"But the bill of costs is only sixty-five."
"How long live squaw and papoose on hundred dollars?"
"You leave thirty-five out of the reckoning. However, we will suppose that goes to you for your smartness. Well! I'm busy, Paul, I'll give you your two hundred dollars at once to get you away. Not, mind you, that I couldn't fight you off, if I cared to; but I have other things to think of."
"And for Fidèle and the papoose?"
"That must suffice them for the present. When it is all spent--we will see--" and so Ralph got rid of his importunate visitor for the present, though not without misgiving.
CHAPTER IX.
[AT SAINT EUPHRASE].
Saint Euphrase is a village of the usual Lower Canada type, with its big high-shouldered stone church, made stately in front by square towers capped with tin belfries, on which the light twinkles as the bell tinkles to call the people to mass. The village, like a brood of chickens, nestles around, a cluster of little low-browed wooden houses, with pillared porches and verandahs, the poorer ones roofed with weather-stained shingles, the prosperous with red plates or tin; pierced here and there with little casements, shining yellow in the afternoon sun, like inquisitive eyes prying into their neighbours' enclosures. A few tall poplars--sign of a French-speaking settlement--rise here and there above the roofs, and around are fields divided by picturesquely ill-kept fences, in whose corners the wild plum or the slippery elm entwined with brambles form belts of growth which might be hedges, grateful to the eye after the trim bald farming of the West. A broad river runs by at about a stone-cast's distance, but the place used to be too small to have traffic by water; and save to the boatman who got his living by ferrying people across the river, was but a desert barrier to the villagers, cutting them off from the West, whither Transatlantic prosperity ever tends--lonely waters down which a few rafts of timber passed in the Spring, and peopled only by the duck and teal frequenting the reedy shores of an island down stream, a bank raised by opposing currents and gathered out of the flood by a thicket of ash and willow. The fields sloping upwards on the other three sides, end in bush, which would cover the general level of the country but for the farms, with their houses set by the roadsides and their narrow strips of land running for a mile or more back into the distance. Of late a good many country houses have been built by Montrealers desiring something less suburban than their own island affords. There is a railway, and a few modern shops; and gaily-dressed townspeople may be seen driving fast horses or playing lawn tennis in the cool of the afternoon; but these are recent innovations on the old time when M. le Curé in his long skirts walked down the street alone among the bowing habitants, smiling as he went and bestowing his blessing.
"General" Stanley was the earliest outsider to build himself a home in the sequestered neighbourhood, and not many as yet had followed his example, at the time we speak of. If it had been dull in his lifetime, his daughters found it doubly so after his death, and but for the horrors of moving they would have migrated back to the city. As we grow older it becomes ever more painful to root up formed habits, while new ones are less and less able to take their place; and Miss Stanley, at least, acknowledged that she had reached the age when change grows irksome. Therefore, while they amused themselves by talking of removal, and each Spring promised themselves the comforts of town life for the succeeding Winter, the years slid by and they found themselves still where they were. The years too made havoc among their circle of friends, and made the city seem a less desirable residence, just as the week works changes in our gardens, scarce noticeable from day to day, but so complete before the month is out. People die and marry and move away, and the ladies' shopping expeditions to Montreal grew briefer and less frequent as time went on, till from lasting over weeks and ending in tender partings from regretful friends, they dwindled into excursions accomplished between a morning and an afternoon. Soon, too, there came into the neighbourhood a sprinkling of English-speaking settlers, which, productive in the end of life and spirit, was like yeast turbid and disturbing at first, when dropped into that sweet but stagnant reservoir of old-world manners; and soon there was on the outskirts of the village a Protestant mission, a meek little clap-boarded structure, without spire or bell, but sufficient for the needs of its few worshippers, and enough to rouse the watchfulnesss of the curé and the jealous wrath of his flock. However, the parson proved to be a peace-loving man, and the zeal which at first threatened to become flagrant, simmered down for want of provocation, into armed neutrality, if not into more neighbourly feelings. These changes brought the ladies at least the feeling of a less complete isolation than they had experienced at first, and eventually, as the grade of new-comers improved, a little society; while the earlier polemical excitement passed them by, they being persons content to say their own prayers in their own fashion, and to leave their neighbours to do likewise.
"Oh, Tookey!" said Miss Matilda, when the sisters met at breakfast on the morning after the arrival of the baby, "the little darling is simply delightful! When I took her upstairs Smithers most obligingly offered to keep her through the night; but it looked so pretty lying fast asleep in my bed with nothing on but a large pocket handkerchief, that I really had not the heart to disturb it. We bathed it, you know, and you cannot think what a dear, soft, plump little morsel it looked in its bath; and it crowed--positively crowed and smiled to me myself, for I do not think it minded Smithers much, though it was she who did the bathing. I daresay her hands felt rough, you know, on its tender little skin. We laid it in my bed and covered it with a pocket-handkerchief--dear little morsel--while I went to look for something small enough to dress it in. I thought of the clothes for my immense wax doll I was so proud of once, and kept so long after I grew up; but alas! I gave that to my godchild, and apparently every rag of its wardrobe; I thought I might find a little shirt or a wrapper--I am certain they would have been quite large enough for this one--but Tilly Martindale seems to have got them every one. Is it not a pity? But, as I was saying, we laid baby in the bed while I was looking for the things, and she just dropped asleep the moment Smithers laid her down. So I just sent Smithers off to bed, and lay down beside the dear little duck, and it has nestled in my arms all night, as soft as a ball of silk; and oh, Tookey! I don't think I ever slept as pleasantly before; and in the morning it woke me by stroking my cheeks with its soft little hands. Did you notice its hands? I never saw anything so lovely, with a crease round the wrist, a dimple at each knuckle, and pink little finger-tips like rosebuds."