Master Jean Le Nocher the sturdy ferryman's patience had been severely
tried for a few days back, passing the troops of habitans over the St.
Charles to the city of Quebec. Being on the King's corvée, they claimed
the privilege of all persons in the royal service: they travelled
toll-free, and paid Jean with a nod or a jest in place of the small coin
which that worthy used to exact on ordinary occasions.
This morning had begun auspiciously for Jean's temper however. A King's
officer, on a gray charger, had just crossed the ferry; and without
claiming the exemption from toll which was the right of all wearing the
King's uniform, the officer had paid Jean more than his fee in solid
coin and rode on his way, after a few kind words to the ferryman and a
polite salute to his wife Babet, who stood courtesying at the door of
their cottage.
“A noble gentleman that, and a real one!” exclaimed Jean, to his buxom,
pretty wife, “and as generous as a prince! See what he has given me.”
Jean flipped up a piece of silver admiringly, and then threw it into the
apron of Babet, which she spread out to catch it.
Babet rubbed the silver piece caressingly between her fingers and upon
her cheek. “It is easy to see that handsome officer is from the Castle,”
said Babet, “and not from the Palace--and so nice-looking he is too,
with such a sparkle in his eye and a pleasant smile on his mouth. He is
as good as he looks, or I am no judge of men.”
“And you are an excellent judge of men, I know, Babet,” he replied, “or
you would never have taken me!” Jean chuckled richly over his own
wit, which Babet nodded lively approval to. “Yes, I know a hawk from a
handsaw,” replied Babet, “and a woman who is as wise as that will never
mistake a gentleman, Jean! I have not seen a handsomer officer than that
in seven years!”
“He is a pretty fellow enough, I dare say, Babet; who can he be? He
rides like a field-marshal too, and that gray horse has ginger in his
heels!” remarked Jean, as the officer was riding at a rapid gallop up
the long, white road of Charlebourg. “He is going to Beaumanoir, belike,
to see the Royal Intendant, who has not returned yet from his hunting
party.”
“Whither they went three days ago, to enjoy themselves in the chase and
drink themselves blind in the Château while everybody else is summoned
to the city to work upon the walls!” replied Babet, scornfully. “I'll
be bound that officer has gone to order the gay gallants of the Friponne
back to the city to take their share of work with honest people.”
“Ah! the Friponne! The Friponne!” ejaculated Jean. “The foul fiend fly
away with the Friponne! My ferryboat is laden every day with the curses
of the habitans returning from the Friponne, where they cheat worse than
a Basque pedler, and without a grain of his politeness!”
The Friponne, as it was styled in popular parlance, was the immense
magazine established by the Grand Company of Traders in New France. It
claimed a monopoly in the purchase and sale of all imports and exports
in the Colony. Its privileges were based upon royal ordinances and
decrees of the Intendant, and its rights enforced in the most arbitrary
manner--and to the prejudice of every other mercantile interest in the
Colony. As a natural consequence it was cordially hated, and richly
deserved the maledictions which generally accompanied the mention of
the Friponne--the swindle--a rough and ready epithet which sufficiently
indicated the feeling of the people whom it at once cheated and
oppressed.
“They say, Jean,” continued Babet, her mind running in a very practical
and womanly way upon the price of commodities and good bargains, “they
say, Jean, that the Bourgeois Philibert will not give in like the other
merchants. He sets the Intendant at defiance, and continues to buy
and sell in his own comptoir as he has always done, in spite of the
Friponne.”
“Yes, Babet! that is what they say. But I would rather he stood in his
own shoes than I in them if he is to fight this Intendant--who is a
Tartar, they say.”
“Pshaw, Jean! you have less courage than a woman. All the women are on
the side of the good Bourgeois: he is an honest merchant--sells cheap,
and cheats nobody!” Babet looked down very complacently upon her new
gown, which had been purchased at a great bargain at the magazine of the
Bourgeois. She felt rather the more inclined to take this view of the
question inasmuch as Jean had grumbled, just a little--he would not do
more--at his wife's vanity in buying a gay dress of French fabric,
like a city dame, while all the women of the parish were wearing
homespun,--grogram, or linsey-woolsey,--whether at church or market.
