Part 9 (2/2)
”If you do you will give deep offense to La Tour,” said the Dutchman, pus.h.i.+ng back some strands of light hair which had fallen over his forehead, and turning his great near-sighted eyes on his friend. ”These Indians are called Protestant. They are in La Tour's grant. Thou knowest that he and D'Aulnay de Charnisay have enough to quarrel about without drawing churchmen into their broil.”
Father Jogues trod on gently. He knew he could not travel with any benighted soul and not try to convert it. These poor Etchemins appealed to his conscience; but so did the gracious lady of the fort.
”If I could mend the rents in her faith,” he sighed, ”as she hath mended the rents in my ca.s.sock!”
Two of the soldiers turned aside with their spades to a slope behind the fortress, where there was a stable for the ponies and horned cattle, and where last year's garden beds lay blackened under last year's refuse growth. Having planted the immortal seed, their next duty was to prepare for the trivial resurrections of the summer. Frenchmen love green messes in their soup. The garden might be trampled by besiegers, but there were other chances that it would yield something. Zelie's husband climbed the height to escort the priest and report to his lady, but he had his wife to chatter beside him. Father Jogues' donne walked behind Van Corlaer, and he alone overheard the Dutchman's talk.
”This lady of Fort St. John, Father Jogues, so housed, and so ground between the millstones of La Tour and D'Aulnay--she hath wrought up my mind until I could not forbear this journey. It is well known through the colonies that La Tour can no longer get help, and is outlawed by his king. This fortress will be sacked. La Tour would best stay at home to defend his own. But what can any other man do? I am here to defend my own, and I will take it and defend it.”
Van Corlaer looked up at the walls, and his chest swelled with a large breath of regret.
”G.o.d He knoweth why so sweet a lady is set here to bear the brunts of a frontier fortress, where no man can aid her without espousing her husband's quarrel!--while hundreds of evil women degrade the courts of Europe. But I can only do mine errand and go. And you will best mend your own expedition at this time by a new start from Montreal, Father Jogues.”
The priest turned around on the ascent and looked toward the vanis.h.i.+ng Indian camp. He was examining as self-indulgence his strong and gentlemanly desire not to involve Madame La Tour in further troubles by proselyting her people.
”Whatever way is pointed out to me, Monsieur Corlaer,” he answered, ”that way I must take. For the mending of an expedition rests not in the hands of the poor instrument that attempts it.”
Their soldier signaled for the gates to be opened, and they entered the fort. Marie was on her morning round of inspection. She had just given back to a guard the key of the powder magazine. Well, storehouse, fuel-house, barracks, were in military readiness. But refuse stuff had been thrown in spots which her people were now severely cleaning. She greeted her returning guests, and heard the report of Zelie's husband. A lace mantle was drawn over her head and fastened under the chin, throwing out from its blackness the warm brown beauty of her face.
”So our Indians are leaving the falls already?” she repeated, fixing Zelie's husband with a serious eye.
”Yes, madame,” witnessed Zelie. ”I myself saw women packing tents.”
”Have they heard any rumor which scared them off early,--our good lazy Etchemins, who hate fighting?”
”No, madame,” Van Corlaer answered, being the only person who came directly from the camp, ”I think not, though their language is not clear to me like our western tongues. It is simply an early spring, calling them out.”
”They have always waited until Paques week heretofore,” she remembered.
But the wandering forth of an irresponsible village had little to do with the state of her fort. She was going upon the walls to look at the cannon, and asked her guests to go with her.
The priest and his donne and Van Corlaer ascended a ladder, and Madame La Tour followed.
”I do not often climb like a sailor,” she said, when Van Corlaer gave her his hand at the top. ”There is a flight of steps from mine own chamber to the level of the walls. And here Madame Bronck and I have taken the air on winter days when we felt sure of its not blowing us away. But you need not look sad over our pleasures, monsieur. We have had many a sally out of this fort, and monsieur the priest will tell you there is great freedom on snowshoes.”
”Madame Bronck has allowed herself little freedom since I came to Fort St. John,” observed Van Corlaer.
They all walked the walls from bastion to bastion, and Marie examined the guns, and spoke with her soldiers. On the way back Father Jogues and Lalande paused to watch the Etchemins trail away, and to commune on what their duty directed them to do. Marie walked on with Van Corlaer toward the towered bastion, talking quickly, and ungloving her right hand to help his imagination with it. A bar of sunlight rested with a long slant through vapor on the fortress. Far blue distances were opened on the bay. The rippling full river had already begun to subside and sink line by line from its island.
Van Corlaer gave no attention to the beautiful world. He listened to Madame La Tour with a broadening humorous face and the invincible port of a man who knows nothing of defeat. The sentinel trod back and forth without disturbing this intent conference, but other feet came rus.h.i.+ng up the stone steps which let from Marie's room to the level of the wall.
”Madame--madame!” exclaimed Antonia Bronck; but her flaxen head was arrested in ascent beside Van Corlaer's feet, and her distressed eyes met in his a whimsical look which stung her through with suspicion and resentment.
VIII.
VAN CORLAER.
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