The Young Seigneur Part 11

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

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

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

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

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

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

Haviland looked at his friend, smiling.

"You are not in Ontario," he said.

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

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

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

A few stood out in the quality of parts of the whole, but only to emphasize it as a ma.s.s. Above the crowd, he marked, for instance, the sober, responsible faces of the Marguilliers. A girl's face too, particularly attracted him--that of one who sat beside the Sisters attendant over the convent children in their gallery. No romantic seraphieness glowed upon her features or her form; but she was following the service with the light of simply such spiritual earnestness and intelligence about her that she seemed to sit there a superior being.

But it was the faces of the laborer and the solid farmer that oftenest dotted the surface of the sea of heads. So typical to him were the features and responses of all, that he could not shake off the feeling that it was not individuals he saw, but a People.

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

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

CHAPTER XVII.

ZOTIQUE'S RECEPTION.

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

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

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

Chrysler looked closer at his features.

"Ah, Mr. Genest!" he exclaimed, with pleasure, recognizing the Hon.

Aristide Genest, a personage potent in his time in Dominion Councils.

"I hope now to know the gentleman as completely as I have admired him,"

Genest complimented in the French way, twinkling his eyes merrily. "Many a time I have listened to your advices in the Parliament. I say to you 'Welcome.'"

Chamilly started off to talk with his innumerable const.i.tuents in the crowd.

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

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

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

The subject of discussion was the sermon.

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

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

People seemed prepared to laugh at anything he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zotique was like the Mephistopheles he resembled, one of those who have been every where, seen much, done everything. Born respectably,--a cousin of L'Honorable's--he had executed in his younger days a record of pranks upon the neighbors, which at a safe-distance of time became good humoredly traditional. The trial and despair of Pere Galibert, and the disapproved of Chamilly's father, he ran away to Trois-Rivieres as soon as he knew enough to do so; thence to Montreal, and Joliette; and a Fur Post near Saipasou (or, "n.o.body-knows-Where," for Zotique a.s.serts the region has that name); then was a veracious steamboat guide for tourists to the Gulf; edited a comic weekly at Quebec, "ill.u.s.trated" it, itself cheerfully and truly confessed, "with execrable wood-engravings;"

as Papal Zouave, he embarked for Rome to gallant in voluminous trousers on four sous a day; fought wildly, for the fun of it, at the Pia Gate against Victor Emmanuel's red-s.h.i.+rted patriots,--and came back to Dormilliere disgusted. The Registrars.h.i.+p of the county being vacant, a pious government appointed him to the position, upon recommendation by the "high Clergy," as a martyr for the good cause; and on a similar sacred ground he obtained the pa.s.sage of a private bill through the Legislature, admitting him to the honorable profession of notary without the trouble of studying.

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

The people themselves were worth a brief catalogue.

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

"The auto-da-fe--alas, it recalls me the ravis.h.i.+ng country of Spain! O those Sierras!--those Vegas! the mountains s.h.i.+rting with snow! the green plains watered!--but misere! hot as--the disposition of the Cure.

To-day, gentlemen, the affair becomes serious, for lo, the approach of a doubtful election, and a trifle of clerical interference, like a seed upon the balance, might well--" the sentence was appendixed by an explosive shrug.

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

"But more--that sacre Grandmoulin is coming, and we must receive him at point of bayonet, _a la charge de cuira.s.se_! that sacre Grandmoulin!"

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