The Banque Sangsue Prêtense occupied the chief part of its own cut-sandstone building on the Rue des Borgnes, the remainder, conspicuous in brass and plate glass, being the offices of Ralph Herkimer and Son, general operators, who were "in" railways, in minerals, in finance, in whatever promised to turn an honest penny. A smart man was that Ralph Herkimer, his neighbours said, who tried everything, and made everything pay. Always early in the field, and getting the cream of the speculation, while other men were pondering its prospects, and then putting off on them the closely skimmed milk which must always be got rid of--the shells, which the oyster-eater must make somebody carry away if he would not be smothered in the ruins of his former banquets.
The bank was an enterprise originated by Ralph himself--evolved by him when his ambition had found the local share list too narrow a field. Why should he labour, he thought, to pull strings, and not always efficient ones, to make established stocks jump up and down as he desired, when he was now strong enough to build an automaton of his own, which should obey his wishes without fail, and without outside interference? His friends wondered at his choice of a name so little calculated to invite business; but he was of opinion that that was of little moment. Wherever there is money to lend, the borrowers will scent it out, as flies discover a honey-pot, by instinct. It was small investors whom he wished to attract, those who, having little money, are eager to get much interest. In the general increase of wealth, and the fall in rates of interest, these worthy people find their expenses increasing while their incomes are falling off, and the image of a lending bloodsucker, while unattractive to the borrower, who nevertheless submits to the lancet, is pleasing rather than otherwise to those who would share the spoils.
Ralph was president and manager of the institution, "filling two offices for one salary," as he sometimes said, "in his desire that the bank should do well;" and benefiting largely in many ways, as he didnotsay, by the unsupervised control which thus fell into his hands. The bank parlour and his own private office were only divided by a wall, and they were connected by a very private door between the dressing rooms pertaining to the two apartments, so that the clerks and the business of both establishments were at all times under the master's eye, the master was virtually in both places at the same time, and he could at any time be in the other if an undesirable visitor was to be evaded.
Ralph was in his office. He had been presiding at a meeting of the St. Laurence, Gattineau and Hudson's Bay Railway, consisting of himself and a couple of others, at which they had granted a contract to construct another fifty miles running north. They had also arranged to hold a demonstration on the occasion, with speeches and champagne, to be followed on the morrow by placing a quantity of the stock on the market. As soon as he was left alone he took from a drawer some specimens of plumbago brought from lands of his which the road he had been assisting to place under construction would open up. Lumps of lustrous purple blackness, like a raven's plumage, which he lingered admiringly, muttering to himself, "They will bring value soon now, but we must wait till the road is nearly built. If they were brought out now they would be half forgot before we could take people up to look at them. Revivals generally fall flat, people just remember enough of what they heard before to make it harder to interest them with it again. We must wait till just before the road is going to open, and then spring tracts A and B upon the public. Rich deposit, rare mineral, joint stock company, limited liability, unlimited profit, and so forth. When these are disposed of, and the company is just going to work upon them, tracts C and D can be discovered to be as rich as the others, and offered likewise. That will be enough to attempt for some years. By the time C and D are in working order, the owners of A and B will be doing something foolish, and having discouragement, and then it will be no use to offer E and F for ever so long. Yet it would not improve prospects to offer all at once, it would only bring down the value and send other people prospecting. We can then fall back on the phosphate beds," and he glanced at some other specimens in his drawer. "By that time the second fifty miles of rail will be built, and we will be able to issue debentures. Our stockholders will have had no dividends, so they will be sure to take the bonds and new preference shares to get something out of the old enterprise--no operation so popular as throwing good money after bad--and then, to secure traffic for the far-away end of the line, they will buy my phosphate beds, and work them. That will answer well enough. I shall have unloaded the last of my railway shares ere then. I wonder why the contractors agreed to take so much stock in payment? They must have more faith in our enterprise than I have, or can they have got hold of tracts G, K, L, and Q? But they have never named plumbago once. Can that be slyness? In any case they want watching. I'll keep my eyes peeled."
A card was brought in by a clerk with a timid--"Would like to see you, sir."
"I told you, Stinson, to say I was engaged, whoever called."
"The gentleman was so positive you would see him, I was afraid he might have reason for what he said."
"Who is it?--Rouget--Hm--Who wants to be bothered with Rouget in business hours? Say I shall be pleased to see him at half-past three. I am occupied till then. Let no one in, now, but Mattock the builder, and Calcimine the architect, and bring over that roll of plans, and the maps marked 'proposed St. Hypolite suburb,' and spread them out upon the table. Ha! Bank bell? What do they want in there? Who can it be? Bid those men wait, Stinson, if they arrive before I get back from the bank. Tell them you expect me every moment. At the same time, if any cheques have to be signed, send them into the bank; I do not know how long I may be detained. Any one in the outer office besides Rouget? You go first; send him away and then tell me. I like going into the bank by the front door."
"The Bishop of Anticosti is waiting, and two sisters of charity with a subscription list, waiting till you are disengaged."
"They can wait, then. I shall go the other way," and so saying he disappeared by way of the dressing-room.
It was half-past four instead of half-past three when Rouget was at last admitted to the presence. His consequence was a good deal ruffled at being kept waiting, and he gave Stinson to understand that he did not like it; whereupon the clerk suggested that he should call another day, and was altogether so callous and unimpressed, that, after failing to get him to carry in another card with messages scrawled across, Mr. Rouget desisted, submitted, and sat down in a chair like any humble person awaiting an audience.
"Ha! Mr. Rouget!" was his reception when at last the moment of admission arrived. "So sorry that you should have had to wait; but business--you know. How do things go on at St. Euphrase? I have been meaning to drive over there, some day, now the ice and the sleighing are so good; but have been so busy."
"We have been making discoveries at St. Euphrase, Misterre Herkimaire--discoveries of mines and metals. Wat do you tink of dat, for instance, Misterre Herkimaire?" and he laid some lumps of nearly pure copper, each about the size of an egg, and a piece of rock, green with exposure to the weather, and veined with metallic bands upon the table. The window, as it happened, faced the west, catching the last of the daylight from the radiant sky. A gleam, grown ruddy, and struggling with the gathering shadows, seemed drawn to the polished faces of the ore, and made them shine with enhancing lustre.
