CHAPTER XX.
CHEZ NOUS.
"Bonjour le maître et la maîtresse
Et tous les gens de la maison."
—THE GUIGNOLEE CAROL.
The crimson and gold of sunset were stained richly across the west. Chrysler was walking leisurely out in the country. A mile from Dormillière, a white stone farm-house stood forward near the road. In front, across the highway, the low cliff swelled out into the stump of a headland, which bore spreading on its grassy top three mighty and venerable oaks.
Chrysler, pondering as was his wont upon this and everything, noting the surges of color in the sky, the clear view, the procession of odd-looking homesteads down the road; their narrow fields running back indefinitely; the resting flocks and herds; here a group of thatched-roof barns, and there a wayside cross; passed along and mused on the peace of life in this prairie country, and the goodness of the Almighty to His children of every tongue.
The strains of a violin in the farm-house struck his ear. Someone was fiddling the well-known sprightly air, "Vive la Canadienne:"
"Long live the fair Canadian girl,
With her sweet, tender eyes."
The house was a large cottage, having around its door a slender gallery, at whose side went down a stair. Its chimnies were stout, and walls thick, its roof pitched very steep and clipped off short at the eaves; a garden of lilac-bushes and shrubs, some of which pressed their dark green against its spotless white-wash, surrounding it in front and on one side, while on the other lay the barn-yard, with a large wooden cross in its centre, protected by a railing. Two hundred years ago such houses were built in Brittany.
Chrysler's glances took in with curiosity the tiny window up in the gable, the quaint-cut iron bars of the cellar openings, the small-paned sashes of the four front windows.
Above the door, was the rude-cut inscription:
A DIEU LA GLOIRE J.B. 1768.
The fiddler drew his attention particularly, however, to the people on the gallery. There was one at least whom he had seen before. A cavalier of much shirt-front and large mouth, and on whose make-up, Nature had printed "BAR-TENDER" in capitals—in short the "Spoon" of Zotique's reception—was sitting on the balustrade of the little gallery, making courtship over the shoulder of a dark-eyed maid, whose mother—a square-waisted archetype of her—stood in the door. Paterfamilias sat on the top step with his back to Chrysler, barring the stair rather awkwardly with his legs. A second young man slender, and dressed in a frock coat of black broad-cloth, and silk hat, and with face pale, but of undiscourageable obserfulness, though without doubt repulsed by the father's attitude from a front attack on the position, was taking the three steps in the garden necessary to bring him alongside the gallery. And, unobserved, down beside her dress, the maiden's fair hand was dropping him a sprig of lilac.
Within, the grandfather bent crooked over his violin.
Our traveller halted, there was a whisper, and the music stopped.
"Salut, Monsieur," cried the householder, stumbling down the steps and hurrying half-way across the garden, where he took up a position, "Monsieur is tired. Will he honour my roof? All here is yours, and I and my family are at your service. Enter, Monsieur."
A dramatic gesture of humility recalled at once the man in blue homespun, who had addressed the crowd at Zotique's.
"Good evening, Mr. Benoit," the Ontarian said, opening the gate and mustering his French, "I shall be charmed."
The air immediately bustled with hospitality.
"Come in, sir, come in," feebly rasped the voice of the old man from the door. "Josephte, bring a chair for Monsieur." "I will fetch one!" cried the good-wife. The girl Josephte, rose from her seat and followed her mother quickly into the house; the pale young man in the garden doubled his cheerful smile; and only the bar-tender endued himself in an aggressive grin of independence.
"I assure you, monsieur," pronounced Jean Benoit, with his full armory of oratorical gestures, "that a friend of Monseigneur Chamilly will always have our best. Ascend, sir.—Josephte, place Monsieur the chair."
Never was there a greater occasion of state.
Their guest raised his hat to the young lady and her mother, who threw into her carriage all the dignity and suavity she could command. Then he ascended and sat gratefully down, for he was fatigued.
The grandfather had laid his instrument on a spinning-wheel within the door, and slowly lit a pipe with both hands. The bar-tender jumped from his perch and stood with a familiar leer, of which when Benoit said "Mr. Cuiller, monsieur," Chrysler took trifling notice. On the other hand the pale lover remained modestly down the steps, and his cheerfulness redoubled when Chrysler nodded to him, passingly introduced as "Le Brun."
