Cameron of Lochiel
unharnesses the horse, all three mount, and the brook is speedily
forded. It is true that Jules, who clasps José around the waist, tries
every now and then to throw him off, at the risk of partaking with him
the luxury of a bath at a little above zero. He might as well have
tried to throw Cape Tourmente into the St. Lawrence. José, who, in
spite of his comparatively small stature, is as strong as an elephant,
laughs in his sleeve and pretends not to notice it. The brook forded,
José goes back for the sledge, reharnesses the horse, climbs into the
sledge with the baggage in front of him lest he should get it wet, and
speedily overtakes his fellow-travelers, who have not halted a moment
in their march.
Thanks to Jules, the conversation never flags during the journey.
Archie does nothing but laugh over the witticisms that Jules
perpetrates at his expense. He has long given up attempting any retort.
"We must hurry," exclaimed D'Haberville; "it is thirty-six miles from
here to St. Thomas. My uncle De Beaumont takes supper at seven. If we
get there too late, we shall probably make a poor meal. The good things
will be all gobbled up. You know the proverb, _tarde venientibus ossa_."
"Scotch hospitality is proverbial," exclaimed Archie. "With us the
welcome is the same day or night. That is the cook's business."
"Verily," said Jules, "I believe it as if I saw it with my own eyes;
were it otherwise it would show a plentiful lack of skill or good-will
on the part of your peticoated cooks. It is delightfully primitive,
that Scotch cookery of yours. With a few handfuls of oatmeal sodden in
cold water--since you have neither wood nor coal in your country--you
can make an excellent soup at little cost and with no great expenditure
of culinary science, and feast your guests as well in the night as in
the daytime. It is quite true that, when some distinguished personage
seeks your hospitality--which often happens, since Scotland is loaded
down with enough coats-of-arms to crush a camel--it is true I say, that
you set before him, in addition to your oatmeal soup, the head, feet,
or nice, juicy tail of a sheep, with salt for sauce; the other parts
of the animal never seem to grow in Scotland."
Lochiel contented himself with glancing at Jules over his shoulder and
repeating:
"'Quis talia fando Myrmidonum, Dolopumve'--"
"What's that?" exclaimed Jules, in assumed indignation; "you call me
a Myrmidon, a Dolopian--me, the philosopher! And, moreover, my worthy
pedant, you abuse me in Latin--you who so murder the accent with your
Caledonian tongue that Virgil must squirm in his grave! You call me
a Myrmidon--me, the geometrician of my class! You remember that the
Professor of Mathematics predicted that I should be another Vauban--"
"Yes, indeed," interrupted Archie, "in recognition of your famous
perpendicular line, which leaned so much to the left that all the class
trembled lest it should fall and crush its base; seeing which, our
professor sought to console you by predicting that your services would
be required in case of the reconstruction of the Tower of Pisa."
Jules struck a tragic attitude and cried:
"'Tu t'en souviens, Cinna! et veux m'assassiner.'
"You are going to stab me upon the king's highway, beside this mighty
St. Lawrence, untouched by all the beauty of nature which surrounds
us--untouched by yon lovely cascade of Montmorency, which the
_habitants_ call 'The Cow,' a title very much the reverse of poetic,
but which, nevertheless, expresses well enough the exquisite whiteness
of the stream which leaps from its bosom like the rich and foaming flow
from the milch-cow's udder. You are going to stab me right in sight
of the Isle of Orleans, which, as we go on, conceals from our view
the lovely waterfall which I have so poetically described! Heartless
wretch! will nothing make you relent--not even the sight of poor José
here, who is touched by all this wisdom and eloquence in one so young,
as Fénelon would have said could he have written my adventures?"
"Do you know," interrupted Archie, "you are at least as remarkable in
poetry as you are in geometry?"
"Who can doubt it?" answered Jules. "No matter, my perpendicular made
you all laugh and myself most of all. You know, however, that that
was only another trick of that scamp De Chavigny, who had stolen my
exercise and rolled up another in place of it, which I handed in to the
teacher. You all pretended not to believe me, since you were but too
glad to see the trickster tricked."
José, who ordinarily took little part in the young men's conversation,
and who, moreover, had been unable to understand what they had just
been talking about, now began to mutter under his breath:
"What a queer kind of a country that, where the sheep have only heads,
feet, and tails, and not even a handful of a body! But, after all, it
is none of my business; the men who are the masters will fix things to
suit themselves; but I can't help thinking of the poor horses!"
José, who was a regular jockey, had a most tender consideration for
these noble beasts. Then, turning to Archie, he touched his cap and
said:
"Saving your presence, sir, if the gentry themselves eat all the oats
in your country, which is because they have nothing better to eat, I
suppose, what do the poor horses do? They require to be well fed if
they do much hard work."
The young men burst out laughing. José, a little abashed by their
ridicule, exclaimed:
"Excuse me if I have said anything foolish. One may make mistakes
without being drunk, just like Master Jules there, who was telling you
that the _habitants_ call Montmorency Falls 'The Cow' because their
foam is white as milk. Now, I have a suspicion that it is because they
bellow like a cow in certain winds. At least that is what the old
bodies say when they get chattering."
