Ainsi passe sur la terre tout ce qui fut bon, vertueux, sensible! Homme, tu n'es qu'un songe rapide, un rêve douloureux; tu n'existes que par le malheur; tu n'es quelque chose que par la tristesse de ton âme et l'eternelle mélancolie de ta pensée!--Chateaubriand.
After the departure of the guests the family fell back into the sweet intimacy of former days. Jules, whom his native air had restored to health, passed the greater part of the day in hunting with Archie. The abundance of game at that season made the pastime very agreeable. They took supper at seven, they went to bed at ten, and the evenings seemed all too short even without the help of cards. Jules, who was ignorant of what had passed between his sister and Archie, could not but be struck with his friend's unusual sadness, of which, however, he failed to guess the cause. To all questions on the subject he received an evasive answer. Finally, imagining that he had found the root of the difficulty, one evening when they were alone together he put the question directly.
"I have noticed, my brother," said he, "the sadness which you endeavor to conceal from us. You are unjust to us, Archie, you do yourself an injustice. You should not brood over the past. In saving the lives which would otherwise have been lost in the shipwreck of the Auguste, you have done my family a service which more than compensates for what took place before. It is we now who owe you a debt of gratitude which can never be repaid. It was very natural that, prejudiced by report and for the moment forgetful of your noble heart, even such friends as we, imbittered by our losses, should lend an ear to calumnies against you; but you know that a simple explanation was enough to re-cement our old friendship. If my father bore his grudge for a long time, you know his nature and must make allowance for it. He feels now all his old affection for you. Our losses have been in great part repaired, and we live more tranquilly under the British Government than we did under the rule of France. Our habitants have followed the example of Cincinnatus, as Uncle Raoul would say, and exchanged the musket for the plow-share. They are opening up new land, and in a few years this seigneurie will be in a most prosperous condition. With the help of the little legacy which I lately received, we shall soon be as rich as we were before the conquest. Therefore, my dear Archie, drive away this gloom which is making us all miserable and resume thy former lightheartedness."
Lochiel was silent for some time, and only answered after a painful effort.
"Impossible, my brother. The wound is more recent than you imagine and will bleed all my life, for all my hopes are destroyed. But let us leave the subject; for I have already been wounded in my tenderest and purest emotions, and an unsympathetic word from you would finish me."
"An unsympathetic word from my lips, do you say, Archie? What can you mean by that? The friend whom I have sometimes vexed with my raillery knows very well what my heart is toward him, and that I was always ready to crave his pardon. You shake your head sadly! Great heaven, what is the matter? What is there that you can not confide to your brother, the friend of your boyhood? Never have I had anything to conceal from you. My thoughts were as open to you as your own, and I had imagined that you were as frank with me. A curse upon whatever has been able to come between us!"
"Stop, Jules, stop," cried Archie. "However painful my confidences may be to you, I must tell you all rather than let you harbor such a cruel suspicion. I am going to open my heart to you, but on the express condition that you shall hear me uninterruptedly to the end, as an impartial judge. Not till to-morrow will we return to this sore subject. Meanwhile, promise to keep the secret that I am going to confide to you."
"I give you my word," said Jules, grasping his hand.
Thereupon Lochiel recounted minutely the conversation that he had had with Blanche. As soon as he came to an end he lit a candle and withdrew to his own room.
As for Jules, he stormed within himself all night. Having studied women only in the salons of St. Germain, his vigorous common sense could ill appreciate the sublimity that there was in the sacrifice which his sister was imposing upon herself. Such sentiments appeared to him mere romantic and exaggerated nonsense, or the product of an imagination rendered morbid by calamity. With his heart set upon an alliance which would gratify his dearest wishes, he resolved that, with the consent of Archie, he would have a very serious conversation with Blanche, from which he felt confident he would come off victorious. "She loves him," thought he, "and therefore my cause is already gained."
