CHAPTER XIIGENERAL JACQUES
Father Bissetstood by the brink of the rushing stream and looked up and down its banks. “Let us reflect,” he said. “He will sleep late, till daylight, perhaps, and he will not at once realize that I do not intend to return. As for Marie, I think she will say nothing, for it would do no good, and but bring blame upon her. I think he will begin to suspect when he receives the packet I left for him, a purse which he handed to me for your use.”
“He dared to do that!”
“Yes; but it was kindly meant, and I was obliged to receive it, but not to retain it. Very well, then, he discovers the purse, and after a time he comes to himself, and will immediately set out to make inquiry at the convent. We have not been there, then we have outwitted him and have escaped, though perhaps he will not think I have taken you out of the town, and he will search there first. All this will take time, and we have a good start. I think we are safe.”
Alaine’s hand on his arm tightened. “And you think there is no danger from him? He will not follow?”
“He may eventually, but we have some hours’start. He must first satisfy himself that I do not intend to return, and that you are at none of the convents or anywhere in Quebec. The sleeping potion which I put in the wine will not lose its effect at once, and he will be stupid all day.”
“I cannot imagine how you were able to do this,” Alaine said, thoughtfully. “Where did you get the potion?”
“I took care to provide myself with several necessities when I left France, and in case of emergency I brought with me one or two weapons quite as useful as a sword or a pistol. I know how to use certain drugs, but I know little about wielding implements of war. My little possessions, you may remember, were brought aboard the vessel with me; some of them remain there, the rest I have here.”
The soft purple light of an early October morning hovered over the lofty bluffs of Point Levi, and a delicate mist floated above plain and river. The boatmen were beginning to gather, and their songs were wafted upon the morning air. Silent and sleeping the town still lay, its people unaware of the approach of a little fleet, and not dreaming that the guns of the fort would soon bellow forth a savage greeting to Sir William Phipps.
To the fact of their being neither Dutch nor English was now due the safety of Alaine and her companion. A renegade priest might receive some sufferance from the friends of Frontenac, himself none too fond of the Jesuits, but with war upon them,the French would have shown small mercy to one from the British colony of New York. Therefore Father Bisset impressed it upon Alaine, “We are French; we are from Rouen; we have come to make our fortunes. Henceforth I am your uncle Jacques, and thus you must address me. A boy and his uncle will not be so easily traced as a girl and the man she calls father. We will trudge along, my nephew, and get a little beyond the town; we shall not be very long in meeting some of those wild woodmen of whom we both have heard much; we shall in all probability have to spend some time with them, therefore prepare yourself for a rough life. For you, my child, it will be a hard experience; for me, well, he must expect it who flees his country. Fugitives from justice are many of these coureurs de bois, and a fellow feeling will do much toward establishing a good understanding.”
Through the woods, brilliant with the autumn coloring in the keen Canadian air, they wandered, pursuing the track of the river, and at last they came upon a group of rough voyageurs intent upon their noonday meal. “Does there happen to be one Antoine Crepin among you?” asked Jacques Bisset as he approached. “I am in search of him; a fugitive from France am I, and I seek this Antoine, whom I well knew in my youth.”
The men eyed him and looked askance at the delicate features of this questioner’s companion. “Antoine Crepin?” at last one spoke up. “I know him;he has gone farther along; he winters near Trois Rivières always.”
“And do you go that way?”
“We go, yes, there or somewhere.”
“Have you room for two more in your party? I have—what have I? Not much; a little of the silver of France for our passage.” He carefully drew some coins from his pouch.
The men conferred together. “We will take you. Keep your money. It is share and share alike. You and the boy there will need something to begin life with, my friend. You have chosen a bad time for your travels, with the country alive with disputes. Up and down the river it is the same; they say the English may approach. For ourselves we get out, but we may fall into the hands of the Iroquois before night. However, that is the life; one cannot tell when one is in danger; one may be drowned or be torn by a wild beast, or be scalped by an Indian; one thing is as likely as another; it is all chance; if you wish to take yours with us, very well.”
That wild journey, would Alaine ever forget it? the frail canoes shooting through the whirling rapids and borne on and on; the night beneath the bright stars, with the cries of prowling beasts in her ears, and the haunting dread of an Indian war-whoop disturbing her dreams; those days when weird songs and rude jests awoke the echoes in silent places. She had not labored in field and garden to be other than free of movement, and her skillin cooking won her the approval of her rough companions. It was even harder for Jacques Bisset to hide the fact of his former calling than it was for Alaine to disguise her sex, and many a laugh arose at the old man’s expense. “He is schoolmaster; he is scrivener; he is—what is he?” they cried. “And he guards the lad as if he were taking him to a monastery. Here, Alain, boy, leave that mother-man of yours and we’ll give you a chance to kill a deer, a chance you’ll not have had back there in France.”
