“Oui, M’sieur,” came back with respectful good-will from among the trees. I listened closely now, for it is a pity to lose any of Morgan’s French.
“Est-ce que vous êtes mangé?” he demanded cheerfully, and Bob gave a snort—Bob knows French.
But Godin knew better than that—he knew his m’sieur and what he meant. “Mais oui, M’sieur, on a fini de dîner,” he responded promptly, shifting the sentence graciously.
“Êtes-vous preparry pour nous donner un concert?” Morgan went on, not bothering particularly to pronounce according to French models—“concert,” especially, being done in honest English.
There was an embarrassed ripple from among the trees—the strange guides believed that M’sieur was making a joke, and that it was civil to encourage him. But Godin understood.
“Oui, M’sieur,” his polite tones came back. “One will sing a song or two with pleasure, if the messieurs desire it.”
There was an undertone of talking back and forth, as we waited, and a little self-conscious laughing, a little chaffing evidently, and then a tremendous clearing of throats and trying of keys up and down the scale. A second’s silence and a voice which we of the camp knew for Blanc’s swung out over the water, musical, for all its occasional sharpness. It was one of the old voyageur songs he sang, filled with the sadness which the gay souls seemed to crave in their music.
C’est longtemps que j’ai t’aimé,
Jamais je ne t’oublierais.
The refrain came over and over through so many verses that I wished some one would choke Blanc and let the concert go on. Yet it was far from painful to lie in a canoe, with young Bob wielding a skilful paddle for my benefit, and listen to soft French words sprinkled over a sapphire night—on the whole, let Blanc pursue the subject through ten more stanzas if he must.