CHAPTER XX.
If all the year were playing holiday,
To sport would he as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come they wish'd-for come.
—Shakespeare
From the moment the Canadian Pacific R'y train leaves Ottawa in the early morning, the interested traveller can easily feast his eyes on the modest little villages and rival towns, a whole succession of which greet him from the capital to Montreal and thence to Quebec city. These juvenile country towns at once thrust the idea of repose upon the city folks who may chance to visit them. The best of these boast of, at most, a dozen wealthy, respectable residents, a village street of antagonistic merchants, a post office, an established inn, a mayor, a doctor, the minister, and the priest, bad roads and spare sidewalks. One would never suspect any of these villages to be guilty of any romance whatever, everybody seems to have attained the summit of human ambition, and life flows on in an uninterrupted serenity that is fatal to the nervous system of our enterprising city geniuses. Yet, there have been wonderful things done among these rural scenes. There are volumes whose title pages unfold nothing of the mysterious tales that are hidden and bound up within them.
We must cross the broad green fields and enter the old-fashioned houses, we must repair to the white-washed church on Sunday and kneel in the high-backed pews, we must talk over our tumblers to the fat proprietor of the solitary hotel, if we want to gather the interesting details that characterize the village. They are the same "yesterday, and to-day and forever." Nothing new happens, and the old traditions never grow stale.
Between the cities of Montreal and Quebec, on the south shore of the River St. Lawrence, among what are familiarly known as the "townships," sleeps a little French village of the stamp I have just described. Rows of white-washed houses of the same pattern are to be seen here and there in the only street it boasts of, and scattered through the broad open fields are other residences of more or less importance. All the long summer days the sun glares down so hotly upon the dried straggling fences and the dusty village road, that scarcely a living creature animates the scene. The residents close their doors, and leave down the folds of green paper that deck each small window of their houses, and abandon the world to sundry pedestrians, who are forced by cruel necessity into the scorched street an occasional bare-footed urchin on his way to the grocery shop with a deformed pitcher to be filled with molasses, or a spare woman or two gabbling at the counters or doors of the miserable shops that follow one another in dingy succession through the street. But one is not to judge the place from this cheerless picture, by no means, for, apart from the neighborhood I have described, this is one of the prettiest villages in the Townships. It loses its charms only on the spot where man has interfered with Nature's plans, in trying to provide accommodations for the settlers. The trees have been cut down, and the fresh, green forest converted into a dry, dusty street, cheered all through the hot afternoon by the dreary chirp of a grasshopper, or the buzz of countless millions of healthy flies that swarm around the very doors and surroundings of provision depots. Outside of this, in any direction one chooses to go, the scenery is attractive and beautiful; the trees are tall and thick and abundant, meeting overhead, and enclosing cool, shady avenues, which seem to wind in an endless stretch through the forest shades. Birds twitter and carol sweetly as they flit unseen from twig to twig of the tall waving elms, and one would be apt to forget the existence of human beings, were it not for an occasional interruption of this peaceful monotony, in the way of a cozy cottage, whose gables peep through the foliage, the lowing of cattle, or the sweet, clear song of some village maid, as she saunters through the broad rich fields, with her pail held towards the impatient cows, and her large plaited straw bonnet thrown recklessly on the back of her head, or being twisted by its safe strings on the fingers of the idle hand. Amidst such enchanting scenery one forgets the dusty village, one loses the hum and buzz in the comforting notes that Nature warbles to herself. Everything is so cool and refreshing and quiet. The weariest heart sighs from actual relief when transported to a paradise like this—and no wonder.
