The chamber in which they were was the living-room of the house. Its low ceiling of heavy beams, its spotlessly sanded floor, carpeted with striped catalogne, its pine table, and home-made chairs of elm, were common sights in the country. But a tall, brass-faced London clock in one corner, a cupboard fuller than usual of blue-pattern stone-ware in another, a large copper-plate of the "Descent from the Cross," and an ebony and ivory crucifix on the walls, were indications of more than average prosperity.
So thin was population throughout Canada in those days that to leave the banks of the St. Lawrence almost anywhere was to leave human habitation. The hamlet of St. Elphège was part of the half-wild parish of Répentigny. The cause of its existence was its position some miles up the Assumption, as a gateway of many smaller rivers tributary to the latter, which itself was tributary to the River of Jesus; and that in turn, less than a mile further on, to the vast St Lawrence. It flourished on the trade of wandering tribes from up the Achigan, the Lac-Ouareau, the St Esprit, and the Rouge, and on the sale of supplies to rude settlers above and the farmers below. It flourished by the energy of one man—this man, its founder, the Merchant Lecour. He had started life with small prospects; his ideas were of the simplest, and he was at first even a complete stranger to writing and figures. In his youth a common soldier in the levies of the Marquis de Montcalm on the campaigns towards lake Champlain, he had acquired favour with his colonel by his steadiness, had been given charge of a canteen, and in dispensing brandy to his comrades had found it possible to sell a few small articles. The defence of New France against the British collapsed on the investiture of Montreal by Sir Jeffrey Amherst in 1760. The French army surrendered, and part of it was shipped back to the motherland. Lecour remained, and shouldering a pedlar's pack, plodded about the country selling red handkerchiefs, sashes, and jack-knives to the peasantry. Being attracted by the convenience of the portage for dealings with the Indians of the north, he selected a spot in the forest and built a little log dwelling. Success followed from the first. Beaver-skins rose into fabulous demand in Europe for cocked hats, and made the fortunes of all who supplied them. The streams behind Lecour's post were teeming with beaver-dams. He easily kept his monopoly of the trade, and several times a year would send a fleet of boats down to Quebec, which returned with goods imported from Europe. Finally he extended his dealings throughout the Province into varied branches of business, and "the Merchant of St. Elphège" became a household name with the French-Canadians. The home of the Lecours—half dwelling, half vaulted warehouse—was one of four capacious provincial stone cottage buildings, standing about a quadrangular yard, each bearing high up on its peak a date and brief inscription, one of which read "À Dieu la Gloire!"—"To God the Glory."
Just at the end of the family scene previously described, a noise was heard without, the latch was lifted, and a troop of Lecour's neighbours and dependants pushed in, an old fiddler at their head, who, clattering forward in sabots, removed his blue tuque from his head, and politely bowed to Lecour.
"Father," he said, "these young people ask your permission to give a dance in honour of Monsieur Germain."
The Lecours appreciated the honour; the room was cleared, music struck up, and festivity was soon in progress. What a display of neat ankles and deft feet in mocassins! What a clattering of sabots and shuffling of "beefs"! The perspiration rolled off the brow of the musician, and young Lecour was whirling round like a madcap with the daughter of the ferryman of Répentigny, when the latch was again lifted, and the door silently opened.
Every woman set up a shriek. The threshold was crowded with Indians in warpaint!
All the settlers knew that paint and its dangers.
The dancers drew back to one side of the room, and some opened the door of the warehouse adjoining and took refuge in its vaulted shadows. But Lecour himself, the former soldier, was no man to tremble. "Come in," he said, without betraying a trace of any feeling.
Seven chiefs stalked grimly across the floor in single file, carrying their tomahawks and knives in their hands, their great silver treaty medals hanging from their necks, and their brightly dyed eagle feathers quivering above their heads, and six sat down opposite Lecour on the floor. Their leader, Atotarho, Grand Chief of Oka, stood erect and silent, an expression of warlike fierceness on his face.
"Atotarho!" exclaimed the merchant.