Jean had not the heart to say another word to Babet about the French
gown. In truth, he thought she looked very pretty in it, better than
in grogram or in linsey-woolsey, although at double the cost. He only
winked knowingly at Babet, and went on to speaking of the Bourgeois.
“They say the King has long hands, but this Intendant has claws longer
than Satan. There will be trouble by and by at the Golden Dog--mark
that, Babet! It was only the other day the Intendant was conversing with
the Sieur Cadet as they crossed the ferry. They forgot me, or thought
I did not hear them; but I had my ears open, as I always have. I heard
something said, and I hope no harm, will come to the good Bourgeois,
that is all!”
“I don't know where Christian folk would deal if anything happened him,”
said Babet, reflectively. “We always get civility and good pennyworths
at the Golden Dog. Some of the lying cheats of the Friponne talked in my
hearing one day about his being a Huguenot. But how can that be, Jean,
when he gives the best weight and the longest measure of any merchant in
Quebec? Religion is a just yard wand, that is my belief, Jean!”
Jean rubbed his head with a perplexed air. “I do not know whether he
be a Huguenot, nor what a Huguenot is. The Curé one day said he was a
Jansenist on all fours, which I suppose is the same thing, Babet--and it
does not concern either you or me. But a merchant who is a gentleman
and kind to poor folk, and gives just measure and honest weight, speaks
truth and harms nobody, is Christian enough for me. A bishop could not
trade more honestly; and the word of the Bourgeois is as reliable as a
king's.”
“The Curé may call the Bourgeois what he likes,” replied Babet, “but
there is not another Christian in the city if the good Bourgeois be not
one; and next the Church there is not a house in Quebec better known or
better liked by all the habitans, than the Golden Dog; and such bargains
too, as one gets there!”
“Ay, Babet! a good bargain settles many a knotty point with a woman.”
“And with a man too, if he is wise enough to let his wife do his
marketing, as you do, Jean! But whom have we here?” Babet set her arms
akimbo and gazed.
A number of hardy fellows came down towards the ferry to seek a passage.
“They are honest habitans of St. Anne,” replied Jean. “I know them; they
too are on the King's corvée, and travel free, every man of them! So
I must cry Vive le Roi! and pass them over to the city. It is like a
holiday when one works for nothing!”
Jean stepped nimbly into his boat, followed by the rough country
fellows, who amused themselves by joking at Jean Le Nocher's increasing
trade and the need of putting on an extra boat these stirring times.
Jean put a good face upon it, laughed, and retorted their quips, and
plying his oars, stoutly performed his part in the King's corvée by
safely landing them on the other shore.
Meantime the officer who had lately crossed the ferry rode rapidly up
the long, straight highway that led up on the side of the mountain to
a cluster of white cottages and an old church, surmounted by a belfry
whose sweet bells were ringing melodiously in the fresh air of the
morning.
The sun was pouring a flood of golden light over the landscape. The
still glittering dewdrops hung upon the trees, shrubs, and long points
of grass by the wayside. All were dressed with jewels to greet the
rising king of day.
The wide, open fields of meadow, and corn-fields, ripening for harvest,
stretched far away, unbroken by hedge or fence. Slight ditches or banks
of turf, covered with nests of violets, ferns, and wild flowers of every
hue, separated contiguous fields. No other division seemed necessary in
the mutual good neighborhood that prevailed among the colonists, whose
fashion of agriculture had been brought, with many hardy virtues, from
the old plains of Normandy.
White-walled, red-roofed cottages, or more substantial farmhouses, stood
conspicuously in the green fields, or peered out of embowering orchards.
Their casements were open to catch the balmy air, while in not a few the
sound of clattering hoofs on the hard road drew fair faces to the window
or door, to look inquisitively after the officer wearing the white plume
in his military chapeau, as he dashed by on the gallant gray.
