FRIENDS IN COUNCIL
Montreal and Quebec, dear to the fortunes of such men as Iberville, were
as cheerful in the still iron winter as any city under any more cordial
sky then or now: men loved, hated, made and broke bargains, lied to
women, kept a foolish honour with each other, and did deeds of valour
for a song, as ever they did from the beginning of the world. Through
the stern soul of Nature ran the temperament of men who had hearts of
summer; and if, on a certain notable day in Iberville’s life, one
could have looked through the window of a low stone house in Notre
Dame Street, Montreal, one could have seen a priest joyously playing a
violin; though even in Europe, Maggini and Stradivarius were but little
known, and the instrument itself was often called an invention of the
devil.
The room was not ornamented, save by a crucifix, a pleasant
pencil-drawing of Bishop Laval, a gun, a pair of snow-shoes, a sword,
and a little shrine in one corner, wherein were relics of a saint. Of
necessaries even there were few. They were unremarkable, save in the
case of two tall silver candlesticks, which, with their candles at an
angle from the musician, gave his face strange lights and shadows.
The priest was powerfully made; so powerful indeed, so tall was he, that
when, in one of the changes of the music, a kind of exaltation filled
him, and he came to his feet, his head almost touched the ceiling. His
shoulders were broad and strong, and though his limbs were hid by his
cassock, his arms showed almost huge, and the violin lay tucked under
his chin like a mere toy. In the eye was a penetrating but abstracted
look, and the countenance had the gravity of a priest lighted by a
cheerful soul within. It had been said of Dollier de Casson that once,
attacked by two renegade Frenchmen, he had broken the leg of one and
the back of the other, and had then picked them up and carried them for
miles to shelter and nursing. And it was also declared by the romantic
that the man with the broken back recovered, while he with the shattered
leg, recovering also, found that his foot, pointing backwards, “made a
fool of his nose.”
The Abbe de Casson’s life had one affection, which had taken the place
of others, now almost lost in the distance of youth, absence, and
indifference. For France lay far from Montreal, and the priest-musician
was infinitely farther off: the miles which the Church measures between
the priest and his lay boyhood are not easily reckoned. But such as
Dollier de Casson must have a field for affection to enrich. You cannot
drive the sap of the tree in upon itself. It must come out or the tree
must die-burst with the very misery of its richness.
This night he was crowding into the music four years of events: of
memory, hope, pride, patience, and affection. He was waiting for some
one whom he had not seen for these four years. Time passed. More and
more did the broad sonorous notes fill the room. At length they ceased,
and with a sigh he pressed the violin once, twice, thrice to his lips.
“My good Stradivarius,” he said, “my peerless one!” Once again he kissed
it, and then, drawing his hand across his eyes, he slowly wrapped the
violin in a velvet cloth, put it away in an iron box, and locked it up.
But presently he changed his mind, took it out again, and put it on the
table, shaking his head musingly.
“He will wish to see it, maybe to hear it,” he said half aloud.
Then he turned and went into another room. Here there was a prie-dieu in
a corner, and above it a crucifix. He knelt and was soon absorbed.
For a time there was silence. At last there was a crunching of
moccasined feet upon the crisp snow, then a slight tap at the outer
door, and immediately it was opened. A stalwart young man stepped
inside. He looked round, pleased, astonished, and glanced at the violin,
then meaningly towards the nearly closed door of the other room.
After which he pulled off his gloves, threw his cap down, and with a
significant toss of the head, picked up the violin.
He was a strong, handsome man of about twenty-two, with a face at
once open and inscrutable: the mouth with a trick of smiling, the eyes
fearless, convincing, but having at the same time a look behind this--an
alert, profound speculation, which gave his face singular force. He was
not so tall as the priest in the next room, but still he was very tall,
and every movement had a lithe, supple strength. His body was so firm
that, as he bent or turned, it seemed as of soft flexible metal.
Despite his fine manliness, he looked very boylike as he picked up the
violin, and with a silent eager laugh put it under his chin, nodding
gaily, as he did so, towards the other room. He bent his cheek to the
instrument--almost as brown as the wood itself--and made a pass or two
in the air with the bow, as if to recall a former touch and tune. A
satisfied look shot up in his face, and then with an almost impossible
softness he drew the bow across the strings, getting a distant delicate
note, which seemed to float and tenderly multiply upon itself--a
variation, indeed, of the tune which De Casson had played. A rapt look
came into his eyes. And all that look behind the general look of his
face--the look which has to do with a man’s past or future--deepened and
spread, till you saw, for once in a way, a strong soldier turned artist,
yet only what was masculine and strong. The music deepened also, and, as
the priest opened the door, swept against him like a wind so warm that
a moisture came to his eyes. “Iberville!” he said, in a glad voice.
