CHAPTER XI.
THE ANNUAL FAIR.
THE following day witnessed the opening of the great Annual Fair. Trade was in full activity; never had Canada known a more prosperous commerce than now in the midst of her dangers and tribulations. That very morning, to the overwhelming joy of the citizens of Ville Marie, Le Durantaye, late Commandant at Michillimackinac, arrived with fifty canoes, manned by French traders and filled with valuable furs.
Merchants of high and low degree had brought up their most tempting goods from Quebec, and every inhabitant of Montreal of any substance sought by every means in his power to gain a share of the profit. The booths were set along the palisades of the town, and each had an expert interpreter, to whom the trader usually promised a certain portion of his gains. The payment was in card money—common playing cards—each stamped with a crown and a fleur de lys. The newly arrived French bushrangers were the heroes of the hour and appeared to enjoy their popularity. All the taverns were full. The coureurs de bois conducted themselves like the crew of a man-of-war paid off after a long voyage, and their fellow-countrymen, in the prevailing good-humor of the moment, willingly condoned their excesses. Many of them were painted and feathered like their wild Indian companions, whose ways they imitated with perfect success. Some appeared brutally savage, but often their bronzed countenances expressed only dare-devil courage and reckless gaiety.
“These gentry will live like lords, and set no bounds to their revelry as long as their beaver-skins last; then they will starve till they can go off to the countries up above there to seek a fresh supply. Swaggering, spending all their gains on dress and feasting, they even try to imagine themselves nobles, and despise the honest peasants, whose daughters they will not marry, even though they are themselves peasant-born,” said one priest to another, as he eyed with evident disapproval the noisy, reckless crew.
The windows on St. Paul Street were thrown open and crowded with ladies; the benches before every door were thronged. One woman of the poorer sort had a half-dressed baby in her arms; another a lettuce that she was washing; a third held a little bowl of soup, which she ate in the street, gesticulating with such frantic energy that her sabots rattled on the stones. All dreaded to lose any part of the show.
The gathering about the market-place represented all classes and conditions. There were merchants engaged in serious negotiations, grave priests of St. Sulpice, suave, smiling Jesuits, plump, good-humored Recollets. Gentlemen critically examined the crowd as it passed, exchanging salutations with friends and acquaintances, commenting with the slyest of chuckles upon the appearance of the ladies. Habitants, in plain, coarse attire, and their brown buxom wives, more gaily attired, chattered volubly. Indians stalked about with stoical and haughty composure. Children, in close caps without borders, and long-waisted gowns and vests, an exact imitation of the dress of their elders, shouted and gambolled with all the exuberance of youth. Plumed soldiers swaggered jauntily about, arquebus on shoulder. Licensed beggars abounded, wearing ostentatiously their certificate of poverty signed by some local judge or curé. French musicians with drum, trumpet and cymbal did their best to swell the tumult.
“All this tintamarre presages well for the colony,” decided Nanon as she followed her mistress. “Beaver-skins and trade and money, it means absolutely the same thing, and all good in their way. I like not the way things are going, either. My poor little generous demoiselle! That soft, sleek, splendid cat of an English girl, for all her feigned innocence, still makes eyes at the Sieur du Chesne. Is it only I who have eyes to spy her tricks? For me, I waste not my breath on the melancholy; no patience have I for jeremiads. Tell not your secret in the eyes of the cat, but it is I, Nanon Benest, who will at once sew in the lappet of that gallant’s coat an image of St. Felix to secure him from charms and lead him in the right way. And it was I who dreaded the evil eye from the first.”
“Oui-da! oui-da! we are in despair for time, my friends. Shall we then lose the chance of making a sou when it alights at our very door—we who have been breaking our hearts for trade so long,” panted a stout woman, followed by two sturdy lads, as she resolutely pushed her way through the crowd. “Place, there, ma bibiche.”
Nanon reddened and flouted like an enraged turkey gobbler at this unceremonious address.
“Thy bibiche! indeed, that were an honor to be coveted. I know thee, wife of Chauvin the younger, whose son Louis was turned back from his confirmation for running the woods when he should have been ringing the bells. And old Pepin, who is like a sour crab-apple. Scaramouch! knowest thou to whom thou speakest?”
The struggling, jesting, good-humored assembly found no lack of diversion. Two men, who had been arrested for theft, were exposed in the pillory, each having on his chest a record of the offence committed. One, a sturdy rogue to whom such correction was likely enough not a novelty, looked boldly around with a certain humorous appreciation of the situation; the other, younger and more sensitive to the shame of his position, sat with bowed head and downcast eyes, while a herald, after beating a drum to call attention to the announcement, proclaimed aloud:
“De par le roi. Know, then, nobles, citizens, peasants, that by order of His Majesty the King, Candide Bourdon and Xavier Cointet, accused and found guilty of theft, are condemned to two days in the pillory and two hundred livres damages, payable to the religious ladies of the Hotel-Dieu.”
