half--that is, when prisoners in
our hands should be delivered up to them, as they were. They had broken
their bond, though we had fulfilled ours, and I held myself justified in
doing what I had done for our cause and for my own life.

I was not heard patiently, though I could see that the Governor and
the Chevalier were impressed; but Bigot instantly urged the case hotly
against me, and the end came very soon. It was now dark; a single light
had been brought and placed beside the Governor, while a soldier held a
torch at a distance. Suddenly there was a silence; then, in response to
a signal, the sharp ringing of a hundred bayonets as they were drawn
and fastened to the muskets, and I could see them gleaming in the feeble
torchlight. Presently, out of the stillness, the Governor’s voice was
heard condemning me to death by hanging, thirty days hence, at sunrise.
Silence fell again instantly, and then a thing occurred which sent a
thrill through us all. From the dark balcony above us came a voice,
weird, high, and wailing:

“Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! He is guilty, and shall die! Francois Bigot
shall die!”

The voice was Mathilde’s, and I saw Doltaire shrug a shoulder and look
with malicious amusement at the Intendant. Bigot himself sat pale and
furious. “Discover the intruder,” he said to Gabord, who was standing
near, “and have--him--jailed.”

But the Governor interfered. “It is some drunken creature,” he urged
quietly. “Take no account of it.”




X. AN OFFICER OF MARINES


What was my dismay to know that I was to be taken back again to my
dungeon, and not lodged in the common jail, as I had hoped and Alixe had
hinted! When I saw whither my footsteps were directed I said nothing,
nor did Gabord speak at all. We marched back through a railing crowd as
we had come, all silent and gloomy. I felt a chill at my heart when the
citadel loomed up again out of the November shadow, and I half paused as
I entered the gates. “Forward!” said Gabord mechanically, and I moved
on into the yard, into the prison, through the dull corridors, the
soldiers’ heels clanking and resounding behind, down into the bowels of
the earth, where the air was moist and warm, and then into my dungeon
home! I stepped inside, and Gabord ordered the ropes off my person
somewhat roughly, watched the soldiers till they were well away, and
then leaned against the wall, waiting for me to speak. I had no impulse
to smile, but I knew how I could most touch him, and so I said lightly,
“You’ve got dickey-bird home again.”

He answered nothing and turned towards the door, leaving the torch stuck
in the wall. But he suddenly stopped short, and suddenly thrust out to
me a tiny piece of paper.

“A hand touched mine as I went through the Chateau,” said he, “and when
out I came, look you, this here! I can’t see to read. What does it say?”
 he added, with a shrewd attempt at innocence.

I opened the little paper, held it towards the torch, and read:

“Because of the storm there is no sleeping. Is there not the watcher
aloft? Shall the sparrow fall unheeded? The wicked shall be confounded.”

It was Alixe’s writing. She had hazarded this in the hands of my jailer
as her only hope, and, knowing that he might not serve her, had put her
message in vague sentences which I readily interpreted. I read the
words aloud to him, and he laughed, and remarked, “‘Tis a foolish thing
that--The Scarlet Woman, mast like.”

“Most like,” I answered quietly; “yet what should she be doing there at
the Chateau?”

“The mad go everywhere,” he answered, “even to the intendance!”

With that he left me, going, as he said, “to fetch crumbs and wine.”
 Exhausted with the day’s business, I threw myself upon my couch, drew my
cloak over me, composed myself, and in a few minutes was sound asleep.
I waked to find Gabord in the dungeon, setting out food upon a board
supported by two stools.

“‘Tis custom to feed your dickey-bird ere you fetch him to the pot.” he
said, and drew the cork from a bottle of wine.

He watched me as I ate and talked, but he spoke little. When I had
finished, he fetched a packet of tobacco from his pocket. I offered him
money, but he refused it, and I did not press him, for he said the food
and wine were not of his buying. Presently he left, and came back with
pens, ink, paper, and candles, which be laid out on my couch without
words.

After a little he came again, and laid a book on the improvised table
before me. It was an English Bible. Opening it, I found inscribed on
the fly-leaf, Charles Wainfleet, Chaplain to the British Army. Gabord
explained that this chaplain had been in the citadel for some weeks;
that he had often inquired about me; that he had been brought from the
Ohio; and had known of me, having tended the lieutenant of my Virginian
infantry in his last hours. Gabord thought I should now begin to make my
peace with Heaven, and so had asked for the chaplain’s Bible, which
was freely given. I bade him thank the chaplain for me, and opening the
book, I found a leaf turned down at the words,

“In the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these
calamities be overpast.”

When I was left alone, I sat down to write diligently that history of
myself which I had composed and fixed in my memory during the year of
my housing in this dungeon. The words came from my pen freely, and hour
after hour through many days, while no single word reached me from the
outside world, I wrote on; carefully revising, but changing little from
that which I had taken so long to record in my mind. I would not even
yet think that they would hang me; and if they did, what good could
brooding do? When the last word of the memoirs (I may call them so),
addressed to Alixe, had been written, I turned my thoughts to other
friends.

The day preceding that fixed for my execution came, yet there was no
sign from friend or enemy without. At ten o’clock of that day Chaplain
Wainfleet was admitted to me in the presence of Gabord and a soldier. I
found great pleasure in his company, brief as his visit was; and after
I had given him messages to bear for me to old friends, if we never
met again and he were set free, he left me, benignly commending me
to Heaven. There was the question of my other letters. I had but one
desire--Voban again, unless at my request the Seigneur Duvarney would
come, and they would let him come. If it were certain that I was to go
to the scaffold, then I should not hesitate to tell him my relations
with his daughter, that he might comfort her when, being gone from the
world myself, my love could do her no harm. I could not think that he
would hold against me the duel with his son, and I felt sure he would
come to me if he could.

