“Let us make haste, therefore,” he deduced from her evasive reply; and haste they made, so that several pairs were kept waiting by the notarial table while the commandant was served.
The cathedral of Notre Dame in Quebec stood, and still stands, on the opposite side of the square. It was a massive pile of masonry, compared to the cabins of Lower Town, and held its cross far up in their northern sky. Within were holy dimness and silence, broken only by the footfalls of occasionally coming and going devotees. Though not yet rich in altars and shrines, paintings, and glittering crystal and metal, the young cathedral had its worthy relics, and its humble offerings of tinsel and ribbon-tied paper flowers. The merchant people from Lower Town, and peasants from adjacent river côtes and Laval’s great seigniory, came here to bathe their souls in thoughts of heaven, and to kneel on the pavement beside governor or high dame.
At this hour of morning only two persons sat in the church as if waiting for some kind of service.
There were three nuns, indeed, kneeling in a row before the chancel rail, their three small red noses just appearing beyond their black veils—noses expressing quiet sanctity. And a confessional was perhaps occupied.
But the pair who waited were neither nuns nor penitents. They had taken the usual moisture from the font of holy water, wherein many devout fingers had deposited considerable sediment. They had bowed towards the altar and told their prayers from station to station, and were now anxious to be joined in matrimony lest Dollard should arrive and cut off all chance of collecting the governor’s bounty by his impatient haste.
Still, as no priest appeared, Jacques and Louise sat in repose with their eyes cast down. The feverish activity of this new world would never touch their veins or quicken the blood of any of their descendants. How many generations before them had been calmed into this pastoral peace on sun-soaked lands! Years of dwelling among pines and mountains and azure lakes, of skimming on snow-shoes over boundless winter whiteness, of shooting rapids, and of standing on peaks, would all fail to over-exhilarate blood so kindly bovine and unhurried in its action.
The penitent came out of the confessional closet and stalked away—an Algonquin Indian, with some slight smell of rum about him and a rebuked expression of countenance. A fringe or thread of his blanket trailed on the pavement as he went. Then Dollier de Casson, who never omitted confessing any sinner that appealed to him, strode out of the confessional himself on gigantic soles, though with the soft tread which nature and training impart to a priest. He saw the waiting couple, and as serenely as he would have prepared for such an office in some river cabin, he took his stole out of a large inner pocket of his cassock and invested himself in it.
During this pause Dollard came hastily into the cathedral with a muffled lady on his arm. He took her at once to Father de Casson, and beckoned Jacques to follow them to the altar.