CHAPTER XIIIA DAUGHTER OF THE WOODS
Forsome moments no one spoke, then there was a stir among the men, who, one by one, filed out, until of them only Petit Marc was left. He, with the half-dozen others, had made their winter quarters near by, too indifferent to the affairs of war to care to mix with the more zealous community, yet ready to take up a cause at any time when there seemed sufficient promise for adventure. A short time before they had been joined by the man Victor Le Roux, who had the name of being a hot-headed, quarrelsome fellow, and a reckless one. Over some matter concerning the division of the spoils of a day’s hunt had begun the quarrel with Antoine. Victor had recognized in Antoine an early acquaintance with whom he had never been upon very good terms, even in the old days of their youth, and he lost no opportunity of showing his feeling. So little value was set upon life in these wilds of America that a touch, a word, and the swords would fly out, the pistols would be drawn, and the man least on his guard would come off worst.
Petit Marc reflected upon this as he stood regarding Antoine, who, with burning gaze, did not removehis eyes from the peaceful face of Father Bisset. “He shall die,” at last said Marc.
Antoine looked up. “He shall die,” he repeated.
Marc held his pistol in his hand; he turned it over and looked at it critically. “I promise you that,” he said. “As for you, Antoine.”
“I must live to return to France to face them there.”
Marc looked at him reflectively. “Is it worth while?” he asked. “Life is short at best. We are forgotten there; we may as well not stir up dead embers from which no fire can again be kindled. Who lives now that would care? I advise you to remain and live out the life you have begun here; it is a good life.”
“If I live, I will go back, but first I wish to know that Victor Le Roux no longer lives. I wish first to kill him.”
“And return with the stain upon your hands of which they were clean when you left?” Marc continued.
Antoine fell back upon his uncouth bed. “One does not expect moralizing from you, Marc Lenoir,” he said.
Marc smiled. “No, I profess nothing. I am become a coureur de bois; I do not belie my character. I do not pretend to be anything else than a lawless runner of the woods, a man who cares for neither God, man, nor the devil. I have no wish to vaunt a claim to respectability, even, grant you, aright to do so is accorded me. I escaped the country after a charge of robbery, a political robbery at that.” He laughed. “As if that were an uncommon thing. Ma foi! if every political robber were transported to the colonies, what an immense increase there would be in the population! I never wronged a man in my life, unless the sending of a half-dozen Iroquois to the Happy Hunting-Grounds be considered a wrong to them. I do not go now to France for justice; I work it out for myself here, and I say that Victor Le Roux must die. I constitute myself judge, and I shall not find it hard to discover the executioner.” He turned and left the room, closing the door very gently.
It was days before he returned, and then it was to find that for Father Bisset had been made a grave in a sheltered spot in the forest, and that by his side lay Antoine Crepin, who never again saw France, but who hugged to himself the promise of his return even up to the last moment. “We will go in the spring, Jeanne,” he said over and over. “In the spring, when I am well and strong, and the leaves are coming out. We will take the child to Manhatte, and will sail from there.” But it was to an eternal spring that he went home.
In these years Jeanne Crepin, always cheerful, humorous, vivacious, had enlarged these qualities by adding a devil-may-care manner. Spontaneously free and easy by nature, she had found no curb necessary in this life of unrestrained wildness, andit suited her. Her husband’s bitterness of spirit caused him to grow taciturn and grim, making him look a much older man than he was, and, to offset this, Jeanne, at first in desperation, and later in natural response to her limitless environment, was always ready with jest, with smile, with song. The coquetries of her girlhood were exchanged for a certain audacity which stood her in good stead with the rough voyageurs, who were about her only friends, unless one excepted the Indian squaws and their braves. Deeply as she loved her brother and her husband, and faithfully as she mourned them, hers was not a nature to brood, and she simply checked off her grief as one more wrong to lay to the charge of France, and accounted it no treachery to say that she abjured her country.
