Sainte-Hélène drew his hand across them.
"It must be your firelight that is so red. I have been seeing as
through a glass of claret ever since I came in."
Gaspard moved farther into the corner, the stool legs scraping the
floor. Though every hair on his body crawled with superstition, he
could not suspect Le Moyne de Sainte-Hélène. Yet the familiar face
altered strangely while he looked at it: the nose sunk with sudden
emaciation, and the jaws lengthened to a gaunt muzzle. There was a
crouching forward of the shoulders, as if the man were about to drop
on his hands and feet. Gaspard had once fallen down unconscious in
haying time; and this recalled to him the breaking up and shimmering
apart of a solid landscape. The deep cleft mouth parted, lifting first
at the corners and showing teeth, then widening to the utterance of a
low howl.
Gaspard tumbled over the stool, and, seizing it by a leg, held it
between himself and Sainte-Hélène.
"What is the matter, Gaspard?" exclaimed the officer, clattering his
scabbard against the chair as he rose, his lace and plumes and ribbons
stirring anew. Many a woman in the province had not as fine and
sensitive a face as the one confronting the old habitant.
Gaspard stood back against the wall, holding the stool with its legs
bristling towards Sainte-Hélène. He shook from head to foot.
"Have I done anything to frighten you? What is the matter with me,
Gaspard, that people should treat me as they do? It is unbearable! I
take the hardest work, the most dangerous posts; and they are against
me--against me."
The soldier lifted his clenched fists, and turned his back on the old
man. The fire showed every curve of his magnificent stature. Wind,
diving into the chimney, strove against the sides for freedom, and
startled the silence with its hollow rumble.
"I forded the St. Charles when the tide was rising, to take you back
with me to the fort. I see you dread the New Englanders less than you
do me. She told her father she feared you were ill. But every one is
well," said Sainte-Hélène, lowering his arms and making for the door.
And it sounded like an accusation against the world.
He was scarcely outside in the wind, though still holding the door,
when Gaspard was ready to put up the bar.
"Good-night, old man."
"Good-night, monsieur, good-night, good-night!" called Gaspard, with
quavering dispatch. He pushed the door, but Sainte-Hélène looked
around its edge. Again the officer's face had changed, pinched by the
wind, and his eyes were full of mocking laughter.
"I will say this for a loup-garou, Father Gaspard: a loup-garou may
have a harder time in this world than the other beasts, but he is no
coward; he can make a good death."
Ashes spun out over the floor, and smoke rolled up around the joists,
as Sainte-Hélène shut himself into the darkness. Not satisfied with
barring the door, the old habitant pushed his chest against it. To
this he added the chair and stool, and barricaded it further with his
night's supply of firewood.
"Would I go over the ford of the St. Charles with him?" Gaspard
hoarsely whispered as he crossed himself. "If the New England men were
burning my house, I would not go. And how can a loup-garou get over
that water? The St. Charles is blessed; I am certain it is blessed.
Yet he talked about fording it like any Christian."
The old habitant was not clear in his mind what should be done, except
that it was no business of his to meddle with one of Frontenac's great
officers and a noble of New France. But as a measure of safety for
himself he took down his bottle of holy water, hanging on the wall for
emergencies, and sprinkled every part of his dwelling.
Next morning, however, when the misty autumn light was on the hills,
promising a clear day and penetrating sunshine, as soon as he awoke he
felt ashamed of the barricade, and climbed out of bed to remove it.
"The time has at last come when I am obliged to go to the fort,"
thought Gaspard, groaning. "Governor Frontenac will not permit any
sorcery in his presence. The New England men might do me no harm, but
I cannot again face a loup-garou."
He dressed himself accordingly, and, taking his gathered coin from its
hiding-place, wrapped every piece separately in a bit of rag, slid it
into his deep pocket, and sewed the pocket up. Then he cut off enough
bacon to toast on the raked-out coals for his breakfast, and hid
the rest under the floor. There was no fastening on the outside of
Gaspard's house. He was obliged to latch the door, and leave it at the
mercy of the enemy.
