Down the River to the Sea Part 9

To the Ursuline chapel they went next, and, after application made at a grated window of the convent, a tranquil-faced nun opened the great door, and they pa.s.sed into the quiet little chapel, so dainty in all its arrangements, and looked at the great picture, by Champlain, of Christ at the house of Simon, the Pharisee,--at the tablet to the memory of Montcalm, whose skull is still preserved there;--and then, with still more interest at the tiny jet of flame in the gla.s.s chandelier, kept alight, for a hundred and fifty years, in memory of a young French girl who took the veil all those years ago, and whose brothers made provision to preserve in perpetuity this touching tribute to her memory. But the rosy-faced, contented looking s[oe]ur, who acted as guide, would by no means let them pa.s.s out without special attention to the elaborate flower painting on velvet which adorned the altar, and testified at least to the skill and industry of the present nuns.

Just as they came out, Kate had an unexpected _rencontre_ with an old school-mate visiting Quebec on her wedding tour. As they were about to part,--after a hundred rapid questions and answers had been exchanged,--Kate's friend exclaimed:

"And where do you think I am boarding? At the very house where Kitty in 'A Chance Acquaintance,' stayed; and if you will just come with me you shall look from the very window of Kitty's room and see the view of which the book gives such a lively description."

May was enchanted, and the girls were soon looking into the garden of the Ursuline convent from the window at which her favorite heroine was supposed to have stood, looking down at the shady walks below. Kate and Flora declared that it did not look quite so poetical as in Mr.

Howell's pages, but May would not entertain the idea of disappointment, and tried to see all Kitty saw, though encroaching buildings have a good deal spoiled the quaint old garden, amid whose lilacs and tall hollyhocks that young lady used, on moonlight nights, to evolve the shades of Madame de la Peltrie and the first heroic tenants of the convent.

After the morning's adventures the early dinner was very welcome, as well as a little rest, with the view from their fascinating windows before them; after which they strolled along the Grand Battery and quiet Esplanade, and penetrated into the quaintly picturesque grounds of the Artillery Barracks, and looked from the weather-beaten old a.r.s.enal on the wall, at the beautiful glimpse, across docks and grimy old suburbs, of the fair green valley of the St. Charles, with Charlesbourg opposite, sitting royally on her hilltops.

"And, beyond it, you know," said May, mixing up fact and fiction, "are the ruins of the old Chateau Bigot, where the wicked Intendant had his pleasure-parties and carousals, and where Kitty and Mr. Arbuton went for a picnic,--don't you recollect?"

They did not find time to go to see it, however, but explored the city pretty thoroughly, finding in the name of every street a bit of crystallized history, recalling some name or incident connected with its past. There was Donnacona Street,--recalling the kidnapped Indian chief, and Breboeuf Street, reminding them of the two heroic Jesuit martyrs,--and Buade Street, a.s.sociated with the haughty and energetic Governor, Louis Buade de Frontenac, under whom the French _regime_ saw its proudest days. They walked along the ramparts as far as the new "improvements," then in progress, would let them and sighed over the ruthless demolition of the old gates--Prescott Gate and Palace Gate, and the picturesque old Hope Gate, so graphically described by Mr.

Howells, and even over the renovation of the others, which had lost all their historic interest. They spent some hours in diving into the recesses of the old town, its marketplace and churches and curious old alleys, dignified by the name of streets, and walked along the Saulx Aux Matelots, trying to fix the very place where Arnold fell, on that miserable December morning of 1775; and looked long at the "Golden Dog"--_Chien d'or_--above the Post Office, whereby hangs a tragic tale.

And they had a quiet Sunday for resting, with those lovely glimpses of distant hills meeting their eyes wherever they turned; and attended a service in the quaint old-fas.h.i.+oned English Cathedral, which, with the equally old-fas.h.i.+oned Scottish church and Manse, have such a quaint old-world air, like everything else in Quebec.

But of course they drove to Montmorency Falls, devoting to it a whole delightful afternoon. Their course lay across Dorchester Bridge, and then between meadows of emerald green, stretching down to the river and fringed with graceful elms and beeches, with pretty old-fas.h.i.+oned country houses here and there, which the girls of course called _chateaux_, and then down the long village street of Beauport,--the steep-roofed little houses in bright variety of color succeeding each other for several miles, with their long garden-like strips of farm extending down to the river on one side, and upwards towards the hills on the other. Bright flowers grew in front of the windows, and trim, dark-eyed French girls sat at the doors and on the little balconies, sewing or knitting away busily, while they chattered in their native tongue. In the middle of the village stood the great stone church, with its bright tin-covered steeples, seen ever so many miles off.

