Change might lay its hand on the parish of St. Saviour's, and it did so on the beautiful sentient living thing, as on the thing material and man- made; but there was no change in the sheltering friendship of Mont Violet or the flow of the illustrious Beau Cheval. The autumns also changed not at all. They cast their pensive canopies over the home-scene which Jean Jacques loved so well, before he was exhaled from its bosom.
One autumn when the hillsides were in those colours which none but a rainbow of the moon ever had, so delicately sad, so tenderly assuring, a traveller came back to St. Saviour's after a long journey. He came by boat to the landing at the Manor Cartier, rather than by train to the railway-station, from which there was a drive of several miles to Vilray. At the landing he was met by a woman, as much a miniature of the days of Orleanist France as himself. She wore lace mits which covered the hands but not the fingers, and her gown showed the outline of a meek crinoline.
"Ah, Fille—ah, dear Fille!" said the little fragment of an antique day, as the Clerk of the Court—rather, he that had been for so many years Clerk of the Court—stepped from the boat. "I can scarce believe that you are here once more. Have you good news?"
"It was to come back with good news that I went," her brother answered smiling, his face lighted by an inner exaltation.
"Dear, dear Fille!" She always called him that now, and not by his
Christian name, as though he was a peer. She had done so ever since the
Government had made him a magistrate, and Laval University had honoured
him with the degree of doctor of laws.
She was leading him to the pony-carriage in which she had come to meet him, when he said:
"Do you think you could walk the distance, my dear? . . . It would be like old times," he added gently.
"I could walk twice as far to-day," she answered, and at once gave directions for the young coachman to put "His Honour's" bag into the carriage. In spite of Fille's reproofs she insisted in calling him that to the servants. They had two servants now, thanks to the legacy left them by the late Judge Carcasson. Presently M. Fille took her by the hand. "Before we start—one look yonder," he murmured, pointing towards the mill which had once belonged to Jean Jacques, now rebuilt and looking almost as of old. "I promised Jean Jacques that I would come and salute it in his name, before I did aught else, and so now I do salute it."
He waved a hand and made a bow to the gold Cock of Beaugard, the pride of all the vanished Barbilles. "Jean Jacques Barbille says that his head is up like yours, M. le Coq, and he wishes you many, many winds to come," he recited quite seriously, and as though it was not out of tune with the modern world.
The gold Cock of Beaugard seemed to understand, for it swung to the left, and now a little to the right, and then stood still, as if looking at the little pair of exiles from an ancient world—of which the only vestiges remaining may be found in old Quebec.