Part 7 (2/2)

The dance did not come off; it had to be postponed indefinitely on account of a grave change in the political relations of the little post. A day or two before the time set for that function a rumor ran through the town that something of importance was about to happen.

Father Gibault, at the head of a small party, had arrived from Kaskaskia, far away on the Mississippi, with the news that France and the American Colonies had made common cause against the English in the great war of which the people of Vincennes neither knew the cause nor cared a straw about the outcome.

It was Oncle Jazon who came to the Roussillon place to tell M.

Roussillon that he was wanted at the river house. Alice met him at the door.

”Come in, Oncle Jazon,” she cheerily said, ”you are getting to be a stranger at our house lately. Come in; what news do you bring? Take off your cap and rest your hair, Oncle Jazon.”

The scalpless old fighter chuckled raucously and bowed to the best of his ability. He not only took off his queer cap, but looked into it with a startled gaze, as if he expected something infinitely dangerous to jump out and seize his nose.

”A thousand thanks, Ma'm'selle,” he presently said, ”will ye please tell Mo'sieu' Roussillon that I would wish to see 'im?”

”Yes, Oncle Jazon; but first be seated, and let me offer you just a drop of eau de vie; some that Papa Roussillon brought back with him from Quebec. He says it's old and fine.”

She poured him a full gla.s.s, then setting the bottle on a little stand, went to find M. Roussillon. While she was absent Oncle Jazon improved his opportunity to the fullest extent. At least three additional gla.s.ses of the brandy went the way of the first. He grinned atrociously and smacked his corrugated lips; but when Gaspard Roussillon came in, the old man was sitting at some distance from the bottle and gla.s.s gazing indifferently out across the veranda. He told his story curtly.

Father Gibault, he said, had sent him to ask M. Roussillon to come to the river house, as he had news of great importance to communicate.

”Ah, well, Oncle Jazon, we'll have a nip of brandy together before we go,” said the host.

”Why, yes, jes' one agin' the broilin' weather,” a.s.sented Oncle Jazon; ”I don't mind jes' one.”

”A very rich friend of mine in Quebec gave me this brandy, Oncle Jazon,” said M. Roussillon, pouring the liquor with a grand flourish; ”and I thought of you as soon as I got it. Now, says I to myself, if any man knows good brandy when he tastes it, it's Oncle Jazon, and I'll give him a good chance at this bottle just the first of all my friends.”

”It surely is delicious,” said Oncle Jazon, ”very delicious.” He spoke French with a curious accent, having spent long years with English-speaking frontiersmen in the Carolinas and Kentucky, so that their lingo had become his own.

As they walked side by side down the way to the river house they looked like typical extremes of rough, sun-burned and weather-tanned manhood; Oncle Jazon a wizened, diminutive sc.r.a.p, wrinkled and odd in every respect; Gaspard Roussillon towering six feet two, wide shouldered, ma.s.sive, lumbering, muscular, a giant with long curling hair and a superb beard. They did not know that they were going down to help dedicate the great Northwest to freedom.

CHAPTER V

FATHER GIBAULT

Great movements in the affairs of men are like tides of the seas which reach and affect the remotest and quietest nooks and inlets, imparting a thrill and a swell of the general motion. Father Gibault brought the wave of the American Revolution to Vincennes. He was a simple missionary; but he was, besides, a man of great worldly knowledge and personal force. Colonel George Rogers Clark made Father Gibault's acquaintance at Kaskaskia, when the fort and its garrison surrendered to his command, and, quickly discerning the fine qualities of the priest's character, sent him to the post on the Wabash to win over its people to the cause of freedom and independence. Nor was the task a.s.sumed a hard one, as Father Gibault probably well knew before he undertook it.

A few of the leading men of Vincennes, presided over by Gaspard Roussillon, held a consultation at the river house, and it was agreed that a ma.s.s meeting should be called bringing all of the inhabitants together in the church for the purpose of considering the course to be taken under the circ.u.mstances made known by Father Gibault. Oncle Jazon const.i.tuted himself an executive committee of one to stir up a noise for the occasion.

It was a great day for Vincennes. The volatile temperament of the French frontiersmen bubbled over with enthusiasm at the first hint of something new, and revolutionary in which they might be expected to take part. Without knowing in the least what it was that Father Gibault and Oncle Jazon wanted of them, they were all in favor of it at a venture.

Rene de Ronville, being an active and intelligent young man, was sent about through the town to let everybody know of the meeting. In pa.s.sing he stepped into the cabin of Father Beret, who was sitting on the loose puncheon floor, with his back turned toward the entrance and so absorbed in trying to put together a great number of small paper fragments that he did not hear or look up.

”Are you not going to the meeting, Father?” Rene bluntly demanded. In the hurry that was on him he did not remember to be formally polite, as was his habit.

The old priest looked up with a startled face. At the same time he swept the fragments of paper together and clutched them hard in his right hand. ”Yes, yes, my son--yes I am going, but the time has not yet come for it, has it?” he stammered. ”Is it late?”

He sprang to his feet and appeared confused, as if caught in doing something very improper.

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