Part 41 (1/2)
”Yes, my nephew,” he said, ”your own uncle, though wounded grievously, on this the saddest of all days for France, son of my dear, dead sister, Gabrielle.”
Then he fainted dead away from loss of blood, and the Canadian, Dubois, appearing suddenly, helped them to revive him. Robert hung over him with irrepressible anxiety.
”The brother of my mother!” he exclaimed. ”I always felt there was a powerful tie, a blood tie, uniting us! That was why he spared me so often! That was why he told me how to escape at Ticonderoga! He will not die, Dave? He will not die?”
”No, he will not die,” replied Willet. ”The Marquis de Clermont can receive a greater wound than that, and yet live and flourish.”
”The Marquis de Clermont!”
”Aye, the Chevalier de St. Luc is head of one of the greatest families of France and you're his next of kin.”
”And so I'm half a Frenchman!”
”Aye, half a Frenchman, half an Englishman, and all an American.”
”And so I am!” said Robert.
”Truly it is a great morning,” said Tayoga gravely. ”Tododaho has given to me the triumph, and Tandakora has gone to his hereafter, wherever it may be; the soul of Garay is sped too, France has lost Canada, and Dagaeoga has found the brother of his mother.”
”It's true,” said Willet in a whimsical tone. ”When things begin to happen they happen fast. The battle is almost over.”
But the victorious army, as it advanced, was subjected to a severe fire on the flank from ambushed Canadians. Many of the French threw themselves into the thickets on the Cote Ste.-Genevieve, and poured a hail of bullets into the ranks of the advancing Highlanders. Vaudreuil came up from Beauport and was all in terror, but Bougainville and others, arriving, showed a firmer spirit. The gates of Quebec were shut, and it seemed to show defiance, while the English and Americans, still in the presence of forces greater than their own, intrenched on the field where they had won the victory, a victory that remains one of the decisive battles of the world, mighty and far-reaching in its consequences.
A night of mixed triumph and grief came, grief for the loss of Wolfe and so many brave men, triumph that a daring chance had brought such a brilliant success. Robert found Charteris, Grosvenor, Colden and the Virginians unharmed. Wilton was wounded severely, but ultimately recovered his full strength. Carson was wounded also, but was as well as ever in a month, while Robert himself, Tayoga, Willet and Zeb Crane were not touched.
But his greatest interest that night was in the Chevalier de St. Luc, Marquis de Clermont. They had made him a pallet in a tent and one of the best army surgeons was attending so famous and gallant an enemy. But he seemed easiest when Robert was by.
”My boy,” he said, ”I always tried to save you. Whenever I looked upon you I saw in your face my sister Gabrielle.”
”But why did you not tell me?” asked Robert. ”Why did not some one of the others who seemed to know tell me?”
”There were excellent reasons,” replied the wounded man. ”Gabrielle loved one of the Bostonnais, a young man whom she met in Paris. He was brave, gallant and true, was your father, Richard Lennox. I have nothing to say against him, but our family did not consider it wise for her to marry a foreigner, a member of another race. They eloped and were married in a little hamlet on the wild coast of Brittany. Then they fled to America, where you were born, and when you were a year old they undertook to return to France, seeking forgiveness. But it was only a start. The s.h.i.+p was driven on the rocks of Maine and they were lost, your brave, handsome father and my beautiful sister--but you were saved.
Willet came and took you into the wilderness with him. He has stood in the place of your own father.”
”But why did not they tell me?” repeated Robert. ”Why was I left so long in ignorance?”
”There was a flaw. The priest who performed the marriage was dead. The records were lost. The evil said there had been no marriage, and that you were no rightful member of the great family of De Clermont. We could not prove the marriage then and so you were left for the time with Willet.”
”Why did Willet take me?”
Raymond Louis de St. Luc turned to Willet, who sat on the other side of the pallet, and smiled.
”I will answer you, Robert,” said the hunter. ”I was one of those who loved your mother. How could any one help loving her? As beautiful as a dream, and a soul of pure gold. She married another, but when she was lost at sea something went out of my life that could never be replaced in this world. You have replaced it partly, Robert, but not wholly. It seemed fitting to the others that, being what I was, and loving Gabrielle de Clermont as I had, I should take you. I should have taken you anyhow.”
Robert's head swam, and there was a mist before his eyes. He was thinking of the beautiful young mother whom he could not remember.
”Then I am by blood a De Clermont, and yet not a De Clermont,” he said.
”You're a De Clermont by blood, by right, and before all the world,”
said Willet. ”I've a letter from Benjamin Hardy in New York, stating that the records have been found in the ruins of the burned church on the coast of Brittany, where the marriage was performed. Their authenticity has been acknowledged by the French government and all the members of the De Clermont family who are in France. Copies of them have been smuggled through from France.”