Man, with all his apparent superiority, with all his self-confident vanity, has never yet sounded the depths of the feminine heart, that inexhaustible treasure-house of love, devotion, and self-sacrifice. The poets have sung in every key this being who came all beauty from the hands of her Creator; but what is all this physical beauty compared to the spiritual beauty of a noble and high-souled woman? Indeed, who is more miserable than man in the face of adversity, when, poor pygmy, he leans on the fortitude of a woman, who bears the burden uncomplainingly. It is not surprising then that Jules, knowing woman only on the surface, expected an easy triumph over his sister's scruples.
"Come, Blanche," said Jules to his sister, the next day, after dinner, "there's our Scottish Nimrod setting out with his gun to get some birds for our supper. Let's you and I see if we can scale the bluff as nimbly as we used to."
"With all my heart," answered Blanche. "You shall see that my Canadian legs have lost none of their agility."
The brother and sister, assisting themselves by the projecting rocks, and by the shrubs which clung in the crevices of the cliff, speedily scaled the difficult path that led to the summit. After gazing in silence for a time at the magnificent panorama unrolled before them, Jules said to his sister:
"I had an object in bringing you here. I wanted to talk to you on a subject of the greatest importance. You love our friend Archie; you have loved him for a long time; yet for reasons that I can not comprehend, for over-exalted sentiments which warp your judgment, you are imposing upon yourself an unnatural sacrifice and preparing for yourself a future of wretchedness. As for me, if I loved an English girl, and she returned my affection, I would marry her just as readily as if she were one of my own countrywomen."
Blanche's eyes filled with tears. Taking her brother's hand affectionately, she answered:
"If you were to marry an English girl, my dear Jules, I should take her to my heart as a sister; but that which you could do without incurring any reproach, would be cowardice on my part. Nobly have you paid your debt to your country. Your voice has nerved your soldiers through the most terrible conflicts. Twice has your bleeding body been dragged from our battle-fields, and three times have you been wounded in Old World struggles. Yes, my beloved brother, you have fulfilled all your duty to your country, and you can afford to indulge, if you wish, the whim of taking a daughter of England to wife. But I, a weak woman, what have I done for this enslaved and now silent land, this land which has rung so often of old with the triumphant voices of my countrymen? Shall a daughter of the D'Habervilles be the first to set the example of a double yoke to the daughters of Canada? It is natural and even desirable that the French and English in Canada, having now one country and the same laws, should forget their ancient hostility and enter into the most intimate relationships; but I am not the one to set the example. They would say, as I told Archie, that the proud Briton, after having vanquished and ruined the father, had purchased with his gold the poor Canadian girl! Never, never shall it be said!" And the girl wept bitterly on her brother's shoulder.
"No one will know of it," she continued, "and you yourself will never realize the full extent of the sacrifice I am making, but fear not, Jules, I have the strength for it. Proud of the sentiments by which I have been inspired, I shall pass my days serenely in the bosom of my family. Of this be sure," she continued in a voice that thrilled with exaltation, "that she who has loved the noble Cameron of Lochiel will never soil her bosom with another earthly love. You made a mistake in selecting this spot, Jules, wherein to talk to me on such a subject--this spot whence I have so often gazed proudly on the mansion of my fathers, which is now replaced by yonder poor dwelling. Let us go down now, and if you love me never mention this painful subject again."
"Noble soul!" cried Jules, and he held her sobbing in his arms.
Archie, having lost all hope of wedding Blanche D'Haberville, set himself to repaying the debt of gratitude which he owed Dumais. The refusal of Blanche changed his first intentions and left him more latitude; for he now resolved upon a life of celibacy. Archie, whom misfortune had brought to an early maturity, had studied men and things with great coolness of judgment; and he had come to the wise conclusion that marriage is rarely a success unless based on mutual love. Unlike most young men, Lochiel was genuinely modest. Though endowed with remarkable beauty, and with all those qualities which go to captivate women, he nevertheless remained always simple and unassuming in his manner. He further believed, with Molière's Toinette, that the pretense of love often bears a very close resemblance to the reality. "When I was poor and in exile," thought he, "I was loved for my own sake; now that I am rich, who knows that another woman would love in me anything but my wealth and my rank, even supposing that I should succeed in banishing from my heart my first and only love." Archie decided then that he would never marry.
