Cameron of Lochiel
"Thank you, sir," said Dumais, "for classing us poor farmers with that
illustrious family."
"I only consider the virtues and good qualities of men," answered
Lochiel. "To be sure, I love and respect birth and breeding, which does
not prevent me from loving and respecting all men who are worthy of
such sentiments. I want to give you a fourth part of my fortune."
"Oh, sir!" cried Dumais.
"Listen a moment, my friend," continued Lochiel. "When I told you that
I was suffering from what you call '_peine d'esprit_,' I was telling
the literal truth. I have found the remedy for this trouble. It lies
in plenty of hard work and in helping my friends. I am going to give
you during my life-time a quarter of my fortune. Look out for yourself,
Dumais! I am obstinate, like all Scotchmen. If you trifle with me,
instead of a quarter, I am as likely as not to give you a half. But, to
speak seriously, my dear Dumais, you would be doing me a very ill turn,
indeed, if you should refuse me."
"If this is the case, sir," said Dumais, with tears in his eyes, "I
accept your gift."
Let us leave Lochiel busying himself in heaping benefits on Dumais, and
let us return to our other friends.
"The good gentleman," now almost a hundred years old, lived but a year
after Jules's return. He died surrounded by his friends, having been
most lovingly nursed by Blanche and Jules throughout the month of his
last illness. A little while before his death he begged Jules to open
his bed-room window, and, casting a feeble glance toward the stream
which rolled peacefully past his door, he murmured:
"There it is, my friend; there's the walnut tree in whose shadow I told
you the story of my misfortunes; it was there I counseled you from my
own experience. I die content, for I see that you have profited by my
words. When I am gone, take this little candlestick. It will remind you
of the vigils it has witnessed and of the advice which I have given you.
"As for you, my dear and faithful André," exclaimed M. d'Egmont, "it
grieves me to leave you alone in this world where you have shared my
sorrows. You have promised me to pass the rest of your days with the
D'Habervilles, who will care for your old age tenderly. You know that
after your death the poor are to be our heirs."
"My dear master," said Franc[oe]ur, sobbing, "the poor will not have
long to wait for their inheritance."
Having bid farewell to all his friends, "the good gentleman" asked the
priest to say the prayers for the dying. Just at the words, "_Partez
âme Chrétienne, au nom du Dieu tout-puissant qui vous a créé_," he
breathed his last. Sterne would have said:
"The recording angel of the court of heaven shed a tear upon the
follies of his youth, and blotted them out forever." The angels are
more compassionate than men, who neither forget nor forgive the faults
of others!
André Franc[oe]ur was struck with paralysis on the day of his master's
burial, and survived him but three weeks.
* * * * *
When Jules had said to his sister: "If I loved an English girl and
she would have me, I would marry her as readily as one of my own
countrywomen," Blanche had been far from suspecting her brother's
real intentions. The truth was that Jules, on his voyage across the
Atlantic, had made the acquaintance of a young English girl of great
beauty. A second Saint-Preux, Jules had given her lessons in something
more than French grammar during a passage that lasted two months. He
had shown excellent taste. The young girl, in addition to her beauty,
possessed the qualities to inspire a true passion.
All obstacles being at length overcome, and the consent of both
families obtained, in the following year Jules married the fair
daughter of Albion, who soon won the hearts of all about her.
Uncle Raoul, always bitter against the English on account of the
leg which he had lost in Acadia, but too well bred to fail in the
proprieties, used at first to shut himself up whenever he wanted to
swear comfortably at the compatriots of his lovely niece; but by the
end of a month she had entirely captivated him, whereupon he suddenly
suppressed his oaths, to the great benefit of his soul and of the pious
ears which he had scandalized.
"That rascal of a Jules," said Uncle Raoul, "showed very good taste
in wedding this young English woman. His Holiness the Pope of old was
quite right when he said that these young islanders would be angels if
only they were Christians; _non angli, sed angeli fuissent, si essent
Christiani_."
It was another thing when the dear uncle, trotting a little nephew on
one knee and a little niece on the other, used to sing them the songs
of the Canadian _voyageurs_. How proud he was when their mother used to
cry:
"For pity sake, come to my help, dear uncle, for the little demons
won't go to sleep without you."
Uncle Raoul had charged himself with the military education of his
nephew. Therefore, before he was four years old, this pygmy warrior,
armed with a little wooden gun, might be seen making furious attacks
against the ample stomach of his instructor, who was obliged to defend
with his cane the part assaulted.
"The little scamp," said the chevalier recovering himself, "is going to
have the dashing courage of the D'Habervilles, with the persistence and
independence of the proud islanders from whom he is descended through
his mother."
José had at first shown himself rather cool toward his young mistress,
but he ended by becoming warmly attached to her. She had speedily
found the weak point in his armor of reserve. José, like his late
father, dearly loved his glass, which, however, produced very little
effect upon his hard head. It was as if one should pour the liquor
upon the head of the weather-cock, and expect to confuse the judgment
of that venerable but volatile bird. His young mistress was forever
offering José a drop of brandy to warm him or a glass of wine to
refresh him; till José ended by declaring that if the Englishmen were
somewhat uncivil, their countrywomen by no means resembled them in that
regard.