"Does the gentleman take white whiskey,[G] or well milk?" asked the old man. "Josephte, bring some milk."
[Footnote G: Highwines.]
The daughter darted into the house.—"There is tea on the stove, Josephte!" Madame called hurriedly inwards, "and bring out some cakes and apples, and perhaps Monsieur would like new honey.—Be comfortable, sir."
"Monsieur has come into the parish for the election?" the old man queried politely.
"Only to see what passes," he replied, accepting the bowl of milk which Josephte tendered him, and a piece of raisin cake from a pile on a blue-pattern plate.—"What do you think of it?"
But a diversion occurred. The wife had retired a few moments, and a veteran piano commenced playing, while a spirited boy's voice struck up a hymn from the services of the Church,—"O Salutaris Hostia." It was her youngest son, whom she had not been able to resist showing off a little. Chrysler praised the voice, which was excellent, and the boy, attired in a neat, black, knee-breeches suit with white stockings, was proudly brought forward and presented.
The grandfather had the twinkle in his eye of a true country violinist.
"I was going to tell them a story of the old times, sir. Will you pardon me?" he said, with the twinkle sparkling.
Chrysler protested his own desire to listen.
"We always like to hear about the old times," said young Le Brun, apologetically.
"It's about a rascality of Zotique's, the droll boy, when we were young—the delectable history of Mouton. Mouton, the servant of Père Galibert, who in those times was Curé, was a fat man, of the air of a tallow image. You know Legros—the butcher's son,—just like that. If he had had red hair there would have been spontaneous combustion."
"Someone stole the sacramental wine of Pére Galibert, and everyone except the Pére knew it was Mouton. Messire would never believe them, though it so angered him he preached fourteen discourses against the thief. They were eloquent sermons."
"One Sunday afternoon—it was about the Day of St. Michel, when we went in to pay the seigneur his rents—Zotique was at the presbytère with me and his brother the Honorable, and all of us playing cards with Pére Galibert. Zotique had come down from the city with a new keg of wine for the Sacrament, and they were discussing the disappearance. Mouton was there, and he says never a word. "Let it alone," says Zotique, and he looks around and takes up the inkbottle carelessly from the shelf and goes off to the kitchen and down into the cellar, where he puts away the wine, and then he comes back to us, upstairs. Mouton disappears in a moment. Zotique pretends to play,—but he is calculating the seconds. Presently he says, "Monsieur le Curé, you and I are too good players. Let Mouton take my place, and do you play against Benoit and my cousin," and without waiting for any answer he flies out to the kitchen, and cries sharply: "Mouton, Messire wants you!" adding, "Quick, quick, tête de Mouton!" Mouton rushes upstairs, brushing his mouth. There he stands before us, solid as the image of tallow; but his mouth was as black as an oven's, and his features indistinguishable with ink."
The circle, all eagerly listening, burst forth:
"How did Zotique do it?" they cried.
"Voila the mystery."
"What was done to Mouton?"
"Pére Galibert boiled him down into tapers, and sold him to the congregation."
The old man put his pipe, which had gone out, once more to his lips and nonchalantly repeated the operation of lighting it between his hands.
Spoon, his low felt hat tipped over his eyes made Josephte blush crimson with his attentions. Her glances and smiles were to François.
Chrysler as he watched her, saw that it was she whose spiritual expression had attracted him at church. Near at hand, he took notes of her appearance. She was of modest face, regular and handsome in features, though not striking, and her cheek wore just a suggestion of color. Dressed in black, her apparel and demeanor were quietly perfect.
The fine sweep of view from the gallery across the water attracted him, and his eyes rested upon the leafy monarchs shadowing the river-bank before them.
"Your house is well placed," he said in admiration.
"Yes, Monsieur," replied the old man, simply, and he pointed out the various parishes whose spires could be descried across the water.