And Alaine would laugh and say, “I’d rather cook your deer than kill him, and this uncle, he will learn one day, though he is not young. Leave us here to keep up the fire and cook your food; we will sit and fish, and if you come home empty-handed we maybe will have something for you.” So they would troop off and leave them to watch the camp till they returned with their game and were ready to launch again upon the river, each day bearing them farther from Quebec, where the guns of the fort were growling out their defiance of the doughty Phipps and where François Dupont had awakened from his long sleep to one predominant fact: the city was threatened; it was French, above all it was French, and to arms he flew, remembering for a time only dimly that there were such persons as Father Bisset or Alaine Hervieu, or, if he remembered, it was to feel a grim satisfaction that they were there on his side. It was only after Frontenac’s valiantdefence, and when the bumptious Phipps sailed away the worse off by eight vessels and many men, that François began to think of his own affairs. “I promised the old priest that I would wait for him. Very well, I have waited. I shall find him, no doubt, somewhere with the monks at the college or the seminary. He may be assisting them at Notre Dame des Victoires to decorate with trophies after this our victory. Vive La France!” he shouted aloud at the remembrance. “I, too, share in that victory. Good! I first find Father Bisset, and then my vessel, if she is not blown up. We shall set sail rather later than we intended, but it is better than a few days too soon, for we might by this time be prisoners of that Phipps.”
To the convent he went. No priest and no Mademoiselle Hervieu had ever been there. François looked mystified. “It was uncommonly heady, that wine,” he remarked to himself. “I scarcely remember ever to have been so muddled by a little bout; yet—ah, yes, he has taken alarm. He learned that the English were coming and he removed himself and mademoiselle to a safer place. He will return. I sit here and wait; it is all that I can do. He learns of victory and he returns. I said I would wait, and I wait.”
More than once Alaine had seen Father Bisset take from his pocket a paper which he studied carefully and then seemed lost in thought, a proceeding which brought forth jests from the rollicking voyageurs.“An order for good living, is it, Jacques Bisset?” one would cry. “A letter from the king himself, very likely,” put in a big fellow with an immense voice to match his proportions. “We have here, my friends, one carrying orders for Louis XIV.; he will lead us against the English.” He bowed low, sweeping the ground with his fur cap. “I have discovered you, Monsieur le General Jacques Bisset.” Every one joined in the laugh that followed, and from that time he was dubbed General Jacques.
They had halted for their evening meal. Trois Rivières was not a day’s journey from them. Squatting around their fire they were preparing their meat for spitting before the cheerful blaze; the nights were waxing cold, and they huddled blinking in close range of the acceptable heat. Suddenly Petit Marc—so-called in sheer contrariness—slapped his knee. “Son of a donkey! Senseless hooting owl!” he cried. “I forget that it is near here that Antoine Crepin has his lodge. It is near an Indian village beyond the woods there. Come, General Jacques, we can make it before it grows too late. If it is Antoine you want, Antoine you shall have, though how one can prefer the surly fellow to any of us passes my comprehension. Here, boy, up with you, for from the alacrity with which the general stirs his bones it is good-by to us and how are you, Antoine? We shall find him, I think; these last nights have been cold enough to drive him in. Who’ll go with us? You, Gros Edouard? You, Richard?”
Two or three scrambled to their feet, and they set out without further ado through the dim forest, their torches aflare and their guns ready. “It is a little more than a mile westward,” Petit Marc told them. “We can trot it in no time and back again. Antoine would rather have Indians for neighbors than whites, and he is half right,” he added, in an aside. “We’ll jog right on.” They proceeded Indian-file through the leaf-carpeted wood, Petit Marc marching ahead, and Richard with Gros Edouard bringing up the rear. At last they came to a creek swollen with the autumn rains; it was a turbulent little stream, but it did not daunt the voyageurs. “We shall have to swim it,” said Petit Marc, calmly looking up and down the rising stream. “You, General Jacques, can you use your fins? I’ll take the boy on my back, for I’ll swear he can’t swim.” He looked Alaine up and down. “How is it, son?”
Alaine shook her head.