“Pierre!”
The violin was down on the instant. “My dear abbe!” he cried. And then
the two embraced.
“How do you like my entrance?” said the young man. “But I had to provide
my own music!” He laughed, and ran his hands affectionately down the
arms of the priest.
“I had been playing the same old chansonette--”
“With your original variations?”
“With my poor variations, just before you came in; and that done--”
“Yes, yes, abbe, I know the rest: prayers for the safe return of the
sailor, who for four years or nearly has been learning war in King
Louis’s ships, and forgetting the good old way of fighting by land,
at which he once served his prentice time--with your blessing, my old
tutor, my good fighting abbe! Do you remember when we stopped those
Dutchmen on the Richelieu, and you--”
The priest interrupted with a laugh. “But, my dear Iberville--”
“It was ‘Pierre’ a minute gone; ‘twill be ‘Monsieur Pierre le Moyne of
Iberville’ next,” the other said in mock reproach, as he went to the
fire.
“No, no; I merely--”
“I understand. Pardon the wild youth who plagues his old friend and
teacher, as he did long ago--so much has happened since.”
His face became grave and a look of trouble came. Presently the priest
said: “I never had a pupil whose teasing was so pleasant, poor humourist
that I am. But now, Pierre, tell me all, while I lay out what the pantry
holds.”
The gay look came back into Iberville’s face. “Ahem,” he said--which
is the way to begin a wonderful story: “Once upon a time a young man,
longing to fight for his king by land alone, and with special fighting
of his own to do hard by”--(here De Casson looked at him keenly and a
singular light came into his eyes)--“was wheedled away upon the king’s
ships to France, and so
‘Left the song of the spinning-wheel,
The hawk and the lady fair,
And sailed away--’”
“But the song is old and so is the story, abbe; so here’s the brief note
of it. After years of play and work,--play in France and stout work in
the Spaniards’ country,--he was shipped away to
‘Those battle heights,
Quebec heights, our own heights,
The citadel our golden lily bears,
And Frontenac--’
“But I babble again. And at Quebec he finds the old song changed.
The heights and the lilies are there, but Frontenac, the great, brave
Frontenac, is gone: confusion lives where only conquest and honest
quarrelling were--”
“Frontenac will return--there is no other way!” interposed De Casson.
“Perhaps. And the young man looked round and lo! old faces and places
had changed. Children had grown into women, with children at their
breasts; young wives had become matronly; and the middle-aged were
slaving servants and apothecaries to make them young again. And the
young man turned from the world he used to know, and said: ‘There
are but three things in the world worth doing--loving, roaming, and
fighting.’ Therefore, after one day, he turned from the poor little
Court-game at Quebec, travelled to Montreal, spent a few hours with
his father and his brothers, Bienville, Longueil, Maricourt, and
Sainte-Helene, and then, having sent word to his dearest friend, came to
see him, and found him--his voice got softer--the same as of old: ready
with music and wine and aves for the prodigal.”
He paused. The priest had placed meat and wine on the table, and now
he came and put his hand on Iberville’s shoulder. “Pierre,” he said,
“I welcome you as one brother might another, the elder foolishly fond.”
Then he added: “I was glad you remembered our music.”
“My dear De Casson, as if I could forget! I have yet the Maggini you
gave me. It was of the things for remembering. If we can’t be loyal to
our first loves, why to anything?”
“Even so, Pierre; but few at your age arrive at that. Most people learn
it when they have bartered away every dream. It is enough to have a few
honest emotions--very few--and stand by them till all be done.”
“Even hating?” Iberville’s eyes were eager.
“There is such a thing as a noble hate.”
“How every inch of you is man!” answered the other, clasping the
priest’s arms. Then he added: “Abbe, you know what I long to hear. You
have been to New York twice; you were there within these three months--”
“And was asked to leave within these three months--banished, as it
were.”
“I know. You said in your letter that you had news. You were kind to
go--”
“Perrot went too.”
“My faithful Perrot! I was about to ask of him. I had a birch-bark
letter from him, and he said he would come--Ah, here he is!”
He listened. There was a man’s voice singing near by. They could even
hear the words:
“‘O the young seigneur! O the young seigneur!
A hundred bucks in a day he slew;
And the lady gave him a ribbon to wear,
And a shred of gold from her golden hair
O the way of a maid was the way he knew;
O the young seigneur! O the young seigneur!’”