Those who caught sight of him saw a man worth seeing--tall,
deep-chested, and erect. His Norman features, without being perfect,
were handsome and manly. Steel-blue eyes, solidly set under a broad
forehead, looked out searchingly yet kindly, while his well-formed chin
and firm lips gave an air of resolution to his whole look that accorded
perfectly with the brave, loyal character of Colonel Philibert. He wore
the royal uniform. His auburn hair he wore tied with a black ribbon. His
good taste discarded perukes and powder, although very much in fashion
in those days.
It was long since he had travelled on the highway of Charlebourg, and he
thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of the road he traversed. But behind
him, as he knew, lay a magnificent spectacle, the sight of the great
promontory of Quebec, crowned with its glorious fortifications and
replete with the proudest memories of North America. More than once the
young soldier turned his steed, and halted a moment or two to survey
the scene with enthusiastic admiration. It was his native city, and the
thought that it was threatened by the national enemy roused, like an
insult offered to the mother that bore him. He rode onward, more than
ever impatient of delay, and not till he passed a cluster of elm trees
which reminded him of an adventure of his youth, did the sudden heat
pass away, caused by the thought of the threatened invasion.
Under these trees he remembered that he and his school companion, Le
Gardeur de Repentigny, had once taken refuge during a violent storm.
The tree they stood under was shattered by a thunderbolt. They were both
stunned for a few minutes, and knew they had had a narrow escape from
death. Neither of them ever forgot it.
A train of thoughts never long absent from the mind of Philibert started
up vividly at the sight of these trees. His memory flew back to Le
Gardeur and the Manor House of Tilly, and the fair young girl who
captivated his boyish fancy and filled his youth with dreams of glorious
achievements to win her smiles and do her honor. Among a thousand
pictures of her hung up in his mind and secretly worshipped he loved
that which presented her likeness on that day when he saved her
brother's life and she kissed him in a passion of joy and gratitude,
vowing she would pray for him to the end of her life.
The imagination of Pierre Philibert had revelled in the romantic visions
that haunt every boy destined to prominence, visions kindled by the eye
of woman and the hope of love.
The world is ruled by such dreams, dreams of impassioned hearts, and
improvisations of warm lips, not by cold words linked in chains of iron
sequence,--by love, not by logic. The heart with its passions, not the
understanding with its reasoning, sways, in the long run, the actions of
mankind.
Pierre Philibert possessed that rich gift of nature, a creative
imagination, in addition to the solid judgment of a man of
sense, schooled by experience and used to the considerations and
responsibilities of weighty affairs.
His love for Amélie de Repentigny had grown in secret. Its roots
reached down to the very depths of his being. It mingled, consciously or
unconsciously, with all his motives and plans of life, and yet his hopes
were not sanguine. Years of absence, he remembered, work forgetfulness.
New ties and associations might have wiped out the memory of him in the
mind of a young girl fresh to society and its delights. He experienced a
disappointment in not finding her in the city upon his return a few days
ago, and the state of the Colony and the stress of military duty had
so far prevented his renewing his acquaintance with the Manor House of
Tilly.
The old-fashioned hostelry of the Couronne de France, with its
high-pitched roof, pointed gables, and broad gallery, stood directly
opposite the rustic church and tall belfry of Charlebourg, not as a
rival, but as a sort of adjunct to the sacred edifice. The sign of the
crown, bright with gilding, swung from the low, projecting arm of a
maple-tree, thick with shade and rustling with the beautiful leaves
of the emblem of Canada. A few rustic seats under the cool maple were
usually occupied, toward the close of the day, or about the ringing of
the Angelus, by a little gathering of parishioners from the village,
talking over the news of the day, the progress of the war, the
ordinances of the Intendant, or the exactions of the Friponne.
On Sundays, after Mass and Vespers, the habitans of all parts of
the extended parish naturally met and talked over the affairs of the
Fabrique--the value of tithes for the year, the abundance of Easter
eggs, and the weight of the first salmon of the season, which was always
presented to the Curé with the first-fruits of the field, to ensure the
blessing of plenty for the rest of the year.
