Cameron of Lochiel
"It is very easy for you to talk," said the old priest, whom they had
honored especially by giving him a goblet richly carved, but holding
nearly double what those of the other guests could contain. "I am over
ninety, and I have no longer the hard head of a twenty-five year old."
"Come, my old friend," said the seigneur, "you will not have far to go,
for you must sleep here to-night. Moreover, if your legs should become
unsteady, it will pass for the weakness of old age, and no one will be
shocked."
"You forget, seigneur," said the priest, laughing, "that I have
accepted your kind invitation to help take care of poor Dumais
to-night. I intend to sit up with him. If I take too much wine, what
use do you think I could be to the poor fellow?"
"Indeed, you shall go to bed," said the seigneur. "The master of the
house decrees it. We will rouse you in case of need. Have no anxiety
as to Dumais and his wife; their friend Mrs. Couture is with them. I
am even sending home, after they have supped, a lot of their gossips
and cronies, who wanted to be in the way all night and use up the fresh
air which the sick man is so much in need of. We will all be up if
necessary."
"You argue so well," answered the priest, "that I must even do as you
say," and he poured a fair quantity of wine into his formidable cup.
Then the Seigneur de Beaumont said to Archie, with solemn emphasis:
"What you have done is beyond all praise. I know not which is most
admirable, the splendid spirit of self-sacrifice which moved you to
risk your life for that of a stranger, or the courage and coolness
which enabled you to succeed. You possess all the qualities most
requisite to the career you are to follow. A soldier myself, I prophesy
great success for you. Let us drink to the health of Mr. de Lochiel!"
The toast was drunk with ardent enthusiasm.
In returning thanks, Archie said modestly:
"I am bewildered by so much praise for so simple a performance. I was
probably the only one present who knew how to swim; for any one else
would have done as I did. It is claimed that your Indian women throw
their infants into the water and let them make the best of their way to
shore; this teaches them to swim very early. I am tempted to believe
that our mothers in the Scottish Highlands follow the same excellent
custom. As long as I can remember I have been a swimmer."
"At your fooling again, Mr. Archie," said the captain. "As for me, I
have been a sailor these fifty years, and I have never yet learned how
to swim. Not that I have never fallen into the water, but I have always
had the good luck to catch hold of something. Failing that, I always
kept my feet going, as cats and dogs do. Sooner or later some one
always hauled me out; and here I am.
"That reminds me of a little adventure which happened to me when I was
a sailor. My ship was anchored by the banks of the Mississippi. It
might have been about nine o'clock in the evening, after one of those
suffocating days which one can experience only in the tropics. I had
made my bed up in the bows of my ship, in order to enjoy the evening
breezes. But for the mosquitoes, the sand flies, the black flies, and
the infernal noise of the alligators, which had gathered, I think,
from the utmost limits of the Father of Streams to give me a good
serenading, a monarch of the East might have envied me my bed. I am not
naturally timid, but I have an unconquerable horror of all kinds of
reptiles, whether they crawl on land or wriggle in the water."
"Captain, you have a refined and aristocratic taste which does you much
honor," said Jules.
"Do you dare to speak to me again, you disreputable," cried
Marcheterre, shaking his great fist at him. I was about forgetting you,
but your turn will come very soon. Meanwhile, I go on with my story.
I was feeling very safe and comfortable on my mat, whence I could
hear the hungry monsters snapping their jaws. I derided them, saying:
'You would be delighted, my lambs, to make a meal off my carcass, but
there's one little difficulty in the way of it; though you should have
to fast all your lives through like hermits I would never be the one to
break your fasting, for my conscience is too tender.'
"I don't know exactly how the thing happened, but I ended by falling
asleep, and when I awoke I was in the midst of these jolly companions.
You could never imagine the horror that seized me, in spite of my
customary coolness. I did not lose my presence of mind, however.
While under water I remembered that there was a rope hanging from the
bowsprit. As I came to the surface I had the good fortune to catch it.
I was as active as a monkey in those days; but I did not escape without
leaving as a keepsake in the throat of a very barbarous alligator one
of my boots and a valued portion of the calf of my leg.
"Now for your turn, you imp," continued the captain, turning to Jules.
"I must get even with you, sooner or later, for the trick you played
me. On my return from Martinique last year, I met monsieur one morning
in Quebec Lower Town as he was on the point of crossing the river to
return home for his vacation. After a perfect squall of embraces,
from which I escaped with difficulty by sheering off to larboard, I
commissioned him to tell my family of my arrival, and to say that I
could not be at St. Thomas for several days. What did this young saint
do? He went to my house at eight o'clock in the evening, shouting, like
all possessed: 'Oh, joy! oh, rapture! Three cheers and a tiger!'
"'My husband has come!' exclaimed Madame Marcheterre. 'Father has
come!' cried my two daughters.
"'Certainly,' said he; 'what else could I be making all this fuss
about?'
"Then he kissed my good wife--there was no great difficulty in that.
He wanted to kiss the girls, too, but they boxed his ears and sheered
off with all sails set. What does your reverence think of this for a
beginning, to say nothing of what followed?"