Many, many miles from the village, by the "Elm Road," is one of the prettiest and most delightful and loneliest spots that nestle on the bosom of the earth. An almost oppressive silence reigns in the woods, and nothing seems to stir visibly. You can hear the wind playing its softest melody through the tops of the great trees, but the leaves farther down only sway noiselessly in a graceful silence. It might be too lonely, only for the variety and perfection that Nature displays at every step and turn ferns and mosses, and little woodland flowers which never bud outside the shady forest, greet one at every instant, and a feeling so peaceful and composed steals over the soul that the place becomes hallowed to those who have yielded to its powerful influence. All at once, one can perceive traces of habitation, a neat enclosure of rustic boughs borders the avenue, and the grass on either side is even and trim, then comes a large rustic gate leading into a gravel walk, having here and there, under some shady oak, a garden chair or lounge, and a little table all of the same picturesque rustic wood, then comes a gorgeous parterre of flowers, which load the air with their rich and heavy perfumes, and directly behind this is a low broad stone dwelling that one might have expected to turn upon from the very first. Great thick vines of Virginia creepers climb the sides and front of the house. Green and yellow canaries in cages hanging from the verandah, send the octaves of their warblings far back into the woods. It is as fair a picture as ever an artist longed to produce on canvas, one of those dwelling-places which seem to us suggestive of and consistent with nothing else but exquisite peace, comfort and happiness, and though we have no reason for imagining it to be a depository of perfect contentment, we yet repel any idea that might suggest itself to us of empty cupboards inside those walls, of a scolding wife in those cozy rooms, or of washing days in that picturesque little kitchen.
The mind naturally harbors only ideas of that lazy sort of comfort that of necessity comes from such surroundings as these. This is "Sleepy Cottage," of which all the villagers spoke in enthusiastic terms, and indeed, it must be said, "Sleepy Cottage" would have done credit to towns and cities of more popular fame than the humble little village of the Eastern Townships. Were it anywhere else it could open its beautiful gates to an appreciative public, while here it slept quietly away almost without interruption. At present its only occupants were an aged gentleman and a girl of about nineteen summers, a maid servant and the old gardener, "Carlo," the Maltese cat, and the birds.
The story, as well as it is known, was that Monsieur and Madame de Maistre had come from old France fifteen years ago and settled at "Sleepy Cottage", that Josephine, their little four-year-old daughter, had been kept in almost total seclusion all her life under the tuition of a French governess whom they got no one knew where, and that the first glance the villagers had of her was at the funeral of Madame de Maistre, which took place when Josephine was in her sixteenth year. Her extraordinary beauty and dignity had so impressed the simple villagers at that time that they never forgot it, and though they had seen her but very seldom in the three subsequent years, the memory of her sweet face never left them yet.
One cool summer evening, a number of the old male residents of the village had gathered around the broad steps of the "Traveller's Inn," and were disposing of themselves on the inverted soap boxes and low wooden stools that adorned the front of the public door, as best they could, one or two paring, with studied attention, ends of thick sticks, with which they had provided themselves before sitting down, others resting their elbows on their knees, and holding the capacious bowls of their black stumpy pipes in their big brawny hands, others again drawing figures in the light dust that covered the space between the impromptu seats and the sidewalk, and all chatting in a friendly sort of way, alike on the latest and the oldest items of interest. Just now, they were discussing the mystery of the young girl's seclusion at Sleepy Cottage when they were suddenly interrupted by a crowd of five young fellows who had crossed, unperceived, the fields leading from the depot, and now sought admission to the "Traveller's Inn."
The men near the door, as they rose in silence to make the passage free, looked at each other in mute wonder, and threw enquiring glances after the figures of the strangers as they crossed the threshold of the inn. They were five tall, well built, good looking young men, with all the traits of city life about them. Had a whole army of soldiers invaded the "Traveller's Inn" at this moment it could scarcely surprise the spectators more than did the appearance of these young fellows.
They enquired of the thunderstruck proprietor whether he had rooms to accommodate them for a few days, and he had just nerve enough to tell them that if they could manage with three rooms, that many were at their service.
Appearing quite satisfied with this arrangement, they had supper ordered.
It was not in immediate readiness, so while the life was being hurried out of the maid in the kitchen, the new-comers went outside and fell in with the crowd at the door step.
One of the new arrivals, the most striking looking of all, and with whom we will have to deal more particularly afterwards, addressed the reserved sages on behalf of all the rest.
"I suppose we surprised you this evening," said he, laughing, and throwing one leg over a vacant soap box, just as any of the natives would have done, "but our being here surprises ourselves as much as it does you. We come from the McGill College in Montreal, and we are going far into the depths of your forest here to look for a few week's sport."