“For me what has France done? Sent us here, Antoine and I. Not so bad, you say? No, but one suffers before one gets used to it, and now Jacques lies there in the forest. God knows I am thankful he had not more to endure, yet, for all that, I lay his death to the charge of those who haled him out of his quiet corner. And Antoine, was he not hounded and pursued by vindictive wretches who took on hearsay his guilt when he was innocent? Do I forgive France the bitterness of his life, the putting out of the light of his youth? No, long ago Antoine and I decided that we owed France nothing.”
She was talking to Petit Marc, who had stopped to tell her the news from the settlements and to askhow the boy fared. He had just returned from a long journey. What he had accomplished he did not tell, save that Victor Le Roux had come to his end at the hands of two Indians. “He deserved what he got,” Marc said, laconically, and Jeanne did not question further.
“The boy?” Jeanne in her half-mannish attire stood in the doorway of her lodge; she looked quizzically at Petit Marc. “The boy is well enough.” She laughed softly. “I shall keep him here till the snows are gone.”
“And then?” Petit Marc asked.
“Time enough to tell when the time comes.” Jeanne snapped her fingers as if to dismiss the subject.
Petit Marc stood shifting his cap from hand to hand. “Can’t I see him? You keep him as close as if he were a week’s old baby.”
Jeanne laughed again. “If you can keep a secret, Marc Lenoir, you may see my baby.”
“If it is a secret that has the boy in it, you may trust me.”
Jeanne gave an assenting nod which invited Marc to follow her indoors, and he saw, sitting demurely by the open fire, Alaine deftly sewing together bits of doeskin. She wore a little cap set upon her brown curls, and despite her furry jacket and leather leggings, there was such an unmistakable air of femininity in her attitude and employment that Marc at first stared, and then exclaimed, “A girl!”
“Surely. A young lady of good birth, Mademoiselle Hervieu, of Rouen, now in flight from a would-be lover, who more than once has carried her off, and from whom she has as often miraculously escaped. On this account she has disguised herself, for she wishes to elude discovery till she is safe at home again.”
Petit Marc stood abashed before the young lady, but Alaine smiled and dimpled. “You need not be afraid of me, Petit Marc,” she said. “I am as good a friend as when you taught me how to trap a beaver. Sit down and tell me about them all, Gros Edouard, Ricard of the big nose, and all the rest. I shall never forget how good you all were to me on that wild journey from Quebec.”
Petit Marc dropped his big hulk on a bench and sat looking at the fire; then he turned to Alaine with a dawning smile. “No wonder that General Jacques stood guard over you, and looked as if he would skin and devour us one after another if we so much as said ‘the devil!’ in your presence. He had a way, that General Jacques, and we all wondered afterwards why on that trip we kept our mouths so uncommonly sweet. Yet, mademoiselle, I think you must have heard some things you never heard before.”
Jeanne spoke up sharply. “You need not remind her of that, Petit Marc. It is I who now stand guard.”
“You!” Petit Marc burst into a rousing laugh.“My faith, Jeanne, you will have to walk backward for more than one year before you come to where you left off being a lady.”
Jeanne glowered at him. “I have not forgotten how,” she returned; “but you, Petit Marc, could never have been a gentleman even at your best, and when you were there in Paris, of which you pretend to know so much. Circumstances did not need to change you so noticeably. For me, I repeat, I do not forget, and one need not wear court manners to be called a good woman.”
Petit Marc became suddenly sober, although he said, lightly enough, “Ta, ta, Jeanne, it was but a rough joke, the like you have heard dozens of times. You are become suddenly touchy, and no wonder. You shall not complain of me again, and if you need me, I, too, will remember that it does not take court manners to make one a good man. I will remember that—if I can.” He laughed again. Nothing long disturbed his gay humor. He would be ready for a jocular remark a moment after he had killed his worst enemy or buried his best friend. He stretched his huge length along the bench and looked good-naturedly at Jeanne, who responded with a half-smile. “I pray you keep to that,” she said. “If I want you, I shall expect you to come.”
“I will come.” He rose to his feet. “But at present I go. I will look in to-morrow, Jeanne. Adieu, mademoiselle.” He bowed with a grace not learned from savages and went out.
“Ta, ta, ta,” said Jeanne. “He is not so bad, after all, and we shall need him some day. I shall not soon forget what he has done for us all, poor Petit Marc.” She sighed, but recovered herself at once. She was stoically gay with Alaine, who, nervous and overwrought, was none too amiable these days. It seemed that the association with Jeanne had given back some of the petulance of her childhood.