"Ah, Mr. Jules," cried the old priest, "these are nice things I am
hearing about you. Queer conduct this for a pupil of the Jesuit
fathers."
"You see, Mr. Abbé," said Jules, "that all that was only a bit of fun
to enable me to share the happiness of that estimable family. I knew
too well the ferocious virtue, immovable as the Cape of Storms, of
these daughters of the sea. I well knew that they would box my ears
soundly and sheer off with all sails set."
"I begin to believe that you are telling the truth, after all," said
the old priest, "and that there were no evil designs on your part. I
know my Jules pretty thoroughly."
"Worse and more of it," said the captain. "Take his part, do; that's
all he was wanting. But we'll see what you think when you hear the
rest. When my young gentleman had finished his larking, he said to my
wife: 'The captain told me to say he would be here to-morrow evening,
in the neighborhood of ten o'clock, and that, as his business had
prospered exceedingly (which, indeed, was all true), he wished that his
friends should celebrate his good luck with him. He wished that there
should be a ball and supper going on at his house when he arrived,
which would be just as the guests were sitting down to table. Make
ready, therefore, for this celebration, to which he has invited myself
and my brother de Lochiel. This puts me out a little,' added the young
hypocrite, 'for I am in a great hurry to get home, but for you ladies
there is nothing that I would not do.'
"'My husband does not consider that he is giving me too little time,'
said Madame Marcheterre. 'We have no market here. My cook is very old
to undertake so much in one day. The case is desperate, but to please
him we must accomplish the impossible.'
"'Perhaps I can be of some use to you,' said the hypocrite, pretending
to sympathize with her. 'I will undertake with pleasure to send out the
invitations.'
"'My dear Jules,' said my wife, 'that would be the greatest help. You
know our society. I give you _carte blanche_.'
"My wife ran all over the parish to get provisions for the feast. She
and the girls spent the greater part of the night helping the old cook
make pastries, whipped creams, blanc-mange, biscuits, and a lot of
sweet stuff that I wouldn't give for one steak of fresh codfish, such
as one gets on the Banks of Newfoundland. Mr. Jules, for his part, did
things up in style. That night he sent out two messengers, one to the
northeast, the other to the southwest, carrying invitations; so that by
six o'clock the next evening, thanks to his good management, my house
was full of guests, who were whirling around like so many gulls, while
I was anchored in Quebec, and poor madame, in spite of a frightful
cold, was doing the honors of the house with the best grace possible.
What do you think, gentlemen, of a trick like that; and what have you
to say in your defense, you wolf in sheep's clothing?"
"I wished," said Jules, "that everybody should share beforehand
in the joy of the family over the good fortune of so dear and so
generous a friend. Also, if you could have seen the regret and general
consternation when, toward eleven o'clock, it was found necessary
to sit down at table without waiting for you any longer, you would
certainly have been moved to tears. The morrow, you will remember, was
a fast day. As for your wife, she seems to be without the smallest idea
of gratitude. Observing, a little before eleven, that she was in no
hurry to bring on the supper, and that she was beginning to be anxious
about her dear husband, I whispered a word in her ear, and for thanks
she broke her fan over my back."
Everybody, the captain himself included, burst out laughing.
"How is it you never told us of this before, Marcheterre?" said the
Seigneur de Beaumont.
"It was hardly necessary," said the captain, "to publish it to the
world that we had been tricked by this young rascal. Moreover, it would
have been no particular satisfaction to us to inform you that you owed
the entertainment to the munificence of Mr. Jules D'Haberville; we
preferred to have the credit of it ourselves. I only tell it to you
to-day because it is too good to keep any longer."
"It seems to me, Mr. Diver," continued Marcheterre, addressing Archie,
"that, in spite of your reserved and philosophical demeanor, you were
an accomplice of Master Jules."
"I give you my word," replied Lochiel, "that I knew nothing of it
whatever. Not till the next day did Jules take me into his confidence,
whereupon I gave him a good scolding."
"You could hardly say much," said Jules, "after the rate at which
you kicked round your great Scotch legs with great peril to the more
civilized shins of your neighbors. You have doubtless forgotten that,
since you were not content with French cotillons, such as are accepted
among all civilized people, to please you we had to have Scotch reels.
The music for these our fiddler picked up by ear in an instant. It was
a very simple matter; he merely had to scrape his strings till they
screeched as if a lot of cats were shut up in a bag and some one were
pulling their tails."
"Oh, you are a bad lot," said the captain; "but won't you come and take
supper with us to-morrow, you and your friend, and make your peace with
the family?"
"That's the way to talk, now!" said Jules.
"Listen to the irrepressible," retorted Marcheterre.
As it was now very late, the party broke up, after drinking the health
of the old sailor and his son and pronouncing the eulogies they
deserved for the part they had played that night.
The young men had to stay some days at St. Thomas. The flood continued.
The roads were deluged. The nearest bridge, even supposing it had
escaped the general disaster, was some leagues southwest of the
village, and the rain came down in torrents. They were obliged to wait