THE CIDER FROLIC
“Come, come, step up, my dear,” Mère Michelle said so often, one
morning a few weeks later, that Alaine realized with a start that she
was less virtuously energetic than usual. “So triste, my little one, or
is it that you are fatigued from yesterday’s labors? I feared that you
were going beyond your strength out there in the field.”
“No, no,” protested Alaine, “I have seldom enjoyed anything more. It
was so pleasant there out under the blue sky, but one has so many
things to think about as one grows older. I will hasten to finish my
daily tasks, and then I wish to see Mathilde Duval.”
Mère Michelle looked at her sharply. “It is not well for a lass to
frequent the home of a young man,” she said.
Alaine gave her delicate chin an upward toss. “I frequent the home of a
young man? I fail to understand you, Madame Mercier.”
“Ta ta, she has quite the air of a grande dame, she who might now be
weeping in a nunnery, or as a slave, a poor engagé, but for her old
Michelle, who guards her but for her own good, poor little fledgling.”
“Forgive me, Mère Michelle,” cried Alaine, stopping her occupation of
burnishing a brass kettle; “I forget sometimes, but indeed it was not
because of Pierre, nor of any other man, that I wished to see Mathilde.
We both desire to go to the Point this afternoon to join in the
devotions and to send a prayer heavenward for the safety of our beloved
ones.”
Michelle wiped a tear from her eye. “Wretched old woman that I am!” she
said, with a quick digression from wrath to remorse. “I was thinking,
Is not Gerard enough for her that she must run after other youths?”
“Gerard? Nay, but Gerard is my brother. You forget that he is a Mercier
as well as I.”
“He is a Legrand as you are a Hervieu,” returned Mère Michelle.
Alaine shook her head. “No, no, we do not say so. I pray you, Mère
Michelle, put any such ideas away. Whisper it not to any one that I am
a Hervieu. But a day or two ago you warned me not to disclose it.”
“Ah, well, I say so to no one outside this house.”
“But the birds of the air; there is one now on the bush outside; I fear
he will bear the news.”
Mère Michelle turned her head quickly, and then, at Alaine’s merry
laugh, set to work again at paring the vegetables she was making ready
for the dinner. “Beware how you go out alone,” she warned after a
moment’s silence. “Louis says the Indians are gathering to-day for
their yearly cider fête.”
“That is nothing,” replied Alaine; “they are friends. I do not fear
them.”
“Ah, that may have been, but nothing is certain since the word has come
of intended war,” said Mère Michelle, shaking her head. “Is it not
expected that our countrymen from whom we have providentially escaped
will descend upon us from Canada? and what may be expected at their
hands should they be joined by the Indians? Affairs are in a turmoil.
There are grave rumors and it is the hour’s talk.”
“Ah, but Monsieur Leisler, maman, remember him; he is at the head of
the people; he stands for the Protestant party. He has assembled the
people by beat of drum and has read to them the proclamation of the
English William and Mary. You should have heard Pierre telling of it.”
“Pierre! And did I not hear Gerard also tell?”
“He told not so much, but he said that M. Nicholas Bayard and Mayor Van
Cortlandt did not uphold M. Leisler. Then cried out Pierre, ‘Me, I am
for Leisler,’ and Gerard looked dubious. ‘No wonder,’ cried I, ‘that
Pierre is ready to put his trust in one who upholds Protestant faith;
engagé that he was, he knows the grip of the irons.’ For a truth,
maman, it makes my heart bleed when Mathilde tells me of how Pierre
endured that dreadful journey to Guadaloupa, of how he was beaten
and abused by the master to whom he was sold, and how it was he who
planned the escape of the party of which she became one. Poor Mathilde,
her sufferings were great, but his were greater.”
“And she adores Pierre in consequence, of course,” said Mère Michelle,
with a grimness unusual to her.
“Yes, as I adore Gerard,” replied Alaine, demurely. “Companions in
misery, Pierre and Mathilde, Gerard and I. But dear maman, we suffered
little, for it was the good God who gave us you and Papa Louis to
lessen our difficulties, and we, though refugees, were never slaves.”