After pa.s.sing Beauport the scenery grew wilder, and soon they rattled over a wooden bridge, below which the foaming Montmorency brawled over the brown rocks, at this late season partially dry. A little farther on stood the inn, where carriages wait, and they had only to pa.s.s through a gate and walk along the high river bank to the dizzy stair down the cliff, from whence they could see to the best advantage the beautiful fall, plunging in one avalanche of foam from the giddy height above, crowned by deep green woods that contrasted strongly with the glittering sheet of foam and spray, while a few beautiful little outlying cascades trickled over the dark brown rock in braided threads of silver.

"How delightful it would be," said May and Flora together, "to stay a whole month at that little inn, and come every day to sit here; and look and look, till one was satisfied!" And the others sighed regretfully as the fast descending sun warned them that it was time to return to the inn where they had left the carriage, and drive home past the bright little gardens and picturesque cottages of Beauport--brighter in the slanting rays of the evening sun,--and rejoiced in the golden glory which the sunset threw over the tin roofs of Quebec, glittering with an intense golden radiance out of the grey setting of rock and misty distance.

But May thought their morning at Sillery the climax of all the delights of Quebec. They went by one of the steamboats which are always darting up and down the river, so that from its deck, they had another fine view of the quaint grey town rising, tier above tier, to the Terrace above, where the people looked like Lilliputian figures out of a doll's house. Then they steamed slowly past the crowded docks, the great black steams.h.i.+ps and stately sailing vessels, some of them bearing strange Swedish or Norwegian names,--past the root of Cape Diamond, crowned by the Citadel, on the rocky side of which they could distinctly read the inscription: "Here Montgomery Fell;" past the long street of French houses that lines the sh.o.r.e below the plains; past fine wooded heights with stately white country houses gleaming through the deep green foliage; till, on turning a point of the leafy cliff, they saw before them the curve of Sillery Bay, with its fringe of many colored cottages and yellow rafts and lumber piles; while opposite, the great stone church with its gleaming steeple towered over the flouris.h.i.+ng village of New Liverpool. Stepping out upon the wooden pier, the travellers walked on past the anch.o.r.ed rafts on which men were busy squaring timber with practised strokes, and up to where the gracefully curving village street began. And there May had a delightful surprise. A dilapidated weather-worn old cottage stood before them, and above it, from an overhanging elm, hung a board on which they read the inscription: "_Emplacement du convent des Religieuses Hospitalieres_."

"There!" exclaimed May, "that is the place where the nuns of the Hotel Dieu lived when they first arrived with Madame de la Peltrie, before they could make up their minds to build on the rough rocky site they gave to them in Quebec." They all stood for a little while, looking at the shabby old cottage, trying to imagine what that first Canadian hospital looked like; and then they walked up the quaint old-fas.h.i.+oned street, with its gambrel-roofed houses, each having its gay little flower-garden in front, till they came to a gray stuccoed, two-story house, standing a little way back from the street, with a square enclosure just opposite, in which stood a plain white monument.

"There it is!" May exclaimed, with breathless delight; "the old Jesuit residence! And that square opposite is the place where their little church stood, just as it was all described."

They opened the stiff gate with some difficulty, and walked into the little enclosure, where they read the inscription in French and English,--one commemorating the rude little church where the Jesuits and their Algonquin converts had wors.h.i.+pped, about two hundred and fifty years ago; and the other dedicated to the memory of the first missionary who died there--Pere Enemond Ma.s.se--the Pere utile, as he was called, because he could do anything, from saying ma.s.s to s.h.i.+p-building, or even tending the pigs of the establishment, thinking nothing beneath him that needed to be done, and being such a favorite with all that he was always chosen to accompany their expeditions as Father Confessor. Most of this May was able to tell the rest of the party, as they stood beneath the two maples that shaded the enclosure.

Then they took a look at the outside of the old residence, which, however, has been renewed more than once since the substantial inner framework was built, and tried to imagine the strange solitary life that its inmates must have lived, especially in bitter winter weather, shut out from all society, except that of a few Algonquins and trappers.