“You are so big, so like a man, Jeanne,” she would say. “How can you pretend to know what a girl feels? You keep me shut up here like a rabbit in a hutch, and I want to go; I must go. I am weary of this life. How long do we stay?”
“Till I learn to remember the graces of my youth,” Jeanne would reply, laughing. “You will be ashamed of me there among your friends. How does one carry a train, for example?” And she would give her blanket a sweep across the floor with the air of a court lady.
“So foolish you are, Jeanne. We do not wear court clothes at New Rochelle, and besides, you know they do not countenance the papists there. So, what are you going to do about that?”
“Am I, then, a papist?” Jeanne looked meditative. “I think I buried all that with Jacques. I am whatever is convenient, Alaine. I am like those fish which are one thing up here among the French and another down there with the Dutch. Call me whichever you will, I am to the taste of whoeverlikes me. I am a man, am I? Then come sit on my knee and be my sweetheart.” And she would seize Alaine bodily, giving her a sounding smack, and jolt her up and down till she begged for mercy.
It was worth while to see this daughter of the woods go stalking off, gun in hand, in the direction of the Indian village, where she was well known and liked for her fearlessness, her kindliness, and her skill. The Man-Wife they called her, or Jeanne the white brave. Whistling she would go, her great snow-shoes planted dexterously at every step, and returning, would bring such game as she had shot or trapped or could barter for. More than once Alaine had begged the life of a wounded squirrel or a timid rabbit, till the lodge by degrees became the home of several of these pets, these serving as company for Alaine, who, in Jeanne’s absence, bolted and barred in, passed long solitary hours.
For all Jeanne’s brave front, Alaine would sometimes find her sitting on the floor of the inner room, in her eyes the agony of love and longing as she held hugged to her the old leathern jacket Antoine had worn, or pressed to her cheek the dingy fur cap which had dropped from his head that day when they brought him home. Therefore Jeanne did not forget, but made her moan silently. Under the indifferent manner toward matters religious Alaine discovered, too, a conscience as that of a Puritan, an unswerving fidelity to truth, to purity, and righteous dealing. Jacques Bisset spoke the truth whenhe called his sister a good woman. The men might laugh and joke with her, but only to a certain point, beyond that she was as prim as a Quaker, and they knew the limit. With the Indians she was uniformly frank and considerate, never failing to be generous in her trades with them. Therefore the forest could not hold a better guardian for a wandering maid than Jeanne Crepin.
In her fur cap and jacket, her leathern breeches and short skirt, with her gruff voice and her great height, one could scarce discern that she was not a man, a fact which she rather enjoyed. “Who cares what I am?” she would say. “So long as I know how to make my way and am comfortable so, I do not care.” She had made Alaine a similar costume. “We will travel in this dress,” she told her, “and while they are puzzling over whether we are men or women, it will give us the advantage. We will start before the Iroquois begin their raids. I know the language of some of their tribes, and I think I can manage to get on, yet it is not altogether a pleasure jaunt we will take. At first I thought we would best go alone, but I think we will let Petit Marc go with us, at least part of the way, till we cross into the Dutch country. You know a little of their language?”
“A little, and some English.”
“We shall do, I think. Down the river to the Richelieu, through the lake to the carrying-place, and then down the Hudson. I have studied it allout. Petit Marc has been there to Orange, and he knows. Now, teach me the English words you know, and see if I can remember some of the manners I had when I was a girl. Does one courtesy so? And what does a woman say when a man praises her beauty?”
Alaine laughed at the simper upon Jeanne’s face and the awkward dip of her gaunt figure.
“I shall want to overpower Michelle with my elegance,” Jeanne rattled on. “Michelle the housekeeper, the nurse of the Hervieus, and I the wife of as gay a cavalier as one could find in all Paris, and now——” She stretched out her hands, knotted and browned. “Where is the Jeanne Bisset who could grace a silken robe, and whose hands were as soft as the laces which covered them? She is gone, and Michelle rises, the wife of a man of education and good blood. I am a daughter of the woods, the wife of an outcast. So it goes. Yet I would not have it otherwise; it was for you, Antoine,” she murmured. Then with a twirl of her body she cut such a caper as set Alaine laughing. “How does one dance a figure?” she asked.
