A Little Girl in Old Quebec Part 4

"Squaws. Oh, yes."

"Do they travel, I mean come from the fur country? What a long journey it must be for them."

"They do not mind. They are nomads of the wilderness. You know the Indians never build towns as we do. Some of them settle for months until the hunting gives out, then they are off on a new trail."

"What queer people. One would think the good missionaries would civilize them, teach them to be like--can they civilize them?"

"After centuries, perhaps"--dryly.

"Is all this country theirs?"

"Well"--he lifted his eyebrows in a queer, humorous fas.h.i.+on. "The King of France thinks he has a right to what his explorers discover; the King of England--well, it was Queen Elizabeth, I believe, who laid claim to a portion called Virginia. She died, but the English remain. Their colony is largely recruited from their prisons, I have heard. Then his Spanish majesty has somewhat. It is a great land. But the French set out to save souls and convert the heathen savages into Christian men. They have made friends with some of the tribes. But they are not like the people of Europe, rather they resemble the barbarians of the north. And the Church, you know, has labored to convert them."

"How much men know!" she said, with a long sigh of admiration.

The sun was dropping down behind the distant mountains, pine- and fir-clad. She had never looked upon so grand a scene and was filled with a tremulous sort of awe. Up there the St. Charles river, here the majestic St. Lawrence, islands, coves, green points running out in the water where the reedy gra.s.s waved to and fro, tangles of vines and wild flowers. And here at their feet the settlement that had just sprung into existence.

"You must be fatigued," he said suddenly. "Pardon my forgetfulness. I have been so interested myself."

"Yes, I am a little tired. It has been such a strange afternoon. And that poor little girl, Monsieur--does that woman care well for her? She has the coa.r.s.eness of a peasant, and the child not being her own----"

"Oh, I think she is fairly good to her. We do not expect all the graces here in the wilderness. But I could wish----"

Madame Gifford stumbled at that moment and might have gone over a ledge of rock, and there were many there, but he caught her in strong arms.

"How clumsy!" she cried. "No, I am not hurt, thanks to you. I was looking over at that woman with something on her back that resembles a child."

"Yes, a papoose. That is their way of carrying them."

"Poor mother! She must get very weary."

They threaded their way carefully to the citadel. The guard nodded and they pa.s.sed. An Indian woman was bringing in a basket of vegetables and there was a savory smell of roasting meat.

"Now you are safe," he said. "The Sieur would have transported me to France or hung me on the ramparts if any evil had happened to you."

He gave a short laugh as if he had escaped a danger, but there was a gleam of mirth in his eyes.

"A thousand thanks, M'sieu. Though I can't think I was in any great danger. And another thousand for the sweet little girl. I must see a good deal of her."

The room she entered was within the double fortification and its windows were securely barred. The walls were of heavy timbers stained just enough to bring out the beautiful grain. But some of the dressed deerskins were still hanging and there were festoons of wampum, curiously made bead and sh.e.l.l curtains interspersed with gun racks, great moose horns and deer heads, and antlers. Tables and chairs curiously made and a great couch big enough for a bed.

But the adjoining room was the real workroom of the Sieur. Here were his books, he brought a few more every time he came from France; shelves of curiosities, a wide stone fireplace, with sundry pipes of Indian make on the ledges. A great table occupied the centre of the room and all about it were strewn papers,--maps in every state,--plans for the city, plans of fortifications, diagrams of the unsuccessful settlements, and the new project of Mont Real. Notes on agriculture and the propagation of fruits, for none better than the Sieur understood that the colony must in some way provide its own food, that it could not depend upon sustenance from the mother country. For his ambition desired to make New France the envy of the nations who had tried colonizing. He ordered crops of wheat and rye and barley sown, and often worked in his own field when the moon shone with such glory that it inspired him. And though he had all the ardor of an explorer, he meant to turn the profits of trade to this end, but to further it settlements were necessary, and he bent much of his energy to the duller and more trying task of building colonies. Though the route to the Indies fired his ambition he was in real earnest to bring this vast mult.i.tude of heathens within the pale of the Church, and to do that he must be friendly with them as far as they could be trusted, but there were times when he almost lost faith.

CHAPTER III

SUMMER TIME

The child sat in a dream on a rude, squarely-built settle with a coa.r.s.e blanket on it of Indian make and some skins thrown over the back, for often at sundown the air grew cool and as yet women were not spinning or weaving as in old France. A few luxuries had been brought thither, but the mother government had a feeling that the colonists ought mostly to provide for themselves, and was often indifferent to the necessary demands.

Mere Dubray went out to the kitchen and began to prepare supper. There was a great stone chimney with a bench at each side, and for a fireplace two flat stones that would be filled in with chunks of wood. When the blaze had burned them to coals the cooking began. Corn bread baked on both sides, sometimes rye or wheaten cakes, a kettle boiled, though the home-brewed beer was the common drink in summer, except among those who used the stronger potions. The teas were mostly fragrant herbs, thought to be good for the stomach and to keep the blood pure.