That afternoon was their last in Quebec. They drove in from Sillery by the pretty St. Louis road, fringed with shady country seats, and commanding, at many points, glorious glimpses of the grand mountain panorama on both sides of the city. As they pa.s.sed the "Plains of Abraham" they stopped once more to look at the rather forlorn-looking monument which commemorates Wolfe's death, and the victory for Great Britain, which secured half a continent; and tried to trace the lines of advance up the rugged cliffs by which the hero had surprised the unsuspecting French. This was, appropriately enough, their last sight-seeing in Quebec, and the evening following was spent on Dufferin Terrace watching the exquisite sunset tints melt away from the river and the distant hills, with a pathetic touch which seemed to them like the memories they would always cherish of the romantic old town.

CHAPTER V

AMONG THE HILLS.

As the little party went on board the Saguenay boat next morning, a surprise was in store for them, for who should come to meet them, with the most smiling air, but Mr. Winthrop himself, looking very bright, and meeting them all as if it had been the most matter-of-course thing in the world! Kate met him with the same cordial, matter-of-course air, but May observed that they exchanged a few words in a low tone, which seemed to set them on their old footing at once.

"Do you know," said Flora, to her, as they stood apart in the stern, taking a last look at the great frowning rock and the tall, dark houses looming above them,--"I believe some one wrote to him and explained Kate's misconception, and I have my suspicions as to who it was. I saw Hugh scribbling off a few lines in a great hurry, that evening on the boat, and I shouldn't wonder in the least if it was to Mr. Winthrop! But I'm glad it's all right, for I think he is a very nice fellow, and Kate and he would suit each other very well."

May was completely taken back. Had Flora no thought of Hugh, then? Or did it not occur to her that _his_ happiness might be in some degree involved in this matter? But if Hugh really did what she supposed, how very n.o.ble it was of him! He was a real hero, a chivalrous knight!

However, she could not, of course, say anything of this to Flora, so she silently determined to put Hugh and his fortunes quite out of her thoughts for the present, as too perplexing a problem, and give herself up entirely to the influence of the glorious scenery and the lovely morning.

They were, by this time, fast losing sight of the grey old fortress about which had raged so many fierce conflicts in the days of old. The Isle of Orleans, along whose southern sh.o.r.e the steamer took her course, quickly hid from them the picturesque old town and its beautiful setting, and even the rocky cleft in which Montmorency was ceaselessly pouring down its ma.s.ses of snowy foam, and raising its great mist-cloud to the sky. As the Isle of Orleans was itself left behind, the glorious river grew wider and grander, as point after point opened before them in ever-receding vista. The blue, cloud-like ma.s.ses of Cap Tourmente and Ste. Anne gradually became great dark hills, covered from head to foot with a dense growth of foliage, chiefly birch and fir. One after another of this magnificent range of superb hills rose on their left, wooded from base to summit, and looking almost as lonely and untouched by civilization as when Cartier's "white-winged canoes" first ascended the "great river of Hochelaga." Here and there a white village or two gleamed out from the encompa.s.sing verdure, or stood perched on a hill-top beside its protecting church. To May, who had so often dreamed over the voyages of these early explorers, it seemed like an enchanted land. The Isle of Orleans was to her the old "_Ile de Bacchus_," purple with the festoons of wild vines that offered their cl.u.s.ters of grapes to the French adventurers, and the beautiful Ile aux Coudres, which the Captain pointed out, she recalled as in like manner an old acquaintance, surveying it with much interest, as she pictured to herself the hardy explorers regaling themselves on its native filberts.

Then the n.o.ble bay of St. Paul's opened out its grand spreading curve, with the pretty village of Les Eboulements nestling in its breast; and by and by they had stopped at the ma.s.sive light-house with its high pier, intended to suit the variations of the tide.

"What a lonely life it must be in these solitudes!" observed Mr.

Winthrop, as they watched the great lumbering ferry-boat carrying off the pa.s.sengers whose homes lay among these hills;--"just think of the contrast between life here and life in the crowded bustle of New York."

"And yet," said Hugh, "I fancy life is, in the main, not so very different here, if we could only see below the surface. I suppose the main outlines of life are pretty much the same everywhere, after all!"