"What?" cried Ralph, thrown off his guard at the unexpected sight, which made him forget the cool and critical attitude of a business mind. "Copper! Virgin copper, or I'm a Dutchman! Specimens sent in by his explorers to the Minister of Irrigation? Kind of you to bring them to me, Mr. Rouget, and give me a chance to bid for the lands. Many thanks. I have been turning my attention to minerals lately, I doubt not but with the minister's goodwill we may arrange something to our mutual advantage--yours and mine. Where do they come from? Up the Ottawa? Or, perhaps the Gattineau? Yes! that must be it, the Gattineau. I am interested in Gattineau lands already, and we have indications of copper; but I am free to confess I did not dream of anything so fine as this. If the government wants a company formed to develop minerals on the Gattineau, I'm their man. It will help us to build our railway at once. I did not calculate on extending so far out for a year or two, but the mines will require an outlet, and they will bring the road into notice, and enable us to make an increased issue of stock. The government will have to increase our land-grant, however."
Rouget stood regarding the "promoter" with a smile. How he did run on, to be sure!
"W'ere you say dey come from?"
"The Gattineau, I have no doubt. I never saw a Lake Superior specimen half as rich."
"Eet ees not Lake Superior, you aire right. W'at you say eef I tell you it come from sout' of de Saint Laurence?"
"It will be a fortune for the owner if it does. Freight and expenses there will be so light in comparison with Fond du Lae."
"Dese specimens aire from La Hache."
"You don't----"
"Fact. Here is Professor Hammerstone's report."
"Hammerstone? I see him constantly, but he has never mentioned it. He spent a week with me at St. Euphrase last summer. My son Gerald reads with him several times a week, but he has heard nothing of this or he would have told me."
"Hammerstone was employed by me--a private survey--confidential affair."
"Ah?" said Ralph, looking at his friend the personage and man of pleasure with newborn respect. Who could have supposed it? A man he had always looked on as a fool--spending his days in losing money on race-courses, his nights in poker!--to think that such a one should have taken up with science, economies, and the intelligent development of his property!
"You see it arrived to me all unexpected to make the discovery. The young Richaud, of the Crown Lands Department, is of the relatives of madame the most intimate. He made aséjourwid us the last Septembre, and one day we go for thechasse aux oiseaux, and we stop to repose ourselves in the svamp by the river not far from Saint Euphrase--the svamp is dried up as you may know in Septembre--and Richaud, he cry out, and he say, 'M. Rouget,' he say, 'how you aireriche!--morericheas the dreams of avarice.' 'Behold!' he cry, and frappe wid a large stone ze rock laid bare by the uprooting of a fallen tree, w'ere I myself had seated. And truly the fragment broken off did shine wid a lustre as of the metals. Richaud has information of such tings in the department, and he advised me to consult the Professeur Hammerstone, w'ich, by-and-by, w'en the frosts have wizzered the herbage, I do, and you behold his report rendered."
Ralph took the report and read it through, while recovering at the same time his self-possession. It was an injudicious display of eagerness which he had been betrayed into, and he felt heartily ashamed as well as sorry that his nerves should have relaxed from that critical calm which becomes a proposing buyer while the bargain is incomplete. How many thousands, he wondered, would his lack of circumspection cost him? Yet who could have associated the ass Rouget with anything to sell? It was most provoking.
He sniffed a depreciating sniff as he read through the report, raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips; and in concluding read aloud the saving clause in which the worthy scientist guarded his reputation for infallibility by reminding his readers of the impossibility of ascertaining the depth to which the outcropping lodes extended, by mere surface observations, and without sinking an experimental shaft, and the chances of faults, breaks, and interruptions in the vein at any depth below that to which his examination had extended.
"You want to sell this, then, Mr. Rouget? this parcel of, say a thousand acres, with its metalliferous indications? What value do you put upon it?"
Had Rouget come there the day before, ere he had had speech with Jordan, or had slept and dreamed upon the encouraging visions which that conversation had bred, and which had been expanding themselves ever since, as is the way with visions, there is no doubt he would have jumped at once, named a sum, and been thankful to take half of it; but he had spent the night in building castles, and storing them with the uncounted riches which other men were to dig out of his land and pay over to him, and the idea of a fixed sum even if far larger than he had yet named, was now cold and unattractive.
"I vish not to compromise my interests in zis land. I vill not sell."
"Then what do you come to me for?"
"I vish to inaugurate a company to develop ze mines."
"But the mines, if there are any, are yours, Mr. Rouget. It is for the proprietor to develop his property."
"I have hoped since three months to do so. Money is ze difficulty; I need money."
"Then sell! Those who have the money are likely to give a good price. It will be pure gain to you, for this thousand acres, I dare assert, has never yielded you one cent. Sell to wealthy men who can afford to develop the property, it will bring in population, perhaps originate a town, and in any case create a new market for your tenants, and increase the value of all your lands."
"If it vould be good for dose vealthy men to buy, it vill be my affair not to sell. I shall keep my interests in ze mines."
"How much good will they do you if you have no capital to work them?"
"I have come to you to get ze capital."
"And how would you purpose to pay for the accommodation?"
"Your bank lends, does it not? I would borrow!"
"What security?"
"My own. Is that not enough? And now there will be dis mine also."
"You would mortgage it then to get an advance? Can you give a first mortgage?--No?--mortgaged already, eh? Then sell, Mr. Rouget. Sell to a company. If your ideas are reasonable I may be able to help you; but a large outlay will be required to start the enterprise, and getting up a company is an expensive process. However, I think I am safe in saying you can sell your unproductive swamp for the price of the best agricultural land in the province, or double what any cleared land round St. Euphrase would bring. Yes! I will even risk giving you fifty dollars thearpentmyself, and take all the risk and expense, while you will have the prospective advantage when population comes streaming in to work the mines."
"You are kind, Mr. Herkimaire. I thank you. But either you are not serious, or you believe me more fool than is the case. Messieurs Pyrites and Sulphuret may be willing to put me in the way to develop my property. I am told they do large business in metals. I shall wish you a good evening, Mr. Herkimaire."
"No, no! Mr. Rouget. Stop a moment! Just tell me plainly what it is you want, and I shall be pleased to promote your views if I can. I have asked you how much you would take for your property, or what you wish to do with it. You have made no answer. I then made you an offer for the land, which of course you were quite at liberty to refuse; but surely your refusing to take my price does not necessitate your taking offence, especially seeing that you have not yet said what value you put on the property yourself--and I am sure there is no arrangement which Pyrites and Sulphuret would make with you which I am not quite as able to carry out. Since you have been good enough to give me the first chance, pray do not go before we have had time to understand each other. What is your own idea in the matter?"
"Mr. Jordain, he say----"
"Jordan is in it, then, is he?" muttered Ralph. "Worse luck."
"He says I should place myself in the hands of some capitalist, who would form a company, paying me some in money and the rest in stock. Is not that the fashion to speak of in the language of commerce."