“Shall we speak freely before him?” said the priest. “As freely as you
will. Perrot is true. He was with me, too, at the beginning.”
At that moment there came a knock, and in an instant the coureur du bois
had caught the hands of the young man, and was laughing up in his face.
“By the good Sainte Anne, but you make Nick Perrot a dwarf, dear
monsieur!”
“Well, well, little man, I’ll wager neither the great abbe here nor
myself could bring you lower than you stand, for all that. Comrade, ‘tis
kind of you to come so prompt.”
“What is there so good as the face of an old friend!” said Perrot,
with a little laugh. “You will drink with a new, and eat with a coming
friend, and quarrel with either; but ‘tis only the old friend that knows
the old trail, and there’s nothing to a man like the way he has come in
the world.”
“The trail of the good comrade,” said the priest softly.
“Ah!” responded Perrot, “I remember, abbe, when we were at the Portneuf
you made some verses of that--eh! eh! but they were good!”
“No fitter time,” said Iberville; “come, abbe, the verses!”
“No, no; another day,” answered the priest.
It was an interesting scene. Perrot, short, broad, swarthy, dressed
in rude buckskin gaudily ornamented, bandoleer and belt garnished with
silver,--a recent gift of some grateful merchant, standing between the
powerful black-robed priest and this gallant sailor-soldier, richly
dressed in fine skins and furs, with long waving hair, more like a
Viking than a man of fashion, and carrying a courtly and yet sportive
look, as though he could laugh at the miseries of the sinful world.
Three strange comrades were these, who knew each other so far as one man
can know another, yet each knowing from a different stand-point. Perrot
knew certain traits of Iberville of which De Casson was ignorant, and
the abbe knew many depths which Perrot never even vaguely plumbed. And
yet all could meet and be free in speech, as though each read the other
thoroughly.
“Let us begin,” said Iberville. “I want news of New York.”
“Let us eat as we talk,” urged the abbe.
They all sat and were soon eating and drinking with great relish.
Presently the abbe began:
“Of my first journey you know by the letter I sent you: how I found that
Mademoiselle Leveret was gone to England with her father. That was a
year after you left, now about three years gone. Monsieur Gering entered
the navy of the English king, and went to England also.”
Iberville nodded. “Yes, yes, in the English navy I know very well of
that.”
The abbe looked up surprised. “From my letter?”
“I saw him once in the Spaniards’ country,” said Iberville, “when we
swore to love each other less and less.”
“What was the trouble?” asked the priest.
“Pirates’ booty, which he, with a large force, seized as a few of my men
were carrying it to the coast. With his own hand he cut down my servant,
who had been with me since from the first. Afterwards in a parley I saw
him, and we exchanged--compliments. The sordid gentleman thought I was
fretting about the booty. Good God, what are some thousand pistoles to
the blood of one honest friend!”
“And in your mind another leaven worked,” ventured the priest.
“Another leaven, as you say,” responded Iberville. “So, for your story,
abbe.”
“Of the first journey there is nothing more to tell, save that the
English governor said you were as brave a gentleman as ever played
ambassador--which was, you remember, much in Count Frontenac’s vein.”
Iberville nodded and smiled. “Frontenac railed at my impertinence also.”
“But gave you a sword when you told him the news of Radisson,”
interjected Perrot. “And by and by I’ve things to say of him.”
The abbe continued: “For my second visit, but a few months ago. We
priests have gone much among the Iroquois, even in the English country,
and, as I promised you, I went to New York. There I was summoned to the
governor. He commanded me to go back to Quebec. I was about to ask him
of Mademoiselle when there came a tap at the door. The governor looked
at me a little sharply. ‘You are,’ said he, ‘a friend of Monsieur
Iberville. You shall know one who keeps him in remembrance.’ Then he
let the lady enter. She had heard that I was there, having seen Perrot
first.”
Here Perrot, with a chuckle, broke in: “I chanced that way, and I had a
wish to see what was for seeing; for here was our good abbe alone among
the wolves, and there were Radisson and the immortal Bucklaw, of whom
there was news.”
De Casson still continued: “When I was presented she took my hand and
said: ‘Monsieur l’Abbe, I am glad to meet a friend--an old friend--of
Monsieur Iberville. I hear that he has been in France and elsewhere.’”
Here the abbe paused, smiling as if in retrospect, and kept looking into
the fire and turning about in his hand his cassock-cord.
Iberville had sat very still, his face ruled to quietness; only his eyes
showing the great interest he felt. He waited, and presently said: “Yes,
and then?”
The abbe withdrew his eyes from the fire and turned them upon Iberville.