The sun was disappearing behind the Laurentian hills, when Lochiel arrived at the farm of Dumais. The order and prosperity which reigned there gave him an agreeable surprise. The good wife, busy in her dairy, where a fat servant girl was helping her, came forward to meet him without recognizing him, and invited him to enter the house.
"This is the house of Sergeant Dumais, I believe," said Archie.
"Yes, sir, and I am his wife. My husband should be back presently from the fields with a load of grain. I will send one of the children to hurry him up."
"There is no hurry, madam. I have called to give you news of a certain Mr. Archie de Lochiel, whom you once knew. Perhaps you have forgotten him."
Madame Dumais came nearer. After studying his face intently for some moments, she said:
"There is certainly a resemblance. Doubtless you are one of his kinsfolk. Forget Mr. Archie! He could never think us capable of such ingratitude. Do you not know, then, that he faced almost certain death to save my husband's life, and that we pray to God every day that he will bless our benefactor? Forget Mr. Archie! You grieve me, sir."
Lochiel was much moved. Lifting into his lap the little seven-year-old Louise, Dumais's youngest child, he said to her:
"And you, my little one, do you know Mr. Archie?"
"I have never seen him," said the child, "but we pray for him every day."
"What do you pray?" asked Archie.
"O God, bless Mr. Archie, who saved papa's life, as long as he lives; and, when he dies, take him to your holy paradise."
Lochiel continued to chat with Madame Dumais till the latter heard her husband's voice at the barn. She ran to tell him that there was a stranger in the house with news from Mr. Archie. Dumais was preparing to pitch off his load, but he threw down the fork and rushed into the house. It was by this time too dark for him to make out the stranger's face.
"You are indeed welcome," said he, "coming with news from one so dear to us."
"You are--Sergeant Dumais?" inquired Archie.
"You are Mr. Archie!" cried Dumais, clasping him in his arms. "Do you think I could forget the voice that cried to me 'Courage!' when I was hanging on the brink of the abyss--the voice I heard so often in my sickness?"
Toward the end of the evening Archie said:
"My dear Dumais, I am come to ask a great favor."
"A favor!" exclaimed Dumais. "Could I, a poor farmer, be so fortunate as to do you a favor? It would be the happiest day of my life."
"Well, Dumais, it depends upon you to restore me to health. Though I may not look it, I am sick, more sick than you could imagine."
"Indeed," said Dumais, "you are pale, and sadder than of old. Good heaven! What is the matter?"
"Have you ever heard of a malady to which the English are very subject, and which they call the spleen, or blue devils?"
"No," said Dumais. "I have known several of your English who, if I may say it without offense, seemed to have the devil in them; but I had imagined that these devils were of a darker hue."
Archie began to laugh.
"What we, my dear Dumais, call the blue devils is known among you Canadians as 'peine d'esprit.'"
"I understand now," said Dumais, "but what astonishes me is that a man like you, with everything heart could wish, should be amusing himself with blue devils."
"My dear Dumais," replied Archie, "I might answer that every one in the world has his sorrows, however fortunate he may seem; but it is enough now to say that the malady is upon me, and that I count upon you to help me to a cure."
"Command me, Mr. Archie; for I am at your service day and night."
"I have tried everything," continued Archie. "I have tried study, I have tried literary work. I am better in the day-time, but my nights are usually sleepless, and when I do sleep, I wake up as miserable as ever. I have concluded that nothing but hard manual labor can cure me. After toiling all day, I imagine that I shall win such a slumber as has long been denied me."
"Very true," said Dumais. "When a man has labored all day with his hands, I defy him to suffer from sleeplessness at night. But how shall I have the pleasure of helping you?"
