landed on the wharf of Montreal forty warriors and a very young girl.
The chief, leading the girl by the hand, stalked proudly westward along
the street, his feathers dancing, his muscular legs and moccasined feet
having the flying step of Mercury. His braves trod in line behind him.
“All Hurons,” remarked Jouaneaux to his crony, a lime-burner.
“And should be seeding their island of Orleans at this season,” said
the lime-burner, “if Quebec set them any example but to quarrel and
take to the woods.”
“That chief can be nobody but Annahotaha,” said Jouaneaux. “Now where
dost thou say he stole that brown beauty of a little Sister?”
“He stole her,” responded the lime-burner, “from a full-blooded French
girl below Three Rivers, that some Quebec Jesuit mixed up with him in
marriage. My cousin lives in the same côte, and little liking hath she
for this half-breed who scorns her mother’s people and calls herself a
princess.”
“Good hater art thou of Quebec Jesuits,” said Jouaneaux, spreading his
approving smile beyond dots of white teeth around large margins of
pink gums. “But Quebec Jesuits have done worse work than mixing the
blood of this princess. What a little Sister of St. Joseph she would
make!” he exclaimed, stretching his neck after the girl and disclosing
the healthy depths of his mouth.
“You never look at a woman but to take her measure for the Sisterhood
of St. Joseph,” laughed the lime-burner.
“And to what better life could she be measured?” demanded the nuns’
retainer, instantly aggressive, “or what better Sisterhood?”
“There be no better women,” yielded the lime-burner.
* * * * *
All night Sister Brésoles and Sister Macé in turns kneeled beside the
prostrate woman in the chapel. She was not disturbed by offers of food
or consolation, for they respected her posture and her vigil. The young
novices, of whom there were a few, had duties set for them elsewhere.
All night a taper burned upon the altar and a nun knelt by it, her
shadow wavering long and brown; and the woman’s body, with its arms
stretched out on the stones, stirred only at intervals when the hands
grasped and wrung each other in renewed prayer.
Before matins Sister Brésoles left her support of this afflicted spirit
to devote herself to the revival of the body, by concocting a broth
for which she is yet celebrated in Church annals on account of the
Divine assistance she received in its preparation. The very odor should
rouse Claire from her long fast and cause her to eat and rise, bearing
her burdens.
During Sister Brésoles’s absence another figure came in and bowed
before the altar.
Conscious of physical disturbance, Claire turned her vacant look
towards it, as she had done each time the nuns changed vigils.
This was no serene Sister of St. Joseph, but a dark young girl also
flattening herself on the pavement, and writhing about in rages of pain.
“My child, what ails _you_?” whispered Claire, compassion making alive
the depths of her eyes.
But the girl, without heeding her, ground a few prayers between
convulsive teeth, and then beat her head upon the stones.
By degrees the silence and self-restraint of a woman not greatly her
elder, lying in trouble as abject as her own, had its quieting effect
on her. Tears, scantily distilled in her, ran the length of her eyelid
rims and fell in occasional drops on the floor.
Their cheeks resting on a level, the two unhappy creatures looked at
each other across a stone flag.
“Has your father or your brother gone with Dollard?” whispered Claire.
“Madame, my father goes to fight the Iroquois.”
“I thought it.”
“Madame, I have just been making a vow.”
“So have I.”
“I will follow my father wherever he is going, come life or come death,
and nobody shall prevent me.”
Claire rose upon her knees.
Sister Brésoles opened the chapel door, carrying in a bowl of soup as
she would have carried it to a soldier whose wounds refused to allow
his being lifted.
The patient was in evident thanksgiving. Daylight had just begun to
glimmer in. Claire’s face shone with the passionate white triumph which
religious ascetics of that day looked forward to as the crowning result
of their vigils. Flushed with reactionary hope, she rose to her feet as
if the pavement had left no stiffness in her muscles, and met the nun.
“St. Joseph and all the Holy Family give you peace, mademoiselle.”
“Peace hath been granted me, Sister. My prayer is answered.”
“Great is the power of the Holy Family. But after your long vigil you
will need this strengthening broth which I have made for you.”
“Sister, you are kind. Let me take it to your refectory. I know the
place. And may this young girl attend me?”
“I will carry it myself, mademoiselle,” said Sister Judith, “to our
rude parlor, if you will follow me up the stairs. The refectory is
somewhat chilly, and in the parlor we have a fire kindled. And you may
bathe your face and hands before eating your soup.”
