Barbe ran breathless up the stairway, glad to catch sight of her uncle the Abbé so occupied at the lower hearth that he took no heed of her return.
She had counted herself the only woman in Fort Frontenac, yet she found a covered figure standing in front of the chamber door next her own.
Though Barbe had never seen Catharine Tegahkouita[16] she knew this must be the Iroquois virgin who lived a hermit life of devotion in a cabin at Lachine, revered by French and Indians alike. How this saint had reached Fort Frontenac or in whose behalf she was exerting herself Barbe could not conjecture. Tegahkouita had interceded for many afflicted people and her prayers were much sought after.
The Indian girl kept her face entirely covered. No man knew that it was comely or even what its features were like. The chronicler tells us when she was a young orphan beside her uncle’s lodge-fire her eyes were too weak to bear the light of the sun, and in this darkness began the devotion which distinguished her life. What was first a necessity, became finally her choice, and she shut herself from the world.
To Barbe, Tegahkouita was an object of religious awe tempered by that criticism in which all young creatures secretly indulge. She sat on the bench as if in meditation, but her eyes crept up and down that straight and motionless and blanket-eclipsed presence. She knew that Tegahkouita was good; was it not told of the Indian girl that she rolled three days in a bed of thorns, and that she often walked barefooted in ice and snow, to discipline her body? She was not afraid of Tegahkouita. But she wished somebody else would come into the room who could break the saint’s death-like silence. Sainthood was a very safe condition, but Barbe found it impossible to admire the outward appearance of a living saint.
La Salle had stopped at the barracks to order out his men, and Colin who had taken to that part of the fort for amusement, watched their transfer with much interest.
Wind was conquering rain. It blew keenly from the southwest, and sung at the corners of Frontenac, whirling dead leaves like fugitive birds into the area of the fort. La Salle’s men turned out of their quarters with reluctance to exchange safety and comfort for exposure and a leaky camp. The explorer stood and saw them pass before him bearing their various burdens, excepting one man who slouched by the door of the bakehouse as if he had stationed himself there to see that they passed in order out of the gate.
“Come here, you Jolycœur,” called La Salle, lifting his finger.
Jolycœur, savagely hairy, approached with that look of sulky menace La Salle never appeared to see in his servants.
“Where is your load of goods?” inquired the explorer.