"Don't be angry, old boy," answered Jules, "you are probably quite
right. We were laughing because you thought there were horses in
Scotland. The animal is unknown in that country."
"What! no horses, sir? What do the folks do when they want to travel?"
"When I say no horses," answered D'Haberville, "you must not understand
me too literally. They have an animal resembling our horses, but not
much taller than my big dog Niger. It lives in the mountains, wild as
our caribous, and not altogether unlike them. When a Highlander wants
to travel, he sounds his bagpipe; all the villagers gather together
and he unfolds to them his project. Then they scatter through the
woods, or rather through the heather, and after a day or two of toil
and tribulation they succeed, occasionally, in capturing one of these
charming beasts; then, after another day or two, if the brute is not
too obstinate, and if the Highlander has enough patience, he sets out
on his journey, and sometimes even succeeds in coming to the end of it."
"Well, I must say," retorted Lochiel, "you are a pretty one to be
making fun of my Highlanders! You have good right to be proud of this
princely turn-out of your own! It will be hard for posterity to believe
that the high and mighty lord of D'Haberville sends for his son and
heir in a sort of dung-cart without wheels! Doubtless he will send some
outriders on ahead of us, in order that nothing shall be lacking in our
triumphal approach to the manor of St. Jean Port Joli!"
"Well done, Lochiel! you are saved, brother mine," cried Jules. "A
very neat home thrust. Claws for claws, as one of your Scottish saints
exclaimed one day, when he was having a scrimmage with the devil."
José, during this discussion, was scratching his head disconsolately.
Like Caleb Balderstone, in The Bride of Lammermoor, he was very
sensitive on all subjects touching his master's honor.
"What a wretched fool I am!" he cried in a piteous voice. "It is all my
fault. The seigneur has four carryalls in his coach-house, of which
two are brand new and varnished up like fiddles, so that I used one
for a looking-glass last Sunday. So, then, when the seigneur said to
me yesterday morning, 'Get ready, José, for you must go to Quebec to
fetch my son and his friend Mr. de Lochiel; see that you take a proper
carriage'--I, like a fool, said to myself that when the roads were so
bad the only thing to take was a sled like this! Oh, yes, I'm in for a
good scolding! I shall get off cheap if I have to do without my brandy
for a month! At three drinks a day," added José, "that will make a loss
of ninety good drinks, without counting extras. But it's all the same
to me; I'll take my punishment like a man."
The young men were greatly amused at José's ingenious lying for the
honor of his master.
"Now," said Archie, "since you seem to have emptied your budget of all
the absurdities that a hair-brained French head can contain, try and
speak seriously, and tell me why the Isle of Orleans is called the
Isle of the Sorcerers."
"For the very simple reason," answered Jules, "that a great many
sorcerers live there."
"There you begin again with your nonsense," said Lochiel.
"I am in earnest," said Jules. "These Scotch are unbearably conceited.
They can't acknowledge any excellence in other nations. Do you think,
my dear fellow, that Scotland has the monopoly of witches and wizards?
I would beg you to know that we too have our sorcerers; and that two
hours ago, between Point Lévis and Beaumont, I might as easily as not
have introduced you to a very respectable sorceress. I would have you
know, moreover, that on the estate of my illustrious father you shall
see a witch of the most remarkable skill. The difference is, my dear
boy, that in Scotland you burn them, while here we treat them in a
manner fitting their power and social influence. Ask José if I am not
telling the truth?"
José did not fail to confirm all he said. In his eyes the witches of
Beaumont and St. Jean Port Joli were genuine and mighty sorceresses.
"But to speak seriously," continued Jules, "since you would make a
reasonable man of me, _nolens volens_, as my sixth-form master used to
say when he gave me a dose of the strap, I believe the fable takes its
rise from the fact that the _habitants_ on the north and south shores
of the river, seeing the islanders on dark nights go out fishing with
torches, mistake their lights for will-o'-the-wisps. Then, you know
that our country folk regard the will-o'-the-wisps as witches, or as
evil spirits who endeavor to lure the wandering wretch to his death.
They even profess to hear them laugh when the deluded traveler falls
into the quagmire. The truth is, that there is an inflammable gas
continually escaping from our bogs and swampy places, from which to the
hobgoblins and sorcerers is but a single step."
"Impossible," said Archie; "your logic is at fault, as the professor so
often had to tell you. You see the inhabitants of the north and south
shores themselves go fishing with torches, whence, according to your
reasoning, the islanders should have called them sorcerers; which is
not the case."
While Jules was shaking his head, with no answer ready, José took up
the word.
"If you would let me speak, gentlemen, I might explain your difficulty
by telling you what happened to my late father who is now dead."
"Oh, by all means, tell us that; tell us what happened to your late
father who is now dead," cried Jules, with a marked emphasis on the
last four words.
"Yes, my dear José, do us the favor of telling us about it," added
Lochiel.
"I can't half tell the story," answered José, "for, you see, I have
neither the fine accent nor the splendid voice of my lamented parent.
When he used to tell us what happened to him in his vigil, our bodies
would shake so, as if with ague, as would do you good to see. But I'll
do my best to satisfy you: