Tales of a Vanishing River

by Earl H. Reed

Here and there poetic reflections graced the faded pages, and pious musings were recorded. Original verse, and quotations from favorite authors, that seemed inspired by melancholy hours, mingled with the text. The names of the various saint’s days were often used as captions for the entries, instead of calendar dates.

In the back of the book was a list of names of converts, dates of baptism, marriages and deaths, and a vocabulary of about three hundred words of the Pottowatomie dialect of the Algonquin language, with their French equivalents. Variations in the chirography indicated that the lists had grown gradually, as additions were made with different pens.

A gloomy spirit seemed to pervade the dim pages. The broken heart of Pierre de Lisle throbbed between the lines of the story of his life in the wilderness. He had carried his cross to the far places, and, in isolation, he yearned for the healing balm of forgetfulness on his fevered soul. There were evidences of a great mental conflict among the last entries. He mentioned the arrival at the island of Jacques Le Moyne, a Jesuit priest, who was on his way to a distant post on the Mississippi, and spent several weeks with him. They had been boyhood friends in France and had entered the Jesuit college at about the same time. His coming was a breath of life from the outer world.

Le Moyne told him of the death of the Marquis de Courcelles, whose existence had darkened Pierre’s life, and all of the precepts, tenets, and pageantry of the Church of Rome floated away as mists before a freshening wind.

Pierre was born again. The dormant life currents quickened, and his virile soul and body exulted in emancipation and new found hope.

The entries in the journal closed with a sorrowful farewell to his spiritual charges, of which they probably never knew, and an expression of pathetic gratitude to his friend Jacques, who had opened a gate between desolation and earthly paradise, for warm arms in France were reaching across the stormy seas, and into the wilds of the new world for Pierre de Lisle.

It seemed strange that he had left the journal and the letter of Marie d’Aubigney. He was probably obsessed by his one dominant thought, and naturally excluded everything not needed for his long journey, but if his mind had not been much perturbed and confused he might have taken or destroyed the journal, but he surely would have carried the precious letter with him.

The little bundle that he threw into the river, the day he left the island, may have contained his sacramental chalice, for in it his lips had found bitter waters.

He probably dissembled his apostasy and utilized such Jesuit facilities as were available in getting back to his native land, lulling his conscience with one of the maxims of the Society of Jesus—“the end justifies the means”—but be that as it may, the chronicles in the attic had come to an end.

I sat for a long time, listening to the patter of the rain on the old roof, and mused over the frail memorials.