Up a stairway Claire groped behind the nun, and came into a barn-like
huge room, scant of comforts except an open fire, which Jouaneaux had
but finished preparing entirely for her. The cells of the nuns were
built along one side of this room, and from the cells they now emerged
going devoutly to matins.
“Touching the half-breed girl of whom you spoke,” said Sister Brésoles,
lingering to put a basin of water and coarse clean towel within reach
of her guest, “she shall come to you as soon as she hath finished her
morning devotions. Her father is chief of the Hurons, and hath placed
her here as a novice. We have many girls come,” added Sister Brésoles
with a light sigh, “but few remain to bear the hardships of life in a
frontier convent.”
“Girls are ungrateful creatures,” said Claire, “bent on their own
purposes, and greedy of what to them seems happiness. I am myself so.
And if I do or say what must offend you, forgive me, Sister.”
She unfastened her necklace and held it up--a slender rope braided of
three strings of seed pearls and fastened by a ruby.
“This is a red sapphire, Sister, and has been more than a hundred years
in the house of--”
She suppressed “Laval-Montmorency,” and pressed her necklace upon the
nun’s refusing palm.
“Why do you offer me this, mademoiselle?”
“Because from this day gems and I part company forever. That is the
only hereditary ornament I brought with me into New France. Enrich
some shrine with it if you have no need to turn it into money for your
convent.”
“Our convent is very poor, mademoiselle,” replied Sister Brésoles,
divided between acceptance and refusal. “But we want no rich gifts from
those who make their retirement with us. Also, the commandant, your
brother, left with us more value than our poor hospitality can return
to you.”
“Yet be intreated, Sister,” urged Claire. “I want it to be well placed,
but no more about my throat.”
Sister Brésoles, with gentle thanks, therefore,--“It shall still do
honor to your house in works of charity, mademoiselle,”--accepted the
gift and went directly to matins.
When Claire had washed her face and hands and tightened the loose puffs
of her hair, she took her bowl of soup and sat before the fire, eating
it with the hearty appetite of a woman risen from despair to resolution.
The odor of a convent, how natural it was to her!--that smell of
stale incense intertwined with the scentless breath of excessive
cleanliness. Through the poor joints of the house she could hear
matin-chanting arise from the chapel. Daylight grew stronger and
ruddier, and a light fog from the river showed opal changes.
On moccasined feet, and so deft of hand that Claire heard her neither
open nor close the door, the half-breed girl came to the hearth.
A brown and a white favor in woman beauty were then set in strong
contrast. Both girls were slenderly shaped, virginal and immature lines
still predominating. Claire was transparently clear of skin, her hair
was silken white like dandelion down, and the brown color of her eyes,
not deeply tinged with pigment, showed like shadow on water; while
the half-breed burned in rich pomegranate dyes, set in black and fawn
tints. They looked an instant at each other in different mood from
their first gaze across the flagstone.
“Your father is an Indian chief, the Sister tells me,” said Claire.
“My father is Étienne Annahotaha, chief of the Hurons.”
“And what is your name?”
“Massawippa.”
“Massawippa, the Virgin sent you into the chapel to answer my prayer.”
The half-breed, standing in young dignity, threw a dark-eyed
side-glance at this perfect lily of French civilization. She was not
yet prepared to be used as an answer to the prayers of any French woman.
“Did you know that an expedition started yesterday to the Ottawa
River?” inquired Claire.
Massawippa shook her head.
“But your father, also--he is going to fight the Iroquois?”
“I know not where they are, but I shall find out,” said Massawippa.
“I know,” said Claire. “The Iroquois are coming down the Ottawa.”
“From their winter trapping,” the girl assented with a nod.
“Your father, therefore, will follow Dollard’s expedition.”
“My father has but forty-three men,” Massawippa said gloomily.
“Child,” said Claire, “Dollard has only sixteen!”
“And, madame, the Iroquois are like leaves for number. But I did not
mean our Hurons are forty-three strong. Mituvemeg,[6] the Algonquin,
meets my father here.”
“Do you know this country? Have you lived much in the woods?”
“Yes, madame.”
“Have you ever been up the Ottawa River?”
“Yes, madame. The very last summer my father took me up the Ottawa
beyond Two Mountains Lake.”
“Two Mountains Lake?”
“Yes, madame; a widening of the river, just as Lake St. Louis is a
widening of the St. Lawrence.”