Nothing was stirring in the frosted world. He could not yet see
the citadel clearly, or the heights of Levis; but the ascent to
Montmorenci bristled with naked trees, and in the stillness he could
hear the roar of the falls. Gaspard ambled along his belt of ground
to take a last look. It was like a patchwork quilt: a square of wheat
stubble showed here, and a few yards of brown prostrate peavines
showed there; his hayfield was less than a stone's throw long; and
his garden beds, in triangles and sections of all shapes, filled the
interstices of more ambitious crops.
He had nearly reached the limit of the farm, and entered his neck of
woods, when the breathing of a cow trying to nip some comfort from the
frosty sod delighted his ear. The pretty milker was there, with her
calf at her side. Gaspard stroked and patted them. Though the New
Englanders should seize them for beef, he could not regret they were
wending home again. That invisible cord binding him to his own place,
which had wrenched his vitals as it stretched, now drew him back like
fate. He worked several hours to make his truants a concealing corral
of hay and stakes and straw and stumps at a place where a hill spring
threaded across his land, and then returned between his own boundaries
to the house again.
The homesick zest of one who has traveled made his lips and unshaven
chin protrude, as he smelled the good interior. There was the wooden
crane. There was his wife's old wheel. There was the sacred row of
children's snow-shoes, which the priest had spared from burning. One
really had to leave home to find out what home was.
But a great hubbub was beginning in Phips's fleet. Fifes were
screaming, drums were beating, and shouts were lifted and answered by
hearty voices. After their long deliberation, the New Englanders had
agreed upon some plan of attack. Gaspard went down to his landing, and
watched boatload follow boatload, until the river was swarming with
little craft pulling directly for Beauport. He looked uneasily toward
Quebec. The old lion in the citadel hardly waited for Phips to shift
position, but sent the first shot booming out to meet him. The New
England cannon answered, and soon Quebec height and Levis palisades
rumbled prodigious thunder, and the whole day was black with smoke and
streaked with fire.
Gaspard took his gun, and trotted along his farm to the cover of the
trees. He had learned to fight in the Indian fashion; and Le Moyne
de Sainte-Hélène fought the same way. Before the boatloads of New
Englanders had all waded through tidal mud, and ranged themselves
by companies on the bank, Sainte-Hélène, who had been dispatched by
Frontenac at the first drumbeat on the river, appeared, ready to
check them, from the woods of Beauport. He had, besides three hundred
sharpshooters, the Lorette Hurons and the muster of Beauport militia,
all men with homes to save.
The New Englanders charged them, a solid force, driving the
light-footed bush fighters. But it was like driving the wind, which
turns, and at some unexpected quarter is always ready for you again.
This long-range fighting went on until nightfall, when the English
commander, finding that his tormentors had disappeared as suddenly as
they had appeared in the morning, tried to draw his men together at
the St. Charles ford, where he expected some small vessels would
be sent to help him across. He made a night camp here, without any
provisions.
Gaspard's house was dark, like the deserted Beauport homes all that
night; yet one watching might have seen smoke issuing from his chimney
toward the stars. The weary New England men did not forage through
these places, nor seek shelter in them. It was impossible to know
where Indians and Frenchmen did not lie in ambush. On the other side
of the blankets which muffled Gaspard's windows, however, firelight
shone with its usual ruddiness, showing the seignior of Beauport
prostrate on his old tenant's bed. Juchereau de Saint-Denis was
wounded, and La Hontan, who was with the skirmishers, and Gaspard had
brought him in the dark down to the farmhouse as the nearest hospital.