Thus conversing and observing, the Ontarian spent an instructive and delightful hour. When he rose to go, calm and rested, the hospitality again became profuse. "The gentleman will not walk!" shrilly protested highly-pleased mater familias. "Go François," turning to young Le Brun: "row Monsieur to the Manoir, you and Mr. Cuiller. Take the rose chaloupe, and Josephte shall go too."
Chrysler made a very admirable guest. He would have struck you as a fine, large man, of kindly face, and influential manner, and people pressed upon him their best wherever he went. "You speak our tongue, sir," said the grandfather, "That is a great thing. I have often thought that if all the people of the earth spoke but one speech they would all be brothers. What an absurdity to be divided by mere syllables."
So they parted, with many "Au revoirs" and mutual compliments at the water-side. The willing François planted one foot on a stone in the water and handed the young lady into the boat, and Cuiller hastening for the seat next her, made a pretended accidental lunge of his heavy shoulder at him into the water. François kept his balance and, quite unconscious of the malicious stratagem, held the ill-wisher himself from going over, which he almost did, to Josephte's demure amusement; next Chrysler got in and François essayed to push off. But as the boat stuck in the bottom and refused to stir, he suddenly dropped his hold, and with an "Avance done!" gallantly slushed his way into the water alongside, in his Sunday trousers, lifted the gunwale and started her afloat, amidst a shower of final "Au revoirs," and the rose chaloupe moved with noiseless smoothness down the current.
Peace reigned over every surrounding. The broad, molten-like surface; the dusky idealizing of the lines of cottages and delicate silhouetting of the trees along the shore near them; the artistic picture of the old white farm-house, mystic-looking in the soft evening light, with its shapes of lilac-trees rioting about it and the three great oaks darkening the bank in front; the ghost of light along the distant horizon; the gentle coolness of the air; the occasional far-off echo of some cry; and the regular splash and gleam of the oars as they leave the water or dip gently in again. A fish leaps. An ocean steamer, low in the distance, can be descried creeping noiselessly on. The islands and shores mirror themselves half-distinctly in the water.
A mile above, some boatful of pensive hearts are singing. So calm is the evening that the cadences come distinctly to us, and almost the words can be plainly caught. In a lull of their song, faint sounds of another arrive from far away. Rising and falling, now heard and now not, plaintive and recurring, it is like the voices of spirits.
But farther, farther yet, a still more distant echo—a suggestion scarcely real—floats also to us. The whole river, in its length and breadth, from Soulanges and the Lake of Two Mountains, and the tributary Ottawa, to Quebec and Kamouraska and the shores of the Gulf beyond, all is alive with plaintive sweetness, echoing from spirit to spirit, (for it is a fiction that music is a thing of lips and ears), old accents of Normandy, Champagne, and Angoulême.
The brimming François strikes up by natural suggestion of his dipping oars;
A la claire fontaine
M'en allant promener.
I.
Beside the crystal fountain
Turning for ease to stray,
So fair I found the waters
My limbs in them I lay.
Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway,
My dearest.
Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway.
So fair I found the waters,
My limbs in them I lay:
Beneath an oak tree resting,
I heard a roundelay.
Long is it, &c.
III
Beneath an oak tree resting,
I heard a roundelay,
The nightingale was singing
On the oak tree's topmost spray.
Long is it, &c.
IV.
The nightingale was singing
On the oak tree's topmost spray:—
Sing, nightingale, keep singing,
Thou who hast heart so gay!
Long is it, &c.
V.
Sing, nightingale, keep singing,
Thou hast a heart so gay,
Thou hast a heart so merry,
While mine is sorrow's prey.
Long is it, &c.
VI.
For I have lost my mistress,
Whom I did true obey,
All for a bunch of roses,
Whereof I said her nay.
Long is it, &c.
VII.
I would those luckless roses,
Were on their bush to-day,
And that itself the rosebush
Were plunged in ocean's spray.
Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway,
My dearest
Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway.
The melody was of a quiet, haunting strangeness, and from the end of the words "Thou who hast heart so gay," the maiden perfected it by interweaving an exquisite contralto into the chorus,
Long is it I have loved thee,
Thee shall I love alway.
In this fashion was Chrysler delivered at the Manoir, and when Chamilly asked him "Where have you been-this evening?" as he entered the grounds, he answered, "In Arcadia!"