“Why didn’t the Swiss stay where he was?” he asked impatiently. “He was better off there than he will be here. What did he want to come to Pembina now for? He will only have to go back again with the rest of the colonists in a few weeks. It will soon be time to break ground and sow crops.”
To this Walter had no good answer, for he himself did not understand just why Mr. Perier had decided so suddenly to make the change. Not until night, after Madame Brabant and the girls were in bed in the main room and Walter lay beside his master on a skin cot in the lean-to, did the boy learn the real reason for the journey to Pembina.
“Sergeant Kolbach turned us out,” said Mr. Perier.
“What?” exclaimed Walter. “I thought he had been so kind to you.”
“He was until recently, but he and I had a disagreement. He asked me for Elise’s hand in marriage.”
“Why she is a mere child!” Walter was both surprised and distressed.
“So I told him. I said she was far too young to marry. He replied that she was old enough to cook his meals and keep his house, and that was what he wanted a wife for.”
Walter grunted angrily.
“It is true,” Mr. Perier went on, “that some of our girls not much older have married since coming to the Colony. You know the Company encouraged young women to come over because wives were needed in the settlement, especially by the DeMeurons. But Elise came to be with me, and I have other plans for her. She shall not marry Kolbach or any other, now or ten years from now, unless he is the right kind of a man and she wants him.”
“I hope she’ll never want a DeMeuron.” The thought of his little sister married to one of that wild crew horrified Walter.