But why should I not try for both Voban and the Seigneur? So I spoke to
Gabord.

“Voban! Voban!” said he. “Does dickey-bird play at peacock still? Well,
thou shalt see Voban. Thou shalt go trimmed to heaven--aho!”

Presently I asked him if he would bear a message to the Governor,
asking permission for the Seigneur Duvarney to visit me, if he were so
inclined. At his request I wrote my petition out, and he carried it away
with him, saying that I should have Voban that evening.

I waited hour after hour, but no one came. As near as I could judge it
was now evening. It seemed strange to think that, twenty feet above
me, the world was all white with snow; the sound of sleigh-bells and
church-bells, and the cries of snowshoers ringing on the clear, sharp
air. I pictured the streets of Quebec alive with people: the young
seigneur set off with furs and silken sash and sword or pistols; the
long-haired, black-eyed woodsman in his embroidered moccasins and
leggings with flying thrums; the peasant farmer slapping his hands
cheerfully in the lighted market-place; the petty noble, with his
demoiselle, hovering in the precincts of the Chateau St. Louis and the
intendance. Up there were light, freedom, and the inspiriting frost;
down here in my dungeon, the blades of corn, which, dying, yet never
died, told the story of a choking air, wherein the body and soul of a
man droop and take long to die. This was the night before Christmas Eve,
when in England and Virginia they would be preparing for feasting and
thanksgiving.

The memories of past years crowded on me. I thought of feastings and
spendthrift rejoicings in Glasgow and Virginia. All at once the carnal
man in me rose up and damned these lying foes of mine. Resignation went
whistling down the wind. Hang me! Hang me! No, by the God that gave me
breath! I sat back and laughed--laughed at my own insipid virtue, by
which, to keep faith with the fanatical follower of Prince Charlie, I
had refused my liberty; cut myself off from the useful services of my
King; wasted good years of my life, trusting to pressure and help to
come from England, which never came; twisted the rope for my own neck
to keep honour with the dishonourable Doltaire, who himself had set
the noose swinging; and, inexpressible misery! involved in my shame and
peril a young blithe spirit, breathing a miasma upon the health of
a tender life. Every rebellious atom in my blood sprang to indignant
action. I swore that if they fetched me to the gallows to celebrate
their Noel, other lives than mine should go to keep me company on the
dark trail. To die like a rat in a trap, oiled for the burning, and
lighted by the torch of hatred! No, I would die fighting, if I must die.

I drew from its hiding-place the knife I had secreted the day I was
brought into that dungeon--a little weapon, but it would serve for the
first blow. At whom? Gabord? It all flashed through my mind how I might
do it when he came in again: bury this blade in his neck or heart--it
was long enough for the work; then, when he was dead, change my clothes
for his, take his weapons, and run my chances to get free of the
citadel. Free? Where should I go in the dead of winter? Who would hide
me, shelter me? I could not make my way to an English settlement. Ill
clad, exposed to the merciless climate, and the end death. But that was
freedom--freedom! I could feel my body dilating with the thought, as I
paced my dungeon like an ill-tempered beast. But kill Gabord, who had
put himself in danger to serve me, who himself had kept the chains from
off my ankles and body, whose own life depended upon my security--“Come,
come, Robert Moray,” said I, “what relish have you for that? That’s an
ill game for a gentleman. Alixe Duvarney would rather see you dead than
get your freedom over the body of this man.”

That was an hour of storm. I am glad that I conquered the baser part of
me; for, almost before I had grown calm again, the bolts of the dungeon
doors shot back, and presently Gabord stepped inside, followed by a
muffled figure.

“Voban the barber,” said Gabord in a strange voice, and stepping again
outside, he closed the door, but did not shoot the bolts.

I stood as one in a dream. Voban the barber? In spite of cap and great
fur coat, I saw the outline of a figure that no barber ever had in this
world. I saw two eyes shining like lights set in a rosy sky. A moment
of doubt, of impossible speculation, of delicious suspense, and then the
coat of Voban the barber opened, dropped away from the lithe, graceful
figure of a young officer of marines, the cap flew off, and in an
instant the dear head, the blushing, shining face of Alixe was on my
breast.

In that moment, stolen from the calendar of hate, I ran into the haven
where true hearts cast anchor and bless God that they have seen upon the
heights, to guide them, the lights of home. The moment flashed by and
was gone, but the light it made went not with it.

When I drew her blushing face up, and stood her off from me that I might
look at her again, the colour flew back and forth on her cheek, as you
may see the fire flutter in an uncut ruby when you turn it in the sun.
Modestly drawing the cloak she wore more closely about her, she hastened
to tell me how it was she came in such a guise; but I made her pause for
a moment while I gave her a seat and sat down beside her. Then by the
light of the flickering torch and flaring candles I watched her feelings
play upon her face as the warm light of autumn shifts upon the glories
of ripe fruits. Her happiness was tempered by the sadness of our
position, and my heart smote me that I had made her suffer, had brought
care to her young life. I could see that in the year she had grown
older, yet her beauty seemed enhanced by that and by the trouble she had
endured. I shall let her tell her story here unbroken by my questions
and those interruptions which Gabord made, bidding her to make haste.
She spoke without faltering, save here and there; but even then I could
see her brave spirit quelling the riot of her emotions, shutting down
the sluice-gate of tears.

“I knew,” she said, her hand clasped in mine, “that Gabord was the only
person like to be admitted to you, and so for days, living in fear lest
the worst sho

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/6229