Baron La Hontan was skillful in surgery; most men had need to be in
those days. He took the keys, and groped into the seigniory house for
the linen chest, and provided lint and bandages, and brought cordials
from the cellar; making his patient as comfortable as a wounded man
who was a veteran in years could be made in the first fever and thirst
of suffering. La Hontan knew the woods, and crept away before dawn to
a hidden bivouac of Hurons and militia; wiry and venturesome in his
age as he had been in his youth. But Saint-Denis lay helpless and
partially delirious in Gaspard's house all Thursday, while the
bombardment of Quebec made the earth tremble, and the New England
ships were being splintered by Frontenac's cannon; while Sainte-Hélène
and his brother themselves manned the two batteries of Lower Town,
aiming twenty-four-pound balls directly against the fleet; while they
cut the cross of St. George from the flagstaff of the admiral, and
Frenchmen above them in the citadel rent the sky with joy; while the
fleet, ship by ship, with shattered masts and leaking hulls, drew off
from the fight, some of them leaving cable and anchor, and drifting
almost in pieces; while the land force, discouraged, sick, and hungry,
waited for the promised help which never came.
Thursday night was so cold that the St. Charles was skimmed with ice,
and hoarfrost lay white on the fields. But Saint-Denis was in the fire
of fever, and Gaspard, slipping like a thief, continually brought him
fresh water from the spring.
He lay there on Friday, while the land force, refreshed by half
rations sent from the almost wrecked fleet, made a last stand,
fighting hotly as they were repulsed from New France. It was twilight
on Friday when Sainte-Hélène was carried into Gaspard's house and
laid on the floor. Gaspard felt emboldened to take the blankets from
a window and roll them up to place under the soldier's head. Many
Beauport people were even then returning to their homes. The land
force did not reëmbark until the next night, and the invaders did not
entirely withdraw for four days; but Quebec was already yielding up
its refugees. A disabled foe--though a brave and stubborn one--who had
his ships to repair, if he would not sink in them, was no longer to be
greatly dreaded.
At first the dusk room was packed with Hurons and Montreal men. This
young seignior Sainte-Hélène was one of the best leaders of his time.
They were indignant that the enemy's last scattering shots had picked
him off. The surgeon and La Hontan put all his followers out of the
door,--he was scarcely conscious that they stood by him,--and left,
beside his brother Longueuil, only one young man who had helped carry
him in.
Saint-Denis, on the bed, saw him with the swimming eyes of fever.
The seignior of Beauport had hoped to have Sainte-Hélène for his
son-in-law. His little Clementine, the child of his old age,--it was
after all a fortunate thing that she was shut for safety in Quebec,
while her father depended for care on Gaspard. Saint-Denis tried to
see Sainte-Hélène's face; but the surgeon's helpers constantly balked
him, stooping and rising and reaching for things. And presently a face
he was not expecting to see grew on the air before him.
Clementine's foot had always made a light click, like a sheep's on a
naked floor. But Saint-Denis did not hear her enter. She touched her
cheek to her father's. It was smooth and cold from the October air.
Clementine's hair hung in large pale ringlets; for she was an ashen
maid, gray-toned and subdued; the roughest wind never ruffled her
smoothness. She made her father know that she had come with Beauport
women and men from Quebec, as soon as any were allowed to leave the
fort, to escort her. She leaned against the bed, soft as a fleece,
yielding her head to her father's painful fondling. There was no
heroism in Clementine; but her snug domestic ways made him happy in
his house.
"Sainte-Hélène is wounded," observed Saint-Denis.
She cast a glance of fright over her shoulder.
"Did you not see him when you came in?"
"I saw some one; but it is to you that I have been wishing to come
since Wednesday night."
"I shall get well; they tell me it is not so bad with me. But how is
it with Sainte-Hélène?"
"I do not know, father."
"Where is young Saint-Castin? Ask him."
"He is helping the surgeon, father."
"Poor child, how she trembles! I would thou hadst stayed in the fort,
for these sights are unfit for women. New France can as ill spare him
as we can, Clementine. Was that his groan?"