"Quite so, Mr. Rouget. That is the usual way of fixing things. And your figures?"
And here there arose much altercation and argument, as was inevitable where each wanted to get as much and give as little as possible. The dialogue need not be recorded. Its like can be heard in any market place, between hucksters and old women, chaffering and wrangling over a copper cent as if their lives depended on having it, though the one must sell and the other will buy, in any wise, and they both know it.
It was settled at last. Ralph was to arrange and bring out the company, with all perquisites thereto accruing, Rouget got a fifth part of the stock as his price, and a few thousand dollars, wherewith he hurried to New York in a fever of restlessness until he should have dropped them all into the same abyss which had swallowed so much already, in obedience to the infalliblesystème. Jordan being first mortgagee, with power to become troublesome, was made solicitor of the concern, with a handsome block of stock allotted, the calls on which, it was understood, were not to be pressed. Ralph, as promoter, kept still, acquiesced, and said not much while the other two preferred their extravagant demands. It was he who was to issue the stock and handle the funds, and as the venture progressed he was sure of abundant profit. Meanwhile, it was best that his mates should have their way, be kept sanguine and in good humour, if only that they might innoculate the public mind with their brilliant anticipations.
The prospectus was a work of art, and it was fortified by certificates from the greatest authorities. True, these authorities had not seen the metalliferous deposits--indeed no one could see them just then, buried as they were under drifts of frozen snow--but they were allowed to see Hammerstone's survey, and Hammerstone was a man of knowledge and character, whom even the most distinguished felt safe in endorsing, if the fee were sufficient. As the mind of practical science puts it--practical science is the science of making as much money out of as little knowledge as possible--to express another man's observations in finer and more taking language, is surely the highest compliment one can pay him, and the most emphatic manner of granting him our valuable indorsation. Hammerstone was immensely gratified to read in the prospectus the opinions of Professor Sesquioxide, of Boston, and other luminaries, his bigger brothers among the sons of knowledge, so minutely confirmatory of his own; but he wondered much as to when they had been called in, and he felt a little hurt that they should have been so near to him and Montreal without visiting him.
The public mind was judiciously educated up to the receptive point by a series of graduated rumours and paragraphs of ascending interest. One may come to believe anything if it seems in sequence with what went before; therefore, when an assertion seems corroborated by others already accepted, and which yet appear to be in no way connected with it, the natural man accepts it at once. The newspapers swarmed with clippings from the latest mining sensations in Colorado, and following them would appear rumours of important mineralogical discoveries "nearer home." By-and-by there were descriptions of California bonanzas, followed by more rumours of vast metallic wealth at the very doors. Then an imaginative reporter received confidential information which he was not at liberty to divulge, but which he felt it a duty to his beloved public to hint at in various picturesque ways. He described gigantic masses of virgin copper quarried from their beds with pre-historic wedges which still lay beside them in witness, and discussed the civilization of the ancient Mound-builders in the popular archæological manner, still ringing the changes on the wealth of copper so near at hand. Finally, when people's minds were ready to believe, the prospectus of the Mining Association of St. Euphrase appeared.
After the association's subscription lists had remained open only a few days they were suddenly closed, and it was announced that the capital was all subscribed. Then all the dilatory who had contemplated investing in a general sort of way, but had not done it, grew eager to hold shares, which they hurried to buy at a premium. It was afterwards said that in every instance it was Ralph Herkimer who was the seller, and that he only subscribed for the shares which he sold, after he had touched the premiums. But people are uncharitable, and if a man ever ceases to be rich, they are sure to recollect naughty things which they say he did in his time of prosperity.
Before the snow was gone, material and machinery had been collected on the ground, and there was a rise in the price of the stock.
When the snow went, operations began, and the stock rose higher, with inquiries for it from distant places, which sent the price bounding still higher and higher still.
In those days--the days of Judith's visit--George Selby and his wife were always punctual in coming down to breakfast. It was their hour for undisturbed conversation and intercourse. The guests, unaccustomed to city gaiety and late hours, were still in their soundest sleep, when the clang of the breakfast bell would wake them to the knowledge that another day had begun, and they must drag themselves from between the blankets. As for Susan, owing to neuralgia or laziness, she always breakfasted in bed.
"Mary!" cried George eagerly, when they met one morning, about a week after Betsey's first ball. "It is needless to ask you if you have slept well. You look refreshed and revived as I have not seen you look for years and years. I have noticed a change for the better going on for these last two weeks, and this morning it almost seems as if the Mary of long ago were coming back again. The clouds are lifting, dearest, I do believe, and we shall know peace and quiet happiness yet again. It is wearing on to afternoon with us both now, and ours has been a sad, black, rainy day; but at least we have been together through it all, and that has been more than sunshine. And now if the rain but cease and the clouds break up, we may be blessed with a peaceful sunset and the serene twilight of old age, with the clear, pure brightness far off behind the hills waiting for us till we enter the eternal day."
George was a worthy, gentle soul, with yearnings true, if not powerful, towards the spiritual and poetic. Who, condemned to hammer scales into stupid little girls without ear or fingers, through all the years, could be expected to carry more of the golden but unpractical gift into hum-drum middle life?
Mary laid her hand upon his shoulder, leant her head upon his cheek, and her eyes grew moist. They were grey-haired people both, those two, but people do not cease to be foolish, my dear young friends--if itisfoolish, which I deny--when they cease to be young and handsome; that is, if they have not ceased to be good. Goodness is the salt, the preserver, the eternal spring, which can keep a heart from ever growing old. Egotism in youth, when all is fair, may shine and glitter like a dainty varnish, but it dulls and hardens and cracks as the years go on, and becomes but the sorriest item in the general break-up and decay, when that sets in. Love only is immortal, a giver of life to the failing forces, like the olive tree in the prophet's vision, which supplied in continuous flow the oil to furnish the perpetual lamp.
Mary leaned up against her husband in a mute caress, and then drawing a long breath, sat down at the table to pour out his coffee. She was not accustomed to put her feelings into words. She had suffered far too long and too terribly for that. Had she been a woman of emotional utterance, she must have exhausted her sorrow or her life, whichever of the two were the weaker, long ago; but voice was wanting. She had held her peace, had borne and lived and suffered, till those about her had trembled for her reason; trembled, and yet in pity, at times, had almost hoped for her the fearful anodyne of madness; but she was strong of body as well as mind, she agonized in silence and lived on.