“Could we go up this river in a boat, you and I?”
Massawippa looked steadily at Claire, searching her for cowardice or
treachery. The Laval-Montmorency smiled back.
“Twenty-four hours, Massawippa, I lay on the chapel pavement, praying
the Virgin to send me guide or open some way for me to follow the
French expedition up that Ottawa River. You threw yourself beside
me and answered my prayer by your own vow. We are bound to the same
destination.”
The half-breed girl looked with actual solicitude at the tender white
beauty of her fellow-plotter.
“Madame, it will be very hard for you. You and I could not, in a boat,
pass the rapids of Ste. Anne at the head of this island; they test the
skill of our best Huron paddlers.”
“Can we then go by land?”
“We shall have to cross one arm of the Ottawa to the mainland. Montreal
is on an island, madame. Two or three leagues of travel would bring us
to that shore near the mouth of the Ottawa.”
Sister Macé, unobtrusive as dawn, opened the door and stole softly in
from matins, breaking up the conference. She called Massawippa to learn
how pallets must be aired and cells made tidy. The half-breed girl saw
all this care with contempt, having for years cast out of mind her bed
of leaves and blankets as soon as she arose from it.
Claire went with unpromising novice and easy teacher to breakfast in
the refectory, and afterwards by herself to confession--a confession
with its mental reservation as to her plans; but the rite was one
which her religion imposed upon her under the circumstances. She had
been even less candid towards the nuns in allowing them to receive and
address her as Dollard’s sister. The prostration of grief and reaction
of intense resolve benumbed her, indeed, to externals. But in that day
of pious deception, when the churchmen themselves were full of evasive
methods, a daughter of conventual training may have been less sensitive
to false appearances than women of Claire’s high nature bred in a later
age. She saw no more of Massawippa until nightfall, but lay in the cell
assigned to her, resting with shut eyes, and allowing no thought to
wander to the men paddling towards that lonely river.
All day the season grew; shower chased sun and sun dried shower, and
in the afternoon Jouaneaux told Sister Brésoles that he had weeded the
garden of a growth which would surprise her.
At dusk, however, he brought the usual small log up to the parlor, and
with it news which exceeded his tale of weeding.
Sister Brésoles was folding her tired hands in meditation there, and
Massawippa, sullen and lofty from her first day’s probation, curled on
the floor in a corner full of shadows.
“Honored Superior,” said Jouaneaux after placing his log, “who, say’st
thou, did boldly walk up to the governor to-day?”
“Perhaps yourself, Jouaneaux. You were ever bold enough.”
“I was there, honored Superior, about a little matter of garden seeds,
and I stood by and hearkened, as it behooved the garrison of a convent
to do; for there comes me in this chief of the Hurons, Annahotaha,
swelling like--”
Jouaneaux suppressed “cockerel about to crow.” His wandering glance
caught Massawippa sitting in her blanket. The Sisters of St. Joseph
were at that time too poor to furnish any distinguishing garments to
their novices; and so insecure were these recruits from the world that
any uniform would have been thrown away upon them. With the facility of
Frenchmen, Jouaneaux substituted,
--“like a mighty warrior, as he is known to be. And he asks the
governor, does Annahotaha, for a letter to Dollard; and before he
leaves the presence he gets his letter.”
Sister Brésoles raised a finger, being mindful of two pairs of
listening ears, and two souls just sinking to the peace of resignation.
“Honored Superior,” exclaimed Jouaneaux, in haste to set bulwarks
around his statement, “you may ask Father Dollier de Casson if this be
not so, for he had just landed from the river parishes, and was with
the governor. V’là,” said Jouaneaux, spreading an explanatory hand,
“if Annahotaha and his braves join Dollard without any parchment of
authority, what share will Dollard allow them in the enterprise? Being
a shrewd chief and a man of affairs, Annahotaha knew he must bear
commission.”
“Come down to the refectory and take thy supper and discharge thy news
there,” Sister Brésoles exclaimed, starting up and swiftly leaving the
room.
Jouaneaux obeyed her, keeping his punctilious foot far behind the soft
rush of her garments.
He dared not wink at the nun, even under cover of dusk and to add zest
to his further recital; but he winked at the wall separating him from
Massawippa and said slyly on the stairs:
“Afterwards, however, honored Superior, I heard the governor tell
Father de Casson that he wrote it down to Dollard to accept or refuse
Annahotaha, as he saw fit.”
