“At once; and the abbe shall write.”
Upon the lofty bank of the St. Lawrence, at the Sault au Matelot, a tall figure clad in a cassock stood and watched the river below. On the high cliff of Point Levis lights were showing, and fires burning as far off as the island of Orleans. And in that sweet curve of shore, from the St. Charles to Beauport, thousands of stars seemed shining. Nearer still, from the heights, there was the same strange scintillation; the great promontory had a coronet of stars. In the lower town there was like illumination, and out upon the river trailed long processions of light. It was the feast of good Sainte Anne de Beaupre. All day long had there been masses and processions on land. Hundreds of Jesuits, with thousands of the populace, had filed behind the cross and the host. And now there was a candle in every window. Indians, half-breeds, coureurs du bois, native Canadians, seigneurs, and noblesse, were joining in the function. But De Casson’s eyes were not for these. He was watching the lights of a ship that slowly made its way down the river among the canoes, and his eyes never left it till it had passed beyond the island of Orleans and was lost in the night.
“Mon cher!” he said, “mon enfant! She is not for him; she should not be. As a priest it were my duty to see that he should not marry her. As a man” he sighed—“as a man I would give my life for him.”
He lifted his hand and made the sign of the cross towards that spot on the horizon whither Iberville had gone.
“He will be a great man some day,” he added to himself—“a great man. There will be empires here, and when histories are written Pierre’s shall be a name beside Frontenac’s and La Salle’s.”
All the human affection of the good abbe’s life centred upon Iberville. Giant in stature, so ascetic and refined was his mind, his life, that he had the intuition of a woman and, what was more, little of the bigotry of his brethren. As he turned from the heights, made his way along the cliff and down Mountain Street, his thoughts were still upon the same subject. He suddenly paused.
“He will marry the sword,” he said, “and not the woman.”
How far he was right we may judge if we enter the house of Governor Nicholls at New York one month later.