Part 5 (1/2)

”Lalotte, thou wert hard to win in those early days. But now a dozen good kisses with more flavor in them than Burgundy wine, and I will prove to you I am the same old Antoine. And then--but thy supper smell is good to a hungry man. And a dish of shallots. It takes a man back to old Barbizon.”

Stout and strong as was Madame Dubray, her husband almost kissed the breath out of her body in his rapturous embrace.

”But I had no word of your coming----”

”How could you, pardieu! But you knew the traders were coming in. And a man can't send messengers hundreds of miles.”

”I looked last year----”

”Pouf! There are men who stay five or ten years, and have left a wife in France. You can't blame them for taking a new one when you are invited to. It is a wild, hard life, but not worse than a soldier's. And when you are your own master the hards.h.i.+ps are light. But some of this good supper.”

”Out with you,” she said to the Indian boys, who had s.n.a.t.c.hed a piece of the broiled fish. Then she put down a plate, took up two birds that dripped delicious gravy, and a squirrel browned to a turn. From the cupboard beside the great stone chimney, so cunningly devised that no one would have suspected it, she brought forth a bottle of wine from the old world, her last choice possession, that she had dreamed of saving for Antoine, and now her dream had come true.

There was much to tell on both sides, though her life had been comparatively uneventful. He related incidents of his wilder experiences far away from civilization that he had grown to enjoy in its perfect freedom that often lapped over into lawlessness. And he ate until squirrel, fish, and the cakes, both of rye and corn, had disappeared.

The slave boys fared ill that night.

Rose had eaten her supper more daintily. The great pile of raspberries was a delight; large, luscious; melting in one's mouth without the aid of sugar, and being picked up with the fingers. She had been startled at the sudden appearance of the husband she had heard talked of, but of course not seen. His loud voice grated on her ears, made more sensitive by illness, and when, a long while after, the pine torch that was flaring in the kitchen defined his brawny frame as he stood in the doorway, she wanted to scream.

”Oh--what have you here--a ghost?” he asked.

”A child who was left here more than a year ago. Jean Arlac lost his wife, and not knowing what to do with her--she was not his own child--left her here. He went out with the fur-hunters.”

”Jean Arlac!” Antoine scratched among his rough locks as if to a.s.sist his memory. ”Yes. And on the way he picked up a likely Indian girl who has given him a son. And he saddled her on you?”

”Oh, the Sieur will look after her--perhaps take her back to France,”

she answered, indifferently.

”The best place for her, no doubt. She looks a frail reed. And women need strength in this new world. A little infusion of Indian blood will do no harm. I wouldn't mind a son myself, but a girl--pouf!”

The child was glad he would not want her. She turned her face to the wall. She had not known what loneliness was before, but now she felt it through all her body, like a great pain.

On the opposite side of the room was another settle, part of which turned over and was upheld by drawing out two rounds of logs. Mere Dubray made up the wider bed now, and soon Antoine was snoring l.u.s.tily.

At first it frightened the child, though she was used to the screech of the owl that spent his nights in the great walnut tree inside the palisade.

Was it a dream, she wondered the next morning. She slept soundly at last and late and found herself alone in the house. She put on her simple frock and went to the doorway. Ah, what a splendid glowing morning it was! The suns.h.i.+ne lay in golden ma.s.ses and fairly gilded the green of the maize, the waving gra.s.ses, the bronze of the trees, and the river threw up lights and shadows like birds skimming about.

No one was in the garden. The table had been despoiled to the last crumb. Even the cupboard had been ransacked and all that remained was some raw fish. She was not hungry and the fragrant air was reviving. It seemed to speed through every pulse. Why, she suddenly felt strong again.

She wandered out of the enclosure and climbed the steps, sitting down now and then and drawing curious breaths that frightened her, they came so irregularly. There were workmen building additional fortifications around the post, there were houses going up. It was like a strange place. She reached the gallery presently and looked over what was sometime to be the city of Quebec. The long stretch was full of tents and tepees and throngs of men of every description, it would seem; Indians, swarthy Spaniards who had roamed half round the world, French from the jaunty trader, with a certain air of breeding, down to the rough, unkempt peasant, who had been lured away from his native land with visions of an easily-made fortune and much liberty in New France, and convicts who had been given a choice between death and expatriation.

Great stacks of furs still coming in from some quarter, haranguing, bargaining, shouting, coming to blows, and the interference of soldiers.

Was it so last summer when she sometimes ran out with Pani, though she had been forbidden to?

It was growing very hot up here. The sun that looked so glorious through the long stretches of the forest and played about the St. Lawrence as if in a game of hide-and-seek with the boats, grew merciless. All the air was full of dancing stars and she was so tired trying to reach out to them, as if they were a stairway leading up to heaven, so that one need not be put in the dark, wretched ground. Oh, yes, she could find the way, and she half rose.

It seemed a long journey in the darkness. Then there was a coolness on her brow, a soft hand pa.s.sed over it, and she heard some murmuring, caressing words. She opened her eyes, she tried to rise.

”Lie still, little one,” said the voice that soothed and somehow made it easy to obey. She was fanned slowly, and all was peace.