“And then,” he said, “the governor left the room. When he had gone she
came to me, and, laying her hand upon my arm, said: ‘Monsieur, I know
you are to be trusted. You are the friend of a brave man.’”
The abbe paused, and smiled over at Iberville. “You see,” he said, “her
trust was in your friend, not in my office. Well, presently she added:
‘I know that Monsieur Iberville and Mr. Gering, for a foolish quarrel of
years ago, still are cherished foes. I wish your help to make them both
happier; for no man can be happy and hate.’ And I gave my word to do
so.” Here Perrot chuckled to himself and interjected softly: “Mon Dieu!
she could make a man say anything at all. I would have sworn to her that
while I lived I never should fight. Eh, that’s so!”
“Allons!” said Iberville impatiently, yet grasping the arm of the
woodsman kindly.
The abbe once more went on: “When she had ended questioning I said to
her: ‘And what message shall I give from you?’ ‘Tell him,’ she answered,
‘by the right of lifelong debt I ask for peace.’ ‘Is that all?’ said
I. ‘Tell him,’ she added, ‘I hope we may meet again.’ ‘For whose sake,’
said I, ‘do you ask for peace?’ ‘I am a woman,’ she answered, ‘I am
selfish--for my own sake.’”
Again the priest paused, and again Iberville urged him.
“I asked if she had no token. There was a flame in her eye, and she
begged me to excuse her. When she came back she handed me a little
packet. ‘Give it to Monsieur Iberville,’ she said, ‘for it is his. He
lent it to me years ago. No doubt he has forgotten.’”
At that the priest drew from his cassock a tiny packet, and Iberville,
taking, opened it. It held a silver buckle tied by a velvet ribbon. A
flush crept slowly up Iberville’s face from his chin to his hair, then
he sighed, and presently, out of all reason, laughed.
“Indeed, yes; it is mine,” he said. “I very well remember when I found
it.”
Here Perrot spoke. “I very well remember, monsieur, when she took it
from your doublet; but it was on a slipper then.”
Iberville did not answer, but held the buckle, rubbing it on his sleeve
as though to brighten it. “So much for the lady,” he said at last; “what
more?”
“I learned,” answered the abbe, “that Monsieur Gering was in Boston,
and that he was to go to Fort Albany at Hudson’s Bay, where, on our
territory, the English have set forts.”
Here Perrot spoke. “Do you know, monsieur, who are the poachers? No? Eh?
No? Well, it is that Radisson.”
Iberville turned sharply upon Perrot. “Are you sure of that?” he said.
“Are you sure, Nick?”
“As sure as I’ve a head. And I will tell you more: Radisson was with
Bucklaw at the kidnapping. I had the pleasure to kill a fellow of
Bucklaw, and he told me that before he died. He also told how Bucklaw
went with Radisson to the Spaniards’ country treasure-hunting. Ah!
there are many fools in the world. They did not get the treasure. They
quarreled, and Radisson went to the far north, Bucklaw to the far south.
The treasure is where it was. Eh bien, such is the way of asses.”
Iberville was about to speak.
“But wait,” said Perrot, with a slow, tantalising smile; “it is not
wise to hurry. I have a mind to know; so while I am at New York I go
to Boston. It makes a man’s mind great to travel. I have been east to
Boston; I have been west beyond the Ottawa and the Michilimackinac, out
to the Mississippi. Yes. Well, what did I find in Boston? Peste! I found
that they were all like men in purgatory--sober and grave. Truly. And so
dull! Never a saint-day, never a feast, never a grand council when the
wine, the rum, flow so free, and you shall eat till you choke. Nothing.
Everything is stupid; they do not smile. And so the Indians make war!
Well, I have found this. There is a great man from the Kennebec called
William Phips. He has traded in the Indies. Once while he was there he
heard of that treasure. Ha! ha! There have been so many fools on that
trail. The governor of New York was a fool when Bucklaw played his game;
he would have been a greater if he had gone with Bucklaw.”
Here Iberville would have spoken, but Perrot waved his hand. “De grace,
a minute only. Monsieur Gering, the brave English lieutenant, is
at Hudson’s Bay, and next summer he will go with the great William
Phips--Tonnerre, what a name--William Phips! Like a pot of herring! He
will go with him after the same old treasure. Boston is a big place, but
I hear these things.”
Usually a man of few words, Perrot had bursts of eloquence, and this was
one of them. But having made his speech, he settled back to his tobacco
and into the orator’s earned repose.
Iberville looked up from the fire and said: “Perrot, you saw her in New
York. What speech was there between you?”
Perrot’s eyes twinkled. “There was not much said.