She poured out her husband's coffee, and, handing it, met his eyes still fastened on her face in earnest, happy love. "Yes," she said, replying to his still unanswered observation, "I have had a long delicious sleep, without a dream, or only one short sweet fancy before I woke, as if our baby were lying in my arms, as she lay that very last morning before we lost her. Oh, George! The delightfulness of the sound oblivious sleep I have enjoyed of late! No one can conceive it who has not gone through all these weary years. I had forgotten what refreshing sleep was like. It was dreadful to me to lie down at night and give myself up to cruel horrible dreams. You know how constantly I have wakened with a cry--always the same bad dream, yet always with a cruel difference in the horrors. Always the child in danger or in pain, destruction in every fearful shape impending, and I unable to reach, incapable of protecting her. I have always felt that she was alive and needed my care, and how I have yearned and prayed to get to her, God only knows. And now, George, it seems to me that God must have heard, and taken pity on me. It is well with her now. I seem to feel it. She is with God I do believe, and perhaps He lets her spirit come down and comfort me. At least I am very sure now that she is happy, and I feel resigned as a Christian woman should, in a way I have never been able to feel before."
"The company of your sister Judith has done you good, Mary. I have been wrong, and judged her harshly, I am afraid. She is a good woman I believe now, for all her queerness, and I should have thought of having her to stay with you long ere now. A fellow is so unthinkingly selfish, and I suppose I judged of your feelings by my own. You are my all, you see, and I fear I grudge sharing you with others. But it was selfish in me to forget that you and she are sisters, and must have many feelings in common. In any case I owe her a debt now, and I shall never think a thought against her again as long as I live."
"You have no occasion to blame yourself, George. I do not imagine it is owing to her visit that I feel so calmed; though certainly I am happy to have her. We never had much sympathy, she and I. The difference in our age and disposition was too great. I was always fonder of Susan. No! It is not that. Her coming brought me no consolation, I am sure. I do not think I ever passed more miserable nights than those two first after her coming. But then there came a change, a peace and consolation which I cannot describe or explain, and I do not understand. It is just a blind unreasoned certainty that all is well, and I want no more. The Good God has heard me at last, and taken pity on a miserable mother. He has taken my darling to Himself, I surely believe, and she is safe at last in the Everlasting Arms. Oh George, I have been wicked to repine, and distress you as I have done, with my ignorant complainings. She is safer far, I recognize it now, than she could have been had she been left in such care as mine. No! It is the Great Consoler who has pitied me and sent me comfort; such distraction as poor Judith could have brought would have been of little avail. That little girl, Betsey's cousin, seems to bring a far more soothing influence with her than Judith or Susan, or any one I ever met, but you. There seems a peacefulness in the air when she is by, that rests my weary, hungry heart. It does me good to sit and look when she comes in, and to hear her talk. She is a darling little girl, and I could feel it in my heart to envy the people she belongs to. She is an orphan, poor thing, they tell me. She must be very near the age our Edith would have been if she had been spared to us," and the poor lady wiped her eyes and sighed.
"You mean Muriel Stanley. Yes, she is a dear little girl, or at least she was till very lately; but she is opening out into young womanhood now, as they all do, the pretty buds that I am so fond of. I see the dawning woman more clearly every week, and I shall soon be losing her. She is so pretty, you see, and those wretched boys see it, too, and tell her it. Why is there not a Herod in Montreal to kill off the sprouting striplings? They spoil all my little maids for me, just as I get fond of them, when they are at their freshest and sweetest; turn their pretty heads with nonsense and make them think themselves grown up; and then good-bye to the poor music-master. Your young nephew--Ralph's son--has something to answer for in this case, the rogue. I have noticed him lurking round our gate more than once, and have kept her an extra fifteen minutes out of pure malice. There is always some one, and they make one feel so old."
Mary smiled, as her husband meant she should, and then the door opened, and Judith and her niece appeared together. The scenes was changed into one of bustle and small talk, fumigated with the smoke of coffee and hot broiled fish.
"You were late of getting home last night," said George. "I was so blind sleepy that I could scarcely see you when I let you in. But pray don't apologize. I am glad of it. One wants to see one's country friends entertained when they come to town, and, what with my sprains, I feel conscience-stricken at having been able to do nothing to amuse you myself. I hope you spent a pleasant evening?"
"Oh, yes, Martha always does that kind of thing well. She's a good hostess."
"And, Miss Betsey? Were you much admired?"
Betsey gave her head a little toss with a Venus Victrix glance--à laBunce, that is. The marble goddess in the Louvre looks straight out of level eyes, too proud for petty wiles; but Betsy's glance came from the corners. She was arch, you see, or thought so, and the certainty of conquest was all that she had in common with her divine prototype.
"I wore a nice new dress, Mr. Selby, a present from Aunt Martha--cousin, I suppose I should call her, seeing she is auntie's niece; but she is too old to be a cousin tome. I think I shall call her simply Martha, I am sure she will not mind. She would like it, I do believe, only----" and Betsey began to change colour.
"Only?" said George, who had been looking her in the face, with a laugh. "Only it would be awkward to be heard calling one's mother-in-law by her Christian name, and it is not easy to get out of a habit of speaking--is that it?"
Betsey grew crimson and bent over her plate.
"George! You are too bad altogether," said Mary.
"Mr. Selby, you are a dreadful quiz," said Betsey, not at all displeased. "But about my dress. I was quite disappointed to find you were not at hand as we went out, I wanted you to admire it. Beautifully made. It must have cost a lot of money. Blacktulle, with any quantity of Marshal Niell roses, and just a morsel of scarlet salvia here and there to light it up. The salvia was my own idea, and an immense improvement. The dressmaker said all she could against it, and a deal about severe simplicity; but I hate simpletons of all kinds, and I fear my taste is not severe at all. However, it was I who was to wear the gown, so I had my way. I would not have chosen black myself, but M----" (with a returning flush) "Mrs. Herkimer said black, so what could I do? I am fond of warm colouring myself, and a good deal of it. That is why I got my geranium poplin; but one wants a change, and thetulleis that. Only it is so quiet, nobody would guess how expensive it is."
"I would pin a card with the price on behind. People who wear ready-made clothing have been known to appear in public so decorated, when the shopman forgot to remove his ticket. It attracts a good deal of attention. All for $15 say, or your choice for $20."
"It cost a great deal more than that, Mr. Selby," answered Betsey, with just a touch of crossness in the tone, as she began to recognize that she was being chaffed. "Shows how littleyouknow about ladies' wear," she added, as Selby rose to go into another room and give her music lesson to Muriel Stanley, who could be heard arriving.