May had been inwardly following out the same thought, and trying to imagine the sort of life and surroundings to which the pale girl in gray, who had specially excited her interest as a supposed bride, was going in her future home. Then the voyagers dreamily watched for some time in silence the long silent procession of wooded hills, dappled by the shadow of the great fleecy white clouds that swept up across the blue sky, while, ever and anon, snowy sea-gulls darted down to catch from the tossing crests of the sparkling waves, the fragments of food thrown to them by pa.s.sengers, seeming to spy it unerringly from afar, and now and then white whales or porpoises would toss up a miniature geyser, as they disported themselves in the azure tide.

At length they came in sight of the headland forming the upper end of picturesque Murray Bay, where they were to spend some time on their return from the Saguenay. They all admired the lovely vista opened up by this long and narrow bay with its white church, marking the village from afar, with its grand promontory of Cap a l'Aigle at its lower extremity, and its green valley, hemmed in by rank after rank of billowy blue hills. But they could not see much of the long straggling village of Pointe-au-Pic, or the quaint foreign-looking French hamlet in the centre of the curve of the bay. Indeed, their attention was quickly diverted from examining its details, for, among the people who stood on the high pier awaiting the steamboat, they speedily recognized Jack and Nellie Armstrong, who greeted them with much delight, and were soon beside them on the steamer's deck.

"You see we got here in advance of you," said Jack Armstrong, and Nellie exclaimed: "We've been wondering what could possibly have become of you. We have been watching the last two boats, prepared to join you if you were there, and were beginning to despair of you altogether. You must have been bewitched, either by Quebec or the Thousand Islands, to have been so long on the way."

"And you have very nearly missed the moon," added Jack. "We've been watching it for the last two or three evenings in fear and trembling lest Miss Macnab and Miss Thorburn should miss their cherished desire of seeing Cape Eternity by moonlight."

"Oh, I think there is enough of it left yet," said Kate, while Mrs.

Sandford remarked that she thought she never should have been able to tear those people away from the delights of the Thousand Islands.

"Or from Quebec," said Flora and May together. "_That_ was almost the loveliest of all."

"Ah, I told you you would enjoy Quebec, Miss Macnab!" said Jack Armstrong. And presently May observed that he had drawn Flora a little aside, and engaged her in an animated description of what she had most enjoyed since they had left Port Hope. And, indeed, she was looking charming enough, in her Inverness cape and deerstalker cap, to draw forth a good deal of admiration, May thought. As for Kate, in her rough ulster and cap to match, with her color heightened by the sharp sea breeze, she was looking brilliantly handsome, so evidently thought Mr. Winthrop, who kept near her, displacing Hugh altogether, as May at last believed. But now they were nearly opposite Les Pelerins, the strange parallel rocks that stand, silent, stately warders beside the great river, widening into a broad sea-like expanse, with a line of distant hills faintly breaking the horizon to the right, while on the left, the great hills which had been accompanying them all day now receded somewhat into the distance. Then the little red brick town of Riviere-du-Loup gleamed out ruddy on its sloping hill, growing more and more distinct until the steamer had drawn up beside the high pier, on which were a number of summer tourists eager to see who were on the boat, or to get a little fresh news from the outside world. Bidding these farewell, they quickly pa.s.sed the long, straggling line of white cottages that marked the pleasant watering-place of Cacouna. Our travelers meant to visit it, and also Riviere-du-Loup, with its grand, romantic waterfall, on the homeward way, but at present their thoughts were engrossed with the Saguenay, and May's dreaming imagination was already busy with the blue ridge of rounded hills that, as she was told, marked the entrance and the course of that mysterious river.

But, as they crossed over towards the south side of the sea-like river, they had a specimen of the glorious sunsets which form one of the chief charms of Cacouna, shedding over the calm expanse of water a flood of golden glory, and touching the distant hills with the richest amethystine hues, till they seemed to float in a dreamy haze, between the amber sky and the s.h.i.+mmering golden tide below. The sight held the little party fascinated with its entrancing spell, and they remained on deck heedless of the summons of the clamorous tea-bell, until the rich hues and the golden glory had faded at last, not into the "light of common day," but into the soft vagueness of the long northern twilight. Then at last, with a sigh for the brief duration of the beautiful vision, they descended to the lamp-lit cabin to enjoy the appetizing evening meal, which their long afternoon in the bracing air had made them all ready to thoroughly enjoy.

