Master Jean's voice was clear and resonant as a church bell newly christened; and he sang the old boat-song with an energy that drew the crews of half-a-dozen other canoes into the wake of his music, all uniting in the stirring chorus:
“Fringue! Fringue sur la rivière!
Fringue! Fringue sur l'aviron!”
The performance of Jean La Marche was highly relished by the critical boatmen, and drew from them that flattering mark of approval, so welcome to a vocalist,—an encore of the whole long ballad, from beginning to end.
As the line of canoes swept up the stream, a welcome cheer occasionally greeted them from the shore, or a voice on land joined in the gay refrain. They draw nearer to Tilly, and their voices became more and more musical, their gaiety more irrepressible, for they were going home; and home to the habitans, as well as to their lady, was the world of all delights.
The contagion of high spirits caught even Le Gardeur, and drew him out of himself, making him for the time forget the disappointments, resentments, and allurements of the city.
Sitting there in the golden sunshine, the blue sky above him, the blue waters below,—friends whom he loved around him, mirth in every eye, gaiety on every tongue,—how could Le Gardeur but smile as the music of the boatmen brought back a hundred sweet associations? Nay, he laughed, and to the inexpressible delight of Amélie and Pierre, who watched every change in his demeanor, united in the chorus of the glorious boat-song.
A few hours of this pleasant voyaging brought the little fleet of canoes under the high bank, which from its summit slopes away in a wide domain of forests, park, and cultivated fields, in the midst of which stood the high-pointed and many-gabled Manor House of Tilly.
Upon a promontory—as if placed there for both a land and sea mark, to save souls as well as bodies—rose the belfry of the Chapel of St. Michael, overlooking a cluster of white, old-fashioned cottages, which formed the village of St. Michael de Tilly.
Upon the sandy beach a crowd of women, children, and old men had gathered, who were cheering and clapping their hands at the unexpected return of the lady of the Manor with all their friends and relatives.
The fears of the villagers had been greatly excited for some days past by exaggerated reports of the presence of Iroquois on the upper waters of the Chaudière. They not unnaturally conjectured, moreover, that the general call for men on the King's corvée, to fortify the city, portended an invasion by the English, who, it was rumored, were to come up in ships from below, as in the days of Sir William Phipps with his army of New Englanders, the story of whose defeat under the walls of Quebec was still freshly remembered in the traditions of the Colony.