The ladies gathered round the fire and proceeded to talk over the events of the party. Betsey sat in the middle in front of the blaze, and as opportunity offered, strove to enlighten the inexperience of her elders in matters of "style" and good behaviour, with items drawn chiefly from her recollections of "Godey's Magazine," which were copious, and sometimes startling, and illustrated by reminiscences of festivity at St. Euphrase, in which a certain Mr. Joe Webb appeared to have borne a prominent part. She was still in full career when Selby returned, introducing Muriel Stanley, whom for his wife's sake he had persuaded to come and shake hands with her cousin at that early hour. Mary was leaning back in her chair, and had armed herself with patience to endure the torrent of Betsey's talk, which needed only an occasional exclamation of dissent, easily overborne, from Judith, to keep it running in the full turbulence of its muddy flow. No word of hers was needed, and her thoughts had drifted away into their accustomed channels. Her husband noted the flush of pleasure and the kindling of her eye at sight of the stranger, who also seemed drawn to the invalid, and who, in the rearranging of the party, dropped into a low seat by her side. Unconsciously, as it seemed, Mary's hand was laid on the girl's shoulder, and then, as recollecting itself, drew back, to steal again involuntarily towards her, and touch her hair.
Muriel, too, unwittingly seemed to lean towards the other, and accept contentedly the unconscious caress; and George, regarding them, could not but wonder how the girl seemed drawn to his wife, so nearly a stranger to her, even in the presence of the others whom she saw so constantly in the country. It showed the tenderness of a womanly heart, he thought, and its overflowing sympathy, thus silently to go out to the stricken invalid, and he loved and admired his favourite pupil more than he had ever done before.
The loquacious Betsey had other things to think of, things to speak about, and to speak about a great deal. The subject of the party was taken up again from the beginning, to be gone all over once more, while Judith held her hands out to the blaze to shield her eyes, and Mary sat mutely happy, she knew not why, gently stroking the hair plait with her finger.
"You were not at Mrs. Herkimer's party last night, Muriel? and I did not see your aunts."
"No, they were not there. Aunt Matilda rarely goes to a dance, except a juvenile one, when I am invited. I am not out yet, you know."
"To be sure not, Muriel; I know it. Time enough, my dear," said this experienced woman of the world. "Your time will come quite soon enough, and I hope you will enjoy it. Ah!----" and she heaved an ecstatic sigh, "It was a lovely party. So many gentlemen! And such a floor! I put in a heavenly time, Muriel. I wish you could have seen it. I wish you could have seen me in my new ball-dress--a present, you know--from auntie's niece--by Mme. Jupon! no less--just too elegant for anything. Quite subdued, you know--blacktulle--much draped. Too subdued, if anything, for my taste--you know I like things cheerful--but awfully sweet. Garnitures of roses--large Marshal Niell roses--dollars and dollars' worth of them--frightfully expensive--and real chaste. I saw the people asking each other who that elegantly-dressed person could be, and my card was filled up just like winking. There was, let me see, there was Mr.---- But what of that? You are not out yet. You could not be expected to know any of them. But it was lovely. Oh, how some of those dear men do valse!"
"Betsey!" said Judith reprovingly, "how you do run on. It is scarcely feminine."
Betsey looked not well pleased, and a retort was rising to her lips, when she caught sight of Selby watching her, and the twinkle of "impertinent" amusement, as she thought it, in his eye was too much. It scattered her forces and snapped the thread of her discourse.
"There is a tobogganing party to-night, Betsey" said Muriel, now that there came a lull; "that is, there is always one these moonlight nights; but we are going to-night. Would you care to come? Aunt Penelope will be so pleased if you and Betsey will dine with us, Mrs. Bunce, and she can go in our party. Aunt Matilda is going. You will meet all your St. Euphrase friends, Betsey. Mdlle. Rouget will be there, I understand."
"I scarcely know the girl, and she don't want to know me, so that is no inducement. However, we'll go, auntie? I think we had better go. It's home to St. Euphrase tomorrow, you know, with lots of time for sedateness and parish duties. Let's enjoy ourselves all we can while we're here."
And so it was agreed.
The moon was at the full, and she hung, still tending upwards, high in the transparent vault where all the host of heaven were burning and blinking like tapers in a fitful wind, so brilliant was their scintillating lustre seen through that clear dry atmosphere where the moonlight shows the red and the green of brick wall and painted verandah, colours which are but modulated greys where insular moistness thickens and dims the air. It was bright as day over the snow-covered landscape, with even a trace of the yellowness of sunshine in the light, but with an uncertainty in distances, and a liquid idealizing of objects and their shadows, sublimating reality out of commonplace, and lifting it into the likeness of what is seen in dreams.
The thermometer stood at zero, but the air was still, for all the fantastic flicker of the stars overhead; and it was so dry with the frost, which had precipitated all moisture, that it did not feel cold on emerging from heated houses. It was bright and exhilarating to breathe--like something to drink--and sent the blood dancing more briskly than before down to the tips of the thickly-gloved fingers Sounds of laughter and frolic were about, every one who was young and strong was abroad in the intoxicating lustre, arrayed in blanket-coat and moccasins, withtoqueand sash of blue or scarlet.
It was a steep snow-covered bank in the suburbs, with a long meadow spreading out below. Steps and footpaths were worn up the face on either hand, and in the middle was the slide polished into glass, down which the toboggans, pushed past the brink of the descent, a girl or even two seated in front with a man behind to steer, shot with the celerity of an arrow from above, slackening in speed when the steepest of the declivity was past, and travelling far out across the level meadow on the spending impulse they had gathered on their way. With steering and good luck the crew reach a standstill as they started, the damsel gets up, the swain draws his vehicle by the cord, and both mount again to the summit, once more to precipitate themselves down the slope, and if there be no miscarriage, resulting in shipwreck, with toboggan overturned or broken, and crew shot out promiscuously with ugly cuts and bruises, to repeat the experience a score of times, till at length the weary limbs shall refuse to scale the slippery height again.
"Miss Stanley," said Randolph Jordan, addressing Miss Matilda, "won't you trust yourself to me. I promise to steer carefully, and I can say what every one cannot, that I have never spilled my cargo yet."
"Thanks, Mr. Randolph, I do not mistrust you in the least; but really--it is so long since I got upon a toboggan--that I--I shall just stay here with Mr. Considine, now I have got to the top of the hill, and watch you young people like a sedate chaperon. But here is my cousin, Betsey Bunce; I am sure she will be delighted. They do not toboggan at St. Euphrase, and I am sure she never saw one in Upper Canada. Oh!"--with a little scream--"It really is quite frightful to see them start. And that is Muriel, I declare, and Gerald Herkimer. He will break the child's neck, I do believe; he is so heedless. I wish we were home again."