“We shall probably find you do not forget the dancing,” the girl returned. “I think we can spare you that lesson, Jeanne.”
“Then be you Michelle and I the grande dame of her remembrance.” Jeanne’s quick fingers fashioned a turban from her kerchief. She spread a fur robe across her knees, picked up the turkey-tail theyused for sweeping up the hearth, and assumed a languishing air.
“Madame Herault.” Alaine swept her a courtesy.
“Ah, my good Michelle, I remember you quite well. You used to give me curds and whey in your dairy. Do you still manage a dairy, Michelle?”
“Yes, madame, but a small affair, not to be compared to that which you remember.”
“And your good husband? I hear he is something of a student. Do you find time to assist him in his studies?”
“No, madame; on the contrary, he assists me to plough a furrow to make the garden, to gather in our crops.”
“Indeed?” Jeanne raised her eyebrows in such supercilious surprise that Alaine clapped her hands.
“You have not forgotten, Jeanne. You will do! I feel myself quite crushed by your elegance.”
Jeanne threw aside her robe and the turkey-tail she carried for a fan and jumped to her feet. “But it would weary me, it would weary me. Ciel! when I remember the hours one must sit trussed up in tight clothes!” She gave her shoulders a hitch. “It wearies me but to remember it. No, I will not return to civilization, Alaine.”
“Then what will you do?”
“I don’t know. As my brother would say, I will do the Lord’s will.” The light was sinking in the sky. Outside howled the wolves and the wintry winds; it was desolate, desolate. But with thetouch of spring would come the Iroquois roused to action, and those who ventured from their fortified places might never expect to see home again. Better, safer, to go farther up the country away from the bordering river lands, to fear no worse foe than the beasts of the forests, thought Jeanne. She sank into the big chair and rested her chin in her hands. “Life is sweet; it is strange that it is so; and if we go away yonder we may face terrible death. Better to slip out of the world and die by wasting disease than to be captured and tortured. Shall we not stay, Alaine? We can go far from the dangers of war. Who cares for the glory of France or England now?” She sat gazing into the fire, her dark hair, which she had unbound to play the lady, falling about her face. “Petit Marc says there will be war-parties everywhere when the spring opens,” she continued. “One cannot be safe anywhere along the border.”
“I would rather die by the way,” Alaine cried out. “I will go, Jeanne; I must.” Then, after a pause, “I am selfish, Jeanne. I will not have you go with me. I will not allow you to take the risk of capture or a worse death. I will find the way somehow.”
Jeanne sat up straight. “We will go together. Enough said. As well one way as another. Would it be worth my while to stay alone? If death, the sooner I meet Antoine. If capture, I can bear it. I am used to the ways of the Indians; it might not beso hard to me, after all. Yes, we will go, Alaine. I fear more for you than for myself, that is all.”
Therefore, before the last snows had melted or the first bluebird had come, Alaine set free her pets: the squirrel which had become so tame that he would hide his nuts in her hair; the rabbit which hopped after her everywhere she went, and which now scurried off into the nearest brush; the cunning fox-cub with his bright, sharp eyes, which had been wont to curl himself up into a sleepy ball in her lap, but which now pricked up his ears and set out jauntily to seek adventures. “Adieu, my little friends,” sighed Alaine; “you go into the woods where are enemies you know not of, and I go my way into like dangers. We shall never see each other again.” She watched them disappear. Into what perils were they going who seemed to be so glad of freedom? The talons of an eagle, the fangs of a wolf, the bullet from a hunter’s rifle, might end the existence of any or all of them before night.
She turned sadly away to join Petit Marc and Jeanne, who, standing side by side, seemed as if they might be the children of a giant race. As they passed by the two graves under a sombre pine they all paused; Jeanne knelt, the other two walked on. A few moments later Jeanne joined them; she did not look back, nor did she have jest or word for either of her companions until they reached the water’s edge, where Marc made ready to launch his canoe.