[VI.]
THE PROPHECY OF JOLYCŒUR.
By next mid-day the beaver fair was at its height, and humming above the monotone of the St. Lawrence.
Montreal, founded by religious enthusiasts and having the Sulpitian priests for its seigniors, was a quiet town when left to itself,—when the factions of Quebec did not meet its own factions in the street with clubs; or coureurs de bois roar along the house sides in drunken joy; or sudden glares on the night landscape with attendant screeching proclaim an Iroquois raid; or this annual dissipation in beaver skins crowd it for two days with strangers.
Among colonists who had thronged out to meet the bearers of colonial riches as soon as the first Indian canoe was beached, were the coureurs de bois. They still swarmed about, making or renewing acquaintances, here acting as interpreters and there trading on their own account.
Before some booths Indians pressed in rows, demanding as much as the English gave for their furs, though the price was set by law. French merchants poked their fingers into the satin pliancy of skins to search for flaws. Dealers who had no booths pressed with their interpreters from tribe to tribe,—small merchants picking the crumbs of profit from under their brethren’s tables. There was greedy demand for the first quality of skins; for beaver came to market in three grades: “Castor gras, castor demi-gras, et castor sec.”
The booths were hung with finery, upon which squaws stood gazing with a stoical eye to be envied by civilized woman.
The cassocks of Sulpitians and gray capotes of Récollet Fathers—favorites of Frontenac who hated Jesuits—penetrated in constant supervision every recess of the beaver fair. Yet in spite of this religious care rum was sold, its effects increasing as the day moved on.
A hazy rosy atmosphere had shorn the sun so that he hung a large red globe in the sky. The land basked in melting tints. Scarcely any wind flowed on the river. Ste. Helen’s Island and even Mount Royal, the seminary and stone windmill, the row of wooden houses and palisade tips, all had their edges blurred by hazy light.