"I expect you to cure me, my dear Dumais. But listen while I explain my plans. I am now rich, and since Providence has given me riches which I had never expected, I should employ a portion of them in doing good. In this parish and the neighborhood there is an immense deal of land unoccupied, either for sale or to be granted. My plan is to take up a large acreage of such lands, and not only superintend the clearing, but work at it myself. You know that I have good arms; and I will do as much as any of the rest."
"I know it," said Dumais.
"There are many poor fellows," continued Archie, "who will be glad enough to get work at such good wages as I shall give. You understand, Dumais, that I shall have to have some one to help me. Moreover, what would I do in the evening and during bad weather, without a friend to keep me company? It is then that my melancholy would kill me."
"Let us set out to-morrow," cried Dumais, "and visit the best lots, which, for that matter, I already know pretty well."
"Thank you," said Archie, grasping his hand; "but who will take care of your farm in your frequent absences?"
"Don't be anxious on that score, sir. My wife could manage very well alone, even without her brother, an old bachelor, who lives with us. My farm has never suffered much from my absence. I have always preferred the musket to the plow. My wife scolds me occasionally on this subject; but we are none the worse friends for that."
"Do you know," said Archie, "that yonder by the edge of the river, near that maple grove, is the most charming situation for a house. Yours is old. We will build one large enough for us all. I will build it, on condition that I have the right to occupy half of it during my life; and on my death all will belong to you. I have resolved to remain a bachelor."
"Men like you," said Dumais, "are altogether too scarce. It would be wrong to let the breed die out. But I begin to understand that you are thinking less about yourself than about me and my family, and that you are seeking to make us rich."
"Let us speak frankly," answered Archie. "I have no true friends in the world but the D'Haberville family and yours."
"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 commission in his pocket. I assure you that every one gets on well with his deeds, which are drawn with a most scrupulous honesty that supplies the place of the diction, purer but often tarnished by bad faith, of more learned notaries."
"Your nomadic notary," replied Archie, smiling, "arrives opportunely. I have work for him."
In fact, Lochiel, who was already well advanced in the task of clearing which he was so actively engaged upon for the benefit of his friend Dumais, made over to him in due form all his real estate, reserving only for himself during his life-time the half of the new and spacious house which he had built.
The visits of Archie to the manor house became more frequent as he advanced in age, and he ended by establishing himself there altogether. Blanche was no longer in his eyes anything more than an adopted sister; and the sweet name of brother, which Blanche had given him, purified the remnant of passion which yet clung to the heart of this noble woman.
The author has become so attached to the chief characters in this veracious history that it costs him a pang to banish them from the scene. He fears also to grieve those of his readers who may share this attachment should he kill them all off with one stroke of the pen. Time will do the fatal work without the author's assistance.
It is eleven o'clock in the evening, toward the end of October. The D'Haberville family are gathered in a little parlor sufficiently illuminated, without the help of the candles, by the flame from an armful of dry cedar chips which are blazing in the great chimney. Lochiel, now nearly sixty years of age, is playing a game of draughts with Blanche. Jules, seated between his wife and daughter, near the fire, is teasing them both without altogether neglecting the players.
Young Archie D'Haberville, only son of Jules and godson of Lochiel, is in a brown study. He is following the fantastic figures which his imagination has created in the flames now dying slowly on the hearth.
"What are you thinking about, my grave philosopher?" said his father.
"I have been watching with intense interest," answered the young man, "a little group of men, women, and children who have been walking, dancing, rising, falling, and who have at length all vanished."
The cedar fire had just died out.
"You are the true son of your mother, a godson worthy of your godfather," said Jules D'Haberville, rising to bid good-night.
Like the fantastic figures which young D'Haberville was watching in the flames, my characters, dear reader, have been moving for some time before your eyes, to vanish suddenly, perhaps forever, with him who set them in motion.
Farewell, then, dear reader, before my hand, growing more cold than our Canadian winters, refuses any longer to trace my thoughts.