The Reverend Curé frequently mingled in these discussions. Seated in
his accustomed armchair, under the shade of the maple in summer, and in
winter by the warm fireside, he defended, ex cathedra, the rights of
the Church, and good-humoredly decided all controversies. He found his
parishioners more amenable to good advice over a mug of Norman cider and
a pipe of native tobacco, under the sign of the Crown of France, than
when he lectured them in his best and most learned style from the
pulpit.
This morning, however, all was very quiet round the old inn. The birds
were singing, and the bees humming in the pleasant sunshine. The house
looked clean and tidy, and no one was to be seen except three persons
bending over a table, with their heads close together, deeply absorbed
in whatever business they were engaged in. Two of these persons were
Dame Bédard, the sharp landlady of the Crown of France, and her no less
sharp and pretty daughter, Zoë. The third person of the trio was an old,
alert-looking little man, writing at the table as if for very life.
He wore a tattered black robe, shortened at the knees to facilitate
walking, a frizzled wig, looking as if it had been dressed with a
currycomb, a pair of black breeches, well-patched with various colors;
and gamaches of brown leather, such as the habitans wore, completed his
odd attire, and formed the professional costume of Master Pothier
dit Robin, the travelling notary, one of that not unuseful order of
itinerants of the law which flourished under the old régime in New
France.
Upon the table near him stood a black bottle, an empty trencher, and a
thick scatter of crumbs, showing that the old notary had despatched a
hearty breakfast before commencing his present work of the pen.
A hairy knapsack lay open upon the table near his elbow, disclosing some
bundles of dirty papers tied up with red tape, a tattered volume or two
of the “Coutume de Paris,” and little more than the covers of an odd
tome of Pothier, his great namesake and prime authority in the law. Some
linen, dirty and ragged as his law papers, was crammed into his knapsack
with them. But that was neither here nor there in the estimation of
the habitans, so long as his law smelt strong in the nostrils of
their opponents in litigation. They rather prided themselves upon the
roughness of their travelling notary.
The reputation of Master Pothier dit Robin was, of course, very great
among the habitans, as he travelled from parish to parish and from
seigniory to seigniory, drawing bills and hypothecations, marriage
contracts and last wills and testaments, for the peasantry, who had
a genuine Norman predilection for law and chicanery, and a respect
amounting to veneration for written documents, red tape, and
sealing-wax. Master Pothier's acuteness in picking holes in the actes of
a rival notary was only surpassed by the elaborate intricacy of his own,
which he boasted, not without reason, would puzzle the Parliament of
Paris, and confound the ingenuity of the sharpest advocates of Rouen.
Master Pothier's actes were as full of embryo disputes as a fig is full
of seeds, and usually kept all parties in hot water and litigation
for the rest of their days. If he did happen now and then to settle a
dispute between neighbors, he made ample amends for it by setting half
the rest of the parish by the ears.
Master Pothier's nose, sharp and fiery as if dipped in red ink, almost
touched the sheet of paper on the table before him, as he wrote down
from the dictation of Dame Bédard the articles of a marriage contract
between her pretty daughter, Zoë, and Antoine La Chance, the son of a
comfortable but keen widow of Beauport.
Dame Bédard had shrewdly availed herself of the presence of Master
Pothier, and in payment of a night's lodging at the Crown of France, to
have him write out the contract of marriage in the absence of Dame
La Chance, the mother of Antoine, who would, of course, object to the
insertion of certain conditions in the contract which Dame Bédard was
quite determined upon as the price of Zoë's hand and fortune.
“There! Dame Bédard!” cried Master Pothier, sticking the pen behind his
ear, after a magnificent flourish at the last word, “there is a marriage
contract fit to espouse King Solomon to the Queen of Sheba! A dowry of
a hundred livres tournoises, two cows, and a feather bed, bedstead, and
chest of linen! A donation entre vifs!”
“A what? Master Pothier, now mind! are you sure that is the right word
of the grimoire?” cried Dame Bédard, instinctively perceiving that here
lay the very point of the contract. “You know I only give on condition,
Master Pothier.”
“Oh, yes! trust me, Dame Bédard. I have made it a donation entre vifs,
révocable pour cause d'ingratitude, if your future son-in-law, Antoine
la Chance, should fail in his duty to you and to Zoë.”