“I thought so. Here, then, take me around the neck, so, first, then slip your hands to my shoulders, and hold hard. You needn’t be scared; I have carried heavier bodies than yours across worse floods. Here we go.” And he landed Alaine on the muddy bank at the other side. Shaking himself like a huge dog, he stood up to watch the progress of the remaining members of the party. “Keep it up, general,” he shouted, “you’ll soon make it. Help him, boys; he hasn’t the muscle of the rest of us.” And, indeed, the old man’s strength was nearly spent, andafter being dragged up the bank he dropped trembling to the ground. Petit Marc pulled out a flask. “Tickle your throat with that and you’ll be able to come on, general,” he said.
A few minutes of rest sufficed to give breath to the old man, and they continued their way to the cabin, which stood but a short distance farther on. With a ponderous rap Petit Marc beat on the door. “Awake, there, Antoine,” he called. “Here is General Jacques and a section of his army. Awake and open in the name of the king.”
In an instant the door was opened and a face peered out, showing in the flame of the torches suspicious eyes and a grim, unsmiling mouth. “The general here insisted upon making your house his head-quarters,” said Petit Marc, grinning; “he has written orders from the king to press us all into service, and you are to provision the whole army. We will have pity on you to-night, having supped fairly well, and we’ll go back, but you’ll have to keep him and the boy.” He gave the dripping figure of Father Bisset none too gentle a push toward the door.
“Antoine Crepin?” said the shivering old man.
“That is my name.”
“And Jeanne?”
Antoine looked closer, gave an exclamation of surprise, and opened wide the door. Father Bisset entered followed by Alaine. “It’s all right, boys,” said Petit Marc; “the general is safe, and we return.Good-night, general; we shall expect to receive our promotions in short order.” And with a loud laugh Petit Marc and his companions turned back.
“He is very wet; he will take cold, I am afraid,” said Alaine to the man, who was looking at her curiously. “As for me,” she continued, “on that broad back I scarcely touched the water enough to hurt me.”
“But Jeanne?” Father Bisset interrupted.
Antoine placed his hand on the questioner’s shoulder and conducted him across the floor to where an inner room was roughly separated from the larger apartment. Alaine did not follow, but drew nearer the fire and crouched on the hearth to wring the water from her damp moccasins and to dry her sleeves. By the dim, flickering light she saw that here was a dwelling of the rudest kind; a roughly fashioned bench, a table, a pile of skins in one corner, a few cooking-utensils, were all that she could discern. From the inner room had come a quick exclamation, a surprised scream of delight, laughter and sobs mingled, and then voluble words expressive of astonishment, commiseration, and inquiry. Presently reappeared Antoine bearing a light, and behind him came two figures. At first sight these were so exactly alike that Alaine stared. Were there two Father Bissets, one many years younger than the other? She rubbed her eyes and looked again. A red kerchief was tied around each of these two heads; each wore a fringed deer-skinjacket, below which was wrapped an Indian blanket. The two faces showed alike kindly eyes, expansive lips, and the same genial smile. Then the older spoke. “This is Jeanne Crepin, my sister Jeanne, who remembers well little Alaine Hervieu in her babyhood.”
Alaine at once comprehended; this was the sister of her old friend, the young sister of whom Michelle had often told her, who had married a gay young Parisian and had followed him overseas. There was some difficulty, some crime which affected these two, Alaine remembered, and they had not remained to take any risks. It was said that Father Bisset had covered the retreat, but of this no one could be positive, but it seemed that all these years he had kept track of the fugitives. It was all true, then, and here they were.
“Alaine Hervieu resembles her mother,” came Jeanne Crepin’s deep voice. “She is very welcome.”
“And now you know,” said Father Bisset, “why I was not so concerned when I learned that our destination would be Canada, for Canada I intended to reach, whether by Hudson, by sea, or by land, it mattered not, and I laughed in my sleeve that François Dupont should be helping me on my way.”
Alaine smiled. She feared François no longer. “And all these years you have been living in these woods?” she asked of Jeanne.
“In these woods; they are kinder than cities.One can learn how to face open foes; it is those who approach us as friends that are most to be feared.”
Antoine nodded gravely. Alaine looked at him with some curiosity. Michelle had described him as a handsome young cavalier, gay and full of life; this serious, reticent old man did not answer to her description. Was he really guilty of that mysterious crime, and so bowed under the weight of it, or was it the injustice of being considered guilty while he was innocent that had embittered him? Alaine wondered over it. But she was tired, and the warmth of the room and the effect of a warm herby drink given her soon made her drowsy, so that her head began to droop, and she threw herself down on the pile of skins in the corner, dimly conscious that a low-voiced conversation went on for hours. Although she felt more secure than she had for weeks, she felt singularly lonely, and she slipped into a sleep to dream that she struggled alone through a sea whose waves ever beat her from the shore.
