Cameron of Lochiel
these too ardent demonstrations, after the way he had affronted her.
"See, my dear Madeleine," he cried, "I am come to pardon thine offenses
as thou must pardon all who have offended against thee. Everybody says
thou art stingy and revengeful, but that is no business of mine. Thou
wilt get quit of it by roasting a little while in another world. I wash
my hands of it entirely."
Madeleine hardly knew whether to laugh or be angry at this fantastic
preamble; but, as she was fond of the boy, for all his tricks, she took
the wiser course and smiled good-naturedly.
"Now that we are in a better humor," continued Jules, "let us proceed
to business. I have been a little foolish and have got into debt, and I
dread to trouble my good father about it. In fact, I want fifty francs
to settle the unfortunate business. Can you lend me that much?"
"Indeed, now, Master D'Haberville," answered the old dame, "if that
were all I had in the world, I would give it all to save your father
any trouble. I owe so much to your father."
"Tut!" said Jules, "if you talk of those ha'pennies, there's an end of
business. But listen, my good Madeleine, since I might break my neck
when I least expect it, or still more probably when climbing on the
roof or among the city bells, I must give you a bit of writing for
security. I hope, however, to pay you back in a month at latest."
At this Madeleine was seriously offended. She refused the note, and
counted him out the money. Jules almost choked her with his embrace,
sprang through the window into the street and hurried back to the
college.
At recess time that evening Dubuc was freed from all anxiety on the
score of his amiable papa.
"But remember," said D'Haberville, "I still owe you for that kick."
"Hold on, dear boy," exclaimed Dubuc, with feeling. "I wish you would
settle that right now. Break my head or my back with the poker, only
let us settle it. To think that, after all you have done for me, you
are still bearing me a grudge, would be nothing less than torture."
"A fine idea that," exclaimed the boy, "to think that I bear any one
a grudge because I am in his debt in regard to a little exchange of
compliments! So that is how you take it, eh? Shake, then, and let us
think no more about it. You may brag of being the only one to scratch
me without my having drawn his blood in return."
With these words he sprang upon the young man's shoulders like a
monkey, pulled out a few hairs to satisfy his conscience, and scampered
off to join the merry group which was waiting for him.
Archibald of Lochiel, matured by bitter experiences, and on that
account more self-contained and more reserved than other boys of his
age, on his first coming to college hardly knew whether to smile or
be angry at the frolics of the little imp who seemed to have taken
him for his special butt, and who hardly left him any peace. He could
not be expected to divine that this was Jules's manner of showing his
affection for those he loved the most. One day, driven to the end of
his forbearance, Archie said to him:
"Do you know, you would try the patience of a saint! Verily I don't
know what to do with you."
"But you have a way out of your difficulties," answered Jules. "My skin
itches; give me a good hiding, and I'll leave you in peace. That will
be easy enough for you, you young Hercules."
Lochiel, indeed, accustomed from his infancy to the trying sports of
the young Highlanders, was at fourteen marvelously strong for his years.
"Do you think," exclaimed Archie, "that I am such a coward as to strike
a boy younger and weaker than myself?"
"Oh, no," said Jules; "I see we agree on that score--never a knock for
a little fellow. What suits me is a good tussle with a fellow of my
own age, or even a little older; then shake hands and think no more
about it. By the way," continued Jules, "you know that comical dog De
Chavigny? He is older than I am, but so weak and miserable that I have
never had the heart to punch him, although he has played me such a
trick as even St. Francis himself would hardly pardon. Just think of
him running to me all out of breath and exclaiming: 'I've just snatched
an egg from that greedy Letourneau, who had stolen it out of the
refectory. Here, hide it; he's after me!'
"'Where do you want me to hide it?' said I.
"'Oh, in your hat,' he answered; 'he'll never think of looking for it
there.'
"As for me, I was fool enough to do it. I ought to have mistrusted him."
In a moment Letourneau came up and jammed my cap down over my eyes.
The accursed egg nearly blinded me, and I swear did not smell like a
rose-garden! It was an addled egg found by Chavigny in a nest which the
hen had probably abandoned a month before. I got out of that mess with
the loss of a cap, a vest, and other garments. Well, after the first
of my fury was over, I could not help laughing; and if I bear him any
grudge at all, it is for having got ahead of me with so neat a trick. I
should love to get it off on Derome, who keeps his hair so charmingly
powdered. As for Letourneau, since he was too stupid to have invented
the trick myself, I contented myself with saying to him, 'Blessed are
they of little wit'; and he professed himself proud of the compliment,
being glad enough, after all, to get off so cheaply.
"And now, my dear Archie," continued Jules, "let us come to terms. I
am a kindly potentate, and my conditions shall be most easy. To please
you, I undertake, on the word of a gentleman, to diminish by one third
those tricks of mine which you lack the good taste to appreciate.
Come, now, you ought to be satisfied with that if you are not utterly
unreasonable, for you see, my dear boy, I love you. I would not have
made peace with any one else on such advantageous terms."