“And he won't do his duty to Zoë, unless he does it to me, Master
Pothier. But are you sure it is strong enough? Will it hold Dame La
Chance by the foot, so that she cannot revoke her gifts although I may
revoke mine?”
“Hold Dame La Chance by the foot? It will hold her as fast as a
snapping-turtle does a frog. In proof of it, see what Ricard says, page
970; here is the book.” Master Pothier opened his tattered volume, and
held it up to the dame. She shook her head.
“Thanks, I have mislaid my glasses. Do you read, please!”
“Most cheerfully, good dame! A notary must have eyes for everybody--eyes
like a cat's, to see in the dark, and power to draw them in like a
turtle, so that he may see nothing that he does not want to see.”
“Oh, bless the eyes of the notary!” Dame Bédard grew impatient. “Tell me
what the book says about gifts revocable--that is what concerns me and
Zoë.”
“Well, here it is, dame: 'Donations stipulated revocable at the pleasure
of the donor are null. But this condition does not apply to donations by
contract of marriage.' Bourdon also says--”
“A fig for Bourdon, and all such drones! I want my gift made revocable,
and Dame La Chance's not! I know by long experience with my dear feu
Bédard how necessary it is to hold the reins tight over the men.
Antoine is a good boy, but he will be all the better for a careful
mother-in-law's supervision.”
Master Pothier rubbed the top of his wig with his forefinger.
“Are you sure, dame, that Antoine La Chance will wear the bridle
easily?”
“Assuredly! I should like to see son-in-law of mine who would not!
Besides, Antoine is in the humor just now to refuse nothing for sake of
Zoë. Have you mentioned the children, Master Pothier? I do not intend to
let Dame La Chance control the children any more than Zoë and Antoine.”
“I have made you tutrice perpetuelle, as we say in the court, and here
it is,” said he, placing the tip of his finger on a certain line in the
document.
Zoë looked down and blushed to her finger-ends. She presently rallied,
and said with some spirit,--“Never mind them, Master Pothier! Don't put
them in the contract! Let Antoine have something to say about them. He
would take me without a dower, I know, and time enough to remind him
about children when they come.”
“Take you without dower! Zoë Bédard! you must be mad!” exclaimed the
dame, in great heat. “No girl in New France can marry without a dower,
if it be only a pot and a bedstead! You forget, too, that the dower is
given, not so much for you, as to keep up the credit of the family. As
well be married without a ring! Without a dower, indeed!”
“Or without a contract written by a notary, signed, sealed, and
delivered!” chimed in Master Pothier.
“Yes, Master Pothier, and I have promised Zoë a three-days wedding,
which will make her the envy of all the parish of Charlebourg. The
seigneur has consented to give her away in place of her poor defunct
father; and when he does that he is sure to stand godfather for all the
children, with a present for every one of them! I shall invite you too,
Master Pothier!”
Zoë affected not to hear her mother's remark, although she knew it all
by heart, for it had been dinned into her ears twenty times a day for
weeks, and sooth to say, she liked to hear it, and fully appreciated the
honors to come from the patronage of the seigneur.
Master Pothier pricked up his ears till they fairly raised his wig, at
the prospect of a three days wedding at the Crown of France. He began
an elaborate reply, when a horse's tramp broke in upon them and Colonel
Philibert wheeled up to the door of the hostelry.
Master Pothier, seeing an officer in the King's uniform, rose on the
instant and saluted him with a profound bow, while Dame Bédard and Zoë,
standing side by side, dropped their lowest courtesy to the handsome
gentleman, as, with woman's glance, they saw in a moment he was.
Philibert returned their salute courteously, as he halted his horse in
front of Dame Bédard. “Madame!” said he, “I thought I knew all roads
about Charlebourg, but I have either forgotten or they have changed the
road through the forest to Beaumanoir. It is surely altered from what it
was.”
“Your Honor is right,” answered Dame Bédard, “the Intendant has opened
a new road through the forest.” Zoë took the opportunity, while the
officer looked at her mother, to examine his features, dress, and
equipments, from head to foot, and thought him the handsomest officer
she had ever seen.
