Cameron of Lochiel

by Philippe Aubert de Gaspé

"The Iroquois examined the structure with ever-increasing interest, walked around it, and asked to see the inside of this marvelous wigwam. The magistrate, who was himself a merchant, was glad to grant his request, in the hope of inspiring with wholesome dread the other savages, to whom this one would not fail to recount the effective and ingenious methods employed by the pale faces to make the red-skins pay their debts.

"The Iroquois went over the whole building with the minutest care, descended into the dungeons, tried the depth of the wells, listened attentively to the smallest sounds, and at last burst out laughing.

"'Why,' exclaimed he, 'no Indian could catch any beaver here.'

"In five minutes the Indian had found the solution of a problem which civilized man has not had the common sense to solve in centuries of study. This simple and unlearned man, unable to comprehend such folly on the part of a civilized race, had naturally concluded that the prison had subterranean canals communicating with streams and lakes where beaver were abundant, and that the savages were shut up therein in order to facilitate their hunting of the precious animals, and the more prompt satisfaction of their creditors' claims. These walls and iron gratings seemed to him intended for the guarding of the treasure within.

"You understand, Jules, that I am speaking to you now on behalf of the creditor, who gets all the sympathy and pity, and not on behalf of the debtor who, with his dread and suspicion ever before his eyes, gnaws his pillow in despair after watering it with his tears.

"I was young, only thirty-three years of age. I had ability, energy, and a sturdy faith in myself. I said to my creditors, take all I have but leave me free, and I will devote every energy to meeting your claims. If you imprison me you wrong yourselves. Simple as was this reasoning, it was incomprehensible to civilized man. My Iroquois would have understood it well enough. He would have said: 'My brother can take no beaver if the pale face ties his hands.' My creditors, however, took no account of such simple logic as this, and have held the sword of Damocles over my head for thirty years, the limit allowed them by the laws of France."

"What adorable stupidity!" cried Jules.

"One of them, however," continued M. d'Egmont, "with a delightful ingenuity of torture, obtained a warrant for my arrest, and with a refinement of cruelty worthy of Caligula himself, did not put it in execution till eighteen months later. Picture me for those eighteen months, surrounded by my family, who had to see me trembling at every noise, shuddering at the sight of every stranger who might prove to be the bearer of the order for my imprisonment.

"So unbearable was my suspense that twice I sought out my creditor and besought him to execute his warrant without delay. At last he did so, at his leisure. I could have thanked him on my knees. From behind my bars I could defy the malice of men.

"During the first month of his captivity the prisoner experiences a feverish restlessness, a need of continual movement. He is like a caged lion. After this time of trial, this feverish disquiet, I attained in my cell the calm of one who after being tossed violently by a storm at sea, feels no longer anything more than the throb of the subsiding waves; for apart from the innumerable humiliations of imprisonment, apart from my grief for my family, I was certainly less wretched. I believed that I had drunk the last drop of gall from the cup which man holds to his brother's fevered lips. I was reckoning without the hand of God, which was being made heavy for the insensate fool who had wrought his own misfortune. Two of my children, at two different periods, fell so dangerously ill that the doctors gave them up and daily announced to me that the end was near. It was then I felt the weight of my chains. It was then I learned to cry, like the mother of Christ, 'Approach and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow.' I was separated from my children only by the breadth of a street. During the long night watches I could perceive the stir about their couch, the lights moving from one room to another; and I trembled every moment lest the stillness should fall which would proclaim them no longer in need of a mother's care. I blush to confess that I was sometimes tempted to dash my life out against the bars.