Part 7 (1/2)

”The beginning of a martyr is a saint,” observed a soldier of the garrison, putting his fur-covered head between door and door-post in the little s.p.a.ce he opened. ”We have a saint just landed at Fort Frontenac.”

He stepped in and shut the door, to lounge with the cook while the order he brought was obeyed.

”Some of the best you have, with a tender cut of venison, for Jacques le Ber and his daughter. And some salt meat for his men in the barracks.”

The cook made light skips across the floor and returned with venison.

”Well-timed, my child; for the coals are ready, and so are my cakes for the oven. Le Ber is soon served. Get upon your knees by the hearth and watch this cut broil, while I slice the larding for the sore sides of these fellows that labored through the rapids.”

When you are housed in a garrison the cook becomes a potentate; the soldier went willingly down as a.s.sistant.

”Are all the demoiselles of Montreal coming to Fort Frontenac?” inquired the cook, skipping around a great block on which lay a slab of cured meat, and nicely poising his knife-tip over it.

”That I cannot tell you,” replied the soldier, beginning to perspire before the coals. ”Le Ber's men have been talking in the barracks about this daughter of his. He brought her almost by force out of his house, where she has taken to shutting herself in her own room.”

”I have heard of this demoiselle,” said the cook. ”May the saints incline more women to shut themselves up at home!”

”She is his favorite child. He brought her on this dangerous voyage to wean her from too much praying.”

”Too much praying!” exclaimed the cook.

”He desires to have her look more on the world, lest she should die of holiness,” explained the soldier.

”Turn that venison,” shouted the cook. ”Was there ever a saint who liked burnt meat? I could lift this Jacques le Ber on a hot fork for dragging out a woman who inclined to stay praying in the house. Some men are stone blind to the blessings of Heaven!”

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Historians return Father Hennepin to France in 1681.

[8] Parkman.

[9] Ma.n.u.script relating to early history of Canada.

II.

A TRAVELLED FRIAR.

The lower room of the officers' lodging was filled with the light of a fire. To the hearth was drawn a half-circle of men, their central figure being a Recollet friar, so ragged and weather-stained that he seemed some ecclesiastical scarecrow placed there to excite laughter and tears in his beholders.

This group arose as Jacques le Ber entered with his daughter, and were eager to be of service to her.

”There is a fire lighted in the hall upstairs by which mademoiselle can sit,” said the sergeant of the fort.

Le Ber conducted her to the top of a staircase which ascended the side of the room before he formally greeted any one present. He returned, unwinding his saturated wool wrappings and pulling off his cap of beaver skin. He was a swarthy man with anxious and calculating wrinkles between his eyebrows.