“I put myself in her way. When she saw me her cheek came like a
peach-blossom. ‘A very good morning, ma’m’selle,’ said I, in English.
She smiled and said the same. ‘And your master, where is he?’ she asked
with a fine smile. ‘My friend Monsieur Iberville?’ I said; ‘ah! he will
be in Quebec soon.’ Then I told her of the abbe, and she took from a
chain a little medallion and gave it me in memory of the time we saved
her. And before I could say Thank you, she had gone--Well, that is
all--except this.”
He drew from his breast a chain of silver, from which hung the gold
medallion, and shook his head at it with good-humour. But presently
a hard look came on his face, and he was changed from the cheerful
woodsman into the chief of bushrangers. Iberville read the look, and
presently said:
“Perrot, men have fought for less than gold from a woman’s chain and a
buckle from her shoe.”
“I have fought from Trois Pistoles to Michilimackinac for the toss of a
louis-d’or.”
“As you say. Well, what think you--”
He paused, rose, walked up and down the room, caught his moustache
between his teeth once or twice, and seemed buried in thought. Once or
twice he was about to speak, but changed his mind. He was calculating
many things: planning, counting chances, marshalling his resources.
Presently he glanced round the room. His eyes fell on a map. That was
it. It was a mere outline, but enough. Putting his finger on it, he sent
it up, up, up, till it settled on the shores of Hudson’s Bay. Again he
ran the finger from the St. Lawrence up the coast and through Hudson’s
Straits, but shook his head in negation. Then he stood, looked at the
map steadily, and presently, still absorbed, turned to the table. He saw
the violin, picked it up, and handed it to De Casson:
“Something with a smack of war,” he said. “And a woman for me,” added
Perrot.
The abbe shook his head musingly at Perrot, took the violin, and
gathered it to his chin. At first he played as if in wait of something
that eluded him. But all at once he floated into a powerful melody, as a
stream creeps softly through a weir, and after many wanderings broadens
suddenly into a great stream. He had found his theme. Its effect was
striking. Through Iberville’s mind there ran a hundred incidents of his
life, one chasing upon the other without sequence--phantasmagoria out of
the scene--house of memory:
The light upon the arms of De Tracy’s soldiers when they marched up
Mountain Street many years before--The frozen figure of a man standing
upright in the plains--A procession of canoes winding down past Two
Mountains, the wild chant of the Indians joining with the romantic
songs of the voyageurs--A girl flashing upon the drawn swords of two
lads--King Louis giving his hand to one of these lads to kiss--A lady of
the Court for whom he might easily have torn his soul to rags, but for
a fair-faced English girl, ever like a delicate medallion in his eye--A
fight with the English in the Spaniards’ country--His father blessing
him as he went forth to France--A dark figure taking a hundred shapes,
and yet always meaning the same as when he--Iberville--said over the
governor’s table in New York, “Foolish boy!”--A vast stretch of lonely
forest, in the white coverlet of winter, through which sounded now and
then the boom-boom of a bursting tree--A few score men upon a desolate
northern track, silent, desperate, courageous; a forlorn hope on the
edge of the Arctic circle, with the joy of conquest in their bones, and
at their thighs the swords of men.
These are a few of the pictures, but the last of them had not to do with
the past: a dream grown into a fact, shaped by the music, become at once
an emotion and a purpose.
Iberville had now driven home the first tent-peg of a wonderful
adventure. Under the spell of that music his body seemed to grow larger.
He fingered his sword, and presently caught Perrot by the shoulder and
said “We will do it, Perrot.”
Perrot got to his feet. He understood. He nodded and seized Iberville’s
hand. “Bravo! There was nothing else to do,” he replied.
De Casson lowered his violin. “What do you intend?” he asked gravely.
Iberville took his great hand and pressed it. “To do what you will
commend, abbe: at Hudson’s Bay to win back forts the English have taken,
and get those they have built.”
“You have another purpose,” added De Casson softly.
“Abbe, that is between me and my conscience. I go for my king and
country against our foes.”
“Who will go with you? You will lead?”
“Not I to lead--that involves me.” Iberville’s face darkened. “I wish
more freedom, but still to lead in fact.”
“But who will lead? And who will go?”
“De Troyes, perhaps, to lead. To go, my brothers Sainte-Helene and
Maricourt, Perrot and a stout company of his men; and then I fear not
treble as many English.”
The priest did not seem satisfied. Presently Iberville, with a winning
smile, ran an arm over his shoulder and added: “We cannot go without
you, Dollier.”
The priest’s face cleared, and a moment afterwards the three comrades
shook hands together.