THE PHANTOM.
It was about eight o'clock in the morning, a cheering autumn sun lit up the prairie splendidly.
Birds flew hither and thither, uttering strange cries, whilst others, concealed under the thickest of the foliage, poured forth melodious concerts. Now and then a deer raised its timid head above the tall grass, and then disappeared with a bound.
Two horsemen, clothed in the costume of wood rangers, mounted upon magnificent half wild horses, were following, at a brisk trot, the left bank of the great Canadian river, whilst several bloodhounds, with glossy black skins, and eyes and chests stained with red, ran and gambolled around them.
These horsemen were Loyal Heart and his friend Belhumeur.
Contrary to his usual deportment, Loyal Heart seemed affected by the most lively joy, his countenance beamed with cheerfulness, and he looked around him with complacency. Sometimes he would stop, and looked out ahead, appearing anxiously to seek in the horizon some object he could not yet discern. Then, with an expression of vexation, he resumed his journey, to repeat a hundred paces further on the same manoeuvre.
"Ah, parbleu!" said Belhumeur, laughing, "we shall get there in good time. Be quiet, do!"
"Eh, caramba! I know that well enough; but I long to be there! For me, the only hours of happiness that God grants me, are passed with her whom we are going to see—my mother, my beloved mother! who gave up everything for me, abandoned all without regret, without hesitation. Oh, what happiness it is to have a mother! to possess one heart which understands yours, which makes a complete abnegation of self to absorb itself in you; which lives in your existence, rejoices in your joys, sorrows in your sorrows; which divides your life into two parts, reserving to itself the heaviest and leaving you the lightest and the most easy! Oh, Belhumeur, to comprehend what that divine being is, composed of devotedness and love, and called a mother, it is necessary to have been, as I was, deprived of her for long years, and then suddenly to have found her again, more loving, more adorable than ever! How slowly we get on! Every moment of delay is a kiss of my mother's which time steals from me! Shall we never get there?"
"Well! here we are at the ford."