When they again came on deck they were just pa.s.sing some straggling islets, darkly green in the fast fading light, and rounding Pointe Noire,--the fitly-named dark point of rock that guards the entrance to the strange mysterious dark northern fiord about which have gathered so many a marvelous story. And now May was eagerly looking out for Tadousac, with her heroine Kitty, and the venerable old church and all the little romance that followed, uppermost in her imagination. Then those rounded sand-hills, skirted by rocks and fringed with a scanty vegetation of stunted firs, were, Mr. Winthrop said, the "Mamelons,"[1] about which cl.u.s.ter strange old Indian legends, of fierce conflicts between the Algonquins and the Esquimaux--weird tales, too, of a doom or curse on intermarriage of an Algonquin with an alien race, which here overtook the offender with its inevitable Nemesis. In the deepening gloaming, in the shadow of the dusky heights that towered on high, casting long, dark, quivering reflections in the dark mysterious stream, with scattered lights twinkling out here and there, through the cl.u.s.tering foliage, is Tadousac. With its straggling brown dwellings, and the ma.s.sive timbers of the great pier storehouse looming up in undefined vagueness above them, it was easy to imagine any number of legendary tales of love and conflict; of

"Old unhappy things And battles long ago."

as Hugh quoted once more. The steamer was made fast to the pier, with much creaking and groaning, as if shuddering to begin the ascent of the dark, fateful river, which, it is said, one of the earliest explorers attempting with his men, found a fatal enterprise, none of them ever returning to the light of day.

As the steamer was to remain here half an hour, the whole party landed, as did most of the other pa.s.sengers, to inspect the little rude ancient church, built nearly three hundred years ago for the Indians and the trappers who traded with them--the oldest surviving building north of Mexico. They took the route which May had so often followed in imagination with her shadowy friends of the story, across the ravine and through the village, with its lights twinkling all over its little cove, till they reached the plain, bare old wooden church, beside which they stood for some time almost in silence, reverently regarding the little wilderness-temple which had so long alone met the needs and witnessed the devotions of men rough and rude, but men still with the felt need of Divine help in their strange wild lives. But the visitors could not enter, nor were they indeed anxious to do so, for they felt that this might have broken the spell thrown over them by the bare sombre, weather-beaten exterior and venerable a.s.sociations.

Moreover, the steamer was already whistling its summons, so they set out on their return through the same shadowy, suggestive gloom of dark pine-studded rocks and deep murmuring unseen waterfalls, till they came out suddenly on the cl.u.s.tered lights of the landing and the steamer streaming with light through every crevice, just as May had seen it so often, already, through the eyes of Miss Kitty Ellison.

Well, they had left Tadousac behind now, and had fairly entered into the shadows of the dark and sullen Saguenay, which seems to lie like a prisoner between its stern frowning warders and to have hewn out its difficult pa.s.sage to unite with the St. Lawrence, through the stern rocks that would have shut it up in its lonely gloom forever. To Hugh, the pa.s.sage left behind seemed indeed a fortress-gate, strongly flanked by tall overhanging rocks, crags with gnarled _savins_, and white-stemmed birches gleaming even in the deepening dusk, clinging, as if for life, to the jagged precipices. They had lost sight of the twinkling lights of Tadousac, set in its little rocky niche of the "_pet.i.te montagne qui est presque coupee par la mer_," as Champlain had described it long ago, with its "little harbor," which would hold only nine or ten s.h.i.+ps in the _embouchure_ of the Saguenay, though many more could find shelter in the bay that fronts the St. Lawrence.

The captain of the steamer told the young men about the little lake close at hand, which guards the precious young salmon raised there for the Government's fish-breeding establishment at Anse de l'eau.