Lochiel could not help laughing as he shook the irrepressible lad. It
was from this conversation that the friendship between the two boys
took its beginning--on Archie's part with a truly Scottish restraint,
on the side of Jules with the passionate warmth of which the French
heart is capable.
A few weeks later, about a month before the vacation, which began then
on the 15th of August, Jules seized his friend's arm and whispered:
"Come into my room. I have just had a letter from father which concerns
you."
"Concerns me!" exclaimed the other in astonishment.
"Why are you surprised?" retorted D'Haberville. "Do you think you
are not of sufficient importance for any one to concern himself about
you? Why, all New France is talking about the handsome Scotchman. The
mammas, fearing your influence on the inflammable hearts of their
daughters, talk seriously of petitioning our principal never to let you
appear in public except with a veil on, like the women of the East."
"Come, stop your fooling, and let me go on with my reading."
"But I am very much in earnest," said Jules. And, dragging his friend
along with him, he read him part of a letter from his father, which ran
as follows:
"What you tell me about your young friend, Master de Lochiel, interests
me very much. I grant your request with the greatest pleasure. Give
him my compliments, and beg him to come and spend his next vacation
with us, and all his vacations so long as he is attending college. If
he does not consider this invitation sufficiently formal, I will write
to him myself. His father sleeps upon a glorious field. Soldiers are
brothers everywhere; so should their sons be likewise. Let him come to
our own hearth-stone, and our hearts shall open to him as to one of our
own blood."
Archie was so affected by the warmth of this invitation that for some
moments he could not answer.
"Come, my haughty Scotlander, will you do us the honor?" said his
friend. "Or must my father send, on a special embassy, his chief
butler, José Dubé, with the bagpipes slung on his back in the form of
a St. Andrew's cross--as is the custom, I believe, among your Highland
chiefs--to present you his invitation with all due formality?"
"As, fortunately, I am no longer in my Highlands," said Archie,
laughing, "we can dispense with these formalities. I shall write at
once to Captain D'Haberville, and thank him with my whole heart for his
noble generosity to the exiled orphan."
"Then, let us speak reasonably for once," said Jules, "if only
for the novelty of the thing. You think me very light, silly, and
scatter-brained. I acknowledge that there is a little of all that in
me, which does not prevent me from being in earnest more often than
you think. I have long been seeking a friend, a true and high-hearted
friend. I have watched you very closely, and I find you all I could
wish. Lochiel, will you be my friend?"
"Without a moment's question, my dear boy," answered Archie, "for I
have always felt strongly attracted toward you."
"Well, then," cried Jules, grasping his hand warmly, "it is for life
and death with us Lochiel!"
Thus, between a boy of twelve and a boy of fourteen, was ratified a
friendship which in the sequel will be exposed to the crudest tests.
"Here's a letter from mother," said Jules, "in which there is a word
for you":
"I hope your friend, Master de Lochiel, will do us the pleasure of
accepting your father's invitation. We are all eager to meet him. His
room is ready, alongside of your own. In the box which José will hand
you there is a parcel for him which he would grieve me greatly by
refusing. In sending it I am thinking of the mother he has lost."
The box contained equal shares for the two boys of cakes, sweetmeats,
jams, and other dainties.
The friendship between the two boys grew stronger day by day. They
became inseparable. Their college-mates dubbed them variously Damon and
Pythias, Orestes and Pylades, Nisus and Euryalus. At last they called
them the brothers.
All the time Lochiel was at college he spent his vacations with the
D'Habervilles, who made no difference between the two boys unless to
lavish the more marked attentions upon the young Scotchman who had
become as it were a son of the house. It was most natural, then, that
Archie, before sailing for Europe, should accompany Jules on his
farewell visit to his father's house.
The friendship between the two young men, as we have already said, is
destined to be put to the bitterest trial, when that code of honor
which has been substituted by civilization for the truest sentiments
of the human heart, shall come to teach them the obligations of men
who are fighting under hostile flags. But why anticipate the dark
future? Have they not enjoyed during almost ten years of college life
the passing griefs, the little jealousies, the eager pleasures, the
differences and ardent reconciliations which characterize a boyish
friendship?
CHAPTER II.
A NIGHT WITH THE SORCERERS.
Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned,
Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell.
_Hamlet._
Ecoute comme les bois crient. Les hiboux fuient épouvantés....
Entends-tu ces voix dans les hauteurs, dans le lointain, ou près
de nous?...
Eh! oui! la montagne retentit, dans toute sa longueur, d'un furieux
chant magique.
_Faust._
Lest bogles catch him unawares....
Where ghaits and howlets nightly cry....
When out the hellish legion sallied.
+Burns.+
As soon as our young travelers, crossing the St. Lawrence opposite
Quebec, have reached Point Lévis, José makes haste to harness a
splendid Norman horse into one of those low sledges which furnish the
only means of transport at this season, when the roads are only covered
here and there with snow or ice, and when overflowing streams intercept
the way at intervals. When they come to one of these obstacles José