Having cast in his lot with these children of the wood, Jacques Bisset followed as closely as possible their manner of living, sallying forth into the crisp cold air with gun on shoulder, joining in with the mirth of Jeanne, holding friendly one-sided conversations with such Indians as they met, and teaching Alaine such woodcraft as he thought might be useful to her. Antoine, himself grave and silent, had a smile for no one but the cheerful Jeanne, yet he showed his brother-in-law more graciousness ofmanner than he did any other. During the long evenings there was time enough for talk, at least it was Father Bisset who chiefly did the talking; Jeanne would put in her eager, saucy questions, and Alaine, well wrapped in furs, would crouch in a warm corner and listen, yet often letting her thoughts wander. Where were they, her father and Pierre, and—Lendert? Yes, Lendert. Even here, and in spite of all these changing scenes, she could not forget him. The devotion of Jeanne and her husband touched her deeply, and Antoine reminded her of Pierre. Poor Pierre, if he had returned he would wait and watch for her the rest of his days. But Lendert, had he forgotten? Yet it was of Lendert she thought the most frequently; it was Lendert she loved. There had been moments of peril, moments of solemn night when truth must be answered by truth; she had tried to retreat, but truth had held her and would be answered, and she, trembling, had confessed to Danger and to Night, “There is one I love. I cannot help it; I have tried with all my strength, but Love is mightier than I, and I am slave to love.” Then, as some red embers dropped with a soft brustle from the burning logs, she would start from her revery and come back to hear what Father Bisset was saying. Now he spoke of Holland, then of England. He had been in both places. Were they surprised, Jeanne and Antoine, that he was Huguenot? They had suffered; they would understand that a matter of conscience,—well, that was it.
“A matter of conscience, yes, when one has fled because of that there is nothing to say,” Jeanne would say. “We owe it to you, Jacques, my brother, that we have escaped to a place where the arm of law does not touch us. We do not criticise you, he and I; we have suffered too much from France ever to wish to see that country again. We live a wild life; there is not much religion in it, yet if one can believe in God and in his justice, not man’s, he is not altogether bad. I tell my beads; I say my prayers; I have respected the priests because you were one. Now, I hate the France that has persecuted you and the Jesuits who would curse you.”
Alaine heard this, then slept, awaking to hear, “The child Alaine must be returned to her friends. I ask that of you, Antoine and Jeanne. I am an old man, and of late I realize that I am not as strong as I used to be. If I am removed I leave her to your sacred charge. She must be taken to one of the English or Dutch settlements in New York. I was God’s instrument to save her from the pit digged for her, and I have guarded her from all the evil that I could. I may have been mistaken to bring her in this disguise, but it seemed better so, and it was not for long.”
“She is not much hurt,” laughed Jeanne. “Ma foi! if I could stand it for all these years she could stand it for two or three days. They are not so desperately wicked, those that brought you here. One may have been something worse than anyof them and still have remained respected in France.”
“True, Jeanne, true,” growled Antoine.
“At all events,” continued Jeanne, “you need give yourself no uneasiness; we will start forth as soon as the weather permits and see her safe in one of the settlements, and then we return here to live and die together. As for the girl’s dress, it is a good one, and warm at that. I wear much the same, and if I had to travel about more than I do, I should not cumber myself with anything more. It is quiet enough and cold enough here to wear anything one chooses.”
Alaine lifted her head and stretched out her feet towards the blaze. “I am very comfortable,” she said, “and I do not think I am likely to remember or repeat all that patois of the crew which brought us here, so give yourself no uneasiness, Uncle Jacques; I am grateful to the very tip of my moccasins for all that you have done for me. I want to go home, yes, but I want to take you all with me.” The wave of her hand included even the gloomy Antoine.
Jeanne laughed. “She would take us all, you hear. Very well, let us go and see what Michelle will do.”
“She will be very glad, I can assure you,” Alaine returned, gravely.
“I am not so sure of that,” Jeanne responded. “However, there is bitter weather before us, and who shall say what may happen before spring?”
Who, indeed, can say what may happen anywhere while human passions are allowed to slip from their leash? The wildest of solitary places is yet too narrow to prevent the lifting of Cain’s hand against his brother. And because of this, one day along the snow-covered ground toward the lodge there came a file of men led by Petit Marc, who carried in his arms a burden. At every step there were red stains to be seen marking the snowy path. Behind Marc came Antoine, his arms held about the necks of two others; he stepped feebly, as one not sure of his way. At the door of the lodge the little company paused, and Jeanne, hearing the shuffling feet, opened to them.
