Merry Carlo, who runn'st at my heels
Through the dense-crowded streets of the city,
In and out among hurrying wheels,
And whose run in the suburbs reveals
Only scenes that are peaceful and pretty.
Raise to mine your intelligent face,
Open wide your great brown eyes in wonder
While I tell how lived one of your race
Years ago in this now busy place--
Ay, and ran at the heels of its founder.
Mistress Pilot, for that was her name,
And you could not have called her a better,
Was a gallant and dutiful dame--
Since her breed is forgotten by Fame,
For your sake I will call her a setter.
Pilot lived when _Ville Marie_ was young,
And the needs of its people were sorest;
When the rifle unceasing gave tongue,
And the savage lay hidden among
The Cimmerian shades of the forest;
When the hearts of frail women were steeled
Not to weep for the dead and the dying;
When by night the fierce battle-cry pealed
And by day all who worked in the field
Kept their weapons in readiness lying;
When full oft at the nunnery gate,
As the darkness fell over the village,
Would a swart savage crouch and await,
With the patience of devilish hate,
A chance to kill women, and pillage.
Every one had his duty to do,
And our Pilot had hers like another,
Which she did like a heroine true,
At the head of a juvenile crew
Of the same stalwart stuff as their mother.
In a body these keen-scented spies
Used to roam through the forests and meadows,
And protect _Ville Marie_ from surprise,
Though its foes clustered round it like flies
In a swamp, or like evening shadows.
Oftentimes in the heat of the day,
Oftentimes through the mists of the morning,
Oftentimes to the sun's dying ray
There was heard her reëchoing bay
Pealing forth its brave challenge and warning.
And so nobly she labored and well,
It was fancied--so runneth the story--
She had come down from heaven to dwell
Upon earth, and make war upon hell,
For the welfare of man and God's glory.
"When her day's work was over, what then?"
Well, my boy, she had one of your habits;
She would roam through the forest again,
But instead of bold hunting for men,
Would amuse herself hunting jack rabbits.
_THE SECRET OF THE SAGUENAY._
Like a fragment of torn sea-kale,
Or a wraith of mist in the gale,
There comes a mysterious tale
Out of the stormy past:
How a fleet, with a living freight,
Once sailed through the rocky gate
Of this river so desolate,
This chasm so black and vast.
'Twas Cartier, the sailor bold,
Whose credulous lips had told
How glittering gems and gold
Were found in that lonely land
How out of the priceless hoard
Within their rough bosoms stored,
These towering mountains poured
Their treasures upon the strand.
Allured by the greed of gain,
Sieur Roberval turned again,
And sailing across the main,
Passed up the St. Lawrence tide.
He sailed by the frowning shape
Of Jacques Cartier's Devil's Cape,
Till the Saguenay stood agape,
With hills upon either side.
Around him the sunbeams fell
On the gentle St. Lawrence swell,
As though by some mystic spell
The water was turned to gold;
But as he pursued, they fled,
Till his vessels at last were led
Where, cold and sullen and dead,
The Saguenay River rolled.
Chill blew the wind in his face,
As, still on his treasure chase,
He entered that gloomy place
Whose mountains in stony pride,
Still, soulless, merciless, sheer,
Their adamant sides uprear,
Naked and brown and drear,
High over the murky tide.
No longer the sun shone bright
On the sails that, full and white,
Like sea gulls winging their flight,
Dipped into the silent wave;
But shadows fell thick around,
Till feeling and sight and sound
In their awful gloom were drowned,
And sank in a depthless grave.
Far over the topmost height
Great eagles had wheeled in flight,
But, wrapped in the gloom of night,
They ceased to circle and soar:
Grim silence reigned over all,
Save that from a rocky wall
A murmuring waterfall
Leapt down to the river shore.
O merciless walls of stone!
What happened that night is known
By you, and by you alone:
Though the eagles unceasing scream,
How once through that midnight air,
For an instant a trumpet's blare,
And the voices of men in prayer,
Arose from the murky stream.
_JULES' LETTER._