The group of listeners appeared a little more reconciled to the intrusion by this explanation of it, and after a few moments of awkward silence, old Joe Bentley, who was near the speaker, said:
"Welcome, gentlemen! Ye're welcome to the village, and good sport ye can promise yerselves if ye'll go the right way about it."
"Then we must hope," put in a second of the students, "that some of you who know will not be above giving us a word of advice."
"The Lord forbid," ejaculated old Bentley in a most serious tone. "And the very best spot in the country is the spot we were talkin' of as ye came along. It's out by the 'Sleepy Cottage.' If ye can get that strange Frenchman to leave you through his grounds, ye never had such shooton' an' fishin as there is a couple of miles up on the other side of them."
"Who is the strange Frenchman?" asked the first speaker, as he felt in his vest pocket for a match to light his cigar.
"He'm. Give us an easier one than that to answer," said Martin Doyle, a crude, suspecting farmer, who smoked sullenly on the end of a bench. "How is dacent people, who lived here all their lives, to know who them invaders is that comes in on people with their quare notions and ways, never showing the daylight to the child God gave 'em till she's a fine young woman on their hands, and never spakin' a word to other folk, as if honest men wasn't their betters any day."
The new-comers smiled from one to another. It is so consistent with the character of these country people to guard against and suspect, rather than trust unknown people who come among them wrapped in a mystery of any sort.
"This is strange," said another student in a tone calculated to elicit all the information about the "invader," that the rustics were willing to give.
"Well," said Joe Bentley, in a more christian-like tone, "people has no business talkin' only of what they know, but we all know that some fourteen or fifteeen years ago, this man that lives in Sleepy Cottage now, kem here with his wife and baby, and took up living in the country. Off and on since that day we've seen the old man himself around the village, but Madame kept close enough from that day till the day of her death which happened about three years ago, when she was buried in the graveyard over, and that was when we first saw the girl ever since the day they brought her a tiny thing in their arms from off the cars. Dan Sloan, and some more of the fellows that goes shooting and fishin' through the grounds, says they saw her a little girl growing up, with a pinched-nosed, starved looking mamselle for a governess, hawking her around them grounds an snatchin' her off if they came within a mile of her."
Here the farmer removed his pipe and gave a long whiff of smoke, then replacing it in his mouth, he continued "We were all jest talkin' of him as ye came along, an' if ye wan't sport ye'll have to ask the old fellow, to let ye through his grounds, and then mebbe ye'll know more about him than we do ourselves."
The young city fellows did not at all dislike the idea of the adventure that was in store for them. They were summoned to supper shortly after old Joe Bentley had finished his narrative, and resolving to enlist the good wishes of the villagers at any cost they deposited a round sum of money on the battered counter of the humble "bar," to "treat the crowd," they said as they passed under the low doorway into the dining-room.
It was rather a noisy meal, and Sarah's best attempt at ham and eggs, vanished in the most practical appreciation, that five young college students can show when hungry. They discussed the recent topic of Sleepy Cottage over their cold apple pie and strawberries and cream, and they all decided that it was the most romantic thing in the world, that they should be just brought to the gates of the prison wherein pined a maiden fair, through the cruelty of an unmerciful father. They manufactured quite a novel out of the details, and laid themselves out with a will to unravel the plot, or die in the attempt.
"I'd bet my bottom dollar," said one student, as he drained his glass of lager beer, "that ye Prince of Hearts," will be the one to see this, "Lady fair," the first.
"We don't dispute it," joined in the rest, "he's the devil for working his way into the favor of women."
Here they all looked at him who had addressed the villagers first, and accused him of outdoing their grandest attempts in the siege of hearts. They called him "Bijou" and whether it was his name or not, he appeared quite satisfied with it. He seemed to be a little superior to the rest, judging by the deference and courtesy they showed him above what existed among themselves, and he, amiable and pleasant always, laughed good-naturedly at their words of praise, and little insinuations of assumed jealousy. They had come down to this quiet village on a "jamboree," and we all know more or less what students mean by that. It would be both unnecessary and uninteresting however to give an account in detail of these young fellows' adventures during their sojourn in the country; that part alone which affects the rest of our story, is the one we will dwell upon.