"Oh, law!" cried Betsey; "are you sure it is quite safe? I used to coast with my hand-sled, like the rest of the kids, when I was little, but it kind of frightens one to see the go-off. Are you quite sure you can protect my bones, Mr. Jordan?"--looking clingingly in his face in search of encouragement--"I feel awful frightened."
"Well, perhaps you are right," said Randolph, impervious to the cling; "it is a good plan to watch the others for a while first, it gives one confidence," and he was gone. He had paid his duty invitation to the head of the party, and, not having bargained for Betsey as a substitute, availed himself at once of the simulated dread which was intended merely to make him urgent and assiduous. Betsey felt foolish, and turned round to Matilda, but she, supposing she had provided for her charge, had taken Considine's arm and strolled away. Betsey was pretty well able to do for herself, however, and ere long she descried a bachelor, unprovided with a maid, and whom she had danced with the evening before; he, on her recognizing him, was not averse to taking her on his conveyancefaute de mieux, it being "kind o' lonesome," as he told himself, to ride alone, "when every other fellow was provided with his bit of muslin."
Randolph was at Miss Rouget's side in a moment, tendering his respectful services, which she at once accepted with the grave bow of a maiden obedient to her parents, who feels gratified in her conscience with the sense of a duty fulfilled, in doing what she knows they would approve--the superior satisfaction of a well-regulated mind, higher, because a moral pleasure, than the indulgence of mere personal preference, but by no means so gratifying to the gentleman, if he only knew it, which, fortunately, he seldom does. Randolph's feelings, too, might perhaps be considered as of that same higher moral sort, which dispenses with good honest attachment of the natural kind; more exactly to be described as indifference touched with filial piety and flavoured with a pinch of self-interest.
Old Jordan had been immensely impressed by the mining discoveries at La Hache, and although it was a damper to recognize in the desired father-in-law of his son a rapid and an unsuccessful gambler, still, the man's interest in the mine could be saved, he thought, by settling it upon his daughter asdot, if the old man were permitted to enjoy the usufruct during his life; besides, was there not a certain institution where troublesome old gentlemen had been locked up ere then, at the instance of wives or heirs? and was not monsieur the seignior eccentric enough for any purpose, with skilful counsel to lay it properly before a jury? Randolph was the impediment himself; he was like a badly-ridden colt, whom the horseman, armed with whip and spur, which he has not the judgment to use, vexes into rebellion which he cannot overbear.
It was humiliating, but his sight was clear enough to see that Amelia, in opposition to whom all his dealings with his son hitherto had been taken, must now be called in to use the very influence which had hitherto made the lad so unruly, and render him tractable for once. Amelia, for a wonder, lent a favourable ear. She recognized it as a tribute, and an admission, in arranging the most important circumstance in her son's life, that the arrogant block-head, who had attempted to lord it with so high a hand over herself and the boy, had come to see his impotence at last. The sense of victory soothed her, and made her gentle, as a filly has been known to become under coaxings with lump sugar and carrots, when rougher means had failed. She agreed to take the youth in hand, and she moulded him without his knowledge, as she had done all his life before, like wax between her fingers.
He had as yet--whatever later years might bring him--no very pronounced faculty of love for other than himself; his attachment to herself, as she saw full well, being due chiefly to what she could do for him and give him in the way of flattery, sympathy, and help to assist himself, and so forth. She saw it without much pain, though she was his mother, for she was a practical-minded person who indulged in the affections but sparingly as being too luscious and apt to pall; "it was just," she thought, "the way of the coarser sex--brutal, selfish, stupid--overbearing in the rude strength of their muscle, the delicate nerve-power of the women." "But brain-fibre was more than a match in the long run for such fibre as theirs," she told herself; and after all the boy was her own, to be proud of among other women, and to make do in the long run, as she only could make him, by delicately pulling the strings she wot of in his being, pretty much as she would.
She was aware, of course, of his kindness for Muriel, but she divined that its roots did not go deep, and when she now took him in hand to direct his attachments, his own description confessed the truth when he spoke of her as "a jolly little girl, and awfully pretty, whom the fellows were crazy after, and he meant to take the cake from them all."
"I am not so sure that you can, my boy; having been a girl myself I am likely to guess nearer the truth than you can; girls are such goosy little things, and I should say your friend Gerald has the best chance there."
"Gerald!" said the young man, drawing himself up to the full of that one-inch advantage he had over his friend; but then he remembered how Gerald had taken her in to supper the evening or two before, and he felt a doubt; but it only made him angry and more obstinate to win the prize.
"I think, Randolph," his mother went on, reading his thoughts, "your cake, as you call her, you gluttonous boy, is hardly worth the eating; leave it for your friends, and make them welcome. Muriel Stanley is no match for you, and no great catch for anybody. She will get her aunt's money, I suppose--a comfortable little sum--when they die, which is not likely to happen for twenty years; but she has no connections whatever, and a good connection is so very advantageous for a young man. You will realize that more and more as you get on."
"But she is awfully pretty, the prettiest little thing in Montreal, and the nicest."
"I grant you that, if you think so; but she is only fifteen, and her aunts will not let her marry for five years yet. She will be stout at twenty; that kind of girl whose figure forms so early, always gets stout, and you will think her a little coarse--men of taste always think that of plump girls, I have observed--but you will sacrifice yourself all the same, like a man of honour, if you are already engaged. That will not be the worst, however; five years more and she will be positively fat! Imagine yourself with a wife like that! You will be about thirty then, just in your prime, with your nice slim figure merely improved from what it is now, the shoulders a little broader, of course, which will be no disadvantage, and your moustache a trifle heavier, but otherwise scarcely changed--in fact, at your very best. How will you like then walking down St. James's Street on the circumference of a copious wife?--a sprig of lavender tied to a marigold! Does the picture attract you?"
When you drive together or have stalls at the theatre, imagine yourself protruding from among your spouse's cloaks and flounces. The buggy could be built of extra size, to be sure, but all the stall chairs are alike. It is a subject for your own consideration exclusively. Personally, I am fond of Muriel. She is a nice little thing, and I should welcome her as a daughter; but it is not I who should have to appear in public with her for the remainder of my days; and if a man means to go into society, he is wise to choose a wife who will group well with him.
"Now, there are our neighbours at St. Euphrase. Think of an only daughter!--heiress to a seigniory, and connected with all the best people in the province. You will say she has not a good complexion; but how short a time complexion lasts in this climate! and those who have had one, and lost it, always look haggard and older than those who never had any. A man married to an old-looking woman, whether fat or lean, always strikes me as a melancholy spectacle--like a sapling sprouting from a crumbling wall, as the poet says--and the world is seldom respectful. It is apt to look on him as the man who broke the commandments and married his grandmama, because nobody of his own age would have him. There is no fear of that with Adèline Rouget; she will improve every year she lives. She is distinguished looking now, though she is not pretty. Every year she will improve, that is the advantage of having plenty of bone. She will look stately in middle life, and be beautiful--the rarest kind of beauty--in old age. Look forward always, my boy, when you think about marrying, it is an experiment which generally can be tried but once, so bought experience can do you no good."