Mere Dubray dressed half a dozen birds in a trice. It was true that in the summer they could live on the luxuries of the land in some respects. Fish and game of all kinds were abundant, and as there were but few ways of keeping against winter it was as well to feast while one could. They dried and smoked eels and some other fish, and salted them, but they had learned that too much of this diet induced scurvy.

The birds were hung on an improvised spit, with a pan below to catch the drippings with which they were basted. Between whiles the worthy woman unexpectedly bolted out to the garden with a switch in her hand and laid it about the two Indian boys, who did not bear it with the stoicism of their race, as they learned the greater the noise the shorter their punishment.

The little girl did not heed the screams or the shrill scolding, or even the singing of the birds that grew deliciously tender toward nightfall.

She often watched the waving branches as the wind blew among them until it seemed as if they must be alive, bending over caressing each other and murmuring in low tones. If she could only know what they said. Of course they must be alive; she heard them cry piteously in winter when they were stripped of their covering. Why did G.o.d do it? Why did He send winter when summer was so much better, when people were merry and happy and could hunt and fish and wander in the woods and fight Indians? She had not had much of an idea of G.o.d hitherto only as a secret charm connected with Mere Dubray's beads, but now it was some great power living beyond the sky, just as the Indians believed. You could only go there by growing cold and stiff and being put in the ground. She shrank from that thought.

Something new had come in her life now. There was a vague, confused idea of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, that she had gathered from the Latin verses that she no more understood than the language. And this must be one that descended upon her this afternoon. The soft, sweet voice still lingered in her ears, entrancing her. The graceful figure that was like some delicate swaying branch, the attire the like of which she had never even dreamed of. How could she indeed, when the finest things she had seen were the soldiers' trappings?

And this beautiful being had kissed her. Only once she remembered being kissed, but Catherine's lips were so cold that for days when she thought of it she shuddered and connected it with that mysterious going away, that horrid, underground life. This was warm and sweet and strange, like the nectar of flowers she had held to her lips. Oh, would the lovely being come again? But M'sieu Ralph had said so, and what he promised came to pa.s.s. There was a sudden ecstasy as if she could not wait, as if she could fly out of the body after her charmer. Whither was she going?

Oh, M'sieu Ralph would know. But could she wait until to-morrow?

Into this half-delirious vision broke the strong, rather harsh voice that filled her for an instant with a curious hate so acute that if she had been large enough, strong enough, she would have thrust the woman out of doors.

"Oh, have you been asleep? Your eyes look wild. And your cheeks! Is it the fever coming back again? That chatter went through my head. And to be gowned as if she were going to have audience with the Queen! I don't know about such things. There is a King always--I suppose there must be a Queen."

The child had recovered herself a little and the enraptured dream was slipping by.

"And here is your supper. Such a great dish of raspberries, and some juice pressed out for wine. And the birds broiled to a turn. Here is a little wheaten cake. The Sieur sent the wheat and it is a great rarity.

And now eat like a hungry child."

She raised her up and put a cus.h.i.+on of dried hay at her back. The food was on a small trencher with a flat bottom, and was placed on the settle beside her.

"No, no, the tea first," she said, holding a birch-bark cup to her lips.

Rose made a wry face, but drank it, nevertheless. Then she took the raspberry juice, which was much pleasanter.

"Yes, a great lady, no doubt. We have few of them. This is no place for silken hose and dainty slippers, and gowns slipping off the shoulders, and my lady will soon find that out. I wondered at M. Destournier. The saints forbid that we should import these kind of cattle to New France."

"She is very sweet"--protestingly.

"Oh, yes. So is the flower sweet, and it drops off into withered leaves.

And her eyes looked askance at M'sieu Ralph, yet she hath a husband.

Come, eat of thy bird and bread, and to-morrow maybe thou wilt run about lest thy limbs stiffen up to a palsy."

"Mistress, mistress," called Pani--"here is a man to see thee."

She went through both rooms. The man stood without, rather rough, unkempt, with buckskin breeches, fringed leggings, an Indian blanket, a grizzled beard hanging down on his breast, and his tousled hair well sprinkled with white; his face wrinkled with the hards.h.i.+ps he had pa.s.sed through, but the gray-blue eyes twinkled.

"Ha! ha!" A coa.r.s.e, but not unfriendly laugh finished the greeting as he caught both hands in an impetuous embrace. "Lalotte, old girl, has thy memory failed in two years? Or hast thou gotten another husband?"

The woman gave a shriek of mingled surprise and delight. "The saints be praised, it is Antoine. And how if thou hast taken some Indian woman to wife? Braves do not consort with white women who cannot be made into slaves," she answered, with spirit.