"I know very well my—my seigneur, that your Latin threatens me with all these punishments; but I had the misfortune to lose my filly of last spring."
"What, you rascal! On account of having lost a wretched brute of six months old you wish to evade the seigneurial claims, which have been established by your sovereign on a foundation as enduring as yonder mountains. Quos ego ...!"
"I believe," murmurs the habitant to himself, "that he is speaking Indian to frighten me."
Then he adds aloud: "You see, my filly, according to what all the best judges declared, would have been in four years' time the best trotter on all the south shore, and worth a hundred francs if a penny."
"Oh, to the devil with you!" replied Uncle Raoul. "Go and tell Lisette to give you a good drink of brandy, to console you for the loss of your filly. These scoundrels," adds Uncle Raoul, "drink more of our brandy than their rents will ever pay for."
The habitant, going into the kitchen, remarks to Lisette with a chuckle: "I've had a bad job with Uncle Raoul; he even threatened to haul me up before the courts."
As Uncle Raoul was very devout after his fashion, he failed not to tell his beads and read his primer daily. In singular contrast with this devotion, however, his leisure moments were occupied in cursing, with an edifying fervor, his enemies the English, who had broken a leg for him at the capture of Louisburg. It was this accident which had compelled him to relinquish the life of a soldier.
When the young men arrived before the manor-house, they were astonished at the sight that met their eyes. Not only were all the rooms lit up, but also some of the out-buildings. There was an unaccustomed stir, a strange hurrying to and fro. As the whole yard was illuminated by the blaze of lights, they could distinguish six men armed with guns and axes and seated on a log.
"I perceive," remarked Archie, "that the lord of the manor has called out his guard to give us a fitting reception, just as I predicted."
José, who did not understand this sort of chaffing, shifted his pipe from one corner of his mouth to the other, muttered something between his teeth, and began to smoke fiercely.