“Since you adore Gerard,” remarked Michelle, “it would be well if you
were to pluck me a leaf or two from the garden to season his dinner.”
Alaine needed no second bidding. Down between the rows of garden
vegetables she went. If there was anything in which the Huguenots
excelled it was in their cultivation of fruit and flowers, and their
gardens were miracles of luxuriant growth. Soft-hued peaches sunned
their sides on southern slopes, grape-vines showed here and there a
purple cluster, for among his greatest treasures carefully brought
from the mother country the refugee considered his slips of vines as
among the first. Seeds, too, brought from France and carefully tended,
brought a harvest of bloom along garden-beds to cheer with their
brilliant colors the homesick emigrants. To these Huguenot refugees,
more than to any other element, is due the establishing of nurseries
and floriculture in America.
Stopping to pick a leaf here, a sprig there, Alaine bent over the
garden-beds. From the fields adjoining came the song of the workers.
The girl paused a moment to listen, and then ran back to the house
to help serve the dinner on broad wooden trenchers, to assist in the
clearing away, and then to make ready for her visit to Mathilde.
The girlish figure appeared before Michelle quite differently attired;
a half-shamed look was on Alaine’s sweet face.
“Voilà!” cried Michelle; “she appears as if for a fête in her silk
gown, her Lyons silk, of which she has but two remaining. Perhaps she
is bidden by the red men to their cider fête, is it so, then? And a
charming figure to be in the midst of howling savages scantily clothed
and not too clean. For why is this on a week-day, and no feast at all
that good Christians should attend? Ah-h!” she spread her fingers and
shrugged her shoulders, “it is for M. Pierre, I doubt not.”
The tears started to Alaine’s eyes. “Mère Michelle,” she said, “you do
me wrong all the time of late. You have forgotten, though I have not,
that this is my dear father’s fête-day, and I go to Bonnefoy’s Point
with those who do not lose their memory of France; there with them I
pray and send my psalm of longing across the sea. It is all that I can
do to show my father honor, this, to wear my best.”
Michelle dropped on a chair and covered her face with her apron.
“Reproach me; that will be right, my poor fatherless one. I do you
wrong, I who should cherish you and defend you from unkindness and
suspicion. I am to-day, as one would say, at odds with myself. Petite
émigrée, pauvrette, fifille, I am a stupide. I ought to have seen why
your eyes have all day been triste and your mouth so wistful. It is not
the kisses of a husband for which you sigh, but for those of a father.
Go, then, star of my life, and I will add my prayers to yours.”
Alaine, overcome at this humility, embraced her and called her dear
mamma and her always beloved Michelle, and then she turned to go. From
under her little cap her soft brown hair peeped, her high-heeled shoes
with their silver buckles clicked as she walked across the floor, and
her gown swished softly against the sides of the door as she passed
out. It was no peasant girl, but the daughter of one well-born, who
appeared that day on the street of New Rochelle. She walked quickly
toward a solid-looking new house and knocked at the door. “Enter,” came
the word, and almost at the same moment Mathilde appeared.
“I knew it was yourself, my Alaine,” she cried. “I am ready this
quarter-hour. All are gone; Pierre and my uncle to the fields, my aunt
to the poor young wife of Jean de Caux; she has hoped and feared till
now the fear is swallowed up in grief, for she has news that her
husband died on the voyage from France. Wait here till I again assure
myself that all is well.”
Alaine stood waiting for her before the fireplace, which was adorned
with tiles showing forth the history of the prodigal son, the lost
piece of silver, and other Scriptural incidents. She was absorbed in
contemplation of the raising of Lazarus when Mathilde returned.
“All is well,” she announced, briskly. “Come, I saw Papa Renaud go by
but this instant. The poor old one, he has never missed a day in going
to the spot where he landed, to turn his eyes toward his beloved France
and to lift up his voice in prayer and song. He is smitten with a great
home-sickness, is Papa Renaud. But me, I never wish to see France
again; it holds too many graves. Ciel! when I think of how many of
them, I am affrighted by the number.”