The crowd cast mud and abuse liberally at the culprits, and Migeon the bailiff, an imposing personage in the dignity of his uniform, contemplated the whole affair with an easy and affable air of proprietorship. Bayard the notary—a man of consequence in the town as being thoroughly conversant with everybody’s business affairs; lean and brown and wrinkled, wearing narrow robes with a collar almost ecclesiastical in appearance, and waistband to match, whose brown wig in the ardor of controversy was constantly being pushed crooked—was settling a dispute between two traders, who in their eagerness seemed ready to tear the mediator to pieces. In another spot, to the intense delight of the populace, the effigies of two Indians were being consumed in a roaring fire. Sentence of death had been passed upon two savages, who, escaping, had regained their native haunts. Justice therefore for the moment was obliged to content herself with wreaking vengeance upon their inanimate representatives.
Amid all this throng du Chesne found friends and companions of every degree. His father, a man of sound rather than brilliant qualities, was respected, but was too cautious and distrustful to be liked except by those who knew him well. His brother Pierre was reverenced as a saint but despised as a man. It was du Chesne who monopolized the popularity accorded to the family. His charming lightness of manner expressed confidence rather than carelessness; he was interested in everybody’s concerns and carried about with him a buoyancy of spirit which acted like a tonic upon all with whom he came in contact.
Jean Ameron, Le Ber’s valet, was describing to a soldier recently arrived from France the burning of four Indians, which had taken place not long before at the Jesuit Square.
“This is nothing to look at,” pointing to the squirming bundles of clothes rapidly being consumed by the flames. “These people of whom I am telling you exhibited a marvellous courage and endurance. That is the Indian fashion. But, see you, faith of Jean Ameron, that was something to laugh at. Their agony lasted six hours, during which they never ceased to sing their own warlike deeds. Four brothers, they were, the largest and handsomest men I ever saw.”
“Burned to death?” inquired the soldier.
“No, not precisely that. It was a form of torment the Indians themselves have invented. They were tied to stakes, driven deep into the earth, and every one of our savage allies, aye, and some Frenchmen, too—in truth, I myself also took part in the affair, and it requires courage to touch an Iroquois—even when tied to a stake he might get loose, and their looks are like those of demons. Every one of us, believe you, armed himself with a piece of iron heated red-hot, with which we scorched all the bodies of the heathens from head to foot.”
“Yes, fault of me, too-well treated were those pagans,” interrupted a sunburnt voyageur, whose head was adorned with waving red feathers, “Drinking brandy that disappeared down their throats as quickly as though it had been poured into a hole made in the earth. They were provided with all they desired.”
“Bah! that explains itself; the brandy was to deaden their sufferings,” added a woman standing by. “Better chance had those heathens than many Christians. The Fathers baptized them, addressing merely a few brief words of exhortation (for to do more would be merely washing a death’s head), and free from their sins they ascended straight to Heaven.”
Suddenly, while trade and amusement were in the full tide of activity, high above the babble of chattering and bargaining and the echo of jovial laughter rose the death-cry. Instantly every sound and motion ceased; it was as though a sudden spell had fallen upon the busy gathering, an awed, breathless silence. Once, twice, eight times it was heard, rising and falling in weird cadences. Its significance was perfectly comprehended by the listeners, most of whom were habituated to modes of savage warfare. This was the signal given by a war-party returning in triumph with the scalps of eight enemies. Every man snatched his weapon, and for a time all was confusion. Among the authorities hurriedly whispered consultations took place, then, inspired by a sudden and irresistible impulse, soldiers, priests, traders, Indians, women and children, all rushed off in the direction whence the sound proceeded.
A man of gigantic stature, painted, greased and feathered like an Indian, and almost as swarthy of complexion, strode forward with a majestic air of composure, as though enjoying a happy sense of his own importance. In one hand he held eight long sticks from which were suspended a like number of lank waving tresses. In front of him, tied together like children in leading strings, walked two squaws with downcast eyes, whose resigned and stoical countenances looked as though carved out of wood.
“Who can this be?” each one asked his neighbor. “He is one of ours, a Frenchman.”
Suddenly among the voyageurs a cry arose.
“It is Dubocq, or his spirit—no, it is Dubocq, yes, truly, Dubocq!” Then they raised a resounding shout of welcome—“Vive Dubocq! our brave Dubocq, our champion against our enemies!”