Part 2 (1/2)
”You think them absurd?” replied madame.
”M. Bois-le-Duc told me he had great talent. You know that, for a time the cure sent him to Laval at his own expense, and now talks of sending him to Paris.”
”To Paris! and for what purpose?”
”Oh! the cure thinks he will make a great painter. He is always painting during his holidays. I'm sure I can't see the good of it.”
”Well, my mother, M. Bois-le-Duc is a very clever man, and whatever he does is good, but I, for one, have no very high opinion of Eugene Lacroix.”
While this conversation had been going on, Noel McAllister did ample justice to the good fare his mother set before him. Madame McAllister was nothing if not practical, and cooking was one of her strong points. Her _bouillon_, a sort of hotch-potch, was so good that a hungry Esau might well have bartered his birthright for it. Her pancakes and _galettes_ were marvels of culinary skill.
Noel, having appeased his appet.i.te, sharpened by the salt sea breezes, and after enjoying a pipe, said, ”Now, my mother, I think I shall go out for a walk and hear the news. I shall not be late.”
”Very well, my son. Come back soon,” said the old lady, and, as she heard the door close on Noel, she smiled grimly to herself and muttered,
”The news, eh? The news! That is to say in plain words, Marie Gourdon.”
CHAPTER III.
”Il y a longtemps qui je t'aime, Jamais je ne t'oublierai.”
French Canadian Song.
It is a beautiful evening. The tide is rus.h.i.+ng in over the crisp yellow sands of the beach at Father Point. The sun is setting slowly, as if loath to leave this part of the world, and, as he departs, touches with his rays the gold and crimson tops of the maple and sumach trees, which border the road leading into the churchyard of the Good St. Anne.
The clouds are scudding over the sky in great ma.s.ses of copper color and gold, parting every here and there, and showing glimpses of clear translucent blue beyond.
And how quickly the whole panorama changes as the sun sinks to his bed in the sea. Anon everything was golden and amethystine, like a foreshadowing of the splendor of the New Jerusalem. A moment later and all is a deep vivid crimson, flooding the scene with its rich radiance and casting into shade even the tints of yon tall sumach tree in the prime of its early autumn coloring. The old grey slate boulders on the beach are illumined by it, and stand out in prominence from the yellow sands.
All is still to-night, save for the beating of the waves against the rocks, or ever and anon the sound of a gun fired from the distant light-house.
The light-house of Father Point stands out clear and distinct on a long neck of rocky land running into the St. Lawrence.
All is still. But hark! A song comes faintly, carried on the evening breeze, and presently it grows clearer, louder, more distinct.
The words now can be heard plainly. They are those of that old French Canadian song so familiar to all dwellers in the Province of Quebec:
”A la claire fontaine, M'en allant promener, J'ai trouve l'eau si belle Que je me suis baigne.
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime Jamais je ne t'oublierai.”
The voice was tuneful, strong, and full and clear, though lacking in cultivation. It was that of a girl, who was sitting under the shadow of a large boulder on the beach. She seemed about eighteen, though, in the uncertain wavering light of the sunset, it was impossible to distinguish her features clearly.
Her gown was of simple pink cotton, and on her head she wore a large peaked straw hat, which gave her a quaint old-world appearance.
Her brown hair had escaped from beneath this large head-gear, and blew about in pretty, untidy curls round her neck and shoulders. In her hand was a roll of music, which she had just brought from the church, where she had been practising for the morrow's ma.s.s.
The girl was Marie Gourdon, only daughter of old Jean Baptiste Gourdon, fisherman of Father Point. As far as the educational advantages of Father Point and Rimouski could take her Marie had gone, but that was not saying much. Her father was fairly well-to-do for that part of the world, and had sent her, at an early age, to the convent of Rimouski. There she was brought up under the careful training of Mother Annette, the superioress, and received enough musical instruction to enable her to act as organist at the Father Point church, and to direct the choir at Grand Ma.s.s.
Marie Gourdon was rather a lonely girl, although she had more outside interests than many of her age. She had few companions, for most of the young girls of the district obtained situations in Quebec, or some of the large towns, finding the dullness of Father Point insupportable. Her father and brother had this summer been on long fis.h.i.+ng expeditions, one taking them even so far as the Island of Anticosti, so that Marie was left much to her own devices. Noel McAllister, it is true, was often here, but neither his mother nor M. Bois-le-Duc seemed to like to see him in Marie Gourdon's society.