Alaine laid a caressing hand on her shoulder. “I do not wonder, my poor
Mathilde; one who alone of all her family is left must feel so. As for
me, I know not, and so I still long for France if it contain my father.
Hark! Papa Renaud begins his psalm.” They walked soberly to the spot
where, with head uncovered, stood the old man, his arms outstretched,
and his quavering voice chanting,--
“Estans assis aux rives aquatiques
De Babylon, plorions melancholiques.”
Mathilde and Alaine joined in softly, and then kneeling down, with wet
eyes, Alaine sent up a prayer for her father.
She knelt so long that Mathilde at last touched her on the shoulder. “I
must go now,” she said.
Alaine arose. “Leave me a little, then; I wish to stay longer.”
Mathilde turned and left her, and for a long time the girl knelt with
clasped hands, her eyes fixed upon the blue waters of the sound. So
long was her gaze turned in one direction that she did not see that at
last she was left quite alone by her friends and that a pair of crafty
eyes were watching her. The sound of the psalm-singing had given place
to the distant noise of the Indians in their frolic; the rise and fall
of a monotonous chant; howlings and whoopings.
“Ah, my father,” sighed the girl at last, “if you be on earth may
the good God bring you safe to me.” She arose to her feet, and with
downcast head she descended to where a cave in the rocks showed the
remains of charred wood. Here the arriving Huguenots, upon landing, had
built their first fire. The place was held as common property, and the
mood that caused Alaine to take a mournful pleasure in gazing at all
which could in any way remind her of her friends, her faith, her lost
France, made her linger here.
Suddenly stealthy footsteps crept up behind her; a pair of sinewy arms
seized her; a hand was clapped over her mouth, and before she could
scream or struggle she was carried around a point of rocks and placed
in a canoe, which was quickly pushed out upon the dancing waters of
the sound. In vain she tried to make some signal to those on shore.
Only the dancing, yelling Indians could see the little craft with one
of their own number guiding it through the water. Friendly though they
might be, this was their cider frolic, and even if they had been aware
of the deed, they would have been in no state to render assistance.
Alaine had passed through too many trying scenes to weakly give up to
tears. She lay very still in the bottom of the canoe, her large eyes
fixed on the Indian’s face. After a short time he loosened the thongs
with which he had bound her and said, “Little squaw not be afraid.”
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, sitting up. He gave a grunt and
shook his head. That question was not to be answered.
“Estans assis aux rives aquatiques,” she began to sing shrilly.
Her captor frowned and bade her hush. “No sing.” What could she do?
Where was he taking her? She cudgelled her brains for a reason for this
sudden act, for this seizure of her innocent self, but could decide
upon no cause for it.
On, on, the little canoe sped. The dense forests grew deeper and darker
as the light waned. Alaine with eyes strained for sight of a passing
boat scarcely moved, but as the sun began to sink and to redden the
water she shivered. Night was coming, and what would it bring her? Her
thoughts travelled to her humble home in the village. Now Gerard and
Papa Louis were coming in from the field; now Michelle was milking;
now they were making ready for supper, a salad, an omelette, maybe.
They would miss her; they would fear that she might be drowned, or that
something dreadful had happened. Something dreadful? It had happened.
The light and rosy clouds were turning to gray when the boat at last
touched shore. All was as silent as death. The great sombre pines
beyond the sands loomed up grimly against the sky; a sea-bird once in a
while dipped its wing into the waves, then, with a cry, circled aloft.
The girl crouching in the canoe did not attempt to move even when the
Indian drew the boat high off the sands. He waited for a moment, then
put a hand on her shoulder with the word, “Come.” She obediently arose,
and he helped her out upon dry land. Then seizing her wrist, he strode
up the beach toward the woods, which he entered by a narrow path.
Beyond, a faint glimmer of light showed that a clearing existed not far
off.