With their minds at ease as to the future of their children, M. and
Madame D'Haberville lived happily to extreme old age. The captain's
last words to his son were:
"Serve your new sovereign as faithfully as I have served the King of
France; and may God bless you, my dear son, for the comfort that you
have been to me!"
Uncle Raoul, dying three years before his brother, bid farewell to
life with but one regret. He would have liked to see his little nephew
fairly launched on the career of arms, the only career he considered
quite worthy of a D'Haberville. Having perceived, however, that the
child made great progress in his studies, he comforted himself with the
thought that, if not a soldier, his nephew might turn out a _savant_
like himself and keep the torch of learning lighted in the family.
José, who had a constitution of iron and sinews of steel, who had never
had an hour of sickness, regarded death as a sort of hypothetical
event. One of his friends said to him one day after his master's death:
"Do you know, José, you must be at least eighty years old, and one
would scarcely take you to be fifty."
José leaned upon his hip to show his steadiness, blew through his pipe
to expel a bit of ashes, fumbled in his pocket with his one remaining
hand till he found his tobacco and his flint and steel, and at length
replied with great deliberation.
"As you know, I am the foster-brother of our late captain; I was
brought up in his house; I have followed him in every campaign that he
has made; I have trained his two children; I have begun, do you see,
upon a new charge, the care of his grandchildren. Very well, then! As
long as a D'Haberville needs my services, I don't propose to leave."
"Do you think, then, that you will live as long as the late
Maqueue-salé [Methuselah]?" asked the neighbor.
"Longer still, if need be," replied José.
Then, having taken from his pocket everything which he needed, he
filled his pipe, put a bit of lighted tinder on the bowl, and applied
himself to smoking while he regarded his friend with the air of a man
convinced of the truth of everything which he has said.
José kept his word for a dozen years; but it was in vain that he
endeavored to strengthen himself against old age by occupying himself
with his usual tasks, despite the remonstrances of his masters, and at
last he was forced to keep the house. All the family were anxious about
him.
"What is the matter, my dear José?" said Jules.
"Bah! only laziness," replied José, "or perhaps my rheumatics."
But José had never had an attack of that malady. This was only an
excuse.
"Give the good old fellow, ma'am, his morning glass, it will revive
him," said Archie.
"I am going to bring you a little glass of excellent brandy," said
Madame Jules.
"Not just now," replied José, "I always have some in my trunk, but
this morning it doesn't appeal to me."
They began to be seriously alarmed; this was a bad symptom.
"Then I am going to make you a cup of tea," said Madame Jules, "and you
will feel better."
"My English wife," said Jules, "thinks tea a remedy for all ills."
José drank the tea, and declared that it was a fine medicine and that
he felt better, but this did not prevent the faithful servant from
taking to his bed that very evening never to leave it alive.
When the brave fellow knew that his end was drawing near, he said to
Jules, who watched with him through the night:
"I have prayed the good God to prolong my life to your childrens' next
holidays, so that I might see them once more before I die, but I shall
not have that consolation."
"You shall see them to-morrow, my dear José."
An hour later Lochiel was on the way to Quebec, and on the next evening
all those who were the dearest in the world to that faithful and
affectionate servant were gathered around his death-bed. After talking
with them for some time and bidding them a most tender farewell, he
summoned all his strength in order to sit up in bed, and when Jules
approached to support him, a burning tear fell on his hand. After this
last effort of that strong nature, he who had shared the good and the
bad fortune of the D'Habervilles fell back and ceased to breathe.
"Let us pray for the soul of one of the best men that I have known,"
said Archie, closing his eyes.
Jules and Blanche, in spite of remonstrances, would not resign to any
one the task of watching beside their old friend during the three days
that his body remained at the manor house.
"If one of our family had died," they said, "Jules would not have left
him to another's care."
One day when Archie, in the course of one of his frequent visits to the
D'Habervilles, was walking with Jules in front of the manor house, he
saw approaching on foot an old man, decently clad, carrying a sealskin
bag on his shoulders.
"Who is that man?" he asked.
"Ah," said Jules, "that is our friend, M. D----, carrying his office on
his back."
"What! His office?" said Archie.
"Certainly. He is an itinerant notary. Every three months he travels
through certain districts, drawing up new deeds and finishing up copies
of the rough drafts which he always carries with him in order that he
may not be taken unawares. He is an excellent and very amiable man,
French by birth, and very intelligent. On coming to Canada he began
with a small trade in pictures which proved unprofitable, and then,
remembering that he had formerly studied for two years with an advocate
in France, he boldly presented himself before the judges, and passed an
examination, which, if not brilliant, was at least satisfactory enough
for his new country, and then returned home in triumph with a notary's