On the opposite side of the room was another settle, part of which turned over and was upheld by drawing out two rounds of logs. Mère Dubray made up the wider bed now, and soon Antoine was snoring lustily. At first it frightened the child, though she was used to the screech of the owl that spent his nights in the great walnut tree inside the palisade.
Was it a dream, she wondered the next morning. She slept soundly at last and late and found herself alone in the house. She put on her simple frock and went to the doorway. Ah, what a splendid glowing morning it was! The sunshine lay in golden masses and fairly gilded the green of the maize, the waving grasses, the bronze of the trees, and the river threw up lights and shadows like birds skimming about.
No one was in the garden. The table had been despoiled to the last crumb. Even the cupboard had been ransacked and all that remained was some raw fish. She was not hungry and the fragrant air was reviving. It seemed to speed through every pulse. Why, she suddenly felt strong again.
She wandered out of the enclosure and climbed the steps, sitting down now and then and drawing curious breaths that frightened her, they came so irregularly. There were workmen building additional fortifications around the post, there were houses going up. It was like a strange place. She reached the gallery presently and looked over what was sometime to be the city of Quebec. The long stretch was full of tents and tepees and throngs of men of every description, it would seem; Indians, swarthy Spaniards who had roamed half round the world, French from the jaunty trader, with a certain air of breeding, down to the rough, unkempt peasant, who had been lured away from his native land with visions of an easily-made fortune and much liberty in New France, and convicts who had been given a choice between death and expatriation. Great stacks of furs still coming in from some quarter, haranguing, bargaining, shouting, coming to blows, and the interference of soldiers. Was it so last summer when she sometimes ran out with Pani, though she had been forbidden to?
It was growing very hot up here. The sun that looked so glorious through the long stretches of the forest and played about the St. Lawrence as if in a game of hide-and-seek with the boats, grew merciless. All the air was full of dancing stars and she was so tired trying to reach out to them, as if they were a stairway leading up to heaven, so that one need not be put in the dark, wretched ground. Oh, yes, she could find the way, and she half rose.
It seemed a long journey in the darkness. Then there was a coolness on her brow, a soft hand passed over it, and she heard some murmuring, caressing words. She opened her eyes, she tried to rise.
"Lie still, little one," said the voice that soothed and somehow made it easy to obey. She was fanned slowly, and all was peace.
"Did you climb up to the gallery all alone? And yesterday you seemed so weak, so fragile."
"I wanted—some one. They had all gone——"
"Quebec looks like a besieged camp. Laurent, that is my husband," with a bright color, "said I could see it from the gallery, and that it resembled a great show. I went out and found you. At first I thought you were dead. But the Indian woman, Jolette is her Christian name, but I should have liked Wanamee better, carried you in here and after a while brought you to. But I thought sure you were dead. Poor little white Rose! Truly named."