"Treason is indeed rampant," roared out M. Belmont, cheerily. "A man's worst enemies are those of his own household." Saying which, he advanced rapidly to the door and opened it wide. Pauline stood before him, her eyes swimming in tears, but with a smile of ineffable joy playing on her white lips.
"Don't embrace me, don't speak to me," said M. Belmont, with mock gravity. "I will hear no explanations. Settle the matter with this gentleman here. If he forgives you, as he has forgiven your father, then I will see what I can do for you."
He went out of the room, leaving Pauline and Roderick together for a full quarter of an hour. There is no need to say that the twain laughed and wept in turns over their victory.
When M. Belmont returned from his cellar, with a choice bottle of old Burgundy, the reconciliation was complete, and that night the happiest hearts in Quebec were those of Roderick Hardinge and Pauline Belmont. M. Belmont was content at having done a good deed, but he was not really happy. Why, the sequel will tell.
[XVIII.]
[RODERICK HARDINGE.]
It was a little before nine o'clock when Hardinge entered his quarters at the barracks. He had passed through an eventful day, and he felt weary. The interview which he had just held with M. Belmont was, however, so absolutely the object of his pre-occupation, that he appeared in nowise disposed to seek the rest required by his exhausted physical powers. Mechanically divesting himself of his civilian costume and assuming the undress uniform of his rank, he moved absently about his little room, muttering to himself, humming fragments of song, and occasionally breaking out into low laughter. Arnold and his rebel crew were clean forgotten, the military events through which he had passed, during the preceding few days, were blotted from his mind, and the coming and going of the troops in the courtyard below completely escaped his attention. It has been said, and with easily assignable cause, that the soldier on the eve of battle is more sensitive to the softer passions of the heart and the oblivion of all else which these passions induce, than any other mortal. Such was the case with Roderick on this evening. He keenly appreciated the extent of the dangers which he had experienced, and the importance of the victory which he had won within the last hour. What to him would have been the glory of arms, the fame of patriotic service, if he had lost Pauline? And—if the whole truth must be told—would the country itself have been worth saving without her?
Roderick Hardinge was seven and twenty years of age. He was a Scotchman by birth, but the best part of his life had been spent in Canada. His father was an officer in Fraser's famous Highland regiment, whose history is so intimately associated with the conquest of New France. After the battle of the Plains of Abraham, in which it took a leading part, his regiment was quartered in the city of Quebec for some time, and when it finally disbanded, most of its members, officers as well as men, settled in the country, having obtained from the Imperial Government large tracts of land in the Gulf region. This colony has made its mark in the history of Canada, and to the present day the Scotch families of Murray Bay rank among the most distinguished in the public annals of the Province. While retaining many of the best characteristics of their origin, they have thoroughly identified themselves with their new home, and by intermarriage with the French natives, have almost completely lost the use of the English language.
Roderick's father imitated the example of many of his brother officers, and in the autumn of 1760, a few weeks after the capitulation of Vaudreuil at Montreal, and the definitive establishment of British power in Canada, he resigned his position in the army, and settled on a fine domain in Montmagny, a short distance from Quebec, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence. Thither he summoned his family from Scotland. Roderick, his only son, was twelve years of age when he landed in Canada, and thus grew up as a child of the soil. He never left the country afterwards, and, on the death of his parents, he succeeded to the paternal estates which he greatly improved, and cultivated with considerable success. Much of his leisure time was spent in the city of Quebec where his position, wealth and accomplishments procured him admission into the most select circles of the small but exclusive capital. From the circumstances of the times, the French language was almost more familiar to him than the English, and the reader will have readily understood that most of the conversations, which we have represented him as holding, were carried on in that language. This was more particularly the case in his intercourse with Pauline and her father, neither of whom spoke a word of English.