As soon as the door was closed Claire came running out of her cell and
met Massawippa at the hearth, silently clapping her hands in swift
rapture as a humming-bird beats its wings.
“Now thou see’st how the Virgin answers prayer, Massawippa!”
The half-breed, sedately eager, said:
“We must cross the arm of the Ottawa and follow their course up that
river. Madame, I have troubled my mind much about a boat. For if we got
over the Ottawa arm and followed the right-hand shore, have you thought
how possible it is that they may fix their camp on the opposite side?”
“Can we not take a boat with us from Montreal?”
“And carry it two or three leagues across the country? For I cannot
paddle up the Ste. Anne[7] current. But if we could get one here it
would draw suspicion on us and we might be followed. I see but one way.
We must depend upon that walking woman above Carillon; and if she be
dead, and they camp on the other side, we must raft across the Ottawa.
But if we must first make a raft to cross at the mouth, how much time
will be lost!”
“Massawippa, we have vowed to follow this expedition, and with such
good hap as Heaven sends us we shall follow it. May we not start
to-morrow?”
“Madame, before we start there are things to prepare. We must eat on
the way.”
“What food shall we carry?”
“Bread and smoked eels would keep us alive. I can perhaps buy these
with my wampum girdle,” suggested Massawippa, who held the noble young
dame beside her to be as dowerless as a Huron princess, and thought it
no shame so to be.
“Why need you do that?” inquired Claire. “I have two or three gold
louis left of the few I brought from France.”
“Gold, madame! Gold is so scarce in this land we might attract too much
attention by paying for our supplies with it.”
“I have nothing else, so we must hazard it. And what must we take
beside food and raiment?”
“Madame, we cannot carry any garments.”
“But, Massawippa, I cannot go to Dollard all travel-stained and ragged!”
“If we find him, madame, he will not think of your dress. Is he wedded
to you?”
Claire’s head sunk down in replying.
“He is wedded to glory. Men care more for glory than they care for us,
Massawippa.”
“Madame,” said the younger, her mouth settling to wistfulness, “the
more they care for glory the more we love them. My father is great. If
he was a common Indian little could I honor him, whatever penance the
priest laid upon me.”
“Yes, Dollard is my husband. He is my Dollard,” said Claire.
“The nuns call you mademoiselle.”
“I have not told them.”
“They might see!” asserted Massawippa, slightingly. “Do women lie in
deadly anguish before the altar for brothers?” she demanded, speaking
as decidedly from her inexperience as any young person of a later
century, “or for detestable young men who wish to be accepted as
lovers?”
“Assuredly not,” said Claire, smiling.
“But fathers, they are a different matter. And in your case, madame,
husbands. We shall need other things besides bread and eels. For
example, two knives.”
“To cut our bread with?” inquired Claire.
“No; to cut our enemies with!” Massawippa replied, with preoccupied eye
which noted little the shudder of the European.
“O Massawippa! they may be engaged with the Iroquois even now. Dollard
has been gone two days.”
“Have no fear of that, madame. There will be no fighting until
Annahotaha reaches the expedition,” assumed the chief’s daughter with a
high air most laughable to her superior. And after keen meditation she
added: “We might start to-morrow daybreak if we but had our supplies
ready.”
“Massawippa,” exclaimed Claire, “how do you barter with merchants? Can
we not send for them and buy our provisions at once?”
“Madame, send for the merchants? You make me laugh! Very cautiously
will I have to slip from this place to that; and perhaps I cannot then
buy all we need, especially with gold louis. They may, however, think
coureurs de bois have come to town. And now at dusk is a better time
than in broad daylight.”
Claire went in haste to her casket, which stood in the nuns’ parlor,
and selected from it things which she might not have the chance of
removing later. These she put in her cell, and came back to Massawippa
with her hand freighted.
“How much, madame?” the half-breed inquired as pieces were turned with
a clink upon her own palm.
“All. Three louis.”
“Take one back, then. Two will be too many, though one might not be
enough. Madame, that Frenchman who feeds the nuns’ pigs and tends
this fire, he will let me out; and what I buy I will hide outside the
Hôtel-Dieu.”
XV.
THE WOOING OF JOUANEAUX.
IN consequence of Massawippa’s plan the Frenchman who fed the nuns’
pigs guarded in dolor his palisade gate at about 10 o’clock of the
evening.