And now the dark, vague forms of t.i.tans seemed to rise up on either hand,--great ma.s.sive hills and cliffs that seemed almost to shut out the light of the stars; and most of the party, growing tired of the somewhat awesome silent procession, took refuge in the lighted saloon, from whence soon came strains of sweet music, and the tones of Flora's fresh young voice, in "Over the Sea to Skye," which seemed not inappropriate to the _genius loci_. Mr. Winthrop and Hugh remained talking with the captain about the more striking features of the scenery and its historical a.s.sociations; and to May, half listening to them, half dreaming out again the vivid sketches of Parkman, the solitude seemed peopled once more with the old explorers who established ties of commerce between far-away St. Malo and these lonely wilds,--Cartier and Roberval, Pontgrave and Chauvin, and their bands of trappers and _voyageurs_, for whom the Indians paddled their canoes, laden with costly furs, down this dark, fathomless stream. She could realize more vividly the fate of one unfortunate band, left at so lonely a post to starve, through one miserable winter. For, first, by reason of its fabled wealth of gold and silver and precious stones, and afterwards for the sake of its real riches in furs, the Saguenay was even better known to the early pioneers than was the river between Quebec and Montreal. Then, too, May's thoughts went back to that very different little band of missionaries,--Recollets first, Jesuits afterwards,--who came bearing a Christian message of love to the savages of this wild region. She remembered how the trio of Jesuits who first reached the river Sagne, as it was then called, in their delight at reaching their goal, described it as being "as beautiful as the Seine, almost as rapid as the Rhone, and deeper than many parts of the sea," and how Pere Le Jeune, in particular, felt that they were the forerunners of a host of brave soldiers of the Cross who should subdue the land for the Lord. She remembered how the sight of some poor Indian captives, cruelly tortured by their captors arrayed in all their uncouth adornment of parti-colored paint, had so impressed the good Fathers with pity, that they only longed for an opportunity of preaching to them the gospel of love and peace, although, as Pere Le Jeune observed, the same fate might at any time befall themselves.

And, indeed, Pere Le Jeune's, observation on that head is well worthy of being recorded:

"In truth, I was cut to the heart. I had thought of coming to Canada, only because I was sent. I felt no particular regard for the savages, but I would have rendered obedience, had they sent me a thousand times further; but I can truly say, that, even if I should have detested this country, I should have been touched by what I have seen, had my heart been bra.s.s. Would to G.o.d, that those who can help these poor souls, and do something for their salvation, could be here for three days! I think the desire of saving them would seize their whole souls." Then he proceeds to reflect that in England, in Spain, in Germany, when the Gospel was first carried thither, the barbarism of the people had been as great. (He says nothing about France, evidently considering that the time of _its_ barbarism belonged to remote antiquity.) And further, that the Indians do not lack sense, but instruction; and then goes on to speak of his plans for founding schools for the more docile children; thus antic.i.p.ating the common-sense missionary policy of our own day. And he takes refuge in the end, as all souls yearning for the salvation of their fellows have had to do, in the promise of the Eternal: "_Dabo tibi gentes heridatatem tuam, et possessionem termios terrae_."

In that same bay of Tadousac, too, May recollected, the good Fathers had their first experience of what the St. Lawrence could do in the way of a storm, and had reason to be thankful for the measure of shelter which this bay could give them. As another sample of New World experience, they were nearly eaten up by the mosquitoes and a host of other insect persecutors, while the fireflies formed at least one cheering exception as they glittered among the woods "like sparks of fire, by which he could even see to read at night."

But the captain went on to talk about some of the old floating legends that still increase the romantic interest attaching to this strange river of the North,--of the fierce battles between the rival tribes, in the course of one of which is said to have taken place the terrible earthquake which rent asunder these scarped and jagged cliffs, to form this sublime channel of the Saguenay. And he spoke, also, of the romantic story which has been woven out of the old legend that a mixed marriage between the white man and the Indian was followed by the impending doom; and the terrible forest fires which have at times swept over the whole region, scorching and destroying all life, vegetable and animal, that lay in their course, and leaving their melancholy traces in the splintered, seamed crags that raise aloft majestic forms once clothed in a graceful drapery of green, now only crested here and there with a dreary skeleton of their departed forests. It was not difficult to imagine the awfulness of the scene at night, when the billows of red flame and ruddy smoke rolled in dread majesty over those grand hills, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, till they were suddenly checked by the dark, deep waters of the cold and deep river.

But the captain's talk ended, and Mr. Winthrop, who had gone up the Saguenay before, was by and by attracted into the saloon, and only May and Hugh Macnab were left on deck, with a few of the other pa.s.sengers, who, like themselves, were held by a sort of fascination in the savage and sombre grandeur of the dark, cloud-like shapes that seemed to unroll themselves before them in endless succession. It seemed strange to sit there, as it were in the presence of the Infinities, in their awful, everlasting silence, while lights were streaming from the saloon and from it also were coming,--now s.n.a.t.c.hes of the wild, wailing melody of "Loch-Lomond," now of the gay little French love ditty;

"Il y'a long temps que je t'aime, Jamais je ne t'oublierai!"