Pierre and Clemence rested but a few days before they sought out the plantation where they so fondly hoped to raise a home and enjoy the fruits of the rich country which they had chosen as their own.
The roads were poor, horses high in price and not at all plenty, so that Pierre bought some pirogues, a species of small boat, to take them and their goods the twenty miles up the Bayou Gentilly, to where their plantation lay.
Poor Clemence, how gloomy looked the cypress swamps which stretched away on either hand as the heavily laden boats moved slowly along! Strange and unfamiliar were the long curtains of grey moss which swung back and forth from the branches of the trees, seeming to wave in a ghostly fashion even when there was no wind, and creeping up to the tops of the tallest trees in its silent fashion, but ever turning aside from the bunches of mistletoe which stood out, great rosettes of bright green where all else seemed marked for decay.
Even the brilliant-hued birds which flitted cheerfully from one twig to another, and sang from time to time, did not cheer her, for they seemed so unfamiliar, her mind clinging more to those modest-coated friends, the linnets and finches, which she had fed in the rose garden at the chateau at Étaples.
Ever anxious to cheer her, Pierre said at last,—
“Sing, dearest Clemence. It seems so long since I heard your voice.”
“How can I sing when my heart is sad?” But even as she spoke she was sorry, since she knew that the good spirits of the little party depended largely on herself.
“What shall I sing, Pierre?” she asked, after a moment’s pause, and then, as if it had been on the tip of her tongue all the while, began,—
“Chante, rossignol, chante,
Toi qu’as le cœur tant gai.