Mother and son had a long conversation, in which she plied him with so many flatteries, that finally of his own free choice he promised to "go in" for Miss Rouget, yet at the same time felt himself magnanimous and dutiful in yielding his own wish to the gratification of his parent; and she encouraged the delusion as likely to hold him to her point. Self-denial is a heroic sort of virtue, and rather above the purchase of most folks; therefore, to be self-denying, and so, admirable to his seldom gratified moral sense, while still pleasing himself, was exaltedly delightful. If a man is not a hero, it pleases him the more to see himself in a heroic light. It is new, and it may not occur again, therefore he will do his best to retain the gallant attitude in which he finds himself; and Randolph set himself tolive up to his ideal.
It was in ceremonious and most well-behaved fashion that the young lady placed herself on the toboggan, and permitted her cavalier to wrap the outflowing draperies more compactly about her in gracious quietude. The gentleman gave the equipage a push beyond the brink, jumped in behind with a parting kick against the shore, and they were away; swiftly, and with ever-accelerating speed as the hill grew steeper--"shooting Niagara." Thebienséancesof the convent, with their modest tranquillity, are scarcely maintainable in a toboggan shooting down a glassy incline of fifty degrees or more, at the rate of miles in a minute, with the certainty that dislodgment from the quarter-inch board one is seated on may hurl one anywhere, bruised or maimed, but assuredly ridiculous.
Adèline caught her breath with a gasp as she found they were off, and, as the pace quickened down hill, she clenched her teeth tightly and closed her eyes; and then there came a jolt as they sped across some swelling in the ice, and she felt herself thrown backwards, and gave a little scream; and Randolph was there behind to support her, with a laugh, as she bumped against his chest, a laugh she could not but join in, though a little hysterically, perhaps, at first. And then the pace began to slacken as they reached the level of the meadow below, and still it slackened, and finally they stopped, and stood up, and shook themselves from adhering snow, and found, the experience was over, that they were both safe, and that it had been a little thrilling, but "awfully jolly." The ice was broken between the two young people forthwith, and the Lady Superior with her nuns, who had taken such pains in the formation of Adèline's character and manners, would scarcely have recognized her, or been able to distinguish her from one of those dreadful, fast, heretical English girls, they had been wont to hold up to her and her companions as models to avoid, as she caught Randolph's arm to climb to the top of the bank again, and vowed it had been delightful.
Conventional mannerisms are like mud in a slough, when the animal which has floundered through gets out into the sunshine, it dries and peels off and falls away very quickly. These two were average young people who had been comfortably reared, with warm clothes and nourishing victuals imagination, sentiment, "yearnings" of any kind had been omitted from their composition, but they were unconscious of the deficiency, so were perfectly content. They were both healthy and strong, and the physical surroundings of the moment were exhilarating in the highest degree--bright clear air and exciting exercise. The quickening of their pulses, caused by their romp upon the snow, was as high a delight as either was capable of knowing, and they clung closer together each time they re-climbed the steep to shoot again from the summit, and laughed more joyously with each succeeding jolt, and persuaded themselves even, perhaps, that they were really falling in love--it is a delusion which often has no more substantial foundation.
And Muriel, too, was careering merrily down the slope, with Gerald for steersman. It was a sport in which they frequently indulged, and many a chilly promenade upon the frozen snow, on the top of the hill, had it cost Aunt Matilda that winter, though she never dropped a complaint which might check or damp her darling's pleasure. Perhaps, too, she may have found thechaperonagenot altogether an infliction in every aspect. By some happy concurrence of circumstances Considine was always of the party. He might have dropped in to visit the ladies before the hour for setting out, or else he would accompany young Gerald when he called to persuade them to go; assuredly he was always there, and freighted with rugs of the thickest and warmest. When the ground was reached, he was curious in his selection of the snuggest nooks and corners sheltered from the wind to rest in; and when his rugs were heaped on the sealskins she already wore, Miss Matilda found she was not one bit cold in the world, and Considine in attendance, who on these occasions was invited to smoke, was perfectly happy, and blessed the inventor of the toboggan.
Muriel and Gerald were experienced voyagers who slid down and clambered up again in calm familiarity with what they were about, without transports of timidity or delight, but in thorough enjoyment. Muriel sat motionless like a part of the outfit, and Gerald was able to steer their way intricately and securely between others more laggard or awkward who got in the way and would have brought grief to a less skilful pilot. And then it was so pleasant to be together, though neither said so, they were so used to it--had been used to it for three or four winters now--and it had grown on them so quietly that they said and perhaps thought nothing about it. There were no speeches; there was no opportunity for them, for there had been no breaks in their intimacy. A boy and girl companionship at first, it had strengthened and progressed with themselves, till, while it was possible neither might have confessed an attachment to the other, it was certain they could never, now, attach themselves to any one else. They were comrades, at least in their winter exercises, but without the rough familiarity which sometimes arises in that relation. Muriel's virginal rearing by those worthy gentlewomen, her aunts, had made that impossible on her side; and Gerald had been his mother Martha's "vineyard," tended and weeded and cared for assiduously as to his moral nature, brought up in manliness to scorn evil and reverence women, as only that quaint daughter of the solitary places in "Noo Hampshire" could have done.
The moon hung in the highest heaven, the snow near by was aglitter in its sheen, the distance was dim with hazy brightness, and many tobogganers had come in from around to join the sport. The place was not inclosed, it was a bare hill-face at other times, and somewhat out of the way; but it suited, and when once a few had used it into shape, all the tobogganing world was glad to avail itself of it. Its out-of-the-way-ness alone preserved it to the use of its quieter frequenters from the gamins and "roughs" of the more densely-peopled streets; but this night was so gloriously still and bright and exhilarating that those who had tasted its brightness could not tear themselves away, and as the shop-lights were extinguished they wandered farther afield instead of creeping under dusky shelter and going to sleep. The snow was dotted with groups of a dozen or a score, streaming out from the town and coming to the snow slide. All were on foot, a few on snow shoes, and many dragging hand-sleds behind them--those devices of the enemy which make the winter street of America so dangerous for an elderly gentleman. He will look around for a policeman to stop urchins coasting in mid-highway, at the hazard of their skulls, from passing horse-kicks; he will not find one, but with a roar and a sweep another coaster will rush down the pavement, bruising his shins, over-turning him, and passing on its career of devastation before he can gather himself up to box the audacious ears of the offenders.
