Part 7 (2/2)
At last I unearthed one descendant of the Red man who kept a small tavern in the lower part of the town; a dirty frame tenement almost entirely hidden by an immense sign hanging outside, having the figure, heroic size of an Iroquois in full evening dress, feathers, bare legs and tomahawk.
This place was known as ”Tommy's.” But Tommy himself was only half an Indian, and swore such bad swears in excellent English, that I was forced to leave after a minute's inspection.
Then I began on the French-Canadians. There were plenty of them. In the Buildings, on the streets, in the markets, in shops, they were all over. Some of the most charming people I know were French-Canadians.
My landlady and her husband, quiet, sober devout people, were French-Canadians.
What I wanted to find, though, was a genuine unadulterated French-Canadian of the cla.s.s known as the _habitans_. I could recollect many dark-eyed, fierce-mustached men whom I had seen since my residence in Canada, and whom I conjectured must have been _habitans_. Up the Gatineau and down the St. Lawrence, it would be easy to find whom I wanted, but I preferred to wait on in town. I had many a disappointment.
One day it would be a cabman, another day a clerk. Though they all _looked_ French, they invariably turned out to be English or Scotch. My notions of hair and skin and eyes were being all turned upside down; my favorite predispositions annulled, my convictions changed to fallacies--in short I was thoroughly bewildered. I could not find my _habitant_. At the same time, when I did find him, he would have to know how to speak some English, for I could only speak very little French.
I read it well of course, wrote it quite easily, but on essaying conversation was always seized with that instinctive horror of making a fool of myself, which besets most Englishmen when they would attempt a foreign language. Besides, the _patois_ these people spoke was vastly different from ordinary French, as taught in schools and colleges, and what it might be like I had not in those days the faintest idea, not having read Rabelais.
The worst _desillusionnement_ I suffered I will recount. One day I noticed an elderly man clad in corduroy trousers, shabby brown velveteen coat, conical straw hat and dirty blue s.h.i.+rt, lounging about a wharf I sometimes frequented where, at one time, would lay from thirty to fifty barges laden with lumber. Bargetown it might have been called; it was a veritable floating colony of French and Swede, Irish and Scotch, jabbering and smoking by day and lying quietly at night under the stars, save for the occasional jig and sc.r.a.pe of the fiddle of some active Milesian. Here, had I fully known it, was my chance for observation, but I was ignorant at that time of the ways of these people and did not venture among them. But the man in the velvet coat interested me. He gesticulated the whole time most violently, waved his arms about and made great use of his pipe, which he used to point with. I could not hear what he was saying for his back was turned to me and the wind carried all he said to the bargemen, as he wished it to do I suppose.
How splendidly that coat becomes him, thought I. The descendant of some fine old French settler, how superbly he carries himself!
The conical becomes on him a c.o.c.ked hat and in place of ragged fringe and b.u.t.tons hanging by a single string, I see the buckles and bows, the sword and cane of a by-gone age!
I made up my mind to address him, when to my disgust he got into one of the barges, which moved off slowly, transporting him, as I supposed, to his northern home.
The next morning the bell of my front door attracted my attention by ringing three or four times. Evidently my landlady was out. I sauntered to the door and found my _habitant_ of the velveteen coat and duty blue s.h.i.+rt!
Gracious heaven! I was overcome! By what occult power had he been driven here to deliver himself into my hands? Before I could speak, he said:
”Av ye plaze, sorr, will yez be having any carrpets to bate? I'm taking orders against the sphring claning, sorr.”
”Oh! are you?” said I. I began to feel very sorry for myself, very sorry, indeed, at this supreme instant. ”Do you live near here?” I further inquired.
”Shure and I do, sorr. Jist beyant yez. I pa.s.s yez every day in the week. Me number's 415”--He was about handing me a greasy bit of paper, when I slammed the door in his face and retired to my own room to meditate on the strange accent and peculiar calling of this descendant of the ”fine old French settler.”
My next choice, however, proved a fortunate one. I got into a street-car one evening late in the month of March. It was the winter street-car, a great dark caravan, with a long narrow bench down either side and a ma.s.s of hay all along the middle, with a melancholy lamp at the conductor's end. Although fairly light outside, it was quite dark inside the caravan, so the conductor set about lighting the lamp. This is the way he did it. Opening the door he put his head in, looked all around, shut the door and stopped his horses. Then he opened the door again and put his head in again, keeping the door open this time that we might inhale the fresh March night air. I say we, because when I grew accustomed to the dark, I saw there was another occupant of the car, a man seated on the opposite seat a little way down. The conductor felt under the seat for something which I suppose was the can which, taken presently by him to the corner grocery before which we had stopped, came back replenished with coal oil. After he had filled the lamp, he lit in succession three matches, persistently holding them up so that they all went out one after the other. He felt in his pockets but he had no more. Then he asked me. I had none. Then he asked the other man. The other man laughed and replied in French. I did not understand what he said but saw him supply the conductor with a couple of matches. When the lamp was finally lighted I looked more closely at him. He was a working man from his attire: colored s.h.i.+rt, coat of a curious bronze colour much affected by the Canadian labourer, old fur cap with ears, and moccasins. At his feet stood a small tin pail with a cover. His face was pale and singularly well-cut. His hair was black and very smooth and s.h.i.+ny; a very slight moustache gave character to an otherwise effeminate countenance and his eyes were blue, very light blue indeed and mild in their expression. We smiled involuntarily as the conductor departed. The man was the first to speak:
”De conductor not smoke, surely,” he said, showing me his pipe in one hand. ”I always have the matches.”
”So do I, as a general thing,”. I rejoined. ”One never knows when a match may be wanted in this country.” I spoke rather surlily, for I had been getting dreadfully chilled while the conductor was opening and shutting the door. The man bent forward eagerly, though without a trace of rudeness in his manner.
”You do not live here, eh?”
”Oh! yes, I do now, but I was thinking of England when I spoke.”
”That is far away from here, surely.”
”Ah! yes,” I sighed. So did the man opposite me. We were silent then for a few moments when he spoke again.
”There is a countree I should like to see and dat is France. I hear, sir, I hear my mother talk of dat countree, and I tink--I should like to go there. But that is far away from here, too far away, sure.”
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