The hospital had these bristling high pickets set all about its
premises as a defense against sudden attacks, and its faithful
retainer felt that he was courting its destruction in keeping its
bolts undone so late. There was, besides, the anticipative terror of
a nun’s stepping forth to demand of his hands the new novice. Cold
dew of suspense stood on his face; and he could only hope that Sister
Maillet, who usually had charge of the last novice, believed her to be
folded safely in her cell by Sister Brésoles, and that Sister Brésoles
believed her to be thus folded by Sister Maillet. When at last the cat
footsteps of Massawippa passed through the palisade gate she requited
his sufferings with scarce a nod of thanks, though she hesitated with
some show of interest to see him fasten both gate and convent door.
Indignation possessed him while he shot the bolts, and freed itself
through jerks of the head.
But instead of going to her cell, Massawippa entered the chapel; and
Jouaneaux, feeling himself still responsible for her, followed and
closed the door behind him.
A solitary light burned on the altar. The girl knelt a long time in her
devotions.
Jouaneaux knelt also, near the door, and after a pater and an ave it
may be supposed that he begged St. Joseph to intercede for a poor
sinner who felt beset and impelled to meddle with novices.
Having finished her prayers, Massawippa began to ascend the stairway to
the rood-loft.
“Where are you going?” whispered Jouaneaux, following her in wrath.
She turned around and held to the rail of the stair, while he stood at
the foot, she guarding her voice also in reply.
“I am going up here to sleep, lest I wake the Sisters. The floor is no
harder than their pallets, and the night is not cold.”
“And in the morning my honored Superior calls me to account for you.”
“No one has missed me. I shall be up early.”
“How do you know you are not missed? Some one may this moment open that
chapel door.”
“Go away and quit hissing at me then,” suggested Massawippa,
contracting her brows.
Jouaneaux, drawn by a power irresistible, fell into the error of vain
natures, and set himself to lecture the creator of his infatuation.
“I want to talk to you. I want to give you some good advice. Sit down
on that step,” he demanded.
Massawippa settled down, and rested her chin on her dark soft knuckles.
Sparks of amusement burned in the deeps of her eyes. Accustomed to
having men of inferior rank around her, she was satisfied that he kept
his distance and sat three steps below her, literally beneath her feet.
Her beaver gown cased her in rich creases.
Seeing her thus plastic, Jouaneaux’s severity ran off his cheeks in a
smile. He forgot her abuse of the privilege he had stolen for her. His
genial nose tilted up, and as overture to his good advice, showing all
his gums, he whispered:
“What a pretty little Sister of St. Joseph you will make!”
Massawippa stirred, and with her dull-red blanket arranged a rest for
her head against the balustrade.
“What do you think of me?” he inquired.
After reticent pause of a length to embarrass a modest questioner,
Massawippa admitted:
“You are not so black and oily as La Mouche.”
“Who is La Mouche?”
“He is my father’s adopted nephew.”
“Does he want to wed you?”
“He dare not name such a thing to me!”
“That is excellent,” commended Jouaneaux. “You have the true spirit of
a novice. You must never think of marriage with any man.” He gloated
upon her, his entire chest sighing.
The scandal of the situation, should any nun open the chapel door, was
a danger which made this interview the most delightful sin of his life.
But the two Sisters most given to vigils had watched all the previous
night, and he counted upon nature’s revenge to leave him unmolested.
The taper burned upon the altar, and there were the sacred images
keeping guard, chastening both speakers always to a reverent murmur
of the voice which rose no louder, and which to a devout ear at the
door might have suggested, in that period of miracles, some gentle
colloquy between the waxen St. Joseph and his waxen spouse. Massawippa,
childishly innocent, and Jouaneaux, nearly as innocent himself, would
scarcely be such objects of veneration, though their converse might
prove equally harmless.
“Is this the good advice you wished to give me?” inquired Massawippa.
“It is the beginning of it,” replied Jouaneaux.
“I do not intend to wed. There is no man fit to wed me,” said the
half-breed girl in high sincerity, leveling her gaze above his bright
poll.
“Look you here, now!” exclaimed the Frenchman. “I am good enough for
you, if I would marry you. For while your fathers were ranging the
woods, mine were decent tillers of the soil, keeping their skins white
and minding the priest. Where could you get a finer husband than I
would make you? But I shall never marry. The Queen of France would be
no temptation to me. There you sit, enough to turn the head of our
blessed St. Joseph, for you turned my head the moment I looked upon
you; but I don’t want you.”
“I will bid you good-night,” said Massawippa, drawing her blanket.