Alaine gave a little cry as, issuing from the dimness of the forest,
she saw before her a substantial house, from the windows of which
flickering lights were already beginning to twinkle. What was this, and
who lived here? For a moment a sense of relief stole over her. This was
no Indian camp, but the home of white people; all the surroundings
indicated it. The evening breeze fluttered the vine-leaves over the
small porch. Across this small porch the patient prisoner was led, and
before a door the Indian paused for a moment. “Warraquid has come,”
announced he.
The door flew open and out stepped, gay and debonair, François Dupont.
“Good-evening, Mademoiselle Hervieu,” he said, with a splendid bow,
“I trust I see you well. Your little trip has in no way given you
discomfort, I hope. So fine an evening as this it should be delightful
upon the water. Permit me.” He extended his hand, but she proudly
preceded him into the room, the door of which he held open for her.
It was a pathetic little figure which stood before the half-dozen men
assembled in the great room; her black silk gown was stained by mud and
torn by briers, and her little high-heeled shoes were scratched and
rubbed by rough stones, but the pale face, usually so sweetly piquant,
held a look of noble resolve, though the shadows under the dark eyes
bespoke anxiety.
“This, gentlemen,” announced M. Dupont, “is Mademoiselle Hervieu, whose
presence here is not so much a compliment to us as we could wish, since
she was not aware of her destination.” The gentlemen, who had arisen
when the girl entered, now bowed low, and one advanced to lead her to a
seat.
“Though you visit us perforce, mademoiselle,” said this gentleman, “we
trust your stay will not need be made a disagreeable one. You have but
to answer a few questions and you will be safely returned to your own
home.”
“And if I cannot answer them.”
“If you will not M. Dupont will tell you the alternative, which,
after all, is not so unpleasant a one, or should not be to a young
and charming lady. First, then, you are well acquainted with Pierre
Boutillier, Louis Mercier, and----”
Alaine turned swiftly. “I demand to know the alternative before I
answer these questions.” She faced M. Dupont imperiously. “It is true
that I am here by no choice of my own, and my lips are sealed unless I
know some good reason why I should speak. Whatever is just and right I
will answer, but nothing else.”
Her interrogator nodded in the direction of M. Dupont, who said, “By
your favor, mademoiselle, we will discuss this in private, and to spare
you the situation let me lead you to the other room.” Again Alaine by a
gesture refused his escort, and walked out with head carried high. In
the hall she paused uncertainly, but M. Dupont, with a quick movement,
opened a door on the opposite side and ushered her into a room sweet
with newly gathered flowers, and silent but for the steady tick of an
old Dutch clock which hung against the wall.
The door shut, Alaine again demanded, “The alternative.”
“So short you are, fair mademoiselle; then short must I be. An’ you
answer not these questions you will be sent to Canada, placed in a
nunnery there till your cousin Étienne comes to claim you.”
“And if I refuse him.”
“You remain in the nunnery.”
Alaine pondered the situation gravely. “But why? What good are these
questions? Alas! why do they distress a forlorn maid so sorely for the
sake of such scant information as she can give?”
“Because--it is for France. Do you not love France, Alaine Hervieu, the
dear place of your birth?”
She was silent a moment, then she said, slowly, “I love France.”
“It is for France you will do this; not for faith, nor for freedom,
nor for favor, but for France. She is at war with England, and for
her honor, her glory, we would know how stands this colony of Yorke.
You know as well any other--you are not wanting in wit and wisdom and
experience--that disaffection is at work in the colony; that Leisler
holds the fort; that Nicholas Bayard and Phillipse and Van Cortlandt
are his enemies; at such a time, when all is confusion and there is no
unity at home, it is the time for a blow to be struck from the outside.
Think of this as a French colony, of the peace and content and glory
for those you love, for you do love them still, those in your old home.
Think of being reunited to your father, when he shall occupy a place
of honor in this new country. No longer a peasant, you; no longer
associating with servants, but lady of your own manor, an honored wife,
a happy daughter. You will do this for France and for your father?” He
spoke with rapid intensity, his brilliant black eyes fixed on her face.
Alaine listened with parted lips. “My father!” she cried. “Where is he?