"What a crowd of people are gathering down here at the end of the track," observed Muriel, as she stepped off the toboggan at the journey's end to re-climb the hill.
"Yes," said Gerald, "a great many. I do not mind their standing down here, they seem peaceable. They are only looking on, and soon they will find it cold, and go away. But look at the crowd up there at the top! They seem a more unruly crew. I fear there will be a row. Ah!" he added, "there it is! Our pleasure is over for to-night. There is a rowdy with a hand-sled, starting down the course. Hsh! what a pace--and another--and a third. The third has upset, however, and rolled down the hill. I could almost wish he would get in front of number four. It would certainly hurt him, and spill number four as well, and both deserve it. It will not be safe to launch a toboggan now. The iron shod runners of the sleds travel as fast again as a flat toboggan board. We shall get run into and smashed. I fear we must knock off for to-night. I am awfully sorry, but really it is not safe, with a parcel of roughs in possession of the slide."
"Don't say so," said Muriel. They were climbing the bank, she leaned on his arm, and she pressed on it just a shade heavier as she said it.
"No doubt," he answered; "they must soon give it up. The ground is too steep for runners. See how they shoot, and how far they are carried beyond where we stopped. And there is a ditch there too. The least thing will upset them coming down at such a bat, and somebody will get hurt. They will all get hurt in time, but we shall have too long to wait for it, I fear."
"Don't you think we might have just one or two more? The evening is only beginning, and it is so lovely. I do not feel one bit afraid, you steer so beautifully."
And what could Gerald do but yield when so appealed to, and so flattered?
They made another descent in safety, and then another, in which Gerald performed prodigies of steering which elicited the lively applause of the onlookers, and filled himself and his companion with confidence and pride. For now the sled-riding invaders were in possession of the field, the tobogganers having withdrawn, all save Gerald, who, in the new position of affairs, appeared as the intruder, and whom the majority in possession now set themselves deliberately to molest and chase from the ground; shooting down after him, and endeavouring to run into him from different sides, when he would suddenly veer out of his course and leave the chasers to run into each other, with bruises and scatterings, and derision from the onlookers.
Each descent they made Gerald begged might be their last, but Muriel more eagerly pleaded they might have yet another. It was so splendid, she thought, to see the rowdies, balked in their malice, run thundering into each other, while Gerald received rounds of applause. What taskmaster ever drove so hard as does the female partizan, who desires nothing for herself but merely the glory of her champion?
They made the descent again. It was to be really the last time. "Just this once more;" but it proved the once too often. They started immediately behind a sled which shot down like lightning, and insured a clear course at the going off; but presently one slid by on their right, and they had to swerve to avoid it, and then there passed one on their left which almost grazed them. They had scarcely escaped when another came thundering down behind them. Gerald veered aside as well as he could, but still as it came on it was only by flinging himself against the foremost passenger that he avoided being run over, and it cost him his balance. In the instant, while he was still in poise, he was able to lay a goodly stroke with his guiding stick across the head of the steersman of the buccaneer, and then he fell out of his seat and rolled down the steep. The sled had turned cross-wise to the incline, and rolled over with the three who were its crew; and Muriel startled, alarmed, and with the toboggan turned aslant, fell out likewise, and slid downward with the toboggan atop.
Gerald reached the bottom pell-mell among the brawling, kicking, and swearing cargo of the sled, who set on him in concert ere yet he had well reached his feet, when Muriel's falling amidst them, covered by the over-turned toboggan, dispersed the combatants for an instant, and gave Gerald time to recover his guard. Then with a howl the three rushed upon the one, or rather on the two, for they knocked down Muriel, half risen, and trampled the toboggan to pieces in rushing over her. Gerald was ready with one from the shoulder, delivered squarely in the jaw, to knock down the first, but the other two sprang on him together, and he would have fared ill if one from the crowd had not leaped into the fray with blazing eye, clenched fist, and gnashing teeth, and a growl ofsssacrrréandchien, as he felled one ruffian with a blow under the ear and attacked the other. The first was now up again, assaulting Gerald with foot and fist, and calling his fellows in the crowd to come and help him, when the ministers of the law appeared in the persons of two burly constables, who caught Gerald and his succourer by the collar, and stood over the last felled of the assailants while the other two ran away.
It was a "brache of the pace," they declared, and all must come to the station, stretching out a hand to seize Muriel by the muffler--an act which nearly upset Gerald's composure, and brought him into collision with the police; but fortunately at that moment Considine intervened.
He had been spending an enchanted hour near the top of the hill with Miss Matilda, swathed in rugs--all but her head--looking down upon the sports, and chatting pleasantly while he buzzed round her, near enough to hear and answer, but far enough off to let the fumes of his cigar travel elsewhere. Something said in the crowd hard by had drawn their attention to the slide. "Is not that Muriel?" Matilda had exclaimed, jumping to her feet; and then the collision had come, and the upset, and they both hurried down the bank to arrive on the scene at the same moment as the police.
"You need not take the young lady into custody, my man," said Considine, assuming his grand military manner--learned in "the war"--so effective with policemen, who, like other disciplined beings, seem to love being spoken down to. "Here is my card, and I write the lady's address on the back. She will appear before the magistrate whenever he desires."
"Roight, yur haunur!" said the man, coming to "attention," and saluting.
"And this gentleman will give you his card, too, and promise to appear when wanted," a suggestion which was also complied with, and Gerald was liberated from custody.
"And this young fellow, who has behaved like a man, can I do nothing for him?"
"This is Pierre Bruneau," cried Matilda, "our farmer's son at St. Euphrase. So good of you, Pierre, to come to Miss Muriel's rescue. I did not know you were in Montreal."
Pierre pulled off histoqueand made a shame-faced bow, smiling gratification all over his countenance to find his service appreciated.
"The Frinchman must com wid us, sorr. He kin hilp to dhraw the sled wid the chap he knocked down--an' roight nately he did that same--for a Frinchman. We'll thrate him well, sorr, but we'll have to lock him up. Ye kin spake a worrd to his haunor to-morrow maurnin', sorr."
Pierre started, and looked piteously to Miss Matilda, and then his manly heart gave way--he was not very old--he stuffed his fists into his eyes and wept sore. To prison! To be locked up! It was dreadful, and it was shame; and yet, even then, if it had had to be done over again, he would have done it just the same. It was for Muriel he had fought, and for her sake he was content to suffer.