And by the time all the different qualifications are rehearsed and objected to, lengthened out by the interminable repetition of the chorus, the shout of the bourgeois is heard—
“Whoop la! à terre, à terre—pour la pipe!”
It is an invariable custom for the voyageurs to stop every five or six miles to rest and smoke, so that it was formerly the way of measuring distances—“so many pipes,” instead of “so many miles.”
The Canadian melodies are sometimes very beautiful, and a more exhilarating mode of travel can hardly be imagined than a voyage over these waters, amid all the wild magnificence of nature, with the measured strokes of the oar keeping time to the strains of “Le Rosier Blanc,” “En roulant ma Boule,” or “Leve ton pied, ma jolie Bergere.”
The climax of fun seemed to be in a comic piece, which, however oft-repeated, appeared never to grow stale. It was somewhat after this fashion:
| Bourgeois. | Michaud est monté dans un prunier, Pour treiller des prunes. La branche a cassé— |
| Chorus. | Michaud a tombé? |
| Bourgeois. | Ou est-ce qu-il est? |
| Chorus. | Il est en bas. |
| Bourgeois. | Oh! réveille, réveille, réveille, Oh! réveille, Michaud est en haut![F] |
[F] Michaud climbed into a plum-tree, to gather plums. The branch broke. Michaud fell! Where is he? He is down on the ground. No, he is up in the tree.
It was always a point of etiquette to look astonished at the luck of Michaud in remaining in the tree, spite of the breaking of the branch, and the joke had to be repeated through all the varieties of fruit-trees that Michaud might be supposed able to climb.
By evening of the first day we arrived at the Kakalin, where another branch of the Grignon family resided.[[29]] We were very pleasantly entertained, although in my anxiety to begin my forest life, I would fain have had the tent pitched on the bank of the river, and have laid aside, at once, the indulgences of civilization. This, however, would have been a slight, perhaps an affront, so Ave did much better, and partook of the good cheer that was offered us in the shape of hot venison steaks and crepes, and that excellent cup of coffee which none can prepare like a Frenchwoman, and which is so refreshing after a day in the open air.