Does he live?”
“He lives. I can tell you no more. It is not so much you are asked to
do. No one will be the wiser; no one worse off than before.”
The girl’s heart beat fast; her hands trembled. “Take me back. I will
answer as I can, monsieur, as my conscience approves.” This time she
did not refuse the hand which led her through the hall back to the room
where the others awaited her. She approached with steady step the table
by which her questioner stood. “I am ready,” she said.
“You are well acquainted with Louis Mercier, with Gerard Mercier, his
reputed son; with Pierre Boutillier, the reputed nephew of M. Thauvet?”
The question was put without preliminary.
“I know them,” Alaine answered, without hesitation.
“They are friends and are upholders of Jacob Leisler?”
“Yes.”
“They are refugees from France, and have interested themselves in
raising soldiers for the defence of New York?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever heard them say how many were with Leisler in the fort?”
Alaine was silent.
“Or in what condition are the fortifications?”
“No.”
“They are working upon them, so M. Dupont has already told us; so that
may pass. We must ask of you but one more thing. Write at our dictation
the following words: ‘I have been carried away by the Indians, but am
now abandoned on the shore close to Long Point. Come to me as soon as
possible. I send this by one who refuses me escort.--Alaine.’”
She looked from one to the other. What did this mean? The questions had
seemed trivial and out of proportion to the deed of kidnapping her. She
was suspicious, but even her alert mind could see no danger in sending
the message which was to restore her to her friends, and she acquiesced
without a word of protest.
“Three separate notes, if you please. Address them to Louis Mercier, to
Gerard Mercier, to Pierre Boutillier,” came the request. Alaine did as
they bade her, and a nod of satisfaction followed the courteous thanks
she received. “To-morrow evening you will be free,” she was told.
“François, summon some one to wait upon mademoiselle to her room.” And
presently appeared an old woman, French and Indian half-breed, who
silently conducted the girl to an upper chamber, locked the door upon
her and left her alone.
The room was comfortably furnished; there was no lack of order anywhere
in the establishment, and Alaine wondered who had the ordering of it.
No discourtesy had been shown her, yet she felt distrustful and uneasy.
What did it mean? Had she unwittingly brought trouble upon those her
best protectors? Upon Papa Louis, under whose roof she dwelt, upon
Gerard her almost brother, upon Pierre who had already suffered so
much? She caught her breath as she thought of this. Oh, to gain her
freedom and warn them! She leaned far out the open window, but the
house built with projecting upper story, in the old fashion, gave no
means of escape in that direction. She drew back with a sigh. Night
and darkness, and howling wolves, and prowling Indians confronted her,
perils enough to make a stouter heart quake. Beyond these terrors, she
knew not where she was, nor the way home. There was nothing to do but
to submit to the inevitable.
With a woman’s heed to appearance she smoothed her gown, brushed from
it some of the stains and mud, tucked her soft brown locks under her
cap, and was standing looking ruefully at her scarred shoes, when the
door opened and the half-breed glided in. Alaine marked the greedy look
in the twinkling eyes as they fell upon the silver buckles on her shoes
and the chain about her neck, but the eyes shifted before the girl’s
look of inquiry, and the summons to supper reminded Alaine that she was
in reality very hungry.
She descended the stairs, at the foot of which stood François Dupont.
“I await you, mademoiselle. It is a pity that you must take your meal
with none but those of the stern sex, yet I trust your appetite is
good. If you would prefer you can have your supper served in your own
room. Let me thank you for what you have done for France.”
She smiled a little sadly. “I fear it was not so much for France as for
my own well liking. After we have eaten, monsieur, I would have further
speech with you.”
“To my pleasure; but before we join the others let me give you a word
of warning. For me, I am indifferent as to creeds, I am only for
France, France Protestant or France Catholic, but with these gentlemen
here it is different. I pray you speak not in disfavor of the Church.
They believe you--but I will not anticipate our discourse. Let me lead
you in.”
She gave him her hand and was led into the long dining-room, where a
plentiful meal was spread.