“Mother of God!” she cried, “what is this?”
Petit Marc, without a word, entered and deposited his burden in the clumsy chair which, covered with furs, stood before the fire.
“Jacques!” cried Jeanne. “Antoine!” For a moment she was helpless, looking from one to the other.
“I am beyond remedy,” whispered her brother; “go to Antoine.”
His friends had placed Antoine on the pile of skins in the corner; and he lay there pressing his hand to his side.
“You are hurt, my Antoine,” said Jeanne, the moan of a woman entering into the deep tones of her voice. She knelt beside him, touching him with tender fingers.
Alaine, like one dazed, looked on. “How did it happen? What is it?” she asked, turning to Petit Marc.
Antoine half raised himself. “I will tell. He called me a murderer, he, that wretched outlaw. He recognized me, called me by name, taunted me. I drew my pistol, but it was he who fired. Jacques rushed between. ‘Jeanne cannot spare you,’ he cried. He fell, and could I endure it? I rushed upon him with my knife, but he was ready, I was wounded and he has escaped.”
“Now God’s vengeance follow him!” Jeanne exclaimed. “Who was it? Who, who, Antoine?”
“Victor Le Roux,” he whispered; “it was he. I recognized him, as he did me, after all these years. ‘Hold there, Olivier Herault,’ he said; ‘murderer art thou, and liar as well, if thou sayest I cheat.’”
Petit Marc lifted his head. He was chafing the hands of the old man over whom he was bending. “Olivier Herault!” he exclaimed. “And what of him?”
“I am he,” said Antoine, faintly. He gently pushed away the hand with which Jeanne would have arrested the words.
Father Bisset opened his eyes and smiled. “Olivier Antoine Crepin Herault, Jeanne’s husband,” he said.
Petit Marc stood up, his giant form towering above them all. “Olivier Herault? then an innocent man,” he said, slowly.
“And why? Why?” Jeanne turned her rugged face toward him, and Antoine essayed to stagger to his feet.
Petit Marc looked toward the other men grouped together by the door. “Here, my friends, this one, Antoine here, I know him to be innocent of any crime. Among us here in the woods it matters little what a man has been, but there are some of us who carry about with us the poison of an unjust charge. Most of us make the best of it; we care but little; we would rather be more free here than less free there, and we would not go back to the old life, but we do not tell of what is behind us; the present is enough for us to live for. Yet when one may clear a man, one may as well do it. More than ten years ago one of my comrades, hurt by a falling tree, died in my arms. He wished to confess his sins before he departed, and he told me that he had fled from France because of having murdered a man in a quarrel. ‘For this crime,’ he said, ‘one Olivier Herault is accused. I have heard that he escaped on the eve of his arrest, and that there was a hue-and-cry raised because of it. If you ever find him give him my confession; write it out as I tell you.’ And I did; here it is.” He drew forth a torn, stained bit of paper. “I sent word to France, but I have never heard whether the message reached there. I thought some day to find out, for I, too, Marc Lenoir, know what it is to be falsely accused. The law is not always so sure nor so just. Your innocenceis proved, Olivier Herault; no one believes in mine.” He spoke simply, as one who long ago had accepted a fact and made the best of it.
“Antoine! Antoine! do your hear?” cried Jeanne. “Jacques, my brother Jacques, you, who believed in him, who let him escape and said nothing, do you not hear? You have saved him for this great moment, my Jacques.”
There was a far-away look in the old man’s eyes; he seemed not to know what was going on; he gasped painfully. “Little Alaine,” he murmured, “come here, little Alaine, and say your prayers before I go. The angelus is ringing and it will soon be your bedtime.”
Alaine with clasped hands and streaming eyes crept to his knees and bowed there as a child before its mother. He held her warm hands in his nerveless ones, now growing so sadly cold. “Pater Noster,” he began faintly, and Alaine sobbingly repeated, “Pater Noster.”
“Qui es in cœlis.”
“Qui es in cœlis.”
“Sanctificetur nomen tuum;” the voice was growing very faint.
“Sanctificetur nomen tuum;” the girl gathered strength and repeated the words distinctly, following the whispered sentences till one could no longer hear them, and she finished the prayer alone.
Every one was kneeling. The cold light of a winter’s sun touched the white hair of the old man withfaint gold like a halo of glory. Alaine with bowed head now sobbed unrestrainedly, not yet aware that upon the lips of Father Bisset the Angel of Death had set his seal.