“I thought it must be so,” replied Philibert; “you are the landlady of
the Crown of France, I presume?” Dame Bédard carried it on her face as
plainly marked as the royal emblem on the sign over her head.
“Yes, your Honor, I am Widow Bédard, at your service, and, I hope, keep
as good a hostelry as your Honor will find in the Colony. Will your
Honor alight and take a cup of wine, such as I keep for guests of
quality?”
“Thanks, Madame Bédard, I am in haste: I must find the way to
Beaumanoir. Can you not furnish me a guide, for I like not to lose time
by missing my way?”
“A guide, sir! The men are all in the city on the King's corvée; Zoë
could show you the way easily enough.” Zoë twitched her mother's
arm nervously, as a hint not to say too much. She felt flattered and
fluttered too, at the thought of guiding the strange, handsome gentleman
through the forest, and already the question shot through her fancy,
“What might come of it? Such things have happened in stories!” Poor Zoë!
she was for a few seconds unfaithful to the memory of Antoine La Chance.
But Dame Bédard settled all surmises by turning to Master Pothier, who
stood stiff and upright as became a limb of the law. “Here is
Master Pothier, your Honor, who knows every highway and byway in ten
seigniories. He will guide your Honor to Beaumanoir.”
“As easy as take a fee or enter a process, your Honor,” remarked Master
Pothier, whose odd figure had several times drawn the criticizing eye of
Colonel Philibert.
“A fee! ah! you belong to the law, then, my good friend? I have known
many advocates--” but Philibert stopped; he was too good-natured to
finish his sentence.
“You never saw one like me, your Honor was going to say? True, you never
did. I am Master Pothier dit Robin, the poor travelling notary, at your
Honor's service, ready to draw you a bond, frame an acte of convention
matrimoniale, or write your last will and testament, with any notary in
New France. I can, moreover, guide your Honor to Beaumanoir as easy as
drink your health in a cup of Cognac.”
Philibert could not but smile at the travelling notary, and thinking to
himself, “too much Cognac at the end of that nose of yours, my friend!”
which, indeed, looked fiery as Bardolph's, with hardly a spot for a fly
to rest his foot upon without burning.
“But how will you go, friend?” asked Philibert, looking down at Master
Pothier's gamaches; “you don't look like a fast walker.”
“Oh, your Honor,” interrupted Dame Bédard, impatiently, for Zoë had
been twitching her hard to let her go. “Master Pothier can ride the old
sorrel nag that stands in the stable eating his head off for want of
hire. Of course your Honor will pay livery?”
“Why, certainly, Madame, and glad to do so! So Master Pothier make
haste, get the sorrel nag, and let us be off.”
“I will be back in the snap of a pen, or in the time Dame Bédard can
draw that cup of Cognac, your Honor.”
“Master Pothier is quite a personage, I see,” remarked Philibert, as the
old notary shuffled off to saddle the nag.
“Oh, quite, your Honor. He is the sharpest notary, they say, that
travels the road. When he gets people into law they never can get
out. He is so clever, everybody says! Why, he assures me that even the
Intendant consults him sometimes as they sit eating and drinking half
the night together in the buttery at the Château!”
“Really! I must be careful what I say,” replied Philibert, laughing, “or
I shall get into hot water! But here he comes.”
As he spoke, Master Pothier came up, mounted on a raw-boned nag, lank as
the remains of a twenty-years lawsuit. Zoë, at a hint from the Colonel,
handed him a cup of Cognac, which he quaffed without breathing, smacking
his lips emphatically after it. He called out to the landlady,--“Take
care of my knapsack, dame! You had better burn the house than lose my
papers! Adieu, Zoë! study over the marriage contract till I return, and
I shall be sure of a good dinner from your pretty hands.”
They set off at a round trot. Colonel Philibert, impatient to reach
Beaumanoir, spurred on for a while, hardly noticing the absurd figure
of his guide, whose legs stuck out like a pair of compasses beneath his
tattered gown, his shaking head threatening dislodgment to hat and wig,
while his elbows churned at every jolt, making play with the shuffling
gait of his spavined and wall-eyed nag.