Part 19 (1/2)
All eyes on the Rock followed him. He shone through the trees, a splendid figure in the gold and white uniform of France, laid aside for years but resumed on this great occasion.
When he came up to Barbe he stopped and folded his arms, saying whimsically,--
”Mademoiselle, I have not the experience to know how one should approach his betrothed. I never was married before.”
”It is my case, also, monsieur,” replied Barbe.
”How do you like Fort St. Louis?” proceeded Tonty.
”I am enchanted with it.”
”You delight me when you say that. During the last four years I have not made an improvement about the land or in any way strengthened this position without thinking, Mademoiselle Cavelier may sometime approve of this. We are finding a new way of heating our houses with underground flues made of stone and mortar.”
”That must be agreeable, monsieur.”
”We often have hunting parties from the Rock. This country is full of game.”
”It is pleasant to amuse one's self, monsieur.”
Tonty had many a time seen the silent courts.h.i.+p of the Illinois. He thought now of those motionless figures sitting side by side under a shelter of rushes or bark from morning till night without exchanging a word.
”Mademoiselle, I hope this marriage is agreeable to you?”
”Monsieur de Tonty,” exclaimed Barbe, ”I have simply been flung at your head to suit the convenience of my relatives.”
”Was that distasteful to you?” he wistfully inquired.
”I am not fit for a bride. No preparation has been made for me.”
”I thought of making some preparation myself,” confessed Tonty. ”I got a web of brocaded silk from France several years ago.”
”To be clothed like a princess by one's bridegroom,” said Barbe, wringing her gown skirt and twisting folds of it in her fingers. ”That might be submitted to. But I could not wear the web of brocade around me like a blanket.”
”There are fifty needlewomen on the Rock who can make it in a day, mademoiselle.”
”And in short, monsieur, to be betrothed in the morning and married the same day is what no girl will submit to!”
Tonty, in the prime of his manhood and his might as a lover was too imposing a figure for her to face; she missed seeing his swarthy pallor as he answered,--
”I understand from all this, mademoiselle, that you care nothing for me.
I have felt betrothed to you ever since I declared myself to Monsieur de la Salle at Fort Frontenac. How your pretty dreaming of the Rock of St.
Louis and your homesick cry for this place did pierce me! I said, 'She shall be my wife, and I will bring home everything that can be obtained for her. That small face shall be heart's treasure to me. Its eyes will watch for me over the Rock.' On our journey here, many a night I took my blanket and lay beside your tent, thanking the saints for the sweet privilege of bringing home my bride. Mademoiselle,” said Tonty, trembling, ”I will kill any other man who dares approach you. Yet, mademoiselle, I could not annoy you by the least grief! Oh, teach a frontiersman what to say to please a woman!”
”Monsieur de Tonty,” panted Barbe. ”You please me too well, indeed! It was necessary to come to an understanding. You should not make me say,--for I am ashamed to tell,--how long I have adored you!”
As Tonty's quick Italian blood mounted from extreme anguish to extreme rapture, he laughed with a sob.